have done the same for Diana. If Trajan, after ten centuries, could have revisited Rome, he would, without difficulty, have recognized the drama, though the actors and scenery had all changed; he would have reflected how great a mistake had been committed in the legislation of his reign, and how much better it is, when the intellectual basis of a religion is gone, for a wise government to abstain from all compulsion in behalf of what has become untenable, and to throw itself into the new movement so as to shape the career by assuming the lead. Philosophy is useless when misapplied in support of things which common sense has begun to reject; she shares in the discredit which is attaching to them. The opportunity of rendering herself of service to humanity once lost, ages may elapse before it occurs again. Ignorance and low interests seize the moment, and fasten a burden on man, which the struggles of a thousand years may not suffice to cast off. Of all the duties of an enlightened government, this of allying itself with Philosophy in the critical moment in which society is passing through so serious a metamorphosis of its opinions as is involved in the casting off of its ancient investiture of Faith, and its assumption of a new one, is the most important, for it stands connected with things that outlast all temporal concerns. CHAPTER IX. THE EUROPEAN AGE OF INQUIRY. THE PROGRESSIVE VARIATION OF OPINIONS CLOSED BY THE INSTITUTION OF COUNCILS AND THE CONCENTRATION OF POWER IN A PONTIFF. RISE, EARLY VARIATIONS, CONFLICTS, AND FINAL ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. _Rise of Christianity.--Distinguished from ecclesiastical Organization.--It is demanded by the deplorable Condition of the Empire.--Its brief Conflict with Paganism.--Character of its first Organization.--Variations of Thought and Rise of Sects: their essential Difference in the East and West.--The three primitive Forms of Christianity: the Judaic Form, its End--the Gnostic Form, its End--the African Form, continues._ _Spread of Christianity from Syria.--Its Antagonism to Imperialism; their Conflicts.--Position of Affairs under Diocletian.--The Policy of Constantine.--He avails himself of the Christian Party, and through it attains supreme Power.--His personal Relations to it._ _The Trinitarian Controversy.--Story of Arius.--The Council of Nicea._ _The Progress of the Bishop of Rome to Supremacy.--The Roman Church; its primitive subordinate Position.--Causes of its increasing Wealth, Influence, and Corruptions.--Stages of its Advancement through the Pelagian, Nestorian, and Eutychian Disputes.--Rivalry of the Bishops of Constantinople, Alexandria, and Rome._ _Necessity of a Pontiff in the West and ecclesiastical Councils in the East.--Nature of those Councils and of pontifical Power._