effort of speculative intellect, which in an early stage of society
would be out of the question, but to some happy conjunction of
circumstances such as would be presented by a break-up of tribal
mythologies, combined with influences favourable to the formation of
strong habits of political and social duty. Religious art was
sacrificed; that was the exclusive heritage of the Greek; but superior
morality was on the whole the heritage of the Roman, and if he produced
no good tragedy himself, he furnished characters for Shakespeare and
Corneille.

Whatever set the Romans free, or comparatively free, from the tyranny of
tribal religion may be considered as having in the same measure been the
source of the tolerance which was so indispensable a qualification for
the exercise of dominion over a polytheistic world. They waged no war on
"the gods of the nations," or on the worshippers of those gods as such.
They did not set up golden images after the fashion of Nebuchadnezzar.
In early times they seem to have adopted the gods of the conquered, and
to have transported them to their own city. In later times they
respected all the religions except Judaism and Druidism, which assumed
the form of national resistance to the empire, and worships which they
deemed immoral or anti-social, and which had intruded themselves into
Rome.

Another grand step in the development of law is the severance of the
judicial power from the legislative and the executive, which permits the
rise of jurists, and of a regular legal profession. This is a slow
process. In the stationary East, as a rule, the king has remained the
supreme judge. At Athens, the sovereign people delegated its judicial
powers to a large committee, but it got no further; and the judicial
committee was hardly more free from political passion, or more competent