PART I.. State of Culture in Greece.

STATE OF CULTURE IN GREECE.

CHAPTER I.

THE INTELLECTUAL AND POLITICAL STATE OF GREECE AT THE CLOSE OF THE FOURTH CENTURY.

In Plato and Aristotle Greek Philosophy reached its greatest perfection. In their hands the Socratic philosophy of conceptions grew into elaborate systems, which embraced the whole range of contemporary knowledge, and grouped it from definite points of view so as to afford a connected view of the universe. The study of nature was by them supplemented by careful enquiries into the subject of morals. It was, moreover, transformed, enlarged, and enriched by Aristotle. In metaphysics, the foundations for a philosophical structure were deeply laid, everything being referred to first principles, in a way which no previous philosopher had before attempted. A multitude of phenomena which earlier thinkers had carelessly passed over, more particularly the phenomena of mental life, were pressed into the service of research; new questions were raised; new answers given. New ideas had penetrated every branch of knowledge. That idealism in which the Greek mind so beautifully and lucidly found expression had been set forth by Plato in brilliant purity, and had been by Aristotle combined with careful observation. Practice and theory had brought the dialectical method to the position of an art. A valuable instrument of thought had been gained in the scientific use of terms of which Aristotle was the real originator. Within a few generations the intellectual treasures of Greece had been manifoldly increased, both in extent and value. The heritage received by Socrates from his predecessors could hardly be recognised as the same in that which Aristotle left to his successors.

Great as was the progress made by Greek philosophy in the fourth century before Christ, quite as great were the difficulties with which it had perpetually to contend; quite as difficult the problems on the solution of which it had to labour. Aristotle had already pointed out the weak points in the system of Plato, which rendered it impossible for him to accept that system as satisfactory. From the platform of later knowledge still further objections might be raised to it. Even in Aristotle’s own system inconsistencies on some of the most important points might be found, concealed under a certain indefiniteness of expression, but fatal if once brought to light to the soundness of the whole. For with all his ingenuity, Aristotle never succeeded in harmoniously blending all the elements out of which his system was composed. Thus the divergencies of his immediate followers from the original Aristotelian teaching may be accounted for.

Nor were these defects of a kind that could be easily disposed of. The deeper the enquiry is carried, the clearer it becomes that they were defects embedded in the foundations of the systems both of Plato and Aristotle, and underlying the whole previous range of philosophic thought. Omitting details and minor points, they may all be ultimately referred to two: either to an imperfect knowledge and experience of the world, or to the overhaste of idealistic philosophy to draw conclusions. To the former defect may be attributed the mistakes in natural science into which Plato and Aristotle fell, and the limited character of their view of history; to the latter, the Platonic theory of ideas with all that it involves—the antithesis of ideas and appearances, of reason and the senses, of knowledge and ignorance, of the present world and the world to come—and likewise the corresponding points in the system of Aristotle; such, for instance (to name some of the principal ones only), as the relation of the particular and the general, of form and matter, of God and the world, of the theory of final causes and natural explanations, of the rational and the irrational parts of the soul, of speculative theory and practice.

Both defects are closely connected. The Greek philosophers were content with an uncertain and imperfect knowledge of facts, because they trusted conceptions too implicitly, and were ignorant of their origin and worth; and they had this unconditional trust in the truth of conceptions because the study of nature was yet in its infancy. Their knowledge of history was too limited for them to see the difference between the results of careful observation and those of ordinary unmethodical experience, to realise the uncertainty of most of the traditional principles and the necessity for a stricter method of induction. The fault common to both Plato and Aristotle lay in attaching undue prominence to the dialectical method inherited from Socrates to the neglect of observation, and in assuming that conceptions expressing the very essence of things can be deduced in a purely logical way from current beliefs and the use of language. In Plato this dialectical exclusiveness appears most strongly, and finds striking expression in his theory of recollection. If all conceptions are inherent from the moment of birth and need only the agency of sensible things to produce a consciousness of their existence, it is only legitimate to infer that, to know the essence of things, we must look within and not without, and obtain ideas by abstraction from the mind rather than by induction from experience. It is equally legitimate to infer that the ideas derived from the mind are the true standard by which experience must be judged. Whenever ideas and experience disagree, instead of regarding ideas as at fault, we ought to look upon the data of experience as imperfect, and as inadequately expressing the ideas which constitute the thing as it really exists. Thus the whole theory of ideas, and all that it implies, is seen to be a natural corollary from the Socratic theory of conceptions. Even those parts of this theory which seem most incongruous are best explained by being referred to the principles of the Socratic process.

