To such men the “realities” of the scientists were but shadows behind which lay a more abiding truth. The riddle they desired to solve was what relation the fictional realities of the scientists bore to the abiding truths beyond. And the bolder spirits, spurred on by the great intellectual and emotional flood which followed the Persian wars, started upon the quest. These were craftsmen all—the artists proper. In obedience to some unreasoned desire, these men bethought them to fashion new representations of “the all of things.” They took the ultimate conceptions of life. For example: “Him, who from eternity, self-stirred, Himself hath made by His creative word.” They strove to convey, not only the impressions realised by their brothers, the scientists, but the emotions astir in their own hearts. What matter if the scientists proved these “ideal types” to be mere lies. The artists felt that the unconscious criticism of nature revealed truths far beyond those at which the conscious criticism of science stopped. [Illustration: THE BARBERINE HERA Vatican, Rome] By the middle of the fifth century the Greek artist had realized that his true task was not to strive to copy the known, but, “hungry for the infinite,” to seek the ideal whose home was in the unknown. The inmost revelations vouchsafed to Greek thought and imagination in the fifth century found expression in the great temple statues. Earlier they had been embodied in such poems as the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey.” Later they were to find expression in the dialogues of Plato. But between 450 B.C. and 400 B.C. the natural philosophy of the Greek world was embodied in such sculptures as the “Zeus” of Olympia and the “Hera” of Argos. That is why we call the second half of the fifth century “the golden age of Greek sculpture.” Then, and only then, did it embody _all_ Greek thought; then, and only then, were the workers in marble and bronze inspired to express the passion for physical beauty, the fierce pride in citizenship, as well as the deepest thoughts upon nature and humanity.