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INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES 
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE 
 GREEK PEOPLE 
 
 AND ITS INFLUENCE ON CIVILIZATION 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS DAVIDSON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 1894 
 
A 
 
 COPTRIGHT, 18^, 
 
 By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 
 
 ElJECTROTYPED AND PRINTED 
 AT THE APPLETON I*RESS, U. S. A, 
 
EDITOE'S PEEFACE. 
 
 The history of education is best studied when 
 taken in that large sense in which nations are said to 
 be teachers, each people bringing its ethnical contri- 
 bution to the civilization of the human race. In so 
 far as a nation invents ethical means to overcome the 
 obstacles that it finds to its free development, it offers 
 education to other nations by furnishing an object les- 
 son in solving the problem of life. Such lessons have 
 been furnished by the English nation in achieving 
 what is known as local self-government, inventing de- 
 vices by which the extreme of individualism is har- 
 monized with the centralized interest of the whole 
 people J;' by the German nation a quite different lesson, 
 through the perfection of its system of endowing a 
 centralized government with the power of securing in 
 its service those of its citizens possessed of the most 
 powerful wills and wide-seeing intellects; by the 
 French nation another lesson, in training a whole 
 people in the art of tasteful arrangement of all their 
 productions, whether material or spiritual, so as to re- 
 enforce all things useful by the addition of the beau- 
 tiful. ~ 
 
 But there are three nations of ancient time that 
 stand to modern civilization in the relation of teachers 
 
Vi EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 in an eminent sense of the term, and these are^iceece, 
 Rome, and Judea. The nations of Europe and Amer- 
 ica of to-day recognize this debt to Jude a by RptHn g 
 ap art a learned professi on — the highest and most 
 sacred of all professions, t he clerg y — to master the 
 divine message revealed through the highly endowed 
 spiritual sense of the Hebrews, and in turn to make 
 the whole people, high and low, acquainted with that 
 message and able to govern each his own life in ac- 
 cordance with it. This education in revealed religion 
 demands and receives one day in seven set apart for 
 its exclusive purpose, besides its daily recognition in 
 the presence of secular labor. 
 
 Again, our civilization sets apart a learned profes- 
 sion to master the Jgwa, by which justice is secured 
 between man and man. The protection of life and 
 property and the punishment of crime, the ordinances 
 by which individuals combine to form social aggregates 
 for the prosecution of business, to provide for the wel- 
 fare of towns, cities, counties, states, and the nation — 
 all these proceed from a Roman origin, and were, in the 
 first instance, taught by the Roman praetorian courts 
 that followed in the wake of Roman armies and made 
 secure their conquests by establishing Roman jurispru- 
 dence in the place of the local laws and customs that 
 had before prevailed; for the Latin mind had pon- 
 dered a thousand years on the forms of the will, dis- 
 covering, one by one, the limitations of individual ca- 
 price and arbitrariness necessary to prevent collision 
 of the individual with the social whole. T he Latin. 
 lessop to the world tftap.b^^s Tis _how to frame i aaa and 
 guide the individual in such ways as to make all his 
 deeds affirmative of the whole purpose of his commu- 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. vii 
 
 nity and nation, and cause him to inhibit all such 
 deeds as tend toward trespass or any injury of others. 
 This goes to make each person strong through the cor- 
 porate will of his community and nation. It prevents 
 the collision of each with all — a collision which reduces 
 to zero all reasonable action. 
 
 The modern system of education in Europe and 
 America places the study of Latin in all secondary and 
 higher education as a first essential side by side with 
 mathematics in the school studies. This secures for 
 youth from three to seven years' daily occupation with 
 the workings of the Latin mind. The boy or the girl 
 gradually becomes permeated with the motives of that 
 serious-minded people. The special significance of 
 those words that express the ideals of Koman charac- 
 ter (and the ideals of all character), words which we 
 have preserved in our translation into English — grav- 
 ity, soberness, probity, honesty, self-restraint, austerity, 
 considerateness, modesty, patriotism — impresses, his 
 mind deeply as a result of long-continued study of 
 Eoman literature and history.* 
 
 But there is a third people and a third language 
 which we recognize in secondary and higher educa- 
 tion. jWe place the Greek language before the pupil- 
 for its i nfluence on^ hia_j nind in ope ning it to the 
 vision_of^ scienc e, art^ and l iteratu re. The Greeks in- 
 vented all the potent literary forms — epic, lyric, and 
 dramatic. They transformed architecture and sculp- 
 ture into shapes that reveal spiritual freedom. They 
 
 * See Rosenkranz, Philosophy of Education, vol. i of this 
 series, page 233 : " The Latin tongue is crowded with expressions 
 which paint presence of mind, the effort at reflection, a critical 
 attitude of mind, the importance of self-control." 
 
viii EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 discovered, in fact, the beautiful in its highest forms 
 as the manifestation of freedom or self-determination. 
 Besides the beautiful they also found the true, and ex- 
 plored its forms in science and philosophy. Science 
 and gesthetics treat of the two forms of the intellect, 
 just as jurisprudence treats of the forms of the will. 
 I Thus Greece educates all modern nations in the forms 
 of art and literature, while Eome educates them in 
 civil law. 
 
 In the beginning Greece is only aesthetic, worship- 
 ing beautiful individualities, the gods of Olympus. 
 From the beginning it prizes its athletic games as a 
 sort of worship of the beautiful by realizing graceful- 
 ness and physical freedom in the body. Later it fixes 
 in stone and bronze the forms of its athletes as models 
 and sets them up in temples as statues of the gods. 
 Gracefulness is well said to be the expression of spirit- 
 ual freedom in bodily form. The soul is represented 
 as in complete control of the body, so that every move- 
 ment and every pose shows the limbs completely obe- 
 dient to the slightest impulse of the soul. There is 
 other art than Greek ; we have Egyptian and Hindu, 
 Chinese, Persian, and Etruscan, but no art that has 
 any success in depicting gracefulness or individual 
 freedom. Even Christian art of Italy, Germany, and 
 France does not attain to supreme gracefulness as does 
 the Greek. For, while Greek art succeeds in repre- 
 senting freedom m the body, Romantic art represents 
 freedom from the body, or at least a heart-hunger for 
 such freedom. The martyr saints painted by Fra 
 Angelico and the dead Christs of Volterra, Michel 
 Angelo, and Rubens, all show an expression of relief 
 or divine repose having in view the final liberation 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. ix 
 
 from the body. Religion in its essence is a higher 
 form of spiritual activity than art. But Christian art 
 is not so high a form of art as Greek art, because it 
 represents freedom only negatively as separation from 
 the body rather than positively as full incarnation in 
 the body like the Olympian Zeus or the Apollo Bel- 
 vedere. 
 
 Inasmuch as art is the consecration of what is sen- 
 suous and physical to the purposes of spiritual free- 
 dom, it forever piques the soul to ascend out of the 
 stage of sense - perception into reflection and free 
 thought. To solve the mystery of self-determination 
 in the depths of pure thinking is to grasp the sub- 
 stance of which highest art is only the shadow. Thus 
 the glorious career of Greek philosophy from Thales, 
 through Heraclitus, Pythagoras, and Anaxagoras to its 
 consummation in Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle is the 
 process by which inner reflection attains the same 
 completeness and perfection that art had attained un- 
 der Pheidias and Praxiteles. Art has, moreover, a 
 link connecting it with philosophy. The dramas of 
 -^schylus and Sophocles grapple with the problems of 
 Greek life, the relation of fate to freedom, the limits 
 of human responsibility and the motives of Divine 
 Providence. Thus art prompts to thought on the 
 questions of ultimate moral import and, in a word, to 
 " theology, or first philosophy," as Aristotle names his 
 treatise on metaphysics. 
 
 Prof. Davidson has in this volume sketched in a 
 masterly manner the growth of the Greek civilization 
 through the several stages of the household, the village 
 community, and its culmination in the Athenian city 
 state to its dissolution in the oicumenical or universal 
 
X EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 empire of Rome. He has discussed the relative value 
 of the ideals of Greek civilization compared with those 
 of the previous civilization out of which it grew, and 
 of the Christian civilization to which it lent one after 
 another many substantial elements. These elements 
 he has characterized as Hellenized Judaism and Zoro- 
 astrianism, Xeo-Pythagoreanism, and Orientalized Hel- 
 lenism, all of which entered into conflict with Chris- 
 tianity, but finally gave up to it what they had of per- 
 manent value, and disappeared from history. He has 
 shown how the " supernatural sense," or the spiritual 
 sense of the divine as personal God, is the dominating 
 and progressive principle in Christianity, and how it 
 has modified and assimilated the Greek philosophy, 
 from which it has borrowed its logical and scientific 
 forms. 
 
 Attention is particularly called to our author's 
 treatment of Diagoge (page 49 and following) as the 
 ideal of Greek life — namely, the occupation of the soul 
 with the contemplation of the beautiful in art and lit- 
 erature, and with the search for the true by the exer- 
 cise of reflection in science and philosophy — what we 
 call, since the time of Goethe, the aims of culture. 
 
 Particular attention is recommended to the discus- 
 sion of the insights of Socrates in the fifth chapter — 
 namely, his insight into the deeper meaning of the 
 oracle " know thyself," and his insight obtained by the 
 use of the supernatural sense (his " daimon "). He 
 saw that difference of opinion among men, and conse- 
 quently immorality and civil contention, arises from 
 the fact that men think imperfectly and one-sidedly, 
 and hence do not see the full logical bearing of their 
 own thoughts (see page 108). His famous " dialectic " 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. xi 
 
 had for its object the drawing out into consciousness 
 of the complete thought with all its logical implica-/ 
 tions. In this process the narrow and superficial andl 
 immoral views were exposed and refuted and the uni- 
 versally valid truth remained. 
 
 This discovery amounts to the demonstration that 
 man possesses "a universal divine element, which is 
 indeed the measure of all things. . . . This was the 
 greatest discovery ever made by any human being, and 
 the one that renders possible moral life, whether indi- 
 vidual, social, or political " (page 171). This made 
 possible the assent from opinion to truth ; from soph- 
 istry to the vision of God. 
 
 Finally, the reader is directed to the argument of 
 Chapter VIII, by which the author establishes his 
 doctrine that .the failure of the Greeks to furnish an 
 oecumenical or universal religion sufficient for the 
 world empire of the Roman epoch is due to their lack 
 of the supernatural sense, by which the concrete per- 
 sonality of the absolute is apprehended (pages 193-/ 
 201). The author sums up his conclusions on pages 
 225, 226 : "Until the supernatural sense can recognize 
 in its object a living God, or being with perfect intel- 
 ligence, love, and will, supernally correlated, but in no 
 sense identical with the spirits of men, so that His 
 perfections are their goal, and not His being their 
 grave, it will never be able to maintain itself against 
 the abstracting reason or supply the basis of moral 
 life." W. T. Harkis.' 
 
 WAsmNGTON, D. C, September, 1894, 
 
'^^ 
 
 (T 
 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 In" my recent book, Aristotle and the Ancient 
 Educational Ideals^ 1 endeavored to set forth the 
 facts of Greek education in historical order. The 
 present brief work has an entirely different purpose — 
 which is^o show how the Greek people were gradu- 
 ally educated up to that stage of culture which made 
 them the teachers of the whole world, and what the 
 effect of that teaching has been. Hence education, in 
 its narrow, pedagogic sense, is presented but in the 
 barest outline, while prominence is given to the dif- 
 ferent stages, in the. growth of the Greek political, 
 ethical, and religious consciousness, and the effect of 
 this upon Greek history and institutions, as well as 
 upon the after-world. '■ 
 
 This work is not intended for scholars or special- 
 ists, but for that large body of teachers throughout 
 the country who are trying to do their duty, but are 
 suffering from that want of enthusiasm which neces- 
 sarily comes from being unable "clearly to see the end 
 and purpose of their labors, or to invest any end with 
 sublime import. I have sought to show them that the 
 end of their work is the redemption of humanity, an 
 essential part of that process by which it is being grad- 
 ually elevated to moral freedom, and to suggest to 
 
xiv EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 them the direction in which they ought to turn their 
 chief efforts. If I can make even a few of them feel 
 the consecration that comes from single-minded devo- 
 tion to a great end, I shall hold that this book has 
 accomplished its purpose. 
 
 If any one tell me that my first chapter ought to 
 have been the last in order, I shall not disagree with 
 him. I put it where it is in order that the reader 
 might peruse the rest of theni with certain preconcep- 
 tions in his mind, and that he might clearly know, 
 whenever he met the term "education," what I meant 
 by it. Those who prefer to start with their own con- 
 ceptions of education may read that lecture last. 
 
 I have undertaken a large task in a small compass, 
 and no one can feel more keenly than I do how imper- 
 fectly I have accomplished it. Under any circum- 
 stances my work must have been a mere sketch ; but 
 it is only now that it is finished that I know how 
 much better it might be done by one with resources 
 greater than mine. May the defects of my attempt 
 prove a challenge to such a one to produce a work 
 worthy of the subject ! 
 
 Thomas Davidsoi^. 
 
 " Glenmore," Keene, Essex County, N. Y., 
 May 15, 1893. 
 
COlt^TElSTTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. — Introductory — Nature and Education . . 1 
 
 II. — Greek Life and its Ideals 29 
 
 III. — Greek Education before the Rise of Philosophy 53 
 
 IV. — Greek Education after the Rise op Philosophy . 78 
 
 v.— The Effort to find in Individualism a Basis of 
 
 Social Order 103 
 
 VI.— The Endeavor to found an Educational State 
 
 on Philosophical Principles, and its Results . 128 
 
 VII. — The Attempt to found an Educational State 
 ON Inductive Scientific Principles and its 
 Results 152 
 
 VIII.— Greek Education in Contact with the Great 
 
 Eastern World 177 
 
 IX.f— Greek Education in Contact with the Great 
 
 Western World — Resume and Conclusion . 203 
 
 .1 ^ 
 
[TJRITSI13ITT, 
 
 THE EDUCATION 
 OF THE GREEK PEOPLE, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IIJTRODUCTORY. 
 NATURE AKD EDUCATION. 
 
 The term " nature," as applied to living things, is 
 used in two distinct senses, which in current language 
 are frequently confounded, to the great detriment of 
 educational theory and practice. In one sense, it is the 
 character or type with.which a thing starts on its sepa- 
 rate career, and which, without any effort on the part 
 of that thing, but solely with the aid of natural forces, 
 determines that career. Thus the acorn, the bean, the 
 chick, the whelp, the cub, possess a definite " nature," 
 which in each case manifests itself naturally in the life 
 of these things. In the other sense, " nature " means 
 that 'highest possible reality which a living thing, 
 through a series of voluntary acts, originating within 
 or without it, may be made to attain. Thus, through 
 voluntary acts originating outside of them, many 
 plants and animals — the rose, the chrysanthemum, 
 the apple, the orange, the dog, the horse — attain a 
 
2 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 degree of perfection which would be impossible for 
 them if left to themselves. Similarly, through volun- 
 tary acts originating inside of him, man attains a de- 
 gree of perfection to which his so-called natural in- 
 stincts could never raise him. If, now, we distinguish 
 these two natures as original and ideal^ we may say 
 that, in the world known to us, man is the only being 
 able to originate the acts whereby he is raised from his 
 original to his ideal nature. The sum or system of 
 these acts is what we call education, and this is per- 
 haps the best"d^eBmtioh'of~that term, in its widest 
 sense, that can be given. When man employs these 
 acts to raise creatures other than himself, we call the 
 result culture, training, breeding, etc. 
 
 We often hear it said that the aim of education is to 
 develop the " nature " of the child, that his " nature " 
 must not be crossed, that whatever he is called upon to 
 do must be " natural," and so on. If the distinction 
 above made is correct, it is obvious that, in employing 
 f-uch i^hrases, we must keep it clearly before our minds, 
 unless we are to be champions of confusion. If we 
 mean that the purpose of education is to develop the 
 child's nature, in the first sense of that term, we mean 
 something that is altogether false and perverse. It is 
 only when we use " nature " in the second sense that 
 H such phrases express truth. The^aim~ of" education is 
 ^v ^^ develop m an's ideal nature, which may be, and very 
 '*_.- often is, so different from his original nature that, in 
 order to make way for the former, the latter may have 
 to be crossed, defied, and even to a large extent sup- 
 pressed. Tried by the standard of the original nature, 
 the ideal nature is frequently and largely unnatural. 
 When the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. ii, 14) says, "The 
 
NATURE AND EDUCATION. 3 
 
 natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of 
 God," he is only expressing this truth in the language 
 of religion ; and the whole doctrine of Original Sin is 
 founded upon the same. The fact is, nothing could 
 be more prejudicial to the best interests of education 
 than any attempt to evoke indiscriminately the tend- 
 encies of the child's original nature. Hence, all 
 the popular talk about developing the child's "spon- 
 taneity " is little more than sentimental cant, likely 
 enough to do incalculable mischief. 
 
 ^^ducation, then, in so far as it depends upon coAr^ 
 scious exertion, is "that processHBy" which, a humah^ 
 2^ being is enabled to transcend his original nature and 
 ^--^tain his ideal nature, or be the most desirable thing 
 that he canbe. Tliis e^nd attained js hi^^ood. '. If 
 this be true, the first question that presents itself to 
 the educator is: Wherein does man's ideal nature, or 
 g;ood3 consist ? and the second: How does this stand 
 related to his original nature ? The second presents . 
 ho difficulty when the first is answered ; but the first 
 is so far from easy that many and widely divergent 
 answers have been given to it. The Buddha, for ex- 
 ample, makes man's good consist in the complete sup- 
 pression of selfhood ; Plato, in the vision of eWnal 
 ideas, those everlasting and perfect models of which 
 the things of sense are but transient and imperfect 
 copies ; Aristotle, in the exercise of man's highest or 
 characteristic faculty, viz., his reason ; Zeno, in a life 
 according to nature — a life attainable ^nly through the 
 supremacy of reason, which alone cognizes the order 
 of nature ; Epicurus, in the enjoyment of calm, abid- 
 ing pleasure ; Jesus, in absolute submission to the will '^• 
 of God; Dante and the mediaeval saints, in the vision 
 
4 EDUCATION OF THE. GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 or enjoyment of God (Deo frui) ; Goethe, Comte, and 
 most modern humanitarians, in devotion to the well- 
 being, variously defined, of humanity ; many English, 
 French, and Italian thinkers of last century and this, 
 hi pleasure, variously conceived ; Kant, in a goodwill ; 
 Hegel, in conscious freedom ; Von Hartmann, in sub- 
 mission to suffering, for the sake of relieving God from 
 misery, and enabling him to reach unconsciousness 
 and annihilation ; and so on. Widely different as these 
 views seem to be, we shall find, on examining them, 
 that they have an important tenet in common. ^They 
 all hold that man's ideal nature can be realized only 
 in a^system of relations including himself and his 
 eiivironmentrTJfiafTs^TTnot^self." 
 the manner in which they conceive the self and the 
 not-self, their nature and possibilities. When, for 
 example, Epicurus tells men to look for their highest 
 condition in such a relation to their inner and outer 
 world as shall secure them abiding pleasure, and when 
 Jesus tells them to look for it in a relation of absolute 
 conformity to the will of God, the only difference in 
 the two counsels lies in the fact that the one conceives 
 the Avorld as essentially sensuous, the other as essen- 
 tially moral and divine. Both alike bid men look for 
 their highest condition in a harmonious relation to the 
 world or universe, as they respectively conceive it — the 
 one counseling selfish prudence, the highest possible 
 virtue in a sensuous world ; the other, morality and 
 self-devotion, which imply a divine world. 
 
 Inasmuch, then, as the divergent answers given to 
 the question, Wherein consists man's ideal na ture? 
 are due to different conceptions of the universe and 
 man's place in it, we shall not obtain any satisfactory 
 
NATURE AND EDUCATION. 5 
 
 answer to it until we, reack tlie true conception of the 
 nature of the universe — until, at least, we make up our 
 minds whether it,is, in its essence, material and sensu- 
 ous, or spiritual and moral. In trying to decide this 
 question, we shall appeal in vain to the conflicting 
 views of philosophers and would-be philosophers. 
 Eather must we turn to the common consciousness 
 of mankind, as revealed in its moral estimates and 
 practice. And here, if we listen without prejudice, 
 we shall meet with no uncertain answer. Whatever 
 thinkers of the Epicurean school may, say in favor of 
 their view, men, in proportion as they advance in 
 civilization, do more and more despise him who seeks 
 his chief good in pleasure, and more and more honor 
 him who, indifferent to pleasure, seeks and finds his 
 satisfaction in moral action. And the facts of h' ••;ian\ 
 life and history confirm this verdict of the commouy 
 consciousness. Individuals or nations devoted to 
 pleasure, as their supreme good, soon sink into degra- 
 dation or slavery, while those devoted to rational ends 
 prosper, and hold their own, often against fearful 
 odds. 
 
 Trusting to the double testimony of the common 
 consciousness and of history, we may rationally con- 
 clude that, in its deepest essence, the world is moral 
 and spiritual, and that the relations whose realization 
 constitutes man's "ideal nature," or good, are moral 
 relations. In saying, then, that education is the 
 process by which human beings are raised from their 
 )riginal nature to their ideal nature, we mean that it 
 s what raises them from a sensuous life, governed by 
 nstinct, to a moral life, govornfid hy rpflRpn , It is 
 iiow easy enough to'aiiswei" our second question, and 
 
6 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 to determine the relation in which man's ideal nature 
 stands to his original nature. It is a relation of master 
 to servant. It is the part of the ideal nature to com- 
 mand ; of the~original nature, to obey. This mnst not-^ 
 be understood to mean that the original nature is to 
 be regarded as base and sinful, and to be starved or 
 haughtily suppressed, as is often assumed by men of 
 the ascetic type. (On the contrary, since life in its 
 highest conceivable form is but passion guided by 
 reason, and reason has no other function than to 
 guide passion, the richness of the higher and com- 
 manding nature will be exactly proportioned to the 
 number, complexity, and robustness of the passions 
 that have to be regulated.? It is only the dispropor- 
 tionate robustness of particular passions that has to 
 "be rippressed. 
 
 In saying that man's ideal nature is his moral 
 nature, we have by no means made clear what is im- 
 plied by the latter term. And there are few terms 
 connected with education which stand more in need 
 of clear definition. It is not unusual to hear the 
 moral nature of man spoken of as if it were some- 
 thing independent of the rest of his being, something 
 that could be cultivated by itself, apart from his in- 
 telligence and his sensuous nature. Xor is it difficult 
 to see why this mistake has been made. People are 
 continually tempted to confound actions which con- 
 form to a recognized standard, or which contribute to 
 social well-being, with moral actions. Xow, it is cer- 
 tainly true that actions of the former kind are prefer- 
 able to lawless or anarchic actions, and also that their 
 performance may, to a large extent, be secured by a 
 one-sided training through habit, or even by appeal to 
 
NATURE AND EDUCATION. 7 
 
 a single passion — namely, fear. Not to speak of sav- 
 ages and barbarians, who, through sheer force of tribal 
 custom, habitually perform such actions, and are 
 therefore held, to a certain degree justly, to possess 
 many virtues, we see that even dogs, cats, and other 
 brute creatures can be trained by habit, or by pleasure 
 and pain, to perform them. But although in the case 
 of men such training forms an excellent preparation 
 for moral life, and may therefore fairly be considered 
 a part of education, it does not in itself insure such 
 life, since moral life can not be brought about by any 
 such process. Moral life is life consciously conducted 
 in conformity with the laws by which man can live as 
 a rational being, and increase the plenitude of that 
 being, and such life depends upon the cultivation of 
 all his powers, mental and bodily. 
 
 A very little consideration will convince us that this 
 is true : Man's spiritual faculties * naturally range 
 themselves in three classes — (1) rational, (2) emotional 
 or affectional, (3) volitional or active. His bodily pow- 
 ers, for our present purpose, may be regarded as all 
 belonging to one class, though they naturally enough 
 fall into two — the receptive and the motor. Each of 
 these faculties faces, so to speak, two ways — toward 
 the world of nature and toward the world of spirit. 
 Eeason, for example, obtains through the bodily senses 
 the data with which it, spontaneously constructs the 
 natural world ; through the spiritual sense,f those 
 
 * On the right to use this term, see Martineau, Types of 
 Ethical Theory, vol. ii, pp. 11 sqq. 
 
 f This from the days of Jerome onward was called by the 
 Church tliinkers synderesis {awriip'ricns) ; in the Middle Age, 
 sometimes the apex of tlie mind {apex mentis). See an excellent 
 
EDUCATION OF TIJE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 through which it voluntarily constructs the spiritual 
 world.* And what reason constructs, love aspires to, 
 and will seeks to realize in concrete form. There is a 
 natural love and there is a spiritual love,t a natural 
 will and a spiritual will,| Between these two worlds — 
 that of nature and that of spirit — man's lot is cast. 
 They furnish the conditions under which he is called 
 upon to live, and his life consists in a more or less per- 
 fect adaptation to them. Much is said at the present 
 day of the " survival of the fittest." ' The fittest are 
 those who stand in the most complete relation to the 
 two worlds. '. Now, it is clear enough that a man can 
 not live in accordance with the conditions of rational 
 life without knowing them, and that he can not know 
 them unless his intelligence is cultivated. As civiliza- 
 tion advances, these conditions become more and more 
 complicated, and therefore demand for their compre- 
 hension an ever-increasing cultivation of the intelli- 
 gence. The cultivation that sufficed to enable a man 
 to live rationally in the time of Homer, or Plato, or 
 Caesar, or Alfred, or even of Washington, is altogether 
 insufficient for the man of the present day, and there 
 can be no greater or more fatal mistake in education 
 than to ignore this fact.^^very age demands an edu- 
 cation of the intelligence suited to its own conditions/' 
 
 essay on the Culture of the Spiritual Sense, in Brother Azarias's 
 Phases of Thought and Criticism, pp. 72-88. 
 
 * In making this distinction between the natural and spir- 
 itual worlds, I am not championing any form of ultimate dual- 
 ism. Indeed, the whole question of dualism and monism seems 
 to me little less than stupid, a mere contest about words. 
 
 f See Dante, Purg., xvii, 91 sqq. 
 
 i Ibid., xxi, CI sqq. 
 
NATURE AND EDUCATION. - , 
 
 ' X 9 
 But it is not enough for a man to understand thdx^ 
 
 ditions of rational life in his own time ; he must li 
 wise love these conditions, and hate whatever leads to 
 life of an opposite kind. This is only another way of 
 saying that he must love the good and hate the evil ; 
 for the good is simply what conduces to rational or 
 moral life, and the evil merely what leads away from 
 it. But he can not do this unless his affectional nature 
 is carefully trained, so that he loves each person and 
 thiug with whom or which he has to deal in pro- 
 portion to his or its value for moral ends. It is per- 
 fectly obvious, as soon as it is pointed out, that all im- 
 moral life is due to a false distribution of affection, 
 which again is often, though by no means always, due 
 to a want of intellectual cultivation. He that attrib- 
 utes to anything a value greater or less than it really 
 possesses in the order of things has already placed him- 
 self in a false relation to it, and will certainly, when he 
 comes to act with reference to it, act immorally. But, 
 again, it is not enough for a man to understand cor- 
 rectly and love duly tlie conditions of moral life in his 
 own time ; he must, still further, be willing and able 
 to fulfill these conditions. And he certainly can not 
 do this unless his will is trained to perfect freedom, so 
 that it responds, with the utmost readiness, to the sug- 
 gestions of his discriminating intelligence and the 
 movements of his chastened affections. But even this 
 is not enough ; or rather, perhaps, we ought to say that 
 not one of these spiritual conditions can be realized 
 unless the powers of the body are in full health and 
 strength. When the blood is sluggish, the nerves 
 weak, or the digestion impaired, then the intellect is 
 clouded, the affections are morbid, the will is enfec- 
 
LOCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. " 
 
 \0 
 
 .led. " The whole head is sick and the whole heart 
 faint." 
 
 Moral life, therefore — man's ideal nature — de- 
 mands for its realization the education of all his pow- 
 ers, bodily and mental. Having established this gen- 
 eral but important conclusion, we must next descend 
 to particulars and inquire what^^ortjof ^eduGation each 
 of the faculties must receive, in order that it may con-' 
 tribute its due share to the desired result ; in a word, 
 ; how the body, the intellect, the affections, and the will 
 I must be trained. Now, inasmuch as they must obvi- 
 ously be trained with due regard to their natural hier- 
 archy and order of development, we must begin our 
 inquiry by asking. What is the natural hierarchy of the 
 human powers ? In what order do they naturally de- 
 velop ? And these questions are so far from being easy 
 to answer that widely different replies, both theoretical 
 and practical, have been given to them at different 
 periods and by different educators. Some have thought 
 that education ought to begin with the body ; others, 
 with the intellect, or at least some faculty of it; 
 others, with the will ; and others, with the affections ; 
 and not a few have thought that certain faculties 
 might without danger be neglected altogether, or left 
 to take care of themselves. In a large part of mediae- 
 val Europe, and even till recently among ourselves, 
 bodily education was neglected or even contemned, 
 while at the present day the affections and the will 
 are almost everywhere suffering from a similar neglect. 
 In trying to reach a correct conclusion in this mat- 
 ter, we must beware of assuming that the natural hi- 
 erarchy of the powers necessarily coincides with their 
 order of development. This is, indeed, a matter for 
 
NATURE AND EDUCATION. H 
 
 careful consideration, in which the first step is to dis- 
 cover the order in which the powers naturally develop. 
 And this is easy enough ; for it is obvious that the 
 bodily powers or functions — digestion, secretion, etc. — 
 develop first ; then that portion of the intellectual fac- 
 ulties which accomplishes sense perception, and simul- 
 taneously with these the natural instincts or prefer- 
 ences ; and lastly, if ever, the reflective faculties of the 
 intellect and their correlate, the will.* It is clear, 
 also, that this order of development coincides with the 
 natural hierarchy of the human powers. Ee verting 
 now to our previous distinction between the original 
 and the ideal nature of man, we can readily see that 
 education, in aiming to realize the latter, seeks to do 
 so by substituting for the natural order of development 
 an order which may fairly enough be called supernatu- 
 ral, if by that we mean belonging to a higher order in 
 nature ; for, indeed, the whole aim of education is to 
 develop intellectual reflection and will from the earliest 
 possible moment in life, and to apply them from the 
 very first to the regulation of the lower faculties. In 
 saying this, we are, of course, only saying, in other 
 words, that the aim of education is to make men intel- 
 ligent and moral beings, instead of beings living by 
 sense and instinct, or wilfulness. 
 
 What has just been said enables us to deal intelli- 
 gently with the often-repeated pedagogical maxim, 
 that education must seek to unfold the powers of the 
 .child in accordance with their natural order of develop- 
 
 * We must not, of course, confound will with wilfulness. 
 The latter is the very opposite of will, being mere unregulated 
 instinct. 
 
12 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 ment. Before we can accept such a maxim we must 
 understand in what sense the word " natural " is used, 
 whether it refers to man's original, or to hi? ideal, 
 nature. Indeed, we can accept it only if it is used 
 with reference to the latter. It is not true that edu- 
 cation should seek to call forth the powers of the child 
 according to their order of development in his original 
 nature ; that is, to evoke sense perception and instinct 
 before reflection and will. On the contrary, it should 
 seek to introduce reflection into every act of percep- 
 tion, and will into every movement of instinct, from 
 the earliest possible moment. It is to a neglect of this 
 important distinction that are due the stress which has 
 of recent years been laid upon mere object-teaching 
 as a means of " educating the senses," and the well- 
 meant, but fatal, attempts of kindly parents to educate 
 their children by leaving them to the guidance of their 
 own " spontaneity." 
 
 In any order of development of the human powers, 
 those of the body, in so far as they are purely in- 
 stinctive, must obviously precede all others. Sensa- 
 tion, movement, nutrition are the very conditions of 
 life, the vital foundation upon which all higher life is 
 built up. So long as they exist alone (and they do so 
 exist for some time), the human creature is incapable 
 of conscious education, though by no means insensible 
 to such treatment as may make this education easier, 
 when higher faculties come into play. It is only when 
 the powers of sense perception begin to be roused that 
 conscious education can be undertaken, because it is 
 only then that there is any intelligent consciousness to 
 work upon. It is one of the great triumphs of modern 
 psychology to have shown that what is termed sense 
 
NATURE AND EDUCATION. 13 
 
 perception is not a series of impressions made by ex- 
 ternal things upon a blank, passive tablet, but that, in 
 so.iaru.'as it is perception, and not merely sense, it is 
 the work of the ordering or creating understanding. 
 It follows directly from this that, to a very large extent, 
 every human being creates his own world; and since 
 his moral life greatly depends upon the world he cre- 
 ates and has to live in, it plainly becomes the chief 
 function of education to aid him in creating such a 
 world as may enable him to live a life of the- noblest 
 kind. , If it be asked how education can exert an influ- 
 ence upon the creation of individual worlds, the answer 
 is that, since every man's world is composed of those 
 elements to which his attention is chiefly directed, and 
 by those processes which are most habitual, and there- 
 fore most easy, to him, education may greatly influence 
 the creative process for good by directing the child's 
 attention from the first to the nobler impressions, and 
 habituating him to those processes of mind which are 
 best calculated to arrange these into an orderly, or per- 
 haps we may say at once a rational, world. If the 
 " original nature " of the child be permitted, without 
 regulation or control, to create his world for him, the 
 result will, in the main, be a world of strong impres- 
 sions, arranged by the caprice of instinctive passion, 
 counterbalanced only, in the best cases, by the dull 
 routine of tribal customs. Such, indeed, we find to be 
 the worlds of the members of those savage tribes in 
 which " original nature " is allowed to have free play. 
 To obviate the creation of such worlds, it is essential 
 that the higher faculties of the child — his intelligence 
 and his will — be artificially called into play from the 
 earliest possible moment, and made to control his 
 
14 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 original nature, for the sake of his ideal nature. \ 
 This is just what education means. The ideal order \ 
 of development, therefore, among the human faculties / 
 differs from the original one in this : that whereas, in .' 
 the latter the faculties of perception and instinct are 
 developed before those of intellect and will, in the 
 former they are all developed simultaneously, and in 
 such a way that the higher control the lower. .^ 
 
 ;^It will, of course, be said, and justly, that the 
 process of evoking the intellect and will of the child 
 in such a way that they shall control his impressions 
 and instincts is a very slow and, in many cases, a very 
 difficult one; but it by no^means follows that, until 
 such time as the process is complete, his impressions 
 and instincts are to be left to take care of themselves. 
 It is just here that the intellect and will of parents 
 come in as substitutes and fulfill their most important 
 function ; for, indeed, there is no time at which the 
 influence of parents is so effectual and decisive as when 
 it is enabling the child, whose intelligence and will 
 are yet eij^bryonic, to lay a worthy foundation for his 
 future world, by directing his attention to the things 
 that are fair and good, and training his intellect to 
 note the relations of these things. And this is just 
 what the Kindergarten, when properly conducted, 
 undertakes to do. 
 
 We are now, I trust, in a position to sketch, in its 
 broad outlines, the process by which the human being 
 is lifted out of his original nature and advanced to his 
 ideal nature — that is, to trace the course of a true 
 education. 
 
 When the human creature comes into the world, 
 and for some time after, it is hardly more than an 
 
NATURE AND EDUCATION. 15 
 
 animal, with animal needs ; and as such it has to be 
 treated. Indeed, it is the most helpless of all young 
 animals, and requires the greatest amount of atten- 
 tion. This attention, the first step in education, 
 should be directed to promoting its bodily health and 
 warding off such influences as would interfere with its 
 normal growth. Warmth, sleep, and good digestion are 
 the three principal things of which it stands in need 
 at this period, and it needs them all the more, if it has 
 come into the world weighted, as so many children are, 
 with hereditary weakness. After a few months it be- 
 gins to show signs of intelligence. It is now proceeding 
 to build up its own world "by means of selective atten- 
 tion, and this attention may be artificially directed and 
 prolonged, so that a rational world shall result. At this 
 stage the aims of the educator ought to be (1) to direct 
 the child's attention to things on which it is well that 
 attention should rest, and which yield impressions fitted 
 to give a healthy fundamental tone and temper to the 
 whole character, and (2) to sustain that attention as 
 long as possible. Thus the child's earliest impressions 
 — those round which all succeeding ones cluster, and by 
 which they are necessarily colored — will be such as shall 
 not require subsequent removal or correction, and his 
 will will receive a most valuable exercise, the only one 
 of which at that stage it is capable. It ought, indeed, 
 never be forgotten that most of the difficulties with 
 which education in its later stages has to contend are 
 due to two causes : (1) the presence in the child's mind 
 of undesirable and chaotic impressions, which have to 
 be removed and corrected before an orderly world can 
 be built up in it ; (2) the absence of the power of con- 
 tinued attention, or, which is the same thing, the ab- 
 3 
 
16 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 sence of power of will. The original nature of the 
 child, in its pure fickleness and caprice, demands a 
 continual change of impressions, and the best way to 
 replace this caprice by will is to cultivate prolonged 
 attention to single impressions or groups of impres- 
 sions. Nor must the teacher ever forget, what is an 
 axiom in all education, that such attention is best 
 secured by action. The objects, therefore, to which 
 the child's attention is directed should be such as he 
 can do something about, not such as he can merely 
 look at or listen to. Moreover, in doing something 
 about things, he is at once exercising his active facul- 
 ties and finding opportunities for moral choice. The 
 utmost care, therefore, ought to be taken in selecting 
 playthings and games for him. These ought not to 
 be numerous. Two playthings are better than twenty ; 
 and one game with a purpose is better than fifty with- 
 out. It is not too much to say that prolonged atten- 
 tion, accompanied with action, being the first exercise 
 of will on the part of the child, is the prime condition 
 of all intellectual and moral progress. 
 
 In selecting objects upon which to direct the young 
 child's wakening attention, the wise parent or teacher 
 will bear in mind that the intellect has two closely 
 allied functions — (1) to recognize distinctions and rela- 
 tions of fact, (2) to recognize distinctions and relations 
 of worth. Bearing in mind, further, that the latter, 
 being essentially the moral faculty, is the more impor- 
 tant of the two, he will give preference to such objects 
 and occupations as are calculated to fix the child's at- 
 tention not only upon relations of fact, but also, and 
 still more, upon relations of worth. In a word, he will 
 aim at evoking the child's affections, which are his 
 
NATURE AND EDUCATION. 17 
 
 worth-giving faculties, in a manner proportioned to 
 the moral distinctions between things, and he will do 
 this as the best means of directing his attention to dis- 
 tinctions of fact. By thus enlisting the affections of 
 the child in the interest of education, he at once ob- 
 tains two important advantages : (1) he comes into pos- 
 session of the key to his will, and so renders him, in the 
 main, his own instructor and guide ; and (2) he makes 
 his entire life rest on a moral foundation. Notwith- 
 standing the extreme importance of this method, it has 
 in the past received but little attention, and even at 
 the present day it is astonishing to see how little care 
 is taken by parents and teachers to moralize, from the 
 first, the child's affections, and to make them the prime 
 agents in education. 
 
 In his Education of Cyrus ^ Xenophon tells us that, 
 whereas Greek boys went to school to learn letters, 
 Persian boys went to learn justice. Xenophon, indeed, 
 is merely romancing in this case ; but he does suggest, 
 nevertheless, an important pedagogical truth(viz., that 
 during the early years of a child's life — say from the end 
 of his second to that of his seventh year — the chief aim 
 of education ought to be to call out and guide his af- 
 fections in accordance with the true worth of things, 
 and to make him recognize in his actions the distinc- 
 tions thus established ; and this will have to be done 
 mainly by precept, persuasion, and example, not by 
 any appeal to reason. While this process is going on, 
 attention will have to be directed to physical culture, 
 with a view to health, grace, and ease of movement. 
 Sluggishness and restlessness will alike be avoided, 
 and no attempt will be made to cultivate the athletic 
 habit. 
 
18 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 In the period following the completion of the 
 child's seventh year (the epoch will differ somewhat 
 for different children), education will take a new direc- 
 tion. Instruction will take the place of training. The 
 educator will now endeavor to acquaint the child with 
 the rational grounds for those distinctions and corre- 
 sponding actions with which his previous training has 
 made him familiar, and to prepare the way for action 
 of a wider scope based upon rational knowledge. But 
 the rational grounds for moral distinctions are neither 
 more nor less than the relations, or, w^hich is the same 
 thing, the laws of the universe. It is therefore into 
 these that the child must now.be gradually initiated. 
 Now, the laws of the universe ale divided into physical 
 and metaphysical (or spiritual), and this involves a 
 similar division of studies. *^ 
 
 But before any study whatsoever can be success- 
 fully carried forward, the child must be taught to use 
 the instruments of study, which may be said to be 
 three : (1) language, (2) number, and (3) manual fa- 
 cility. Of course, he will already, especially if he has 
 attended a Kindergarten, be, to some extent, familiar 
 with all these. He will be able to talk, to perform the 
 simple arithmetical processes, and perhaps to mold 
 clay, braid straw, and do similar things. Now he must 
 learn to read and write, to.perform the more difficult 
 arithmetical operations, to draw, and to practice one or 
 more of the material arts.* It is due to a stupid preju- 
 
 * In distincruishino^ the arts into material and spiritual, in- 
 stead of into " useful " and '• libera] " or " fine," I know that I am 
 departing from long-established usage ; but surely it is high time 
 that we were setting aside terms implying a view of life which it 
 is the aim of our civilization and our education to render obso- 
 
NATURE AND EDUCATION. 19 
 
 dice, inherited from antiquity, against these arts that 
 their great educational value has not been seen. This 
 value is threefold : they impart (1) mechanical skill; 
 (2) a habit of carefulness and though tfulness, closely 
 akin to conscientiousness; and (3) a knowledge of 
 the forms of things and a sense of the adaptation of 
 means to ends, such as could hardly be obtained in 
 any other way. It is needless to say that drawing and 
 manual training, if properly taught, will form an ex- 
 cellent introduction to the study of art and nature. 
 
 As soon as young people have attained a mastery 
 of these instruments of study, they will apply them to 
 the world without and within them, to obtain a knowl- 
 edge of its laws, physical and metaphysical. In order 
 to learn the laws of their physical constitution, they 
 will direct their attention to the natural sciences, in 
 the order of their complexity, beginning with those 
 which deal with mere mechanical forces, and gradually 
 advancing toward those which include instinct and 
 life ; in order to learn those of their spiritual being, 
 they will study grammar, logic,* aesthetics, ethics, and 
 religion. From the physical sciences they will learn 
 
 lete, as casting an unmerited and unbrothering slur upon the 
 useful and those engaged in the production of it, and as sug- 
 gesting that the useful is illiberal and coarse, and the liberal 
 and fine useless. All art is useful, all art is liberal, all art is 
 fine, else it has no business to be at all. 
 
 * The characteristic and fatal neglect of logic in modern 
 school education can hardly be excused on the ground of its 
 difficulty. In reality it is not more difficult than grammar, 
 along with which and with rhetoric it formed the Trivium of 
 the Middle Ages. Even Luther recommends that "as soon as 
 boys are sufficiently grounded in grammar, the hour previously 
 devoted to it shall be used for logic and rhetoric." 
 
20 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 the laws of sensation — that is, of those impulses which 
 rouse the action of reflective thought, and constitute, 
 so to speak, its material ; from grammar, the nature 
 and use of the means whereby thought expresses itself 
 in speech ; from logic, the laws of thought itself ; from 
 aesthetics, the laws determining the relative worth of 
 things or beings for emotion ; from ethics, the laws 
 governing the active relations of finite beings; and 
 from religion, the laws governing the whole of the 
 relations of finite rational beings to the Infinite 
 Being. 
 
 After what has been already said, it will hardly be 
 necessary to insist that every branch of study ought to 
 be at once a science and an art, calling into play not 
 only the passive and receptive faculties, but also the 
 active and creative ones. Even in study it is more 
 blessed to give than to receive. " Mere knowledge," 
 in which action and creation bear no part, has always 
 been justly despised. It may, however, be necessary 
 to say a few words regarding the content of some of 
 the above-named branches of study, especially of the 
 spiritual ones. Under grammar I mean to include all 
 linguistic study — in a word, what is often abusively 
 termed philology ; under logic, not only formal logic, 
 so called, and dialectic, but also ideology, inductive 
 logic, and the methodology of the sciences; under 
 aesthetics, the theory and, to some extent, the practice 
 of the spiritual arts — literary, musical, graphic, and 
 plastic; under ethics, not only morals, politics, and 
 economics, but also pedagogics, social science, and the 
 history of civilization, or, as it might fairly be called, 
 of the ethical world ; and lastly, under religion, the 
 laws of the spiritual sense and of the world of which 
 
NATURE AND EDUCATION. 21 
 
 it supplies the material. The theoretical side of re- 
 ligion is theology ; the practical, the divine life. 
 
 It will be observed that in the above enumeration 
 one science, which at the present day receives much 
 attention, has been omitted — viz., psychology. I have 
 done this because, in my opinion, psychology is not a 
 single science, but a mere name for a group of sciences, 
 all of which are included in the above list — zoology, 
 biology, physiology, ideology, logic, ethics, etc. 
 
 The cycle of studies, thus completed and closed by 
 theology, constitutes an ordered whole, corresponding 
 to the ordered whole of the universe, as far as it is 
 known at any given moment, and is calculated to make 
 him who pursues it a complete human being, harmoni- 
 ous inwardly and outwardly, being related by all his 
 powers, physical and spiritual, to the universe in 
 which he lives and moves and has his being. In a 
 word, it marks the stages in the process by which 
 man ascends from his original to his ideal nature. In 
 saying this, however, we must not fail to realize that 
 the cycle of the sciences is never, in reality, completed 
 or closed, that everywhere there are large gaps in it. 
 The widest and most regrettable of these is the gap 
 between the spiritual and the natural sciences. Here 
 so great a gulf is fixed that, however firmly we may 
 believe that the facts of spirit come under the laws of 
 nature, or those of nature under those of spirit, we are 
 utterly unable to see how this is possible. 
 
 In the above rapid sketch of the educative process, 
 little has been said about physical training ; nothing 
 about the distinction between education and erudition ; 
 and no attempt has been made to map out an accurate 
 plan of study having regard to the age of pupils and 
 
 A 
 
EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 the grade of institutions. We must now briefly con- 
 sider these points. 
 
