in its political origin and Aristotelian in its theoretical form than Catholic. It was the hierarchy of birth, quite a Pagan notion, that men were fighting against in Northern Europe during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Aristotle’s first book on politics settles the point for the hellenic world. Some men are born to be masters; some are born to be slaves. He that is to be a master is born with the qualities that befit command; he that is to be a slave is born with the qualities required to fulfil orders. Were it not so, Nature would have failed to fit each of them for the end to which it brought them into life. Man was what he was to be anterior to his birth. As to slavery, as an institution it was to be deplored; it was rather sad for the people who were born slaves, and terribly immoral at best, but it was an evil that could not be avoided inasmuch as it was essential to the nature of society. The metaphysics and religion of the day could not conceive of any alteration in the nature of things. The Stoics and Epicureans did improve, but not much, the idea of liberty. The best thing for men to do was to know Nature and their own natural disposition, not to go against the natural bent of things and of their constitution. Thus the part of Fate was reduced and the dignity of man asserted. But the reduction and assertion would have been more verbal than actual had it not been for the Romans, who with their realistic mind could not overlook the fact that man’s _virtus_, or lack of it, made a lot of difference in his life. Their religion and philosophy though lacked originality and had no adequate notion of liberty. Christianity was to relieve mankind from such a fate. Man is in the world to save his soul. The grace of God is necessary to him, but he only can achieve his own salvation. If you want your horse to jump, as the sportsmen of the old school used to say, give him his head; the freedom to use his neck, head and shoulder to the best of his ability. If God means man to save his soul, he must have given him sufficient freedom to be made responsible. And in fact the proclamation of this power of man is the import of the New Testament. Everything is possible to him that believeth. This is far from Aristotle, so far that men could not at first realise what it meant, and that the abolition of slavery is only recent is sufficient to show the slowness of the process through which the good word of the Gospel has reached theoretical consciousness and practical realisation.