The Roman world was repeating the oft-told tale of the
past, and sinking into the lifeless formalism of which Egypt was the
type. Man had become wise, but worthless.
As though on purpose to prove to future generations how utterly
worthless, the Roman civilization was allowed to continue uninterrupted
in one unneeded corner of its former domains. For over a thousand years
the successors of Theodosius and of Constantine held unbroken sway in
the capital which the latter had founded. They only succeeded in
emphasizing how futile their culture had become.
The entire ten centuries that followed the overthrow of Rome have long
been spoken of as the "Dark Ages," but, considering how infinitely
darker those same ages must have become without the intervention of the
Teutons, present criticism begins to protest against the term. All that
was lost with the ancient world was something of intellectual keenness,
something of artistic culture, quickly regained when man was once more
ripe for them. What the Teutons had to offer of infinitely greater
worth, what they had developed in their cold, northern forests, was
their sense of liberty and equality, their love of honesty, their
respect for womankind.
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