 With regard to physical training, the fundamental 
 principle to be laid down is, that its aim is not to pro- 
 duce athletes, mountebanks, or exquisites, but to ren- 
 der the body the ready, obedient, supple, and effective 
 minister of the soul, at the same time imparting to it 
 such dignity and grace as shall make the presence of 
 its owner at once impressive and agreeable. With a 
 view to this end, four things — food, sleep, warmth, and 
 exercise — require to be regulated in accordance with 
 the different grades of physical development. But a 
 good physical trainer will take into account, not only 
 the age of his pupils, but also their temperaments, 
 characters, and the entire round of their daily activity, 
 and will so harmonize physical training with intel- 
 lectual labor that the two shall aid, instead of impend- 
 ing, each other. At all periods of life he will insist 
 upon a robust cleanliness, having no affinity with that 
 feverish fastidiousness which often forgets the claims 
 of humanity in those of neatness. Seeing that phys- 
 ical training is apt to develop a spirit of emulation, 
 which not unfrequently degenerates into vanity, arro- 
 gance, and bullying, he will use every effort to suppress 
 this spirit and to make his pupils feel that their train- 
 ing is meant to enable them, not to triumph by bodily 
 strength over their fellows, but to raise their fellows 
 to all that is great and worthy. He will therefore 
 continually remind them and — himself ! that the train- 
 ing of nerves and of temper, which depends upon 
 nerves, is far more important than the development 
 of muscle. In barbarous days, before brutality and 
 violence were checked by law, muscle was a possession 
 
NATURE AND EDUCATION. 2 
 
 of prime importance ; at present, it can be little more 
 than a minister to vanity, that vice which has survived 
 most other manifestations of barbarism. 
 
 Between education and erudition a clear line needs 
 to be drawn. Education, as we have seei/is the process 
 by which a human being is lifted out of his original 
 into his ideal nature, and is something which every 
 human being ought to claim and strive after, f Erudi- 
 tion, on the other hand, is that special learning-which 
 renders its possessor an authority, and enables him to 
 become an original investigator, in any special depart- 
 ment of science. )It is a specialty and generally a 
 preparation for a particular profession. A man of 
 education at the present day requires, for example, 
 to know French and German sufficiently well to be 
 able to read with ease books WTitten in them ; but he 
 need not know the entire history and philology of 
 these languages, as Littr6 knew French, and the 
 Grimms German. So every educated man must know 
 history and biology; but he is not bound to be a 
 Mommsen or a Darwin. ' It is the failure to draw this 
 necessary distinction between education and erudition 
 that is misleading our universities into the error of 
 allowing students to "elect" specialties before they 
 have completed the cycle of education, the result of 
 which is that we have few men of thorough education 
 or of broad and comprehensive views. If this evil is 
 ever to be remedied, our universities will be obliged 
 either to abandon this practice, or else to give up all 
 attempt to impart education, and devote themselves 
 solely to erudition, leaving the other to academies, 
 gymnasia, or the like. 
 
 And this leads us to consider the order in which 
 
24 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 the various studies constituting a complete education 
 ought to be pursued. We can touch the subject only 
 lightly, and shall, for convenience' sake, divide the 
 time of education by years and institutions, thus : 
 
 First period, seven years, family and Kindergarten. I 
 Second " three " primary school. ' J- 
 
 Third " four " grammar school. 
 
 Fourth " four " high school, academy, or gymnasium, jij 
 Fifth " four " university, with fixed curriculum. ^'^ 
 
 1. The first period will be devoted mainly to the 
 development of the physical and moral faculties of the 
 child and of its power of fixed attention. Its physical 
 faculties will be fostered by much sleep, simple food 
 suited to its years, and gentle activity taking the form 
 of play ; its moral faculties, by the direction of its af- 
 fections upon worthy things and by habituation to 
 right actions ; and its power of attention, by stories 
 and actions that terminate in a way that can not fail 
 to interest. Xothing so much interests a child as a 
 result obtained by a process, especially a process gone 
 through by itself. The education of this p'eriod will 
 be conducted almost entirely by the reason of the 
 parent or teacher, not by that of the child, whose chief 
 virtues will now be reverence and obedience. These 
 are the foundations of all the virtues. 
 
 2. The second period wdll be occupied chiefly with 
 learning the use of the instruments of study — reading, 
 writing, drawing, arithmetic, and manual facility. If 
 entire carefulness, thoroughness, and conscientiousness 
 be insisted on in the acquisition of these, hardly any . 
 other special training will be required to keep the 
 moral faculties in a healthy condition. A child who 
 does honest work, and sees the result of it, can hardly. 
 
NATURE AND EDUCATION. f J 
 
 fail at once to obtain an oracle of approval from his 
 own conscience, and to see the rationality of well- 
 doing. In this way he gradually comes to be his own 
 moral director, and so to be a free being. 
 
 3. The task of the third period will be to make the 
 growing boy and girl familiar with their own mental 
 processes — intellectual, aesthetic, and moral — and to 
 give them general notions of the world in which they 
 live. Grammar, logic, the first principles of aesthetics 
 and ethics ; astronomy (involving geometry and mechan- 
 ics), physical and political geography, and the outlines 
 of history, enlivened by biographies of great men, will 
 form the chief subjects of study. In connection with 
 the first four subjects a good deal of reading in prose 
 and poetry will be done, and many literary gems com- 
 mitted to memory. The years from ten to fourteen 
 being those in which the memory is most retentive, 
 the opportunity ought to be seized for storing it with 
 the best and best-expressed thought of all the ages. 
 It is not necessary that the whole of it should be at 
 once; understood ; lodged in the memory, it may safely 
 be left to germinate and grow, as the experience of 
 life gives it meaning, by furnishing concrete illustra- 
 tions of it. Now also is the time for committing to 
 memory the paradigms of those languages an acquaint- 
 ance with which forms an essential means to a com- 
 plete education — Greek, Latin, German, etc. Physical 
 training will now take the form of regular gymnastics 
 {Tur7ien), supplemented by swimming, riding, vigor- 
 ous games, dancing, and some such manual labor as 
 wood- chopping, carpentering, gardening, etc. This 
 may seem a large programme for such tender years ; 
 ^nf pxperience will show that it may be successfully 
 
2^ 
 
 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 carried out, if every waking hour is filled, as it ought 
 to be, with aimful, rational work. Nothing is more 
 fatal at this age than aimless action and listless loung- 
 ing. They are the parents of mischief and wayward- 
 ness. 
 
 4. The fourth or high-school period is, for many 
 reasons, the most difficult to deal with. It is the pe- 
 riod in which the transition is made from boyhood and 
 girlhood to manhood and womanhood, when new feel- 
 ings and interests are awakened and come with a kind 
 of surprise, when both youth and maiden find them- 
 selves in a new world, for which their previous train- 
 ing and habits have hardly prepared them, and in 
 which, therefore, they are most liable to go astray, 
 unless proper precaution be taken. The leading char- 
 acteristic of all the studies of this period should be 
 vigor, calling for a strong exercise of will, and a good 
 deal of energetic emotion. Geology, chemistry, botany, 
 and zoology, involving considerable outdoor life, are 
 now in order ; so is history — political, social, and eco- 
 nomic — with its heart-stirring heroisms and pathos 
 and its noble examples of manliness and womanliness, 
 of tenderness and generosity. Now is the time to read 
 the great epics, dramas, and orations of the world, and 
 to commit the best parts of them to memory ; now the 
 time to form an acquaintance with the great works of 
 sculpture and painting ; now the time to give the im- 
 agination free scope by reading and rereading the 
 works of Sir Walter Scott ; now the time for such 
 physical exercises and games as demand courage, 
 endurance, and patience, and at the same time give 
 ample opportunity for exercising the sense of jus- 
 tice. 
 
NATURE AND EDUCATION. 27 
 
 5. The chief aim of the studies of the fifth period 
 will be to round off into an harmonious and consistent 
 view of the world all that has gone before, and so pre- 
 pare the young man and woman to enter upon life as 
 upon a rational task, to be undertaken for rational 
 ends. The leading characteristic of the occupations 
 of this period will be comprehensiveness, calling for 
 quiet, steady reflection and calm, dignified action. 
 Biology, the higher problems of ethics, sociology and 
 politics, theology and the history of religion, psychol- 
 ogy, epistemology, and the various systems of specu- 
 lative philosophy will now be studied. The chief 
 works on evolution, the sacred books of the great re- 
 ligions, the masterpieces of Plato, Aristotle, the great 
 Schoolmen, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Leib- 
 nitz, Reid, Kant, Hegel, and Rosmini ; the writings of 
 the great poet philosophers — the Oresteia^ the De Re- 
 ru7u Natiira^ the Divine Comedy^ Faust, In Memoriam 
 — will be read and carefully discussed. Now will be 
 cultivated the power of orderly, forcible, and perspicu- 
 ous writing and speaking, and that modesty com- 
 bined with confidence which makes both effective. 
 Physical exercise will now consist mainly of walking, 
 riding, swimming, rowing, and light gymnastics. Vio- 
 lent exercise will gradually be discarded, and quiet 
 endurance, more than spasmodic strength, be culti- 
 vated. In the sphere of morals and religion every 
 means will be used to make the young man and young 
 woman feel, see, and by action prove, that the world 
 is God's home, mankind His family, and He the in- 
 bjiite, loving Father. Thus will arise that persistent 
 cltitude of love and worship which alone confers con- 
 secration and blessedness on life, which alone gives 
 
 \ 
 
28 EDUCATION OF TBE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 man the right to say that he is educated, that he has 
 conquered his original nature, and risen to his ideal 
 nature. A divine world will now have been created 
 in the individual soul, and therein life will be truly 
 aimf ul and blessed, because it is the life of God. 
 
31 
 
 'ij^-*^ 09 THE ^ 
 'UKIVBII2IT7; 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 GEEEK LIFE AN'D ITS IDEALS. 
 
 The outline of a program of education given in the 
 last chapter was meant to furnish us with a standard 
 whereby to estimate the educational system of the 
 Greeks. Therein we sought to show that the aim ^pl. 
 education is to lift the human being out of his "origi- 
 nal nature" into his " ideal nature," which consists... pf 
 intelli^nce, affection, and will, haxmoniaaaly working 
 together for their own pericction ; and we concliuled 
 that the best education is that which best accomplishes 
 this object. 
 
 Before proceeding further, we may do well to dwell 
 for a moment longer on this fundamental point. Man, 
 as a rational being, is his own end. The aim of his 
 life is the realization or manifestation of himself, and 
 to this aim all things, all art, all science, nay, the world 
 itself, are subservient. This self-manifestation forms 
 a triunity of intelligence, Section, will ; and it is on 
 the scale of this triunity that all human worth, wliether 
 in "individuals, nations, or epochs, is measured. Ilf we 
 teisli' to know where an individual stands in the scale 
 hy worth (aperrj), we have only to find out how much in- 
 ccJlligence, how much love,s sympathy, or affection, how 
 stluch will he possesses, and how harmofiie^usly these 
 
 A 
 
28 ^^^^Jation of the greek people. 
 
 ™^^ Ilended^ And the same thing is true of nations 
 %nd epochs. . God himself can mean to us nothing 
 more, and nothing less, than the complete and~Bar- 
 monious realization of intelligence, love, and will ; for 
 these are the constituent elements of true being, of 
 which He is the plenitude. 
 
 These considerations suggest a curious and some- 
 what paradoxical result, viz., that a man's sola.^nd 
 only possible duty in this world is to realize himself ; 
 in other words, to manifest in himself the divine im- 
 age, the plenitude of being. At the first glance, this 
 seems to mean that a man's sole concern is with him- 
 self and his own " culture," and that he can well afford 
 to neglect the rest of the world, or to use it merely as 
 means. But a moment's reflection will show that the 
 truth is far otherwise. For how can a man manifest 
 intelligence except by knowing the world, man,~and 
 God ; or love, except by loving these ; or will, except 
 by serving these? It follows that the individual can 
 realize himself only by knowing, loving, and serving 
 the world, man, and God. Moreover, since the end of 
 life is the realization of the divine plenitude, it.is~this 
 that sets the standard of duty, this that furnishes its 
 sanction.' in a word, all duty is primarily and directly 
 duty to God. Man's duty to man is but secondary and 
 indirect. It is this fact that imparts to duty its dig- 
 nity, lifting it out of the spasmodic currents of senti- 
 ment and the beggarly arithmetic of prudence, and 
 making it the expression of the divine wii>.which 
 neither hastes nor rests. 
 
 The fact that man can attain his end only throi\ 
 knowing, loving, and serving God and his fellJ 
 forms the reason why he creates institutions — wh'^j ' 
 
GREEK LIFE AND ITS IDEALS. 31 
 
 is, as Aristotle said, "a political animal." Institu- 
 tions are means whereby men are enabled to know, 
 love, and serve God and their fellows better, and are 
 valuable just in proportion as they accomplish this. 
 Here, then, we have a standard for measuring the 
 worth of institutions. 
 
 With these standards for moral worth, for duty, 
 and for institutions in our minds, we may perhaps ap- 
 proach Greek education with some hope of forming a 
 true estimate of it. But, before we can do this, we 
 must be able to form a clear conception of what that 
 education was, in what condition it found its subjects, 
 and what it undertook to do for them. This will com- 
 pel us to consider Greek Life and its Ideals, which, ac- 
 cordingly, will form the subject of this chapter. 
 
 During the period in which the Greeks had any- 
 thing that could fairly be called an educational sys- 
 tem, as distinguished from the training afforded by 
 experience, their life centered in, and revolved round, 
 a single institution, which, for want of a better term, 
 we may call the city-state (iroAts). This, the highest 
 political achievement of Greek genius, was the crown 
 of a long process, the various epochs in which were 
 marked by institutions of lower grade. These the 
 city-state absorbed, modified, and subordinated, so that 
 they became its organs. In order, then, to understand 
 Greek life and its ideals, we must consider this insti- 
 tution and these organs. 
 
 Aristotle, in the opening chapter of his Politics^ 
 tells us that the steps in political evolution are marked 
 by (1) the household (oTkos, otKta, yeVos), (2) the village 
 community or township (Kw/xry, 3^/xos), and (3) the city- 
 state (ttoAis) ; and he goes on to say that the first aims 
 4 
 
32 EDUCATION OP THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 at securing the natural and daily necessities of life ; 
 the second, at providing for the more permanent ma- 
 terial goods ; the third, at making possible independ- 
 ence or freedom and a virtuous life, wherein true man- 
 hood consists. In making this classification, Aristotle 
 is taking into account the constitution of society as he 
 finds it about him, rather than the growth of institu- 
 tions as historic inquiry reveals it. Indeed, a knowl- 
 edge of the latter was beyond his reach. He accord- 
 ingly fails to distinguish between the institutions 
 whose ^succession paves the way for the city-state and 
 the later modifications of these that arise through the 
 reaction of the same. 
 
 Historical research shows us that the earliest of 
 human associations is, indeed, the household — not, 
 however, the household as we understand it, but the 
 patriarchal family, consisting of persons related, or 
 supposed to be related, to each other by blood, and 
 governed by its oldest member. On the other hand, 
 it shows us that this is not something prior to and 
 different from the village community, but something 
 identical with it, at least among peoples who have 
 passed from the nomadic, to the settled, mode of life. 
 Now, one most important fact about the patriarchal 
 family is, that it is, above all, a religious community, 
 held together by; religious ties. In saying that it is 
 held together by blood-ties, and again by religious ties, 
 we are not making inconsistent or contradictory state- 
 ments : the blood-ties are religious ties, and ail reli- 
 gious ties are originally blood-ties. This is a fact 
 fraught with such momentous and all-pervasive re- 
 sults that we must dwell upon it at some length. 
 
 The patriarchal family consists of two main divi- 
 
GREEK LIFE AND ITS IDEALS. 33 
 
 sions : (1) its human members, (2) its brute mem- 
 bers ; and the former of these is again subdivided 
 into two : {a) living members, (b) dead members. All 
 these are held together by what may be called, indif- 
 ferently, a blood- tie or a life-tie. In a word, the whole 
 family is supposed to be instinct with a common life 
 or blood, and, since it is upon the vigor of this life 
 that the well-being of the whole and of the parts de- 
 pends, every effort is made to strengthen it. Withj 
 this view, from time to time a member of the family ,j 
 usually a brute member, is put to death, and its fleshj 
 partaken of by all the human members, living and 
 dead. Such is the origin of sacrifice, whose original 
 purpose was to bind together into a strong, saving 
 unity of life all the members, visible and invisible, 
 of a family. The portion assigned to the latter was 
 either poured, in the form of blood, upon the stone in 
 which they were supposed to reside, or burned upon 
 it in the shape of flesh or fat, so that they might in- 
 hale it in the form of vapor. Such is the origin of 
 the altar, which was originally nothing else than a 
 stone in which the life of an ancestor was supposed 
 to reside, and on which, therefore, his share of the sac- 
 rificial meal was placed in such a form that he could 
 enjoy it.* And this brings vividly before us the no- 
 
 * Of course, a share in the sacrificial meal was not the only 
 thing that the invisible members of the household received. A 
 portion of everything that was eaten or drunk was presented 
 to them ; but a clear distinction was always drawn between sac- 
 rifices and offerings, at least among the Aryan and Semitic 
 peoples. Among the Hebrews the distinction was felt to be so 
 great that Abel, who offered a sacrifice, was said to have been 
 accepted by God, while Cain, who presented an offering, was re- 
 
34 EDUCATION OF ^RB GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 tions entertained by those primitive households with 
 regard to the abode and the mode of life of their de- 
 parted ancestors. It was supposed not only that these 
 were still present with the household, and that they 
 were deeply interested in its affairs, but also that its 
 welfare depended largely upon their favor, and their 
 happiness upon the actions and fortunes of its living 
 members.* It is very difiBcult for us in these days to 
 enter into such a conception of life and its relations 
 as this; but, unless we do, so, we shall utterly fail to 
 understand not only ancient Greek life and education, 
 but also the whole life of the ancient world. That life 
 was, to its very core, permeated with religion, that 
 is, with a sense of dependence upon a unity of life 
 with the invisible lives of departed ancestors. To 
 
 jected (see Heb. xi, 4, and cf. Gen. iv, 4) ; and indeed it is fre- 
 quently referred to in both the Old and New Testaments (see 
 Psalms, xl, 6 ; Heb. v, 1 ; viii, 3 ; ix, 9). In a fragment of ^s- 
 chylus (156, Dind.), we find the same distinction made : 
 " Alone of all the gods, Death loves not gifts ; 
 Nay, nor with sacrifice nor drink poured out 
 Canst thou accomplish aught with him." 
 It is a curious and significant fact that the sacrifice of Christ, 
 as viewed in Christian theology, accomplishes precisely what the 
 very earliest sacrifices were supposed to do : it binds men into 
 unity with each other and with their invisible Father. If sin 
 be regarded as a falling away from this unity, we can easily 
 understand that "it is the blood that raaketh atonement by 
 reason of the life" (Lev. xvii, 11), and that "apart from shed- 
 ding of blood there is no remission " (Heb. ix, 22). 
 
 * This early belief in the presence of deceased ancestors in 
 the living household finds a striking illustration in the tombs 
 of ancient Etruria. These are fitted up exactly like the houses 
 of the living, with every convenience for a comfortable, or even 
 luxurious, existence. 
 
GREEK LIFE AND ITS IDEALS. 35 
 
 maintain this unity was the supreme end of life, de- 
 termining all action and all abstention from action. 
 Kemembering that these ghostly ancestors were the 
 earliest gods,* we may say that the primitive house- 
 hold consisted of gods, men, and animals, bound to- 
 gether by a common life, and that its weal was con- 
 ceived to depend upon the perfect integrity of this 
 life. When a man died, his life was supposed to pass 
 from his body, with which it had merely an accidental 
 connection, into something else more durable — a stone, 
 a rock, a tree, a spring, which then became at once 
 sacred (kadosli^ Upd, sacra, taboo). This, indeed, is 
 the very meaning of " sacred." The actions performed 
 by the living household with reference to these sacred 
 objects constituted worship, whose sole aim was to pre- 
 serve and strengthen the life of the whole. 
 
 We can now see how not only the vegetable but 
 also the mineral world came to be regarded as sharing 
 in the life of the household, and therefore as claiming 
 an interest or respect quite different from that due to 
 their material usefulness. We can also see how re- 
 ligion, in its earliest stages, assumed the forms of 
 fetichism and animism, and how the feeling that a 
 common life animated the entire household, with its 
 animal, vegetable, and mineral surroundings, would, 
 in course of time, develop into pantheism. But this 
 
 * There is much discussion at the present day as to whether 
 the earliest gods were ghosts of ancestors or powers of nature 
 personified. The question is really a vain one, since it credits 
 primitive men with conceptions and distinctions to which they 
 were entire strangers. The earliest gods were both ghosts and 
 powers of nature, in this sense, that the powers of nature were 
 conceived as being of the same nature as the life in man. 
 
36 EDUCATIOX OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 was a late result, possible only when men had arrived 
 at a conception of the whole, or universe (to -n-av). The 
 interests of primitive men were much narrower, being 
 confined entirely to the household. What shared in 
 its life or blood they regarded with sympathy ; every- 
 thing else with antipathy. " Friend " and " foe " 
 meant originally kindred and alien.* 
 
 But the notion that the blood-tie could be strength- 
 ened by participation in the life of a sacrificed animal 
 easily passed into the notion that it might be created 
 by the same means. This paved the way, not only for 
 the admission of members of one household into an- 
 other, but even for the union of two or more entire 
 households, a thing which the need of self-defence 
 must often have suggested and rendered necessary. 
 But the union of two households meant, not merely 
 the coalescence of their living members into a new 
 social whole, but also and primarily an alliance of 
 their invisible members and a conjunction of the acts 
 of worship performed to them ; it meant, in a word, 
 the union of two religions. But, inasmuch as the di- 
 vinities of each 'household were attached to certain 
 objects and localities, this would have been a matter 
 of considerable diflBculty, had there been no new con- 
 ception to help it out But such a conception there 
 was. The notion that particular objects, stones, 
 
 * It is easy to see how from the word freo, signif ving to re- 
 fford as kin, should come the words friend, fres ; A. S. fren 
 and freo (honored man and woman, lord and lady; cf. Arab. 
 sahib, meaning both friend and lord) ; Ger., froh, frohlich 
 (merry), etc. ; and how from feo (feog), to regard as an alien, 
 we should g:et foe, fiend, feud ; Scot., fey (doomed to death ; IsL, 
 feigr) ; Ger., fei^ (cowardly), faugh ; Scot, feech, etc 
 
GREEK LIFE AND ITS IDEALS. 37 
 
 trees, springs, etc., were endowed witli Ijfe naturally 
 widened out into the notion that each department of 
 visible nature was so endowed, a process which would 
 be greatly hastened in cases where families were forced 
 to leave their old homes, and therewith the objects of 
 worship supposed to be animated by the lives of their 
 ancestors. Instead, now, of worshiping the particular 
 rock or stone, they worshiped a mountain, or even the 
 earth owned by them ; instead of the particular tree, 
 all trees, whole groves, or even the expanse of heaven ; 
 instead of the particular spring, all springs, streams, 
 and finally all water.* In this way ancestor-worship 
 passed, in the most natural way, into nature-worship. 
 
 Thus the advance from ancestor-worship to nature- 
 worship corresponds to an advance in social develop- 
 ment—an advance from the village community to what 
 the Greeks called a phratry {(fypdrpa or (fyparpLa), the 
 Latins a cima^ and the Germans a hundred. The 
 process was a slow one, and in neither case did the 
 new supersede the old ; it was merely superimposed 
 
 * In the Rig - Veda (vii, 34, 23) we read : " May the mountains, 
 the waters, the generous plants, and heaven, may the earth with 
 the trees, and the two worlds, protect our wealth ! " In the 
 Avesta (Yasna, Ixviii, 3) we read : " We sacrifice to the sea 
 Vouru-Kasha, and to all waters upon earth, whether standing 
 or running, or waters of the well, or spring waters which peren- 
 nially flow, or the drippings of the rains, or the irrigations of 
 canals." How easily the notion of an overarching tree passed 
 into that of the overarching heaven, may be seen in the case of 
 the Zoroastrian Haryisptokhm (see Sacred Books of the East, 
 vol. iv, p. 54, n. 2), in the Norse Yggdrasil (see Simrock, Hand- 
 huch der deutschen Jlythologie, pp. 32 sqq.), and in such Greek 
 phrases as S^vSpea ovpavofi'fiKea (Herod., ii, 138), i\dr7j5 ovpdviov 
 aKpou K\d5ov (Eurip., Bacch., 1064). 
 
38 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 upon it. While the ancestor-worships remained the 
 religions of the households composing the phratry, 
 nature-worship became the religion of the phratry in 
 its corporate capacity. This change was a most im- 
 portant one for civilization, involving far-reaching 
 consequences. Previously, all worship had been a 
 family matter, conducted by the family-head or pa- 
 triarch, at the family shrines, that is, near the objects 
 supposed to be arimated by the lives of their ances- 
 tors. JSiow, it became a public matter, conducted at 
 the common meeting place of the households, by a per-- 
 son specially chosen for the purpose, in honor of beings 
 attached to no special material objects, but present in 
 large portions of nature. The meeting-place now as- 
 sumed a sacred character — became, in fact, a temple 
 (tc/acvos, Upov) ; the new official was a priest {Upevs) ; 
 the new worship expressed the new unity by relating 
 the participating households to common ancestors 
 older than those worshiped by them separately. As 
 to the last fact, it was but natural that the new social 
 union should seem possible only as representing the 
 recovery of long-forgotten blood-ties; for in those 
 days all friendly relations were conceived as blood- 
 relations, as indeed they are still among peoples in the 
 village-community stage of culture. The new union 
 took a name generally, though not always, plural in 
 form. The singular of this was looked upon as the 
 name of the founder of the community, who was now 
 represented as the son of the divinity selected as the 
 patron of that community. 
 
 In this new social union we find the beginnings of 
 many things that afterward assumed momentous pro- 
 portions — e. g., (1) of the separation of patriarchal and 
 
GREEK LIFE AND ITS IDEALS. 39 
 
 priestly functions ; * (2) of public worship ; (3) of the 
 belief that men sprang from nature-divinities ; (4) of 
 social, as distinct from household duties and relations ; 
 (5) of the substitution of a land-bond for the blood- 
 bond, as the principle of social union. In this widen- 
 ing of life the important thing to observe is, that life 
 remained essentially religious, that the new social uni- 
 ties were religious associations. Through the gradual 
 superposition of the land-bond, 1^ Dwever, upon the 
 blood-bond, social religion came to be connected with 
 territorial limits instead of with blood-relationship. f 
 Hence we frequently find divinities named after dis- 
 tricts — e. g., Artemis Munychia, Artemis Brauronia 
 (who had a temple on the Athenian acropolis), etc. 
 Hence also we find growing up alongside the sense 
 of family or kin the sense of country or fatherland 
 
 * This, which was the germ of the separation between Church 
 and State, seems to have taken place in Greece and Latiuin very 
 early, so that the priests never formed a ruling class possessing 
 civil power. It was otherwise among the Hebrews, with whom 
 the priests formed a kind of caste, which at all times exercised 
 great social influence, and in the end absorbed all political 
 power. Their ideal was a " kingdom of priests " (Exod. xix, G). 
 It is curious to find that Moses, when he unites the households 
 of his people, finds it necessary to cement that union by the 
 sanction of a new divinity, Jahweh, who has appeared to him in 
 a burning bush. This divinity at once takes a position above 
 the old Elohim or household divinities, who soon lose their indi- 
 vidualities and sink into a being who seems indifferent as to 
 number, and is ultimately identified with Jahweh. See the cu- 
 rious passage in Gen. xviii, where Jahweh appears to Abraham 
 as three men ! 
 
 f This relation of a god to the land was expressed in Hebrew 
 by the word Baal. See Robertson Smith, Relig. of the Semites, 
 p. 93. 
 
40 EDCrCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 (Trarpts, irarph yata), and the notion that membership 
 in the society held together by that bond involves pos- 
 session of a share in that land. It was on the basis of 
 this notion that there came to be introduced that dis- 
 tinction, so important in its consequences, between 
 nobles, or possessors, and commons, or non-possessors 
 — between eorlas and ceorlas, as the old English said. 
 
 How this came about seems clear enough. As the 
 sense of the land-bond strengthened, that of the blood- 
 bond proportionately weakened, so that the old patri- 
 archal families, though still acknowledging a blood- 
 connection, and giving it expression in sacrifices, 
 gradually broke up into monogamic households in 
 the modern sense, which stood in direct relation to the 
 phratry. At the same time the land which had pre- 
 viously been held in common by the members of the 
 patriarchal families was gradually broken up into lots, 
 which became the private property of the new house- 
 holds. ^ Thus private property in land and the mono- 
 gamic family have their origin in the same social change. 
 But in course of time, as families multiplied, without 
 any corresponding increase of territory, a certain num- 
 ber of them were forced to go without land and betake 
 themselves to handicrafts, fishing, and the like. But 
 as membership in the phratry had come to be regarded 
 as depending upon possession of land, these landless 
 families occupied an inferior position, becoming in 
 fact dependent upon the landed proprietors. Thus 
 society was divided up into two classes, whose interests 
 were not always found to coincide — classes which we 
 may term nobles (evycvcts) and commons (dyevets). 
 
 But inasmuch as a superior class has always diffi- 
 culty in maintaining its privileges, it was natural that 
 
GREEK LIFE AND ITS IDEALS. ^3 
 
 the nobles should combine in order to maintain theirs. 
 In doing this they founded the third political institu- 
 tion, the city-state, which was originally nothing more 
 than a stronghold of nobles with their dependents, 
 making common cause to hold in subjection the less 
 privileged class. The better to accomplish their pur- 
 pose, they chose a head or king, surrounded their 
 stronghold with walls, and chose gods to cement their 
 union.* And what is the principle of this union? 
 We have seen that in the family the bond was blood, 
 in the phratry or hundred, land. In the city-state it 
 was nobility, which, though originally based upon 
 property in land, came, in course of time, to imply a 
 good deal more. Aristotle rightly defines " nobility " 
 as " ancient wealth and worth " (y yap evyiveta, cVriv 
 apxalosiTrXovTo^ kol aperrj, PoUt., iv, 8) ; and the worth 
 came finally to be the more important element. 
 
 With the establishment of the city, an enormous 
 change took place in the relations of society. A clear 
 line was now drawn between gentle and simple, be- 
 tween citizens and rustics (TroXtrat and Srjfxorat). There 
 now came into existence a leisure-class which regarded 
 itself as having no duties except to govern the other 
 .classes and cultivate worth (dperiy), a term which, 
 though it connoted different things at different times, 
 always denoted those qualities which enable a man to 
 govern. The ground was now prepared in which the 
 higher manifestations of humanity — art, science, phi- 
 losophy, statesmanship, ethical religion — might grow 
 
 * Such gods were called iroXiovxoi ; cf. ttoKkilis, TroXids, etc. 
 It is curious to find tha,t these epithets, like ippdTpios, are confined 
 to Zeus and Athena. 
 
40 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 tind flourish ; for, strange as it may seem, these are 
 well-nigh impossible without a class of men which 
 manages to have its material wants supplied by an- 
 other class. But, in spite of these momentous changes, 
 the constitution of society still remained religious. 
 During the phratrial period, indeed, the original 
 meaning of sacrificial rites had been forgotten, and 
 numerous myths invented to explain them ; but they 
 still continued to be performed with ever-increasing 
 pomp and circumstance, though with a new aim. This 
 aim was conditioned by the new views entertained with 
 regard to the gods. We have seen that in .the pa- 
 triarchal period the gods (if we may so call them) 
 were the imagined ghosts of ancestors, residing m 
 special natural objects ; and that in the phratrial pe- 
 riod they were identified with the powers of nature. 
 In what we may now call the political period they 
 came more and more to be thought of as beings 
 standing above nature and guiding it according to 
 moral ideas ; in fact, they become moral gods. This 
 is perhaps the most momentous change that ever took 
 place in human history, being, indeed, the change 
 jfrom the -natural to the spiritual man. When sac- 
 rifices were offered to such gods, they were offered as 
 pledges of loyalty, expressions of gratitude, or pro- 
 pitiations for disloyalty, and hence were usually ac- 
 companied with prayers for benignity and aid. 
 
 With the city-state and its moral gods, Greek social 
 progress reached its highest point. Some steps indeed 
 were taken toward the foundation of a nation in the 
 establishment of the great periodical gatherings at 
 Olympia, Delphi, Nemea, and other places; but be- 
 yond this they never went. All attempts to go further 
 
GREEK LIFE AND ITS IDEALS. 43 
 
 proved uniformly abortive. No confederation even 
 ever included the whole of Greece. On the other 
 hand, no sooner was the city-state well established 
 than it began to react upon the institutions which 
 had paved the way for it, modifying them in such a 
 way as to render them its organs. In treating of this 
 reactive process we shall direct our attention to Athens, 
 (1) because her history may be regarded as typical, 
 and (2) because it is better known to us than any 
 other. 
 
 From the earliest times of which we have any 
 history, Attica, the territory ruled by the nobles 
 (evTrarptSat) having their seat in Athens, was system- 
 atically divided, and it is obvious that no such divi- 
 sion could have taken place until a central organ- 
 izing power was constituted. The earliest division so 
 established seems to have been into tribes, correspond- 
 ing to social status and profession, but in part also to 
 territorial divisions. Later on each tribe seems to 
 have been divided into three trittyes or ridings, cor- 
 responding pretty closely, if not altogether, to the old 
 phratries ; and later still, each trittys into four nau- 
 craries or fiscal districts. Just luhen these arrange- 
 ments were made, is not at all clear. I am inclined to 
 think that the first, and perhaps the second, were due 
 to Theseus, while the third was not introduced till 
 about the time of Solon.* 
 
 * The four ancient tribes, said to have been introduced by 
 Cecrops, were named (1) Geleontes, or nobles ; (2) Hopletes, 6r 
 warriors ; (3) ^gicoreis, or shepherds ; and (4) Argadeis, or crafts- 
 men. Theseus is said to have divided the people into three 
 classes: (1) Eupatridai, or nobles; (2) Georaoroi, or farmers; 
 ^^Wvu. "nemiourgoi, or craftsmen. But it is clear that if Attica 
 
44 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 This caste system, as we may fairly enough call it, 
 continued down to the time of the revolution of Clis- 
 thenes. This founder of Athenian democracy, with 
 the aid of the populace, broke up the old caste tribes 
 and. formed ten new ones, in each of which all the 
 castes were placed on an equal footing, and into which 
 many new citizens, excluded from the old tribes, were 
 admitted. These tribes, which corresponded to no 
 local divisions, were each subdivided into three ridings 
 (rptTTvcs) and ten village-communities, named, as far 
 as possible, after the reputed founders of the old patri- 
 archal families, and arranged in such a way that neigh- 
 boring demes belonged to different tribes. The tribes 
 themselves were named after ancient Attic heroes. 
 
 The important feature in this new division was 
 that it was purely political, no longer religious, as the 
 old divisions had been. As Aristotle, in his recently 
 discovered Constitution of Atheiis^ tells us, "the clans 
 (patriarchal families), phratries, and priesthoods Clis- 
 thenes allowed to continue in their hereditary forms " 
 (cap. xxi). Thus, for the first time in history, we 
 have a country in which the citizens live under two 
 distinct dispensations — the one religious and the other 
 political ; for as soon as the new division was estab- 
 lished, the old lost its political features and signifi- 
 cance, and became purely religious. It« is true that 
 
 was not united under one government until the time of Theseus, 
 no division into tribes could have taken place till then ; and 
 it seems to me that Eupatridai is only a common name for 
 Geleontes and Hopletes, while Geomoroi and Demiourgoi are 
 only modern names for -<Egicoreis and Argadeis respectively. 
 The tripartite division plays no part in Attic political history. 
 The four tribes lasted till b. c. 509. 
 
GREEK LIFE AND ITS IDEALS. 45 
 
 the two dispensations did not stand unrelated (that 
 would have been impossible) ; but they belonged to 
 two different orders of ideas, and exercised distinct 
 functions. The old religious dispensation assumed 
 men to be held together in society by a blood-bond. 
 This had partly given way, first, to a land-bond, and, 
 later, to a worth-bond. Each of these bonds was sup- 
 posed to be presided over by a deity. When the worth- 
 bond was reached, its presiding divinity was necessarily 
 conceived as a spiritual and moral being, and the way 
 was paved for organizing the whole of society by means 
 of a spiritual bond. This was done, to a very large 
 extent, in the democratic constitution of Clisthenes. 
 In fact, the success of democracy meant the triumph 
 of the spiritual bond over the material bond, which 
 had been the basis of the old religious constitutions ; 
 and though these were not completely broken up, their 
 sphere of action was confined to religious observances. 
 It was, in great measure, to this separation between 
 Church and State, as we may call it, that Athens owed 
 that wonderful development of material and spiritual 
 power which followed upon the revolution of Clis- 
 thenes. 
 
 We have thus briefly traced the growth of those 
 institutions in which Greek life successively embodied 
 its social ideals : (1) the patriarchal family or clan ; 
 (2) the phratry ; (3) the city-state, which, rising gradu- 
 ally to a spiritual ideal, organized, first, the tribe, the 
 riding, and the naucrary, and subsequently the tribe, 
 the riding, and the village {Brj/xos;). We have seen that 
 the social bond of the city-state, the highest of Greek 
 social institutions, was worth (apeTrj). If now we bear 
 in ^ind that at all periods of Greek history the ideal 
 
46 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 of life was social, that the individual and the citizen 
 were never distinguished, we can see how that which . 
 formed the social bond of the city-state became the 
 ideal of life for the individual, and consequently the 
 goal of education.. 
 
 And so, indeed, it was. In Greece the ideal of life 
 and education concentrated itself in the one concep- 
 tion of worth. It is true that this conception changed' 
 its content as time went on ; but it always connoted 
 those qualities which mark the worthy member of 
 society. For the reason that it had come to be the 
 social bond only as the result of a long process, it 
 could never quite belie its origin, and hence never 
 came to mean simply and solely moral worth. It 
 always contained something of the old blood- and 
 land- bond. Rarely, indeed, and only in the decline 
 of Greek life, was worth attributed to a man, unless 
 he could claim noble birth and landed wealth. It 
 was this fact that conditioned the nature of Athenian 
 democracy, and that constitutes the great distinction 
 between it and the democracies of modern times, 
 which have altogether disowned both the blood- and 
 the land-bond. 
 
 When the Greeks first come before us in the pages 
 of Homer, they have already, for the most part, reached 
 the political stage marked by the city-state. Theseus, 
 the founder of the Athenian constitution, has already 
 been dead for a generation. But though even in those 
 early days a considerable advance had been made toward 
 a moral conception of the gods, yet it took many gen- 
 erations before this assumed definite form in contra- 
 distinction to the old materialistic notions, and many 
 more before its full significance revealed itself in the 
 
GREEK LIFE AND ITS IDEALS. 47 
 
 organization of society and in education, which always 
 bore a close relation to that organization. When it 
 did finally become the organizing force in life, and 
 expressed itself in democracy, it seemed at first to 
 draw men away from religion altogether, the reason 
 being that religion, or the observances of religion, had 
 remained at the older point of view, while the present 
 social force occupied the new. ' Jhe gulf thus opened 
 between religion and political life the Greeks never 
 succeeded in closing. Their efforts to do so expressed 
 themselves in that wonderful product of the Greek 
 mind, philosophy, which was at bottom nothing but 
 an attempt to find a justification for worth, as the 
 social bond, in the constitution of the universe, or tho 
 nature of the gods ; we may perhaps say, to bring the 
 gods and their world up to the new moral idea. But 
 while the best men were trying to embody the now 
 bond in life, the two older bonds — blood and wealth — 
 were fighting for supremacy ; and in the struggle be- 
 tween them Greece perished, leaving her ideal to be 
 realized elsewhere. And it has not yet been realized 
 fully. From the da3^s of Clisthenes to our own, phi- 
 losopher and priest and statesman have vainly endeav- 
 ored to reconcile religion and politics, until now, at 
 last, we have come to congratulate ourselves upon 
 what seems their permanent separation. But recon- 
 ciled they will undoubtedly one day be, when we come 
 to understand wherein human worth really consists, 
 and to see that it is, and must be, the sole end of all 
 human institutions:* 
 
 * It is curious to note that, in the breaking up of the soli- 
 Qvdty between religioi^ and politics, the Greeks under Clisthenes 
 
48 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 Worth, then — the worth of the individual as a mem- 
 ber of society — was the Greek ideal of life and educa- - 
 tion. Of course, the content of this ideal differed, 
 with the demands of society, from generation to gen- 
 eration. In early times, when the city-state was fight- 
 ing for existence against enemies at home and abroad, 
 worth necessarily consisted in practical ability — in be- 
 ing able to see, and in public to express, what needed 
 to be done, and in being prompt and effective in the 
 doing of it. Such is the worth which we find aimed 
 at by the heroes in Homer, by Agamemnon, Achilles, 
 and the rest. Of course, the Greeks could hardly con- 
 ceive, either then or at any time, that such virtue could 
 be attained by any man who was not well-born and 
 possessed of wealth ; still, these advantages were by no 
 means conceived as constituting worth or public use- 
 fulness, as they have sometimes been since. 
 
 Later on, when the social organization became more 
 secure, when the citizens (iroXtrai) were not obliged to 
 devote all their energies to defending it, when they 
 enjoyed a certain amount of leisure which they felt 
 the necessity of occupying worthily, new elements en- 
 tered into the conception of worth. If a man would 
 deserve the title of worthy now, he must be able, not 
 only to do his part in the practical and necessary 
 business of life, but also to fill the time gained from 
 business with occupations which should be ends in 
 
 went the one way and founded a purely political institution, while 
 the Hebrews, under Isaiah, went the other, and laid the foun- 
 dations of a Church. Christianity has sought in vain to unite 
 these two institutions in a Kingdom of Heaven, wherein He- 
 brew prophecy and Greek philosophy shall supplement each 
 other. -he 
 
UREEK LIFE AND ITS IDEALS. 49 
 
 themselves, looking to nothing beyond. Such time, 
 and the occupations which belonged to it, were called 
 by the Greeks Staytoyi} (diagoge), a word for which our 
 language offers no equivalent. We must dwell upon 
 it, and the thought expressed by it, for a moment. 
 
 To the cultivated Greek, life divided itself sharply 
 into two portions, one to be devoted to means, and the 
 other to ends. Under means was included whatever 
 related to practical life, the earning of a livelihood, 
 politics, war, education, religious observance's, etc.; 
 under ends, what were called the occupations of the 
 Muses — that is, fine art, science, and philosophy. 
 These, indeed, were the ends to which all other oc- 
 cupations were but means. The enjoyment of them 
 was designated by the term StaycoyvJ, which must be 
 clearly distinguished, not only from practical life, but 
 also from mere play or amusement. Play was regarded 
 as a mere preparation for practical work, therefore as 
 a means to a means : Staywyi;, on the contrary, was the 
 end and aim of practical work. This distinction con- 
 ditioned the whole of Greek life and education. It is 
 to be found in Homer * ; it passed over from Greek 
 thought into historical Christianity, and became a 
 powerful factor in it. When the Middle Age, follow- 
 ing the Neoplatonists, said that the contemplative life 
 
 * Odysseus {Odyss., ix, 5 sgq.) says : " For I declare there is 
 no more delightful eiid than when festivity takes possession of a 
 whole people, and the guests in the palace listen to the minstrel, 
 sitting in rows ; and the tables beside them are loaded with 
 bread and meats, and the cup-bearer, drawing wine from tlio 
 mixing-bowl, carries it round and pours it into the cups. This 
 seems to my heart to be something very beautiful." To this 
 overv Greek heart would have responded. 
 
 / 
 
50 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 was the goal of the practical, it was only repeating 
 the Greek doctrine in slightly different words. 
 
 Bearing in mind now that the ideal of Greek life 
 was worth, and that this meant capability in all the 
 spheres of activity, whether practical or " diagogic," 
 we can have little difficulty in seeing what the charac- 
 ter and limits of the education which sought to impart 
 such capability must have been. It is obvious that, 
 just as the spheres of activity were different at differ- 
 ent times and places, so likewise were the systems of 
 education. In primitive times, when life was mainly 
 practical, education was a preparation for practice. 
 As life became more and more diagogic, education 
 followed in the same direction. Again, while some 
 states like Athens made room for and encouraged 
 diagogic life, others, like Sparta, opposed it, and re- 
 mained almost completely within the practical sphere. 
 It followed that the Athenian and Spartan schemes of 
 education were widely different. 
 
 As in dealing with Greek education our chief at- 
 tention will be directed to Athens, we may consider 
 for a moment the extent and divisions of the Athenian 
 citizen's range of activity. 
 
 Every citizen was a member, firsts of a family 
 (otKos) ; second^ of a township (8^/aos) ; thirds of a 
 phratry {cfyparpia) ; fourth^ of a riding (rptTrvs) ; fifth, 
 of a tribe {ffivXrj) ; and sixth, of the state (ttoAis) ; and 
 each of these relations involved special duties.* As 
 
 * This of course refers to post-Clisthenean times. In earlier 
 days every citizen was a member of a clan {y^vos) and of a nau- 
 crary (vavKpapla). Clisthenes deprived the clans of all political 
 significance, by admitting to citizenship many who did not be- 
 long to them, while the naucraries he entirely abohshed. 
 
 \ 
 
GREEK LIFE AND ITS IDEALS. 51 
 
 member of a family, a man had duties as priest, as hus- 
 band, as father, and as owner of property and slaves ; 
 as member of a township, he had to do his part in 
 everything that related to the property, the worship, 
 and the internal laws of the town, as well as in every- 
 thing that had to do with its relations to the superior 
 institutions ; as member of a phratry, he had to par- 
 ticipate in certain religious rites, and to aid in pro- 
 tecting the state against the unlawful assumption by 
 spurious children of the rights of citizenship. His 
 membership in a riding and a tribe merely determined 
 the company in which he should act in his various 
 relations as member of the state. These relations in- 
 volved duties of three kinds besides those of religion : 
 (1) administrative, (2) judicial, (3) military. It is 
 needless to say that these were regarded as his su- 
 preme duties. It thus appears that the Athenian citi- 
 zen who wished to claim the honor (rt/z^) of worth, 
 had to be a good husband, a good father, a good prop- 
 erty-owner, a good town-member, a good state-officer, 
 a good judge, a good soldier, and, along with all this, 
 a pious worshiper of the gods of every institution of 
 which he was a member. These were his practical 
 duties, and in early times were all that was expected 
 of him. If he failed in any of them he could be 
 reached by the arm of the law. But in proportion as 
 diagogic life became possible and was aimed at, other 
 duties which the law could not enforce were added to 
 these by the power of public opinion. It then became 
 incumbent upon a man to be able to take an intelli- 
 , i,{. fQJrt in all those social avocations with which 
 ret^sought to occupy their leisure hours in a worthy 
 V^odlike way, by giving free and self-sufficient ex- 
 
52 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 pression to their own noblest nature. These avoca- 
 tions consisted chiefly ifi feasting, in 'the enjoyment of 
 the various products of the liberal arts, and in serious 
 conversation. In the first the animal nature, in the 
 second the emotional nature, in the third the intellect, 
 found free expression. It was altogether characteristic 
 of the Greek, and particularly of the Athenian, to see 
 that in that activity which formed the end of life no 
 part of his nature should be neglected. We must not 
 forget that to him feasting bore the same relation to 
 ordinary eating and drinking that the " fine" arts bore 
 to the useful. He had not forgotten that in the " good 
 old time " the worship of the gods consisted chiefly of 
 feasting. For these diagogic occupations, no less than 
 for the practical ones, an education was needed, and 
 indeed such an education formed an essential part of 
 the life-preparation of every Athenian who laid any 
 claim to worth. 
 
