THE SOCIAL SPIRIT IN WORLD-LITERATURE.
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But none the less evident are the marks of the old Hebrew social idealism on the Christian, none the less clear is it that the ideal community of Ezekiel is spiritualised and universalised in the Christian brotherhood, and that, however the conditions of the Roman empire, or the temporal power Christianity afterwards acquired, or the industrial development of modern Europe, have thrown the social spirit of Christianity into the background, the creed whose individual side was expressed by Dante was above all things the mighty utterance of man's social spirit.