The relations of the individual to the past and the present of the race make duties and burdens and woes for him which he has not created, but which are given him to bear. The sins of others bring pain and sorrow to us; we are a part of all the good and evil of the world. The present is determined by the past; we must accept the lot created for us by those who have gone before us. "He felt the hard pressure of our common lot, the yoke of that mighty, resistless destiny laid upon us by the past of other men." says George Eliot of one of her characters. The past brings us burdens and sorrows difficult to bear; it also brings us duties. We owe to it many things; our debt to the race is an immense one. That debt can only be discharged by a life of devotion and loyalty, by doing what we can to make humanity better. The Christian idea of a debt owed to God, which we can only repay by perfect loyalty and self-abnegation, becomes to George Eliot a debt owed to humanity, which we can only repay in the purest altruistic spirit. The doctrine of renunciation has been presented again and again by George Eliot; her books are full of it. It is undoubtedly the central theme of all her teaching. In the conversation between Romola and Savonarola when she is escaping from her home and is met by him, it is vividly expressed. Savonarola speaks as a Christian, as a Catholic, as a monk; but the words he uses quite as well serve to express George Eliot's convictions. The Christian symbolism laid aside, and all was true to her; yet her feelings, her sense of corporate unity with the past, would not even suffer her to lay aside the symbolism in presenting her thoughts on this subject. Romola pleads that she would not have left Florence as long as she could fulfil a duty to her father: but Savonarola reminds her that there are other duties, other ties, other burdens.