 Such, then, was the origin and nature of the Greek 
 ideal of life — the ideal which at every stage determined 
 the character of Greek education. 
 
 * "tal 
 
 ■•^litiiy 
 ^t sh- 
 ^4 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 GREEK EDUCATION" BEFORE THE RISE OF 
 PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 The history of Greek education — that is^ of educa- 
 tion in free Greece — is divided into two fairly distinct 
 periods by two contemporaneous events, the conflict 
 with Persia and the rise of philosophy^ In the period 
 previous to these events education was for the most 
 part a preparation for practical life; in the period 
 succeeding them it aimed more and more at being a 
 preparation for diagogic life. In what is called the 
 Hellenistic period, when Greece was no longer free, 
 the latter tendency altogether gained the upper hand, 
 for the reason mainly that practical life, in the old 
 Greek sense, no longer existed. I purpose in the 
 present lecture to deal with the education of the first 
 period, with what Aristophanes in his Clouds calls 
 the " Old Education." 
 
 The period in question begins for us with the 
 social condition presented, in the Homeric poems. 
 Already the Greeks have passed., beyond the patri- 
 archal *nd phratrial stages of civilization and have 
 ancwcloped the city-state and the tribe.* Notwith- 
 
 the bi-^ 
 
 that r "^^^ phratry i<p(yf}Tpri) and the tribe (<pv\ov) are both men- 
 l[ypj'd in Iliad ii, 3G2-3 ; but this does not belong to the oldest 
 of the work. 
 
 U/ 
 
54: EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 standing this, there exists as yet nothing resembling 
 a school. Whatever education there is, not only forms 
 a preparation for practical life, but is also gained in 
 practical life — in the house, the agora, the council, the 
 field, the camp. The growing boy, as soon as he passes 
 out of the hands of nurses, spends his time in the com- 
 pany of men, learning by precept and example to do 
 what they do, and discovering by means of his own 
 wits why they do it. At first he imitates them in play 
 with his fellows ; but as soon as his powers permit, he 
 takes serious part in their occupations. It was, indeed, 
 v/v^the aim of the Greek, at all periods, to render his sons 
 independent members of society at as early an age as 
 possible. 
 
 It is not easy for us, with our mediaBval notions of the 
 value of school education, to think that a man could 
 be really educated who had never heard of a school ; 
 but this is due to the fact that we find it difficult to 
 realize the conditions of early Greek life. Our lives 
 are so hedged round with confentionalities, which in a 
 thousand ways sunder us and prevent us from sharing 
 our spiritual wealth with each other, that we can scarce- 
 ly conceive a state of things irr which such conven- 
 tionalities hardly existed, when every member of a state 
 looked upon every other as a brother ; * when men lived 
 mostly in the open air and in hourly contact with each 
 other, conversing, playing, hunting, worshipingjdelib- 
 ^ 
 
 * Macaulay was guilty of no exaggeration when he said : 
 
 " The Romans were like brothers >* "^^ 
 
 In the brave days of old." (liti ill? 
 
 Compare Dante's bitter reflections on his own time, Pubt sh- 
 
 tory, vi, 76 sqq. ) ^TA 
 
.BEFORE THE RISE OF PHILOSOPHY. 55 
 
 erating, drilliDg, fighting, in fact doing everything to- 
 gelh-eTpwhen ■'there were no titles — no "Mr." even — 
 no famiiy names, no rules of etiquette, nothing to pre- 
 vent any one from addressing, or even "pumping," 
 anybody iie met. Under such circumstances the ex- 
 perience and accomplishments of each could not fail 
 to be communicated to all, especially as a continual 
 rivalry was going on, which greatly stimulated the 
 pursuit of excellence. This rivalry, or tendency to 
 competition, wasastronglj marked trait of the Greek 
 chaiacter at alTperiods. To it were due not only such 
 institutions as the great games, but likewise much of 
 what is best in Greek science, philosophy, and art. But 
 the horizon of the early Greek was not bounded by the 
 limits of his own state. War, trade, and piracy* were 
 continually bringing him into contact with foreigners 
 and foreign wares. f His captives became his slaves, 
 and had many tales to tell of far-oif lands and strange 
 customs and gods. J And then there was the omni- 
 present, ever- welcome wandering minstrel, who, like 
 Odysseus, "had seen the cities of many men and 
 known their minds," in whose songs were stored up 
 the history of past ages and the descriptions of distant 
 lands, and who dispensed his lore in the form best 
 suited to hold the memory, to fill the imagination, 
 and to influence the conduct. *Thus the Homeric 
 Greeks, though perhaps not one in a thousand of 
 
 * " Krieg, Handel und Piraterie, 
 and ^ Dreieinig sind sie, nicht zu trennen." — Faust, Pt. ii. 
 the bri^he objects recently nnearthed at Mycenae, Spata, and 
 that is>>laces show how much foreign art was introduced into 
 livpp ^. even in pre-Homeric times, 
 '"^^^y Witness the case of Euma?us in the Odyssey. 
 ' I 
 
56 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 them could read or write, were, in the very truest 
 sense, educated people, and their education was all the 
 better, fresher, and more serviceable, that it was gained 
 amid the concrete relations of actual life, and laid hold 
 of the whole living human being — his affections and 
 his will, no less than his memory and his intelligence. 
 There is nothing that delights us in the Homeric Greek 
 /more than his perfect simplicity, directness, undisguised 
 feeling, and natural freedom from palaver and senti- 
 mentality. And it is not difficult to see that he owed 
 these charming qualities, which must forever make 
 him attractive, to the character of his education, which 
 from first to last kept him in the closest contact with 
 the facts of life — domestic, social, and political. It 
 was in the small city-states of Greece that the finer ele- 
 ments of human nature — devoted, unselfish friendship, 
 domestic purity, respect for women, reverence for law, 
 loyalty to institutions — were first able clearly to mani- 
 fest themselves. It may well be doubted whether at 
 any subsequent period of their history the Greeks were 
 as well educated, in the true sense of that word, as 
 they were in the days of Homer. No other period has 
 given us men equal to Hector and Achilles, or women- 
 equal to Penelope and Nausicaa. 
 
 The age described by Homer was one of great en- 
 ergy and brilliancy in all directions — one of those ages 
 in which men and women seem to attain thSy- full 
 stature. But ere he came upon the scene it w^ draw- 
 ing to a close. It was succeeded by what, by wa"v 
 contrast, may be called a " dark age " — an age of > '•tal 
 unrest, of tribal migrations, of rapid dissolution yuti lid 
 ties and institutions, and slow and painful estaV sh- 
 ment of new ones. During this period, which lA i.^ll 
 
BEFORE THE RISE OF PHILOSOPHY. 57 
 
 for over three hundred years — a period of which neither 
 history, poetry, nor archaeology has left us any con- 
 nected or adequate account — the older civilization, 
 which seems to have reached its culmination under 
 the empire of the " wide-ruling Agamemnon," faded 
 away into a gigantic 'myth,* thus passing gradually 
 from the hands of History into those of Poetry. 
 About the middle of the eighth century B. c, Greece 
 reappears in the pages of history and in the dis- 
 coveries of archaeology; but she is a very different 
 Greece from that which vanished three centuries be- 
 fore. She appears now as a cluster of independent 
 and mutually hostile states, each fighting over again 
 the battle for existence, and each claiming for itself a 
 share in the mythic renown of the heroic past, which 
 Homer has already made forever glorious. She rises, 
 as it were, from her grave, with Homer in her hand, 
 and Homer henceforth largely shapes her destinies. 
 Her people are henceforth a " people o f the b ook.'' f 
 It would hardly be possible to overestimate the impor- 
 tance of this fact. 
 
 A people with a book is something very difPerent 
 from a people without a book. A book not only en- 
 riches by. its contents the intellectual and imaginative 
 life of a people, but it divides their world into two 
 
 * See Goethe's splendid description of this in the opening oT' 
 the fourth act of the second part of Faust. . 
 
 f AMu H-hitahi, as Muhammad called the Jews, Christians, 
 and Saba^ans. It is true that the Greeks were never a " people of 
 the book" in the same sense that the Jews and Christians are ; 
 that is, they never made a book tlie authoritative law of their 
 lives • ^/n^ertheless, it seems plain that Homer exerted a para- 
 ' " influence upon their wh^^e spiritual development. 
 

 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 parts — one real, the other ideal ; one that is, the other 
 that ought to be. The old idyllic immediateness and 
 joyous satisfaction with the present arei;gone. The 
 actual is found to be partial, and has to be supple- 
 mented by an imagined past, thrown as a possibility 
 upon the vacant screen of the future. Hence a strain 
 of pathos, forming a discord, runs through the whole 
 of life, becoming more and more sensible as time goes 
 on.* When it becomes apparent that this discord can 
 not be resolved in every-day practical life, an attempt 
 is made to supplement this by another kind of life, in 
 which it may be resolved. If this is conceived as pos- 
 sible in this world, there results an endeavor after what 
 e^Greeks called diagogic life ; if not, there is born 
 the cohcjeption^oT a heaven, hid from mortal eyes in 
 he depths of the unseen. 
 
 Among the Greeks the result of the separation be- 
 tween real and ideal life, consequent upon the posses- 
 sion of a book, was an endeavor after diagogic life; 
 and it was in seeking to realize this that they devoted 
 themselves to art, science, and philosophy, the social 
 enjoyment of which constituted StayoxyT^.f The effort 
 in this direction naturally began with the recital of the 
 poems of Homer. This called into existence a class of 
 
 ^ \ap] 
 
 * This pathos, which is almost entirely lacking in Homer, is 
 apparent from the first in the authors of what we may call the 
 enaissance. It is quite marked even in Hesiod, whose works 
 open the new period. The elegiac and lyric poets are full of it 
 — Callinus, Theognis, Alcman, Simonides, etc. 
 
 f When Aristotle divides the sciences into practical and 
 theoretical, he means that the former find their application in 
 practical life, while the latter serve for StoycwT^. Theor^/^ewpfa) 
 is the occupation even of the gor ., who enjoy perpetual 
 
 ^-^tk 
 
BEFORE TFB^ISE OF PHJtiOSOPnY. 59 
 
 men known as rhapsodes (paif/oiSoL). The first of these 
 is said, and with apparent truth, to have been Hesiod, 
 whose own works long held a place beside those of 
 Homer. ; The rhapsodes differed from the old minstrels 
 (dotSoi), ar~epTc poet-singers, in three ways : (1) they 
 merely recited the works of others : they were not 
 (usually at least) poets ; (2) they gave no musical ac- 
 companiment ; (3) they frequently accompanied their 
 recitations with a commentary, or exposition.* In 
 fact, they bore very much the same relation to the 
 epic poets that the scribes (sopherim) among the 
 Jews did to the prophets ; and, indeed, the prophets 
 of the Greeks were their poets {vates). But the poems 
 of Homer and Hesiod did not long remain the only 
 occupation of 8tay<i>yi;. There soon arose poems of a 
 new order — no longer epic, but elegiac, lyric, and 
 gnomic — and these were accompanied with new kinds 
 of music, more varied and also more complicated than 
 the old. The various kinds of poetry, with their dif- 
 ferent accompaniments, were included under the com- 
 mon term music (/aovo-iktj), i. e.. Muses' work, whose 
 patrons were the Muses. These, with the^gods whose 
 company they kept— Dionysus, Apollo, Hermes— thus 
 became the divinities of Staywy^, which, like the rest 
 of life, was essentially religious. 
 
 .^ut with the division of life into two parts — one 
 real, Tihe other ideal — there came a division of men 
 into two classes : one whose life was confined to the 
 real ; the other, which could rise into the ideal, the 
 
 * See Plato's Ion and Isocrates' Panath., p. 239. Hence 
 Heraclitus could say of the people of his time; " Hesiod is the 
 teacher of most" (Frag, xxxv, By water). 
 
60 EDUCATION OF THE GRE3SK PEOPLE. 
 
 crown and end of life (to TeA.os).* The latter alone 
 were supposed to be gentlemen (iXevOepLOL) ; and thus 
 gentlemanliness came to be associated with elegant 
 leisure. f Again, as Siayoryij came to occupy a larger 
 and larger place in life, so its presiding deities came 
 more and more to be worshiped. But these deities, 
 one and all, were, if we may so speak, deities of the 
 unseen and ideal, and hence their worship always con- 
 tained a mystic element. This is especially true of 
 Dionysus and the Muses; and it is clear that the 
 whole mystic or Orphic tendency which we find in 
 post-Homeric — we might fairly say, post-Kenaissance 
 — Greek literature, from Hesiod J onward, is closely 
 connected with their worship. But mysticism in re- 
 ligion always implies a strong reflective and panthe- 
 istic tendency in thought, and tbis shows itself, not 
 only in Hesiod, but still mojje^clearly in the so-called 
 Orphic poetry, some of which is probably of the same 
 date. It was this tendency that, in course of time, 
 took form in Greek philosophy, w^hich w^as never quite 
 able to emancipate itself from pantheism. 
 
 It would be easy to ttace to StayoyyTJ the origin, not 
 only of philosophy, but also of all the things with 
 which cultured leisure was occupied — art, symposia, 
 etc. — as well as of those later philosophic societies or 
 
 * Aristotle objects to young people's being allowed to enjoy 
 Siayaryf), on the ground that " the crown of perfection belongs 
 not to the imperfect " (ou5e yap areXct Trpoa-ffKei r4\os, Pol. viii, 4). 
 
 f Tb KoXhy Kcd rh tjSv, the noble and the pleasant, the elements 
 of happiness, according to Aristotle. 
 
 ^ Hesiod himself stood in close relation to the famous scat 
 of the Muses on Mount Helicon. See the opening lines of tho 
 Theogony and Works and Days, 656 sqq. 
 
 \ ■ 
 
BEFORE THE RISE OP PHILOSOPHY. Gl 
 
 brotherhoods, which strove to make diagogic life per- 
 manent and " separate from the world " of practical 
 life. But the important points in the whole diagogic 
 tendency, and those which have a bearing on educa- 
 tion, are these :^(1) that it divided life into two dis- 
 tinct, though correlated, parts ; (2) that it separated 
 men into two classes ; (3) that it called into existence 
 the conception of a life which was an end in itself ; 
 (4) that it strove to^ll that life with enjoyments which 
 had no object beyond themselves, unless, indeed, it 
 might be to prepare for higher enjoyments of a similar 
 kind ; and (5) that it caused such life to be regarded 
 as the only true and worthy life, the only life capable 
 of being eternal. It was long, indeed, before all these 
 results of the tendency confpletely manifested them- 
 selves ; nevertheless, -we must recognize its presence 
 and working from the days of Hesiod onward, if we 
 desire to follow intelligently the course of Greek edu- 
 cation. From the time of Hesiod up to the rise of 
 philosophy proper the practical tendency still prevails 
 in life and education ; after that the diagogic gradu- 
 ally gains the upper hand, until finally, in the Hel- 
 lenistic period, it occupies the entire field. At present 
 we ai*^ dealing with the old period, in which the ideal 
 of worth still connoted, for the most part, only what 
 were called "political" virtues.* The only "theo- 
 retic " virtue it included was the power to enjoy poetry 
 and music — %o enjoy, not to 2)rodnce. 
 
 From the earliest times of which we have any his- 
 
 * When the two kinds of life were clearly distinguished in 
 consciousness, the corresponding virtues were distinguished as 
 political and theoretical {TroKiriKal koI Oewpr^nitai). 
 
62 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 torical record Greek education was divided into two 
 parts : (1) Gymnastics for the body, and (2) Music for 
 the soul. The soul in this connection does not include 
 the intelligence, for it was long before the Greeks 
 thought of providing any kind of education for it-. 
 Music was merely an exercise for the soul, intended 
 to strengthen and harmonize its emotions, just as 
 gymnastics strengthened and harmonized the bodily 
 faculties. Both parts of education, therefore, were 
 equally intended as a preparation for practical life, 
 and so long as these constituted the whole of educa- 
 tion, no schools, in the modern sense of the term, seem 
 to have been found necessary. Young men could learn 
 gymnastics and music, just as they did in Homer's 
 time, by watching and imitating the exercises of their 
 elders. Schools, in all probability, were introduced 
 only when special provision had to be made for the 
 intelligence — that is, when the intelligence had to ac- 
 quire something that could not be learned in the ordi- 
 nary course of life. This something was reading and 
 writing — ypdfXfxaTa (letters), as the Greeks said. Just 
 at what time letters came to be regarded as an essen- 
 tial part of education is not quite clear ; but it was 
 probably not long before the year B. c. 600, which we 
 may perhaps set down as the date of the earliest prose- 
 composition. For some time before that they seem to 
 have been used for commercial purposes, for inscrip- 
 tions, and, by the rhapsodes and lyric singers, for re- 
 cording poetical productions, which at that time had 
 become too numerous to be carried in the memory. 
 The fact that the " musicians " were the first persons 
 who employed letters for literary purposes, combined 
 with the other fact that they were always regarded in 
 
BEFORE THE RISE OF PHILOSOx „^ 
 
 the light of public teachers, helps to explain n^ ^i 
 came about that they were for many ages the sou 
 teachers of letters. Letters, in fact, were considered a 
 part of music, and thus it came to pass that all litera- 
 ture, no matter what its subject, was placed under the 
 auspices of the Muses and their leader Apollo (hence 
 Movo-ayeriys), who for this reason became the patron 
 deities of schools. 
 
 At whatever date schools may have come into exist- 
 ence, it is certain that in the time of Solon, about b. c. 
 590, they were already in full operation in Athens, and 
 that alongside of them there were regular institutions 
 for physical training. Solon found it necessary to 
 make laws, some of which are still extant, for both. 
 A music school was called StSoo-KoAetov, and the master 
 of it KL6apL(TTrj<: (lute-player), while the school for phys- 
 ical training was called TraXaia-rpa (wrestling-ground) 
 and its master TrathoTpipri^ (boy-thresher or boy- 
 kneader). Between the two schools the Athenian 
 boy spent most of his day, from sunrise to sunset ; 
 and Solon had to make a law forbidding teachers to 
 have their schools open before the former, or after the 
 latter, of these hours. 
 
 Athenian boys, and Greek boys generally, went to 
 school about the age of seven. ITp to that time 
 they remained at home with their sisters, under the 
 charge of their mothers mostly, or of whatever nurses 
 she might choose to appoint. Greek girls, except in 
 Sparta and some ^olian cities, did not go to school at 
 all. As long as education was meant to be merely a 
 preparation for practical life, it was, of course, deter- 
 , mined by the demands of that life. For a man prac- 
 , \tical life meant the life of a husband, father, and prop- 
 
62 ACTUATION OF THE GREEK PEG 
 
 tori'^owner, and of a member of a village, a j. 
 and a state ; for a woman it meant the life of a ., 
 mother, and housekeeper. Hence every effort was 
 made to bring a boy as soon as possible into contact 
 with public life, while a girl was rigidly excluded from 
 it and confined to the home. It was only as diagogic 
 education came into prominence that men and women 
 met on a common ground outside the home ; and even 
 then the meeting was not accomplished without difii- 
 culty and moral confusion. 
 
 "While children were under the care of their mothers 
 and nurses, the first aim of the education imparted to 
 them was to strengthen their bodies ; the second, to 
 inspire them with reverence for their elders ; and the 
 third, to fill their imaginations with pictures of heroic 
 deeds drawn from the mythology or history of their 
 race. With a view to the first, they were nourished 
 on simple food, allowed plenty of sleep and open-air 
 exercise, and inured, as far as possible, to heat and 
 cold. They seem to have worn almost no clothing. 
 With a view to the second, they were trained to habits 
 of silence, obedience, and respectful demeanor in the 
 presence of their parents. At table they ate only what 
 was handed to them. With a view to the third, they 
 were entertained with songs and stories about gods 
 and goddesses, heroes and heroines — stories of which 
 an abundant supply, expressed in poetic language, 
 was to be found in the epics of Homer and the later 
 cyclic poets, not to mention the folklore, which was 
 abundant. 
 
 At the end of their seventh year boys were removed 
 
 from the care of their mothers and nurses and sent to^ 
 
 I 
 
 school. Going to school meant a great deal more iui 
 
BEFORE THE RISE OF PHILOSOPHY. 65 
 
 those days than it usually means in ours. It meant th,^ 
 beginning of an entirely new kind of life — viz., political 
 life. Greek schools were burgher-schools {Bilrger- 
 schulen) in a very strict sense; and though the state 
 did not provide them or (in Athens at least) compel 
 any one to attend them, it oversaw them and used 
 them for its purposes — that is, for the training of 
 citizens in all political and social (that is, diagogic) 
 activities. In school, boys were thrown into a sort of 
 preparatory public life ; for the music school and the 
 palestra were to them what the agora and the gymna- 
 sium were to grown men : their daily life was spent in 
 them. Leaving home at daybreak, and with almost 
 no clothing, the boys, each accompanied by his peda- 
 gogue, assembled at some appointed spot, and thence 
 walked through the streets, in rank and file, to school. 
 It seems that freeborn boys and girls were not per- 
 mitted to walk in the streets without attendants. The 
 pedagogue, usually an aged and worn-out slave, though 
 not expected to impart to his ward any literary instruc- 
 tion, nevertheless played a great part in his education, 
 being his guardian and monitor during the whole of 
 the time that he was not immediately under the eye of 
 his parents and teachers — that is, while he was on his 
 way to and from school and during his hours of recre- 
 ation and play, which were not short. There can be 
 little doubt that a boy's moral training depended in 
 large degree upon the character of his pedagogue, and 
 that, as this was not always of the highest, many suf- 
 fered in consequence. 
 
 It is not easy to determine how the daily programme 
 of an Athenian school was arranged ; but it is not un- 
 K likely that the younger boys went to the palaestra in 
 
 i 
 
ee EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 the morning and to the music-school in the afternoon, 
 while the older boys did the reverse. Assuming this, 
 we shall follow the younger boys through a day. Ar- 
 rived at the p alsest ra, they salute the training-master, 
 pay their respects to Hermes, the patron deity of physi- 
 cal culture, whose statue and altar occupy a promi- 
 nent place, and then begin their exercises. These 
 are suited to the age of the boys, and are therefore 
 neither violent nor complicated. Their aim is to de- 
 velop all the faculties of the body in a harmonious 
 way, and to make it the ready and effective instru- 
 ment of the will. No attempt is made to impart the 
 athletic habit. The exercises consist of (1) running, 
 (2) leaping, (3) discus-throwing, (4) javelin-casting, 
 (5) wrestling. The first two are meant to exercise the 
 legs, the second two the arms and eye, the last the 
 whole body and the temper. These exercises are 
 varied with lessons in dancing and deportment, whose 
 purpose is to impart ease, grace, and dignity to every 
 attitude and movement, and to do away with awkward- 
 ness, forwardness, and bashfulness. A good deal of 
 time also is given up to play, during which the boy? 
 are allowed considerable freedom, and enjoy excellent 
 opportunities for learning the principles of concerted 
 action and of justice. In this way the forenoon is 
 spent. About noon there is a recess, during which 
 the boys partake of a simple meal brought them by 
 their pedagogues.* After this the boys are marched 
 
 * I am inclined to think that this was the custom in the olden 
 time, although, so far as I know, there is no express statement in 
 any ancient author on the subject. At a later time, if we may 
 judge from certain implied reproaches in Xenophon's Ediicaiion 
 of Cyrus, the boys went home to lunch, and often received im- 
 
BEFORE THE RISE OF PHILOSOPHY. 67 
 
 f in order to the music-school. Here, after saluting the 
 master, and uttering a beief invocation to the Muses 
 and Apollo, whose statues adorn the schoolroom, they 
 begin their mental gymnastics. These consist of sing- 
 ing, playing on the lute (KiOapis), writing, and reading. 
 The boys sit on the ground or on low benches, while 
 the teacher, armed with a rod, occupies an elevated 
 seat. The exercises open with patriotic songs. The 
 first is a religious song celebrating Zeus, Athena, or 
 some great deity, and is sung in unison to a simple, 
 old-fashioned Doric air ; and the boys are encouraged 
 to throw all the fire they can into both words and 
 music. This is followed by a war-song recalling some 
 great national victory, and is rendered in the same 
 spirit. Then follow other songs of different kinds, 
 but all simple and strong, appealing to patriotic and 
 ethical emotions quite as much as to the musical sense. 
 After the singing comes the lesson on the lute, in 
 which the boys learn to play the airs to which their 
 songs are sung. After the lute-playing comes the ^ 
 instruction in letters (ypa/x/tara). Each boy holds in [ 
 his hands a wax-covered tablet, or rather a pair of •: 
 folding tablets, and a stylus. These tablets contain 
 the writing lesson of yesterday, which is the reading 
 lesson of to-day. The boys go up in turn to the 
 master, who punctuates the writing for them — that is, 
 separates words and clauses (Stao-rtC") * — and then the 
 
 proper food from overindulgent mothers. It does not seem 
 that at any time the training-master exercised any supervision 
 over the eating and drinking of his pupils, this being probably 
 left to the parents and pedagogues. At this time the Greeks 
 were a temperate people, so that no special training in dietetic 
 hygiene was necessary. 
 
 * 1 am supposing that the boys we are following have already 
 
68 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 reading begins. The first effort of the master is to 
 make the boys read without stumbling or hesitancy 
 (dSiaTTTwro)?) ; having accomplished this, he proceeds 
 to make them read with due regard to expression, 
 prosody, and pauses (KaO* VTroKpicriv^ Kara TrpoawSuiVy 
 Kara Staa-ToXrjv), and only after this has been done to 
 his satisfaction does the reading-lesson close, when the 
 boys are reminded that they are expected to commit 
 the whole to memory against exhibition-day. Other 
 tablets are now produced, and the writing-lesson be- 
 gins. This is at the same time a dictation-lesson, for 
 the boys write down what the master recites. With 
 this the session closes, the rest of the day till sunset 
 being devoted to play under the eye of the pedagogues, 
 who at last see their wards safely home before the 
 streets are dark.) 
 
 It is not pretended that the above picture is cor- 
 rect in every particular ; but, on the whole, I believe 
 it fairly represents the daily life of an Athenian school- 
 boy between the ages of seven and eleven. The above 
 programme may seem to us rather meagre. There is 
 no arithmetic, no grammar, no geography, no draw- 
 ing, no physical science, no manual training — only 
 physical exercise, dancing, singing, playing, reading, 
 and writing. And yet, if we examine the programme 
 carefully, we shall see that it was admirably adapted to 
 the end in view, which was to make s trong , well-bal- 
 anced, worthy, pat riotic citizens^ capable, through bodi- 
 ly strength, courage, social motive, and intelligence, of 
 meeting every'"^tnergei!?y of civil and military life. 
 
 learned to write all the letters and syllables. This they usually 
 did on boxes of sand or on sand strewed on the ground. The 
 
BEFORE THE EISE OF PHILOSOPHY. 69 
 
 The first thing that strikes one about it is that it aims 
 at developing capacity and not at imparting accom- 
 plishments or knowledge. Its purpose is to put the 
 pupil in complete possession of his bodily and mental 
 powers, so that he may be ready to exert them wisely 
 in relation to anything that may present itself. Such 
 self-possession was called by the Greeks KoXoKayadCa^ 
 fair-and-goodness, the "fair" applying to the body, 
 and the " good " to the soul. Again, if we look at the 
 intellectual part of the programme, we shall find that 
 it is not so meagre after all. The poetry which forms 
 the -matter of it holds in solution a whole world of 
 valuable experience and moral example, which it only 
 requires a good instructor to bring out. J-'he^ioetry 
 of Greece was its religious and ethical lore ; Homer 
 and Hesiod were its Bible. In learning this poetry, 
 therefore, boys were imbibing the very essence of the 
 national life, the inner spirit, of which its history and 
 institutions were but the external embodiment. There 
 are two things which the Greeks recognized far better 
 4ihan we do : (1) the educational yalno of true poetry, 
 and (2) the ethical influence of works which present 
 in ^^Ts^ "f^T'rn fl^^ p^i(;Tp]^i, ff^lig^^^^a and political, 
 of a people's life. -We are inclined to be content if we 
 can get information rapidly and easily into the heads 
 of our pupils, and trouble ourselves very little about 
 the manner in which this is accomplished. The 
 Greeks were wiser.) They knew that the how is more 
 important than the what ; that conceptions which are 
 presented to the mind clothed in poetic light and 
 heat are far more readily assimilated and retained, and 
 exercise a far deeper and more lasting influence upon 
 the imagination, the feelings, and the will, than those 
 
70 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 which come to it in the cold, gray garb of ordinary 
 prose. They knew that to accustom the mind to a 
 poetic way of conceiving things, and of expressing its 
 conceptions in the forms of language, is far better than 
 to crowd it with any number of facts, however useful. 
 The truth is, the world at bottom is poetical, and un- 
 less we can see it poetically we do not see it as it is. 
 y^ Again we are inclined to think that any piece of 
 writing is good enough to put in a reading-book for 
 schools, provided it is free from grammatical errors 
 and interesting or amusing. " The One-horse Shay " 
 or " The Owl and the Pussy-cat" does just as well as 
 " The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers." In this again 
 the Greeks were wiser than we. From the time when 
 their sons began to read, the great literary works of the 
 nation were placed in their hands, and the thoughts 
 and ideals which had shaped the institutions of the 
 state made familiar to their thoughts and imagina- 
 tions. Such was the richness of these works that there 
 is hardly any branch of ordinary education recognized 
 at the present day that might not easily be brought 
 into fruitful and elevating connection with them.* 
 And there can be no doubt that in the hands of good 
 teachers they were made the basis not only of ethical 
 instruction, but also of history, geography, grammar, 
 and many other things. 
 
 If now we should follow one of the older boys 
 through his exercises for a day, we should not find 
 that they differed greatly from those of the younger 
 
 * Greek literature was admirably adapted for educational 
 purposes ; but English is not one whit behind it. What a glori- 
 ous day for English and American education it will be when the 
 school-books are the Bible, Shakespeare, Scott, and Tennyson ! 
 
BEFORE THE RISE OF PHILOSOPHY. 71 
 
 boys, except in being more advanced and in demand- 
 ing more continuous and vigorous exertion. The 
 races, the leaps, the throws of discus and javelin, be- 
 come longer; wrestling becomes more complicated 
 and energetic, and occupies more time than formerly. 
 Preparation is going on to meet the dangers of the 
 approaching age of puberty. The poetry and music 
 are of a higher order ; the literary lessons are longer, 
 treat of higher and more abstruse subjects, and are 
 made the basis for more difficult studies. Arithmetic 
 is now introduced, and some elementary instruction 
 given in astronomy. When the age of puberty arrives, 
 a marked change is made in the studies. More time 
 than before is devoted to physical training, while the 
 intellectual exercises assume a more practical turn. 
 Every eHort is made to fill the time of the boys with 
 vigorously active occupations, to turn their attention 
 outward, away from themselves and their own feelings 
 and toward things to be done. Emulation, which al- 
 ways played a principal part in everything Greek, is 
 now allowed to have its full effect, and superiority in 
 any study rewarded with all that is dear to the heart 
 of a boy. And this leads us to the matter of school 
 exhibitions. 
 
 We have already seen that physical training was 
 under the patronage of Hermes, while music and let- 
 ters were under that of Apollo and the Muses. Now, 
 since such patronage always implied worship, certain 
 days were set apart in all the schools for this purpose. 
 The palsestras celebrated the Herm^a ("Epfxaia) ; the 
 music schools, the Musea (Movo-cta). At these festivals 
 the religious service consisted of competitive exercises 
 on the part of the 'pupils, closing with a sacrifice. By 
 
72 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 a law of Solon's the school buildings and grounds were 
 at these times, as at all others, rigorously closed against 
 grown persons, and any one who entered was liable to 
 the penalty of death. Thus the only spectators, besides 
 the teachers and their families, were the impartial gods. 
 Before the sacrifice the successful competitors were 
 crowned with wreaths, and were the heroes of the oc- 
 casion, being regarded as the special favorites of the 
 patron gods, whom they had proved themselves to have 
 worthily served ; for all worth or excellence was re- 
 garded as a mark of divine favor, and its manifestation 
 a part of divine service. 
 
 About the age of sixteen^the Athenian boy finished 
 his school life^^^his'wa^a most important event in 
 his career ; for now he passed, in great measure, out 
 of the hands of his parents into those of the state, 
 which undertook to complete his education and pre- 
 pare him for citizenship. 'It is a curious fact that, in 
 spite of all the recommendations of philosophers and 
 the example of Sparta, Athens never had any S3^stem 
 of public instruction, except what was needed as a 
 direct preparation for civil and military service. Wise- 
 ly, I can not but think, she refused, by a socialistic 
 system of public schools, to relieve parents from the 
 duty of educating their children, a duty which they 
 had undertaken in bringing them into the world. At 
 the same time, she recognized perfectly well her duty 
 to her children and future citizens by imposing certain 
 disabilities upon parents who failed to educate their 
 sons, and by making inaccessible to uneducated boys 
 the instruction necessary to prepare them for the 
 higher duties of citizenship. 
 
 It seems to me probable that state-education for 
 
BEFORE THE RISE OF PHILOSOPHY. 73 
 
 state-purposes originated with Solon, who did so much 
 for the culture of his fellow-countrymen. It was he 
 who built the first gymnasia at Athens, the Academy 
 to the northwest of the city, and Cynosarges to the 
 east, the former as a resort for, full-blooded citizens, 
 the latter for those whose blood contained a foreign 
 admixture. These gymnasia played an important part 
 in the life of the people. They were not only public 
 parks and exercise-grounds where the citizens spent a 
 good deal of their time, but they were also state edu- 
 cational institutions, subserving, in an unobtrusive 
 way the interests of aristocracy. While no young man 
 born of free parents was excluded from them, yet, in- 
 asmuch as no one was fitted to enter who had not re- 
 ceived a careful previous education in school and 
 palaestra, their benefits were practically confined to the 
 sons of cultured and well-to-do families ; and since 
 only those young men who had taken a full state- 
 course of instruction in the gymnasia were eligible to 
 the higher state-pffices, the result of the establishment 
 of these institutions was to confine these offices to 
 members of such families. So long, therefore, as the 
 constitution of Solon remained in force, the state- 
 gymnasia formed a barrier against the rising tide of 
 democracy. 
 
 When a boy was admitted to a public gymnasium, 
 though still regarded as a minor, he obtained a sudden 
 /and often perilous accession of liberty. He was no 
 longer accompanied by his pedagogue when he went 
 abroad, but was free to go where he liked — to lounge 
 in the Greets or the agora, to choose his own com- 
 panions, and to be present at whatever was going on 
 in the city. A good deal of his time was no doubt 
 
71 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 spent in his gymnasium, in physical exercises, and in 
 pleasant walks and talks with companions of his own 
 age and with older men. The exercises were now what 
 was known as the pentathlon, consisting of running, 
 leaping, discus-throwing, wrestling, and boxing. They 
 were superintended by a state-officer (yv/xvao-r/Js or 
 aAetVnys), who saw to it that they were conducted in 
 the most vigorous manner. Before the wrestling-les- 
 son began, the young men were rubbed over with oil 
 and bestrewed with fine sand, and then began a wild 
 struggle, literally in the dirt ; for care was taken to 
 teach them that, when occasion demanded, they must 
 not be afraid of soiling their hands or even their whole 
 bodies.* When the lesson was over they scraped 
 themselves with a strigil, took a cold bath, were again 
 anointed, and then rested, exposing their naked bodies 
 to the sun, till the skin became of a light chestnut 
 color. f The boxing lessons seem to have been con- 
 ducted in a way not unworthy of the modern prize- 
 ring. It hardly needs to be remarked that all the 
 exercises in the gymnasia were public, a fact which 
 was enough to deter weaker men from taking part in 
 them, and to encourage the stronger ones to do their 
 best. 
 
 It is a curious circumstance that during the years 
 
 * See the graphic account in the beginning of Lucian's AncL- 
 charsis : " They are mixed up in the dirt, rolling about like pigs " 
 (iy Ty TTTjAy (Twava^vpoyrou, KvXiv^ovfieyoi Sxnrep tries), and more to 
 the same effect. 
 
 f This curious practice enables us to account for the color on 
 the bodies of certain recently discovered painted statues, and 
 also for the sneers of Aristophanes at the pale complexions {rohs 
 axpMvras, Clouds, 104) of the pupils of Socrates. 
 
BEFOKE THE RISE OF PHILOSOPHY. 75 
 
 when young men were attending the public gymnasia 
 no intellectual instruction, not even a course in po- 
 litical science, was provided for them. The explana- 
 tion of this clearly is that they were expected to acquire 
 all that was necessary from attending courts, public 
 meetings, etc., and from contact, in the gymnasia and 
 agora, with older men. The truth is that in Athens 
 what we should call college-education was imparted 
 directly by the state through its ordinary functions. 
 Thus her young men, instead of attending classes in 
 political science, gave their attention to the practical 
 application of political principles in the daily life of 
 the state. 
 
 The gymnastic training of the young Athenian 
 lasted for two years. At the age of eighteen, if he had 
 worthily acquitted himself, he graduated, taking the 
 degree of cadet (eiprj^o^)^ and. passed out of the control 
 of his parents into that of the state. This transition 
 was accompanied with an impressive ceremony. His 
 father, having proved from the records of his phratry 
 that he was the lawful child of free parents, had his 
 name enrolled in the register of his demos, and the 
 youth became a member of it. Thereafter, furnished 
 with the necessary credentials, he presented himself to 
 the so-called king-arch on (apx^v ^ao-cAcvs), and asked 
 to be introduced to the people as a citizen. He now 
 cut off the long hair which he had previously worn, 
 and put on the black dress which marked the citizen. 
 At the first public meeting held thereafter the archon 
 introduced him, in company with others, to the whole 
 people. Hereupon, armed with spear and shield (the 
 gift of the state, if he was the orphan son of a father 
 who had fallen in battle), he proceeded to the temple 
 
76 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 of Aglauros, whicli overlooked the agora, the greater 
 part of the city, and a large portion of the territory of 
 the state, and here took the following oath, prescribed 
 by Solon : " I will never disgrace these sacred arms, 
 nor desej-t my companion in the ranks. I will fight 
 for temples and public property, both alone and with 
 many. I will transmit my fatherland, not only not 
 less, but greater and better, than it was transmitted to 
 me. I will obey the magistrates who may at any time 
 be in power. I will observe both the existing laws and 
 those which the people may unanimously hereafter 
 make, and if any person seek to annul the laws or set 
 them at naught, I will do my best to prevent him, and 
 will defend them both alone and with many. I will 
 honor the religion of my fathers. And I call to wit- 
 ness Aglauros, Enyalios, Ares, Zeus, Thallo, Auxo, and 
 Hegemone." 
 
 But though after this the young men were full citi- 
 zens, they were not permitted to exercise all the func- 
 tions of such. For two years more they were regarded 
 as novices, and took no part in civic duties, being com- 
 pelled to live outside the city, to garrison fortresses, 
 and to act as patrolmen and country police. Their 
 life at this time was that of soldiers in war, and 
 woe to them if they showed any cowardice or weak- 
 ness ! If during the two years they came up to the 
 required standard of manhood, and passed the man- 
 hood examination (So/ci/wio-ia cis avSpas), they received 
 the degree of Athenian man,* returned to live in the 
 
 * Pubhc speakers always addressed the citizens by this title 
 (^AvSpes 'A6rjpa7oi, Athenian men), which is quite different from 
 simple " Athenians " (5 "Adrjviuoi), 
 
BEFORE THE RISE OP PHILOSOPHY. Y7 
 
 city, and began to exercise all the duties of citizenship. 
 Their university, their alma mater — and they attended 
 it for the rest of their lives — was the state ; their cur- 
 riculum, their civic duties. During the earlier years 
 of their civic life their time was pretty fully occupied 
 with practical duties — administrative, judicial, military; 
 but as they approached the age of fifty they enjoyed 
 more leisure, which they devoted to Staywy?/, this being 
 regarded as the crown and just reward of a well-spent 
 life. 
 
 Such, in its general outlines, was the scheme of 
 Athenian education in the centuries which preceded 
 the Persian war and the rise of philosophy, and it may 
 be' taken as the type of Greek education generally dur- 
 ing that time. Those great educational differences 
 which in subsequent times fixed so wide a gulf between 
 Athens on the one hand, and Thebes and Sparta on 
 the other, existed as yet but in embryo. How valuable 
 this scheme was, and how well adapted to its purpose, 
 was shown to all the world on the fields of Marathon 
 and Plataeaj and in the Gulf of Salamis, when it broke 
 the power of Oriental despotism forever and laid the 
 foundations of human freedom- 
 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 There is no date in Greek history upon which we 
 can put a finger and say, Here philosophy began. The 
 progress from unreflective to reflective thought was 
 slow and laborious, and the latter did not appear until 
 it was called for by new social relations for which the 
 former was found to be inadequate. Like every other 
 great spiritual product which gave lustre to Greek civ- 
 ilization, philosophy took its first steps, not in Greece 
 proper, but in those of her colonies which came in con- 
 tact with civilizations different from hers — in Ionia 
 first, and in Magna Graecia afterward — and all the 
 philosophers before Socrates belong to one or the other 
 of these re^rions. Just what the circumstances were 
 which first made men feel that the old, simple, myth- 
 ical explanation of the origin and order of the world 
 was unsatisfactory, and forced them to look about for 
 another, we can not tell with certainty ; but there are 
 some reasons for concluding that among them was that 
 confusion of myths which arose out of the attempt to 
 unite religions of widely diverse character — attempts 
 which could hardly fail to be made in the regions 
 above referred to. Not seldom does a conflict between 
 rival claims result in the rejection of both, and the 
 putting forward of a new claimant. And so it hap- 
 
AFTER THE RISE OF PHILOSOPHY. 79 
 
 pened in this instance. In the conflict of mythologies 
 — Greek, Lydian, Persian, Phoenician, etc. — mythology 
 
 . came gradually to be discredited and to be superseded 
 
 -by philosophy. 
 
 We have seen that in the eaHier stages of social 
 existence life rested upon a religious consciousness — 
 that is, upon a strong, unreasoned feeling of the soli- 
 darity of the family, phratry, tribe, etc. We have also 
 seen that this solidarity originally included the dead 
 as well as the living members of the social body, and, 
 being supposed to depend upon community of blood, 
 gave occasion to sacrificial rites, which were merely a 
 means of maintaining and strengthening it. W^e have 
 seen, still further, that these rites were continued long 
 after their meaning was forgotten and the worship of 
 nature-powers had replaced that of ancestors, nay, even 
 after nature powers had given way before ideal moral 
 personalities. With each of these substitutions, of 
 course, religious rites assumed a new meaning. The 
 rise of nature-powers gave birth to mythology ; that of 
 moral personalities to ethical allegory and Orphic the- 
 osophy. But, despite all such changes, the rites per- 
 sisted, and life continued to rest upon a sense of soli- 
 darity between the individual and his social and 
 ph3^sical environment, a sense which is the origin of 
 all religion. Moreover, in proportion as the true 
 meaning of religious rites was forgotten, the rites 
 themselves came to be invested with an atmosphere 
 of mystery, which gave them a vague and awesome im- 
 pressiveness, such as no amount of clear meaning could 
 have imparted to them. It was in this way that re- 
 ligion, which originally had nothing to do with ethics, 
 came to furnish ethical sanctions, and to be regarded 
 7 
 
80 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 as something against which it was impious to utter a 
 word. In brief, the sacredness of religious observances 
 and beliefs is in great measure due to their mysteri- 
 ousness. 
 
 Xow, as long as there is no conflict of religious ob- 
 servances and of beliefs connected with them, they are 
 found to f\irnish very strong sanctions for external 
 morality ; but let a conflict arise, and their influence is 
 gone, and then other sanctions must be sought for. 
 These new sanctions, generally speaking, can be found 
 only through reflection — that is, philosophy. Such is 
 the origin of Greek philosophy. Of course, the passage 
 from religion to philosophy is gradual, and the latter 
 is long in finding out what its implications are. It 
 was not till Socrates came that Greek philosophy 
 really became conscious of what it meant ; and then, 
 naturally enough, religion tried to abolish it in his 
 person. 
 
 The aim of what has been said thus far is to bring 
 out the fact that, with the rise and growth of philoso- 
 phy, life loses its old religious basis and seeks to find 
 another through reflection. But religion, being at bot- 
 tom a sense of solidarity, which is the fundamental 
 bond of society, when this sense is gone, society is lia- 
 ble to fall to pieces, unless a bond of equal strength 
 can be found in philosophy. And it is long before 
 this can be done. Reflection in its infancy turns to 
 the physical world, to which, indeed, the old gods be- 
 long, and there, apart from gods, it finds no moral 
 sanctions — nothing calculated to hold society together. 
 It is only long afterward, when it turns its attention 
 inward to the spiritual world, that it discovers the true 
 bond, which is no longer one of blood or land, but one 
 
AFTER THE RISE OF PHILOSOPJ^^' ^'^ 
 
 of intellect and will ; and it is only then that m'O.' ^^ ' 
 pass from natural to moral life and religion. 
 
 We need not, then, be in the least surprised wlien^ 
 we find that the first effect of reflective thought was 
 to loosen the old bonds of society and reduce it to its 
 constituent atoms, or individuals, for individual is 
 only the Latin rendering of the Greek atom {aTOfiov). 
 In a word, philosophy gave rise to individualism. Nor 
 is this wonderful ; for one chief difference between 
 unreflectivo and reflective thought is this : the former 
 is race-thought, the latter individual thought, and 
 each tends to preserve its own subject and to invest 
 it with importance. The struggle between the two 
 kinds of thought was long and fierce, and did not — 
 indeed, could not — close until men discovered that 
 neither the one nor the other was true by itself, but 
 that the two had to combine in universal or divine 
 thought. We can well sympathize with Heraclitua 
 when, seeing the social ravages of individualism, he 
 exclaims : " Though reason (Xoyos) is universal, the 
 mass of men live as if each had a private wisdom of 
 his own ! " In the midst of this struggle ancient 
 society, with its material ties, fell to pieces, and the 
 world has been struggling ever since to replace it by a 
 social order bound together by spiritual, that is, eth- 
 ical, ones. 
 
