justly occupies here the first place, for all arts, even the plastic
arts, had their origin in this first Homeric source. And this fresh
living stream of mythic fictions and heroic traditions which has flowed,
and continues to flow, through all ages and nations in the West, proves
to us, by a mighty historical experience, which determines even the most
difficult problems (and this has been universally acknowledged in
Christian Europe), that all classical education--all high intellectual
refinement, is and should be grounded on poetry--that is to say, on a
poetry which, like the Homeric, springs out of natural feelings, and
embraces the world with a clear, intuitive glance. For there can be no
comprehensive culture of the human mind,--no high and harmonious
development of its powers, and the various faculties of the soul; unless
all those deep feelings of life--that mighty, productive energy of human
nature, the marvellous imagination, be awakened and excited, and by that
excitement and exertion, attain an expansive, noble and beautiful form.
This the experience of all ages has proved, and hence the glory of the
Homeric poems, and of the whole intellectual refinement of the Greeks,
which has thence sprung, has remained imperishable. Were the mental
culture of any people founded solely on a dead, cold, abstract science,
to the exclusion of all poetry; such a mere mathematical people--with
minds thus sharpened and pointed by mathematical discipline, would and
could never possess a rich and various intellectual existence; nor even
probably ever attain to a living science, or a true science of life. The
characteristic excellence of this Homeric poetry, and in general of all
the Greek poetry, is that it observes a wise medium between the gigantic
fictions of oriental imagination, even as the purer creations of Indian
fancy display; and that distinctness of view, that broad knowledge and
observation of the world, which distinguish the ages of prosaic
narrative, when the relations of society become at once more refined and
more complicated. In this poetry, these two opposite, and almost
incompatible, qualities are blended and united--the fresh enthusiasm of
the most living feelings of nature--a blooming, fertile, and captivating
fancy, and a clear intuitive perception of life, are joined with a
delicacy of tact, a purity and harmony of taste, excluding all
exaggeration--all false ornament--and which few nations since the
Greeks, none perhaps in an equal degree, certainly none before them,
have ever possessed to a like extent.
This poetry was most intimately interwoven with the whole public life of
the Greeks--the public spectacles, games, and popular festivals were so
many theatres for poetry: nay music and the gymnastic exercises were the
ground-work, and formed almost the whole scope, of a high, polite, and
liberal education among the Greeks. Both were so in a very wide,
comprehensive and significant sense of the term. The gymnastic
struggles, the peculiar object of the public games, and where the human
frame attained a beautiful form and expansion by every species of
exercise--the gymnastic struggles had a very close connection with, and
may be said to have formed the basis for, the imitative arts, especially
sculpture, which, without that habitual contemplation of the most
exquisite forms afforded by these games, could never have acquired so
bold, free, and animated a representation of the human body. Music, or
the art of the Muses, included not only the art of melody, but the
poetry of song. Still the plan of Grecian education and refinement was
ever of too narrow and too exclusive a character; and when, at a later
period, rhetoric came to form one of its elements, the Greeks considered
it (what indeed it never should be considered) as a sort of gymnastic
exercise for the intellect, a species of public spectacle, where
eloquence, little solicitous about the truth, only sought to display its
art or address in the combat. And in the same way philosophy, when the
Greeks attained a knowledge of it, came to be regarded, according to the
narrow and exclusive principles of their system of education, as nothing
more than a species of intellectual melody, the internal harmony of
thought and mind--the music of the soul; till later, by means of the
sophists and popular sycophants that deluded their age, it sunk into the
all-destructive abyss of false rhetoric, which was the death of true
science and genuine art, and which, in the shape of logic and
metaphysics, had as injurious an influence on the schools as a false
political eloquence had on the state and on public life. That principle
of harmony which formed the leading tenet of the primitive philosophy of
Greece before the introduction of sophistry, was not an ignoble,--it was
even a beautiful, idea, although it might be far from solving the high
problems and questions of philosophy, or satisfying the deeper enquiries
of the human mind.
