society, its mere needs and palpable
claims, which first calls forth duties, but not _as_ duties; rather as
the casting of parts in a scenical arrangement. A duty, under the low
conception to which at first it conforms, is a _role_, no more; it is
strictly what we mean when we talk of a _part_. The sense of conscience
strictly is not touched under any preceding system of religion. It is
the daughter of Christianity. How little did Wordsworth seize the fact
in his Ode: 'Stern Daughter of the Voice of God' is not enough; the
voice of God is the conscience; and neither has been developed except by
Christianity.

The conscience of a pagan was a conscience pointing to detection: it
pointed only to the needs of society, and caused fear, shame, anxiety,
only on the principles of sympathy; that is, from the impossibility of
releasing himself from a dependence on the reciprocal feelings--the
rebound, the dependence on the _re_sentments of others.

_Morals._--Even ordinary morals could have little practical weight with
the ancients: witness the Roman juries and Roman trials. Had there been
any sense of justice predominant, could Cicero have hoped to prevail by
such defences as that of Milo and fifty-six others, where the argument
is merely fanciful--such a _Hein-gespinst_ as might be applauded with
'very good!' 'bravo!' in any mock trial like that silly one devised by
Dean Swift.

The slowness and obtuseness of the Romans to pathos appears _a priori_
in their amphitheatre, and its tendency to put out the theatre;
secondly, _a posteriori_, in the fact that their theatre was put out;
and also, _a posteriori_, in the coarseness of their sensibilities to
real distresses unless costumed and made sensible as well as
intelligible. The grossness of this demand, which proceeded even so far
as pinching to elicit a cry, is beyond easy credit to men of their time.

The narrow range of the Greek intellect, always revolving through seven
or eight centuries about a few memorable examples--from the Life of
Themistocles to Zeno or Demosthenes.

The Grecian glories of every kind seem sociable and affable, courting
sympathy. The Jewish seem malignantly [Greek: autarkeis].

But just as Paganism respected only rights of action, possession, etc.,
Christianity respects a far higher scale of claims, viz., as to the
wounds to feelings, to deep injury, though not grounded in anything
measurable or expoundable by external results. Man! yo