PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 447

versatile people of antiquity. Their literature, art, and
philosophy are still alive and active. " In spite of many
differences," as Livingstone has said, " no age has had closer
affinities with Ancient Greece than our own ; none has based
its deeper life so largely on ideals which the Greeks brought
into the world." We need not search for any specific facts
out of the Greek creations to illustrate this ; we have rather to
appreciate Matthew Arnold's observations about Sophocles :
The Greeks were a people who ' saw life steadily and saw
it whole ;' their ' even balanced Soul, business could not make
dull nor passion wild/ A deep earnestness leading to scien-
tific experimentalisin was their greatest gift to posterity.
As we have said before, " They had a passion for perfection.
Truth, Beauty, Goodness were for them synonymous. They
tried to realise these in the individual, as well as in Society.
The harmonious cultivation of body, mind and soul was
their ideal. For this they hdd their athletic competitions ;
for this they made endless experiments in political organisa-
tion ; and for this they built up their Academy and Lyceum.1
What has been said about their art is equally true about
their outlook on life as a whole : " The idealism of the
Greek artist consisted in getting the very best he could from
nature and putting it together in the most beautiful way."

The Romans were differently constituted. " While it was
the Greek genius which, in its latter days, rose to conceptions
of the unity of humanity," writes Professor E. Barker, " it
was the Roman genius which translated those conceptions

___into an organised system of life." The Roman had a

passion and gift for organisation. As Virgil sang:
Thou, Roman, shalt remember how to rule,
Lay down the laws of Peace, and teach her ways,
Pardon the fallen, overthrow the proud.

This was what the Roman—througji Republic and Empire