 The same contact with foreign peoples which gave 
 the impulse to reflective thought among the Greeks 
 also brought about that ever-memorable conflict which 
 first made Greece conscious of her own mission, lifted 
 her to a new grade of civilization, and made necessary 
 an ethical social bond. When, after the second Persian 
 war, Athens assumed the hegemony of Greece, and sud- 
 
80 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 as soT^iound herself compelled to deal with a large niim- 
 wn of confederate states, she confronted a problem for 
 which her political experience and principles had not 
 prepared her — the problem of how to combine with 
 her associates into a larger and stronger political unity. 
 What shall be the bond of this unity ? was now the 
 vital question ; and Athens returned the wrong answ^er. 
 Instead of seeking to introduce an ethical bond be- 
 tween herself and her associated commonwealths, to 
 be merelj prima inter pares, and so to pave the way 
 for a United States of Greece, she tried to reduce them 
 to a condition of material dependence, and in the end 
 ruined both herself and them. But the principles 
 which she had refused to apply in order to found a 
 social order deserving to absorb and supersede her 
 own, were all the while at work in her own body, 
 slowly but surely accomplishing its dissolution. In- 
 dividualism was shaping itself into democracy, which 
 was entirely incompatible with the existence of the 
 ancient state. Democracy requires a moral bond, and 
 the ancient state had only a material- one. 
 ^ The spirit of individualism, fostered by reflective 
 thought, showed itself now^here sooner than in educa- 
 tion. Aristotle says : " When they (our ancestors) be- 
 gan to enjoy leisure for thought, as the result of easy 
 circumstances, and to cherish more exalted ideas with 
 respect to worth, and especially when, in the period 
 before and after the Persian wars, they came to enter- 
 tain a high opinion of themselves on account of their 
 achievements, they pursued all kinds of education, 
 making no distinction, but beating about generally." 
 The truth was, to the new thought, not bounded by 
 the horizon of a small state and its round of duties, 
 
 \ 
 
AFTER THE RISE OF PHILOSOPHY. ^5 
 
 the old education seemed narrow and meagre, and, 
 like any other novice, it grasped at everything that 
 came within its reach, especially in states which, like 
 Athens, had no public system of education. Thus 
 there arose a demand for all kinds of knowledge, for 
 polymathy;* as the Greeks said, without any regard to 
 its value for the practical business of life — for knowl- 
 edge which, at best, might serve the purposes of StaywyiJ, 
 now gradually coming to claim a -large share in life. 
 This demand brought into existence a class of men 
 not hitherto known in Greece — men who called them- 
 selves Sophists ((To<f>L(TT7]^, one who makes wise) and 
 undertook to teach everything. To some extent they 
 took the place of the old rhapsodes ; indeed, they 
 might fitly enough be termed philosophic rhapsodes, 
 inasmuch as they bore the same relation to the phi- 
 losophers who preceded them as the rhapsodes bore to 
 the epic poets. Since the days of Socrates the name 
 Sophist has had an evil sound, implying shallowness 
 and charlatanry; and this is not altogether unjust to 
 the bearers of it. Nevertheless, the Sophists were the 
 natural product of their time, which was in the main 
 responsible for their characteristics. Their work was 
 mostly negative and destructive, but it had to be done. 
 Their disorganizing influence was due not so much to 
 their self-satisfied foppish agnosticism as to the im- 
 portance which they assigned to the individual con- 
 
 * Heraclitus, who ©tidently despised this, says : " Multitude 
 of knowledge {TroKvfjLaOlr}) does not teach understanding, else it 
 would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, and again Xe- 
 nophanes and Hecataeus." The four men here mentioned evi- 
 dently represent to the Ephesian the new tendency, which he 
 deplores. 
 
p^ EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 sciousness. Their fundamental tenet, " Man (i. e., the 
 individual man) is the measure of all things," expresses 
 the essence of indiyidualism. At the same time, it is 
 only a clear assertion of the yalidity of reflective 
 thought, as opposed to the unreflective thought of the 
 preceding ages ; and it was well that this assertion 
 should be boldly made. For the first time in the 
 world's history rationalis^a became conscious of itself 
 and demanded a £eanng. 
 
 For us of the present day it is very difficult to con- 
 ceive that the identification of moral personality with 
 individuality is a thing of comparatively recent date ; 
 that in the earlier ages even of Greece, Eome, and 
 Israel this had not been accomplished. And yet it is 
 true. In those times the moral personality was not 
 the individual, but the social organism, the family or 
 the state, as the case might be. In the old Hebrew 
 commandment God is said to " visit the iniquity of the 
 fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth 
 generation," and it is not till the time of Ezekiel, a 
 contemporary of Solon's, when the Hebrew social or- 
 ganism is in ruins, that we find the announcement : 
 " The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, 
 neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son ; 
 the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, 
 and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." * 
 If among the Hebrews this conviction was the result 
 of social disorganization, among the Greeks the oppo- 
 site was the case ; social disorganization was the result 
 of the conviction that the individual stands for him- 
 self alone. 
 
 * Ezek. xviii, 20. The whole of the chapter ought to be read 
 in this connection. 
 
AFTER THE RISE OF PHILOSOPHY. 85 
 
 It is easy enough to understand that such a change 
 of view should revolutionize the whole life of a people. 
 As long as the social organism was the moral person- 
 ality, so long it was the centre of interest and effort ; 
 but no sooner was its place taken by the individual 
 than all interest and effort were transferred to him, 
 and the social organism, if not neglected, was regarded 
 as a means of which individual good was the end. In 
 Greece this momentous change w^as wrought mainly 
 through the Sophists. From their time Greek educa- 
 tion tended more and more to lose sight of the citizen 
 in the man and to regard practical life a mere means 
 to Siaywy-^. Let US SCO what the immediate effect of 
 this was upon the two acknowledged branches of in- 
 struction — gymnastics and music. 
 "^ In the old time, as we have seen, the aim of gym- 
 nastics had been to impart vigor and grace to the body, 
 so that the pupil might perform his part as a citizen 
 with energy and dignity, in war and peace. Now it 
 becomes more and more a preparation for cultured lei- 
 sure, for an easy self-sufficient enjoyment, such as men 
 were beginning to look forward to in Elysium,* but 
 which they tried to anticipate here on earth. There is 
 a passage in Pindar which shows very clearly what this 
 enjoyment in his time was expected to be. " For them 
 below there shines the might of the sun during the 
 night here, and. in meadows of purple roses their sub- 
 
 * The belief in personal immortality, with bliss or bale ac- 
 cording to the life here, did not, and could not, become clear 
 until the individual came to be recognized as the moral person- 
 ality. Up to that time it was immortality for the nation or the 
 family that was coveted. This was notoriously the case among 
 ie Hebrews. 
 
86 EDUCATION OF XIIE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 urban retreat is laden with dark frankincense and 
 golden fruits. And some delight themselves with 
 horses and gymnastic exercises, some with draughts, 
 and some with lyres, and with them all prosperity 
 luxuriates in full bloom. And through the pleasant 
 place a perfume is shed as they forever mingle all 
 kinds of scented woods with far-gleaming fire upon 
 the altars of the gods." It is obvious enough that 
 gymnastics having in view a life of this sort, a life of 
 aesthetic enjoyment, will be very different from the 
 gymnastics intended to harden men for the duties of 
 civil life. They will no longer aim to make the body 
 capable of the greatest amount of sustained exertion, 
 but to fit it for such activity as shall give delight and 
 impart the delicious sense of physical health. In a 
 word, their aim will be subjective, not objective; it 
 will be feeling, necessarily confined to the individual, 
 not action exerted for the good of a community. It 
 would be diflScult to overestimate the momentousness 
 of this change. 
 
 Very similar was the change that took place in re- 
 gard to " music." In the older period the chief pur- 
 pose of this branch of education had been to stimulate 
 an intelligent patriotism and to develop those mental 
 qualities which should enable men to play their part 
 worthily in all the departments of domestic and civil 
 life. ' Knowledge for knowledge' sake was hardly 
 dreamed of. Now, on the contrary, though the old 
 aims are by no means forgotten, new aims of an en- 
 tirely different sort come in, and not only alter the 
 character of the instruction, but call for new sorts of 
 instruction altogether unknown before. The strong 
 old patriotic songs, with their simple Doric airs, played 
 
AFTER THE RISE OF PHILOSOPHY. 87 
 
 upon the simplest of instruments — songs whose pur-> 
 pose had been to stir the heart with manly emotions^ 
 which might be ready for use as motives when strenu4 
 ous action was demanded — now gradually give way toj 
 languid or sentimental songs with complicated ear-( 
 tickling rhythms, set to Lydian or Phrygian airs full 
 of trills and graces, and played upon difficult instru- 
 ments requiring skilful manipulation. Such songs 
 and music were calculated to fill with sweet delight 
 a passive mood, not to stir the soul to deeds of worth. 
 Aristophanes, the inimitably witty and sincere cham- 
 pion of the olden time, says that if then " any one 
 attempted any fooling, or any of those trills, like the 
 difficult inflections a la Phrynis, now in vogue, he re- 
 ceived a good thrashing for his pains, as having in- 
 sulted the Muses," the patrons of the study. But 
 even Aristophanes's wit could not counteract the new 
 tendency. " The cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, 
 dulcimer, and all kinds of music" were introduced 
 into the schools,* and boys learned to play on them, 
 not to develop in themselves worth for action, but to 
 obtain pleasure for themselves, or to make a display 
 for the delectation of others. And while this change 
 was going on in the case of music proper, letters, 
 which were still classed along with music, were fol- 
 lowing a similar course. The old epic poets were by 
 degrees discarded as old-fashioned, and their place 
 
 * This was literally true ; see Aristotle, Polit., viii, 6 ; 1341a 
 40 sgg,, where are enumerated irnKrlSes, pdpfiiroi, irrrdyuva, rpiyuva 
 Kol aafx^vKai, with two etc., the first covering those instruments 
 " that tend to the pleasure of those using them " ; the second, to 
 those " that require manipulatory science," or, as we should say, 
 scientific manipulation. 
 
88 EDUCATION OP THE GEEEK PEOPLE. 
 
 was taken by works of a reflective and didactic sort. 
 Gnomic poetry, as it was called — that is, epigrammatic 
 poetry of a sententiously moral kind, such as was writ- 
 ten by Simonides, Archilochus, Solon, and Theognis — 
 came greatly into vogue,* and furnished matter for 
 casuistic and hair-splitting discussions, which, while 
 they might sharpen the wits and aSord opportunities 
 for brilliant intellectual sword-practice, were not cal- 
 culated to strengthen the moral nature or awaken an 
 enthusiasm for manly activity. f Whereas the epic 
 poetry had turned the thoughts outward to the world 
 of deeds and drawn the moral distinctions in it, this 
 gnomic poetry turned the attention 'inward to the 
 world of motives, and tried to draw distinctions among 
 them. ^The effect of this, of course, was to foster re- 
 flection instead of action.) And this reflection, once 
 roused, turned itself to the whole content of the con- 
 sciousness and to the forms in which it found expres- 
 sion, thus giving birth, in course of time, to the sci- 
 jences of logic, rhetoric, and grammar, all of which 
 I may be said to owe their origin to the Sophists. All 
 *of them, too, were sooner or later included in the 
 school programme, which thus became almost as varied 
 as that of a modern school. 
 
 , Thus both branches of education gradually lost 
 
 jsight of their objective and civic aim, 'which was 
 
 /worth, and drifted toward 'a subjective and individual 
 
 ' one, which, when it became fully conscious of itself-, 
 
 assumed the name of evSaifiovia, or happiness. But 
 
 * See Aristophanes, Clouds, 1036 sgq. 
 
 f In the first book of Plato's RepiiUic (331 E sqq.) there is 
 an example of such discussion, having for its text a gnome of 
 Simonides' who is acknowledged to be a great authority. 
 
AFTER THE RISE OF PHILOSOPHY. 89 
 
 the individualistic influence of philosophy,* as popu- 
 larized by the Sophists, was not confined to the pa- 
 laestra and the music-school. With these, indeed, the 
 Sophists had comparatively little to do. Their chief at\ 
 tention was directed to the young men who were attend-? 
 ing the public gymnasia, or who, having passed their 
 manhood examination, were eager to distinguish them- 
 selves in public life or to secure the conditions of hap- 
 piness. For the moral and intellectual culture of these 
 two classes of young men the state had made no special 
 provision, trusting that they would acquire whatever of 
 this sort was necessary or serviceable through daily con- 
 tact with older men and in the exercise of the duties 
 of public life. And this trust, on the whole, was well 
 fouruded as long as the state remained the chief object 
 of concern for every citizen ; but no sooner did indi- 
 vidualism and the desire for pleasant diagogic life 
 come into competition with the state than a culture 
 was demanded which it had no means j^f supplying. 
 Here the Sophists found their opportunity. The young 
 men were to be met everywhere — in the streets, the 
 market-place, the gymnasia, the taverns, the homes, 
 etc. The Sophist had only to show himself in order 
 to be surrounded by a knot of them. He had but to 
 seat himself in an exedra, or lay himself down under a 
 tree in the gymnasium, and they crowded round to 
 hear his wisdom — his manifold stores of unfamiliar 
 knowledge and his brilliant arguriients on any theme 
 proposed to him. He was' soon far more popular 
 
 * It should not be forgotten that <pi\o<Top(a (philosophy), 
 Pythagoras's modest substitute for the older aocpia (wisdom), 
 originally included all knowledge not possessed by the mass of 
 mankind. Its technical use is hardly older than Plato. 
 
90 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 with them than the most honored and experienced 
 citizen, who could talk to them only about their coun- 
 try's history and their social duties in simple, serious, 
 unadorned speech. He not only professed to teach 
 everything, from household economy up to statesman- 
 ship and virtue itself, but he declared himself ready, 
 for a consideration, to show how the individual might 
 successfully assert himself on all occasions, not only as 
 against his fellows, but also as against the state and its 
 laws. Such brilliant professions did not fall upon deaf 
 ears. Young men placed themselves under his tuition, 
 and paid him large sums, to learn the art of successful 
 self-assertion. 
 
 When we consider the necessary effect of such 
 teaching upon the social fabric, we can easily under- 
 stand why the Sophists and their tendencies were held 
 in abhorrence by all conservative and patriotic persons. 
 Nevertheless, it would be unjust to conclude from this 
 ; that they were evil and insincere men, seeking to bring 
 about social confusion and to profit by it. They may 
 not have been, individually, models of virtue ; but cer- 
 tainly they were not mere clever scoundrels. They 
 /were the pioneers of a new and higher social order, 
 / whose nature they did not comprehend, and for which, 
 therefore, they worked blindly and negatively. But 
 they did not work the less effectively on that account. 
 They called the validity of the old order in question, 
 loosened its bonds, and prepared it for yielding to a 
 new. The old order had merged the man in the citi- 
 zen and made public sentiment the ethical sanction ; 
 the Sophists were, in their crude way, endeavoring to 
 secure a foothold for the man outside of the citizen 
 and to place the moral sanction within his own breast. 
 
AFTER THE RISE OF PHILOSOPHY. 91 
 
 Nor must we allow ourselves to be blinded to the true 
 nature of their enterprise by the very obvious mischief 
 which it worked at its first inception. It put an end | 
 (let us hope forever) to institutional ethics, and broke | 
 up the order in which they were embodied; but it 
 paved the way for a higher sort of ethics and a nobler, 
 because freer, social system. Indeed, it might fairly 
 be said that all that is best in modern civilization is 
 contained in germ in the teaching of the despised 
 Sophists. Their fundamental maxim, " Man is the 
 measure of all things," may be made to express the 
 inmost essence of human freedom. 
 
 The Sophists might be despised or combated ; 
 they could not be disregarded. Their views contained 
 an element of truth which affected even those who 
 were most opposed to them, and which was never lost. 
 From their time on, two mutually hostile tendencies 
 contend for supremacy in Greek education and life : 
 (1) the old religious, institutional tendency, which 
 finds in the state the aim an^ sanction of all indi- 
 vidual actions ; and (2) the new, philosophical, indi- 
 vidualistic tendency, which makes the most desirable 
 condition of the individual the sum of all good that 
 can be striven for. Henceforth an unwearied struggle 
 goes on between the two ideals Worth (apexTj) and" 
 Happiness (evSat/i,ovia), between objective good and' 
 subjective good, and defies the deftest efforts at recon- 
 ciliation. To trace the course of this struggle will be 
 the chief object of the remaining chapters. 
 
 If we wish to see how the new tendency looked to 
 those whose affections and convictions were bound up 
 with the old order of things, we must go to the pages 
 of Aristophanes. Here, of course, we must not look 
 
92 EDUCATION OP THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 for fairness ; nevertheless, if we discriminatingly tone 
 down the pictures of the hostile caricaturist, we shall, 
 undoubtedly, arrive at something very near the truth. 
 \ Aristophanes depicts for us the new tendency chiefly 
 in four spheres of manifestation : (1) education, (2) 
 private morality, (3) public morality, (4) religion, and 
 'in each tries to bring out, in all its implications, and to 
 hold up to ridicule and scorn the gospel of individual- 
 ism. We shall consider these in order. 
 
 1. In education he finds that the old endeavor after 
 manliness, simplicity, and modesty has given way to an 
 effeminate indulgence which expresses itself in luxury 
 and irreverence. Boys, instead of going to school, as 
 in the good old days, in marching order, with down- 
 cast looks, and with the meagrest of clothing, now find 
 their way to it singly, staring impudently at every one 
 they meet and making a show with the heavy clothing 
 in which their pampered limbs are wrapped, and which 
 makes free activity impossible. Arrived at the music- 
 school, instead of striking up some of the old, heroic 
 national songs, and singing with a gusto their simple 
 Doric airs that stirred the blood and warmed the heart, 
 they tune their feeble voices in Lydian measures to 
 some languishing, sentimental love-ditty, which makes 
 them conscious of themselves and their slumbering 
 passions, or in plaintive Phrygian elegiacs to some epi- 
 grammatic, moral gnome, which provokes reflection and 
 morbid self-introspection. Passing to the palaBstra, they 
 are more eager to display the charms of their smooth 
 and delicate bodies than to harden them by vigorous 
 exercise, more careful to leave an imprefesion of them 
 in the sand, to suggest lewdness, than an impression 
 of the sand upon them. When they return home, 
 
AFTER THE RISE OF PHILOSOPHY. 93 
 
 they are bold, irreverent, and disobedient. They sit 
 with their legs crossed, snatch the daintiest morsels 
 from the table, gorge themselves with luxuries, talk 
 back to their parents, call their fathers by the most 
 disrespectful names, and treat them as insufferable, 
 old-fashioned bores. When they grow older and are 
 allowed to go out alone, instead of attending the gym- 
 nasia and taking part in their manly exercises with 
 others of their own age, they lounge about the streets, 
 squares, and bath-houses, cracking lewd or silly jokes, 
 or taking part in captious and sophistical disputes 
 upon matters that have no practical value, perhaps 
 even flirting with the demi-monde. As a result of all 
 this, they are narrow-chested, sallow-complexioned, 
 round-shouldered, and — long-tongued. Worse still, 
 they are utterly corrupt morally, being addicted to 
 viG€Ss of which it is not permitted even to sp^ak. 
 Sireh is the sad picture which Aristophanes draws of 
 the results of individualism on education. 
 
 2. Nor is the picture of its effects upon private life 
 more attractive. Here he finds selfishness, greed, and 
 dishonesty pervading every relation. Wives are luxuri- 
 ous, shrewish, snobbish, and unfaithful ; children are 
 cunning, self-indulgent, and impure ; slaves are lazy, 
 wasteful, lying, and debauched ; husbands, fathers, and 
 masters neglect their duty to their families and inher- 
 ited property, and devote themselves to the acquisition 
 of wealth by low and often dishonest means. Whereas 
 in the old time families had lived simply and healthily 
 on the produce of their farms, the possession of which 
 gave them their title to citizenship, they are now vying 
 with each other in luxury and display, the means to 
 which have to be derived from usury or business-profits, 
 
9J: EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 both alike accounted ignoble afid unworthy of free 
 men. Honor has given way te-^ealth. 
 
 3. The effects of indi^iSnaUsni upon public life 
 are summed up for Aristophanes in the one word de- 
 mocracy. Democracy is the horror of horrors, and he 
 devotes much of his most brilliant and humorous writ- 
 ^ ing to an arraignment of it. He endeavors to show 
 that, whereas in the old days all political power was in 
 the hands of the wisest and worthiest men, who used 
 it for the public welfare, now it is in those of the 
 basest and most ignorant, who employ it for their 
 \ own ends. Instead of the individual's being the de- 
 I voted servant of the state, as formerly, the state is 
 / now the servant of the individual ; politics is a money- 
 V making business. In the sausage-vender (aAAavroTrw- 
 \y]i) of the Knights he has given us a picture, exag- 
 gerated indeed, but vivid and, in its main implications, 
 true, of the popular politician of his time, with all his 
 ignorance, stupidity, vulgarity, greed, and bestiality; 
 and in the same work he has given us another picture, 
 not less true to life, of the selfish, testy, waspish, pam- 
 pered, gullible Athenian people, ever ready to put 
 their faith in any adventurer, however vulgar, who 
 promises to make life easy and comfortable for them, 
 to give them plenty of anchovies and cushioned seats. 
 \ 4. But nowhere, according to Aristophanes, has in- 
 ' dividualism wrought greater evil than in the sphere of 
 ^ religion. Here it appears as philosophy or reflective 
 thought, and lays the axe at the very root of the social 
 tree ; for religion, as we hav^e seen, is that root. Aris- 
 tophanes was entirely right in thinking that the substi- 
 tution of scientific or philosophic notions for the old 
 gods must necessarily be fatal to the institutions based 
 
AFTER THE RISE OP PHILOSOPHY. 95 
 
 upon the latter. And he finds that they are substi- 
 tuted. Jupiter, Athena, and Apollo have been con- 
 signed by the Sophists to the limbo of fable, and in 
 their room have been placed Clouds, Vortex, and — Gab 
 (yAoio-o-a) ! Evcn men who are not directly influenced 
 by philosophic ideas have lost faith in the gods, and 
 are either atheists or sunk in gross superstition. In 
 the opening of the Kniglits^ Nicias, being asked on 
 what ground he believes in gods, replies : " Because I 
 am an enemy to gods." And further on we are shown 
 what foolish and debasing confidence is placed in ficti- 
 tious oracles coming from gods and shrines which no 
 one ever before heard of, and which in many cases did 
 not exist. 
 
 Thus in every department of social life Aristophanes 
 finds a process of dissolution going on which he fore- 
 sees must in the end be fatal to the conditions of 
 moral and political life. Accordingly he uses all the 
 resources of his inimitable humor to cast ridicule and 
 discredit upon those whom he conceives to be the chief 
 authors of the mischief — the Sophists. Aristophanes 
 was so far right : the tendency represented by the 
 Sophists did paralyze and ruin the Greek polities ; but 
 he was not far-sighted enough to discover that out of 
 that ruin would arise a nobler polity — one not neces- 
 sarily confined to small communities, but capable of 
 infinite extension, because based on what is purely 
 essential in man. The limitations of his view could 
 not have been shown more strikingly than by his 
 choice of Socrates as the representative of the Soph 
 ists. As the reasons for this have rarely been under- 
 stood, and Aristophanes has been blamed for gross 
 injustice to the great martyr, it will be well to stop 
 8 
 
96 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 for a moment and consider just how far Socrates 
 might with justice be taken to represent the sophistic 
 tendency. Such consideration will help us to under- 
 >s^ stand the suhsequent course of Greek education. 
 0>v^ We have seen that the rise of philosophy meant the 
 ' advent of individual and reflective thought, as distin- 
 guished from the social and unreflective thought of 
 previous ages. We have seen, further, that the Soph- 
 ists had formulated the fundamental principle of this 
 thought in the maxim, "Man is the measure of all 
 
 ] things," and that in consequence they had striven to 
 remove the criteria of truth and the grounds of action 
 
 . from external traditions and the institutions embody- 
 
 * ing them, and to place them within the breast of each 
 individual human being. It is obvious that such an 
 undertaking logically compelled them to call in ques- 
 
 ' tion the reality of all institutional beliefs and sanctions, 
 including the gods and all the mythology relating to 
 them, and that this would necessarily lead to the dis- 
 solution of institutions — to what the Greeks called 
 anarchy (dvapxta, absence of authority). Kow the 
 question is. In how far did Socrates agree with all 
 this? 
 
 In the dialogues of Plato and elsewhere Socrates 
 figures so largely as the irreconcilable foe of the Soph- 
 ists as to have led to the belief that he had nothing in 
 common with them, and that he utterly abhorred their 
 principles and tendencies. Yet this is very far indeed 
 from the truth. In every one of the above positions 
 maintained by the Sophists Socrates was at one with 
 them. No one believed more firmly than he that the 
 ultimate test of truth and sanction of right lies within 
 the breast of each individual ; and no man was ever 
 
AFTER THE RISE OF PHILOSOPHY. 97 
 
 V more contemptuous of political, social, or even what 
 \0 claimed to be divine, authority, if it did not carry with 
 it the voice of his inner being. Indeed, it was to main- 
 tain this position that he lived and died. /' The differ- 
 ence between the Sophists and Socrates lay not at all 
 in principles, but in the interpretation of them. When 
 they said, " Man is the measure of all things," they in- 
 terpreted " man " as the individual man, and then there 
 followed for religion and society all the consequences 
 for which history has held them responsible. Socrates, 
 seeing that absurd moral consequences could not fol- 
 low from a true principle correctly interpreted, and 
 not being able to fight the Sophists' principle, turned 
 his arms against their interpretation of it, maintaining 
 that the " man " who is the measure of all things is 
 not at all the individual man who eats, drinks, and 
 sleeps, but the transcendent and universal man. What 
 astonishing results for thought and action were the re- 
 sults of this contention we shall see in the next chapter. 
 At present it is enough to say that these results, widely 
 different as they were from those reached by the Soph- 
 ists, were no less incompatible than those with the re- 
 ligious principles upon which Greek polity rested, how- 
 ever conducive they might be to a polity of a higher 
 order. As far, then, as Aristophanes or any conserva- 
 tive Greek was concerned, there was no difference be- 
 tween Socrates and the Sophists ; the principles of 
 both were equally fatal to the old Greek social and 
 moral order. Add to this the fact that the term 
 " Sophist " in Aristophanes's time had none of that 
 special and unpleasant connotation which it afterward 
 acquired, and that in reality Socrates was as much a 
 Sophist as Protagoras; add also the other fact that. 
 
98 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 while all the other Sophists were foreigners, and there- 
 fore comparatively uninteresting, if not unfamiliar, to 
 the body of the Athenian people, and we can have no 
 difficulty in acquitting the great satirist of any unfair- 
 ness to the yet greater martyr in making him the repre- 
 sentative of the disorganizing tendency of rationalism. 
 
 It may be supposed from what has been said thus 
 far that the first person to oppose this influence was 
 Socrates, and if we confine our attention to Athens 
 this is true ; but just as the effects of philosophy were 
 felt in Ionia and Magna Graecia, where it had its ori- 
 gin, before they were felt in Greece proper, so the ef- 
 forts to counteract them were first made in those re- 
 gions. Among the men who put forth such efforts, 
 the most prominent and successful was Pythagoras, of 
 whose attempt to incorporate philosophy with social 
 life we must now take account. 
 
 Pythagoras, a native of Samos, was born fully a 
 century before Socrates. It seems that he made his 
 first effort to establish a society on a philosophic 
 basis in his native island, but, being unsuccessful 
 among its lonians, he emigrated to Magna Graecia, 
 hoping, perhaps, to find more favorable circumstances 
 and a more tractable people, among the Achaeans and 
 Dorians of that region. Nor was he mistaken. Set- 
 tling in Croton, and discarding the name " sophist," 
 as too ambitious, for the more modest one of " phi- 
 losopher," he gathered round him a carefully selected 
 knot of young men, and sought to form them into a 
 society by strict discipline and instruction. His aim 
 was to counteract the disorganizing effects of individ- 
 ualistic reflection, not by any change in the laws or 
 government of the state, but by the formation of a 
 
AFTER THE RISE OF PHILOSOPHY. 99 
 
 new organization based upon new principles, oatside 
 of it. He seems to have regarded as useless any at- 
 tempt to put new wine into old skins, and to have felt 
 that the new thought demanded a new polity. In con- 
 sidering how such a polity might be called into exist- 
 ence, he saw that the first step was to subject men to 
 a new system of education involving new principles of 
 social union. Such a system he then thought out and 
 applied. It contained three distinct though insepara- 
 ble elements — (1) a theory, (2) a discipline, (3) a sanc- 
 tion. Though the origin of the first is involved in 
 obscurity, its gist is not difficult to state. The central 
 conception of all Pythagoras' thinking is that of Har- 
 mony. To him the whole system of the universe is a 
 harmony, capable of being expressed in terms of num- 
 ber.* As a consequence, all evil, whether in the indi- 
 vidual or in society, is nothing but disharmony, and 
 will disappear when that is removed. To remove it, 
 and to make man and society follow the same divine 
 laws that work so unerringly in the starry heavens and 
 in the whole of Nature, is the aim of all Pythagoras' ef- 
 forts.! But inasmuch as harmony implies the exist- 
 ence of higher and lower tones standing in a certain 
 definite relation to each other, Pythagoras, in regard- 
 
 * Pythagoras is said to have been the first person who used 
 " cosmos " {kSc/ios = order) to designate the world, and I strongly 
 suspect that the use of pvdixiCeiv (to rhythmicize) in the sense of 
 " to train " is likewise due to him. It is employed in this sense^-" 
 by ^schylus and Plato, both of whom show so many other 
 marks of Pythagoras' influence. 
 
 t It is difficult not to believe that the sublime contrast be- 
 tween the order of Nature and the disorder in man, drawn by 
 the Watchman in the prologue of ^schylus's Agamemnon, was 
 suggested by the teaching of Pythagoras. 
 
100 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 ing man and society as harmonies, necessarily endowed 
 them with a series of powers forming an ordered hi- 
 erarchy. In the case of the individual, highest in the 
 scale came reason, situated in the head ; next, life and 
 sensation, located in the heart; next, the nutritive 
 powers, claiming the abdomen; and last, the repro- 
 ductive powers. How the members of the social hi- 
 erarchy were named we do not know ; but there can 
 hardly be any doubt that they corresponded to those 
 composing the individual hierarchy. Pythagoras' ef- 
 forts at moral and social reform naturally shaped them- 
 selves into an endeavor to give full validity to this hi- 
 erarchy, so that each higher faculty should govern all 
 below it. Asking himself how this was to be achieved, 
 he answered : " By discipline, through strict obedience 
 to one in whom this hierarchy has been realized," as 
 he believed it had in himself. He accordingly under- 
 took, by a system of strict rules having at first no other 
 authority than his own dictum, to harmonize his pupils, 
 and out of pupils, in the various stages of this process, 
 to form a harmonious social order. In the individual 
 the reproductive powers were to be held in subordina- 
 tion to the nutritive by gymnastics, including careful 
 dieting ; the nutritive, to the sensuous by music ; and 
 the sensuous, to the rational by mathematics, which 
 with Pythagoras occupied the whole sphere of meta- 
 physics. Gymnastics, music, mathematics, these were 
 the three grades of his educational curriculum. By 
 the first the pupil was strengthened ; by the second, 
 purified ; by the third, perfected and made ready for 
 the society of the gods.* There need be little doubt 
 
 * All this comes out in the clearest way in the famous Golden 
 Words (of wliich see a translation in my Aristotle, pp. 57 sqq.). 
 
AFTER THE RISE OF PHILOSOPHY. 101 
 
 that his pupils were divided into four grades, corre- 
 sponding to the four elements (rerpaKrvs) of the soul- 
 harmony, each higher exercising authority, direct or 
 indirect, over all below it, and that this was his type 
 of the perfect social order. The supreme authority he 
 hold in his own hands while he lived, and avros c</>a 
 (He said so) decided all questions without appeal. 
 But although this was true, Pythagoras never pre- 
 tended that his own will furnished the only sanction 
 for what he did and commanded. On the contrary, 
 he claimed to have derived it from the gods, whose 
 will he conceived to be the harmony of the world. 
 *• Worth and health and all good and God are a har- 
 mony," he said. We need not wonder, therefore, that 
 he laid great stress upon the worship of the gods and 
 heroes, with due regard to their rank, and that he 
 gave much attention to divination, which he tried to 
 cultivate as a science. 
 
 Such, in brief outline, is the education al sys tem of 
 Pythagoras^a syst em whic h aims atlaniversal harmony, 
 to be realized through discipline, guided by the sanc- 
 tion of divine revelation. How powerful and endur- 
 ing its effect upon later theories was, we shall see in 
 subsequent chapters. Here it is enough to see that it 
 is the prototype of all those systems which assume hu- 
 man well-being to depend upon a social order in which 
 every individual has his appointed place, just as the 
 system of the Sophists is the prototype of those which 
 hold that the social order must have its origin in the 
 wills of the individuals composing it and be the re- 
 sultant of them. The former found its highest ex- 
 Why Zeller should call this work "colorless and desultory" 
 (PMlos. der Oriechen, vol. i, p. 250) I can not understand. 
 
102 EDUCATION OF T0E GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 pression in the Church and Empire of the Middle 
 Age ; the latter is seeking to make itself valid in the 
 democracies of the modern world.* 
 
 * The Church was the organ of ascetic or individual disci- 
 pline ; the state, of social discipline ; and in true Pythagorean 
 fashion, the former claimed precedence over the latter, as being 
 the medium of divine inspiration. It is supremely interesting 
 to see that our modern Pythagoreans, the Socialists, do not sus- 
 pect that their fancied Utopias are utterly incompatible with 
 democracy. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE EFFORT TO FIND 11^ IN^DIYIDUALISM A BASIS 
 OF SOCIAL ORDEE. 
 
 Up to the date of the struggle with Persia, Sparta 
 had been the leading power in Greece. This was due, 
 in great measure, to the fact that in her, better than 
 elsewhere, was realized the ideal of the -city-state. 
 Through the rigorous discipline of her public s}stem 
 of education, which began at birth and ended at death, 
 she forced her citizens to devote themselves, body and 
 soul, solely to her interests and the maintenance of her 
 strength. It mattered nothing to her that this was 
 achieved only through the renunciation of all higher 
 culture. Her ambition was to be strong, and she was 
 so. In this she resembled republican Rome, whose' 
 strength was in great measure due to the sedulous ex-'j 
 elusion of philosophy, art, and literature. And there 
 can hardly be any doubt that if the city-state had con- 
 tinued to be the supreme object of individual interest, 
 Sparta would have remained at the head of Greece. 
 Her ideal for the individual w^as worth, and she strove 
 after it with all her might. But in another portion 
 of Greece a new ideal had arisen alongside the old, 
 namely, ruSat/Aovia, or individual happines s. This, 
 though in many respects inferior to the other, had. 
 
104 EDUCATION OP TJIE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 like all ideals when they are new, called out in its fol- 
 lowers a very large amount of enthusiastic activity. It 
 had inspired the Athenians with new life ; and since it 
 had not yet weakened their old social bonds, it made 
 them capable of ^deeds at which the world still stands 
 in amazement. > It seems to be a fact that the greatest 
 achievements in the world's history have always been 
 performed by peoples who were under the inspiration 
 of a new ideal, but had not' lost the social solidarity 
 due to that which preceded it — a fact which enables us 
 to understand why brilliant periods are of such short 
 duration. Certainly this was the case with Athe as^4*^ 
 So it came to pass that, when the Persian wars were 
 over, she found herself, as thejicknowledged-savior of 
 Greece, in the position which Sparta had previously 
 occupiecl. And she was very proud to occupy it, feel- 
 ir,g, as she did, that her powers were adequate to any 
 task. She was not aware that that exquisite balance 
 between the old and new ideals, which had made pos- 
 bible her victories in the field and on the sea, could 
 not long be maintained, and that the new ideal, with 
 its disorganizing influence, would inevitably soon gain 
 the upper hand. But such was the case. Ko sooner 
 was the enthusiasm of victory over, and the people 
 were beginning to settle down to the ordinary duties 
 of social and political life, than the effects of individu- 
 alism an3. eudaemuulBiiiM bugan to show themselves in 
 that corruption of^trtl'Tt^partments of life Ayhich, as we 
 saw in last chapter, called forth the'^born and reproba- 
 tion of Aristophanes. And Aristophanes was not the 
 only serious patriot whose anxieties were aroused by 
 this corruption, or who did his best to put an end to it. 
 Different persons proposed different remedies. Arfs- 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AS A SOCIAL PRINCIPLE. 105 
 
 tophanes thought to find one in a return to the old 
 order of things, such as had existed before the invasion 
 of reflective thought. iEschyhis would probably have 
 recommended the introduction of Pythagorean ideas 
 and discipline. Pericles tried the effect of diverting 
 the people's attention from private social and political 
 complications by the erection of great public works, 
 and subsequently by scheming to form a Greek empire 
 with Athens as its head. But probably not one of 
 these men saw the true source of the corruption and 
 weakness which they all lamented and for which they 
 were seeking to prescribe. This insight was reserved ^ 
 for Socrates, who, though he was not enabled thereby 
 to save his country from ruin, was permitted to dis- 
 cover the principle by which a social order of a far * 
 higher type and more inclusive reach was rendered^ 
 possible for the whole world. Thanks, in great meas- 
 ure, to him, when Greece fell, free humanity rose on her 
 ruins. When she melted away, her life passed into the 
 life of mankind and became its light. Our next task, 
 then, is to consider the origin and nature of the So- 
 cratic principle, and then to trace its effects upon 
 Greek education. 
 
 In the second half of the fifth century b. c, when 
 
 Socrates was pursuing his vocation, there were two 
 
 opposite tendencies at work in the Hellenic world, 
 
 both of them equally hostile to the existing polities. 
 
 One, the tendency toward undisciplined individualism, 
 
 found expression in the teaching of the Sophists ; the 
 
 other, the tendency toward disciplined socialism, in 
 
 ^that of Pythagoras. The former was plainly paralyz- 
 
 ^jing and breaking up the social organism ; the latter 
 
 ^lad provoked the most violent opposition and persecu- 
 
106 EDUCATION OF T^E GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 tioii in the regions where it had started, and where, if 
 anywhere, it might have expected to succeed. The 
 Pythagorean communities in Magna Graecia had been 
 broken up with fire and sword and their surviving 
 members scattered throughout the Hellenic world. To 
 Socrates, who with earnest eye was watching the move- 
 ments of his time, it one day became evident that 
 neither of these tendencies, left to itself, could lead to 
 anything but ruin. He concluded that they must both 
 be wrong in principle ; and then there was forced upon 
 him the question, What must be the principle of a 
 movement that will result in social regeneration? 
 Thenceforward the search for this principle was his 
 life-task. He began it by submitting to careful scrutiny 
 the principles of the two tendencies then at work, and 
 as that of the Sophists was affecting his immediate sur- 
 roundings far more than the other, he directed his first 
 and chief attention to it. " Man is the measure of all 
 things," Protagoras had said. " Yes," mused Socrates, 
 " that is clearly so ; for whatever other measure he may 
 apply, must in the last resort be approved — that is, 
 measured — by him. But then, what is man ? Who am. 
 I?" Socrates was probably the first person in the 
 world that ever addressed that question to himself, and 
 the more he thought of it, the more he was puzzled and 
 staggered by it. He remembered that the Delphic ora- 
 cle had commanded Kxow thyself (yvwOi o-eauTov), 
 and he plainly did not know himself. He concluded 
 that, if he did not know himself, he did not know any- 
 thing, and accordingly made this confession openly. 
 What he meant was that of the knowledge needed to 
 solve the problem before him he had not any; tha* 
 what people usually called knowledge, that of whic] 
 
 \ 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AS A SOCli^L PRINCIPLE. 109 
 
 the individual man was the measure, was i^ social order 
 at all, but mere opinion (Sd^a). He now sa\.does not 
 that all the evils of individualism came from tiiL^te to 
 tempt to make this opinion the guide and norm 6t 
 action, and that, before any other guide could be found, 
 some new kind of truth, different from opinion, and 
 not depending, like taste and smell, upon individual 
 idiosyncrasies, must be discovered. This opened up 
 the whole question of the nature of truth and of the 
 human mind as its organ. UpJ^-^^^ time the attea-f . 
 tion of wise men had been dn-ected jto the externaj / 
 worl dTag'-'vvfaaf ~concept io^^^ they hadjbeen able_ to 
 form_of^it they had naively adopted as true witlKrut 
 scrutiny anxTj^hEouFTnquiring wl^ 
 corJ*^ctl^ounei_In this wa^ arrived at opinion,^ 
 
 nqt_truth. Socrates now turned Jiisj|tention inward", V 
 ^nd began_to ask. What are the conditions for the 
 formation of true cbnceptions7~~a^rid7"^W^at~must be 
 the nature of the being that possesses these condi- 
 tions ? or, again. Who am I ? 
 
 These are the two most fundamental questions that 
 the human being can ask, and philosophy has no other 
 task than to answer them. It is needless to say that 
 Socrates did not succeed in answering them. At the 
 same time he took the first important steps in that 
 direction. He began by making clear to himself (1) 
 that truth, to deserve the name, must be true for every- 
 body and not depend upon individual peculiarities; 
 (2) that this is possible only if all intelligences, as 
 such, are in some way one intelligence, or have a neces- 
 sary common content. He saw that, if he could estab- 
 lish the truth of these postulates, he might fairly 
 conclude that the measure of all things is not the 
 
 / 
 
106 EDUCATION rz^^ THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 tion in the tp^ such, but the individual in so far as he 
 anywherp- the common intelligence, which is the true 
 Pyth'-ct of all truth.* As the question was one which, 
 h-fom its very nature, could not be decided by the indi- 
 vidual intelligence, he went about the world examining 
 his fellow men to see whether they had a common in- 
 telligence, and, if so, to discover what the content of 
 that intelligence was. " That content," he said, " will i 
 be truth and the true social bond." In pursuing this / 
 examination, which he did through conversation, he/ 
 developed his famous method, subsequently called the/ 
 dialectic, that is, conversational, method. This con/ 
 sisted in taking any conception as it lay in the indit 
 vidual mind and, by a process of induction, showing its 
 limitations and self-contradictoriness ; then, by remov-A 
 ing these limitations and bringing the conception out 
 wdth all its relations and implications, proving that it 
 was the same for all intelligences. The conclusion 
 which he himself drew, and which he wished his inter- 
 locutors and hearers to draw, was that men think dif- 
 ferently only because they think imperfectly, super- 
 ficially, one-sidedly, and do not see the full meaning 
 of their own thoughts. Complete thoughts are the 
 same for everybody. Having satisfied himself upon 
 this point, he next endeavored to make a list of suQh 
 complete thoughts as bore more directly upon moral 
 life — courage, temperance, worth, friepd^hip, etc. — 
 and to show their interconnection, so that, presenting 
 themselves as an ordered system of universal truth, 
 
 * It is easy to see how such a conclusion as this opened the 
 way for the pantheism of the Neoplatonists, the " one intelli- 
 gence " of the Arabs, and the panlogism of Hegel. 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AS A SOCIAL PRINCIPLE. 109 
 
 they might be made the basis of a new social order 
 and the material of a new education. It does not 
 seem that he ever advanced so far as to formulate to 
 himself all that is implied in the existence of uni- 
 versal truth ; but he did see that, in order to be the 
 subject of it, man must contain something more than 
 his individuality, something more than Protagoras had 
 found in him, and that without it no public morality 
 and no social order were possible. He drew only the 
 ethical conclusions, leaving the ontological for others 
 to draw. Moreover, it does not seem that he was ever 
 able to put his conclusions into a practical form, or to 
 suggest any method by which they might be em- 
 bodied in actual social life ; but he certainly would 
 have deprecated the disciplined socialism of Pythago- 
 ras as much as the unbridled anarchism of the Soph- 
 ists. If the latter left men a congeries of atoms, held 
 together by no force at all, the former bound them 
 into an iron system by an external force, depriving 
 them of that autonomy which is the very condition of 
 moral life, and which it was Socrates' special mission 
 to bring to light and to champion. 
 
 The dialectic method played a great part in all sub-r>^ 
 sequent education, philosophy, and religion, nay, eveni/^ 
 in politics, and its effects were partly good and partly 
 evih/As^a means of refuting the sophistic position, 
 aw demonstrating the presence of a universal element 
 in human reason, it was invaluable. If it did not en- 
 able Socrates to find out what he was, it showed him at 
 least what he was not — viz., a creature of sense with only 
 a subjective consciousness, as Protagoras had held. 
 Again, as a means of revealing the laws of thought ■ 
 and exposing the fallacies of sophistic reasoning, it did 
 
^ 
 
 110 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 admirable service, paving the way for the science of 
 logic. But when it was assumed to take the place* of 
 experience and to reveal the content of thought as 
 well as its form or laws, when it was supposed to 
 enable men to ascend to a vision of the eternal pow- 
 ers or realities of which the phenomenal world offers 
 but a faint and passing reflection, then it did infinite 
 harm. It led those who incautiously employed it, not 
 only to distinguish subjective sense from objective in- 
 telligence, which was well, but to separate the two and 
 regard them as belonging to two different worlds — one 
 wholly evil and the other wholly good, one from which, 
 and the other to which, it was man's duty to escape. 
 This unjustified separation, with its evil results to 
 education, philosophy, and religion, has haunted the 
 world from Socrates' day to our own. In education 
 it has encouraged asceticism and withdrawal from the 
 world ; in philosophy, intellectualism and formal ide- 
 alism ; in religion, inactive contemplation and dread 
 of the senses. In all departments it has led man to 
 mutilate his nature, and to strive to throw away one 
 part as worthless, instead of doing his best to sanctify 
 it as a whole. 
 
 These different effects of the dialectic method were 
 not slow in manifesting themselves even in the life- 
 time of Socrates. Through his plain but attractive 
 personality, his keen intellect, his quaint humor, his 
 genial irony, his imperturbable temper, his modesty, 
 his professed ignorance, his earnestness, his easy victo- 
 ries over his opponents in dispute, and his affection 
 for young men, he soon became far more popular than 
 the best of the foreign Sophists, with their vanity, 
 pretension, and impatience of contradiction. While 
 
INDIVIDUALISM A3 A SOCIAL PEINCIPLE. m 
 
 they might leave their hearers full of admiration for 
 their brilliant speeches and specious arguments, he left 
 them ashamed of themselves and with a desire to be 
 better than they were. While they appealed to their 
 selfish instincts, he woke in them a higher conscious- 
 ness. While they flattered them, he educated them*— ^ 
 But if Socrates found it necessary to oppose the teach- 
 ing of the Sophists, which was breaking down the social 
 and political organization about him, he could not rec- 
 ommend the naive popular conceptions which were the 
 life of that organization. He saw that it was just be- 
 cause these conceptions were feeble and superannuated 
 that they yield€;d so easily to the attacks of the Sophists. 
 Thus, while he was willing to die rather than transgress 
 the laws of the state, he could not give his countenance 
 to the popular notions on which the state rested. Thus 
 it came to pass that, while the whole tendency of his 
 teaching was constructive, and not destructive, like 
 that of the Sophists, it was hardly less fatal than • 
 theirs to the existing institutions. Theirs discredited 
 the sanctions which gave these institutions their au- 
 thority without offering substitutes ; he offered sub- . 
 stitutes. Aristophanes' picture of Socrates misrepre- 
 sents the matter, not the tendency, of his teaching. If. 
 this did save many of the young men of Athens from 
 the disorganizing poison of the Sophists, it at the same 
 time turned them away from the external, imaginary 
 deities of their country, and encouraged them to look 
 for another deity in the depths of their own conscious- 
 ness. And however far, in a spirit of conciliation or 
 compromise, he might try to interpret the new sanc- 
 tions in terms of the old (as many men did before and 
 have done since), he could not transfer the constrain- 
 9 
 
112 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 ing power of the former to the latter. He might call 
 the moral lawgiver lodged in his own bosom Zeus or 
 Athena, but he could not make any one identify that 
 Zeus with the marble statue that stood in the Olympi- 
 eum, or that Athena with the chryselephantine colossus 
 that occupied the Parthenon. And the mere fact that 
 he encouraged his hearers to look into themselves and 
 study their own minds made his influence one which 
 turned them away from prompt and spontaneous po- , 
 litical activity, and gave them a bent toward quiet con- ' 
 templation, which soon came to be placed at the head 
 of the occupations suitable for Staywyi}. Thus it was 
 that Socrates became, as the capital charge against 
 him set forth, an introducer of new gods and a cor- 
 rupter of youth. 
 
