The State indeed was dissolving, but the individual was evolving. The age which produced a Plutarch—for fifteen hundred years one of the great inspiring forces of the world—was the reverse of a corrupt age.
The life of the home and the life of the soul were alike developing. The home was becoming more complex, more intimate, more elevated. The soul was being turned in on itself to discover new and joyous secrets:
- the secret of the love of Nature,
- the secret of mystic religion, and,
- not least, the secret of romantic love.
When Christianity finally conquered the Roman world its task very largely lay in taking over and developing those three secrets already discovered by Paganism.
It was inevitable, however, that in developing these new forms of the emotional life, the