Tradition 11
washings. How much has been lost we can only guess at
by what we have, often in part or mutilated, a fragment
or shattered column placed in some rare setting, or a few
lines; but we have enough to enable us to understand fully
the classical ideals. We know what they were in govern-
ment, morals, and religion ; we know the languages in which
they were fittingly expressed ; we know the art and architec-
ture which adorned the daily life of the cities. And modern
culture is no less tenacious than it was in its youth of these
traditions. Latin and Greek are the classical languages -par
excellence in this respect also, that they have entered into
and have given form to so many modern ones ; Latin espe-
cially underlying Italian, French, and other Romance lan-
guages.
But the factor of tradition in our culture, the conservative
element that relies for stability on transmitted ideals, has
come to us most powerfully through Rome. In fact, to
quote Mr. J. W. Mackail: “Nothing in the world stands,
it has been said, that does not come from Rome . . .
from the race who organized and established civilization.”1
Though everyone is familiar with the fact that the Romans
were great administrators, and that they gave to the world
a system of Law that has left a permanent mark upon
modern civilization, few understand how profound that
impress has been, how our conceptions of ordered liberty
and freedom, our ideals of universal justice and peace, are
based fundamentally on the Roman tradition that reigned
in Europe for more than a millennium after the beginning
of the Christian era. “A jurisprudence incomparably su-
perior to that of the Greeks,” the Roman law has developed
into modern International Law, the supreme value of which
for civilization is now being tested as never before. But
1 Legacy of Rome, 3S0.