obstacle to the moral amelioration of the race by any gradual
process of development. For since, so long as the human species
endures on earth, every child will be born naturally evil and worthy
of punishment, a moral advance of humanity to perfection is plainly
impossible. [Footnote: It may be added that, as G. Monod observed,
"les hommes du moyen age n'avaient pas conscience des modifications
successives que le temps apporte avec lui dans les choses humaines"
(Revue Historique, i. p. 8).]

2.

But there are certain features in the medieval theory of which we
must not ignore the significance. In the first place, while it
maintained the belief in degeneration, endorsed by Hebrew mythology,
it definitely abandoned the Greek theory of cycles. The history of
the earth was recognised as a unique phenomenon in time; it would
never occur again or anything resembling it. More important than all
is the fact that Christian theology constructed a synthesis which
for the first time attempted to give a definite meaning to the whole
course of human events, a synthesis which represents the past as
leading up to a definite and desirable goal in the future. Once this
belief had been generally adopted and prevailed for centuries men
might discard it along with the doctrine of Providence on which it
rested, but they could not be content to return again to such views
as satisfied the ancients, for whom human history, apprehended as a
whole, was a tale of little meaning. [Footnote: It may be observed
that Augustine (De Civ. Dei, x. 14) compares the teaching (recta
eruditio) of the people of God, in the gradual process of history,
to the education of an individual. Prudentius has a similar
comparison for a different purpose (c. Symmachum, ii. 315 sqq.):