THREE:Socrates was, before all things, an Athenian. To under126stand him we must first understand what the Athenian character was in itself and independently of disturbing circumstances. Our estimate of that character is too apt to be biassed by the totally exceptional position which Athens occupied during the fifth century B.C. The possession of empire developed qualities in her children which they had not exhibited at an earlier period, and which they ceased to exhibit when empire had been lost. Among these must be reckoned military genius, an adventurous and romantic spirit, and a high capacity for poetical and artistic productionqualities displayed, it is true, by every Greek race, but by some for a longer and by others for a shorter period. Now, the tradition of greatness does not seem to have gone very far back with Athens. Her legendary history, what we have of it, is singularly unexciting. The same rather monotonous though edifying story of shelter accorded to persecuted fugitives, of successful resistance to foreign invasions, and of devoted self-sacrifice to the State, meets us again and again. The Attic drama itself shows how much more stirring was the legendary lore of other tribes. One need only look at the few remaining pieces which treat of patriotic subjects to appreciate the difference; and an English reader may easily convince himself of it by comparing Mr. Swinburnes Erechtheus with the same authors Atalanta. There is a want of vivid individuality perceptible all through. Even Theseus, the great national hero, strikes one as a rather tame sort of personage compared with Perseus, Heracls, and Jason. No Athenian figures prominently in the Iliad; and on the only two occasions when Pindar was employed to commemorate an Athenian victory at the Panhellenic games, he seems unable to associate it with any legendary glories in the past. The circumstances which for a long time made Attic history so barren of incident are the same to which its subsequent importance is due. The relation in which Attica stood to the rest of Greece was somewhat similar to the relation in127 which Tuscany, long afterwards, stood to the rest of Italy. It was the region least disturbed by foreign immigration, and therefore became the seat of a slower but steadier mental development. It was among those to whom war, revolution, colonisation, and commerce brought the most many-sided experience that intellectual activity was most speedily ripened. Literature, art, and science were cultivated with extraordinary success by the Greek cities of Asia Minor, and even in some parts of the old country, before Athens had a single man of genius, except Solon, to boast of. But along with the enjoyment of undisturbed tranquillity, habits of self-government, orderliness, and reasonable reflection were establishing themselves, which finally enabled her to inherit all that her predecessors in the race had accomplished, and to add, what alone they still wanted, the crowning consecration of self-conscious mind. There had, simultaneously, been growing up an intensely patriotic sentiment, due, in part, to the long-continued independence of Attica; in part, also, we may suppose, to the union, at a very early period, of her different townships into a single city. The same causes had, however, also favoured a certain love of comfort, a jovial pleasure-seeking disposition often degenerating into coarse sensuality, a thriftiness, and an inclination to grasp at any source of profit, coupled with extreme credulity where hopes of profit were excited, together forming an element of prose-comedy which mingles strangely with the tragic grandeur of Athens in her imperial age, and emerges into greater prominence after her fall, until it becomes the predominant characteristic of her later days. It is, we may observe, the contrast between these two aspects of Athenian life which gives the plays of Aristophanes their unparalleled comic effect, and it is their very awkward conjunction which makes Euripides so unequal and disappointing a poet. We find, then, that the original Athenian character is marked by reasonable reflection, by patriotism, and by a tendency towards self-seeking128 materialism. Let us take note of these three qualities, for we shall meet with them again in the philosophy of Socrates.53
FORE:"Of course I did. A tiny glass bottle with a tiny glass stopper."A queer little cry broke from Hetty. Her face was deadly pale, her eyes dilated with horror. It was only for a moment, then she slipped her hand into that of her lover and pressed it warmly. Even Prout seemed uneasy.
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TWO:Prout's expression was that of a man who by no means shared this opinion, but he said nothing on that head.
TWO:The modern doctrine of evolution, while relying largely on the fertility of multiplied chances, is not obliged to assume such an enormous number of simultaneous coincidences as Epicurus. The ascription of certain definite attractions and repulsions to the ultimate particles of matter would alone restrict their possible modes of aggregation within comparatively narrow limits. Then, again, the world seems to have been built up by successive stages, at each of which some new force or combination of forces came into play, a firm basis having been already secured for whatever variations they were capable of producing. Thus the solar system is a state of equilibrium resulting from the action of two very simple forces, gravitation and heat. On the surface of the earth, cohesion and chemical affinity have been superadded. When a fresh equilibrium had resulted from their joint energy, the more complex conditions of life found free scope for their exercise. The transformations of living species were similarly effected by variation on variation. And, finally, in one species, the satisfaction of its animal wants set free those more refined impulses by which, after many experiments, civilisation has been built up. Obviously the total sum of adaptations necessary to constitute our actual world will have the probabilities of its occurrence enormously increased if we suppose the more general conditions to be established prior to, and in complete independence of, the less general, instead of limiting ourselves, like the ancient atomists, to one vast simultaneous shuffle of all the material and dynamical elements involved.
TWO:"Well, that's all right; and what am I going to have with it, bread, potatoes, or...."
