Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/49

II has gradually developed in its own way. This is more particularly the case with England, which has in many ways been kept as much apart from others in historical experience as in geographical position. But the conditions out of which modern States have arisen have been, in the main, alike in Western Europe, though the various factors have had very different force and weight in different instances. Apart from geographical influences, and the inherent peculiarities of race, they have been chiefly three. First, the raw material, i.e. the barbarian people who overran Europe under the later Roman Empire, and dissolved that great political fabric: these peoples had their, own primitive institutions, — germs from some of which, in England at least, there has been an abundant growth and excellent fruit. Secondly, the fabric of the Roman Empire, on which, these germs were engrafted, the idea of which continued to exist as an object of reverence long after the reality had vanished, and was brought before men's minds once more in visible form by the Holy Roman Empire of Charles the Great and his successors. Thirdly, we have to take into account the civilising power of Christianity in two ways: first, as a moral force, bettering rude institutions; and secondly, as a great spiritual organism, not indeed directly aiding the development of States, — on the contrary, rather retarding it, yet acting from time to time as a salutary unifying influence for civilisation, in ages when States were struggling into existence amid great perplexities and perils.