From this defective assumption Aristotle is only partially free. He attempted, it is true, to supply the defects in the Socratic and Platonic theory of conceptions by observation of a kind with which Plato’s experimental knowledge cannot be compared either for accuracy or extent. With that attempt he also combined a complete transformation of the Platonic metaphysics, whereby he secured the same position for particulars in relation to the universal that his predecessor had secured for observation in relation to conceptional knowledge. But Aristotle did not go far enough. In his theory of knowledge he cannot wholly discard the assumption that the soul has its knowledge by a process of development from within, and is not only endowed with the capacity of thinking, but possesses also from its birth the substance of ideas. In his scientific method a critical investigation of common notions and of idiom—that in fact which he himself calls proof by probabilities—is constantly taking the place of strict induction. His endeavours to harmonise the two antagonistic currents in Plato’s teaching may have been undertaken in all sincerity, but the antagonism was too deeply seated to yield to his efforts. It not only reappears in the fundamental ideas of his system, but it colours all its general results. Beginning with the antithesis between form and matter, it ends in the contrast between the world and a soul independent of the world, in the conception of reason as something above man, never combining with the lower parts of his nature to form one complete living unity.

Granting that the Socratic philosophy of conceptions is the source from which these peculiarities are derived, still that philosophy is itself only the expression of the character of the nation which produced it. In an earlier work it has been shown that the most distinctive feature of Greek life lay in confounding the outer and the inner worlds, in ingenuously assuming that the two originally corresponded, and are still in perfect harmony with one another. When the whole mental life of a people bears this impress, it is sure to be reflected in its philosophy also. Together with the advantages which accrue from the confusion of the two, philosophy shares also the disadvantages which unavoidably attend any theory which ignores the real distinction between them. The mind only gradually and imperfectly becomes aware of the distinctive peculiarity of mental life, of the notion of personality, of the fact that moral rights and duties are independent of external circumstances, of the share of the individual will in creating ideas. It has also less hesitation in transferring phases of consciousness directly to things themselves, in regarding the world from ideal points of view borrowed from the sphere of mind, in accepting its own notions of things as realities without testing their actual truth, and even treating them as more real than the reality of the senses, and in confounding the critical analysis of a notion with the experimental investigation of a thing. If the philosophy of Greece in the time of its greatest perfection was not free from these defects; if, further, these defects were the cause of all the important faults in the systems of Plato and Aristotle; the creators of these systems and their immediate successors are not the only ones to blame; but the whole mental peculiarity of the people is at fault of which within the province of science these men were the greatest representatives.

As the faults of the Platonic and Aristotelian systems are seen to be connected with the general character of Greek life, it becomes obvious how difficult it must have been for Greeks to emancipate themselves from them. To overcome the difficulty nothing short of a radical breaking away from old lines of thought would avail. The origin of ideas, the primary meaning of conceptions, must be enquired into with searching thoroughness; a sharper distinction must be drawn between what is supplied from without and what is supplied from within; the truth of axioms hitherto received in metaphysics must be more carefully investigated than had ever been done as yet. The intellect must accustom itself to an accuracy of observation, and to a strictness of inductive process, never before reached in Greece. Experimental sciences must attain a degree of completeness which it was vain to hope to reach by the methods and means then in vogue. The fashion of regarding nature as though it were a living being which allowed questions as to facts to be answered by speculations as to final causes or by the desire of nature to realise beauty, must be abandoned. Enquiries into a man’s moral nature and duties must be kept apart from the simple study of his conduct in relation to natural surroundings, the disastrous effects which flow from the confusion of the two being only too apparent in the national type of the Greeks, in the exclusively political character of their morality, and in their adherence to slavery.

Before this pass could be reached how much was there not to alter in the condition and mental habit of Greece! Could it indeed be expected that a more vigorous and more scientific method would gain foothold so long as the tendency to look upon the life of nature as analogous to the life of man was kept alive by a religion such as that of Hellas? Or that moral science would liberate itself from the trammels of Greek propriety of conduct, whilst in all practical matters those trammels were in full force? Or that a clearer distinction would be drawn between what comes from without and what from within in ideas—a distinction which we vainly look for in Aristotle—until a depth and an intensity had been given to the inner life, and until the rights and value of the individual as such had obtained a recognition which it required the combined influence of Christianity and the peculiar Germanic character to bring about? The more vividly the national type and the national conditions surrounding Greek philosophy are realised, the firmer becomes the conviction, that to heal its defects—which are apparent even in its greatest and most brilliant achievements—nothing short of a revolution in the whole mental tone of Greece would avail—such as history has seen accomplished, but not till after many shifts and many centuries.

On the platform of the ancient life of Greece such a change could not possibly have come about. It may be that under more favourable circumstances Greek philosophy might have further developed along the same course of purely intellectual enquiry which it had previously so successfully followed in the hands of its earlier representatives, more particularly of Aristotle. What results might in this way have been attained, we cannot exactly determine. Speculation is, however, useless. In point of fact, the historical circumstances under which philosophy had to grow cannot be ignored. Philosophy had become what it was under the influence of those circumstances. The Socratic theory of conceptions, and Plato’s theory of ideas, presuppose on the one hand the high culture of the age of Pericles, and the brilliant career of Athens and Greece following on the Persian war. They also presuppose the political degradation and the moral exhaustion of Greece during and after the Peloponnesian war. Aristotle, with his high intellectual culture, despairing of everything direct and practical, with his wide view of things, his knowledge of every kind, his system matured and elaborate, and embracing all the results of previous enquiry—appears as the child of an age which was bearing to the grave a great historical epoch, in which intellectual labour had begun to take the place of vigorous political action.

