We Philologists Part 7

(THE GREEKS AND THE PHILOLOGISTS.)

THE GREEKS. THE PHILOLOGISTS are

render homage to beauty, babblers and triflers, develop the body, ugly-looking creatures, speak clearly, stammerers, are religious transfigurers filthy pedants, of everyday occurrences, are listeners and observers, quibblers and scarecrows, have an apt.i.tude for the unfitted for the symbolical, symbolical, are in full possession of ardent slaves of the State, their freedom as men, can look innocently out Christians in disguise, into the world, are the pessimists of philistines.

thought.

95

Bergk's "History of Literature": Not a spark of Greek fire or Greek sense.

96

People really do compare our own age with that of Pericles, and congratulate themselves on the reawakening of the feeling of patriotism: I remember a parody on the funeral oration of Pericles by G. Freytag,[9]

in which this prim and strait-laced "poet" depicted the happiness now experienced by sixty-year-old men.--All pure and simple caricature! So this is the result! And sorrow and irony and seclusion are all that remain for him who has seen more of antiquity than this.

97

If we change a single word of Lord Bacon's we may say . infimarum Graecorum virtutum apud philologos laus est, mediarum admiratio, supremarum sensus nullus.

98

How can anyone glorify and venerate a whole people! It is the individuals that count, even in the case of the Greeks.

99

There is a great deal of caricature even about the Greeks for example, the careful attention devoted by the Cynics to their own happiness.

100

The only thing that interests me is the relations.h.i.+p of the people considered as a whole to the training of the single individuals and in the case of the Greeks there are some factors which are very favourable to the development of the individual. They do not, however, arise from the goodwill of the people, but from the struggle between the evil instincts.

By means of happy inventions and discoveries, we can train the individual differently and more highly than has yet been done by mere chance and accident. There are still hopes . the breeding of superior men.

101

The Greeks are interesting and quite disproportionately important because they had such a host of great individuals. How was that possible? This point must be studied.

102

The history of Greece has. .h.i.therto always been written optimistically.

103

Selected points from antiquity: the power, fire, and swing of the feeling the ancients had for music (through the first Pythian Ode), purity in their historical sense, grat.i.tude for the blessings of culture, the fire and corn feasts.

The enn.o.blement of jealousy: the Greeks the most jealous nation.

Suicide, hatred of old age, of penury. Empedocles on s.e.xual love.

104

Nimble and healthy bodies, a clear and deep sense for the observation of everyday matters, manly freedom, belief in good racial descent and good upbringing, warlike virtues, jealousy in the [Greek: aristeyein], delight in the arts, respect for leisure, a sense for free individuality, for the symbolical.

105

The spiritual culture of Greece an aberration of the amazing political impulse towards [Greek: aristeyein]. The [Greek: polis] utterly opposed to new education; culture nevertheless existed.

106

When I say that, all things considered, the Greeks were more moral than modern men what do I mean by that? From what we can perceive of the activities of their soul, it is clear that they had no shame, they had no bad conscience. They were more sincere, open-hearted, and pa.s.sionate, as artists are; they exhibited a kind of child-like _naivete_. It thus came about that even in all their evil actions they had a dash of purity about them, something approaching the holy. A remarkable number of individualities: might there not have been a higher morality in that?

When we recollect that character develops slowly, what can it be that, in the long run, breeds individuality? Perhaps vanity, emulation?

Possibly. Little inclination for conventional things.

107

The Greeks as the geniuses among the nations.

Their childlike nature, credulousness.

Pa.s.sionate. Quite unconsciously they lived in such a way as to procreate genius. Enemies of shyness and dulness. Pain. Injudicious actions. The nature of their intuitive insight into misery, despite their bright and genial temperament. Profoundness in their apprehension and glorifying of everyday things (fire, agriculture). Mendacious, unhistorical. The significance of the [Greek: polis] in culture instinctively recognised, favourable as a centre and periphery for great men (the facility of surveying a community, and also the possibility of addressing it as a whole). Individuality raised to the highest power through the [Greek: polis]. Envy, jealousy, as among gifted people.

108

The Greeks were lacking in sobriety and caution. Over-sensibility, abnormally active condition of the brain and the nerves; impetuosity and fervour of the will.

109

"Invariably to see the general in the particular is the distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristic of genius," says Schopenhauer. Think of Pindar, &c.--"[Greek: Sophrosynae]," according to Schopenhauer, has its roots in the clearness with which the Greeks saw into themselves and into the world at large, and thence became conscious of themselves.

The "wide separation of will and intellect" indicates the genius, and is seen in the Greeks.

"The melancholy a.s.sociated with genius is due to the fact that the will to live, the more clearly it is illuminated by the contemplating intellect, appreciates all the more clearly the misery of its condition," says Schopenhauer. _Cf._ the Greeks.