Even far more deeply did the lessons of Athenian political life act upon the practical character of the citizen, and train him to be a rational being submitting to the will of the majority, to which he himself contributed in debate, taking his turn at commanding as well as obeying, regarding the labours of office as his just contribution to the public weal, regarding even the sacrifices he made as a privilege,--the outward manifestation of his loyalty to the State which had made him in the truest sense an aristocrat among men. Even when he commanded fleets or armies he did so as the servant of the State; and any attempt to redress private differences by personal assertion of his rights, other than the law provided, was regarded as essentially a violation of his civility and a return to barbarism. To carry arms for personal defence, to challenge an adversary to mortal combat, to take forcible possession of disputed property,--these things were greater outrages and greater violences to civilization at Athens than they are in most of the civilized countries of the nineteenth century. [Sidenote: Its splendid results] To have attained this high level, four centuries before Christ, without the aid of a really pure system of State religion, without the aid of that romantic sentiment which is so peculiar to Northern nations, is to have achieved a triumph which no man can gainsay. Had the Greeks not been subjected to this splendid training, which radiated from politics into art and letters, and which stimulated, though it did not create, that national genius that has since found no rival, all the glories of Hellenism, all the splendours of Alexander's successors, all the victories over Western barbarism would have been impossible. [Sidenote: appear to be essentially transitory,] [Sidenote: from internal causes.]