Modern abstract philosophy

In abstract thought their results were still more surprising. All the ideas that lie at the root of our modern abstract philosophy may be found in germ in Greece. The schools of modern metaphysics are the development of conceptions vaguely grasped by them. They analysed with perfect precision and wonderful minuteness the processes employed in language and in reasoning; they systematised grammar and logic, rhetoric and music ; they correctly analysed the human mind, the character, the emotions, and founded the science of morality and the art of education; they correctly analysed the elements of society and political life, and initiated the science of politics, or the theory of social union. Lastly, they criticised and laid bare all the existing beliefs of mankind ; pierced the imposing falsehood of the old religions; meditated on all the various answers ever given to the problem of human destiny, of the universe and its origin, and slowly worked out the conception of unity through the whole visible and invisible universe, which, in some shape or other, has been the belief of man for twenty centuries. Such were their gifts to the world.

It was an intellect active, subtle, and real, marked by the true scientific character of freedom, precision, and consistency. And, as the Greek intellect overtopped the intellect of all races of men, and combined in itself the gifts of all others, so were the great intellects of Greece all overtopped and concentrated in one great mind — the greatest, doubtless, of all human minds — the matchless Aristotle; as the poet says, ‘ the master of those who know,’ who, in all branches of human knowledge, built the foundations of abiding truth ephesus sightseeing.

Let us pause for moment to reflect what point we have reached in the history of civilisation. Asia had founded the first arts and usages of material life, begun the earliest social institutions, and taught us the rudiments of science and of thought. Greece had expanded all these in infinite variety and subtlety, had instituted the free state, and given life to poetry and art, had formed fixed habits of accurate reasoning and of systematic observation.

Materially and intellectually civilisation existed

Materially and intellectually civilisation existed. Yet in Greece we feel that, socially, everything is abortive. The Greeks had not grown into a united nation. They split into a multitude of jealous republics. These republics split into hostile and restless factions. And when the genius of the Macedonian kings had at last founded an empire, it lasted but twenty years, and gave place to even more colossal confusion. All that we associate with true national existence was yet to come, but the noble race who were to found it had’ long been advancing towards their high destiny. Alexander, perhaps, had scarcely heard of that distant, half-educated people, who for four centuries had been slowly building up the power which was to absorb and supersede his empire.

Far beyond the limits of his degenerate subjects, worthier successors of his genius were at hand: the Romans were coming upon the world. The Greeks founded the city, the Romans the nation. The Greeks were the authors of philosophy, the Romans of government, justice, and peace. The Greek ideal was thought, the Roman ideal was law. The Greeks taught us the noble lesson of individual freedom, the Romans the still nobler lesson, the sense of social duty. It is just, therefore, that to the Romans, as to the people who alone throughout all ages gave unity, peace, and order to the civilised world, who gave us the elements of our modern political life, and have left us the richest record of public duty, heroism, and self-sacrifice—it is just that to them we assign the place of the noblest nation in ancient history.

That which marks the Roman with his true greatness was his devotion to the social body, his sense of self-surrender to country: a duty to which the claims of family and person were implicitly to yield ; which neither death, nor agony, nor disgrace could subdue ; which was the only reward, -pleasure, or religion which a true citizen could need. This was the greatness, not of a few leading characters, but of an entire people during many generations. The Roman state did not give merely examples of heroes — it was formed of heroes ; nor were they less marked by their sense of obedience, submission to rightful authority where the interest of the state required it, submission to order and law.