 If we ask ourselves what is the difference between 
 the education which existed before the rise of reflective 
 thought and that which Socrates would have recom- 
 mended, the answer is that, while the former was essen- 
 tially a preparation for a state and an or^er of things 
 already existing, the latter was a preparation for a . 
 commonwealth that had not yet appeared ; the former 
 had a real, the latter an ideal aim ; the former was 
 conservative, the latter revolutionary and progressive. 
 It is easy to see that, if the principles of Socrates had 
 been allowed to prevail in education, they would have 
 speedily abolished those limitations, domestic, phra- 
 trial, and political, which made the Greek common- 
 wealth possible. 
 
 That the teaching of Socrates soon affected the 
 practice not only of the gymnasia, but also of the 
 palaistras and schools, is rendered evident by a passage 
 in the Lysis of Plato. Here Socrates is made to relate • 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AS A SOCIAL PRINCIPLE. 113 
 
 how, as he was one day walking by the road immedi- 
 ately outside the city- wall, from the Academy to the 
 Lyceum,* he was invited by a knot of young men 
 (veavto-Kot) to enter an inclosure the door of which 
 stood open. They inform him that they and many 
 other beautiful (koAoi) youths spend their time there. 
 On asking what sort of a club {BLaTpL/3rj) it is, he is told 
 that it is a palaestra, recently built ; but that most of 
 their time is spent in discussions under the direction 
 of a certain Miccus, " a companion and admirer " of 
 his. " Sure enough," says Socrates, " a decent fellow 
 and a capable ' sophist ' ! " It would seem as if the 
 " palaestra '' had been built expressly as a school for the 
 dissemination of Socrates' teaching, and that it was 
 well attended. And one effect of this teaching was that 
 physical training was neglected, and the chief atten- 
 tion given to lectures and discussions (Xoyot), the very 
 thing of which Aristophanes complains so bitterly. 
 That this change in educational practice resulted in 
 a loss of public spirit and a tendency to effeminate 
 self-indulgence is obvious enough from what is related 
 in the dialogue itself. Nor is this to be wondered at 
 when we consider the character of the older Greek 
 education. And here some important reflections sug- 
 gest themselves. 
 
 The old education had depended for its effect 
 upon training and habit, and only to a very small 
 degree upon moral choice. Its purpose was to pro- 
 duce men who should worthily subserve an end which 
 
 * These were evidently his favorite resorts. They offered the 
 best opportunities for meeting young men beyond school-age. 
 It will be remembered that later on Plato established his school 
 in the former, and Aristotle his in the latter. 
 
114: EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 they neither set up nor chose — viz., the stability and 
 well-being of the state. To encourage reflection and 
 self-initiated action would have been to defeat this 
 purpose. It need cause no surprise, therefore, that, 
 when reflection was actually awakened, and could not 
 again be put to sleep, but persistently obtruded its 
 rational sanctions, youths, no less than men, who had 
 never been accustomed to look to it for the motives 
 of their actions, should have been perplexed, paralyzed, 
 and demoralized. To this serious risk is always ex- 
 posed any system of education which tries to substi- 
 tute habit and training for reflection as the guides 
 of action. It should always be borne in mind that 
 habitual action, however serviceable to institutions, 
 and however necessary as a preparation for moral 
 action, is not moral action itself. That can be initi- 
 ated only by reflection, deliberation, and free choice 
 between understood motives. Strange as it may seem, 
 the attempt to make persons who have always been 
 guided by habit act from motives of reflection is almost 
 certain to result in temporary, if not permanent, de- 
 moralization of action. That Socrates saw this and did 
 his best to prevent it among his countrymen is clear 
 enough ; but though he was more than a match for 
 the Sophists, he had no arguments strong enough to 
 meet the logic of the moral law. 
 
 Sir Henry Sumner Maine, in speaking of the Hel- 
 lenic origin of progress, says : " Except th-e blind forces 
 of Nature, nothing moves in this world which is not 
 Greek in its origin."* If we consider all forms of 
 action not due to reflection and choice as springing 
 
 * Village Communities and Miscellanies, p. 238, Amer. edit 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AS A SOCIAL PRINCIPLE. 115 
 
 from " blind forces," this is strictly true ; but then we 
 must say that the life of the Greeks, as well as of other 
 peoples, before the rise of reflective thought, was guided 
 by these forces. T he Greece that originated progress 
 began with Socrates, in whom reflective thought, for 
 the first time in history, became conscious of its own 
 implications. It was in his time, and owing to him, 
 that men first began to lead a moral life, that they 
 passed from the dominion of the laws of nature, use, 
 and wont, and became subject to those of free spiritual 
 reflection. Thfi^iaoiaentousness of this transition Jor 
 all departments of human life^^ly the^hole subse- / 
 quent course of history can reveal. *^ 
 
 When Socrates had arrived at the conclusion that 
 the future moral sanction and social bond must be 
 sought in universal intelligence, there still lay before 
 him the problem of how that bond was to be intro- 
 duced, and made to ingroove itself with that which 
 was then in force. It does not appear that he ever 
 attained to clearness in this matter ; but it is probable 
 that he thought the new bond might be gradually sub- 
 stituted for the old without any great wrench or dis- 
 turbance to the existing order. He had builded better I 
 than he knew. He_dii.Bjlt_Sfie* and very few men have / 
 ever seen, that a social bond having its origin in uni-j 
 versal intelligence must include every being that par-[^ 
 ticipates in that intelligence. Nevertheless, his teach- 
 ing brought a dim consciousness of this into the 
 Hellenic world, and from that time on, this worked 
 like a leaven, transforming ethnic into cosmopolitan 
 life. Its influence upon education was exactly what 
 might have been expected. Whereas previously the / _ 
 purpose of all instruction had been to produce dutiful 
 
116 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 citizens, it henceforth more and more aimed at pro- 
 ducing self -poised men, thinking for themselves and 
 choosing their own mode oljife. More and more 
 those who were subjected to it withdrew from polit- 
 ical and practical life, and devoted themselves to philo- 
 sophic meditation or contemplation, trying to realize 
 in thought and imagination a commonwealth which 
 should be at once a school of virtue and an Elysium 
 of happiness. 
 
 If the teaching of Socrates worked disorganizingly 
 in most departments of Greek life — in education, poli- 
 tics, and religion — there was one department in Avhich, 
 as might have been expected, it had a most beneficial 
 and elevating effect. This was art. It is a remarkable 
 fact that the palmy period of Greek art — the period 
 which produced Phidias andlPol3Tfttlis, Scopas and 
 Praxiteles — coincides exactly with mat filled by the 
 activity of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Before this 
 time Greek art had been practiced altogether in the 
 service of the state, and had sought merely to body 
 forth those conceptions which it represented and ap- 
 proved. Its favorite subjects were, of course, gods, 
 heroes, warriors, and victors in gymnastic contests; 
 and in these it was the element of worth, and not 
 that of beauty, that was held to give them importance 
 and a claim to admiration. We have only to look at 
 the pre-Phidian statues in the museums of modem 
 Greece to convince ourselves of the truth of this. 
 They are, for the most part, not lacking in strength 
 and impressiveness ; but they are rude, stiff, expres- 
 sionless, and not seldom grotesque. They are simply 
 
 1 the old religious and patriotic melodies done in stone. 
 
 ^ But from about the time when Socrates' activity as a 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AS A SOCIAL PRINCIPLE. 117 
 
 public teacher begins, a most remarkable change comes 
 over the whole spirit of Greek art.* Not only does the 
 range of subjects widen, but the figures begin to ex- 
 press character. They are no longer dead symbols, 
 but living persons, instinct with' purpose and resolu- 
 tion. In a word, they begin to express ideas, to give 
 form and substance to that invisible world which is 
 soon to become the aim of all philosophic thinking 
 and, after a time, of life itself. But the invisible 
 world is conceived as a world of rationality, order, 
 beauty, Staywyrj, and hence the products of art begin 
 to reflect these qualities. Thus art ceases to minister 
 to practical life and becomes master of ceremonies to 
 diagogic life. It no longer seeks to edify, but to 
 satisfy ; no longer to rouse to action, but to invite to 
 contemplation. And since this is the true function 
 of art, it was no fault of Socrates' if the influence 
 which his thought exerted upon it made it one of the 
 agents which helped to dissolve the life of the Greeks 
 into that of the great world. All other art — the art of 
 Egypt, Assyria, Persia, the art of Rome and Etruria 
 even^ — has become a mere element in the history of 
 the past ; but Greek art is universal, eternal art, as , 
 fresh and beautiful to-day, as capable of satisfying the/ 
 demands of diagogic life as it was four centuries be- 1 
 fore our era. Being the expression of eternal reason 
 and truth, it is as enduring as they are. 
 
 * It should not be forgotten that Socrates himself was origi- 
 nally, as his father had been, a sculptor. Among his works 
 were a Hermes and a group of draped Graces {Tlfiddi, 'AyXata, 
 &d\€ia), which long stood at the entrance to the Athenian 
 Acropolis, and must, therefore, have been of considerable 
 merit. 
 
118 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 When Columbus set sail across the untraversed 
 western sea his purpose was to reach by a new p .th 
 a portion of the old, known world, and he lived \nd 
 died in the belief that he had done so. He n^iver 
 knew that he had discovered a new world. So it was 
 with Socrates. When he launched his spiritual bark 
 upon the pathless ocean of reflective thought his ob- 
 ject was to discover a new way to the old world of 
 little commonwealths and narrow interests, and he 
 probably died thinking that he had succeeded. He 
 did not dream that he had discovered a new world — 
 the world of humanity and universal interests. But 
 so it was ; and though mankind are still very far from 
 having made themselves at home in that world, and 
 from having availed themselves of its boundless spir- 
 itual treasures, it can never again be withdrawn from 
 their sight, nor the conquest of it cease to be the ob- 
 ject of their highest aspirations. 
 
 Looking back now over the ground traversed in 
 the last chapter and in this, we can see that between 
 the period of the old political education and the time 
 at which we have arrived there have been three dis- 
 tinct influences at work: (1) that of the Sophists, 
 almost wholly destructive in its immediate effects; 
 (2) that of Pythagoras, almost purely constructive, but 
 employing external sanctions and a rigid ascetic disci- 
 pline, tending to socialism ; (3) that of Socrates, op- f 
 posed to both these, and endeavoring to maintain the ' 
 old social order, but upon a new principle derived from 
 reflective intelligence. Each of these influences left 
 its mark upon the school education of Greece. It was^ 
 through the first that rhetoric and grammar were added 
 to the school curriculum ; musical science, mathematics 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AS A SOCIAL PRINCIPLE. 119 
 
 (aritlimetic and geometry), and astronomy * were due 
 to the second ; dialectics and drawing, to the third. 
 And so it was that at the beginning of the fourth 
 century B. c. the old simple curriculum of the schools, 
 consisting of singing, a little lute-playing, reading and 
 writing, was widened out into a curriculum which in- 
 cluded every one of what were known in mediaeval 
 times as the Seven Liberal Arts, with the addition of 
 one more — viz., drawing. While this expansion was 
 progressing in the music-schools, a corresponding con- 
 traction was going on in the palaestras. These were, 
 no doubt, still attended; but the physical exercises 
 seem to have become less vigorous and systematic, and 
 the time allotted to them to have been largely occupied 
 with intellectual gymnastics. Thus, as Aristophanes 
 complains, the boys came to have narrow chests and 
 shoulders and large tongues. 
 
 But great as was the change that came over the 
 schemes of education in the schools and palaestras, it 
 was not equal to that which took place in the educa- 
 tion of young men after they left these institutions, 
 and became, so to speak, pupils of the state. Here 
 the state and the philosopher came into actual com- 
 petition. While the former claimed the young men 
 for physical and military training, with a view to 
 practical life, the latter claimed them for intellectual 
 training, with a view to diagogic life. And the phi- 
 losopher generally carried the day, with the result that 
 
 * It will be remembered that in the school of Socrates, as 
 caricatured by Aristophanes, there stand two -new Muses^ 
 Astronomy and Geometry. This seems to show that these 
 studies were first introduced into the Athenian schools in the 
 time of Socrates, and perhaps under his influence. 
 
120 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 the gymnasia, though not ceasing to be schools for 
 physical training, gradually became schools of philoso- 
 phy ; and it is as such that two of them, the Academy 
 and the Lyceum, have transmitted their names to 
 modern institutions. No doubt many young men 
 still passed the examination for cadetship and went 
 through their two or three years of militia-service; 
 but even during that time they were not safe from 
 the approach of the philosopher, and when it was over 
 and they returned to the city with all the liberties of 
 independent citizens, they were completely in his 
 power. Many of them, accordingly, instead of devot- 
 ing themselves enthusiastically, as their fathers had 
 done, to the practical business of the state, and trying 
 to attain influence in its councils, turned aside to the 
 more alluring paths of speculative thought. It is dif- 
 ficult for us who can look back upon the long history 
 of speculation, with its few brilliant conquests and 
 many blasted hopes and pitiful failures, to conceive 
 how it looked in those early days, when its unexplored 
 heights seemed to be the very god-inhabited peaks of 
 Olympus, and to be accessible by the easy, if somewhat 
 tortuous, path of dialectics. ; Beside the world of truth 
 and beauty, which seemed to loom up there, the things 
 of the every-day world looked mean and paltry. Men 
 began to ask themselves why they should toil and 
 struggle, intrigue, dispute, and go to battle for the 
 sake of such poor and transient goods, when in peace- 
 ful contemplation the dialectically-trained soul could 
 rise to the possession of all the glory of immortal 
 things. " Philosophy," they admitted, as Kovalis did 
 long after, " can bake no bread ; but she can procure 
 for us God, Freedom, and Immortality," and what is 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AS A SOCIAL PRINCIPLE. 121 
 
 bread, they asked, in comparison with these ? When 
 we fully realize this condition of mind, induced by the 
 new speculative thought, we can easily appreciate the 
 force of that amusing scene in Aristophanes's Clou^-'', 
 in which Socrates appears suspended in a basket ani^. 
 is made to say : " I am walking the air and growing 
 wise about the sun," * with much more of the same 
 sort. 
 
 If we now ask ourselves what Socrates really accom- 
 plished in the Greece of his own time, and why his in- 
 fluence roused such opposition in conservative circles 
 as to lead to his death, we shall have no difficulty in 
 finding the true answer. He succeeded, in large meas-K" 
 ure, in counteracting the purely individualistic influ- r'^ 
 ence of the Sophists, which was leading to such utter 
 skeptic ism, worldliness, and materialism in all the de-j 
 partments of life as to threaten the very existence of 
 society; but he substituted for that influence another" 
 which, while it led in the very opposite direction, was 
 hardly less fatal to the institutions that then existed. 
 Both influences tended to extremes, and safety and \ 
 health, as always, lay in the golden mean. Socrates \ 
 had solved one problem, only to propound two others \ 
 no less difficult. He had shown that the disorganizing } 
 individualistic tendency of sophistic teaching was to be ', 
 met by the assertion of a principle of social union to 
 be found not in individual opinion, but in universal ^ 
 intelligence ; but he had not shown how this principle • 
 was to be introduced, while, in asserting it and showing j 
 its nature, he had revealed a world which drew men's / 
 attention away from the interests of human society al- 1 
 
 * 'Aepofiarw /col irepKppovw rhu TJAtov, 1. 225. 
 
122 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 together. Individualism still asserted itself, no longer, 
 indeed, in the form of worldliness, but in that of other- 
 worldliness. There still, therefore, remained the two 
 c 'lestions: (1) How shall the new rational principle of 
 social union be introduced? and (3) How shall the 
 ideal world, which rightfully claims man's supreme 
 interest, be brought into harmony with, and made to' 
 contribute to the well-being of, the real world of the 
 present ? Before we pass to the attempted solution of 
 these problems which we find in the pages of Socrates' 
 successors, we must turn our attention to a most im- 
 portant result of Socrates' activity and method — 
 a result which permanently and deeply affected all 
 future education and morality. I mean the light 
 which was thrown upon the immortality of the indi- 
 vidual soul. 
 
 No one acquainted with ancient literatures before 
 the advent of Socrates, or at least before the rise of 
 reflective thought, needs to be told how extremely 
 feeble in them all is the consciousness and hope of 
 individual immortality. Whether we look at the 
 poems of Homer or the pre-exilic literature of the 
 Hebrews, the same fact stares us in the face. Qlt is 
 the immortality of the nation, and not that of the 
 individual, that is hoped for and striven after.* If 
 the individual exist at all after he closes his eyes upon 
 this world, it is only as a shadow, a vague, bloodless 
 ghost, in the gloomy depths of Sheol or Hades, f or a 
 
 * See in Sir W. D. Geddes's edition of Plato's Phcedo an 
 interesting excursus on Phases of Ancient Feeling toward 
 Death. 
 
 t Compare the description of Sheol, Job, x, 21, 22—" The land 
 of darkness and of the shadow of death ; A land of thick dark- 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AS A SOCIAL PRINCIPLE. 123 
 
 phantom lingering round the scenes of its former life. 
 A recent writer says of the souls in Sheol that they 
 *' still subsist, though they do not live." * It was only 
 as men came to turn their attention away from their 
 bodies and senses, which divide them, and to direct it 
 upon their intellectual part, by which they are united, 
 and which plainly neither comes into existence nor 
 goes out of it with the body, being one with the eter- 
 nal energy and order of the world, that they begin to 
 be aware of their own immortality. And this is as it 
 should be ; men could hardly discover their own im- 
 mortality until they became conscious of that in them- 
 selves which is immortal. And this, we may fairly say, 
 was discovered by Socrates. It is true that he did not 
 grasp it in all its implications, having confined his at- 
 tention chiefly to its moral aspects, and hence he never 
 arrives at a perfectly firm conviction of his own immor- 
 tality. He feels that the good man ought to be im- 
 mortal, but he does not see how to translate that 
 " ought to be " into " is." The various arguments for 
 immortality adduced in the Phmdo do no more than 
 establish a strong rational probability. But the prin- 
 ciple which he discovered soon came, in other and 
 better-schooled minds, to exhibit the proof which he 
 
 ness, as darkness itself ; A land of the shadow of death, without 
 any order, And where the light is as darkness " — with that of 
 Hades in the eleventh book of the Odyssey, and with the cry of 
 Achilles in the twenty-third book of the Iliad, when the ghost 
 of Patroclus eludes his embrace, *' Oh strange ! so there is some- 
 thing {tis) in the halls of Hades, a breath and a phantom, but 
 there is no heart in it M all " (1. 103, 104). 
 
 * Dr. A. B. Davidson, Book of Job (Cambridge Bible), p. 183, 
 n. 6. He adds : " ' Destruction,' Heb. abaddon, is a synonym for 
 Sheol." 
 
124 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 could not find ; and from his time on the firm belief 
 in individual immortality became, though not uni- 
 versal, nevertheless common in the Greek philosophic 
 schools, and general among the great mass of the 
 Greek people. And this belief added to the disor- 
 ganizing force of philosophic thought. 
 
 Indeed, the belief in personal immortality, substi- 
 tuted for the old belief in the immortality of the race 
 or the nation, gave a new meaning and purpose to the 
 whole of life, and turned men's activities into new 
 channels. As long as men felt that their citizenship 
 was in this world they made all their plans for this 
 world, and for it alone. " The brief sum of life," says 
 Horace, "forbids us to begin long hope. Soon the 
 night will be upon thee, and the ghosts of story, and 
 the cheerless house of Pluto " ( Odes^ I, 4). But no 
 sooner did they come to think that their citizenship 
 (iroXLTevfjia) was in heaven, as St. Paul says, than they 
 began to lay their plans for eternity, and to treat their 
 earthly life as a mere transient preparation for that. 
 " We ought not," says Ai'istotle, " to side with those 
 who counsel us, as being men, to confine our thoughts 
 to human things, and as being mortals, to mortal 
 things, but, as far as may be, to play the immortal 
 (adavaTL^eiv), and to do our best to live according to 
 the noblest that is in us." * Men regarded the family, 
 the state, and all social institutions no longer as ends 
 but as means, and as valuable only as preparing the 
 way for a higher life. More than this, instead of con- 
 ceiving the sanctions of moral life to be derived from 
 the social bond, as men had formerly done, they now 
 
 * Nic. Eth., K 7; 1177b, 31 sqq. 
 
, INDIVIDUALISM AS A SOCIAL PRINCIPLE. 125 
 
 held that that bond itself was derived from a moral 
 sanction, originating in a higher order of being, and 
 revealing itself in the individual intellect. Hence the 
 moral solidarity of the individual was no longer with 
 his fellows in family and state, but with the supreme 
 intelligence, whereof family and state were only instru- 
 ments. Family and state, it was said, were made for 
 man, and not man for them. Man is not the slave, 
 but the lord, of institutions. 
 
 It is almost impossible to conceive a greater or 
 more pervasive change in ethical thought and life- 
 purpose than this. Had it come suddenly, it would 
 certainly have rent the social institutions of Greece 
 to pieces like a thunderbolt. Fortunately, it came 
 slowly, and dissolved them almost imperceptibly into 
 the larger life which was preparing to embody the 
 new moral sanctions. In no department of life. did 
 the change show itself earlier or more fully than in 
 that of the higher education and its relation to dia- 
 gogic life. As long as the proper occupations of that 
 life were supposed to be those enumerated by Pindar 
 — riding, gymnastics, draughts, and music — it could 
 hardly claim a great amount of serious consideration, 
 however much it might be coveted ; but when for 
 these were substituted dialectics and the contempla- 
 tion of the eternal world revealed by them, it assumed 
 a very different position and claimed a larger share of 
 time and attention. Indeed, from this time on dia- 
 gogic life gradually encroached upon practical life and 
 took precedence of it ; and, as a natural consequence, 
 education for the former, in the same degree, took 
 precedence of education for the latter. 
 
 In following the steps of this change, we should be 
 
126 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 following the process whereby the Greek man disen- 
 tangled himself from the Greek citizen and laid claim 
 to a world in w^hich the citizen had no part. In doing 
 this he set an example for all the world, and began a 
 new era in human history — the era of moral. freedom. ■ 
 I have treated this change and its causes w^th'^^some 
 detail and emphasis, because I think that certain edu- ' 
 cational and social phenomena of our own time show 
 that its meaning has not even now been generally ap- 
 prehended with any clearness, that we do not yet know • 
 how to take full advantage of the victory which the . 
 Greeks won for us. In education we are still trying 
 to obtain socially desirable results by means of habit, . 
 surroundings, and institutional sanctions, instead of 
 directly appealing, through the intelligence, to the 
 moral nature and rousing in it the consciousness of 
 universality — or autonomy, which is at ^bottom the , 
 same thing. In social life we are allowing economic ' 
 complications to make us look with a half-favorable • 
 eye upon schemes which would, if realized, go far to 
 identify again the man with the citizen, and to de- 
 prive him of his moral liberty, through which alone 
 he is man, for the sake of physical comfort, the enjoy- 
 ment of which does not differentiate him from the pig 
 — to use the plain word of Socrates. We are not keep- 
 ing with sufficient steadiness before our eyes the fact, 
 revealed so clearly by the history of Greek education, 
 that the possibility of continuous progress in civiliza- 
 tion depends upon our not sacrificing the freedom of 
 the individual to any ideal static institution which 
 may promise a certain more or less uniform modi- 
 cum of well-being for all. We are forgetting that the 
 ultimate good of man consists not in what he has, but 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AS A SOCIAL PRINCIPLE. 127 
 
 in what he is, and that he can be nothing at all except 
 
 fJthrough the exercis^f moral freedom, which may cele- 
 
 /•brate some of its noblestVicturieT through that very 
 
 struggle which our present tendencies are trying to 
 ) eliminate from life. 
 
 10 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE EN"DEAVOR TO FOUND AN EDUCATIONAL STATE 
 ON PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES, AND ITS RESULTS. 
 
 Socrates had sought to show that the true bond 
 of social life must be looked for in the content of that 
 intelligence by which, through their very nature, men 
 are united. He had broken completely with the old 
 blood- and land-bonds, and, though he retained the 
 worth bond, he gave it a new significance by making it 
 depend upon knowledge. It remained to give objec- 
 tive reality to the new combining principle by making 
 it the basis of a new social order. 
 
 Though it has perhaps never happened that a social 
 order founded upon one principle could transform it- 
 self by the adoption of another without passing through 
 a phase of dissolution, it is conceivable that some great 
 spirit, grasping in its chief implications the Socratic 
 principle, might have so wrought it into education and 
 into the popular mind that it should gradually have 
 united the separate states of Greece into a great, free 
 federal republic, fitted to lead the civilization of the 
 world for a thousand years. Had Socrates founded a 
 school and sent forth its members as apostles with the 
 definite mission to announce the advent of the king- 
 dom of liberty, in which each subject should recognize 
 
THE PHILOSOPniC STATE. 129 
 
 the state as the embodiment of his own rationality, 
 and therefore the condition of his own freedom, it 
 seems as if such a result might have actually been 
 reached. But neither Socrates himself nor any one of 
 his immediate followers was able to fathom the mean- 
 ing of his principle sufficiently for this. 
 
 How little that principle was understood even by 
 the most gifted of his pupils is shown by the political 
 scheme worked out and advocated by Plato in his two 
 great works, the Republic and the Lmos. It is not my 
 purpose to offer a detailed analysis of either of these, ; 
 but to point out, in a general way, how the philosophic j 
 state shaped itself in his mind, what education he i 
 deemed necessary for -it, and what practical results 
 followed from it. 
 
 In working out his scheme Plato misinterpreted — 
 no doubt, he believed he improved upon — the Socratic 
 principle in two ways. The assertion that the princi- " 
 pie of social union is universal intelligence he first 
 translated into the aphorism, " The state is the indi- 
 vidual writ large." Then, having converted the state 
 into a great individual, he degraded its human mem- 
 bers into mere organs, or rather into cells composing 
 the organs of it. From this all the rest of his political 
 theory follows naturally. The state, he says, is a large ^ 
 individual. Now, the conditions of individual well- j 
 being are the health and harmony of his faculties or 
 powers. These powers are three : (1) intelligence (voOs), \ 
 having its acropolis in the head ; (2) courage or spirit 
 (^u/;tos), encamped in the breast; and (3) appetite {to 
 i-mOvfirjTLKov), lodged in the abdomen. Each of these ^ 
 has its proper function, which, when duly performed, 
 constitutes its excellence or worth (apcTrj). The worth 
 
♦ 
 
 130 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 of intelligence is prudence {<^p6vrj(rt's) ; that of spirit, 
 fortitude {avhpua) ; and that of appetite, temperance 
 {(Tu>(l>p(xrvvr]). The harmony of all these is justice (Slkol- 
 ocrvvrj), which, as combining the others, may be regarded 
 as the basis of individual well-being. These four worths 
 are what have been since Plato's time regarded as the 
 " four cardinal virtues." They are primarily attributes 
 not of relations between man and man, but between 
 the faculties of the individual man. Eegarding the 
 state as a great individual, Plato now looks for the 
 three human faculties in it, and finds them in three 
 orders or classes of persons. As the organ of intelli- 
 gence he finds the new philosophic class ; as that of 
 spirit, the military class ; and as that of appetite, the in- 
 dustrial class. When each of these performs its func- 
 tion healthily and in harmony with the other two, 
 there result political justice and social well-being. In 
 this system the whole of the directing and organizing 
 power is in the hands of the philosophers. The sol- 
 diers are merely their agents, while the workers or 
 wealth-producers are the slaves of both. 
 
 AVith respect to this ideal polity there are five 
 points that deserve attention : (1) it is founded upon 
 a crude metaphor ; (2) we are nowhere told how it is 
 to be evolved out of existing conditions; (3) it is 
 founded upon truths accessible to only a small and 
 exceptionally gifted portion of mankind ; (4) it takes 
 no account of human affection or individual weal, 
 and therefore deals with only an abstract fragment 
 of man ; consequently, (5) instead of being a means 
 to freedom, it is an organ of the most complete des- 
 potism that can be imagined. Let us consider these 
 points in turn. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHIC STATE. 131 
 
 1. 'P]ain'R_R^uhJin is foimdftd n|iori_a^^de meta- 
 phor. It is only the loosest kind of thinking that 
 speaks of the state as an individual or an organism. 
 That Plato should have been entrapped by such a 
 metaphor need not surprise us, however, when we re- 
 member that the very same metaphor still plays a 
 great and baneful part in much of our political and 
 economic thinking. We still hear a great deal about 
 the " social organl^n," the " social body," the " body 
 politic " ; and on t\ese and similar metaphors, taken 
 literally, many imposing and influential theories, that 
 pass for science, are built up. But Plato's political 
 system is not the only one that is founded upon a 
 metaphor. Many influences and movements of even 
 a far wider reach have no other or nobler origin. 
 The whole ancient and mediaeval theory of cogni- 
 tion, which influences much of our thinking even to- 
 day, is based upon a material metaphor which makes 
 knowledge arise from the complete fusion of the 
 knowing and the known. To know a thing is to be 
 it — TO yap afiro vo€lv ia-riv re koI ihaL, as Parmenides 
 said, in a similar way nearly all our modern philoso- 
 phy, with all its Humean and Kantian skepticisms, 
 all its Hegelian subjectless processes, and all its Com- 
 tean and Spencerian phenomenalism, has its origin in 
 Locke' s metaphor, which makes knowledge consist of 
 impressions similar to those made by a seal upon wax. 
 And in the department of theology there is much of 
 the same sort. 
 
 2. We are nowhere told how the new polity is to 
 be evolved out of existing circumstances. The Re- 
 public is a work of art, and has all the character- 
 istics of such. It presents a sculpturesque group in 
 
132 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 a static condition. It reveals neither past growth nor 
 future progress. Like all Utopian schemes, it fails to 
 take any account of that very evolution which is the 
 life of society. It has nothing to say about the ma- 
 terial out of which, or the method by which, the new 
 order is to develop itself, nothing about any principle 
 or goal of progress whereby its life is to be guided. 
 It comes from nowhere, and it goes nowhere. There 
 is here a capital defect. To any scheme of social re- 
 generation which is other than a mere dream two con- 
 ditions, above all others, are essential : (1) that it shall 
 take full account of the conditions to which it is to be 
 applied — the grade of intelligence, the desires, aims, 
 and ideals of the people whom it undertakes to ele- 
 vate ; (2) that it shall make continuous struggle and 
 progress possible by exhibiting an aim or ideal calcu- 
 lated to enlist universal interest and energy. Failing, 
 as it did, to fulfill either of these conditions, Plato's 
 RepuMic remained a mere dream, encouraging a tend- 
 ency, always common enough, to separate theory from 
 practice, and to make a fantastic picture of social per- 
 fection do duty for a sustained effort at social amelio- 
 ration. Thus it not only contributed to alienate its 
 readers from the institutions about them, but also to 
 encourage a fantastic and unpractical spirit in them. 
 
 3. It is founded upon truths acces sible to only a 
 small and exceptionally gifted portion of mankind . 
 It is in this respect that it diverges most widely from 
 the principles of Socrates, and introduces notions to 
 which he was apparently an entire stranger. This is 
 a crucial point, and one that, therefore, deserves close 
 consideration. Socrates had held that all truth was 
 implicit in the human mind, and required only the 
 
THE PHILOSOPHIC STATE. 133 
 
 obstetric dialectic (that is, conversational) process to 
 make it explicit. When explicit, it proved to be the 
 same in all men, and for this reason could serve as 
 the principle of political freedom. In yielding sub- 
 mission to the truth common to all men, the indi- 
 vidual was only loyal to himself, and therefore free. 
 And it is perfectly obvious that this is the only 
 condition under which political freedom is possible. 
 From this position of Socrates Plato entirely — we 
 might almost say fatally — departed. According to 
 him, truth, instead of being implicit in the human 
 mind, and in every human mind, is not in the mind 
 at all, but lies, in the form of self-e xistent ideas, in 
 a region above the heavens,* to which only a small 
 portion of mankind can ever hope to have access, 
 since only a small portion are capable of climbing 
 the giddy dialectic stair that leads thereto. 
 3 It is not difficult to see the momentousness of this 
 change of view. If a _state is_to be based upon truth, 
 and truth lies where only a few exceptional men can 
 reach it, it follows a t once (1) that no such thing 
 as freedom is possible for men ; (2) that the organi- 
 zation and management of the state must be left to 
 those few men who are able to catch a glimpse of 
 the heaven of truth. Plato, like the idealist he was, 
 shrinks from neither of these conclusions. On the 
 contrary, he embodies both of them in his RepnUic, 
 in which there is no freedom for any one, but in 
 which the philosophers rule without laws and without 
 responsibility to anybody but God. As Plato's ideal 
 state was never realized, these two conclusions did no 
 immediate practical harm. But there followed from 
 
 * Fhcedrus, 247 C. 
 
134 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 his view of the nature and location of truth others 
 that had far more profound and pervasive conse- 
 quences. Since tr uth lies outside the mind, it can 
 not, of course, be evolved by any mental process, but 
 must come to it, if at all, through some sort of ex- 
 perience, which the individual may or may not have. 
 Those who have it must, of necessity, possess a special 
 faculty for the apprehension of eternal and immutable 
 ideas — what might be called a supernatural sense. To 
 this sense Plato gives the name of love (cpws) or frenzy 
 (/xavta), a divine element in the soul, which in its un- 
 developed condition seizes upon the beautiful in its 
 most material manifestations, but which, in proportion 
 as it is trained, rises to more and more spiritual forms 
 of beauty, until at last it reaches the beautiful itself, 
 which is one with the good — that is, God.* This is the 
 faculty which sees divine things. Its action is ex- 
 pressed by the verb ^cwpctv and the noun ^cwpta, 
 which Plato assumed to be derived from ra Oda 6pav, 
 and to which accordingly he gave this meaning. f In 
 a passage already alluded to (Phwdrus, 247 C sqq.) 
 we read : " This supercelestial region no earthly poet 
 
 * See the closing sentences of Plotinus' tract On the Beauti- 
 ful, Enneads, I, 6. Plotinus fairly enough interprets Plato here. 
 
 f Trendelenburg, Element. Log, Arisiot., says : " Already in 
 Plato d«ap(iv is transferred from an attentive, passive looking at 
 divine things or games to a contemplation of the true with all 
 the energy of the mind (alta mente)." In Aristotle, Metaph., A, 
 1073b, 23 5^., the above etymology is obviously assumed, and 
 Simplicius, commenting upon the passage, says : " Of all parts 
 of the intellect, the divinest is theory {Oewpla)." Compare Alex- 
 ander of Aphrodisias, Comment, on Analyt. PH., Scholia to 
 Berlin edition, p. 141b, 2 sq.; and Suidas, Lexicon, sub voc. 
 Qtoipia. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHIC STATE. 135 
 
 has ever sung, or ever will sing, worthily ; but it is of 
 this sort. We need surely have no hesitation about 
 telling the truth, especially since truth is the very 
 thing we are talking about. So, then, the colorless, 
 formless, intangible essence, which essentially is, which 
 is visible only to the pilot intellect, and which is the 
 object of all true science, inhabits this region. The 
 mind of God, being fed with intellect and pure sci- 
 ence, and beholding Being after a space, loves it, and, 
 contemplating (Oewpovcra) the truth, is nourished and 
 made happy until the revolution brings it back to the 
 same point in the circle. In this revolution it sees 
 justice itself (absolute justice), it sees temperance, it 
 sees science — science not as it is with the addition of 
 becoming, nor under the various aspects in which it 
 occurs in what we call being, but as it is in that 
 which is essentially being. . . . And this is the life of 
 the gods. As to the other souls, that which most no- 
 bly follows and resembles God, raises the head of its 
 charioteer into the outer region and is carried round 
 with the revolution, although disconcerted by the 
 horses, and beholding with difficulty the things that 
 are; whereas that which sometimes rises above and 
 sometimes sinks below, through the intractability of 
 the horses, sees some things and fails to see others. 
 And all the rest, though they follow with a hanker- 
 ing for the upper region, are borne round in an im- 
 potent, waterlogged condition, treading each other 
 down and running against each other in their effort 
 to get ahead of each other." 
 
 It may be said that all this is allegory, mere meta- 
 phor, and, indeed, so it is ; but it is allegory that was 
 taken literally by Plato's followers, and, as so taken, 
 
136 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 exercised a vast influence upon thought. And even to 
 Plato himself it is not all allegory. It is his serious 
 belief that the ideas which constitute true knowledge 
 have their abode in a supercelestial — that is, supernat- 
 ural — world, accessible to only a few exceptional souls 
 naturally endowed with a divine faculty of clear-eyed 
 love, which they have trained and developed through 
 the practice of dialectics. This combination of love 
 and dialectics is certainly curious enough, and is to be 
 understood only if we regard dialectics as merely the 
 means whereby the soul discovers higher and higher 
 objects for its love. The faculty which grasps and 
 appropriates these objects is not dialectics, but love or 
 frenzy. " The greatest of blessings come to us through 
 frenzy, provided it is given with a divine giving," Soc- 
 rates is made to say.* 
 
 It would be impossible to insist too strongly upon 
 this point in Plato's system, since it is fraught with 
 I the most momentous consequences, and, indeed, is the 
 / one which gives to that system its chief interest and 
 importance. In one word, Plato, by p lacing tr uth in 
 a supernat ural world, accessible only through a facul tj 
 of d ivine frenzy, became the founder of mysticis m, 
 which is the very essence of spiritual religion, and 
 which as such has played an overwhelming part in the 
 world's history. 
 
 Historians of philosophy, in treating of Keopla- 
 tonism, are often at a loss to discover whence that sys- 
 tem drew the mystic element which is so prominent in 
 it, and are usually inclined to credit it to the religions 
 of the East. It seems to me that this is a mistake, for 
 two reasons : (1) because these religions, so far as I can 
 
 * Plmdrus, 2U A. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHIC STATR 137 
 
 see, had nothing which corresponds to the mysticism of 
 Neoplatonism ; and (2) because that mysticism is to 
 be found without difficulty in the writings of Plato. 
 As to the former of these, while it may, and perhaps 
 must, be admitted that Neoplatonism contained a 
 magic, or theurgic, and mantic element derived from 
 Eastern sources, and that this came to be connected 
 with the mystic element, still it is clear enough that 
 the two elements are different, and have different 
 origins. The truth is, they stand related to each 
 other as nature-religion does to spirit-religion, as ne- 
 cessity to freedom. Their union has played a great 
 part in religion for the last two thousand years. It 
 gave rise to just those elements in the Roman Catholic 
 Church against which Protestantism was a revolt. 
 Protestantism tried to separate mysticism from the- 
 urgy, and, while dropping the latter, to retain the 
 former. At all events, it seems clear enough that the 
 origin of spiritual mysticism, as distinct from material 
 theurgy and mantic, is to be sought nowhere but in 
 Plato's doctrine of self-subsistent ideas, and that Neo- 
 platonism was, in a far higher degree than is generally 
 conceded, a genuine continuation of Platonism. ^ \ 
 It seems, then, that Plato's great achievement con-\ 
 sisted not in drawing up a scheme of an ideal state 
 upon Socratic principles, but in in troducing into phi- 
 
 losophy the notion of a faculty of apprehension higher 
 than sense, in fact (to use a modern phrase), the fac- 
 ulty of t he supernatura l. The scheme, as such, never ^ 
 had any appreciable effect upon political institutions, / 
 though it hovered long as an ideal before unpracticay I 
 minds ; but the mystic principle, which lay at the bot-[ ( 
 tom of it, proved a leaven which brought a ferment 
 
138 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 \ into every department of Greek life, and, above all, 
 I i nto education, until at last it found embodiment in 
 } an institution which was not a state at a ll, but a 
 1 church.* How far Plato was aware of the difference 
 between his own principle and that of Socrates we can 
 ^ not tell ; but certain it is that instead of carrying on 
 I the work of Socrates, he interrupted it and began a 
 I work of his own. 
 
 "We need not here consider the various forms which 
 the mystic element in Plato's thought assumed in 
 later times — in Keopythagoreanism, Neoplatonism, and 
 Christianity. In his own time and the century follow- 
 ;■ ing it manifested itself in the form of a tendency to 
 ' turn away fr om the affairs an d interes ts_of,yiia,^^pjeIdr^ 
 and to lQo^^(^i;J \a]^] iin^;^jjI tne contemplation of things 
 eternal. Jnstead^herefore, of inducing men to^strhja^ 
 after a higEerform of soci^mi©-(if, indeed, that pro- 
 pose3~^yTPlato ^'as^aTiigher form), his influence went 
 to withdraw them more and more from social or, at 
 all events, political life, and to make them feel that ^ 
 their true citizenship was in the invisible world. If a 
 
 * In taking this view of Plato's achievement, I am happy to 
 find myself in agreement with Dr. Gideon Spicker, who in his 
 recent work, Die Ursachen des Ver falls der Philosophie, in alter 
 und neuer Zeit, says in regard to the mystic element in Neo- 
 platonism : " Since this mysticism professes to be, more than 
 anything else, a renewal of Plato, we are justified in surmising 
 that his philosophy contains an element akin to this direction 
 of feeling" (p. 112). And he goes on to point out the presence 
 of this element in Plato. This work of Spicker s is especially 
 important as emphasizing the fact that the supernatural sense, 
 first brought to light by Plato, is essential to the existence not 
 only of religion, but also of philosophy, which without it always 
 degenerates into rationalism, and thence into skepticism. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHIC STATE. 139 
 
 state could not be founded upon mystic vision, there 
 was nothing — so at least it seemed — to prevent the 
 individual from attaining this vision for himself, and 
 communicating the content of it to his fellows. 
 
 We have seen that the gradual encroachment of 
 diagogic life tended to weaken men's interest in prac- 
 tical life. Plato's RepuUic was an attempt to show 
 how the two might be reconciled, and the former 
 made to contribute to the perfection of the latter. 
 Diagoge was to be confined to the few elect souls 
 capable of rising to a contemplation of eternal ideas, 
 and these were to convey the content of that vision to 
 the less favored majority of mankind for its guidance. 
 The attempt not only failed, hut ii; contributed to a p ^- 
 g ravate the very evil — viz^indis idj jalism^srrwhich it was _ 
 intended to cure. The effect of all this upon educa- 
 tion was very m'^ll^ed. The education which had I 
 aimed at making good citizens was spurned by men | 
 who sought only to be guided to the vision of divine ! 
 things. Hence the old gymnastics and music fell into j 
 disrepute, their place being taken by dialectics and I 
 philosophy, which latter Plato makes even Socrates 
 call " the highest music." * Similarly dialectics came 
 to be regarded as the highest gymnastics. 
 
 4. Plato's Republic takes no account of human af- 
 fection or individual will, and therefore deals with only 
 an abstract fragment of man. This is the common 
 fault of all the authors of Utopian systems from Plato 
 
 * Phmdo, IV, 61 A. Compare Chap. IX : " Those who lay hold 
 of philosophy properly and successfully run the risk of being 
 misunderstood by the rest of the world, which does not see that 
 the sole object of their study is to die and to be in the state of 
 the dead " {airoOwfjffKeiv re Koi TeOyduai). 
 
140 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 onward. They treat men as if they were fragments of 
 glass to be arranged into a pleasing mosaic, embodying 
 some theoretic idea coming from outside. In the case 
 of the RepiiUic it was supposed to come directly from 
 God, and to be communicated to philosophers, who 
 were thus commissioned to construct and keep in 
 order the social mosaic without any regard to the 
 affections or will of its component parts. Men's af- 
 fections, to a large extent, are directed upon home 
 (which implies property), wife, and children, and their 
 wills seek to select their own environment and sphere 
 of activity. All these objects Plato would take away. 
 The citizen of his Republic is to have neither home, 
 property, wife, nor child for his affections, nor any 
 choice with regard to his own surroundings or occu- 
 pation. It is, of course, entirely unfair to say that 
 Plato champions community of property and wives. 
 In his scheme there is no place for either. When the 
 state requires childr.en, it breeds them as it would cat- 
 tle, and rears them with as little regard to their parents 
 as if they were chickens hatched from stolen eggs. 
 When it requires material means, it calls upon the 
 producers of wealth to furnish it ; they exist for that 
 mrpose. When children are born according to state 
 regulations, they are taken possession of by state of- 
 ficials, and if they seem vigorous and free from defect, 
 they are placed in public institutions to be educated ; 
 otherwise they are destroyed. Tlie education to v/hich 
 \ej are now subjected is in its main features the' 
 same as that current in Greece in Plato's time. But 
 it is carried further ; its component parts are differ- 
 ently emphasized ; and, above all, it has a different 
 aim, as far at least as the individual is concerned. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHIC STATE. 141 
 
 Whereas the current education aimed at producing 
 capable citizens, practical, active, and patriotic, thati 
 of Plato seeks to develop philosophers, whose home' 
 and chief interest are in the invisible world. Those 
 children who prove incapable of higher instruction 
 are soon relegated to the industrial class, whose ain; 
 is supposed to be having, not being. The others con- 
 tinue their curriculum till about the age of thirty, 
 when those who show no special aptituie for dialectics, 
 but seem active and brave, are assigned to the soldier 
 class, the few that give evidence of higher capabilities 
 proceeding with their studies until, having attained 
 the divine vision, they are admitted to the ruling 
 philosophic class. In all this individual affection 
 and will are completely ruled out. 
 
 5. Plato's RepuUic^ instead of being a means to 
 freedom, is an organ of the most complete despotism. 
 This follows directly from what has been said under 
 the last two headings. Any form of government which 
 is based upon mystical principles inaccessible to the " 
 individual reason and imposed (octroyes) from without, 
 and which disregards individual affections and will, is 
 of necessity a despotism, no matter what title it may 
 assume, what lofty sanctions it may claim for itself. 
 This has been clearly shown in the case of religious 
 politics claiming to be based on divine revelation. For 
 all these Plato's Republic furnished the model.* 
 
 « * It is no part of the purpose of this work to give an account 
 of Plato's system in detail, its provision for the education of 
 women and their equality with men, the mode of life pursued 
 by philosophers and soldiers, etc. For these I must refer the 
 reader to my work on Aristotle aiid the Ancient Educational 
 Ideals. 
 
