FORE:57
FORE:Euripides is not a true thinker, and for that very reason fitly typifies a period when religion had been shaken to its very foundation, but still retained a strong hold on mens minds, and might at any time reassert its ancient authority with unexpected vigour. We gather, also, from his writings, that ethical sentiment had undergone a parallel transformation. He introduces characters and actions which the elder dramatists would have rejected as unworthy of tragedy, and not only introduces them, but composes elaborate speeches in their defence. Side by side with examples of devoted heroism we find such observations as that everyone loves himself best, and that those are most prosperous who attend most exclusively to their own interests. It so happens that in one instance where Euripides has chosen a subject already handled by Aeschylus, the difference of treatment shows how great a moral revolution had occurred in the interim. The conflict waged between Eteocls and Polyneics for their fathers throne is the theme both of the Seven against Thebes and of the Phoenician Women. In both, Polyneics bases his claim on grounds of right. It had been agreed that he and his brother should alternately hold sway over Thebes. His turn has arrived, and Eteocls refuses to give way. Polyneics endeavours to enforce his pretensions by bringing a foreign army against Thebes. Aeschylus makes him appear before the walls with an allegorical figure of Justice on his shield, promising to restore him to his fathers seat. On hearing this, Eteocls exclaims:
FORE:"Not for the present, my boy. Without boasting, I do know, but I could not prove it yet; at least, not to the legal mind. Have you got those notes?"
THREE:And now, looking back on his cosmology, we can see that Aristotle was never so near the truth as when he tried to bridge over the gulf between his two spheres, the one corruptible and the other eternal, by the idea of motion considered as a specific property of all matter, and persisting through all364 time; as a link between the celestial revolutions and the changes occurring on or near the earths surface; and, finally, as the direct cause of heat, the great agent acting in opposition to gravitywhich last view may have suggested Bacons capital discovery, that heat is itself a mode of motion.Turning away, back to his view, in a dark dress, a woman who had been at the extreme after rail was racing out of sight behind the cabin.
THREE:"You need not tell me any more," she whispered hoarsely. "He offered the San Salvator as security to Maitrank, and the murder is out."
