Such was the Hellenic ideal. And an ideal, need one add, is not an aim that is actually achieved but one beyond our capacity to achieve wholly, that yet gives continuous incentive to higher and nobler effort. This ideal of the possible perfection of man in all his parts is the highest to which man has ever aspired and the Hellenes of the Great Age came the nearest to achieving it. Hence their example has become to succeeding ages Classic. Having this ideal, the Hellenes translated it as far as possible into visible form. No athlete could compete at Olympia unless his body and his character were free from blemish; no statue or temple must be erected except as the finest possible expression of organic perfection. For the beauty involved in the Hellenic ideal is organic beauty. Everything about Olympia, as everything about a Hellenic Temple, must perform its function in the organic beauty of the whole. Further, it is to be noted that in the pursuit of this ideal the Greeks did not rely upon the feeling of the senses, nor yet upon the judgment of the intellect; but upon a union of the two. They submitted the inspiration of the senses to processes of reason. In a word, they intellectualised their sensations. It is this which has made the expression of their ideal Classic. It is not necessary for our present purpose to trace the ebb and flow of the influence of this ideal through the centuries. But we may observe that while the Romans despoiled Hellas of her works of art and imitated, as far as they could, the externals of her ideal of beauty, the Arabs, Moors, and Saracens in later years more intimately imbibed its spirit and gave their own expression to it. Italy, however, in the latter half of the fifteenth century and during the sixteenth, came nearer than any other nation to both the spirit and the form of Hellenic culture. For her scholars and artists were more inclined to emulate than to imitate the example of the Greeks and tried to incorporate the Hellenic ideal into their own lives. On the other hand, the Classical revival which began toward the end of the eighteenth century and has continued intermittently to our own day, has for the most part made the mistake of imitating instead of emulating. Artists have tried to copy the form, without imbibing the spirit. But form so used is like the letter that killeth; without the spirit that giveth life.