192. Very short reflection, if steady and clear, will both show you how confused our ideas are usually on this subject, and how definite they may within certain limits become.
First of all, don't confuse piety with Christianity. There are pious Greeks and impious Greeks; pious Turks and impious Turks; pious Christians and impious Christians; pious modern infidels and impious modern infidels. In case you do not quite know what piety really means, we will try to know better in next lecture; for the present, understand that I mean distinctly to call Greek art, in the true sense of the word, pious, and Gothic, as opposed to it, profane.
193. But when I oppose these two words, Gothic and Greek, don't run away with the notion that I necessarily mean to oppose Christian and Greek. You must not confuse Gothic blood in a man's veins, with Christian feeling in a man's breast. There are unconverted and converted Goths; unconverted and converted Greeks. The Greek and Gothic temper is equally opposed, where the name of Christ has never been uttered by either, or when every other name is equally detested by both.
I want you to-day to examine with me that essential difference between Greek and Gothic temper, irrespective of creed, to which I have referred in my preface to the last edition of the "Stones of Venice," saying that the Byzantines gave law to Norman license. And I must therefore ask your patience while I clear your minds from some too prevalent errors as to the meaning of those two words, law and license.
194. There is perhaps no more curious proof of the disorder which impatient and impertinent science is introducing into classical thought and language, than the title chosen by the Duke of Argyll for his interesting study of Natural History—'The Reign of Law.' Law cannot reign. If a natural law, it admits no disobedience, and has nothing to put right. If a human one, it can compel no obedience, and has no power to prevent wrong. A king only can reign;—a person, that is to say, who, conscious of natural law, enforces human law so far as it is just.
195. Kinghood is equally necessary in Greek dynasty, and in Gothic. Theseus is every inch a king, as well as Edward III. But the laws which they have to enforce on their own and their companions' humanity are opposed to each other as much as their dispositions are.
The function of a Greek king was to enforce labour.
That of a Gothic king, to restrain rage.
The laws of Greece determine the wise methods of labour; and the laws of France determine the wise restraints of passion.
For the sins of Greece are in Indolence, and its pleasures; and the sins of France are in fury, and its pleasures.