Problems in Greek history Part 12

[Sidenote: Aristotle.]

Foremost among these in literary perfection is Plato, whose speculations on the proper conditions--the internal conditions only--of a _Polity_ in the h.e.l.lenic sense will ever remain a monument of genius, though his ideal could hardly lead, or be intended to lead, to practical results.

Then we have Xenophon, who in his political romance on the _Education of Cyrus_ stands half-way between the mere philosopher and the practical man of the world. The most instructive of all is Aristotle, who, though he lived to see the old order pa.s.s away, and a new departure in the history of the race, nevertheless confined himself to the traditional problems, and composed a special book--his _Politics_--on the virtues and vices of the ordinary Greek polity. The practical side, the necessary steps to reform and strengthen the leading States of Greece, especially in their external policy, and in the face of powerful and dangerous neighbours, we find discussed in the pamphlets of Isocrates and the public speeches of Demosthenes. It is on the proper place of these doc.u.ments, and the weight a.s.signed to them in modern histories, that I invite the reader's attention.

[Sidenote: Sparta ever admired but never imitated.]

-- 50. I have already mentioned the remarkable fact that though, at every period of this history, Spartan manners and Spartan laws commanded the respect and the admiration of all Greece, though the Spartan const.i.tution had proved stable when all else was in constant flux and change, still no practical attempt was ever made in older Greek history to imitate this famous const.i.tution. It shows, no doubt, in the old Greek legislators, a far keener sense of what was practical or possible that, instead of foisting upon every new or newly emanc.i.p.ated State the ordinances which had succeeded elsewhere as a legitimate, slow, and historic growth, they rather sought to adapt their reforms to the conditions of each State as they found it. They fully appreciated the difference between the normal and the exceptional in legislation.

[Sidenote: Practical legislation wiser in Greece than in modern Europe.]

The politicians of modern Europe, who are repeating gaily, and without any sense of its absurdity, the experiment of handing over the British parliamentary system to half-civilized and hardly emanc.i.p.ated populations, and who cry injustice and shame upon those who decline to follow their advice--these unhistorical and illogical statesmen might well take lessons from the sobriety of Greek politicians, if their own common-sense fails to tell them that the forest-tree of centuries cannot be transplanted; nay, even the sapling will not thrive in ungrateful soil.

[Sidenote: Sparta a model for the theorists.]

[Sidenote: A small State preferred.]

But although the real rulers of men in Greece saw all this clearly, it was not so with the theorists, nor indeed were they bound to observe practical limitations in framing the highest ideal to which man could attain. Hence we see in almost all the theorists a strong tendency to make Spartan inst.i.tutions the proper type of a perfect State. Plato will not even consider the duties of an imperial or dominating State, he rather regards large territory and vast population as an insuperable obstacle to good government. But as a philosopher deeply interested in the real culture of the mind, perhaps as a theorist deeply impressed with the haphazard character of the traditional education, he felt that to intrust an uneducated mob with the control of public affairs was either to hand over the State to unscrupulous leaders, who would gain the favour of the crowd by false and unworthy means, or to run the chance of having the most important matters settled by the caprice of a many-headed and therefore wholly irresponsible tyrant.

[Sidenote: Plato's successors.]

[Sidenote: Their general agreement,]

Every theorist that followed Plato seems to have felt the same difficulties, and therefore he and they adopted in the main the Spartan solution,--first, in limiting the number and condition of those to whom they would intrust power; secondly, in interfering from the beginning, more or less, in the education and training of the individual citizen.

They differed as to the amount of control to be exercised,--Plato and the Stoic Zeno were the most trenchant, and thought least of the value of individual character;--they differed as to the particular form of the actual government; whether a small council of philosophic elders, or some limited a.s.sembly of responsible and experienced citizens, or, still better, one ideal man, the natural king among men, should direct the whole course of the State.

[Sidenote: (1) especially on suffrage,]

But on the other two points they were firm. First, universal suffrage had been in their opinion proved a downright failure. And let the reader remember that this universal suffrage only meant the voting of free citizens,--slaves never came within their political horizon,--still more, that the free citizens of many Greek democracies, notably of the Athenian, were more highly educated than any Parliament in our own day[121:1].

We now have as an additional doc.u.ment on the same side, the newly discovered _Polity of the Athenians_[121:2], which, whether it be really Aristotle's work or not, certainly was quoted as such freely by Plutarch, and represents the opinions of the early Peripatetic school.

