The New York herald., 1921-11-20

obedience on all of its parts IT was
rather a transformation than a re-
formation of the empire which Con-
stantine accomplished. He made
Christianity the religion of state,
though 1t meant the renunciation of
the Emperor's pretensions to divinity.
He moved his capital from Rome to
the shores of the Bosporus, far from
the scenes of republican tradition,
and inaugurated a regime as absolute
as that of the Pharaohs. The mystical
camoufiage of Aurelian and the ficti-
tious dynasty. of Diocletian were
scorned. Constantine was frankly an
Oriental monarch. What strength
there was left in the empire retired
little by little to the East. the birth
place of absolutism; while the West,
harassed by the barbarians, ground
down under oppressive taxes, a prey
to injustice in the courts and rapacity
in the administration, went rapidly
| down the grade to the low cultural
levels of the sixth century.
The object of this sketch of the
ruin of the ancient civilization is to
point a moral Ferrero finds an
twentieth centuries. AS revolution and
anarchy followed the downfall of the
Roman Senate (the source of legality
for imperial authority, so the rev.
| olutions of March, 1917, and Novem-
Der, 1918, precipitated by the world
war, have overthrown the monarchi-
cal system in Europe, completing a
political evolution of two centuries
comparable with that of the first two
centuries of the Christian era. Europe
is again i'm danger, as in the third
century. of finding herself without
any assured principle of authority.
That is the text of Ferrero's volume.
All the other ruins that the war has
produced. terrible as they are, are
"trfiing" when compared with the
ruin Of the principle of authority.
Where shall the remedy be found? A
few democracies exist in Western
civilization France, Switzerland, the
United States) in which the govern
ment rests solidly on the principle of
the sovereignty of the people, but
nothing of the kind is to be found in
the countries which during 1917 and
1918 improvised so many republics.
Republican democracy is for those
people but an improvisation of de-
spair, the only alternative 10 which is
the brutal dictatorship of force" Rus
sia has already proved how easy the
| fatal transition from the one to the
other can be.
Without specifying the method to
be employed, Ferrero implores the
United States, England and France
as the victorious and wealthy coun-
tries. possessing governments (which
amidst the general anarchy are still
working" to beware of allowing them
selves to be seduo ed by the illusion
that they can isolate themselves in
the midst of this all pervading flow
of anarchy" IL rests with them
whether Europe shall be saved OF
shall perish--and the fate of all
Europe will be their own.
The book is brilliant and suggestive
but hardly convincing. Analogies are
| feeble arguments. The third and the
twentieth centuries have. in reality
little in common. II was, by Ferrero's
own showing, a series of reactionary
and despotic makeshifts that were re-
lied upon to replace the waning au-
thority of the Roman Senate in the
third century of the Christian era
and not a positive, cumulative force
like the still far from perfect de-
mocracy evolved in the last two GEN.
turies. From a different and more
optimistic angle of vision the political
philosopher may see in the overthrow
of the divine right monarchies not Sc
much the loss AS the triumph of a
] principle of authority"