It was from these public games, popular festivals, and great poetical
exhibitions, which had such a mighty and important influence on the
whole public life of the Greeks, and which served to knit so strongly
the bonds of the Hellenic confederacy, that, by means of the odes,
specifically designed for such occasions, the theatre, and the whole
dramatic art of the Greeks, derived their origin. This poetry, which is
less generally intelligible to other nations and times than the Homeric
poems, because it enters more deeply into the individual life of the
Greeks, does not display less invention, sublimity, and depth of art,
from that ideal beauty which pervades its whole character, and from its
lofty tone of feeling. Even the Doric odes of Pindar, amid their milder
beauties, rise often to the tragic grandeur of the succeeding poets, or
to the comprehensive and epic fulness of the old Maeonian bard.
No nation has as yet been able to equal the charm and amenity of Homer,
the elevation of AEschylus, and the noble beauty of Sophocles; and
perhaps it is wrong even to aspire to their excellence, for true beauty
and true sublimity can never be acquired in the path of imitation.
Euripides, who lived in the times when rhetoric was predominant, is
ranked with the great poets we have named by such critics only, as are
unable to comprehend and appreciate the whole elevation of Grecian
intellect, and to discern its peculiar and characteristic depth. It is
worthy of remark, as it serves to show the general propensity of Grecian
intellect for the boldest contrasts, that these loftiest productions of
tragedy, and which have retained that character of unrivalled excellence
through all succeeding ages, were accompanied by the old popular comedy
which, while its inventive fancy dealt in the boldest fictions of
mythology, and in the humorous exhibitions of the Gods, made it its
peculiar business to fasten on all the follies of ordinary life, and to
exhibit them to public ridicule without the least reserve.
That the sensual worship of Nature, the basis of all Heathenism, and
more particularly so of the Greek idolatry, must have had a very
prejudicial influence on Greek morals; that the want of a solid system
of Ethics, founded on God and divine truth, must have given rise to
great corruption even in a more simple period of society; and that this
already prevalent corruption must have increased to a frightful extent
in the general degradation of the state--is a matter evident of itself;
and it would be no difficult task to draw from the pages of the popular
comedy we have just spoken of, and from other sources, a terrific
picture of the moral habits of the Greeks. Yet I know not whether such a
description would be necessary, or even advantageous, for the purpose of
this Philosophy of History--the more so, as it would not be difficult to
draw from similar sources of immorality, and from the now usual
statistics of vice and crime, a sketch of the moral condition of one or
more Christian nations, that would by no means accord with the
pre-conceived notion of the great moral superiority of modern times. We
may thus the more willingly rest contented with a general acknowledgment
of the great moral depravity of mankind, which exists wherever mighty
powers and strong motives of a superior order do not counteract it, and
which must have broken out more conspicuously there, where, as among the
Greeks, the prevailing religion was a Paganism that promoted and
sanctioned sensuality. In regard to the poetry and plastic arts of the
Greeks, it must even strike us as a matter of astonishment that it is in
comparatively but few passages, and few works, this Pagan sensuality
appears in a manner hurtful to dignity of style and harmony of
expression. It would not at least have surprised us, had this defect
been oftener apparent, when we consider the doctrines and views of life
generally prevalent in antiquity; for it was in most cases, less the
sterner dictates of morality that prevented the recurrence of this
defect than an exquisite sense of propriety, which even in art is the
outward drapery that girds and sets off beauty. Besides, a mere
conventional concealment cannot be imposed as a law on the art of
sculpture; our moral feelings are much less offended by the
representation of nudity in the pure noble style of the best antiques,
than by the disguised sensuality which marks many spurious productions
of modern art. In poetry and in art, at least in the elder and
flourishing period, the Greeks have, for the most part, attained to
internal harmony--in philosophy they were much less fortunate--and least
of all in public life, which was almost always distracted, and at last
utterly jarring, dissonant, and ruinous.
