n which many centuries later
occasioned the final destruction of polytheism in Rome. Already, in
Athens, the voice of philosophers was heard, that among so many gods and
so many different worships it was impossible for a man to ascertain what
is true. Already, many even of the educated were overwhelmed with the
ominous suggestion that, if ever it had been the will of heaven to
reveal any form of faith to the world, such a revelation, considering
its origin, must necessarily have come with sufficient power to override
all opposition; that if there existed only as many as two forms of faith
synchronous and successful in the world, that fact would of itself
demonstrate that neither of them is true, and that there never had been
any revelation from an all-wise and omnipotent God. Nor was it merely
among the speculative men that these infidelities were cherished; the
leading politicians and statesmen had become deeply infected with them.
It was not Anaxagoras alone who was convicted of atheism; the same
charge was made against Pericles, the head of the republic--he who had
done so much for the glory of Athens--the man who, in practical life,
was, beyond all question, the first of his age. With difficulty he
succeeded, by the use of what influence remained to him, in saving the
life of the guilty philosopher his friend, but in the public estimation
he was universally viewed as a participator in his crime. If the
foundations of philosophy and those of religion were thus sapped, the
foundations of law experienced no better fate. The Sophists, who were
wandering all over the world, saw that each nation had its own ideas of
merit and demerit, and therefore its own system of law; that even in
different towns there were contrary conceptions of right and wrong, and
therefore opposing codes. It is evident that in such examinations they
applied the same principles which had guided them in their analysis of
philosophy and religion, and that the result could be no other than it
was, to bring them to the conclusion that there is nothing absolute in
justice or in law. To what an appalling condition society has arrived,
when it reaches the positive conclusion that there is no truth, no
religion, no justice, no virtue in the world; that the only object of
human exertion is unrestrained physical enjoyment; the only standard of
a man's position, wealth; that, since there is no possibility of truth,
whose eternal principles might serve for an un