avour to substitute certain truth for the
prescriptions of impaired authorities, which was then beginning to
absorb the energies of the Greek intellect, is the grandest movement in
the profane annals of mankind, for to it we owe, even after the
immeasurable progress accomplished by Christianity, much of our
philosophy and far the better part of the political knowledge we
possess. Pericles, who was at the head of the Athenian Government, was
the first statesman who encountered the problem which the rapid
weakening of traditions forced on the political world. No authority in
morals or in politics remained unshaken by the motion that was in the
air. No guide could be confidently trusted; there was no available
criterion to appeal to, for the means of controlling or denying
convictions that prevailed among the people. The popular sentiment as to
what was right might be mistaken, but it was subject to no test. The
people were, for practical purposes, the seat of the knowledge of good
and evil. The people, therefore, were the seat of power.

The political philosophy of Pericles consisted of this conclusion. He
resolutely struck away all the props that still sustained the artificial
preponderance of wealth. For the ancient doctrine that power goes with
land, he introduced the idea that power ought to be so equitably
diffused as to afford equal security to all. That one part of the
community should govern the whole, or that one class should make laws
for another, he declared to be tyrannical. The abolition of privilege
would have served only to transfer the supremacy from the rich to the
poor, if Pericles had not redressed the balance by restricting the right
of citizenship to Athenians of pure descent. By this measure the class
which formed what we should call the third estate was brought down to
14,000 citizens, and became about equal in numbers with the higher
ranks. Pericles held that every Athenian who neglected to take his part
in the public business inflicted an injury on the commonwealth. That
none might be excluded by poverty, he caused the poor to be paid for
their attendance out of the funds of the State; for his administration
of the federal tribute had brought together a treasure of more than two
million sterling. The instrument of his sway was the art of speaking. He
governed by persuasion. Everything was decided by argument in open
deliberation, and every influence bowed before the ascendency of mind.
The idea th