t, as it is the
real fruit of the intellectual life, and thus attains to intellectual
clarity; and having learned the best that is known and thought in the
world, lives--it is not fanciful to say so--among the Immortals.[1]

[Footnote 1: Oscar Wilde: _Intentions_, pp. 192-93.]

The student of Greek life knows that the Greeks in their
view of Nature and of morals, in their conception of the way
life should be lived, in their discrimination of the beautiful,
have still much to teach us. He knows, however much we
may have outlived the hierarchy of obedience which constitutes
mediaeval social and political life, we should do well to
recover the humility in living, the craftsmanship in industry,
and precision in thinking which constituted so conspicuous
features of mediaeval civilization. He knows that progress
is not altogether measured by flying machines and wireless
telegraphy. He is aware that speed and quantity, the key
values in an industrial civilization, are not the only values
that ever have been, or ever should be cherished by mankind.

LIMITATIONS OF THE PAST. Along with a sensitive appreciation
of the achievements and values of the past, goes, in
the impartial critic, an acknowledgment of its limitations.
We can appreciate the distinctive contributions of Greek culture
without setting up Greek life as an ultimate ideal. We
know that with all the beauty attained and expressed in
their art and, to a certain extent, in their civilization, the
Athenians yet sacrificed the majority to a life of slavery in
order that the minority might lead a life of the spirit, that
their religion had its notable crudities and cruelties, that
their science was trivial, and their control of Nature negligible.
In the words of one of their most thoroughgoing
admirers:

The harmony of the Greeks contained in itself the factors of its
own destruction. And in spite of the fascination which constantly
fixes our gaze on that fairest and happiest halting place in the secular
march of man, it was not there, any more than here, that he was
destined to find an ultimate reconciliation and repose.[1]

[Footnote 1: G. Lowes Dickinson: _Greek View of Life_, p. 248.]

Again, we know the many beautiful features of mediaeval
life through its painting and poetry and religion. We know
Saint Francis and are familiar with the heroic records of
saintliness and renunciation. We know, the great cathedrals,
the pageantry and splendor, the exquisite ha