HISTORY

I

_The Relationship between Ancient Greek and Modern Western Civilization_

Ancient Greek society perished at least as long ago as the seventh

century A. D. Many historians would date its death a good many centuries

earlier, and all would agree that even if there are symptoms that life

still lingered in the body down to this time, its mental and physical

energies had long failed, and that the change from lethargy to death was

hardly perceptible when it came. Thus even on the most cautious

reckoning, there is an interval of thirteen centuries between the close

of Greek history and our own times, and the great age of Greek

history--the time when Ancient Greek society was in its prime, when it

was shaping its own destiny and deflecting the destiny of its

neighbours--is separated from our generation by more than two thousand

years. What legacy has come down, through these great periods of time,

from Ancient Greek society to the contemporary world? Before trying to

answer this big question, let us consider a smaller one: What is the

legacy of Ancient Greek History to our own society? That portion of

contemporary humanity which inhabits Western Europe and America

constitutes a specific society, for which the most convenient name is

'Western Civilization', and this society has a relationship with Ancient

Greek society which other contemporary societies--for instance, those of

Islam, India, and China--have not. It is its child.

This description of the relationship between Ancient Greece and the

modern Western world may be something more than a metaphor, for

societies like individuals are living creatures, and may therefore be

expected to exhibit the same phenomena. At any rate the metaphor

illustrates the facts. To begin with, the histories of the two societies

overlap. The origins of modern Western society may be traced back a

century or two before the Christian era, when the lands and races of

Western Europe came into contact with the Levant, where Greek society

had grown up and was then in its maturity. The germ of Western society

first developed in the body of Greek society, like a child in the womb.

The Roman Empire was the period of pregnancy during which the new life

was sheltered and nurtured by the old. The 'Dark Age' was the crisis of

birth, in which the child broke away from its parent and emerged as a

separate, though naked and helpless, individual. The Middle Ages were

the period of childhood, in which the new creature, though immature,

found itself able to live and grow independently. The fourteenth and

fifteenth centuries, with their marked characteristics of transition,

may stand for puberty, and the centuries since the year 1500 for our

prime. The metaphor works out sufficiently well to throw light on our

particular problem: the legacy bequeathed to the Modern West by Ancient

Greece.

Children 'inherit' from their parents in several senses of the word.

There are features and instincts physically transmitted from the one to

the other. There are imitations in early childhood of the parent's

speech and gesture which are not perhaps strictly predetermined by the

relationship, but which are yet performed subconsciously and are in fact

so inevitable that the child is never aware that it is exercising choice

in the matter. And there is deliberate and conscious imitation at a

later stage when the child is sufficiently mature to appreciate its

parent's character. These several forms of 'legacy' from parent to child

differ primarily in the extent to which the acceptance and use of them

depends upon the child's own will, and it will probably be admitted that

the legacies which are the less certain to be transmitted are also the

more important if the transmission happens to take place. For example, a

child's life and character are more affected by deliberate imitation of

its parent at a relatively advanced age than by the unchosen inheritance

of some particular colour of hair and eye or shape of chin or pitch of

temperament. On the other hand, while the inheritance of these latter

characteristics from one among a limited number of ancestral strains is

inevitable, the voluntary legacy may never be transmitted at all. The

child will not claim it unless he knows his parent and admires or

respects him. The parent's premature death or removal or the lack of

sufficient sympathy between the parent and the child can in this case

inhibit the transmission, and the potential legacy, with its momentous

possibilities of influence upon the child's career, will never in fact

be bequeathed.

These considerations may guide us in an analysis of the legacy which we

have received from our parent society--the civilization of Ancient

Greece. First, has Ancient Greece transmitted to us anything comparable

to the physical and psychological legacy of an individual human parent

to her child? This is a difficult question for us to answer, just as it

is difficult for members of the same family to appreciate the 'family

likeness' between them. A Moslem or Hindu or Chinaman could judge better

than we. But it is certainly possible that the comparative similarity of

climatic conditions and the comparative unity of racial stock has

created a closer relationship between these two societies than between

either one of them and any other. The poetry and philosophy and social

life and political institutions of Ancient Greece and the Modern West

may conceivably constitute a single species when contrasted with the

institutions of other civilizations. A modern West European or American

may have a greater innate appreciation for Homer than for the Old

Testament or for Sokrates than for Buddha or Confucius. The parallel

which historians so often draw, or imply, between the conflict of

Ancient Greece with the Ancient East and that of the Modern West with

the Modern East may rest on a real kinship between the two Occidental

civilizations as contrasted with their respective Oriental neighbours.

But this is uncertain and on the whole unprofitable ground. When we come

to the 'subconsciously chosen' type of legacy, the analogy with the

relationship between parent and child becomes more evident.

