in Sappho's description of stars paling before the moon Αστερες μὲν ἀμφὶ κάλαν σελάναν in Thucydides' account of the disastrous retreat of the Athenian army from Syracuse in the torrid September of 413 B.C.: "The Athenians hurried on to the river Assinarus. They hoped to gain a little relief if they forded the river, for the mass of horsemen and other troops overwhelmed and crushed them; and they were worn out by fatigue and thirst. But no sooner did they reach the water than they lost all order and rushed in; every man was trying to cross first, and, the enemy pressing upon them at the same time, the passage of the river became hopeless. Being compelled to keep close together, they fell one upon another, and trampled each other under foot: some at once perished, pierced by their own spears; others got entangled in the baggage and were carried down the stream. The Syracusans stood upon the further bank of the river, which was steep, and 1 "The stars around the fair moon hide at once their bright face, when, about her full, she throws her silver light over all the earth." hurled missiles from above on the Athenians, who were huddled together in the deep bed of the stream, and for the most part were drinking greedily. The Peloponnesians came down the bank and slaughtered them, falling chiefly upon those who were in the river. Whereupon the water at once became foul, but was drunk all the same, although muddy and dyed with blood, and the crowd fought for it. At last when the dead bodies were lying in heaps upon one another in the water and the army was utterly undone, some perishing in the river, and any who escaped being cut off by the cavalry, Nicias surrendered to Gylippus, in whom he had more confidence than in the Syracusans. He entreated him and the Lacedaemonians to do what they pleased with himself, but not to go on killing the men." Thucydides indeed is one long instance of this directness, especially in his seventh book, the greatest piece of historical writing in the world: Plato's famous analysis of tyranny, oligarchy and democracy, is another illustration: but all Greek literature is a continuous example of it. The same quality is betrayed in their language. Philosophy (love of wisdom'), history (en17. 84 f. (tr. Jowett). • Republic, 544 ff. quiry'), geography (earth picture'), anatomy ('cutting up")-there is a vividness about these words which are not mere symbols, but living reflections of the ideas they represent. It is the language of pioneers, touched with the freshness of first discovery. So with their philosophical language: contrast in the following characteristic instances the abstractness of English, the concreteness of Greek: Reality-To ov (what is); ideal beauty-avrò Tò káλλos (beauty itself); the cause -To dióT (the on account of which); essential nature—Tò Tí čσT (the what it is); factual character —τὸ ὅτι (the that); relativity—το πρός τι (the in relation to something); the final cause—rò oû čveka (the for the sake of which). Now open, I will not say Kant with his 'transcendental apperception,' 'synopsis of the manifold a priori,' 'teleological physico-theology,' 'intuitable synthesis,' etc., but a modern writer like Dr. Rashdall, who aims at lucidity and simplicity of expression, and note the stock vocabulary of modern philosophy; 'the hedonistic psychology involves a hysteron proteron,' 'dualism of the Practical Reason,' 'Subjective Idealism,' 'Objective Validity,' 'conation,' 'sensationalist,' 'the Absolute.' The Greeks walk on the real earth, or something like it; in modern phraseology we seem to be among unsubstantial cloud-shapes. Let us admit by all means, that this queer jargon is necessary, and has grown up to meet a real need. Still it is an advantage to introduce the student in his early days to the stock ideas of philosophy in a simpler and more concrete form; he will grasp them better if he meets them naked, divested of voluminous folds of language. We shall force him to think what 'reality' and 'relativity' mean when we present them to him as 'what is,' and 'a being in relation to something';1 he will be less able to pick up and retail the phrases like a parrot, for the Greek words have a concrete quality which brings before the mind the idea they represent. Brought up in such a school he will be less likely to use language without thinking of its meaning, and in consequence may avoid the most fatal of blunders-the mistaking of words for things. Whatever they are writing about, be it scenery, a historical event, an abstract problem, some one's character, it is just the same. The Greeks put The English translations I have given sound clumsy and give no idea of the lucidity of the Greek. It is true that Locke and Hume are simpier than more modern writers; but even they have nothing so simple as the Greek phrases quoted above. their subject before us naked, as the spirits in Plato's myth that came before Minos and Rhadamanthus in Hades, to be seen and judged. One can hardly exaggerate the value in education of this quality, which is the property and, in large manner, the charm of Greek literature. It is a perpetual challenge and lesson, voir clair dans ce qui est, to rise out of the mists of abstract language and vague words and journalistic jargon into a region where phrases are less able to masquerade as facts, because the air is clear. People talk of finding something to replace Greek in education. Perhaps they will discover substitutes for the Greek poets; perhaps, though no one has yet told us where they are to come from, they will find another Socrates and another Aristotle. But one thing certainly they will not be able to match-the lucid, transparent atmosphere in which the creations of Greece, in prose or poetry, all move. But, it is objected, after all, the ancients are not ourselves, and in our devotion to them we lose touch with modern thought and modern problems. "Our governing class," urges a critic in the Times, "thanks to the facilities for a classical education existing in this country, know far more about the |