"On the other hand, Christianity was rapidly diffused among the Greek and Latin peoples, and in all parts of Europe inhabited by our race: even savages and barbarians accepted more or less frankly a doctrine rejected by the Semites in whom it had its origin. Many and various causes have been assigned for this rapid diffusion of the new doctrine, and the old Greek and Latin fathers ascribed it to the fact that men's minds had been naturally and providentially prepared for it. It was attributed by others to the miseries and sufferings of the slave population, and of the poor, who found a sweet illusion and comfort in the Christian hope of a world beyond the grave. Some, again, suggest the omnipotent will of a tyrant, or the extreme ignorance of the common and barbarous people. Although all these causes had a partial effect, they were secondary and accidental. The true and unique cause lay deeper, in the intellectual constitution of the race to which Christianity was preached; just as physiological characteristics are reproduced in the species until they become permanent, so do intellectual inclinations become engrained in the nature. "We have said that our race is aesthetically more mythological than all others. If we consider the religious teaching of various Aryan peoples, from the most primitive Vedic idolatry to the successive religions of Brahma and Zend, of the Celts, Greeks, Latins, Germans, and Slavs, we shall see how widely they differ from the religious conceptions and ideas of other races. The vein of fanciful creations is inexhaustible, and there is a wealth of symbolic combinations and a profusion of celestial and semi-celestial dramas. The intrinsic habit of forming mythical representations of nature is due to a more vivid sense of her power, to a rapid succession of images, and to a constant projection of the observer's own personality into phenomena. This peculiar characteristic of our race is never wholly overcome, and to it is added a proud self-consciousness, an energy of thought and action, a constant aspiration after grand achievements, and a haughty contempt for all other nations.