from the popular exposition of it which is contained in the three first Gospels. But the very plainness and homeliness of the precepts shows that they are just acute statements of what was already felt by the popular common sense; protesting, in many cases, against the formalism of the ceremonial law with which they are curiously mixed up. The Rabbis even show a jealousy of prophetic interference, as if they knew well that it takes not one man, but many men, to feel what is right. When a certain Rabbi Eliezer, being worsted in argument, cried out, 'If I am right, let heaven pronounce in my favor!' there was heard a Bath-kol or voice from the skies, saying, 'Do you venture to dispute with Rabbi Eliezer, who is an authority on all religious questions?' But Rabbi Joshua rose and said, 'Our law is not in heaven, but in the book which dates from Sinai, and which teaches us that in matters of discussion the majority makes the law.' [2] One of the most important expressions of the moral sense for all time is that of the Stoic philosophy, especially after its reception among the Romans. It is here that we find the enthusiasm of humanity--the caritas generis humani--which is so large and important a feature in all modern conceptions of morality, and whose widespread influence upon Roman citizens may be traced in the Epistles of St. Paul. In the Stoic emperors, also, we find probably the earliest example of great moral principles consciously applied to legislation on a large scale. But are we to attribute this to the individual insight of the Stoic philosophers? It might seem at first sight that we must, if we are to listen to that vulgar vituperation of the older culture which has descended to us from those who had everything to gain by its destruction. [3] We hear enough of the luxurious feasting of the Roman capital, how it would almost have taxed the resources of a modern pastry-cook; of the cruelty of gladiatorial shows, how they were nearly as bad as autos-da-fé, except that a man had his fair chance and was not tortured for torture's sake; of the oppression of provincials by people like Verres, of whom it may even be said that if they had been the East India Company they could not have been worse; of the complaints of Tacitus against bad and mad emperors (as Sir Henry Maine says); and of the still more serious complaints of the modern historian against the excessive taxation [4] which was one great cause of the fall of the empire. Of all this we are told a great deal; but we are not told of the many thousands of honorable men who carried civilization to the ends of the known world, and administered a mighty empire so that it was loved and worshiped to the furthest corner of it. It is to these men and their common action that we must attribute the morality which found its organized expression in the writings of the Stoic philosophers. From these three cases we may gather that Right is a thing which must be done before it can be talked about,