14:2 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. ,^ 
 
 The appearance of that work forms an epoch in 
 human history and education. In the latter, indeed, 
 it did not cause any sudden change ; but its influence 
 gradually sapped the old system and the old ideal, and 
 substituted others for them. Education ceased to be 
 political, and became either philosophical or rhetorical ; 
 and precisely the same thing was true of art, which is 
 always an expression of current education. To see 
 this it is only necessary to compare the dramas of 
 ^schylus, which are political, with those of Euripides, 
 which are philosophical and rhetorical, or the works 
 of Phidias, such as the Athena Parthenos, with those 
 of Scopas and Praxiteles — e. g., the Niobe Group and 
 the Olympian Hermes.^ As political education decayed, 
 those persons who found themselves unfit for philoso- 
 phy betook themselves to rhetoric, which was the con- 
 tinuation of sophistic, bearing the same relation to 
 the teaching of the Sophists as dialectic did to that 
 of Socrates and Plato. The rhetorical schools were 
 always the rivals of the philosophical, and had an ex- 
 actly opposite tendency. Just as philosophic educa- 
 tion tended to suppress individualism and make men 
 feel that they were but parts of a great whole, so rhe- 
 torical education, true to its origin, tended to empha- 
 size and re-enforce it by producing clever, versatile, 
 self-centered men of the world, capable of making 
 their way anywhere by address, subtlety, and readi- 
 ness. Both kinds of education were equally inimical 
 to the political life of Greece, the one substituting for 
 the state, as the center of interest, God ; the other, the 
 individual. 
 
 Under these circumstances we need not be sur- 
 prised that the Athenian state gradually fell into de- 
 
THE PHILOSOPHIC STATE. 143^ 
 
 cay, and became an easy prey to the semi-barbarous 
 Macedonians, in whom the Aryan instinct of personal 
 loyalty took the place of political feeling. No state 
 will ever be strong which is not regarded by its citi- 
 zens either as the supreme object of interest and effort, 
 or as necessary to the realization of such object. And 
 whenever either religion or individualism becomes the 
 supreme interest, the state must fall into decay, unless 
 it can show that it is essential to the success of the 
 tendency which is in the ascendant. It is always safest 
 when it can show that it is indispensable to both.* 
 
 With all this we must not forget that when Greece, 
 as a political power, decayed, the education and the 
 history of the Greek people were very far from being 
 at an end. Indeed, there is a sense in which it may be 
 said that their history was only beginning. Plato and 
 Aristotle were right when they looked upon the small 
 Greek states as schools ; and the real manhood of the 
 Greeks, their active influence on the great world, be- 
 gan only when they had graduated from these and left 
 them behind. No doubt there is something very at- 
 tractive about the Greek pedagogic states, and they 
 graduated some incomparable people, particularly in 
 the days of Marathon and Salamis ; but, after all, they 
 only furnished the necessary preparation for the work 
 which the Greeks were destined to accomplish in the 
 world, in the spheres of art, science, philosophy, and 
 religion. This work began only when the small peda- 
 gogical polities of Greece were going to pieces. We 
 
 * It argued a profound insight on the part of Constantino 
 that, when the Church had become men's chief object of inter- 
 est, he sought to save the empire by connecting the two, and 
 making the latter seem essential to the former. 
 11 
 
144 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 all admire the patriotic eloquence of Demosthenes, 
 and are almost inclined to weep over the conquest 
 of Greece by the semi^arbarous Macedonians under 
 Philip and Alexander ; but Demosthenes' attempt was 
 a romantic, Quixotic enterprise, an effort to swim 
 against the stream of history; and the conquest of 
 Greece was precisely what was needed in order to 
 make the Greeks set about their appointed task of 
 educating the world, instead of wasting their powers 
 in babblings and squabblings among themselves. 
 
 It was through the work done by Socrates and 
 Plato that the Greeks were enabled to complete the 
 education which prepared them for their mission. It 
 was through this that they were able to substitute for 
 their old ethnic religion, upon which their little exclu- 
 sive states had been built up, and upon which only 
 such states could be built up, a religious principle 
 upon which a world-wide institution could be reared. 
 And no sooner had they attained this principle than 
 they became the bearers of it to all the world — at first, 
 indeed, unconsciously, but later on consciously. Like 
 Socrates, Plato had "builded better than he knew." 
 In seeking to construct a little Grecian polity upon 
 philosophic principles, he had utterly failed ; his Re- 
 public was a wild dream which only dreamers could 
 ever think of trying to realize, or indeed desire to see 
 realized ; but in working it out he had discovered a 
 principle which was destined to be the form of some- 
 thing far higher, something which it would have been 
 impossible for him to imagine. We may sum up the 
 work of Socrates and Plato by saying that the former 
 discovered the principle of the universal state, the 
 latter the principle of the universal Church ;_ the 
 
THE PHILOSOPHIC STATE. 145 
 
 former the principle of moral liberty, the latter the ! 
 principle of unitjjEithJjcod. In this sense, and only [ 
 loTThis sense, can it be said that Plato carried on the 
 work of Socrates. Thus these two men together not 
 only prepared the way for the transition from particu- 
 larism to universalism in politics, but also initiated a 
 separation between the civil and religious institutions 
 which had been confounded in the old states^ It is 
 of course true that there was, strictly speaking, no 
 Church, even in the larger Hellenic world, for four 
 centuries after Plato ; but it is likewise true that the 
 form of the Church came into existence in Plato's 
 lifetime, and only waited for a living content to be- 
 come a reality. That content was the realization of 
 the mystic vision of which Plato had dreamed.* We 
 are therefore prepared to find that after Plato there 
 grew up, alongside the state, societies based upon this 
 vision, the so-called philosophic schools. While the 
 followers of Socrates owned no social bond, those of 
 Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Epicurus, and all the great sys- i 
 tem-builders form themselves into schools ; and these 
 are the forerunners and, in large degree, the models 
 for the church-congregations, at least in the pagan 
 world, t The history of these schools is, from the date | 
 of their rise, the most important part of the history of 
 Greece. It was through these that she exerted upon 
 the w^orld that influence which constitutes her historic 
 importance. 
 
 * See Bratuschek's lecture on Die Bedeutung der plato- 
 ni>iche?i PhilosopMe fur die religiosen Fragen der Gegenwarty 
 Berlin, 1873. 
 
 f The Jewish Christian Church, with its " prophesying," was 
 something very different from the Gentile Church with its 
 
146 EDUCATION OF TSE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 In treating of Plato's attempt to evolve the plan of 
 a state founded on philosophical principles we have 
 confined our attention solely to tlie RepuUic. But 
 this embodies only one of the attempts he made. 
 Another, and one differing in many important respects 
 from the former, is presented to us in the Laws, a 
 work which seems to have been written in his declin- 
 ing years, when the impracticability of his earlier 
 scheme had become apparent to him. It is a work of 
 far less literary merit than the EepuMic, but it is 
 hardly less interesting. Its relation to the latter 
 may be made clear by a simple consideration. The 
 aim of Socrates' efforts had been to find a principle 
 by which the anarchic individualism of sophistic 
 teaching might be overcome. He did so by discov- 
 ering the existence of universal reason in man. 
 Plato, by substituting for this his supermental ideas, 
 whose civic em.bodiment could be only a despotic 
 state, passed to the opposite extreme — viz., to the ex- 
 aggerated socialism of Pythagoras. Having in his 
 RepiMic practically indorsed this, he was led by de- 
 grees to a more careful study of Pythagoreanism itself 
 and its practical results. So deeply did this study 
 affect him that he finally, to a large extent, departed 
 
 preaching, which is altogether of Greek origin, being borrowed 
 from the philosophical and rhetorical schools. (See Hatch, 
 Hibhert Lectures, 1888, pp. 107-109.) To the form and ceremonial 
 of the Gentile Church there went, no doubt, important elements 
 derived from the Jewish synagogue and the Greek mysteries : 
 but the supernatural and spiritual bond, which is the essential 
 principle of the Church, existed already in the Greek philosophic 
 schools. It might, indeed, be maintained that the synagogue 
 itself owed its origin to Greek influence. It certainly arose 
 when that influence was at its highest in Palestine. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHIC STATE. 147 
 
 il9P^ the pr inciples of _Socrates and embrac ed those 
 of Pythagoras. The result was the Laios^ in which 
 alone of all Plato's works Socrates does not appear. 
 
 Two circumstances seem to have contributed to 
 bring about this change : (1) the growing social dis- 
 order in Greece, against which the scheme propounded 
 in the Republic was obviously ineffective ; (2) the mani- 
 fest impotence of ideas as ethical sanctions. Length- 
 ened experience gradually convinced Plato of two 
 things : (1) that society can be reformed only through 
 the forces by which it has been built up and is still 
 maintained, never by principles imported from with- 
 out ; (2) that the most important of these forces is 
 religion with its gods, a force for which metaphysics, 
 with its ideas, is no substitute. Without, therefore, 
 denying — nay, indeed, still affirming — that the Repub- 
 lic presents the ultimate ideal state, he admits that 
 such a state is possible only when the citizens are 
 "gods or sons of gods,"* and then proceeds to draw 
 out the plan of a state which, as being based upon the 
 forces at work in society, and especially upon religion 
 and the gods, might seem to offer more promise of \ 
 realization. Accordingly, in the Latvs, the ideas of the | 
 Republic are replaced by the popular gods, the mystic 
 vision by popular good sense {<j>p6vrj(rLs)y the philo- 
 sophic class by (1) a hereditary prince, (2) a com- 
 missioner of public education and a senate chosen by 
 vote, and (3) a body of officials determined by lot, and, 
 finally, the industrial class by slaves and resident for- 
 eigners. Of his previous three classes the only one 
 
 * Etre rrov Oeol fj vaiSes dewv, Laws, 739 D. See the whole 
 passage, and mark the expression " sons of gods." 
 
148 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 that remains is the military. All these changes are 
 concessions to the real, and it is manifest that Plato 
 in making them has abandoned the ideal standpoint 
 and placed himself on a basis of history and experi- 
 ence. 
 
 By nothing is this shown more clearly than by the 
 part which the gods and their worship play in the new 
 scheme. Mature reflection upon popular ethical sanc- 
 tions and an acquaintance with the results of Pytha- 
 gorean teaching had convinced him that among men 
 no social or political order was possible that was not 
 based upon religion and the worship of gods, acknowl- 
 edged to be real personalities. Accordingly, he lays down 
 the most detailed rules for the worship of the accepted 
 gods,* demons, and heroes, and ordains that any word 
 or act, on the part of any citizen, showing disrespect 
 for divine things shall be punished in the most rigor- 
 ous way. lie goes even much further than this. Iden- 
 tifying certain of the gods with the heavenly bodies, or, 
 as Dante would say, with the intelligences that move 
 the spheres, and conceiving that much of the order of 
 things on the earth is due to their influence, he prac- 
 tically makes astrology an essential part of religion, 
 and the worship of the " hosts of heaven " f part of 
 religious ritual. And this ritual, in consequence, be- 
 came not only extremely detailed and complicated — in- 
 
 * Oi KOTck vSfiov vvTfs Oioi, Laws, X, 904 A. Cf. Golden Words, 
 line 1, 9eohs, vSfxtf &s BidKeivrai. 
 
 f Whence Plato derived his astrological notions I am unable 
 to say, whether from Pythagoras or directly from the Egyptians, 
 Babylonians, or Phoenicians ; but it seems to me that the notion 
 of introducing astrology into religion was in all probability duo 
 to Pythagorean influence. 
 
\ 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHIC STATE. 149 
 
 asmuch as each deity, daemon, and hero had to be wor- 
 shiped with certain fixed rites, performed at stated 
 seasons, and with no other — but also theurgic and 
 mantic, as indeed every religion necessarily does that 
 pays homage to the host of heaven or to nature-powers 
 of any sort. 
 
 This view of the relation of the heavenly powers o i 
 bodies to the aff airs of life introduced a great cha ngt 
 in ed ucation. Whereas in the Republic education hac 
 culminated in dialectics leading to the vision of super-' 
 
 I sensual ideas, in the Laws it culminates in the mathe- 
 
 7matical sciences — arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy 
 — the first two being mainly preparatory to the last. 
 It need not be said that for Plato astronomy is astrol- 
 
 •# ogy, whence, in recommending the study of the mathe- 
 matical sciences, he does so in the interest of religion, 
 
 * or,' more strictly speaking, of superstition. Mathe- 
 matics are to be studied in order that we may place 
 ourselves in the proper relation to the stellar intelli- 
 gences.* 
 
 In the political scheme set forth in the Laios a 
 place is, of course, found for the family and for pri- 
 vate property ; but into details like these we can not 
 enter, our purpose being merely to show how the work 
 affected the education of the Greek people — that is, 
 what elements it introduced into their thought. And 
 this may be stated in a few words. Inasmuch as the 
 scheme propounded in the Laws is little more than a 
 
 * " This is what I say is incumbent both upon our citizens 
 and upon our young men with respect to the gods in the heavens, 
 that they should learn so much about them all as not to utter 
 blasphemy about them, but to treat them always reverently, in 
 sacrifices and pious prayers." — Laws, VII, 821 D. B. 
 
150 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 compound of the constitutions of Athens and Sparta, 
 sanctioned by a religion bordering closely upon Sa- 
 baeanism, it is obvious that it is mainly in this last ele- 
 ment that the novelty of the Laws consists. Kor is 
 this a small matter if we consider it in its conse- 
 quences. Let us do so. 
 
 The tendency of the teaching of Socrates, as well as 
 of that of Plato in the RepiiUic, had been to draw men 
 away from the old nature-divinities of polytheism, and 
 to direct their attention upon a single principle, as gov- 
 erning the universe — in a word, to turn them to mono- 
 theism. And, indeed, had the fundamental thought of 
 Socrates been faithfully carried out to its legitimate 
 consequences, it is hard to see what other result could 
 have been reached than a spiritual monotheism, since 
 that is the necessary presupposition of all " idiopsy- 
 chological ethics " (to use an excellent expression of 
 Dr. Martineau's). But, as we have seen, no such good 
 fortune befell the thought of Socrates. Plato sub- 
 stituted for it one of his own, which did not, and 
 could not, lead to a spiritual monotheism, but, at 
 best, only to a mono-ideism, such as Hegel afterward 
 reached ; and when he found this inadequate to fur- 
 nishing a principle for the reorganization of society, 
 he had no resource but to fall back into material poly- 
 theism, which he then attempted to raise to the height 
 of a moral sanction by connecting it with a crude 
 physical theory and with a worship consisting mainly 
 of theurgic or magic rites and divination. It was 
 due mainly to Plato that the Greeks, in their effort 
 to find a true moral sanction, were left to choose 
 between a lifeless abstraction called " the Good " and a 
 crude material polytheism, and that they thus missed 
 
THE PHILOSOPHIC STATE. 151 
 
 the " living God," whom Socrates, and before him the 
 prophetic ^schylus, came so near finding. 
 
 We have already seen that the adoption of the . 
 former of these alternatives was the source of that 
 mysticism which played such a large part in subse- 
 quent philosophy and religion. We can now see that 
 the adoption of the latter gave currency and respecta- 
 bility to the theurgic, magic, and mantic rites which 
 to this day have maintained themselves in much of 
 the religion of the civilized world. No doubt these 
 rites existed in all nature-religions, not excepting that 
 of Greece ; but they would, in all probability, have disj 
 appeared soon after the time of Socrates, at least froni 
 the religion of thinking men, had they not receivea 
 prestige and a fresh lease of life from the authority or. 
 Plato. Thus they came to be perpetuated, and thus v 
 it was that the religion of the thoughtful Greeks after 
 Plato's time was, to a large extent, a compound of a 
 lofty mysticism, striving after the beatific vision of a 
 bald abstraction, and a crude material superstition, 
 expressing itself in magic ceremonies. Such was the 
 result of Plato's attempt to found a social order upon 
 abstract philosophic principles. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE ATTEMPT TO FOUND AN EDUCATIONAL STATE 
 ON INDUCTIVE SCIENTIFIC PEINCIPLES AND ITS 
 
 RESULTS. 
 
 Plato's attempt to found a state on the mystic 
 vision of divine ideas, whatever its more remote re- 
 sults, was a failure ; and of this he himself became 
 ultimately so well aware that he attempted to found 
 one upon popular superstition. This likewise was 
 necessarily a failure, so that at the death of Plato the 
 task which Socrates had undertaken remained unac- 
 complished, and the principle of social union which 
 he had discovered undeveloped and unapplied. But 
 in elaborating his second scheme Plato had made use 
 of a principle which, had he known how to take full 
 advantage of it, might have helped him to a better 
 result — the principle that all social reform must come 
 from a wise direction of the immanent forces by which 
 society is built up. Jhe full comprehension and ap- 
 plication of this principle were left for Aristotle. 
 
 This philosopher abandoned the position of Plato 
 without returning to that of Socrates. Without alto- 
 gether setting aside Platonic ideas, he freed them from 
 manv of the difficulties that attached to them as con- 
 ceived by Plato. By treating their separate existence 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC STATE. 153 
 
 in a snpercelestial world as pure mythology, and plant- 
 ing them as organizing forces in the material world, 
 and as concepts in the intellect — realized in the divine ; 
 potential, and realizable in the human — he prepared 
 the way for the conclusion that if divine ideas arc everif 
 to be found at all, they must be looked for in nature 
 and in mind. In nature they are seen on their ex- 
 ternal side, in the form of becoming; in mind, on 
 their internal side, in the form of being ; and they are 
 adequately seen only when the two sides are simul- 
 taneously presented. These ideas, in so far as they 
 relate to human practice, appear on their inner side as 
 ethical ends or motives ; on their outer, as social insti- 
 tutions, and these two must be seen in their correla- 
 tion, if ever a theory of practice is to be reached, and 
 practice itself place upon a secure footing. 
 
 According to Aristotle, all intelligent action is ac- 
 tion for the sake of an end, which may be defined as 
 " the Good " {to dyaOov). The good of man is Happi- 
 ness (evSat/xovta), which consists in the realization of 
 his highest or distinguishing faculty — viz., intellect. 
 In his Ethics Aristotle seeks to show how the indi- 
 vidual must discipline himself in order to reach this 
 end, while in the Politics he undertakes to present 
 the external, the social, and economic conditions under 
 which such discipline promises to be most successful. T 
 Thus for Aristotle, as for Plato, the state is primarily / 
 a school of virtue, and the supreme virtue consists 'in f 
 the exercise of the intellect. 
 
 In both the Ethics and the Politics Aristotle goes 
 to work inductively. In the former, after defining the 
 nature of " the Good," he proceeds to classify the vir- 
 tues and the vices, and to show how each is related to 
 
154 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 that Good — the former conducing to it, the latter lead- 
 ing away from it. In the latter he considers the vari- 
 ous forms of government and their relation to each 
 other, as well as to the characters, temperaments, and 
 culture of different peoples.* These do not concern 
 us at present. We have only to consider what he con- 
 ceives the function of the state to be in educating men 
 so that they may reach "the Good." In trying to 
 define this, he begins with a very sharp and, on the 
 whole, very just criticism of the socialistic doctrines 
 propounded in Plato's Eepublic and Latvs. He points 
 out the fallacy involved in the conception of the state 
 as the individual writ large, and emphatically denies 
 the truth of the doctrine that a state is better in pro- 
 portion as it approximates perfect unity. On the con- 
 trary, he says, the more completely a thing is a unity, 
 the less self-sufficient, the less capable of prolonging 
 its existence it is. If we reflect that the individual is 
 more of a unity than the family, and the family than 
 the state, we shall see that unity and self-sufficiency 
 are in inverse ratio to each other. Moreover, when 
 the state is regarded as an individual the happiness of 
 the whole will be aimed at, and not that of the parts — 
 a hand or a foot. But to talk of the happiness of a 
 state, as something possible apart from the happiness 
 of the human beings that, compose it, is to talk non- 
 sense. Happiness is not like evenness in number. A 
 number may be even though all its components are 
 
 * His review of the different forms of government was based 
 upon a very wide induction. Before undertaking it he wrote 
 out the " constitutions " of two hundred and fifty (some say two 
 hundred and fifty-eight) different states. One of these, the 
 " O'onstitution of the Athenians," has recently been discovered. 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC STATE. 155 
 
 odd (units) ; but a state can not be happy if its mem- 
 bers are unhappy, as those of the Platonic state are. 
 Aristotle shows further not only that the Platonic 
 state could not possibly be realized, but also that if it 
 were, it would neither obviate the evils nor secure the 
 blessings which he believes it would. He points out 
 specially the evils that would arise from community of 
 wives or property, and shows that they would far over- 
 balance the advantages. 
 
 It might seem from this criticism that Aristotle 
 would be prepared to reverse the Platonic doctrine 
 that the individual exists for the state, and to say that 
 the state exists for the individual. But he is both too 
 much of a Greek and too much of a philosopher to do 
 this. ■ He maintains that man and the state do not 
 stand to each other in the relation of end and means, 
 but are essentially correlates. " Man is hy nature a/ 
 political animal," and the notion of a man without a 
 state (aTToXts) is as absurd as that of a state without a 
 man. He even commits himself to the paradox that 
 the state is prior to the individual,* by which he means 
 that it is man's civic nature by which his individual 
 manhood is rendered possible. It is through the state 
 that man is man. Without the state he would have to 
 be a beast or a god. In one aspect, therefore, the rela- 
 tion of the individual to the state is organic, in another 
 it is federal. It is this combination of the organic and 
 the federal that constitutes the political. A polity is 
 more than an organism, f more than an individual how- 
 
 * 'H ir6\is KoiX <p-u<Tfi KoL irpSrepov ^ e/cao-Tos, Pol., I, 2, 1253a 25. 
 f It is curious how lono: it has taken the world — nay, how 
 long it has taken political thinkers— to rise to Aristotle's point 
 
156 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 ever large we may write him. I am not aware that 
 Aristotle has anywhere hazarded the assertion that a 
 unity is always higher in proportion to the independ- 
 ence of the elements which it unites, and that the 
 highest possible unity would be one whose elements 
 were absolutely independent; but there can be no 
 doubt that this follows from his teaching, and would 
 have been cheerfully admitted by him. To convince 
 ourselves that he held this view with respect to polit- 
 ical unities we have only to read the second chapter 
 of the second book of the Politics, where, in dealing 
 with the question of communism and private property, 
 he maintains that, while possession ought to be private, 
 the citizens of a community should be so well educated 
 as to be ready to use their wealth for the public weal. 
 " And to see that they have this education is the proper 
 task of the legislator."* Obviously, therefore, the 
 business of the state is not to make its citizens de- 
 pendent parts of a whole, as Plato had held, but_ to 
 develop in them moral wills, and thereby to make 
 them independent. In a word, Aristotle regards the 
 f A state as a moral unity, whose principle is free will, and 
 f is therefore the determined foe of all state-socialism. 
 In the ideal state men would be absolutely free. 
 Of the state-forms capable of realization among men 
 
 of view in this matter. We stOl hear the state spoken of as an 
 organism, and theories propounded with regard to it as if it 
 really were so. See, for example, Bluntschli, Theory of the 
 State, p. 12 sqq. (Eng. trans.). This writer even goes so far as to 
 maintain that the state is masculine and the Church feminino ! 
 Ibid., p. 22 sq. 
 
 * "Oirojs Se yiuccvTai Toiovroi, rod yofiodcTOV tovt* eftyoy t5i6u iariy. 
 Pol., ii, 5, 12G3a 39 sq. 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC STATE. 157 
 
 such as they are, that is the best and highest which 
 allows the individual the greatest possible amount of 
 liberty. 
 
 In seeking to discover what form of state best ac- 
 complishes this, Aristotle classifies and passes in review 
 all the forms of government with which he is ac- 
 quainted, or which he conceives possible, and finds 
 that there are in all six of them — three good and three'f 
 bad (irapeK/Sda-eLg). The difference between a good and! 
 a bad government is that, while the former aims at \ 
 the good of the whole people, the latter seeks that of a 1 
 class. The good governments are — (1) Monarchy, in 
 which one rules ; (2) aristocracy, in which some (the 
 best) rule ; and (3) constitutional republic (TroXireta), 
 in which all rule. The bad governments correspond- 
 ing respectively to these are — (1) Tyranny, (2) oli- \ 
 garchy, (3) democracy. The difference between the 
 last two, however, is not so much a matter of number 
 as of wealth. Oligarchy is government by the rich ; 
 democracy, by the poor. In arranging these govern- 
 ments in an order of descending goodness, Aristotle 
 applies the principle that " the corruption of the best 
 is the worst." * The result is : (1) Monarchy, (2) aris- 
 tocracy, (3) constitutional republic, (4) democracy, (5) 
 oligarchy, (6) tyranny. 
 
 * " Corruptio optimi pessima esty In this generalized form 
 it became an adage in Scholastic philosophy. Dante {Purg., 
 XXX, 118 sqq.y and Shakespeare (" Lilies that fester smell far 
 worse than weeds," Son., xciv, 14) both adopt it. In its original 
 form it was applied to governments — "the corruption of the 
 first and most divine mii§t be the worst " (avdyio] yap r^v ixkv rf/s 
 vpdoTTjs Kttl Oeiordrris TrapiK^aTiv dvai xetp^o-Tijv, Pol., iv, 2, 1289a 
 39 sqq.). 
 
158 EDUCATION OF ^HE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 According to Aristotle, then, monarchy is the best 
 form of government for educating men to freedom, 
 and tyranny the worst. This conchision was due not 
 to any philosophic reasoning from abstract principles, 
 or to any preconception of human nature, but to ex- 
 perience, and, perhaps even in a larger degree than was 
 justified, to the experience of his own time. The same 
 social convulsion and confusion that had driven Plato 
 to turn his back on all actual governments and con- 
 struct his fantastic and impossible RepuUic were be- 
 fore Aristotle, and even in an aggravated form. But 
 the effect upon him was altogether different from what 
 it had been upon Plato ; and the reason of this is not 
 far to seek. While Plato, with his poetical tendencies, 
 could find no refuge from the actual save in the ab- 
 stract ideal, Aristotle, with his belief that the ideal 
 was not abstract at all, looked for help in a larger and 
 more comprehensive view of the real. And he was 
 greatly aided in this by the circumstances of his life, 
 which in this connection deserve careful consider- 
 ation. 
 
 Though Aristotle spent a large part of his life — 
 nearly tliirty years in all — in Athens, and though, as 
 his works clearly show, he took a deep and sympathetic 
 interest in its government and people, he never was — 
 never could be, and probably never even wished to be 
 — anything more than a stranger or resident foreigner 
 (/xerotKos) there. He was a Macedonian not only by 
 birth, but, as many circumstances show, also in sym- 
 pathy. He had seen the best side of the great Mace- 
 donian monarchs, and in his later life, when he was 
 writing his Politics^ he witnessed not only their easy 
 and complete triumph over the democracies and oli- 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC STATE. 159 
 
 garchies of Greece, but also their beneficent influence / 
 in restoring peace, order, and prosperity to the whole 
 people. Before his very eyes the monarchy of which 
 he was a subject proved itself not only stronger, but 
 more civilizing than any other form of government with 
 which he was acquainted. Under these circumstances 
 it would have been strange indeed if, with his deep 
 respect for experience, he had not assigned to mon- 
 archy the first place among the forms of government. 
 At all events there can be no doubt that his experience 
 of the power and influence of Macedonia had a consid- 
 erable part in shaping his political theories. 
 
 It seems at first sight strange that a man who laid 
 so much stress on the distinction between Greeks and 
 barbarians as Aristotle did should have shown so much 
 respect for the Macedonians, who were generally con- 
 sidered at least half barbarians ; but it must be borne 
 in mind that a very large proportion of the subjects of 
 the Macedonian kings were pure-blooded Greeks, and 
 Greeks of a very superior type, and that both Philip 
 and Alexander had not only received a most careful 
 Greek education, but were proud to proclaim them- 
 selves the bearers and champions of Greek culture, a j 
 claim which the Greeks themselves allowed when they 
 admitted them to participation in the Olympic games. 
 Thus the Greece of Aristotle was the Macedonian mon- 
 archy, of which the Greece of Plato was only a de- 
 pendent province ; and we can well imagine that the 
 battle of Chaeronea, which to the latter must have 
 seemed the greatest of disasters, may have appeared 
 to Aristotle the dawn of a better order of things. In 
 his recently discovered Constitution of Athens he 
 closes the history of that city with the restoration of 
 13 
 
160 EDUCATION OF >THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 the democracy by Thrasybulus in B. c. 403, and does 
 not even allude to the Macedonian conquest. 
 
 Aristotle's experiences with the Macedonian mon- 
 archy placed him in a diflBcult position, which is curi- 
 ously but plainly manifested in his Politics. While 
 he maintains that monarchy is, absolutely speaking, 
 the highest form of government, and that aristocracy 
 comes next to it, he nevertheless admits that, consider- 
 ing the difficulty of finding a real monarch or an aris- 
 tocracy whose unselfishness can be depended on, the 
 best form generally realizable is the constitutional re- 
 public. We can easily see that in making this admis- 
 sion he is influenced by the impression which Philip 
 and Alexander had made upon him. Such men, he 
 evidently believes, are not found every day, and can 
 not be made to order. He is probably thinking of 
 them when he describes the man whom he considers 
 fit to be a monarch. " If," he says, " there be any one 
 man, or some small number of men not large enough 
 to constitute a state, so exceedingly transcendent in 
 worth that neither the worth nor the political capacity 
 of all the rest bears any comparison to his or theirs (as 
 the case may be), such men are no longer to be con- 
 sidered part of the state; for it would be an injustice 
 to place them on an equal footing with those who are 
 so inferior to them in worth and political capacity. 
 Nay, such a man must take the place of a god among 
 men. Thus we see that wherever there is legislation 
 it presupposes men generically and potentially equal, 
 whereas the men just referred to are beyond the sphere 
 of law ; for they are the law ; and certainly it would 
 be ridiculous for any one to lay down laws for them. 
 They would probably reply as Antisthenes said the 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC STATE. 161 
 
 lions did when the hares and rabbits took to harangu- 
 ing in favor of equal rights for all." * 
 
 We can readily see that in accepting and propound- 
 ing a doctrine like this Aristotle was standing on the 
 boundary line between two epochs and ideals of polit-i 
 ical life. On one side of him, stretching away into the 
 past, were the little pedagogic republics of Greece, withf 
 their narrow interests, regulated lives, and intense, 
 supercilious patriotism ; on the other, looming up in 
 the future, was a great Hellenic monarchy, with broad 
 interests, free lives, and an all-inclusive patriotism. 
 But he saw too clearly the disadvantages, as well as 
 the advantages, of each to be an enthusiastic partisan 
 or apostle of either by itself. He evidently saw that 
 cultured, Hellenic life could not be carried on without 
 the city-state (TroAt?), and he could not help seeing that 
 such states were entirely unable to maintain themselves, 
 either against each other or against foreign aggression, 
 unless they were united and held together by a power 
 which they themselves could not create, and which 
 therefore had to come to them from without. Such a 
 power he looked for in some great hero, like Philip or 
 Alexander, who, standing among men like a god above 
 all institutions and laws, should govern them by divine 
 right. But as the divine man is rare,t ^^^ can not be 
 commanded, ordinary men must be content to make 
 and obey laws, the best they can evolve or secure. 
 Accordingly, in attempting to describe the highest 
 state which he conceives to be realizable without the 
 aid of the divine man (who is beyond science as beyond 
 
 * Pol, iii, 13, 1283a 3 sqq. 
 
 f 'S.irdviov rh OeTov &ySpo chai, Eth. Nic, vii, 1, 1145a 27 sq. 
 
162 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 law), he keeps pretty close to the model of the Greek 
 city-state, merely suggesting such improvements upon 
 actual conditions as shall make that institution truly 
 and consciously a school of virtue. 
 ' In examining Aristotle's political scheme, we he- 
 come aware of two characteristics of the man — (1) his 
 extreme regard for facts and actual conditions, and 
 (2) his lack of that prophetic vision which, amid the 
 chaos and confusion of a transition period, can descry 
 
 " The Spirit of the years to come 
 Yearning to mix himself with Life." 
 
 The former of these made him not only accept many 
 current notions and practices which were soon to be 
 outgrown, but even to champion them as founded in 
 Nature, and to seek a philosophical explanation of 
 them. Thus, for example, he became an advocate of 
 chattel slavery (although, as he himself tells us, there 
 were already in his time men who held it to be un- 
 natural*), of abortion, of the murder of feeble or 
 deformed children, of the treatment of " barbarians " 
 as generically inferior to Greeks, and fit only to be 
 their slaves, of the exclusion of the industrial classes, 
 as incapable of virtue, from all political power, etc. 
 The second characteristic made him in great measure 
 blind to those subtle humanitarian forces that were at 
 work around him, slowly undermining the walls of 
 Greek exclusiveness, and making straight the paths 
 for him who was to know neither Greek nor barbarian, 
 but only man. Hence it was that, though he could 
 not help seeing that something like the oecumenic 
 empire of Alexander must be the determining influ- 
 
 * Tols 54 {SoKeT) trapa tpiffiv rh 5€(rTr6Ceiv, Pol., i, 3, 1253b 12. 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC STATE. 163 
 
 ence in all future social life,* he could not in the least 
 forecast the broadening, humanizing influences of such 
 an institution. In fact, as has been recently pointed 
 jOut in a work referred to in a former chapter, Aristotle 
 /was not a religious nature,f and accordingly he had 
 / none of that large, vision-giving sympathy which usu- 
 
 ( ally goes with such natures, and none of that humility 
 in the presence of infinite perfection and an infinite 
 task which makes the differences between man and 
 man seem trifling and embraces all that is human in a 
 
 t consciousness of universal brotherhood. Like his mas- 
 ter Plato, and like the Greeks generally, he placed the 
 
 . supreme happiness and end of man in an activity of 
 j I /the intellect, without, however, including in it, as Plato 
 / ' did, the element of love. This activity, which he 
 termed ^ewpta — that is, vision of the divine (see p. 134, 
 note) — is not only a purely individual matter, but it is 
 an end which only a very small and select portion of 
 
 * There is a curious remark in the fourth book of the Physics, 
 ■where, speaking of the different senses in which one thing may 
 be in another, he includes among these the sense " in which the 
 affairs of the Greeks are in a king, and generally in the first mo- 
 tive " (power) — us iu fiaxriKit rh rwv 'EW-fivav Kal 8\<as iv r<f trpdirff) 
 KivnriKc^, Phys., iv, 3, 210a 21 sq. John Philoponus, in his com- 
 mentary, explains this to mean that " the ruler is the creative 
 cause {iroirjriKhv cutiov) of political action " (irpdyfiara). 
 
 f Spicker, Die Ursachen des Verfalls der PhilosopMe, p. 120. 
 That the philosophy of Aristotle contributed much to Christian 
 theology since the fourth (see Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, iii, 8, 
 10), and particularly since the thirteenth, century, is most true ; 
 but it is also true that its contributions did much to deface 
 the true character of the Christian religion (see Eucken, Die 
 PhilosopMe des Thomas von Aquino und die Cultur der Nevr- 
 zeit, pp. 13 sqq. Cf. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, pp. 274 sqq.). 
 
164 EDUCATION OF ^HE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 humanity can ever hope to attain, and one that leaves 
 no room for either love or will. That Aristotle should 
 have set up this intellectual goal as the end of all hu- 
 man effort was due perhaps directly to the influence 
 of Plato, and to his own doctrine that the end or hap- 
 piness of every being consisted in the exercise of its 
 highest or distinguishing faculty — in the case of man, 
 reason ; but indirectly and originally in the generally 
 growing conviction that the true life was diagogic and 
 not practical, and that the highest diagoge was contem- 
 plation. Thus his supreme ideal grew out of the tend- 
 encies of his time, and not out of any deep religious 
 consciousness. 
 
 Given a nature such as Aristotle's, one can almost 
 forecast what his ethical and educational theory will 
 be. His respect for the actual will induce him to give 
 it a large influence in all his teachings, while his belief 
 that man's supreme end is purely individual will make 
 him set up the magnificent (/AcyaA.o«/a;xos), self -centered 
 individuality as the ideal man. As he is destitute of 
 the religious consciousness, his ethics will have no 
 religious or divine sanction, but be purely experi- 
 mental and prudential. In all this we can see clearly 
 the struggle that was then going on between the claims 
 of diagogic, and those of practical, life ; between the 
 old ideal of small republics of equal freemen and the 
 new reality of an empire governed by a magnificent 
 personality standing above law ; and between the old 
 personal gods of polytheism and the new impersonal, 
 purely intelligent " Prime Mover," whose entire ac- 
 tivity and life consist in thinking himself. 
 
 It would be surprising if Aristotle, or any man, 
 writing in the midst of such struggles, whose issue 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC STATE. 165 
 
 still lay in the future, should have been able to draw 
 up a perfectly consistent scheme of ethics and politics, 
 at once keeping close to the actual, avoiding Platonic 
 dreams, and yet bringing into consciousness the spirit 
 of the time and its direction. Hence we need not be 
 surprised to find that the Etliics and Politics not only 
 contain glaring contradictions, but that they reveal 
 nothing which could guide men out of the " dark 
 forest " in which they found themselves. As scientific 
 works they must ever hold a very high place on account 
 of the immense mass of generalized knowledge whiclrjv 
 they present ; but as offering any ultimate solution of 
 ethical or political problems they are comparatively 
 valueless. Upon the practical life of the centuries 
 immediately following they exerted less influence than 
 even the works of Plato, which, however fanciful, con- 
 tained a definite enough ideal. 
 
 What, then, was the nature of the educational state 
 which Aristotle attempted to construct on scientific 
 principles, and what was the result of that attempt ? 
 
 We may answer the former question by saying that 
 Aristotle's educational state is little more than the 
 Athenian democracy freed from abuses and excesses, 
 and made a school of virtue. The education provided 
 in it is simply the Athenian system improved, unified, 
 and furnished with a definite end, lying within the 
 scope of the state. It is unfortunate that we have 
 only a fragment of Aristotle's scheme of education, 
 and are therefore unable to say how he connected his 
 political education with that which should prepare 
 men for diagogic contemplation. As far as this frag- 
 ment goes it deals solely with the education of the 
 citizen, as citizen, of a small commonwealth. 
 
166 EDUCATION OP THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 By keeping close to the actual, Aristotle, no doubt, 
 hoped that his scheme might be capable of realization ; 
 but the truth is it was as unrealizable as the RepuUic 
 of Plato, and this for two reasons — (1) because the 
 days of small independent republics were over, and an 
 cecumenic state was about to take their place ; and 
 (2) because the moral forces which might have carried 
 the reforms advocated by him did not exist, and he 
 could show no way of bringing them into existence.. 
 It is easy, therefore, to answer the question, What was 
 the result of his attempt to found a state on scientific 
 principles ? As far as the end contemplated was con- 
 cerned, it was an absolute failure. Aristotle affected 
 the world of his own time, not by propounding a polit- 
 ^ical system, but by educating Alexander, who applied 
 the only remedy which could do anything for the Greek 
 republics — that of brute force. When, after Aristotle's 
 death, his chief treatises (so the story goes) were hid 
 away in a cellar in the Troad, from which they did not 
 emerge for two hundred years, the world did not feel 
 that it had lost anything, or move on otherwise than 
 it would have done had they been in everybody's 
 hands. 
 
 Btit, for all that, we should be greatly mistaken if 
 we should conclude that Aristotle's works were written 
 in vain, that they played no part in the world's history. 
 Works like his are like seeds that take a long time to 
 germinate, but which in the long run develop into 
 larger and more enduring plants than those that are 
 more hasty. Although, of the four great philosophic 
 schools which flourished in the Hellenic world soon 
 after the death of Aristotle, the Peripatetic seems to 
 have been the least conspicuous, and to have attracted 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC STATE. 167 
 
 the smallest number of disciples, it nevertheless lived 
 on with energy sufficient to keep alive the thought of 
 its founder until the day came when the world re- 
 ^ quired it. It was natural enough that a philosophy i 
 "'? which called for research, experiment, broad knowl- 1 
 / edge, and sober thinking — a philosophy which tried to 
 I make sure its footing upon the earth before it buried 
 / its head in the clouds — should have proved less at- 
 ] tractive than one which promised to raise men in the 
 luxurious chariot of imagination to the dreamy heaven 
 of pure ideas. But a philosophy based upon facts, if j^ 
 it did not allure the many, could not at any time fail 
 to command the attention of serious thinkers really 
 desirous of arriving at the truth of the world, or in 
 the end to assert its natural right to cosmopolitanism. 
 For, however narrow Aristotle's political ideal may have 
 been, and however far behind the demands of the time, 
 his science and philosophy were in the highest degree! 
 cosmopolitan. In this respect they stood alone and 
 without rivals. Hence, in proportion as the widening, 
 deepening, and complicating of human relations made 
 a cosmopolitan system of thought necessary, the phi- 
 losophy of Aristotle inevitably came into the fore- 
 ground. It may be safely said that from his day to 
 ours no institution claiming to be cosmopolitan or 
 catholic has succeeded in establishing and maintain- 
 ing itself without the aid of his thought, and that of 
 all the educational influences that have come to the | 
 world from Greece that of Aristotle is the strongest. ' 
 In truth, Aristotle occupies a unique place in the l 
 ancient world. He is the exponent of the thoughts I 
 and t^'ndencies which marked the epoch in which it / 
 passe'' ir'rom ethnic to cosmopolitan life. He writes J 
 
168 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 I the testament of the former, and in large degree the 
 / programme of the latter. With him the education of 
 J Greece comes to an end ; she ceases to be a pupil and 
 ^^;^>^ becomes a teacher. She leaves her little school, not 
 without some bitter regrets and a few tears, and goes 
 out into the wide world to conquer and instruct. Her 
 history from that time on, in so far as it has any hu- 
 man interest, consists in what she did outside her own 
 boundaries, in imparting her education and culture to 
 . the declining East and the rising West. 
 ^'^^ The important question that now presents itself to 
 us is this : Wherein did Greek education and culture 
 consist? It has been the aim of this and the previous 
 chapters to supply the materials for an answer to this 
 question, and it ought not now to be difficult to render. 
 ' We may express it in a few words : Greek culture, the 
 result of Greek education, consisted in elevating the 
 individual from thraldom to the blind^forces of Xature, 
 whether in the form of religious superstition or social 
 I prescription, to a position of self-determination or 
 I moral freedom. We have tried to trace the course of 
 this process. It may be here briefly recapitulated^ • 
 - The Greeks, when we first meet with them in his- 
 tory, are living, like the rest of mankind, in societies 
 held together by blood-ties, maintained by religious 
 rites having their origin in these ties. In so far as a 
 moral personality can be said to exist at all, it is the 
 community — the family or the tribe — and not tlie in- 
 dividual, who indeed has no recognized existence except 
 as a member of the community. The religion of this 
 period is animism or ancestor-worship. In course of 
 time, through migration and the union of famili«^6, the 
 blood-tie gradually gives place to the land-tiet;^as the 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC STATE. 169 
 
 result of which the monogamic family begins to appear 
 and claim a certain independence, which it is able to 
 maintain by private property in land. The religion of 
 this period is the worship of the powers of Nature — 
 polytheism — which, however, only gradually and par- 
 tially replaces ancestor-worship. After a time again, 
 through the multiplication of families and the appro- 
 priation of all the available land by a certain number 
 of them, leaving the rest landless, there grows up a dis- 
 tinction of classes, a distinction between gentle and 
 simple. In order to protect their common interests 
 against the others, the members of the landed class 
 unite, build a common residence or stronghold (iroAts), 
 eschew labor, establish a common worship, and begin 
 city-life. The bond in this case is neither blood nor 
 land, but worth (dpeTrj)^ and this is reflected in the 
 new gods, who no longer represent natural powers, but 
 spiritual powers. Though polytheism is not yet over- 
 come, the way is paved for a spiritual monotheism. 
 To bring this about only requires the growth of reflec- 
 tion. And this soon makes its appearance as the re- 
 sult of leisure. 
 
 Up to this point the history of all peoples seems to 
 have been pretty much the same. But now two differ- 
 ent lines of development are possible, and some peo- 
 ples take the one, some the other. Some, like the 
 Hebrews, whose reflection is of an ethical sort, push 
 straight forward to monotheism and develop a truly 
 spiritual religion. Others, in whom reflection takes 
 a purely intellectual turn, gradually abandon the re- 
 ligious attitude altogether and tend to find a basis for 
 practical life in metaphysical ideas. Among these must 
 be counted the Greeks. When reflective thought first 
 
170 EDUCATION OF T^E GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 begins among them, it does, indeed, tend for a brief 
 period to monotheism through a cosmogonic, and later 
 through an ethical, interpretation of the old mytbol- 
 ogy ; * but this tendency is soon abandoned and atten- 
 tion directed to physical nature, for whose phenomena 
 an explanation is demanded in terms of itself^that is, 
 of something physical. But as reflection proceeds, it 
 learns that such an explanation involves an impossi- 
 bility, and finds itself gradually forced to make meta- 
 physical assumptions — such as atoms, ratio, mind. But 
 these afford no moral sanction, and so, when the gods 
 are replaced by impersonal metaphysical entities, the 
 
 ij chief bond of society is broken and the individual rnan. 
 
 '[ is declared to be the measure of all things. Inasmuch 
 as all morality has thus far been social, and society has 
 rested upon religion, the immediate result is moral 
 ] confusion, for which the Sophists are in large degree 
 I responsible. Deplorable as this confusion may seem^ 
 when looked at from without, it is nevertheless only 
 the first crude expression of man's earliest attempt at 
 self-determination, and as such must be judged leni- 
 ently. In fact, if we consider carefully and judge 
 calmly, we shall have to admit that the Protagorean 
 substitution of man for God as the universal deter- 
 miner is the germ of that ferment which has res«lted 
 in the new wine of moral freedom. Man had to break 
 away from the old gods, whose rule annulled human 
 freedom, and find new gods, or, more truly, a new God, 
 whose rule was compatible with it. The latter was the 
 
 * The former we find in the so-called Orphic poetry and in 
 the fragments of Pherecydes (which may contain Semitic ele- 
 ments), the latter in the plays of ^schylus. 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC STATE. 171 
 
 task which Socrates set himself, and which, indeed, he 
 accomplished, by discovering in man a universal divine 
 element, which indeed is the measure of all things. 
 This was the greatest discovery ever made by any hu- 1 
 man being, and the one that renders possible moral 
 life, whether individual, social, or political. But there 
 still remained the question : How shall this discovery 
 be made the principle of social life ? To the task of 
 answering this, first Plato and then Aristotle addressed 
 themselves. But the former misstated the question in 
 asking it, and then allowed his judgment to be warped 
 by personal and class prejudices, while the latter, 
 though he put the question correctly, lacked a clear 
 consciousness of that divine element which alone could 
 have enabled him to give the correct answer. Thus 
 both equally failed to discover the concrete social em- 
 bodiment of moral freedom, leaving to the world only 
 cunningly constructed schemes incapable of realiza- 
 tion. This was the condition of things when Aris- 
 totle died, and the education of Greece as a nation, 
 came to a close. The task of the Greek people had 
 not been accomplished ; but it had risen into clear 
 consciousness and become an object of serious effort, i 
 As might have been expected, a problem originally -^ 
 set by actual life was solved, not in the field of specula- 
 tion, but in that of practice, under the pressure of so-V 
 cial and individual needs. What Aristotle failed to do 
 his pupil Alexander went far to accomplish. By break- 
 ing down and absorbing in his empire the little Greek 
 states in which the individual had previously found 
 his spiritual solidarity or sphere of ethical action, he 
 compelled him to look for this solidarity elsewhere. 
 The immediate result was the formation of private 
 
f- 
 
 172 EDUCATION OF XHE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 j societies, or philosophic schools, whose members were 
 ^ bound together by a common system of truth, in ac- 
 cordance with which they sought to shape their indi- 
 vidual lives. These societies were entirely disconnected 
 Avith the state and admitted to their membership per- 
 /sons of all nations, tongues, and classes. Here, there- 
 ( fore, for the first time in history we find men united 
 ■ by the universal divine element in them, and, under 
 the influence of this, setting at naught all other bonds, 
 whether of family, race, or religion. Here for the first 
 time we find cosmopolitanism and a sense of the spir- 
 itual solidarity of humanity. 
 
