Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/90

 74 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

at first moral, then more and more temporal. It had to adapt itself to the social environment. It submitted little by little to authorities, up to the day when, having itself become powerful, it became Catholicism. Then also it proved not only that the fron- tiers of a belief may be more extended than the bounds of the temporal sovereignty of the chief of this faith, but that they may extend beyond the frontiers of a considerable number of separate political sovereignties. What was proved in that case for religion will be proved later in a universal measure for science, and at last for the world-economy which is destined to be the effective and secure basis of that unity which neither empires nor religions can realize the principle of authority being too feeble to serve as bond of union for the infinite variety of forms and of functions which the republic of the human race presupposes.

[To be continued]