A Study Of Social Heredity As Illustrated In The Greek People Microform

Author : Thomas James Lacey
Publisher : CreateSpace
ISBN 13 : 9781495444012
Total Pages : 76 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (44 download)

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Download or read book A Study of Social Heredity As Illustrated in the Greek People written by Thomas James Lacey and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A review from The Critic, Volumes 20-21: From the beginning of PART I: A survey of ancient Greek life reveals a people among whom the play of centrifugal forces was always so pronounced as to prevent the realization of any kind of national unity. The Greeks are often spoken of as a race rather than a nation. Like Germany in the middle of the last century, and Italy at the Renaissance, Greece was divided into multitudinous, independent city states, each of which was a focus of social, political and intellectual life. The centrifugal factors in Greek life may be classified under three heads: I. The passion for local autonomy. II. The excessive individualism of Greek character. III. The enormous energy of the people, ever seeking outlet in colonization, war and commerce. The earliest political unit of Greece was the city state, which was common to both Greek and Latin. It was the outgrowth of the primitive village community which rested on ties of kin, government, community of land, and worship, but the Greek and Latin city states followed divergent lines of development in accord with the genius of each people. Rome began its true existence as a city state, but the genitis of the Latins for cohesion was the guiding spirit of its advance. "The Latin tribes," says Laurie, "established themselves on the hills about the Tiber, developing the civic life of Latin communities. They formed a union, gradually acquired the hegemony of the Latin race, extended their dominion to the Volsci on the south, the Sabellians on the east, and the Etruscans on the north." The Latin genius was unifying and organizing. The Latin mind took a world view. The Roman poet, expressing the destiny of his people, said: "Let others celebrate the arts and humanities and mould the bronze into breathing shape. Others will be more eloquent. Others will celebrate grander triumphs of chisel and brush. Let others describe the circling movements of the heavens and tell the rising of the stars. Thy work, oh Roman, is to rule the nations, to subdue the proud, to put down the rebellious, to stretch the arm of power over the world. World conquest was the Roman ideal. In Greece, local autonomy was the dominant conception. Grote says: "There is a want of grouping and unity in the early period, and this is to a degree a characteristic inseparable from the history of Greece from its beginning to its end... Nothing short of force will efface in the mind of the free Greek the idea of his city as an autonomous and separate organization. The city is a unit, the highest of all political units, not admitting of consolidation with others to the sacrifice of its own separate and individual mark. Such is the character of the race both in primitive country and in colonial settlements, in their early and late history, splitting by natural fractures into a multitude of self-administering cities. Each city follows its own thread of existence in no partnership nor common purpose with the rest." Political disunion was a settled maxim of the Hellenic mind. "The only unity which Greece ever achieved was the melancholy unity of subjection under all-conquering Rome." The Greek never learned to sacrifice narrow civic interests to the large idea of Hellenic nationality. When Plato undertook the description of the ideal state he drew the picture of a city small, well walled to keep out foreigners, independent, self-sufficing. Aristotle conceived the city state as the highest possible form of social union. The ideal state is wholly able to maintain its own character as a state by itself and for itself. Both writers are at one in their dislike of large political unions.