The Christian teaching preached equal rights for all men and community of goods in an empire of masters and slaves, but formulated the highest moral code, and directed the attention of a race, which only aimed at luxury, to the world beyond the grave as the true goal of existence.

It made the value of man as man, and the moral development of personality according to the laws of the individual conscience, the starting-point of all development.

It thus gradually transformed the philosophy of the ancient world, whose morality rested solely on the relations with the state.

Simultaneously with this, hordes of Germans from the thickly-populated North poured victoriously in broad streams over the Roman Empire and the decaying nations of the Ancient World.

These masses could not keep their nationality pure and maintain their position as political powers.