[79] “The Martyrdom of Man,” p. 88. By Winwood Reade. New York: Charles P. Somerby, 1876.
For these defects in Greek character, and for the resulting decay of Greek civilization, Greek philosophy and Greek education must be held responsible. Metaphysics and rhetoric ruined Greece. It was in the schools of rhetoric that the young Greeks received their training for the duties of public life. There they were taught the art of oratory; there they learned how to make the worse appear the better reason. There they were taught, not to expound the truth, but to indulge in the arts of sophistry. It was in those schools that the young Greek was trained to be eloquent, to win applause in the courts of law, not to convince the judgments of judge, or juror; for judicial decisions were notoriously subjects of the most shameful traffic.
The element of rectitude was wholly left out of the Greek system of education, and hence wholly wanting in Greek character. The Greeks had a profound distrust of one another. They were dishonest; they were treacherous; they were cruel; they were false; and all these vices are peculiar to a state of savagery.[E22] In ethics they never emerged from the savage state, and hence in politics their failure was complete; for the prime condition of the most simple form of civil society is mutual confidence. But the mutual distrust of the Greeks, based on want of integrity, was so absolute that political unity was impossible, and the failure to combine the several cities under one government led, eventually, to the destruction of Greek civilization.
To this result Greek philosophy also contributed. Plato’s contempt for matter was so profound that he regarded the soul’s residence in the body as an evil. He taught that the philosopher should emancipate himself from the illusions of sense, devoting his life to reflection, and surrendering his mind “to communion with its kindred eternal essences.”[E23] Contempt of matter led logically to contempt of the physical man, and hence to contempt of things, the work of man’s hands. Such a philosophy was necessarily “in the air.” It afforded no aid to the sciences; for science is the product of generalizations from matter. It scorned art; for the arts are applications of the sciences in useful things. With the Greek school-master rhetoric was the chief part of education; with the Greek philosopher dialectics was the science par eminence.
Thus the Greek system of education was confined to rhetoric and logic—the art of speaking with propriety, elegance, and force, and the power of deducing legitimate conclusions from assumed premises.[E24] In the Greek schools of rhetoric there was no struggle to find the truth; in the schools of philosophy there was no respect for the evidence of the senses. The Greek orator harangued the jury eloquently while his client bargained with the court for the price of justice! The Greek philosopher confounded his audience with the force of his unanswerable logic, and appealed to his inner consciousness in support of the soundness of his premises!
The explanation of Greek duplicity is found in Greek metaphysics. To scorn things is to disregard facts, and disregard of facts is contempt of the truth. Greek education was confined to a consideration of the subject of the nature and relations of abstract ideas, while the subject of the nature and relations of things was wholly neglected. Such a system of education led logically to selfishness, and out of selfishness grew inordinate ambition and greed; and these passions led, through treachery and dishonesty, to factional contests, which, eventuating in bloodshed, could only end in anarchy. Distracted by the jealousies and rivalries of States constantly in hostile conflict, and enfeebled by the never-ending strife between the rich and the poor, Greece fell a prey to the rapacity, and lust of power, of her unscrupulous Roman neighbor.
[E14] “All the happiness of families depends upon the education of children, and houses rise or sink according as their children are virtuous or vicious.”—Plato’s “Divine Dialogues,” p. 262. London: S. Cornish & Co., 1839.
[E15] “The Egyptians were, in the opinion of the Greeks, the wisest of mankind.”—Herodotus, “Euterpe,” II., § 160. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1882.
“For my part, I think that Melampus, being a wise man, both acquired the art of divination, and having learned many other things in Egypt, introduced them among the Greeks, and particularly the worship of Bacchus.”—Ibid, “Euterpe,” II., § 49.