liberty. And with the loss of the two she lost
buoyancy. In a deeper sense than Pericles used the phrase, 'the
springtime went out of her year'. Ultimately, perhaps, we cannot explain
why this should be so. Other nations have had as disheartening
experiences and yet risen above them. Some of the most inspired
prophecies in the Hebrew writings came after the tiny state of Judaea
had been torn in pieces by the insensate conflict between North and
South, and after the whole people had been swept into captivity. But
whatever the ultimate reason, Athens did not recover. We must not end,
however, on a note of despair. Far from it. The work of Aristotle and
Plato and of the Greeks generally, was cramped for lack of sympathy and
lack of hope, and, strangely enough, it was after they had passed and
their glory with them that sympathy grew in the world, and after
sympathy grew, hope returned.

For it is exactly in those failing years, when the Hellenic gave way to
the Hellenistic, that men first grasped, and grasped so firmly that it
could hardly be lost again, one of the fundamental principles on which
the whole fabric of our later civilization has rested, or ought to rest,
the great principle of personal equality, the claim of every individual
to transcendent value, irrespective of race and creed and endowment. The
conquering rule of Alexander, whatever else it did, broke down the
barriers of the little city-states and made men of different races feel
themselves members of mankind. There rose among the Stoics the
conviction that all men do belong together and are all made for each
other. And with the advent of Christianity came the belief that every
man, however mean and unworthy, can receive a power that will make him
all he ought to be. The highest is within his reach. There is no reason
now why the glorious life that Hellenism conceived for a few should not
lie open to all men.

Finally, we might say, and truly, that the vast political organization
built up by Rome gave us Europeans, once and for all, the vision of a
united Europe.

That dream has never left it. Even to-day, here and now, in spite of our
disasters, our blunders, and our crimes, let us not forget it, that
dream which is 'not all a dream', the dream of once again constructing a
system in which we might, all of us, all nations and all men and women,
make progress together in the common task.

BOOKS FOR REFERENCE

G. L. Dickinson, _The Greek View of Lif