Yet this was the commencement of a regime by whose
gradual operation all the civilisation which had been gained
insensibly faded away, until the Empire, which had conquered and
embraced the world in its grasp, so completely lost even its
military efficiency, that invaders whom three or four legions had
always sufficed to coerce were able to overrun and occupy nearly the
whole of its vast territory. The fresh impulse given by Christianity
came but just in time to save arts and letters from perishing, and the
human race from sinking back into perhaps endless night.
When we talk of the interest of a body of men, or even of an
individual man, as a principle determining their actions, the question
what would be considered their interest by an unprejudiced observer is
one of the least important parts of the whole matter. As Coleridge
observes, the man makes the motive, not the motive the man. What it is
the man's interest to do or refrain from depends less on any outward
circumstances than upon what sort of man he is. If you wish to know
what is practically a man's interest, you must know the cast of his
habitual feelings and thoughts. Everybody has two kinds of
interests, interests which he cares for, and interests which he does
not care for. Everybody has selfish and unselfish interests, and a
selfish man has cultivated the habit of caring for the former, and not
caring for the latter.
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