istic of Christian ethics. Let us never forget that only by Stoical teaching was the narrow and cruel formalism of ancient Roman law elevated into the 'written reason' of the imperial jurists; only after receiving successive infiltrations of Greek thought was the ethnic monotheism of Judaea expanded into a cosmopolitan religion. Our popular theologians are ready enough to admit that Hellenism was providentially the means of giving Christianity a world-wide diffusion; they ignore the fact that it gave the new faith not only wings to fly, but also eyes to see and a soul to love. From very early times there was an intuition of humanity in Hellas which only needed dialectical development to become an all-sufficient law of life. Homer sympathises ardently with his own countrymen, but he never vilifies their enemies. He did not,

nor did any Greek, invent impure legends to account for the origin of hostile tribes whose kinship could not be disowned; unlike Samuel, he regards the sacrifice of prisoners with unmixed abhorrence. What would he, whose Odysseus will not allow a shout of triumph to be raised over the fallen, have said to Deborah's exultation at the murder of a suppliant fugitive? Courage was, indeed, with him the highest virtue, and Greek literature abounds in martial spiritstirring tones, but it is nearly always by the necessities of self-defence that this enthusiasm is invoked; with Pindar and Simonides, with Aeschylus and Sophocles, it is resistance to an invader that we find so proudly commemorated; and the victories which make Greek history so glorious were won in fighting to repel an unjust aggression perpetrated either by the barbarians or by a tyrant state among the Greeks themselves. There was, as will be shown hereafter, an unhappy period when right was either denied, or, what comes to the same thing, identified with might; but this offensive paradox only served to waken true morality into a more vivid selfconsciousness, and into the felt need of discovering for itself a stronger foundation than usage and tradition, a loftier

sanction than mere worldly success could afford. The most universal principle of justice, to treat others as we should wish to be treated ourselves, seems before the Rabbi Hillel's time to have become almost a common-place of Greek ethics;' difficulties left unsolved by the Book of Job were raised to a higher level by Greek philosophy; and long before St. Paul, a Plato reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment

to come.

No one will deny that the life of the Greeks was stained with foul vices, and that their theory sometimes fell to the ievel of their practice. No one who believes that moral truth, like all truth, has been gradually discovered, will wonder at this phenomenon. If moral conduct is a function of social life, then, like other functions, it will be subject, not only to growth, but also to disease and decay. An intense and rapid intellectual development may have for its condition a totally abnormal state of society, where certain vices, unknown to ruder ages, spring up and flourish with rank luxuriance. When men have to take women along with them on every new path of enquiry, progress will be considerably retarded, although its benefits will ultimately be shared among a greater number, and will be better insured against the danger of a violent reaction. But the work that Hellas was commissioned to perform could not wait; it had to be accomplished in a few generations, or not at all. The barbarians were forcing their way in on every side, not merely with the weight of invading armies, but with the deadlier pressure of a benumbing superstition, with the bruteworship of Egypt and the devil-worship of Phoenicia, with

Thou shalt not take that which is mine, and may I do to others as I would that they should do to me' (Plato, Legg., 913, A. Jowett's Transl., vol. V., P. 483). Isocrates makes a king addressing his governors say: 'You should be to others what you think I should be to you' (Nicocles, 49). And again: Do not to others what it makes you angry to suffer yourselves' (Ibid., 61). A similar observation is attributed to Thales, doubtless by an anachronism (Diogenes Laertius, I., i., 36).

