CONCLUSION 365

summoning up of the men and the spirit of the past, it there
was actually no way back, and if the comedians never really
thought of going back, but were pleading for the Ideal of a
pleasant and tranquil life and not for the heroic will to liberty
and the strong public-spintedness of the past? What does
it mean, all this antagonism to the spirit embodied in Euripides
and Sokrates, if the comedians did not spare any of the gods
their bitterest satire, if their criticism might attack everybody
and everything in social and Intellectual life?

There is a second point The spirit of Old Comedy seems
to be characterized by two negative facts : the lack of any clear,
detached and more-than-m dividual standpoint, and the lack
of any uncompromising reverence or respect This twofold
'deficiency' is not simply due to the fact that comedy had to
be comedy. Through all the good-natured or bitter fun of
comedy, there can be heard the voice of serious and funda-
mental convictions. Old Attic Comedy, although the wittiest
kind of entertainment and merry-making the world has ever
seen, was always more than mere entertainment. Just as the
Attic tragedian was more than a playwright, so the comedian
was more than a jester Reflecting as it does the spirit of the
time and the spirit of the community, Old Comedy was at the
same time a product of creative inventiveness and art which
easily became, especially in the later stages, pure subjectivism
and individualism We have touched on this point at the end
of the last chapter Comedy was both a product and an active
factor m an epoch in which the traditional forms of life had
been destroyed without the creation of new ones except within
the realm of pure theory.1 Comedy touched on all classes of
the people, not, like tragedy, from a generally accepted but
remote platform, standing rather In the midst of the people
and the contemporary events and Ideas. The poet, who fought
passionately against the deterioration of democracy brought
about by demagogic leaders, was himself a demagogue.
Frequently he used the very methods for which he blamed the
political leaders — denunciation, overpraise, and appeal to the
greed of the people.2 Witty and serious, rude and flattering,
filled with fantasy and with emotion, Aristophanes, whom once

1 It i . woitli while to compare v, hat Htgc-1 writer in hi^ Ae*thttik (/7V/M I*
562)
5 Seep 28ff