I called the science of the Greeks a _natural_ science, and in this
quality, which it possessed in so eminent a degree, it affords us the
highest instruction, and is of itself extremely interesting; for in its
origin, this science proceeded chiefly, almost exclusively, from
nature--pursued a sequestered and solitary path--a stranger to poetry
and to the mythology which was there predominant, far removed from
public and political life--and often even in an attitude of hostility
towards the state. The physical sciences, and particularly natural
history, were created by the Greeks--so was the science of medicine, in
which Hippocrates is still honoured as the greatest master; and geometry
and the ancient system of astronomy were handed down to posterity,
considerably enlarged and improved by the labours of the Greeks. In the
second place, Grecian science may be denominated a _natural_ science,
because, as it directed its attention successively to the various
objects of the world, of life, and to man himself, it ever took a
thoroughly natural view of all things, and even in self-knowledge, in
practical life, and in history, sought to seize and comprehend the
nature of man, and to unfold the character of his Being, with the utmost
precision of language, and according to conceptions derived exclusively
from life. Thus when Plato and his followers direct their philosophical
enquiries to objects lying beyond, and far exalted above, the sphere of
Nature and real life, we must regard these inquiries as exceptions from
the ordinary practice of Grecian intellect, and from the ruling spirit
of its speculations; in the same way as the expeditions of Alexander the
Great form an exception from the usual routine of Grecian politics.
Lastly, Grecian science may be denominated a _natural_ science, because
philosophy, founded on the old basis of poetry and classical culture,
allied to history, and the language and symbols of tradition, assumed in
general a form clear, beautiful, animated, and eminently conformable to
Nature and the mind of man; and however much this philosophy may at
times have been lost and bewildered in the void of a false dialectic, it
still never perished in the petrifying chill of abstract speculations.
And even Plato, though his philosophy so far transcended the ordinary
sphere of Grecian intellect, had been well nurtured in Hellenic
eloquence, art, and culture--and, in all these, was himself the greatest
master.
With this profound and lofty feeling for Nature, did the early
philosophers of Greece, who were chiefly Ionians, like Thales,
Anaximenes, and Heraclitus, consider respectively water, air, and fire,
as the primary powers of Nature and of all things; and it was only
Anaxagoras, the master of Socrates, who first clearly expounded the
nature of that supreme and divine Intelligence which created nature and
regulates the world. Prior to this philosopher, Heraclitus had asserted
this doctrine, perhaps with greater purity--certainly with more depth
and penetration; but in his obscure writings it is less intelligibly
expressed. With his supreme Intelligence in Nature, Anaxagoras conjoined
the {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}, that is to say, not the real atoms of a
lifeless matter, but rather the animated substance of material life.
Thus his doctrine was a simple system of dualism, quite in harmony, it
would seem, with the feelings of those early ages, as we have noticed a
similar system in the history of Indian philosophy. These old Ionian
philosophers in general regarded only the internal life in Nature and
all existence--the constant change and endless vicissitude in the world
and in all things; and hence many of them began to doubt, and at last
finally denied, the existence of anything steadfast and enduring.
According to that law and march of contrast, which Grecian intellect,
whether consciously or unconsciously, invariably pursued, these Ionian
philosophers were now opposed by the school of Parmenides, which
inculcated the doctrine of an all-pervading unity--and taught that this
principle was the first and last, the sole, true, permanent, and eternal
Being. Although this system was at first propounded in verse, it was by
no means, in its essential and ruling spirit, a poetical Pantheism, like
that of the Indians--but more congenial with the intellectual habits of
the Greeks, it was a Pantheism thoroughly dialectic, which at first
regarded all change as an illusion and idle phenomenon, and at last
positively denied the possibility of change. Between these two extreme
schools appeared the great disciple of Socrates, who sought, by a path
of inquiry completely new, completely foreign to the Greeks--by a range
of speculation which soared far above the world of sense, and outward
experience, as well as above mere logic, to return to the supreme
God-head, infinitely exalted above all nature--deriving the notion of
the Deity from immediate intuition, primeval revelation, or profound
internal reminiscence. By this doctrine of reminiscence, which is the
fundamental tenet of the Platonic system, this philosophy has a strong
coincidence or affinity with the Indian doctrine of the Metempsychosis,
by the supposition it involves of the prior existence of the human soul.
To such a notion of the pre-existence of the soul, in the literal sense
of the term, no system of Christian philosophy could easily subscribe.
