to those of
industry itself, one might also trace the growing influence of the Orient;
one might show how the action of the great manufacturing centers of the
East gradually transformed the material civilization of Europe; one might
point out how the introduction into Gaul[12] of exotic patterns and
processes changed the old native industry and gave its products a
perfection and a popularity hitherto unknown. But I dislike to insist
overmuch on a point apparently so foreign to the one now before us. It was
important however to mention this subject at the beginning because in
whatever direction scholars of {10} to-day pursue their investigations they
always notice Asiatic culture slowly supplanting that of Italy. The latter
developed only by absorbing elements taken from the inexhaustible reserves
of the "old civilizations" of which we spoke at the beginning. The
Hellenized Orient imposed itself everywhere through its men and its works;
it subjected its Latin conquerors to its ascendancy in the same manner as
it dominated its Arabian conquerors later when it became the civilizer of
Islam. But in no field of thought was its influence, under the empire, so
decisive as in religion, because it finally brought about the complete
destruction of the Greco-Latin paganism.[13]

The invasion of the barbarian religions was so open, so noisy and so
triumphant that it could not remain unnoticed. It attracted the anxious or
sympathetic attention of the ancient authors, and since the Renaissance
modern scholars have frequently taken interest in it. Possibly however they
did not sufficiently understand that this religious evolution was not an
isolated and extraordinary phenomenon, but that it accompanied and aided a
more general evolution, just as that aided it in turn. The transformation
of beliefs was intimately connected with the establishment of the monarchy
by divine right, the development of art, the prevailing philosophic
tendencies, in fact with all the manifestations of thought, sentiment and
taste.

We shall attempt to sketch this religious movement with its numerous and
far-reaching ramifications. First we shall try to show what caused the
diffusion of the Oriental religions. In the second place we shall examine
those in particular that originated in Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria and Persia,
and we shall endeavor to {11} distinguish their individual characteristics
and estimate their value. We shall see, finally, how the ancient