the plains and woods of Northern Europe or in the
deserts of Arabia or in some still more vaguely indicated region of the
East. But I must avow my conviction that our civilization--and I
specially remember that we are Englishmen--is not only in origin but in
essence, Greco-Roman, modified no doubt by influences unknown to that in
its earlier stages, but still Greco-Roman grown to a larger stature and
a clearer self-consciousness, self-shaped to its present form, the same
vital and vitalizing force, constantly reinvigorated and re-enlightened
by reflection upon its own past. It is a true instinct that in this
country still bases our system of higher education upon a study of the
languages and literature of Classical Antiquity. We are, as Englishmen,
co-heirs, because co-descendants of Classical Antiquity, with France and
Italy and Greece, yes also with Germany, for European civilization--and
not European civilization only--is, I reiterate, in essence still
Greco-Roman, not Teutonic or Semitic. At least, if this inheritance is
not ours by descent it is ours by adoption, and we are equally
legitimate members of the household. And the bonds of such spiritual
kinship are closer and more durable than those of blood, if indeed those
of blood provably exist at all.

The works and thoughts of which I am to speak--the dreams, the plans,
the hopes and aspirations--are assuredly ours also, the stuff and
substance of our being, our inner _genius_, our guiding and controlling
selves, what we in our first youth imagined and conceived, what we
believed, what we, in our later maturity, designed and in part executed.
If we turn inward we cannot read them there, for the characters are
small and faded; but as we hear their history recounted as it is by
professional historians, we recognize it as the record of a past which
is our very own, while at the same time it is a past which we share with
other nations who are our co-partners in the work of conserving,
deepening, extending, enriching the present-day civilization of Europe
and the world.

In most of us at all times, and in all of us at most times, these
influences and their operations lie deep below the threshold of
consciousness, some of them deeper than any plummet of self-analysis can
sound. They are also the unseen foundations of the social and political
superstructure in which we live. Or, to use another figure, they form
the fertile soil in which we, with all our activities and