Culture is always assigning to system-makers and
systems a smaller share in the bent of human destiny than their friends
like. A current in people's minds sets towards new ideas; people are
dissatisfied with their old narrow stock of Philistine ideas,
Anglo-Saxon ideas, or any other; and some man, some Bentham[419] or
Comte, who has the real merit of having early and strongly felt and
helped the new current, but who brings plenty of narrowness and mistakes
of his own into his feeling and help of it, is credited with being the
author of the whole current, the fit person to be entrusted with its
regulation and to guide the human race.
The excellent German historian of the mythology of Rome, Preller,[420]
relating the introduction at Rome under the Tarquins of the worship of
Apollo, the god of light, healing, and reconciliation, will have us
observe that it was not so much the Tarquins who brought to Rome the new
worship of Apollo, as a current in the mind of the Roman people which
set powerfully at that time towards a new worship of this kind, and away
from the old run of Latin and Sabine religious ideas.
Pages:
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451