CHAPTER VI. A RETROSPECT. Brief general statements can hardly avoid some element of error; and advancing scholarship is more and more modifying the sharp contrasts that used to be drawn between peoples. Still, it is helpful to re-survey the Oriental field rapidly from two points of view. 78. Progress. This has been chiefly the point of view in the text, and it is the most important to hold in mind. Egypt gave us the beginnings of art and science, and Chaldea developed material civilization and commercial law. Phoenicia scattered the germs of this progress over much of the Eastern hemisphere, to take root in many places. Persia enlarged many-fold the map of the orderly world, beat back for centuries the danger of barbarian invasion, and organized an effective system of imperial administration. And the Hebrews gave to their pure, lofty religious conceptions a vitality that was to make them sway the world. 79. Limitations. But this progress was imperfect. Art and science became mummy-like through their adherence to fixed patterns. Sculpture was rigid, impassive, and unlovely, even when it did not mix the monstrous with the human. Architecture sought for magnitude rather than beauty and proportion. Most religions, however far they had progressed, continued to foster lust and cruelty. Thought cringed before superstition, and did not seek fearlessly to know. War was unspeakably inhuman and destructive. Government meant the omnipotent despotism of one man and the abject servility of all the rest. Even material prosperity was only for the few. Whether the Oriental man could have thrown off these trammels if left longer to himself, we cannot say surely; but twice as long a time had already been consumed since these civilizations had appeared in full blossom as has since sufficed for all our Western growth; and the relatively slow progress of the East in those four thousand years, together with the stationary history of China and India since, points to a probable crystallization, rather than to further progress, had new actors not appeared upon a new scene. SUGGESTIONS FOR REVIEW OF PART I. Let the class prepare review questions, each member five or ten, to ask of the others. Criticise the questions, showing which ones help to bring out important facts and contrasts and likenesses, and which are merely trivial or curious. Use the syllabus in the table of contents, so as to get clear the plan of this part of the book. It is not worth while to hold students responsible for dates in Part I., unless, perhaps, for a few of the later ones. Make list of important names or terms for rapid drill, demanding brief but clear explanation of each term. PART II. THE GREEKS. Greece-that point of light in history! — HEGEL. We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our art, have their roots in Greece. - SHELLEY. Except the blind forces of nature, there is nothing that moves in the world to-day that is not Greek in origin. — HENRY SUMNER MAINE. MAP STUDIES. Note the three greater divisions: Northern Greece (Epirus and Thessaly); Central Greece (a group of eleven districts, to the isthmus of Corinth); and the Peloponnesus (the southern peninsula). Name the districts from Phocis south, and the chief cities in each as shown on the map. Which divisions have no coast? Locate Delphi, Thermopylae, Tempe, Parnassus, Olympus, Olympia, Salamis, Ithaca, eight islands, three cities on the Asiatic side. Draw the map with the amount of detail just indicated. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY SURVEY. I. THE EUROPEAN AND THE ASIATIC TYPE. 80. Distinctions in Culture. Asia had developed the first civilizations; but, at a later date, an independent and more important culture began to rise in Southern Europe. This new civilization was soon to draw from the Orient in many ways, but it remained essentially European in character. Diversity succeeded to Asiatic uniformity, moderation to extravagance, freedom to despotism. |