value of their recognition of human progress in the past is
conditioned by the general tenor and purpose of their theory of
life. It was simply one item in their demonstration that man owed
nothing to supernatural intervention and had nothing to fear from
supernatural powers. It is however no accident that the school of
thought which struck on a path that might have led to the idea of
Progress was the most uncompromising enemy of superstition that
Greece produced.

It might be thought that the establishment of Roman rule and order
in a large part of the known world, and the civilising of barbarian
peoples, could not fail to have opened to the imagination of some of
those who reflected on it in the days of Virgil or of Seneca, a
vista into the future. But there was no change in the conditions of
life likely to suggest a brighter view of human existence. With the
loss of freedom pessimism increased, and the Greek philosophies of
resignation were needed more than ever. Those whom they could not
satisfy turned their thoughts to new mystical philosophies and
religions, which were little interested in the earthly destinies of
human society.

II

1.

The idea of the universe which prevailed throughout the Middle Ages,
and the general orientation of men's thoughts were incompatible with
some of the fundamental assumptions which are required by the idea
of Progress. According to the Christian theory which was worked out
by the Fathers, and especially by St. Augustine, the whole movement