Nothing is stranger in the book than the depreciation of Pericles, as the founder of the extreme democracy of Athens, and the praise of Thucydides (son of Melesias), Nicias, and Theramenes, as the worthiest and best of the later politicians,--Theramenes especially, whose shiftiness is explained as the opposition of a wise and temperate man to all extremes, while he was content to live under any moderate government.[122:1]

[Sidenote: even though their suffrage was necessarily restricted.]

I have already pointed out what important differences in the notions of democracy--the absence of all idea of representation, of all delay or control by a second legislative body, of the veto of a const.i.tutional sovran--make this strong and consistent verdict not applicable by a.n.a.logy to modern republics. Not that I reject h.e.l.lenic opinion as now of no value--far from it; but if we argue from a.n.a.logy, we are bound to show where the a.n.a.logy fits, and where it fails,--above all to acknowledge the latter cases honestly. For we are not advocates pleading a cause, but inquirers seeking the truth from the successes and the sufferings of older men of like pa.s.sions with ourselves.

[Sidenote: (2) Education to be a State affair.]

[Sidenote: Polybius' astonishment at the Roman disregard of it.]

-- 51. Secondly, the education of the citizens should not be left to the sense of responsibility in parents, or to the private enterprise of professional teachers, but should be both organized and controlled by the State[123:1]. So firmly was this principle engrained into Greek political thinkers that Polybius, who came at the close of all their rich experience, and whose opinion is in many respects more valuable than any previous one, expresses his astonishment how the Romans, a thoroughly practical and sensible people, and moreover eminently successful, could venture to leave out of all public account the question of education, and allow it to be solved by each parent as he thought fit. He pointed out this as the most profound existing contrast to the notions of Greek thinkers[123:2].

[Sidenote: The practical result in Rome.]

We know very well how the Roman aristocracy in their best days solved the matter; but we must deeply regret that there are no statistics, or even information, how the poorer cla.s.ses at Rome fared in comparison with the Greeks. National education in Greece was certainly on a far higher level; but here again we have an old civilization to compare with a new one, and must beware of rash inferences.

It is, for example, of great importance to note that the Greek State was essentially a city with its suburbs, where the children lived so near each other that day-schools could be attended by all. In a larger State, which implies a population scattered through the country, much more must be intrusted to parents, since day-schools are necessarily inadequate[124:1]. This is but one of the differences to be weighed in making the comparison. To state them all would lead us beyond reasonable limits.

[Sidenote: Can a real democracy ever be sufficiently educated?]

Still, I take the verdict of the philosophers as well worth considering,--and, indeed, there is no question which now agitates the minds of enlightened democrats more deeply than this: How can we expect uneducated ma.s.ses of people to direct the course of public affairs with safety and with wisdom? It is certain that even in the small, easily manageable, and highly cultivated republics of the Greeks, men were not educated enough to regard the public weal as paramount, to set it above their narrow interests or to bridle their pa.s.sions. Is it likely, then, that Education will ever do this for the State? Are we following an _ignis fatuus_ in setting it up as the panacea for the defects of our communities?

[Sidenote: Christianity gives us a new force.]

-- 52. To these grave doubts there is an obvious but not, I think, a real rejoinder, when we urge that the position of the Christian religion in modern education makes the latter a moral force for good far superior to any devices of legislators.

[Sidenote: Formal religion always demanded by the Greeks.]

While admitting unreservedly the vast progress we have attained by having the Christian religion an integral part of all reasonable education, we must urge on the other side that to most people, and at all times, religion is only a very occasional guide of action, and that what we have attained with all our preaching and teaching is rather an acquiescence in its excellence than a practical submission to its directions. So far as this mere acquiescence in moral sanctions is to be considered, all Greek legislators took care to inculcate the teaching and the observance of a State religion, with moral sanctions, and with rewards and punishments. They knew as well as we do that a public without a creed is a public without a conscience, and that scepticism, however consistent with individual sobriety and goodness, has never yet been found to serve as a general subst.i.tute for positive beliefs.

[Sidenote: Real religion the property of exceptional persons.]

But when we come to the case of superior individuals, to whom religion is a living and acting force, then we have on the Greek side those splendid thinkers, whose lives were as pure a model as their speculations were a lesson, to the world. These men certainly did not require a higher faith to make them good citizens, and were a 'law unto themselves, showing forth the work of law written in their hearts,' with a good conscience. The a.n.a.logy, then, between the old Greek States and ours as regards education may be closer than is usually a.s.sumed by those who have before them the contrast of religions.

