In the Land of Temples
Joseph Pennell
9781465544087
1 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
IT is a happy thing that the Greek race came into being, because they showed the world once at least what is meant by a man. The ideal Greek virtue σωφροσὑνη means, that all parts and faculties of the man are in proportion, each trained to perfection and all under control of the will: body, mind, and spirit, each has its due place. Elsewhere we see one of these in excess. Thus the Indian philosopher soars in the highest regions of speculation, and sees great truths, but they intoxicate him: he does not bring them to the test of daily life, nor does he check them by reason. The Hebrew prophet has his vision of one God, and in rapt devotion prostrates himself below the dignity of manhood. The Roman deals with practical politics and material civilisation; he has a genius for organizing, and for combining the rule of the best with the freedom and direct influence of all: he, however, despises the spirit and the imagination. In our own day, what is called science arrogates almost divine honours to the faculty for measuring and observing, and neglects both the religious instinct and the philosopher’s theoric; nor is this ideal less deadly than the Roman’s to imagination and the sense of beauty. In modern times also, each person strives to excel in some one specialty, mental or bodily; and if there is any feeling at all for proportion it is the proportion of a group, while the members of the group are περιττοἱ, excessive in one way and defective in the others. But the Greek aimed at perfect proportion for the man; and his ideal was, that the man’s will should use all the faculties to some worthy end. His body is to be trained by music and gymnastic: the aim of the first being grace and beauty; of the second, strength; of the whole, health and joy in all bodily uses. His mind is to be trained by poetry, oratory, and philosophy; his spirit by the worship of the gods, in which all that was best in his life is concentrated into a noble ritual. Such would be the life of the ordinary Greek; the greater intellects would look beyond the ritual to the essence; and we have ample evidence to show that their ideals were as high as any that have been known to other peoples. Aeschylus dealt with the same problems that baffled the Hebrew prophets, divine justice and mercy, and the immutable moral law; Plato’s speculation took him into regions where logic and formal philosophy had to be cast aside; Pheidias by his art added a new dignity to godhead.