The bloom of Greek philosophy was short-lived, but not more short-lived than the bloom of national life. The one was dependent on the other, and both were due to the action of the same causes. The Greeks, with a high appreciation of freedom, a ready aptitude for politics, and a genius for artistic creations, produced within the sphere of politics one result of its kind unrivalled and unique. They neglected, however, to lay the foundations wide and deep. Their political endurance was not equal to their versatility and restlessness. Communities limited in extent and simple in arrangement sufficed for them. But how could such communities include all branches of the Greek family, and satisfy at once all legitimate aspirations? It is the same within the department of science. Prematurely concluding and rashly advancing from isolated experiences without mediating links to the most general conceptions, they constructed theories upon a foundation of limited and imperfect experience, which it was wholly inadequate to bear. Whether, and in how far, the intellect of Greece, if left to itself, might have remedied these defects in a longer protracted calm of development, is a question which it is impossible to answer. As a fact, that intellect was far too intimately bound up with the political, the moral, and the religious life—in short, with the whole mental tone and culture of the people—not to be seriously affected by a change in any one of them. It lay, too, in the character and historical progress of that people to have only a brief period of splendour, and that soon over. At the time that the philosophy of Greece reached its highest point in Plato and Aristotle, Greece was in all other respects in a hopeless state of decline. Notwithstanding individual attempts to revive it, the old morality and propriety of conduct had disappeared since the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. The old belief in the gods was likewise gone. To the bulk of the people the rising philosophy with its ethics afforded no substitute. Art, although carefully cultivated, failed to come up to the excellence of the strictly classic period. Political relations became daily more unsatisfactory. In the fifth century before Christ the rivalry of Athens and Sparta had ranged the states of Greece into two groups. In the succeeding century disunion spread further. The effort made by Thebes under Epaminondas to found a new leadership only multiplied parties. Destitute of a political centre of gravity, the Greeks, of their own choice, drifted into a disgraceful dependence on the conquered and now declining Persian empire. Persian gold wielded an influence which Persian arms had been unable to exercise. The petty jealousies of tiny states and tribes frittered away in endless local feuds resources which with unity and leadership might have accomplished wonders. Civil order declined, and with it the well-being and martial prowess of the nation declined also. The growing pursuit of the art of war as a profession took the decision of battle more and more out of the hands of free citizens, and placed it in those of the numerous bands of mercenaries which are one of the most baneful phenomena of that age, a sure sign of the decline of freedom, and of the approach of a military despotism. When by the rise of the Macedonian power the danger of a military despotism loomed nearer, patriots in Greece continued to deceive themselves with the hope that their self-devotion would avert the danger, but any unbiassed reader of history sees in the failure of their attempts to avert it the natural and inevitable result of causes so deeply rooted in the Greek character and the course of Greek history, that neither the most heroic exertions of individuals, nor the united resistance of the divided states, which came too late, could for one moment have rendered the final issue doubtful.

By the battle of Chæronea the doom of Greece was sealed. Never since then has Greece attained to real political freedom. All attempts to shake off the Macedonian supremacy ended in humiliating disasters. In the subsequent struggles Hellas, and Athens in particular, were the play-ball of changing rulers, the continual arena of their warfare. The second half of the third century was reached before a purely Grecian power—the Achæan League—was formed, round which the hopes of the nation rallied, but the attempt was wholly inadequate to meet the real requirements of the times. Soon it became apparent that no remedies were forthcoming to heal the ills from which the country was suffering. Discord, their old hereditary failing, rendered it impossible for Greeks to be independent in foreign relations, or to be united and settled at home. Their best resources were wasted in perpetual struggles between Achæans, Ætolians, and Spartans. The very individual who led the Achæans against the Macedonians in the cause of independence, called the Macedonians back to the Peloponnesus to gain their support against Sparta. When the supremacy of Macedonia was broken by the arms of Rome, a more avowed dependence on Italian allies succeeded. And when, in the year 146 B.C., the province of Achaia was incorporated into the Roman empire, even the shadow of freedom which up to that time had been assured departed for ever.

Sad as were the external affairs of Greece at this period, and marked as was the decline of its intellectual power, its mental horizon, nevertheless, extended and its culture became more generally diffused. The Macedonian ascendency, which gave the death-blow to the independence of Greece, also broke down the barriers which had hitherto separated Greeks from foreigners. A new world was opened out before them, and a vast territory offered for their energies to explore. Greece was brought into manifold contact with the Eastern nations belonging to the Macedonian monarchy, whereby it secured for its culture the place of honour among them, but at the same time became subject to a slow, but, in the long run, important back-current of Oriental thought, traces of which appear in its philosophy a few centuries later. By the side of the old famed centres of learning in the mother country of Hellas, new centres arose, suited by position, inhabitants, and peculiar circumstances to unite the culture of East and West, and to fuse into one homogeneous mass the intellectual forces of different races. Whilst Hellas, by the number of emigrants who left her shores to settle in Asia and Egypt, was losing her population and the Greeks in their ancestral homes were being ousted by foreigners, they were gaining the most extensive intellectual conquests at the time over the very nations by and through whom they had been oppressed.