Legacies of this type from Ancient Greek society are prominent in the

Middle Ages--the childhood of modern Western civilization which followed

the 'Dark Age' crisis of birth. One of the first needs of our young

Western society as it struggled to its feet was a symbol of its

unity--something corresponding to the attainment of self-consciousness

by the individual human being--and for this it borrowed the last

constructive idea of the Ancient Greek world. The mediaeval 'Holy Roman

Empire' had quite a different purpose and function, in the childhood of

modern Western civilization, from the purpose and function of the Roman

Empire in the old age of Ancient Greece. But the young civilization did

not think of inventing a new institution for its individual needs. In

its subconscious pursuit of its own development it conceived itself to

be reviving one of the customs of its venerable parent. The political

thinkers of Charlemagne's day never imagined that the idea of world

unity could be embodied in any other form.

Again, a century or so later, certain portions of Western society,

especially the populations of North and Central Italy and the Low

Countries, had outdistanced the rest in economic development and needed

institutions of local self-government to give their economic vitality

free play. In this case, again, Western civilization reverted to an

Ancient Greek institution and revived the 'city-state'. A little later

still, the rapidly growing and differentiating body of Western

civilization was impelled towards territorial expansion, and sought it,

like Ancient Greece in a similar period, round the shores of the

Mediterranean. This mediaeval movement of expansion, which is commonly

called the Crusades, but which made itself felt in Spain and Sicily and

the Aegean as well as in the 'Holy Land', is a remarkable parallel to

the propagation of Ancient Greek city-states round the same shores

between about 750 and 600 B. C. In drifting back upon the Mediterranean,

the mediaeval West was searching for new realms to conquer, but it was

really captured by the romance of its ancestral home.

Here, then, are three prominent features in mediaeval Western

history--the Holy Roman Empire, the Flemish and Italian communes, and

the Crusades--which were legacies from Ancient Greek history in the

sense of being subconscious reversions to the habits of the parent

society. But have these mediaeval legacies from Ancient Greece been

really important constituents in our history viewed as a whole? Have

they not rather been false growths which led to little or nothing? The

Holy Roman Empire was never more than a mirage. The sense of unity in

the modern Western world is derived not from this but from a really

original institution, the early Papal Church, in which any legacy from

Ancient Greece would be hard to discern. The national states of modern

Europe and America are derived not from mediaeval Ghent or Bruges or

Florence or Venice but from the new, though clumsy, feudal communities

of mediaeval England and France. And the expansion of Western society

has not followed the direction indicated by the Crusades. The false

trail of the Mediterranean was practically abandoned after less than

three centuries' trial. The true domain of modern Western civilization

has been found in regions which Ancient Greece hardly explored: Northern

Germany and Scandinavia and the British Isles, the North Sea and the

Baltic, the Atlantic and the continent of America. Thus our mediaeval

legacies from Ancient Greece--the subconscious reversions of

childhood--are historical curiosities rather than vital links between

the two civilizations. Our really important legacy from Ancient Greece

was adopted with full consciousness and deliberation when we stood on

the threshold of our own maturity.

The legacy of this third type which we have received from Ancient Greece

has been given the general name of the Renaissance. It was a determined

and successful attempt, on the part of our society, to learn everything

that the literary and artistic remains of our great predecessor could

teach us. It lay within our choice to study these remains or to pass

them by, and the fact that we chose to study them has been one of the

greatest and the most fortunate decisions in the career of our

civilization. The several aspects of this acceptance of what Ancient

Greece had to offer have been treated already in the other chapters in

this volume. Here it is merely necessary to point out that the

Renaissance was a study and assimilation not only of Ancient Greek

literature and art, but of architecture, natural science, mathematics,

philosophy, political ideas, and all the other higher expressions of a

great society. The absorption of this vast current of life largely

accounts for the wonderful impetus which has revealed itself in Western

civilization during the last four centuries.

Has the current now spent its force? Has the legacy adopted four

centuries ago been used up and exhausted? Under the inspiration of

Ancient Greece, has the modern West now created a literature, art,

architecture, science, mathematics, philosophy, and political thought

which equal or surpass the Ancient patterns and turn them from an

inspiration into an encumbrance? That seems to be the fundamental

question behind the controversy about the study of Ancient Greek life in

England to-day. Perhaps the answer may be found--if we may go back to

our metaphor--in the uniqueness of the individual personality.

If one considers the relations of a parent and child, or indeed of any

two human beings, it is evident that the one could never exhaust all

that could be learnt from the personality of the other. The one might

acquire every physical, mental, and moral attainment that the other

could display, and yet the other's unique individuality would remain--an

inexhaustible subject of study, throwing perpetual new light upon the

life of the observer himself and of his fellow human beings. This is

true of any two human beings, but if the two happen to be people of

commanding character and genius it becomes a truism which it would be

almost ludicrous to question. Let us apply this to the study not of one

individual but of one society by another, and let us take the case in

point, in which the two societies happen to be great civilizations. The

study of a great civilization has a unique value, not merely for members

of another civilization which stands to it in the relation of child to

parent, but for every seeker after knowledge who has a civilization of

his own. This ultimate and most precious legacy of Ancient Greece is at

the disposal of Moslems, Hindus, and Chinese, as well as Westerners. For

receiving it there are two qualifications: a good understanding and an

open mind.