useful in fact. Aristotle says quite naively,
_Those virtues must necessarily be the greatest which are the most
useful to others_. So the ancients thought patriotism the highest
virtue, although it is really a very doubtful one, since narrowness,
prejudice, vanity and an enlightened self-interest are main elements in
it. Just before the passage I quoted, Aristotle enumerates all the
virtues, in order to discuss them singly. They are _Justice, Courage,
Temperance, Magnificence, Magnanimity, Liberality, Gentleness, Good
Sense_ and _Wisdom_. How different from the Christian virtues! Plato
himself, incomparably the most transcendental philosopher of
pre-Christian antiquity, knows no higher virtue than _Justice_; and he
alone recommends it unconditionally and for its own sake, whereas the
rest make a happy life, _vita beata_, the aim of all virtue, and moral
conduct the way to attain it. Christianity freed European humanity from
this shallow, crude identification of itself with the hollow, uncertain
existence of every day,

coelumque tueri
Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.

Christianity, accordingly, does not preach mere Justice, but _the Love
of Mankind, Compassion, Good Works, Forgiveness, Love of your Enemies,
Patience, Humility, Resignation, Faith_ and _Hope_. It even went a step
further, and taught that the world is of evil, and that we need
deliverance. It preached despisal of the world, self-denial, chastity,
giving up of one's will, that is, turning away from life and its
illusory pleasures. It taught the healing power of pain: an instrument
of torture is the symbol of Christianity. I am quite ready to admit that
this earnest, this only correct view of life was thousands of years
previously spread all over Asia in other forms, as it is still,
independently of Christianity; but for European humanity it was a new
and great revelation. For it is well known that the population of Europe
consists of Asiatic races driven out as wanderers from their own homes,
and gradually settling down in Europe; on their wanderings these races
lost the original religion of their homes, and with it the right view of
life: so, under a new sky, they formed religions for themselves, which
were rather crude; the worship of Odin, for instance, the Druidic or the
Greek religion, the metaphysical content of which was little and
shallow. In the meantime the Greeks developed a special, one might
almost sa