608 PROSPECTS OF THE WESTERN CIVILIZATION
The Hellenic Civilization had been distinguished by its relative in-
difference to a quest for economic gain that had become the master
passion of the Western Civilization in the first chapter of its Industrial
Age; and therefore, if, even in the Hellenic World, an observer living in
an age of social recovery had been struck and distressed by the spectacle
of the spiritual impoverishment of his generation through their passion
for material enrichment, the same distressing effect might be expected,
a fortiori, to follow from the working of the same sinister cause in a
demonically acquisitive post-Modern Western Society.

In the last extant chapter of Sublimity in Style the author professes to
be reporting a recent conversation between himself and a philosopher in
which they had been disputing about the causes to which this con-
temporary spiritual decadence was to be ascribed. The philosopher
argues, like Tacitus in his Dialogus de Oratoribus* that the literary de-
cadence in which this spiritual decadence is reflected can be adequately
explained as being a consequence of the loss of political liberty; but this
political explanation is rejected by the author, who sees in it merely an
example of Human Nature's notorious proneness to seek an alibi for
itself by blaming external circumstances. In his alternative explanation
of the spiritual decadence of his day the author puts his finger on the
demoralizing effect of an oecumenical peace. World Peace demoralizes its
beneficiaries by releasing their energies for expenditure on 'total war*
(aarcptopiaros TroXe^os) in the non-military fields of money-malting and
pleasure-seeking, and, in the author's view, as he expounds it, these are
the spiritual maladies that have reduced this generation's spiritual
stature. He raises the question whether the loss of political liberty may
not be a blessing in disguise for a generation that has sunk to so low a
spiritual level; for, if characters like these were given a free hand, an
Ishmaelitish acquisitiveness would bring down a deluge of evils upon
the Oikoumene*.

'One of the cancers (ScwrovcDj/) of the spiritual life in souls born into the
present generation is the low spiritual tension (paQv/jLtav) in which all but
a few chosen spirits among us pass their days. In our work and in our
recreation alike our only objective is popularity and enjoyment. We feel
no concern to win the true spiritual treasure that is to be found in putting
one's heart into what one is doing and in winning a recognition that is truly
worth having.*

These findings of an Hellenic literary critic at some date during the
first spell of a Roman Peace were endorsed, at the dawn of the Modern
Age of Western history, by one of the foremost pioneers of a distinctively
Western scientific spirit. The following passage is to be found in The
Advancement of Learning,2 which was published by Francis Bacon in
A.D. 1605.

'... For as it has been well observed, that the arts which flourish in times
while virtue is in growth, are military; and while virtue is in state, are
liberal; and while virtue is in declination, are voluptuary: so I doubt that
this age of the World is somewhat upon the descent of the wheel. With

1 Cited in V. vL 80-81. 2 Book II, chap, x, § 13,