Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 edition. Excerpt: ... Therefore, if we detect evils undermining the strength of the Roman state, and find no successful efforts to remove them, we must surely make large allowance for the defects of a political system under which the noblest endeavours were doomed to almost certain failure. II At this point we are met by an old ghost that used to haunt historians, which is becoming active _, .. ', & Explana agam in a new form, bo long as a pious tions of resignation dominated whatever thought faure, old, ., ., r. and new humanity expended on itself, it was easy to attribute the destinies of states and peoples to divine ordinance. Mankind in their various groups had a preordained course to run. What that course was in any case to be, they did not know: their duty was to face it, and to be satisfied that the result was for the best. Patriotic ingenuity noted the virtues to which successful peoples might point as explanations of their own success, and failing peoples deplored in retrospect the vices to which they imputed their own failure. The story of Rome illustrates both these phenomena. But in the case of Rome (and not of Rome only) they appear in a very simple form. Prosperity suggests confidence, consciousness of decline insinuates despair. There is no sincere belief in possible revival through the people's united effort, for the people as a people, a living selfconscious unit, does not exist. In the vast Roman subject world patience means drifting under the fitful guidance of remote rulers. And this helplessness is in effect a practical fatalism, whether it turns its gaze to divine powers or yields to an impersonal Fate. It has no belief in the power of man to control his own destiny: once started on the downward path, he has only to go on till he reaches..