But if, as there is no reason to prevent us, we should understand this
Platonic notion of reminiscence in a more spiritual sense--as the
awakening or resuscitation of the consciousness of the divine image
implanted in our souls--as the soul's perception of that image; this
theory would then perfectly coincide with the Christian doctrine of the
divine image originally stamped on the human soul, and of the internal
illumination of the soul by the renovation of that image--and hence we
ought in no way to be astonished that this Platonic mode of thinking,
for such it is rather than any exclusive system,--as it is the first
great philosophy of revelation clothed and propounded in an European
form--should have ever appeared so captivating to the profound thinkers
of Christianity. In Plato's time, that host of Sophists who had sprung
out of the dialectic contests of the earlier philosophy, out of its
rejection and disbelief of every thing permanent, immutable and eternal
in Nature, in life, and in knowledge, as well as out of the democratic
spirit of the age, and the ever prevailing immorality--in Plato's time,
that host of Sophists completely bewildered and confused the public
mind, poisoned all principle and morality in their very source, and
accomplished the ruin of society in Greece in general, and in Athens in
particular. And the masterly portrait which Plato has given us of these
Sophists exhibits well this race, and the pernicious influence they
exerted over Grecian intellect, and the whole circle of Grecian states;
and this political influence of the Sophists forms the third epoch in
the history of Greece, which, by means of these popular sycophants,
became daily more and more democratic, till at last it perished in
anarchy.
The more ancient philosophers of Greece lived almost all in a state of
retirement from public life, taking no part in political affairs, or
evincing very evident sentiments of hostility to the governments and
republics of their native country. They were almost all unfriendly to
the prevailing principles of democracy; and the ideal governments, which
they, as well as Plato, have sketched, were all in the spirit of a very
rigid aristocracy of virtue and law--evincing a very marked predilection
for that form of government as it existed, though in a state of great
degeneracy, among the Doric Greeks. Long before Plato, the Pythagoreans
had inculcated doctrines perfectly similar, or at least of a very
kindred nature; and with the view and purpose of introducing their
principles into public life, by which undoubtedly the governments and
the whole frame of society in Greece, as well as the whole system of
Grecian thought, would have assumed a totally new and different shape.
But before the Pythagorean confederacy, which was so widely diffused
through the Greek states of Southern Italy, was able to accomplish its
design, the violent re-action of an opposite party of thinkers destroyed
it, or at least deprived it of all ascendancy and political influence.
The age of Aristotle concurred with that of the Macedonian sway to
terminate anarchy of every kind. To the old evil of a false dialectic,
which had become an inveterate habit, and, as it were, a second nature
to Grecian intellect, he endeavoured to oppose his ample and substantial
logic--and this must be regarded not so much as a wonderful _organum_, a
living and never-failing source of scientific truth, but rather as a
remedy for that disease of a false, sophistical rhetoric, so prevalent
in his own age, and the one immediately preceding--and which had brought
about the ruin of all truths, and an universal anarchy of doctrines,
even in practical life. With a perspicacious, penetrative, and
comprehensive intellect, he has reduced all the philosophic, and all the
historical science of preceding ages and of his own time, to a clear,
well-ordered system, for the ample instruction of posterity:--in both
these sciences, as well as in natural history, he has remained, down to
the latest time, the master-guide. In those parts of his philosophy
which lie between this natural science and the old dialectic contests,
in its primary and fundamental principles, the system of Aristotle, when
rightly understood, contains much that leads to the most dangerous
errors, especially in his notion of God; though we cannot with justice
impute to him the abuse which has been made of his philosophy in
subsequent ages. Notwithstanding the many excellent things which are to
be found in the Ethics of Aristotle, considered merely as an effort of
unassisted reason; yet in all the enquiries after a higher truth--after
the first notion of the divine which, in the elder philosophy of nature,
was so imperfectly understood, and which in the consummate rationalism
of Aristotle was completely misapprehended--in all these important
enquiries, the Stagyrite is far from being such a guide as Plato; and
his philosophy is not like the Platonic, a scientific introduction to
the Christian revelation, and to the knowledge of divine truths. The
later systems of philosophy among the Greeks were, with some slight
variations of form, mere repetitions, often only mere combinations and
compilations, of the ancient philosophy; or they exhibited a thorough
degeneracy of science and intellect, as in the atomical system of
Epicurus, which even on life and morals had an atomical influence.