nce
as a whole; or out of the spreading chaos no civilized cosmos will be
re-born. Our civilization has been shaken to its foundations, the task
before us and our descendants is to rebuild once more in Europe a
habitable city for the mind of man; and in designing and reconstructing
it we must take counsel with our predecessors who first found the way of
escape from outward and inward barbarism, doing for and in us what we
would do for and in our successors.

The first and most obvious achievement of the Greek mind was the
deliverance of itself in the sphere of the imagination. Behind the fair
creations of Greek art lies a dark and ugly background, but it does lie
behind them. That was its first conquest. Under the magic spell of Art
the hateful and terrifying shapes of barbarous religion retreated and
the world of imagination was peopled with gracious and attractive
figures. The Greek Pantheon is, for all its defects, a world of
dignified and beautiful humanity. 'No thorn or threat stains its beauty
bright.' On the whole the gods which are its denizens are humanized and
humane, the friends and allies of men, who therefore feel themselves not
abased or helpless in their relations with them. 'Of one kind are gods
and men,' and their common world is one in which men feel themselves at
home. Dark shadows there are, but they hide no mysteries to appal and
unman. The imagination is free to follow its own laws, and so to create
what is lovely and lovable. Language is no longer a tyrant but a willing
and dexterous servant, and the Greek language reflecting, as all
language does, the spirit of its users, is the most perfect instrument
that the human mind has ever devised for the expression of its dreams.
The works which were then created have ever since haunted the mind of
Europe like a passion, and we are right in speaking of them as immortal,
'a joy for ever'.

In such a manner the Greek mind humanized its world, and in doing so
humanized itself, or rather divinized itself, without stretching to the
breaking-point the strands which bound itself to its world. But it did
not stop there, and we do it wrong if we dwell too exclusively on its
triumphant achievements in literature and art. For 'speech created
thought, which is the measure of the universe'. The Greeks were not only
supreme artists but also the pioneers of thought. They first took the
measure of the Universe in which they lived, asserting the mind of man
to be its m