gradually increased in antiquity from the time of Protagoras and Socrates onwards. Its emotional
aspect is obsession with sin, which came later than its intellectual aspects. Saint Augustine
exhibits both kinds of subjectivism. Subjectivism led him to anticipate not only Kant's theory of
time, but Descartes' cogito. In his Soliloquia he says: "You, who wish to know, do you know you
are? I know it. Whence are you? I know not. Do you feel yourself single or multiple? I know not.
Do you feel yourself moved? I know not. Do you know that you think? I do." This contains not
only Descartes' cogito, but his reply to Gassendi's ambulo ergo sum. As a philosopher, therefore,
Augustine deserves a high place.
II. THE CITY OF GODWhen, in 410, Rome was sacked by the Goths, the pagans, not unnaturally, attributed the disaster
to the abandonment of the ancient gods. So long as Jupiter was worshipped, they said, Rome
remained powerful; now that the Emperors have turned away from him, he no longer protects his
Romans. This pagan argument called for an answer. The City of God, written gradually between
412 and 427, was Saint Augustine's answer; but it took, as it proceeded, a far wider flight, and
developed a complete Christian scheme of history, past, present, and future. It was an immensely
influential book throughout the Middle Ages, especially in the struggles of the Church with
secular princes.
Like some other very great books, it composes itself, in the memory of those who have read it,
into something better than at first appears on rereading. It contains a great deal that hardly anyone
at the present day can accept, and its central thesis is somewhat obscured by excrescences
belonging to his age. But the broad conception of a contrast between the City of this world and the
City of God has remained an inspiration to many, and even now can be restated in nontheological
terms.
To omit detail in an account of the book, and concentrate on the central idea, would give an
unduly favourable view; on the other hand, to concentrate on the detail would be to omit what is
best and