 I am strongly of the belief that the part played by 
 the Greek philosophic schools in cherishing this sense, 
 } and so paving the way for a universal moral institu- 
 ' tion, has never been sufficiently recognized. Still it 
 was not in the schools founded by Plato and Aristotle 
 that this work was most effectively done, but in two 
 others that arose soon after the death of the latter — 
 the Stoic and the Epicurean, and especially in the 
 \ former. The brilliant intellectual results attained by 
 Plato and Aristotle have in great measure blinded us 
 to the far more important moral results accomplished 
 by the schools of Zeno and Epicurus. Moreover, the 
 work of these latter was in time completely thrown 
 into shadow by the far more splendid work of the 
 " divine man " of Xazareth, while that of the other 
 two remained without a peer. In spite of this, if we 
 would understand the last stages in the process by 
 which the task of the Greeks was accomplished and 
 moral liberty made the principle of human life, we 
 must consider and try to understand the work done 
 by the Stoics and Epicureans. In this connection it 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC STATE. 173 
 
 is, of course, their practical tenets rather th^ theif 
 metaphysical principles that interest us ; but, inasmuch 
 as the former necessarily depend in some degree on the 
 latter, we must cast a glimpse at these also. 
 
 Wide as the two systems in question stand apart, 
 their fundamental positions differ only in this respect, 
 that the one is founded upon intellect and the other 
 upon sense. This, indeed, is a wide enough difference, 
 and all their separate peculiarities follow from it. Both 
 are equally materialistic ; but while Stoicism, drawing 
 upon the thought of Heraclitus, holds matter to be a 
 conti7i?ium, moved and governed by an inherent, all- 
 pervading reason (Xoyo?), Epicureanism, inspired by 
 Democritus, regards it as composed of atoms individu- 
 ally moved by a blind impulse. Both subordinate the / 
 theoretical to the practical, and tend to take the place/ 
 of religion. From the monism of Stoicism there fo^ 
 low two conclusions bearing closely upon ethics- 
 
 (1) that the universe is governed by necessity or fate, 
 
 (2) that man is an integral part of the universe so 
 governed, and therefore has no free will. Thus, under 
 the influence of materialism, the Socratic doctrine that 
 men are one through a common divine, freeing ele- 
 ment in them turns over into the doctrine that the 
 divine alone has any real existence, and that men are 
 mere temporary manifestations of it. It may seem 
 strange that, with a belief like this, there should be 
 room in Stoicism for any ethical system at all ; but 
 the fact is, it comprises a higher and more complete 
 ethical system than ever had been known before. To 
 Stoicism we owe the conception and first name of duty 
 (KaOiJKov), the nQticux^gf^-corgplpte peyseeftl-indepeiid- 
 ence, and the ideal of universal brot herhoo d, three of 
 
174 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 the chief forces that have shaped, and are shaping, 
 modern civilization. No doubt, its notions of duty 
 and personal independence were exaggerated and at 
 bottom false ; but their very exaggeration did much 
 to impress them for all time upon the world. We can 
 easily forgive the rigorous discipline by which the 
 Stoic strove to make himself the organ of the uni- 
 versal Logos, in defiance of all the demands of sense, 
 as well as his self-sufficiency when he thought he had 
 succeeded, when wo remember that the same panthe- 
 istic doctrine which resulted in these also took the 
 form of a vigorous universal human sympathy such 
 as we should vainly look for in pre- Stoic times.* If 
 theoretically the Stoics were governed by reason, in 
 their practical relations with men they were governed 
 by sympathy, which is the first step toward love. 
 
 Of all the philosophic systems of the ancient world 
 Stoicism was, morally speaking, the highest and pro- 
 duced the noblest men — Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, 
 Seneca, etc. — and nothing prevented it from being the 
 true and ultimate concrete form of moral life but its 
 metaphysical basis, its materialism, fatalism, and prac- 
 tical atheism. As a system of ethics divorced from 
 religion, it is unsurpassed and unsurpassable ; but as 
 a solution of the problem of moral life in the deepest 
 sense, in the sense of a free life in a world of free per- 
 sonalities, it is necessarily a failure. 
 
 We can afford to pass by Epicureanism with very 
 slight notice for two reasons — (1) because it added no 
 
 * There is, indeed, a dawning of it in the ^schylean Pro- 
 metheus, who in very many respects was a Stoic before Stoicism. 
 The word " philanthropic " {^iXdvepuvos) occurs first in the Prom., 
 lines 11, 28. 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC STATE. 175 
 
 new element to Greek education, and (2) because, not- p 
 withstanding its long history of six hundred years, it 
 contributed no element to cosmopolitan life. It is 
 essentially materialistic, sensual, hedonistic, and ^ath^J 
 istic, and is rather a_system of ethical despair than of 
 ethics. Curiously enough, in strong contrast to Stoi- 
 cism, it champions and emphasizes the freedom of 
 the will. The bond of union among Epicureans was 
 friendship, the most subjective of all relations, as 
 Erdmann says. In adopting this they returned to 
 Aristotelianism and fell short of the Stoic universal 
 sympathy. 
 
 Four distinguished men undertook to solve the 
 problem propounded by Socrates : How can the uni- 
 versal divine principle in man be made the basis of a 
 concrete social moral life? — two of them, Plato and 
 Aristotle, theoretically, and two, Zeno and Epicurus, 
 practically. All failed, each for a different reason. 
 With their attempts were exhausted the possibilities 
 of solution with the resources of Greek thought and 
 life alone. Just as all attempts to found a united 
 Greek empire by means of internal forces failed, and 
 success was reserved for a foreign conqueror, so all at- 
 tempts to solve the problem which the unfolding of 
 Greek life and thought propounded failed as long as 
 only internal resources alone were drawn upon. Greece 
 had to go beyond herself to solve her own riddle. 
 
 We, looking back from a distance of two thousand 
 years, can easily see where the difficulty lay, and can 
 not but wonder that a solution which looks as if it 
 must have lain before the feet of everybody should 
 have been obstinately disregarded. But our wonder 
 will cease when we remember how persistent and how 
 13 
 
176 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 blinding are philosophical prepossessions, especially 
 when they have passed through a number of phases. 
 Just as the Lockean dogma that all knowledge comes 
 through the five senses has, in one form or another, 
 become a blinding prepossession of modern thought, 
 preventing it from seeing the most obvious solutions 
 of many vexed problems of philosophy and practice, 
 so the Platonic conception of God as an abstract idea 
 became an unreasoned presupposition of all subsequent 
 Greek thought, closing its eyes to the only truth which 
 was needed for the solution of its supreme question. 
 Before the Greek mind can advance further, it must 
 absorb a foreign element, and to a consideration of 
 this we must next address ourselves. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 GREEK EDUCATION IK CONTACT WITH THE GREAT 
 EASTERN WORLD. 
 
 It is often said that a good teacher learns as much 
 from his pupils as they do from him. This was exem- 
 plified in the case of the Greeks when they became 
 masters of the East and undertook to impart their 
 culture to it. While Greece in her little polities was 
 working out her new civilization, she had suffered 
 grievously at the hands of the older civilizations of 
 the East. When at last, united by a foreign conqueror 
 and made a province of his empire, she was placed in 
 a commanding position with respect to the other prov- 
 inces, she began the spiritual conquest of 'her old foe — 
 the Hellenization of the East. It is- true that, long 
 before the advent of Alexander, there had been a very 
 extensive Greek Diaspora^ carrying Greek ideas and 
 practices into many parts of the East ; but, like the 
 Jewish Diaspora^ it had earned little respect and ex- 
 erted comparatively little influence. It was only when 
 Greeks and their culture were placed in a position where 
 they could not be disregarded or contemned that they 
 began to exercise an all-transforming influence. Then, 
 however, the process went on rapidly. Within a cen- 
 tury after Alexander's death the whole of the then 
 known East was saturated with Greek ideas and habits. 
 
178 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 Even the conservative Palestinian Jews were so deeply 
 affected by them that even the great and glorious Mac- 
 cabaean reaction in favor of pure Jehovistic religion 
 and theocracy did not suffice to eradicate them, com- 
 pletely.* 
 
 At first, of course, the results of Greek teaching 
 showed themselves in externals — in the establishment 
 of Greek schools, palaestras, gymnasia, theatres, and 
 stadia ; but it was not long before the deeper elements 
 of Greek culture — art and philosophy, especially the 
 latter — began to find a fruitful soil among the " bar- 
 barians." Indeed, it is a remarkable and somewhat 
 inexplicable fact that nearly all the great names in 
 Greek philosophy after the death of Aj-istotle are 
 names not of Greeks,- but of Orientals. Even the 
 founder of Stoicism, Zeno, seems to have been a Phoe- 
 nician, or perhaps a Hittite. But, however much the 
 Orientals might wish to adopt the victorious and fash- 
 ionable Hellenism, they came to Greek thought with 
 Oriental temperaments and Oriental prepossessions. 
 While, therefore, the philosophy which they professed 
 might call itself Greek, and in its outward form really 
 was so, it contained inner or material elements which 
 were not Greek, and which deeply affected even those 
 which were. ^ 
 
 These elements were, on the whole, of a religious 
 sort, so that from the time when Greek thought came 
 i in contact with the East it began to be religious. Nat- 
 urally it was only religious conceptions of a high order, 
 such as were capable of philosophic expression, that 
 
 * This influence may be traced in Ecclesiastes, and is prom- 
 inent in the Apocrypha. See Schiirer, History of the Jews in 
 the Time of Christ, pas&im. 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE EASTERN WORLD. 179 
 
 were able to coalesce with Greek thought. Among 
 such conceptions there were four that specially char- 
 acterized the higher religions of the East: (1) that of 
 the personality and transcendence of God ; (2) that of 
 inferior divinities, standing in the relation of ministers 
 to the supreme God ; (3) that of a past revelation of 
 the divine will to or in man through these ministers ; 
 (4) that of a future revealer. These conceptions are 
 common to the two higher Oriental religions with 
 which we are best acquainted, and whose canonical 
 literature, in part at least, remains to us — Zoroastrian- 
 ism and Judaism. 
 
 In Zoroastrianism we find a god who, if not actu- 
 ally supreme, is at least potentially so, since his ulti- 
 mate victory is assured — Ahura Mazda, the personal 
 and transcendent "creator of earth, water, trees, 
 mountains, roads, wind, sleep, and light," and " father 
 of the six Amesha Spentas, the father of all gods." * 
 Subordinate to him are a large number of divine be- 
 ings, the highest of whom are the Amesha Spentas, 
 originally abstract attributes of the supreme deity, 
 afterward hypostasized into angelic personalities.! 
 Through these beings Ahura Mazda communicates 
 his will to man either by inspiration or by incarna- 
 tion. The oldest documents of the Zoroastrian re- 
 ligion, the Gathas, are full of supplications for divine 
 inspiration, J; and there can be little doubt that Zoro- 
 
 * Darmesteter, translation of the Zend-Avesta, Introduction, 
 p. Ixi. 
 
 f Ihid., p. lix sqq. Mills' translation of the Zend-Avesta, 
 Introduction, p. xxiv; cf. Cheyne, The Origin and Religious 
 Contents of the Psalter, p. 334. 
 
 X " The wonderful idea that God's attributes are his messen- 
 
180 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 aster himself was regarded as the incarnation of a 
 divine spirit. * Lastly, Zoroastrianism looks forward 
 to a Savior, Saoshyant, who will spring from the seed 
 of Zoroaster, and who, by finally overcoming Angro 
 Mainyus, will introduce the eternal age of bliss. f 
 
 If we turn to Judaism, we find essentially the same 
 fundamental conceptions, with merely Semitic and 
 national limitations. At the summit of existence is 
 one God, the creator of heaven and earth. Subordi- 
 nate to him are the angels, otherwise called sons of 
 God,} holy ones,* etc. That these were originally mere 
 attributes or aspects of God, gradually distinguished 
 from him and personified, is clear enough from many 
 passages of the Hebrew Scriptures,! and was observed 
 by Philo.^ Through these God communicates his will 
 
 gers sent out into the human soul to ennoble and redeem makes 
 him (Zoroaster) at times so subtle that the latest scholars can 
 not tell whether he means Asha and Vohu Manah personified as 
 archangels, or as the thoughts and beneficent intentions of the 
 Deity reproduced in man." — Mills' Zend-Avesta, Introduction, 
 p. xxiv. 
 
 * " All the features in Zarathustra point to a god." — Darme- 
 steter, Introduction to Zend-Avesta, p. Ixxix ; cf . Farvarden Yast, 
 cap. xxiv. 
 
 f " A maid bathing in the Lake Kasava will conceive by it 
 (the seed of Zoroaster), and bring forth the victorious Saoshyant, 
 who will come from the region of the dawn, to free the world 
 from death and decay, from corruption and rottenness, ever liv- 
 ing and ever thriving, when the dead shall arise and immortality 
 commence." — Darmesteter, ut sup. Cf. Zamydd Yast, cap. xv. 
 
 } Job, ii, 1 ; xxxviii, 7 ; Psalms, xxix, 1 ; Ixxxix, 7 ; Dan. iii, 
 25, etc. 
 
 * Job, V, 1 ; XV, 15 ; Psalms, Ixxxix, 6, 7. 
 
 I Gen. i, 26; xviii, 1-3; xxxii, 24-31 ; Job, ii, 1, etc. 
 
 ^ See Drummond, Philo Judcpus, vol. ii, book iii, chap. v. 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE EASTERN WORLD. 181 
 
 to men, and, indeed, governs the world.* And, lastly, 
 the Jewish belief in a coming Messiah is too well 
 known to require more than a passing remark. 
 
 Such, then, were the four leading characteristics of 
 the two great and widely spread religions with which 
 Greek thought came in close contact after the conquest 
 of Alexander. While it might, and, on the whole, 
 did, ignore such inferior religions as the Babylonian, 
 Egyptian, and Phoenician, it could not disregard these 
 or remain unaffected by them, especially as in some of 
 their characteristics they supplied its most marked 
 deficiencies, and gave life and concreteness to some of 
 its dead, abstract conceptions. To the Greek, God was 
 an abstraction — the Good, Intelligence, or the like ; 
 his agents, whereby he acted upon the world, were 
 numbers, ratios, or ideas ; the revelation of him was a 
 mere intellectual vision of these ; what hope there was 
 of anything better in the future was confined to a wish 
 and a vague hope that a " divine man " f might some 
 day appear. To the Persian and the Jew, on the con- 
 trary, God was a living, holy, all-knowing, all-powerful 
 personality, searching the hearts and trying the reins 
 of every human being, in whose sight the heavens were 
 not clean, and who charged his angels with folly ; his 
 agents were living persons — his sons, holy ones — do- 
 ing his holy will with obedient might ; the revelation 
 
 * See the argument in the first chapter of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews^ and compare Everling, Die paulinische Angelologie 
 und JDcemonologie, passim. 
 
 f See ^schylus, Prom. Vinct., 844 sqq. ; Aristotle, Politics, 
 iii, 13 ; 1384a 3 sqq. ; Eth. Nic, vii, 1 ; 1145a 15 sqq. ; Plato, Phcedo, 
 85 D. (where a " Divine Word," deios hSyos, is looked forward to 
 as a possibility). 
 
182 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 of him was a manifestation of that holy will to chosen 
 lawgivers (Moses, Zoroaster), in the form of a law de- 
 termining conduct, and promising the favor of Him in 
 whose hands are life and death ; the hope of the future 
 centered upon the certain appearance of a great divine 
 person, who should put an end to evil, consign its 
 agents to everlasting darkness, and usher in for the 
 good an eternity of holiness and happiness, in the pres- 
 ence and service of the Lord of the Universe. 
 
 That Greek thinkers should remain indifferent to 
 such conceptions as these, or that Orientals, on becom- 
 ing acquainted with Greek philosophy, should abandon 
 them, would have been strange indeed. On the one 
 hand, they were just what that philosophy needed in 
 order to give its principles life, reality, and motive 
 power ; and, on the other, philosophy was what they 
 needed in order to give them a universal and rational 
 expression. We need not be surprised, therefore, to 
 find that, under the rule of Alexander's successors, 
 Greek philosophy begins to borrow theological beliefs 
 from Zoroastrianism and Judaism, while these religions 
 begin to express their beliefs in philosophic form. The 
 former tendency shows itself in all the schools of Greek 
 thought soon after they are transplanted to Alexandria ; 
 the latter, in the rise of Perso-Hellenic and Judaeo- 
 Hellenic religious philosophies, based upon sacred writ- 
 ings. After a time the results of these two tendencies 
 united, thenceforth to flow on in a single stream. 
 
 The truth is, in the process whereby Hellenic genius 
 continued its mission through union with Orientalism 
 we must distinguish two stages. In the former of 
 these, while Hellenism borrows from Orientalism, and 
 Orientalism from Hellenism, each maintains a distinct 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE EASTERN WORLD. 183 
 
 existence and stands consciously opposed to the other, 
 Hellenism being prevailingly philosophic and natural- 
 istic, Orientalism prevailingly religious and spiritual- 
 istic. In the latter, the opposition between the two 
 ceases ; philosophy and religion, nature and spirit, are 
 co-ordinated. The abstract ideas and relations of phi- 
 losophy are identified with the gods and angels of re- 
 ligion ; the process of the world becomes the expression 
 of the divine reason (Aoybs). It is only in this second 
 stage that Greek thought really finds its completion. 
 
 Since the days of the Renaissance it has been usual 
 to regard this union of Hellenism and Orientalism as 
 a corruption and a degradation, as a mingling of clear 
 thought with superstition, as the end of science and 
 the source of delusion. The larger historic outlook of 
 the present day is teaching us to draw a very different 
 conclusion, and to see in the four world-transform- 
 ing results of this union — Christianity, Neoplatonism, 
 Manicha3ism, and Mohammedanism — a growth and a 
 consummation. The strongest of the four is that in 
 which the union is most complete. 
 
 It is not easy, for want of documents, to follow the 
 process of the gradual infiltration of Oriental concep- 
 tions into Greek philosophy, and Zeller has done his 
 best to ignore their influence. Nevertheless, the re- 
 sults that ultimately followed in the forms of Neo- 
 pythagoreanism and Neoplatonism leave no doubt that 
 it was real and pervasive. Epicureanism, as being 
 least of a philosophy and hostile to religion, was but 
 little affected; but Platonism, Aristotelianism, and 
 Stoicism underwent considerable changes, which had 
 the effect of partially obliterating their differences and 
 bringing them together. And there was a fifth phi- 
 
184: EDUCATION OF THE GUEEK PEOPLE. 
 
 losophy, which, after having long smoldered in ob- 
 scurity, now came again to the surface, and proved 
 more able and ready than all the rest to marry with 
 Orientalism. This was Pythagoreanism. This re- 
 markable and still imperfectly understood system had, 
 on account of its social and antipolitical — wo might 
 almost say, its ecclesiastical — tendencies, been sup- 
 pressed in its institutional form in the region of its 
 birth. Magna Orascia, in th6 fifth century b. c. In 
 spite of this its principles had lived on, cherished by a 
 few select and strongly religious spirits, and from time 
 to time making its presence felt in other systems, nota- 
 bly in that of Plato. Now, at last, when the small 
 Greek states, which had found its inlluence disorgan- 
 izing, were placed in a position of subordination to a 
 higher power, which could permit freedom of thought 
 and freedom of organization, it came forth from its 
 concealment and claimed a leading place in the world 
 of thought, a place which it soon conquered for itself.* 
 Though each of these philosophies long maintjiined 
 a separate existence and a separate school, yet, tlianks 
 partly to the new political conditions, partly to the 
 influence of Oriental religions, there were many im- 
 portant points and tcndencnes in which the four last- 
 named agreed. To the former cause were due the 
 separation of ethics from politics, the tendency to cos- 
 mopolitanism or humanitarianism, and the effect of 
 men to withdraw from the business and interests of 
 the world and to find their happiness in states of their 
 
 ♦ The history of Pythap^oroanism has still to bo written. 
 IWth's accoiuit is inicritical, Zciler's hypercriticul and tenden- 
 tious. 
 
IN CONTACT WITH TQB EASTEKN WORLD. 185 
 
 own consciousness, in some form of restful self-pos- 
 session. To the latter were due the connection of 
 ethics with theology or religion, the separation of re- 
 ligion from statecraft, and the extreme importance 
 assigned to it. All these common characteristics might 
 be summed up in one — a tendency to religious, as dis- 
 tinct from political, life. This, indeed, is the common 
 mark of all post-Aristotelii^n thought. But, although 
 philosophy thus became religious, and did so largely 
 under Oriental influence, it was long before it adopted 
 any one of the four leading tenets that marked the 
 higher religions of the East. What Orientalism at 
 first did for Greek thought was not to impart to it 
 new tenets, but to give it a new direction, and a new, 
 a religious consecration. Later it was otherwise. 
 
 It need hardly be said that it was Zoroastrianism, 
 and not Judaism, that affected Greek thought in the 
 age immediately succeeding Aristotle. There is no 
 sufficient proof that Aristotle knew anything of the 
 Jewish faith, whereas the religion of Zoroaster was 
 known to the Greeks long before, probably as early as 
 the time of Pythagoras. Democritus is said to have 
 visited Persia, and Herodotus, though he does not 
 mention Zoroaster, refers to many traits of his religion 
 (i, 131-140). Plato mentions him by name, and calls 
 him the son of Ahura Mazda ('Opo/Aa^ry?).* Aristotle 
 is said to have written a book on Magianism (MaytKos), 
 
 * Alcibiad., i, 122 A. The authenticity of this dialogue is 
 doubtful. See Zeller, Philos. der Griech., ii, 418, and cf. Her- 
 mann, Ofisch. und System der plat. Philos., p. 439 5^7. Clem- 
 ens Alexandrinus (StroiH., v. p. 711) identifies Er, the Pamphyl- 
 ian, whoso wonderful story is told in the tenth book of the 
 liejjublic, with Zoroaster ! 
 
186 EDUCATION OP, THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 and, though this is doubtful, it is certain that he was 
 acquainted with Magian thought,* and considered the 
 Magian religion older than the Egyptian. f From this 
 time on the Magian system seems to have been quite 
 familiar to the Greek world. J Indeed, one element 
 of it — viz., Magian divination — seems to have been 
 familiar to it much earlier. Aristotle is quoted as 
 authority for the statement that a Magian from Syria 
 prophesied to Socrates the whole course of his life and 
 his violent death.* Be this as it may, there seems lit- 
 tle doubt that certain leading characteristics of Hel- 
 lenistic philosophic religion, its mysticism, its theurgy, 
 its divination, etc., were largely due to Zoroastrian in- 
 fluence. It is well known that about the Christian era 
 the worship of Mithras prevailed nearly all over the 
 Roman Empire, and that it was for centuries a power- 
 ful rival to Christianity, which apparently borrowed 
 some features from it.|| 
 
 With regard to the influence of Judaism upon 
 Greek philosophy we are better informed. This in- 
 fluence must have begun about the middle of the third 
 century B. c, when the Hebrew Scriptures were trans- 
 lated into Greek. It soon grew so powerful that many 
 
 * Metaph., iv, 4, 1091b, 10. Here we are told that " the 
 Magians consider the first begetter (creator?) the Supreme 
 Being." 
 
 f Dialogue Tlepl ^iKo<To<pias, frag. 8. He adds, " And accord- 
 ing to them (the Magi) there are two first principles — a good 
 power and an evil power {^alymv), the name of the former 
 being Zeus and Oromasdes, that of the latter Hades and Arei- 
 manios. 
 
 X See Windischmann, Zoroastrische Studien, pp. 260-313. 
 
 • Diog. Laert., Life of Socrates, xxiv, 45. 
 
 \ See Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, vol. i, pp. 105, 395. 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE EASTERN WORLD. 187 
 
 Greeks became proselytes to Judaism and many more 
 sincere admirers of its principles. It formed a power- 
 ful element in Neopythagoreanism, and greatly helped 
 to encourage a belief in prophesy and direct divine 
 revelations.* 
 
 When we come to consider the effect of Hellenic 
 thought on the two great religions of the East — Zoro- 
 astrianism and Judaism — we have to confess that our 
 knowledge of its effect on the former is very meagre 
 indeed. The reason of this is that Zoroastrianism 
 practically disappeared from the world twelve hundred 
 years ago, and that the records of its attempts to find 
 an expression in philosophy mostly perished with it. 
 But that the Zoroastrians tried to combine their re- 
 ligion with Greek thought there can be no doubt; and 
 some of the results of this combination were far-reach- 
 ing indeed, contributing elements to Neoplatonism, 
 Christian Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Mohammedanism, 
 and Mysticism. That the Magians had a sort of philo- 
 sophic theology even before they became acquainted 
 with the Greeks seems clear from the statement of 
 Aristotle quoted on p. 186, as well as from the esteem 
 which their sages generally enjoyed. Indeed, even the 
 most ancient form pf Zoroastrianism with which we 
 are acquainted, that which appears in the Gathas, is 
 already a philosophy of a high order, albeit it is not 
 expressed in strictly philosophical language. But 
 shortly after the time of Alexander, who, it may be 
 remarked, is said to have destroyed a large portion 
 of the sacred books of the Zoroastrians, a distinct 
 change takes place in the Persian religion, what we 
 
 * See Zeller, Philos. der Griechen, v, 62 sq. (2d edit.). 
 
188 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 might call a tendency to rationalism. Whereas in the 
 Gathas, which, I believe, are the only part of the Zend- 
 Avesta that fairly represent the religion of the Magi 
 before Alexander, the supreme powers are the strongly 
 personal Ahura Mazda and Angro Mainyus, in the 
 later parts of that work we find the beginning of a 
 tendency to personify certain abstractions and elevate 
 them to the highest place, a tendency which afterward 
 became very pronounced. " When the Magi had ac- 
 counted for the existence of evil by the existence of 
 two principles, there arose the question how there 
 could be two principles, and a longing for unity was 
 felt, which found its satisfaction in the assumption 
 that both are derived from one and the same princi- 
 ple. This principle was, according to divers sects, 
 either Space, or Infinite Light, or Boundless Time, or 
 Fate. Of most of these systems no direct trace is 
 found in the Avesta, yet they existed already in the 
 time of Aristotle." * Spiegel, in his Erdnisclie Alter- 
 thumskunde (vol. ii, pp. 4-19), treats these and several 
 other principles as " extramundane deities," admitting 
 that they are not prominent in the Zend-Avesta ; but 
 the truth is they bear the same relation to the true 
 divinities of Zoroastrianism that the abstract principles 
 of the Greek philosophers — number, ratio, love, hate, 
 
 * Darmesteter, Zend-Avesta, Introd., p. Ixxxii. In a note 
 reference is made to a passage from Eudemus, the pupil of 
 Aristotle, in which he says : " As to the Magi, and the whole 
 Arian stock, some of them call the whole Intelligible and Uni- 
 fied Space, others call it Time, holding that out of this are dis- 
 tinguished a good God and an evil Power, and that light and 
 darkness are prior to these, as some maintain." — Wolf's Anecdota 
 Orceca, vol. iii, p. 259. 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE EASTERN WORLD. 189 
 
 intellect, being, necessity, etc. — bear to the gods of 
 Greece. How far they are due to Greek influence is 
 at'present uncertain ; but to some extent they certainly 
 are so. 
 
 In dealing with this question we must carefully dis- 
 tinguish between the Zoroastrianism of Persia and that 
 of the Persian Diaspora* The former, coming but 
 slightly in contact with Greek influences, was naturally 
 but little affected by them, whereas the latter seems to 
 have been greatly modified. One of the most con- 
 spicuous results of this modification was the rise of 
 the worship of Mithras, which in the Diaspora seem 
 almost to have superseded that of Ahura Mazda. In- 
 deed, the worship of Mithras bore very much the same 
 relation to Zoroastrianism that Christianity, later on, 
 did to Judaism. 
 
 Far more than Zoroastrianism, Judaism was influ- 
 enced by Greek thought. This influence is already 
 faintly manifested in the book of Ecclesiastes, and is 
 unmistakable in the Septuagint, which belongs in the 
 main to the third century b. c. It went on increasing 
 until it culminated in systematic attempts to read the 
 whole of Greek philosophy into the Law and the 
 Prophets of the Old Testament. Of these attempts 
 the most successful, most far-reaching, and best known 
 is that of Philo Judaeus (b. c. 20 to A. D. 70), whose 
 works are to a large extent still extant. This pro- 
 foundly religious and subtle writer tried to interpret 
 the Pentateuch in terms of the thought of Plato and 
 
 * There was a large Zoroastrian population in Armenia, Cap- 
 padocia, Syria, and other parts of western Asia. Herodotus (i, 
 135) says, "The Persians adopt foreign customs (y6fiaia) more 
 readily than any other people." 
 
190 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 Zeno,* and thereby to elevate Judaism to the position 
 of a universal religion. 
 
 The part which Philo played in combining the 
 highest form of Orientalism with Greek thought is so 
 important that we must devote a little space to him. 
 Until recently it was usual to speak of Philo with a 
 sort of kindly contempt, as merely an ancient Sweden- 
 borg, as a dreamer who tried to persuade himself that 
 all Greek philosophy had been borrowed from Moses, 
 and might be found in his writings by any one who 
 had acquired the secret of interpreting them, the gist 
 of the secret being that they were allegories. While 
 there is truth in this, it is not the whole truth. The 
 reason why Philo tried to combine Greek thought with 
 Hebrew religion was that he had attained an insight, 
 such as no man before him had possessed, into what 
 was the deepest need of his day. He saw that an oecu- 
 menic empire needed an oecumenic religion, and since 
 no such religion seemed to be forthcoming, he under- 
 took to present the scheme of one.f Like the pious 
 Jew he was, he believed that his religion, as having 
 alone come from God, could alone hope to become 
 universal. But as he could not help seeing that it 
 was not universal, the question arose how it could be 
 made so. His answer was. By being thrown into a 
 
 * See Drummond, Philo Judceus, or The Jewish- Alexandrian 
 Philosophy in its Development and Completion, and cf. Bruno 
 Bauer, Philo, Strauss mid Renan und das Urehristenihum 
 (Berlin, 1874). 
 
 f Nothing shows more clearly the essentially religious char- 
 acter of the ancient state and the difficulty of finding a suitable 
 religion for the oecumenic empire than the claim to divinity ad- 
 vanced by the Roman emperors. 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE EASTERN WORLD. 191 
 
 form of truth which is universal. Now, the only uni- 
 versal-seeming form of truth with which he was ac- 
 quainted was that eclectic form of Greek philosophy 
 which had resulted from the gradual convergence of 
 Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic conceptions. The 
 conclusion was obvious : Judaism, in order to become 
 the universal religion, must be expressed in this eclectic 
 philosophy. A little consideration showed further that 
 this could be accomplished only if the records of the 
 Hebrew religion were treated as allegories, whose true 
 meaning could be drawn out only by philosophical 
 interpretation. And so Philo treats them. We may 
 blame this method as much as we please — and it is 
 a false method, which science must forever disown — 
 nevertheless we shall be constrained to admit two 
 things : (1) that he rarely allowed it to draw him 
 away from the truth ; and (2) that he succeeded in 
 outlining a religion which we are tempted to say was 
 worthy to be universal.* 
 
 If we ask ourselves why it did not become so, we 
 shall find that the reasons were, in the main, two : 
 (1) Philo, with all his breadth and spirituality, was 
 entirely unable to break down in his own mind the 
 wall that separated Jew from Gentile, and made the 
 former a privileged being; (2) with all his love and 
 admiration for the Jewish Jehovah, he allowed Greek 
 philosophy to transform this living God, this personal 
 sustainer of moral life, into a mere abstraction, nay, 
 the emptiest of all abstractions — Being. Thus, not- 
 
 * See, in the work of Bruno Bauer above referred to (p. 190, 
 note), the chapters, Philo as Guide from Hellenism to Christian- 
 ity (i), and Philo's Spiritual World- Religion. Cf. Bigg, The 
 Christian Platonists of Alexandria, Lecture I. 
 14 
 
192 EDUCATION OP, THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 withstanding mucli that is noble in Philo's system, 
 these two defects proved fatal to its claim to be the 
 world- religion. The supplement which Greek thought 
 required in order to make the moral principle of Socra- 
 tes the form of social life it did not find in Philo. It 
 had to look further. 
 
 When Philo had drawn up his religious scheme, 
 there were in the Hellenic world three movements, 
 each endeavoring more or less blindly to shape itself 
 into the universal religion which was felt to be the 
 need of the time, that for want of which the souls of 
 men were dying. The first was eclectic Greek philos- 
 ophy, in the main a compound of Piatonism, Aristo- 
 telianism, and Stoicism, with certain tendencies bor- 
 rowed from Zoroastrianism and Judaism. The second 
 was Hellenized Zoroastrianism, a system in which the 
 old Mazdean personal powers of Good and Evil had 
 been replaced by material abstractions — Time, Space, 
 Light, Darkness — and whose religious service consisted 
 of mysterious, material, theurgic rites, performed chiefly 
 to Mithras, who was frequently identified with the Sun.* 
 The third was Hellenized Judaism, or, as it is often 
 called, Philonism, a system which, in attempting to 
 ingraft the personal moral God of Moses and the 
 Prophets upon the best thought of Greece, had al- 
 lowed that God to renounce that which gave him his 
 supreme worth — his moral personality — and sink down 
 into the emptiest of metaphysical inanities. All these 
 
 * This curious compound has never, so far as I know, been 
 fully investigated, or its effects upon subsequent thought and 
 practice carefully traced. It seems to me to have contained 
 many Stoic conceptions, and to have played a greater part in the 
 growth of Christian thought than is generally admitted. 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE EASTERN WORLD. I93 
 
 three systems were aiming at the same thing, viz., 
 peace and rest for the soul, which, with the breaking 
 down of the ol(i polities, had lost its moorings and was 
 tossed upon a tempestuous, seemingly boundless, shore- 
 less sea. All three failed in their quest, for two rea- 
 sons: (1) because they did not understand wherein 
 ^peace of soul consists, (2) because they failed to dis- 
 cover the essential condition of such peace. All three 
 conceived peace of soul to consist of two elements : 
 
 (1) apathy with respect to the facts of the real world, 
 
 (2) an intellectual or material union with the supreme 
 abstraction. All were ascetic and world-renouncing 
 opiates for euthanasia, not stimulants to life. As 
 might have been expected, eclectic Hellenism occu- 
 pied a middle ground between the extreme materi- 
 alism of Hellenized Zoroastrianism and the extreme 
 idealism of Philonism.* 
 
 With the failure of these movements, it seems as if 
 Greek thought were never to accomplish its task of 
 elevating man to concrete moral freedom, as if the 
 education of the Greek people had been in vain. But 
 Pliilo was still in all the vigor of manhood, when, in an 
 obscure corner of the fatherland of his people, there 
 arose a man who, without any parade of philosophic 
 
 * It need hardly be remarked that there were other com- 
 pounds of Hellenism and Judaism besides Philonism. What 
 Philonism was to the diaspora, Essenism was to native Juda- 
 ism. Essenisra, if we may believe two such scholars as Zel'er 
 {Philosophie der Griechen, vol. v, p. 279 sqq.) and Schiirer 
 {Creschichte des jud. Volkes), was a compound of Judaism and 
 Pythagoreanism. 1 can not but think, with Hilgenfeld, that it 
 contained Zoroastrian elements — for example, a very pronounced 
 dualism. 
 
194 EDUCATION OF ^THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 acquirement,* gave to the world in the simplest, most 
 practical way that for which philosophy had searched 
 in vain. We shall not, I think, misrepresent the teach- 
 ing of Jesii^ j if we say that it consisted in showing 
 (1) w hat true pea ce of soul is, (2) what is the essentia l 
 con dition of thaLpeace. He said : The soul finds peace 
 only in love, such as takes the form of beneficent action 
 toward one's fellows ; and the condition of such human 
 love is divine love, taking the form of obedience to the 
 mystic voice uttering itself in the soul and claiming 
 authority, as coming from the Supreme Personality 
 which is the condition of our being. 
 
 If we consider for a moment this teaching, we shall 
 see (1) that it not onlv accords with the fundamental 
 . principles of moral freedom enunciated bj Socrates, 
 V^^t that it lifts that principle out of abstractness into 
 jJ^concreteness, giving its empty form an all-sufficfeht 
 ^t Content; (2) that it thus supplies the very element for 
 y^ which all the philosophies of the time had been search- 
 ing in vain, a practical andJ:^eaiizable form of life capa- 
 ble of being developed into an cecumenic social order r 
 and (3) that it THrows back the light of a universal 
 meaning and purpose upon the whole course of Greek 
 education, which but for it would have ended in super- 
 stition, skepticism, or despair. If, moreover, reverting 
 to the first of these points, we ask whence the Nazarene 
 derived that content with which he filled the abstract 
 form of Socrates, we shall find that it came from the 
 exercise of a faculty which Socrates had been dimly 
 conscious of in himself, but whose nature and object 
 
 f There seems no good reason for assuming that Jesus was 
 unacquainted with the philosophic and religious movements of 
 his time. 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE EASTERN WORLD. I95 
 
 he had never brought into clearness — the sense of the 
 supernatural and eternal. He had felt in his soul the 
 presence of something divine (Sai/xovtov rt), guiding him 
 to a goal higher than any that he could see, and he had 
 piously followed it with humble faith ; but his dim, 
 confused Hellenic conceptions of the divine nature 
 had prevented him from seeing its true meaning. 
 Jesus not only felt the same thing in a 'far higher 
 degree, but with his lofty Hebrew conception of God 
 he was enabled to interpret his feeling, and say, I and 
 the Father are one. In this way he rose to the clear 
 consciousness of a personal God, the unity and spring 
 of that universal reason in which all mankind are one, 
 and through which alone they can enter into a free 
 corporate union. The followers of Socrates, even Plato 
 and Aristotle, had almost completely failed to catch 
 the meaning and bearing of Socrates's " daemon," or 
 faculty of direct divine experience, and had tried to 
 reach the divine by a mere dialectic process. As a 
 result they reached only a bald abstraction — the Good, 
 the Prime Movent — which they vainly tried to substi- 
 tute for the living God of actual experience. The im- 
 mediate followers of Jesus being, like himself, trained * 
 in Judaism, were more fortunate. Instead of substitut- 
 ing dialectic subtlety for divine experience, they tried, 
 following the example of their master, to cultivate that 
 experience, and formed themselves into a society for 
 that purpose;- This society which Jesus, with a true 
 comprehension of its inner character, had called the 
 "kingdom of heaven," or the "kingdom of God," 
 
 A 
 
 * On the Jewish feeling with regard to God, see Prof. W. 
 Robertson Smith's Prophets of Israel, Lecture I. 
 
196 EDUCATION OP THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 was what became known later by a mere external 
 designation as the Church. In this society the faculty 
 of divine experience received the name of faith, which 
 thus became the very life-principle of the new insti- 
 tution. 
 
 It is of the utmost importance that, before pro- 
 ceeding further, we should understand the nature and 
 place of faith, and this for two reasons : (1) because it 
 is what gives meaning and completeness to Greek edu- 
 cation, and (2) because the failure to comprehend its 
 sphere and its relations to reason is what has given 
 rise to nearly all the theological and religious difficul- 
 ties that have proved so detrimental to religion and to 
 thought. 
 
 Faith, then, is the sense oj Lthe super natural. It 
 bears the same relation to this that the so-called bodily 
 senses bear to the world of Nature.* And just as our 
 reason out of bodily sensations and its own resources 
 constructs an external physical world of related things 
 or determined effects, so it constructs out of the data 
 of faith and its own resources an inner moral world of 
 related spirits or self-determining causes. Reason may 
 err in either case, giving us a Ptolemaic astronomy or 
 a Mohammedan religion ; but this does not affect the 
 data of the senses, or the possibility of ultimate truth 
 based on exhaustive experience. 
 
 It was a very long time before the Greeks dis- 
 covered the relation of the faith-begotten principles 
 of Jesus to their own intellectual and moral achieve- 
 ments, to the results of their own education. At 
 
 * " Nature is the principle of movement and change." Aris- 
 totle, Physics, iii, 1 : 200 b 12. In this sense I am using the 
 word. 
 
m CONTACT WITH THE EASTERN WORLD. 197 
 
 the first glance they seemed mere foolishness.* Nor 
 need we wonder at this, when we consider with what 
 attachments of crude material myth and legend they 
 were first presented to them. We are certainly right 
 in holding that true Christianity is primitive Chris- 
 tianity—that is, the great life-principles proclaimed 
 and lived out by Jesus ; but we must not forget that 
 these formed but a very small part of what was taught 
 as Christianity almost from the beginning of its career. 
 It took all the resources of Greek thought for centuries 
 to force upon what was presented as Christian truth a 
 meaning which intelligence could in any way accept ; 
 and, after all, the result was one in which Jesus would 
 hardly have recognized anything of his own. And this 
 leads us to consider the relation of Christianity to Hel- 
 lenism. 
 
 When Christianity appeared, it came into a world 
 more or less saturated with philosophic and practical 
 Hellenism. Not only had Greek modes of life become 
 generally prevalent all over the East, but Greek ways 
 of thinking had permeated all the religions; not, how- 
 ever, without being themselves, - in turn, influenced 
 by these. The most conspicuous results of this syn- 
 cretism were Neopythagoreanism, Orientalized Hellen- 
 ism, Hellenized Zoroastrianism, and Hellenized Juda- 
 ism, systems which were gradually replacing the ele- 
 ments out of which they sprang. With all of these 
 the supernatural teaching of Jesus came in contact 
 
 * This is shown in a very striking way in a graffito taken 
 from one of the praetorian guard-rooms of the palace of the 
 Ca'sars, and now in the Kirchcrian Museum in Rome. It rep- 
 resents a Greek, Alexamenos, praying to a figure with an ass's 
 head nailed to a cross. 
 
198 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 almost from the very first, and toward all of them it 
 had to adopt a certain attitude, on pain of standing 
 completely isolated and ineffective. To Judaism, pure 
 and simple, it was closely related from the first, being, 
 indeed, only the consummation of that system. Short- 
 ly after the death of its founder, when it began to 
 make its way in the Diaspora, it came in contact with 
 Hellenized Judaism, and the effect of this is already 
 apparent in the epistles of Paul, the epistle to the He- 
 brews, and the gospel and epistles of John. Some- 
 what later, perhaps, when it began to find acceptance 
 among the pagans, it had to encounter Neopythago- 
 reanism and Hellenized Zoroastrianism, the former 
 chiefly in Egypt, the latter in Syria and neighboring 
 districts. The influence of the former is manifest in 
 the writings of Clement of Alexandria and Origen ; of 
 the latter, in the works of the Gnostics, of Marcion, 
 and Montanus. 
 
 Pure Judaism, in so far as it conflicted with Chris- 
 tianity, was practically overcome by Paul ; but Hellen- 
 ized Judaism proved much more formidable. " Hel- 
 lenism," says Harnack, " has also a share in Paul. . . . 
 Paul adapted the gospel of Christ to the Greek mode 
 of thinking." * The same is true, in even a higher 
 degree, of the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, 
 which is deeply tinged with Aristotelianism, while the 
 gospel and epistles of John are almost saturated with 
 Philonism and its doctrine of the Logos. When we 
 pass beyond the limits of the New Testament and the 
 " apostolic " writings, we find a Christianity that has 
 undergone the influence both of Hellenized Zoroas- 
 
 * Doc/mengeschichte, vol. i, p. 83 (2d ed.). 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE EASTERN WORLD. I99 
 
 triauism and of Orientalized Hellenism, which we 
 may call Neopythagoreanism. In the hands of the 
 Gnostics,* of Marcion and Montanus, it has become a 
 dualistic theory of deliverance for man from the power 
 of darkness, and of restoration to the kingdom of light ; 
 in those of Clement and Origen, a philosophy of ascent 
 from the material to the ideal world. The former was 
 combined with a theurgic, mysterious ritual ; the latter 
 with an ascetic mysticism, which finally took form in 
 monachism. It was out of the union of all these dif- 
 ferent modifications of Christ's teaching that there re- 
 sulted what is known to the world as Catholic Chris- 
 tianity, with its Hebrew god, its PMlonian Logos, its 
 Gnostic mysteries and ritual, and its Neopythagorean 
 mysticism and asceticism, f 
 
 It is no part of the aim of this lecture to trace all 
 the changes undergone by Christianity through its 
 contact with Hellenism and Hellenized Oriental re- 
 ligions ; my endeavor is merely to show how Hellenism 
 was supplemented and developed through them. We 
 have seen that, under the influence of the East, the 
 different schools of Greek thought (excepting always 
 the " godless Epicurean ") had taken a religious bent, 
 and converged into what we might call Neopythago- 
 reanism. We have likewise seen that this last deeply 
 influenced Christianity. But the influence was not all 
 
 * " All are agreed that a particular person — namely, Simon 
 the Magian, is to be regarded as the root of the heresy " (" gnos- 
 ticism "). — Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, vol. i, p. 205 sg. 
 
 f Consult in this connection Drummond, Philo Judceus ; 
 Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria ; Hatch, The In- 
 fluence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church ; 
 Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, vol. i. 
 
200 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 on one side ; Christianity influenced Neopythagorean- 
 ism, and turned it into that last marvelous product of 
 the Greek mind, Neoplatonism. 
 