their delirious orgies, their mutilations, their crucifixions, and their gladiatorial contests. Already in the later dramas of Euripides and in the Rhodian school of sculpture, we see the awful shadow coming nearer, and feel the poisonous breath of Asia on our faces. Reason, the reason by which these terrors have been for ever exorcised, could only arrive at maturity under the influence of free and uninterrupted discussion carried on by men among themselves in the gymnasium, the agora, the ecclêsia, and the dicastery. The resulting and inevitable separation of the sexes bred frightful disorders, which through all changes of creed have clung like a moral pestilence to the shores of the Aegean, and have helped to complicate political problems by joining to religious hatred the fiercer animosity of physical disgust. But whatever were the corruptions of Greek sentiment, Greek philosophy had the power to purge them away. 'Follow nature' became the watchword of one school after another; and a precept which at first may have meant only that man should not fall below the brutes, was finally so interpreted as to imply an absolute control of sense by reason. No loftier standard of sexual purity has ever been inculcated than that fixed by Plato in his latest work, the Laws. Isocrates bids husbands set an example of conjugal fidelity to their wives. Socrates had already declared that virtue was the same for both sexes. Xenophon interests himself in the education of women. Plato would give them the same training, and everywhere associate them in the same functions with men. Equally decisive evidence of a theoretical opposition to slavery is not forthcoming, and we know that it was unfortunately sanctioned by Plato and Aristotle, in this respect no better inspired than the early Christians; nevertheless, the germ of such an opposition existed, and will hereafter be pointed out.

It has been said that the Greeks only worshipped beauty; that they cultivated morality from the aesthetic side; that

virtue was with them a question, not of duty, but of taste. Some very strong texts might be quoted in support of this judgment. For example, we find Isocrates saying, in his encomium on Helen, that 'Beauty is the first of all things in majesty, and honour, and divineness. It is easy to see its power: there are many things which have no share of courage, or wisdom, or justice, which yet will be found honoured above things which have each of these, but nothing which is devoid of beauty is prized; all things are scorned which have not been given their part of that attribute; the admiration for virtue itself comes to this, that of all manifestations of life virtue is the most beautiful And Aristotle distinguishes the highest courage as willingness to die for the kaλóv. So also Plato describes philosophy as a love that leads one from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is. And this is that life beyond all others which man should live in the contemplation of beauty absolute.' 2 Now, first of all, we must observe that, while loveliness has been worshipped by many others, none have conceived it under a form so worthy of worship as the Greeks. Beauty with them was neither little, nor fragile, nor voluptuous; the soul's energies were not relaxed but exalted by its comtemplation; there was in it an element of austere and commanding dignity. The Argive Hêrê, though revealed to us only through a softened Italian copy, has more divinity in her countenance than any Madonna of them all; and the Melian Aphroditê is distinguished by majesty of form not less than by purity and sweetness of expression. This beauty was the unreserved information of matter by mind, the visible rendering of absolute power, wisdom, and goodness. Therefore, what a Greek wor

We gladly avail ourselves of the masterly translation given by Prof. Jebb. The whole of this splendid passage will be found in his Attic Orators, vol. II., pp. 78-79.

2 Symposium, 211, C; Jowett's Transl., vol. II.

shipped was the perpetual and ever-present energising of mind; but he forgot that beauty can only exist as a combination of spirit with sense; and, after detaching the higher element, he continued to call it by names and clothe it in attributes proper to its earthly manifestations alone. Yet such an extension of the aesthetic sentiment involved no weakening of the moral fibre. A service comprehending all idealisms in one demanded the self-effacement of a laborious preparation and the selfrestraint of a gradual achievement. They who pitched the goal of their aspiration so high, knew that the paths leading up to it were rough, and steep, and long; they felt that perfect workmanship and perfect taste, being supremely precious, must be supremely difficult as well; χαλεπὰ τὰ καλά they said, the beautiful is hard-hard to judge, hard to win, and hard to keep. He who has passed through that stern discipline need tremble at no other task; nor has duty anything to fear from a companionship whose ultimate requirements are coincident with her own, and the abandonment of which for a joyless asceticism can only lead to the reappearance as an invading army of forces that should have been cherished as indispensable allies.

It may be urged that beauty, however difficult of attainment or severe in form, is, after all, essentially superficial; and that a morality elaborated on the same principles will be equally superficial-will, in fact, be little more than the art of keeping up appearances, of displaying fine sentiments, of avoiding those actions the consequences of which are immediately felt to be disagreeable, and, above all, of not needlessly wounding anyone's sensibilities. Such an imitation of morality -which it would be a mistake to call hypocrisy-has no doubt been common enough among all civilised nations; but there is no reason to believe that it was in any way favoured by the circumstances of Greek life. There is even evidence of a contrary tendency, as, indeed, might be expected among a people whose most important states were saved from the corrupt