[Sidenote: Greek views on music]

I will mention a very different point on which all the ancient educators were agreed, and which seems quite strange to modern notions,--I mean the capital importance of music, on account of its direct effect upon morals. They all knew that the Spartan pipes had much the same effect as the Highland pipes have now upon the soldiers who feel them to be their national expression. Hence all music might be regarded as either wholesome or unwholesome stimulant, wholesome or unwholesome soothing, to the moral nature; and not only does the sober Aristotle discuss with great seriousness and in great detail the question of this influence, but he agrees with Plato in regarding the State as bound to interfere and prevent those strains, 'softly sweet in Lydian measure,' which delighted, indeed, and beguiled the sense, but disturbed and endangered the morals of men.

[Sidenote: discussed in my _Rambles and Studies in Greece_.]

On this fascinating but difficult subject I have already said my say in the last chapter of my _Social Life in Greece_[126:1], and I will only repeat that if the Greeks put too much stress on this side of education as affecting character, the moderns have certainly erred in the opposite directions, and are quite wrong in regarding music as an accomplishment purely aesthetic, as having nothing to say to the practical side of our nature,--our sensual pa.s.sions and our moral principles.

[Sidenote: Xenophon's ideal.]

-- 53. It remains for us to note the chief variations between the positions of the various theorists on the ideal State. Xenophon tells us his views under the parable of the ideal education and government of a perfect king. But as he did not conceive such a personage possible in the h.e.l.lenic world, he chooses the great Cyrus of Persia,--a giant figure remote from the Greeks of his day, and looming through the mists of legend[127:1]. But he makes it quite plain that he considers the monarchy of the right man by far the most perfect form of government, and his tract on the Spartan State shows how he hated democracy, and favoured those States which reserved all power for the qualified few.

[Sidenote: Aristotle's.]

[Sidenote: Aristotle's Politics ignore Alexander.]

Nor is Aristotle at variance with Xenophon, as both his _Ethics_ and _Politics_ agree in conviction that there were single men superior to average society, and intended by Nature, like superior races, to rule over inferior men. It starts at once to our recollection that Aristotle had before his mind that wonderful pupil who transformed the Eastern world, and opened a new era in the world's politics. But no. The whole of Aristotle's _Politics_ looks backward and inward at the old Greek State, small, and standing by the side of others of like dimensions, differing as despotisms, aristocracies, republics will differ, but not pretending to carry out a large foreign policy or to dominate the world.

[Sidenote: Evidence of the new _Politeia_.]

The recently discovered treatise on the History of the Athenian Const.i.tution does not give us any further light as to the foreign policy which Aristotle thought best for a Greek State. Many critics are, moreover, inclined to deny the genuineness of the work, and a sharp controversy is now proceeding, in which, strange to say, the Germans are for the most part ready to accept the work as Aristotle's, while the English are mostly for its rejection. Against it has been urged (1) its general style, which in its easy straightforwardness does not remind the reader of the Aristotle we know; (2) the particular occurrence of a number of words and phrases not elsewhere extant in the very large vocabulary of his works; (3) certain inconsistencies not only with the _Politics_, but with Xenophon, and indeed, with the generally accepted facts of earlier Greek history. Thus while the political activity of Themistocles is prolonged, and that of Aristides is exalted beyond the other extant estimates of these men, that of Pericles is lessened into second-rate proportions. The praise of Theramenes as a moderate politician, as a conservative in a very radical moment, affords no difficulty, for it is not foreign to what we know of Aristotle's views.

These, however, are the main objections urged by the English critics who have flooded the literary papers with their emendations. On the other hand, great German scholars,--Gomperz, Wilamowitz von Mollendorf, Kaibel, and others,--have stoutly maintained that there are no adequate reasons for doubting the unanimous testimony of later antiquity, proved as it is by many citations in Plutarch, many more in the Greek grammarians and lexicographers. They add, that we know little or nothing of Aristotle's popular style, and that his lost dialogues have been praised for their easy flow. I do not feel prepared, as yet, to offer an opinion for or against the treatise--_adhuc sub judice lis est_.

[Sidenote: Alexander was to all the theorists an incommensurable quant.i.ty.]

But in any case the monarchy of Alexander is quite foreign to anything contemplated in the theories or in the reflections of Aristotle. The Greek theorist, even such as he was, could not adjust this new and mighty phenomenon to the laws of Greek human nature. I shall presently show how other great men of that day manifested the same purblindness; but I note it here specially in the case of Aristotle's _Politics_, because it has not been brought out with sufficient emphasis by modern historians. The one man who made Plato and Aristotle the subjects of exhaustive studies, George Grote, did not live to complete his account of Aristotle's theories on the State, and relegated his masterly account of Plato and Xenophon into a separate book, long difficult to procure, and more so to master[130:1].

[Sidenote: Mortality of even perfect const.i.tutions.]

[Sidenote: Contrast of Greek and modern antic.i.p.ations.]