a fleeting moment of poetic insight, as
patriotism had expressed a fleeting moment of unanimous effort; but what
force could sustain such accidental harmonies? The patriotism soon lost
its power to inspire sacrifice, and the myth its power to inspire
wonder; so that the relics of that singular civilisation were scattered
almost at once in the general flood of the world.

[Sidenote: Sterility of Greek example.]

The Greek ideal has fascinated many men in all ages, who have sometimes
been in a position to set a fashion, so that the world in general has
pretended also to admire. But the truth is Hellas, in leaving so many
heirlooms to mankind, has left no constitutional benefit; it has taught
the conscience no lesson. We possess a great heritage from Greece, but
it is no natural endowment. An artistic renaissance in the fifteenth
century and a historical one in the nineteenth have only affected the
trappings of society. The movement has come from above. It has not found
any response in the people. While Greek morality, in its contents or in
the type of life it prescribes, comes nearer than any other prerational
experiment to what reason might propose, yet it has been less useful
than many other influences in bringing the Life of Reason about. The
Christian and the Moslem, in refining their more violent inspiration,
have brought us nearer to genuine goodness than the Greek could by his
idle example. Classic perfection is a seedless flower, imitable only by
artifice, not reproducible by generation. It is capable of influencing
character only through the intellect, the means by which character can
be influenced least. It is a detached ideal, responding to no crying and
actual demand in the world at large. It never passed, to win the right
of addressing mankind, through a sufficient novitiate of sorrow.

[Sidenote: Prerational morality among the Jews.]

The Hebrews, on the contrary, who in comparison with the Greeks had a
barbarous idea of happiness, showed far greater moral cohesion under
the pressure of adversity. They integrated their purposes into a
fanaticism, but they integrated them; and the integrity that resulted
became a mighty example. It constituted an ideal of character not the
less awe-inspiring for being merely formal. We need not marvel that
abstract commandments should have impressed the world more than concrete
ideals. To appreciate an ideal, to love and serve it in the full light
of science and reason, w