 It is usual to regard Plotinus as the founder of this 
 system, as he is its most distinguished exponent ; but 
 it can hardly be said to have any founder, since it is 
 nothing more than the natural outcome of the tend- 
 ency of Christianity to absorb Hellenism and Ori- 
 entalism. In Clement and Origen the Christian ele- 
 ment in the compound still holds the upper hand, 
 and, accordingly, these call themselves Christians ; * 
 but in Ammonius Saccas, a pupil of the latter, the 
 balance turns the other way. He accordingly drops 
 the Christian name and champions a syncretism of 
 Gnosticism, Neopythagoreanism, and Christianity, 
 which later on was known as Neoplatonism. His pur 
 pil was Plotinus, of whom it has been said : " The 
 true- Gnostic, though he repudiates the name, is Plo- 
 tinus. The logical development of the thoughts of 
 Basilides and Justin, of Valentinus and the Naassenes, 
 is found in Neoplatonism — that splendid vision of in- 
 comparable and irrecoverable cloudland, in which the 
 sun of Greek philosophy set." f If ^^ ^sk why it was 
 cloudland, the answer is. Because, while absorbing the 
 exhalations of all the great systems of thought, it re- 
 jected that which alone could have given them reality, 
 and thus, instead of disencumbering the way to heaven, 
 
 * Origen, however, went so far that the Alexandrine Church 
 expelled him, and in the fifth oecumenical council many of his 
 teachings were condemned. See Denzinger, Enchiridion Sym- 
 bolonim et Definitionum pp. 57-62. 
 
 f Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the 
 Christian Churchy p. l32 sq. 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE EASTERN WORLD. 201 
 
 became a nebulous mass darkening the face of it. Neo- 
 platonism, even at its best, reaches no personal, intelli- 
 gent first principle, no being of love and choice and will, 
 but only a bald abstraction, to which, in its desire to 
 secure transcendence, it denies even the attribute of 
 being. Not possessing the first condition or even the 
 conception of concrete moral life, it can make no effort 
 and contribute no motive, toward the realization of that 
 life. It can only call upon men to aspire to the primal 
 nonentity, which in no way differs from nirvana^ by 
 an ascetic, world-spurning process of self-emptying, 
 which is hostile not only to the social conditions of 
 moral life, but also to human life of any kind. Nor 
 need we be surprised at this result. It is the only one 
 which any system of philosophy or religion which seeks 
 to find the Supreme Being by an intellectual process, 
 without a supernatural experience, can possibly reach. 
 History has demonstrated this many times. Neopla- 
 tonism, where it is not held in subordination, is fatal to 
 true religion, and even to true philosophy. Wherever, 
 in its union with religion, it has gained the upper hand, 
 it has resulted in false mysticism, morbid self-con- 
 sciousness, paralysis of the will, moral death. The 
 Christian Church has fought its influences for sixteen 
 hundred years ; it is fighting them to-day. Wherever 
 Neoplatonism gives tone to philosophy, the result is 
 an empty dialectic idealism, arrogantly spurning the 
 world of concrete reality. 
 
 But though Greek philosophy and Greek educa- 
 tion, as such, came to a sad end in Neoplatonism, 
 their career was by no means closed. They had proved, 
 indeed, incapable by themselves of steering the ship of 
 the world's life, and had thenceforth to take a subor- * 
 
202 EDUCATION OF TUE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 dinate position, and sail under a flag not their own ; 
 but under that flag, and guided by a higher hand, they 
 did admirable service, such as could have been per- 
 formed by them alone. Of this service we shall treat 
 in our next chapter. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 GREEK EDUCATIOiq- IN" CONTACT WITH THE GREAT 
 WESTERN" WORLD — RESUME AKD CON^CLUSION". 
 
 I HAVE carried on the account of Hellenism in its 
 relations to the East until the time when it ceased to 
 be an independent influence. But long before that it 
 had entered into relations with the West, and these 
 were very different from the other. In the East it had 
 been a master ; in the West it was a servant. For, 
 however true might be Horace's saying that " captive 
 Greece took captive her rude conqueror," she did not 
 on that account become the master of her captive, but 
 only his teacher, and this she could do, and did, in the 
 position of a slave. As a matter of fact, many very 
 learned Greek teachers were chattel slaves, or at best 
 freedmen — for example, Epictetus, Tyrannion, etc. 
 
 The Greeks seem to have come but little in contact 
 with the Romans until after the time of Alexander. 
 They are not even mentioned by any Greek author, I 
 think, before Aristotle. It was not till about 200 B. c, 
 after the close of the second Punic war, that the Greeks 
 began to find their way to Rome and to exert an influ- 
 ence there. For some time even after that this influ- 
 ence was slight; but when, in the year 146, Greece be- 
 came a Roman province, the Greeks began to pour into 
 
204 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 Kome, carrying with them their culture, their educa- 
 tion, and their philosophy. In vain did Rome try first 
 to resist, and then to rival them. She had become a 
 cosmopolitan state, and she had to adopt a cosmopoli- 
 tan culture if she was to maintain herself as such. This 
 culture Hellenism alone could give, and so she had to 
 adopt Greek education and all that was implied in or 
 followed from that — Greek art, Greek philosophy, 
 Greek religion, Greek modes of life — in a word, Greek 
 civilization, such as it was in the second century B. c 
 But a borrowed civilization, like a borrowed coat, rare- 
 ly fits the borrower, and so it proved in this case. What 
 suited an intellectual, aesthetic people like the Greeks 
 was ill adapted for an active, volitional people like the 
 Romans. It might, indeed, polish — or rather veneer — 
 them, but at the same time it necessarily paralyzed 
 them. Naturally enough, too, they borrowed the husk 
 rather than the kernel of it. The older Greek educa- 
 tion had aimed at producing capable citizens, the later 
 at producing sages. That which the Romans borrowed 
 did neither. It produced mostly dilettanti and rhetori- 
 cians. Roman literature, Roman art, Roman phi^oso- 
 phy are but feeble imitations of Greek. Whatever the 
 Roman had to learn from the Greek, in that he was 
 inferior to him. But there was one thing in which 
 the Roman had nothing to learn from the Greek, and 
 everything to teach him, and that was statesmanship, 
 or political science. In that the Greek, at his best, was 
 a dilettanti, while the Roman was a master, as, indeed, 
 the actual relations of the two clearly demonstrated. 
 Whatever, therefore, is of interest in the career of Hel- 
 lenism in the West is confined to its relations with 
 Roman statesmanship. 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE WESTERN WORLD. 205 
 
 Rome, as a cosmopolitan state, needed — and vaguely 
 knew that she needed — a cosmopolitan religion. Real- 
 izing that her old ethnic religion, even with Greek 
 modifications and additions, was not equal to the need, 
 she opened her doors freely to all religions, as if a coirt? 
 bination of them might effect what one was unequa^; 
 then, finding that this measure did not answer, and dis- 
 covering nowhere a god who could command universal 
 adoration, she fell upon the strange expedient of setting 
 up her emperor as a god, building temples and altars 
 to him, and commanding that he should be universally 
 adored.* But though Rome could to a certain degree 
 regulate the actions of her subjects, she could not com- 
 mand their wills or determine their faith. She could 
 not turn the worship of the emperor, even though 
 identified with her own genius, into a religion. And 
 so the demand for a cosmopolitan religion which 
 should supply a moral sanction for the institutions of 
 the Roman state, as it had come to be, remained un- 
 satisfied. Meanwhile the people lived along as best they 
 could, either upon their old religions, or upon new re- 
 ligions introduced from the East, or upon some form 
 of Greek philosophy, or, finally, without any religion 
 at all, the resources of the state, in the form of brute 
 force, making up to a large extent for the want of a 
 religious or moral bond. But it was felt and recog- 
 nized by all earnest and thoughtful men that this con- 
 dition of things could not be permanent ; that sooner 
 
 * Given the ideas of God prevalent at that time, this could 
 not seem so strange or outrageous to the Romans as it does to 
 us. See Ilarnack, Dogmengeschichte, vol. i, p. 103 sq. Fried- 
 liinder, Darstellungen aus der Siitengeschichte Eoms, vol. iii, 
 p. 455 sqq. 
 
206 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 or later the state must find a moral bond, if it was to 
 exist at all, and that this moral bond must be a re- 
 ligion. And the demand created a supply. From 
 time to time, ever from the establishment of the cbcu- 
 menic empire, systems had risen which declared them- 
 selves capable of satisfying it. First there were the 
 four great schools of Greek philosophy : Platonism, 
 Aristoteliauism, Stoicism, and, strangely enough. Epi- 
 cureanism, each of which had a large and influential 
 following. Then came various Eastern religions — Isis- 
 worship, Mithras-worship, etc. — whiclT^ppealed to cer- 
 tain deep, mysterious needs of human nature, and were 
 widely popular, all the more so that they had been 
 greatly transformed under Greek influence. Lastly 
 there was Judaism, compassing sea and land to make 
 one proselyte, and making a large number in all parts 
 of the empire. But each and all of these proved, upon 
 trial, to lack some element necessary to insure universal 
 acceptance. The Greek philosophies * appealed only 
 to the few cultivated, and therefore were unfit for use 
 as an imperial religion. The Eastern worships were 
 too unearthly and individualistic to answer the pur- 
 pose,! while Judaism was ruled out by the fact that it 
 
 * These had come to Rome directly from Athens soon after 
 the conquest of Greece, and therefore unaffected by Alexandrine 
 syncretism. Aristotelianism, having no religious leanings, never 
 put in any claim to be a religion. It may be doubted if any one 
 ever tried to live by it. 
 
 f If Mithras-worship could have belied its Zoroastrian dual- 
 istic origin, and done away with its burdensome, gloomy ritual, 
 due to the same, it might have had a fair chance of becoming 
 CECumenic. " The disciples of Mithras formed an organized 
 church with a developed hierarchy. They possessed the ideas 
 of mediation, atonement, and a Saviour who is human and yet 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE WESTERN WORLD. 207 
 
 was essentially an etlmic religi on, mainta ining an in- 
 effaceable distinction betwee n Jejv and Gentile. 
 
 TkeseweTETtte principal systems that offered them- 
 selves when the need was first felt, and before the Alex- 
 andrine syncretisms found their way to Eome. After 
 that time there were three great systems which put in 
 claims, all of which for a certain time looked as if they 
 might be accepted. These, to name them in their 
 order, were Christianity, Neoplatonism, and Manichas- 
 ism. All of them contained practically the same in- 
 gredients, only commingled in different proportions. 
 The first was prevailingly Jewish, but with a very large 
 admixture of Hellenism, and not a few features derived 
 from Zoroastrianism through Gnosticism. The second 
 was prevailingly Greek, but contained distinct and im- 
 portant elements derived from Judaism (through early 
 Christianity) and Zoroastrianism.* The third was fun- 
 damentally Zoroastrian, but contained Hellenic, Judaic, 
 and, it is said, even Brahmanic and Buddhistic ele- 
 ments. 
 
 Christianity was by two centuries first in the field. 
 About the year 200 A. D., when it had taken definite 
 form, had overcome its most insidious enemies — the 
 Jews and the Gnostics — and was beginning to claim 
 universality, it had from the simple instinct of self- 
 preservation become completely Hellenized. Having 
 
 divine, and not only the idea but the doctrine of a future fife. 
 They had a cucharist and a baptism, and other curious analo- 
 gies might be pointed out between their system and the Church 
 of Christ. — Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria, p. 
 240. 
 
 * Plotinus made a vain effort to reach Babylon and study 
 Zoroastrianism at its source. — Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, cap. 3. 
 15 
 
208 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 been forced to face foes clad in a panoply of Greek 
 philosophy and rhetoric, it had in self-defense donned 
 the same, and in doing so had transformed itself from 
 a historical belief and a rule of life into a metaphysical 
 theory and a creed. Looking back upon the simplicity 
 and moral effectiveness of primitive Christianity, we 
 may regret this as a corruption and an enfeeblement, 
 and so, indeed, it was ; but it was unavoidable, if Chris- 
 tianity was to outlive the direct personal influence of 
 its founder and make its way in the great world. 
 Moreover, in becoming Hellenized it had not laid 
 aside the two things which distinguished it from 
 Hellenism — its faith, or supernatural sense, and its 
 belief in a personal God, and of a real incarnation 
 of God in man. These were all that it had to give to 
 Hellenism, and they were all that Hellenism lacked. 
 For these it had fought, and was ready to fight, to the 
 bitter end. Thus the Christianity of the third cen- 
 tury — let us say, in a word, Catholic Christianity — was 
 Orientalized Hellenism supplemented by faith, a su- 
 preme personal God, and an incarnate Saviour-God. 
 
 What this Hellenism amounted to without this ad- 
 dition we may see in Neoplatonism, which next pre- 
 sented itself as the universal religion. This system, as 
 we have seen, had arisen out of a combination of Neo- 
 pythagoreanism * and certain Christian tendencies de- 
 rived from Origen. It seems to have been this element 
 and earnestness that gave it consistency and force ; for 
 Neopythagoreanism without it became, after the Chris- 
 tian era, an ever more and more fantastic, theurgic, and 
 
 * Perhaps that form of it held by Numenius. See Bigg, The 
 Christian Piaionists, p. 250 sqq. 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE WESTERN WORLD. 209 
 
 degraded system. Toward the close of the second cen- 
 tury it tried to set itself up as a rival to Christianity, by 
 copying its external features to mask its paganism in. 
 For Moses it set up Pythagoras ; for the Law and the 
 Prophets, the Pythagorean, Orphic, and Platonic writ- 
 ings; for Jesus, Apollonius of Tyana; and for the 
 Gospel, the romance of this man's life written by the 
 elegant rhetorician Philostratus at the command of a 
 Koman empress.* This foolish attempt did nothing 
 more than show that paganism felt itself vanquished. 
 Practical results it had none. The case was different 
 with Neoplatonism, which, with its strong spiritual 
 leanings and earnest desire after purity of life, dis- 
 carded much that was fantastical<^and sought to reach 
 God by an ascetic intellectual process) But, in discard- 
 ing the fantastical, it discarded also the supernatural 
 s ense, and in carrying its Hellenic intellectualism to its 
 final results it reached an inane first principle, which, 
 being beyond human knowledge, was also beyond 
 human sympathy and love, and could therefore offer 
 neither moral sanctions nor a basis for concrete moral 
 life. Besides this, it labored under the difficulty which 
 must always attach to a philosophical religion — it ap- 
 pealed only to the cultivated and the learned. It was, 
 therefore, from every point of view, unfit to be a world- 
 religion. 
 
 Almost contemporary with the rise of Neoplatonism 
 was that of Manichasism, long supposed to have been a 
 mere Christian heresy, but now known to have been a 
 
 * In reading this work one is tempted to exclaim at every 
 page, How little did even the most cultivated Greek or Roman . 
 understand what Christianity really meant ; how incapable was 
 either of inventing it ! 
 
210 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 mixture of Zoroastrian, Chaldaean, Christian, and per- 
 haps other elements.* Its foundation seems to have 
 been Zoroastrian dualism. Ut was thoroughly materi- 
 alistic and fantastical, and shows but to a very slight 
 degree the influence of Hellenism. For this reason it 
 lies beyond our horizon. Besides this, though it made 
 many converts and exercised a wide influence in the 
 East, it came too late into the West to have any chance 
 of success. 
 
 Between these three systems, which offered to take 
 the place of an oecumenic religion, the choice, if choice 
 there was to be, could not be doubtful. Between (1) a 
 religion with a personal God, incarnate in man, a high 
 system of ethics and a principle suited to become the 
 basis of free institutions, (2) a religion which was 
 merely a sublimated and fanciful philosophy of nature, 
 with neither living God nor ethical principle, and (3) a 
 religion which was but a coarse materialism, imposing 
 material rites, instead of moral action, as the condition 
 of salvation, the difference was clear enough. And 
 even had Rome hesitated to choose, it would have made 
 no difference. Christianity conquered by its own in- 
 herent strength, which is always the best and the final 
 test of the truth of a system. In the first quarter of 
 the fourth century the Roman Empire, in the person of 
 Constantino, recognized that it had found the long 
 desiderated imperial religion, and Christianity became 
 'the religion of the state. From this time on, all other 
 religions and all candidates for universality — pagan- 
 
 * On Mani and his religion, see Spiegel, Erdnische Alter- 
 thumskunde, vol. ii, pp. 195-232 ; Haraack, Dogmengeschichte^ 
 vol. i, pp. 737-751. 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE WESTERN WORLD. 211 
 
 ism, Neoplatonism, Manichseism — were regarded with 
 disfavor, placed at a disadvantage, and as fast as pos- 
 sible proscribed. 
 
 But though Hellenized Christianity had thus tri- 
 umphed, there still remained a serious difficulty. 
 Among its professors there were wide differences of 
 opinion as to what Christianity really was, and, while 
 these continued, it could not truly become the religion 
 — that is, the sustaining moral bond and sanction — of 
 the state. Accordingly, the head of the state now set 
 to work to bring about complete unity of opinion as to 
 what constituted Christianity, and for this purpose 
 called the Council of Nicjea (a. d. 325), to formulate a 
 catholic or universal creed. In the composition of this, 
 and the determination of its different articles, Greek 
 philosophy played a considerable part; at the same 
 time several definitions were made for the express pur- 
 pose of checking its supremacy, and compelling it, so 
 to speak, to accept that supplement without which it 
 would necessarily fall back to the rank of Neoplato- 
 nism. Indeed, such would probably have been its fate 
 had the doctrines of Arius been accepted. However 
 repugnant, therefore, some of the articles of the 
 Nicene Creed may be to human reason, and however 
 true it may be that they put an end to all rational 
 theology, it was nevertheless these very articles that 
 saved Christianity * — and Hellenism. 
 
 * " One need not be an orthodox trinitarian to see that, if 
 Arianisra had had its way, the theology of Christianity would 
 have become of a kind in wliich no modern philosopher, who 
 had outgrown the demonism of ancient systems, could for a 
 moment acquiesce." — Thomas Hill Green, Christian Dogma^ 
 Works, vol. iii, p. 173. 
 
212 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 Though we may perhaps say that Neoplatonism, or 
 pure Hellenism, was overcome at the Council of Nicaea, 
 just as pure Judaism had been at the Council of Jeru- 
 salem, still Neoplatonism did not cease to influence 
 Christianity, to saturate it more and more with Hel- 
 lenism. Less, probably, than a hundred years after the 
 Nicene Council, there appeared a series of works pre- 
 senting a more complete syncretism between Chris- 
 tianity and iN'eoplatonism than had ever been known 
 before. These works, long attributed — no one knows 
 why — to Dionysius the x\reopagite * (Acts, xvii, 34), pro- 
 foundly influenced the teachings and practice of the 
 Church in all succeeding ages, being the chief source 
 of Christian mysticism and of the mediasval type of 
 piety. Had their tendency ever completely gained the 
 upper hand, Christianity would have become a species 
 of Neoplatonic asceticism. Fortunately, their influence 
 was, confined to the East for many centuries. 
 
 When Hellenized Christianity became the religion 
 of the Roman Empire it was expected to stand in the 
 same relation of solidarity to it in which the ancient 
 pagan religions had stood to their respective states — 
 to form its bond and sanction. But, in reality, the at- 
 tempt to make it do so was a pouring of new wine into 
 old skins, against which Jesus had warned his follow- 
 ers. Christianity, whose aim was to develop the free 
 moral personality of the individual, could not be the 
 sanction of an institution which, with all its cosmo- 
 politanism, had never overcome the old Greek and 
 Roman notion that the citizen and the man are iden- 
 
 * See Bishop Westcott, Religious Thought of the West, pp. 
 142 sqq. 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE WESTERN WORLD. 213 
 
 tical. Heuce the union of church and empire could 
 only result in one of two things : either (1) the church 
 must remain a mere impotent appendage to the empire, 
 leaving it without any moral bond or sanction, or else 
 (2) it must disintegrate the empire and build up a new 
 institution from its own inner force. As a matter of 
 fact, both happened, the former in the eastern portion 
 of the empire, the latter in the western. In the East, 
 the empire fell slowly to decay for want of a combining 
 moral sanction ; in the West, it soon went entirely to 
 pieces, and on its ruins rose the Eoman Catholic 
 Church, the true institution of Hellenized Christian- 
 ity. The reason for this difference of result is due to 
 the fundamental difference between Greeks and Eo- 
 mans. The former, with their unconquerable intel- 
 lectual bent, laid chief stress upon the Hellenic ideal 
 elements in Christianity, which were entirely incapable 
 of forming the bond of a concrete moral institution ; 
 whereas the latter, with their strong volitional and 
 practical tendencies, emphasized the personal and 
 purely Christian elements, which were admirably fitted 
 to be an institutional basis. The great exponent of 
 this Roman development is Augustine, in whom Chris- 
 tianity, Hellenism, and Romanism are blended in the 
 most fruitful way. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church, then, is the institu- 
 tional realization of Hellenism, as subrelated to, and 
 expository of, the teachings of Jesus, and its vigorous 
 life of fifteen hundred years proves the strength of the 
 principle which underlies it. On the other hand, the 
 feebleness of the Eastern Church, with its excessive 
 Hellenism and want of true sense of the personality 
 and incarnation of God, became most painfully mani- 
 
214 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 fest when it had to encounter the strong personal 
 monotheism of Mohammedanism. This crude, fan- 
 tastic, and material system, from which Hellenism is 
 absent,* but in which the supernatural sense plays a 
 great part, revealing the personality of God, enabled a 
 nation of semibarbarians to conquer the whole domain 
 of the Eastern Empire, and almost blot out Greek 
 Christianity from the face of the earth. It did the 
 same thing for dualistic Zoroastrianism ; but, when it 
 tried to match itself with Western Christianity, in 
 which Greek idealism and Zoroastrian dualism were 
 held in subjection, it found a power far superior to it. 
 But, for all that, even Western Christianity received a 
 strange contribution from Islam in the shape of a fresh 
 accession of Hellenism. 
 
 Up to this time there was one of the great Greek 
 philosophies — nay, the very greatest — that had but very 
 slightly contributed to Christianity. This was Aris- 
 totelianism. Its turn had now come. Owing to a 
 series of circumstances which can not be related here,^ 
 this philosophy had come into a certain prominence in 
 the fifth century. Being found uncongenial to West- 
 ern Christianity, and, indeed, to orthodox Christianity 
 generally, it had taken refuge among some heretical 
 Eastern sects, such as the Nestorians, whose school at 
 Nisibis was long an influential centre of* peripateti- 
 cism. Thence it spread over a large portion of the 
 East, and was carried by physicians even into Arabia. 
 Hence it happened that when Islam, after the intoxi- 
 cation of its first triumphs, began to call for culture, 
 
 * It is a corapoiind of Judaism, debased Christianity, Zoro- 
 ast^iani^m, and possibly Manichjeism. 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE WESTERN WORLD. 215 
 
 and a rational form in which to express its victorious 
 monotheism, it found Aristotelianism ready to its hand, 
 and adopted it without question. Hardly anything 
 could have been more fortunate. Owing to its combi- 
 nation with this all-embracing philosophy, Islam bade 
 fair not only to conquer the world by force of arms, 
 but also to rule it by the indefeasible right of superior 
 intelligence. This is not the place to describe the 
 Saracen civilization, or even its great schools in Cor- 
 dova and Bagdad, to all of which the world owes so 
 I much. Suffice it to say that, through their influence, 
 I the philosophy of Aristotle became so universally 
 popular in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as to 
 threaten the very foundations of the Christian religion. 
 In course of time the Roman Church took alarm and 
 tried to suppress the new influence ; but finding this 
 impossible, it concluded to make terms with the in- 
 truder. In consequence, the works of Aristotle, with- 
 out Arab additions or interpretations, were sought out 
 and carefully studied by the greatest intellects of the 
 time — Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus, Thomas 
 Aquinas, etc. — when it was discovered that, instead of 
 being foes to the Church, they could be made its most 
 effective apologists and defenders. Accordingly, in 
 the course of a few years a new synthesis was made 
 between Christianity and Aristotelianism, and this be- 
 came thenceforth, and is to-day, the theology of the 
 Roman Church.* The aim of this synthesis was noth- 
 ing less than to reduce the whole of human knowledge 
 to a perfect, well-rounded system culminating in the- 
 
 * See the present Pope's Encyclical, ^terni Fatris, issued in 
 1879. 
 
216 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 ology, whose organ was the Church and whose end the 
 vision of God. In previous times, Hellenism, chiefly 
 of the Stoic and Platonic sort, had been employed to 
 give definiteness and defensible form to particular arti- 
 cles of faith ; now, in the form of Aristotelianism, it 
 was used to rear an all-embracing structure, whose top, 
 like that of the tower of Babel, was to reach to heaven,* 
 and enable him who could ascend to it to enjoy the 
 mystic vision of God. It is this structure that Dante 
 has described with such transcendent power in his 
 Divine Comedy^ to which, as he says, "heaven and 
 earth put a hand." The hands of heaven were Au- 
 gustine and Dionysius ; those of earth, Aristotle and 
 Averroes. 
 
 In reading this great work, one is tempted to be- 
 lieve that now, at last, Hellenism has reached its goal ; 
 that, crowned with the concrete beliefs of Christianity, 
 it has elevated man to moral freedom, to the image of 
 God. But it is not so ; and the reasons are not dif- 
 ficult to discover. They are two, and both are due 
 to Hellenism. The first is, that the Church, being 
 organized after the model of the empire which she 
 had supplanted, persisted in merging the Christian in 
 the church-member, as the latter had merged the man 
 in the citizen ; the second, that, following Plato, Aris- 
 totle, and Plotinus, she made the supreme end of man 
 consist in vision, an act of the intellect. The former of 
 these defects destroyed the moral autonomy of the in- 
 dividual, the latter tended to withdraw him altogether 
 from practical life, in which the moral will finds its 
 
 * See Bonaventura's De JRedncHone Artium ad Theologiam, 
 and compare his Itinerarium Mentis in Deum. 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE WESTERN WORLD. 217 
 
 chief sphere of action. The ideal^of the mediaeval 
 Church is the contemplative saint ; its type of piety is 
 mysticism,* in which not only the will, but even the in- 
 tellect, is reduced to silence. f Thus the failure of the 
 mediaeval Church to satisfy the demand of the human 
 soul for moral freedom was due to the fact that in it 
 Hellenism, both on its practical and its speculative 
 sides, had conquered Christianity. Practically the 
 Church was a Platonic republic, and not a kingdom 
 of God ; speculatively she was far more Neoplatonic 
 than Christian, even after she had arrayed herself in 
 Aristotelianism.| But with all this the Church was 
 nourishing, in these very Hellenicisms, the germs of a 
 reaction against herself and her claims. Mysticism is 
 of necessity an individual matter, and tends to make 
 the individual independent of the Church. This was 
 
 * " Mysticism is catholic piety generally, as far as the latter 
 is not mere obedience to the Church — that is, implicit faith. 
 For this reason mysticism is not one form among others of pre- 
 Reformation piety ; . . . but it is the catholic pattern of indi- 
 A'idual piety in general." — Hamack, Dogmengeschichte, vol. iii, 
 p. 375. " A mystic who does not become a catholic is a dilet- 
 tante."— J6i(7., p. 377. 
 
 f " Do thou, friend, proceeding boldly on the way to mystic 
 visions, abandon the senses and the operations of the intellect ; 
 abandon things sensible and things invisible, and all non-being 
 and being ; and, as far as possible, unknowingly restore thyself 
 to the unity of Him who is above all essence and all science." 
 Quoted with approval by Bonaventura {Itinerarium Mentis in 
 Beum, chap, vii), from Dionys. Areopag. (Mystic Theol., chap, 
 i, sec. 1). 
 
 X The mysticism of Thomas, the consummate Aristotelian, 
 is quite as marked as that of his more Platonic contemporary 
 Bonaventura. See Thomas a Vallgornera, 0. P., Mystica Theo- 
 logia Divi Thomce, 2 vols., 8vo, Turin, 1890-91. 
 
218 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 strikingly illustrated in the German mysticism of the 
 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries — a mysticism which 
 not only gave birth to such associations as the Friends 
 of God and the Brothers of Common Life (rendered 
 forever famous by Thomas a Kenjpis), but also, in a 
 degree, paved the way for Protestantism.* Aristotelian 
 scholasticism, on the other hand, by introducing rea- 
 son as a chief architect of that theology which was to 
 be the very life-principle and sanction of the Church, 
 opened the way for the triumph of rationalism.! The 
 results of all this were, on the one hand, the Pagan 
 Renaissance, which aimed at Hellenicism, pure and 
 simple ; on the other, the Protestant Eeformation, 
 which sought to extrude Hellenicism, and pai^cu- 
 larly Aristotle, from^ligion and the Church, ancfcjo 
 return to pure Christianity. The former was confin 
 to the Romance peoples, the latter to the Germanic, 
 between whom a great gulf was thus fixed. | 
 
 With the Pagan Renaissance and the Protestant 
 Reformation began a new period in the progress of 
 man toward that moral autonomy which was formu- 
 lated by Socrates and translated into concrete life by 
 Jesus. Neither of these movements in the beginning 
 understood its own meaning, and they had little in 
 common except an impulse toward freedom — the 
 
 * Luther's sympath)^ for the German mystics is well known. 
 
 f See Eucken, Die^hiJos. des Thorn, von Aquino und die 
 Cultur der Gegenwart, pp. 24 sqq. 
 
 X The great epopoeia of this double reaction is Gothe's Faust, 
 in which the nature and limitations of Hellenism are well 
 brought out, but in which the meaning of Christianity is but 
 poorly appreciated. Its characteristic features, indeed, are com- 
 pletely ignored. Gothe's sympathies were too Hellenic, Neo- 
 platonic, and Pantheistic, to admit of any other result. 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE WESTERN WORLD. 219 
 
 former demanding it for the sensuous and aesthetic 
 nature, the latter for the intellect and the will. In a 
 way they supplemented each other — a fact which Gothe 
 observed and tried to bring out in Faust. Indeed, it 
 was one of Gothe's aims to bring the two movements 
 into fruitful connection. The effects of the new de- 
 parture soon showed themselves in all departments of 
 human activity, not only in religion but also in art, 
 science, ethics, politics, education, and philosophy. I 
 can not follow them into all these regions, but must 
 content myself with taking a glance at the last two, in 
 which we shall see clearly how completely Hellenic in 
 its motives the whole movflnent was. 
 
 The education of the middle age had consisted 
 of the " seven liberal arts," ^ilosophy (physics, 
 metaphysics, ethics), and theology, forming, it was 
 thought, a natural stair from Nature up to God.* 
 This curriculum was of Greek origin, but modified by 
 Christian ideals, and it was a noble one, remarkable 
 alike for its comprehensiveness, its unity, and its aim- 
 fulness. I/b was admirably adapted to train men for 
 membership in the Churchi^and to make them loyal to 
 its aims.^It corresponded to a perfectly clear and 
 definite view of life, its career and end, such as the 
 Church held. With the rise of the new movement, 
 and its twofold tendency, this definiteness was lost, 
 and consequently education became in a measure 
 chaotic, fragmentary, and aimles^i— a condition from 
 which it has not entirely recovered even to this day.f 
 
 * See my Aristotle and the Ancient Educational Ideals^ p. 
 239 sqq. 
 
 f See a forcible statement of this fact, Seeley, Natural Re- 
 ligion, p. 128. 
 
220 EDUCATION OP THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 Several of the " liberal arts " were discarded, and their 
 place taken by the study of tlie Greek and Latin pagan 
 writers. But there was no uniformity of practice, be- 
 cause there was no uniformity of aim. At first sight 
 this seems very regrettable, but it could not have been 
 otherwise. If men were to attain that autonomy which 
 was the aim of the new epoch, they must each set his 
 own aim and select that education which seemed most 
 likely to lead him to it. It necessarily took — let us 
 rather say, it necessarily will take — a long time for 
 men exercising moral freedom to recognize that that 
 freedom can never become actual and concrete until 
 they all have a common aim, and work freely and 
 unitedly toward that. Until then education will not 
 attain the unity, ctfciprehensiveness, and aimfulness 
 which it had in the middle age. 
 
 The same change that took place in education took 
 place in philosophy. Mediaeval philosophy had had a 
 perfectly definite aim, which was, to act as a handmaid 
 to theology, and show that the facts of the world and 
 of life were in perfect harmony with revealed truth. 
 Credo ut intelligam : first faith, and then philosophy 
 to justify it. Under the new movement all was differ- 
 ent. The Pagan Renaissance did not profess to know 
 where philosophy might lead, and so contented itself 
 for the most part with studying Plato and Plotinus 
 and questioning [N'ature, thus laying the foundations 
 of modern science. The Protestant Reformation, on 
 the other hand, with a correct instinct, distrusted phi- 
 losophy as a means of reaching divine truth, and there- 
 fore devoted little attention to it. After a time, how- 
 ever, individuals more or less impregnated with the 
 Protestant spirit engaged in free speculation, and nat- 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE WESTERN WORLD. 221 
 
 urally came to very diverse results/ Some, like the 
 Oxford Platonists, turned back to the ancient think- 
 ers; but the majority trusted to their own unaided 
 intelligence. If Protestantism looked askance at Phi- 
 losophy, Philosophy responded by going its own way 
 independently of Protestantism. In one respect this 
 was a great advantage, in that Philosophy was thus 
 able to unfold itself independently of authority; in 
 another, it w^as a great disadvantage, in that it fell out 
 of relation to theology, and altogether ignored that 
 sphere of experience from which religion draws its 
 life. It thus remained, and remains, essentially at the 
 Hellenic stage. Of the two most fruitful philosophies 
 that arose under Protestant influence, that of Des- 
 cartes and that of Locke, the former, in the hands of 
 iWolf, ended in pure metaphysical formalism ; the lat- 
 ter, in those of Hume, in absolute skepticism ; and 
 when Kant attempted to construct a philosophy by 
 uniting the two, he only paved the way for Hegelian- 
 ism and Schopenhauerianism, the former of which is 
 only a modernized form of Neoplatonic Gnosticism, 
 while the latter is little more than Orientalized Stoi- 
 cism. Both may now be said to be obsolete, and the 
 Protestant world to be without a philosophy. The 
 same cause which led to the decay of ancient philoso- 
 phy has brought about that of modern philosophy — 
 the neglect of the supernatural sense. Ignore this, 
 and philosophy necessarily ends in either pure for- 
 malism, pure skepticism, pure mysticism, or pure pes- 
 simism. 
 
 Comparing the colossal results attained by medias- 
 val thought with the meagre and uncertain products 
 of modern speculation, we can hardly help feeling as 
 
222 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 the Israelites did when in the barren wilderness they 
 sighed for the fleshpots of Egypt. But it may be well 
 to bear in mind that they were on the way to the prom- 
 ised land, and that their meagre fare, which could not 
 be kept overnight, was after all from heaven. The 
 promised land of humanity is moral freedom, which 
 implies individual insight and conviction, and tliose 
 who are striving after these and refusing to accept any 
 truth on external authority are on the way thither, no 
 matter what sandy tracks, monsters, and hobgoblins 
 they may have to encamp among overnight. The 
 truth is, the chaotic condition in which all the depart- 
 ments of human life are at this moment need cause us 
 neither regret nor apprehension. It is simply the first 
 result of man's attempt to live a free moral life, to di- 
 rect his steps in accordance with the universal element 
 in him ; and the more fearlessly he persists in this at- 
 tempt, the more will the harmonizing and unifying 
 power of that element become manifest and actual, the 
 more will universal freedom be realized. 
 
 In our endeavors toward this we shall be aided in 
 avoiding rocks and pitfalls by a careful study of the 
 career of Greek education and culture, whose history, 
 on the whole, has been the history of human freedom. 
 Let us take, as it were, a bird's-eye view of it, marking 
 its chief stages. 
 
 Greek education and culture began with the natural 
 family or tribe, which, like every institution of culture, 
 was held together by a religious bond. In this instance 
 the bond was one of blood, whose corresponding ritual 
 was a meal or feast, at which a member of the tribe, an 
 animal or a man, was slain and its flesh partaken of by 
 all the other members, a portion being set apart for the 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE WESTERN WORLD. 223 
 
 dead members, whose shades were the only gods. This 
 was the stage of animism. In course of time, as the 
 family merged in the phratry, the blood-bond was 
 supplemented by the land-bond, the ancestor-gods by 
 Nature-gods, and the sacrifice by the offering. This is 
 the stage of natural polytheism. Later still, when the 
 phratry was subordinated to the city-state, the older 
 bonds were supplemented by a worth-bond (d/aeri}), and 
 a line was drawn between gentle and simple. The 
 Nature- deities were now superseded by moral deities, 
 and prayer was added to sacrifice and offering. This 
 is the stage of moral polytheism, gradually tending 
 toward monotheism, which, however, it never reached 
 among the Greeks as a people. 
 
 It was only at this stage that a distinction began to 
 be felt between the natural and the supernatural. 
 Previously the supernatural had been included in the 
 natural. All things were full of gods, as Thales said. 
 But now the distinction obtruded itself, and with it 
 the distinction between the natural senses and the 
 supernatural sense, and henceforth the course of edu- 
 cation was determined by the latter. It was only now, 
 indeed, that conscious, systematic education, such as 
 called schools into existence, could begin. For a time 
 the Greek thinkers made an effort to bring the object 
 of the supernatural sense into consciousness and to 
 make it the rule of life. This is evident in the writ- 
 ings of Pherecydes and the other theologians (^eoXdyot), 
 and of ^schylus. But after a time attention concen- 
 trated itself upon the natural, and gave birth to phi- 
 losophy instead of to theology. The results of this 
 were strange and far-reaching. Setting out with nature 
 alone, and working by purely abstract processes up from 
 16 
 
224: EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 it, the Greeks finally arrived at a supreme principle 
 which was merely the last abstraction of reason. This 
 idol, called by various names — Reason, Being, Intellect, 
 etc. — they elevated into the place of God, and from it 
 they were never afterward able to free themselves. 
 Their God, instead of being the concrete object of 
 the supernatural sense, remained an abstraction from 
 nature to the very last. ^ This is the weakness of Hel- 
 lenism, and the reason why it never overcame polythe- 
 ism. Socrates, indeed, in whom the supernatural sense 
 was strong, made an effort in the other direction, and 
 .' owed in his life and in his death the moral value of 
 that sense ; but he never reached clearness with regard 
 to the supernatural, and he had no successors. Plato 
 and Aristotle both returned to the abstract God of 
 Nature, and thus determined the whole subsequent 
 course of Greek thought. When the nation rose po- 
 litically above the city-state, and needed a divinity to 
 be the soul and sanction of an cecumenic empire, the 
 Greek consciousness had none to offer — nothing but a 
 jale, lifeless abstraction. Even the ideal city-states of 
 li ito and Aristotle proved utterly incapable of realiza- 
 tion, and after a time the whole of Greece became a 
 subject province of a foreign empire, thus paying 
 d< arly for her neglect of the supernatural. Doubtless 
 r philosophy would have sunk into oblivion before 
 u3 religious spirit, had it not allied itself with sys- 
 ns of thought that were founded upon the super- 
 tural sense. Among these the highest and purest 
 .3 that of the Jews, whose culmination was the 
 iching of Jesus. Allying itself with pre-Chris- 
 n Judaism, it produced Philonism ; crowning 
 elf with the gospel of Jesus, it gave Catholic 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE WESTERN WORLD. 225 
 
 Christianity, which finally became the religion of the 
 (Decumenic empire. 
 
 This gospel-crowned Hellenism might have been 
 the power which was to raise mankind to that moral 
 autonomy which Socrates had promised and Jesus ex- 
 emplified, had it been content to wear its crown in 
 meekness. Instead of this, however, it continually 
 tried to rend it, or cast it aside, and to substitute for 
 it the Bacchic wreath of abstract naturalism. Wear- 
 ing this, it could only offer external discipline for in- 
 ward freedom, mysticism for piety, and asceticism for 
 moral life. Even when, with the aid of Aristotle, it 
 succeeded in calling into existence an institution ani- 
 mated by its own spirit, it only prepared the way for 
 its own repudiation by the spirit of freedom. This, 
 by raising up the Pagan Renaissance and the Protest- 
 ant Reformation, started a new movement, in which 
 the world is now engaged, and which, if the lessons of 
 past history be only heeded, may at last conduct hu- 
 manity to the promised land of moral freedom. And 
 these lessons are not difficult to enumerate. The first 
 is, that reason, abstracting from nature, can never, apart 
 from the object of the supernatural sense, reach a first 
 principle that will give effective sanction to moral 
 life, or form the basis of a free social institution, but 
 only a moral despotism, expressing itself in mysticism 
 and asceticism. The second is, that, until the super- 
 natural sense can recognize in its object a living God, 
 or Being of perfect intelligence, love, and will, super- 
 nally correlated, but in no sense identical, with the 
 spirits of men, so that His perfections are their goal, 
 and not His being their grave, it will never be fully 
 able to maintain its throne against the claims of the 
 
226 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 abstracting reason,* or supply the basis of moral life. 
 This was strikingly illustrated in the case of Kant, 
 whose supernatural sense, which he termed, strangely 
 enough, the "practical reason," yielded him only a 
 "categorical imperative," the conditions of which — 
 God, freedom, immortality — his " pure reason " could 
 only postulate, but never know as really existing. Such 
 an imperative — a law without lawgiver, meaning, or 
 sanction — could of course have neither moral nor or- 
 ganizing power. The third lesson is, that, while the 
 hypostases reached through the supernatural sense 
 must be carefully connected and correlated with the 
 abstract laws reached through the natural senses, the 
 two orders of results must be held strictly distinct. 
 Infinite harm has come from neglecting this lesson. 
 On the one hand, science, which is the system of 
 laws abstracted from the data of the natural senses, 
 has been called upon to demonstrate the existence of 
 God and the authority of the moral law ; on the other, 
 theology, which is the system of the hypostases reached 
 
 * Although it is reason that interprets the data of the super- 
 natural sense, as well as those of the natural senses, it acts dif- 
 ferently in the two cases. In dealing with the latter, it abstracts 
 and generalizes ; in dealing with the former, it concretes and in- 
 dividualizes — in a word, hypostasizes — and the one process is as 
 legitimate as the other. One defect of Hellenism was that it 
 failed to recognize the nature and legitimacy of the latter pro- 
 cess. It was, indeed, ready enough to turn an adjective — good, 
 intelligent, or the like— into a noun ; but such a noun is not a 
 hypostasis. The same is true of Hegelianism, which tries to find 
 a supreme principle not in one abstraction of the reason, as 
 Hellenism did, but in the organized sum of all of them. It was 
 therefore perfectly consistent in placing philosophy above re- 
 ligion, as all true Greek thought had done before it. 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE WESTERN WORLD. 227 
 
 tlirough the supernatural sense, has been looked to for 
 an explanation of the natural world. Laplace has been 
 blamed for not employing the " hypothesis " of God in 
 his Mecmiique Celeste^ and Jesus for not expounding 
 the Copernican theory of astronomy.* In this way 
 science and religion have both been discredited, and 
 enmity has been stirred up between them, so that sci- 
 ence has often become faithless, and religion ignorant 
 and prejudiced. The future of both depends largely 
 upon the removal of this enmity. 
 
 Finally, the fourth lesson of history is, that, of all 
 the faculties of the human soul, that which demands 
 the most careful training is the supernatural sense. 
 
 * " The fundamental prejudice of scholasticism — shared, in- 
 deed, by ancient and, alas ! by modern theology — was, that the- 
 ology is natural science {WelterTcennen), or at least is bound to 
 ground and complete such science. At the present day, when 
 we say that it is bound to help out, to step in where science fails, 
 we are trying, with forced modesty, to say the same thing." — 
 Harnack, Dogmengeficliiclite, vol. iii, p. 313, note. *• The true 
 relation (of the Church to science) does not consist in her always 
 adopting the most recent theories, but in rendering herself inde- 
 pendent of scientific and philosophic theories altogether. ' What 
 I offer,' she must say, * remains true, whether Copernicus or Ptol- 
 emy, whether Darwin or Agassiz, is right. The gospel neither 
 is, nor has, any system of cosmology or biology : it is the an- 
 nouncement of the kingdom of God, which is seeking to realize 
 itself in the hearts (Gemuth) and lives of men. It does not seek 
 support in inexplicable natural occurrences and miracles, but 
 upon experiences of the heart, which finds peace and blessedness 
 in it.' " — Paulsen, Einleitung in die Philosophie (1892), p. 165. 
 I quote these passages to show that the true relation between 
 the natural and supernatural is becoming clear to modern 
 thinkers. The second, however, is from a work which is a 
 warning example of what an earnest thinker may come to who 
 
228 EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 
 
 While it remains undeveloped all other education leads 
 ultimately to nothing. It was the failure to recognize 
 this that made Greek education impotent to save the 
 world, and forced it to crown itself with Christianity, 
 whose function it is to train the supernatural sense to a 
 recognition of the living God as the Father of Spirits, 
 the sanction of the moral law, and the bond of institu- 
 tional life. 
 
 If, now, reverting to our first chapter and the out- 
 line of a complete educatipn there attempted, we com- 
 pare Greek education in its system and results with 
 that outline, we s&all be able to form some estimate of 
 its merits and defects. The first, it will be seen, are 
 very numerous. Greek education did at every period 
 of its career seek with all the means in its power, by a 
 graded process of rational discipline, to lift men out of 
 the bonds ^f animal necessity into moral freedom as 
 the Greeks conceived it.-v It was at all times marked 
 by unity, comprehensiveness, and aimfulness. It left 
 no part of man's nature, known as such, uncared for. 
 And so successful was it, so much, did it transmute 
 and elevate human nature, that to the Greeks is justly 
 accorded the honor of having discovered the principle 
 of human freedom, and of having placed the sword of 
 victory in the hands of Reason. They not only lifted 
 the world out of barbarism, but it requires their influ- 
 ence even to this day to prevent it from falling back 
 into the same. Even Christianity itself has sunk into 
 
 does not know the nature of the supernatural faculty, but con- 
 founds it (as Tennyson does, see In Memoriam, cxxiv, 4) with 
 the heart. Paulsen arrives at pure pantheism, and Tennyson 
 came perilously near the same. Of modern thinkers, Spicker 
 (see p. 138) comes nearest the truth. 
 
IN CONTACT WITH THE WESTERN WORLD. 2^19 
 
 barbarism and superstition wherever it has withdrawn 
 itself from Greek influence.* So much for the merits 
 /of Greek education. Its defects are all summed up in 
 one. by substituting philosophy for religion ^ %; cul- 
 tivating unduly the abstract reason, ^lich is the organ 
 of the former, and ignoring the supernatural sense, 
 which is the condition of the latter ; (by placing the 
 supreme activity of man in intellectual vision; instead 
 of in moral life guided by vision, love, and a good will, 
 it failed to put itself in living relation to the supreme 
 principle of that moral freedom which is the " chief 
 end of man." In consequence, Greece not only per- 
 ished herself, but she left an example by following 
 which other nations have perished — yea, and other 
 nations will yet perish, unless, warned by her fate, they 
 make all education culminate in the culture of the 
 spiritual sense which reveals God, and so place religion 
 on the throne that belongs to her as the guide and in- 
 spiration of life. Thus, as Christianity without Hel- 
 lenism sinks into barbarism, so Hellenism without 
 C*hristianity leads to destruction. Only when united, 
 as humanity and divinity, do they lead to life and 
 freedom. 
 
 * Speaking of the decay of the Eastern churches that sepa- 
 rated from Catholicism, D. K. Mliller says, " This result may 
 enable us to estimate what the fact of the Hellenization of 
 Ciiristianity during the first centuries meant — its rescue from 
 hdYbarism^—Kirchengeschichte, vol. i, p. 281. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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