Yet Neo-Platonism, for all we can see, responded as well as Christianity to the needs of the time, and had besides great external advantages in its alliance with tradition, with civil power, and with philosophy. If the demands of the age were for a revealed religion and an ascetic morality, Neo-Platonism could satisfy them to the full. Why, then, should the Hellenic world have broken with the creations of its own genius, so plastic, eloquent, and full of resource, to run after foreign gods and new doctrines that must naturally have been stumbling-blocks to its prejudices, and foolishness to its intelligence? Shall we say that the triumph of Christianity was a miracle? Is it not a doubtful encomium on a religion to say that only by miracle could it come to be believed? Perhaps the forces of human reason and emotion suffice to explain this faith. We prefer to think so; otherwise, however complete and final the triumph of Christianity might be, it would not be justified or beneficent. Neo-Platonism arose in the midst of the same conditions as Christianity. There was weariness and disgust with the life of nature, decay of political virtue, desire for some personal and supernatural good. It was hardly necessary to preach the doctrine of original sin to that society; the visible blight that had fallen on classic civilization was proof enough of that. What it was necessary to preach was redemption. It was necessary to point to some sphere of refuge and of healthful resort, where the ignominies and the frivolities of this world might be forgotten, and where the hunger of a heart left empty by its corroding passions might be finally satisfied. But where find such a supernatural world? By what revelation learn its nature and be assured of its existence?