social effects in the course of time: they resulted toward the close of the first century of our era in a new humanitarian spirit which began to care for the poor and the weak. Ultimately the Stoic Roman jurists wrote into the great law-codes the doctrine of the brotherhood of man, distinguishing between natural law, according to which all men are brothers on an equal footing, and human law which has brought about distinctions. These law-codes saved the written doctrine for the later centuries, and Christianity on its part absorbed much of Stoic teaching; through these two channels we have inherited many of the ideas which are moving forces in modern democracy. These matters touch us so closely that we may well pause for a moment and listen to some ancient witnesses. On the question whether a slave could be said to confer benefits on his master, Seneca wrote that whoever denied the possibility of this was ignorant of the principles of all human law: “for the question is as to the spirit of the one who confers the benefit, not as to his position in life. Virtue is closed to no man; but she is open for all, admits all, invites all, both freeborn and freedmen, slaves, kings, and exiles all alike. She does not choose house or wealth; she is satisfied with the bare man and asks nothing more.”[232] Again he points out that only the body can be enslaved; that no prison can hold the mind and keep it from consorting with the divine.[233] He sums up: “All of us have the same origin, the same source; no man is nobler than another save he who has a more upright character and one better fitted to honorable pursuits.”[234] The great jurists speak no less plainly than the philosopher. Julius Paulus, at the beginning of the third century of our era, laid down the principle that nature has established between men a certain relationship; this his contemporary Ulpian expressed more plainly in these words: “By natural law all men are equal.” And Florentinus wrote: “Slavery is a provision of the law of nations, by which one man, contrary to the law of nature, is subject to the domination of another.”[235] Such doctrines as these naturally broke down allegiance to city and nation, and made men feel that they were citizens of the world. Seneca distinguished two states, the one that into which a man is born; the other, the great and true commonwealth where dwell both gods and men, in which one looks not to this corner or to that, but measures its borders by the course of the sun.[236] In like language Musonius taught that the wise man, i.e., the philosopher, believes himself to be a citizen of the city of God, which consists of gods and men.[237] So the Emperor Marcus Aurelius reflected: “To me as Antoninus my city is Rome, but as a man it is the universe.”[238]