Again, if the reader will turn to the narratives of the great War of Liberation in Greece, which lasted some ten years of this century (1821-1831), and will study the history of the national leaders who fought all the battles by sea and land, and contributed far more than foreign aid to the success of that remarkable Revolution, he will find that on the one hand they were actuated with the strongest and most passionate feelings of patriotism, while on the other they did not scruple to turn the war to their own profit[150:1]. They were klephts, bandits, assassins. They often took bribes to save the families of Turks, and then allowed them to be massacred. They made oaths and broke them, signed treaties and violated them. And yet there is not the smallest doubt that they were strictly patriots, in the sense of loving their country, and even shedding their blood for it. [Sidenote: Analogous to the case of Demosthenes.] [Sidenote: The end justified the means.] § 62. Let us now come back to the case of Demosthenes. At the opening of his career he would have gladly obtained money and men from Macedon to use against Persia; for Persia then seemed a danger to Greece. Later on, his policy was to obtain money from Persia to attack Macedon; and we are told that in the crisis before Chæronea he had control of large funds of foreign gold, which he administered as he chose. The one great end was to break the power of Macedon. And so I have not the smallest doubt that if he thought the gold of Harpalus would enable him to emancipate Athens, he was perfectly ready to accept it, even on the terms of screening Harpalus from any personal danger, provided this did not balk the one great object in view. Thus the telling of a deliberate lie, which to modern gentlemen is a crime of the same magnitude as taking a bribe, is in the minds of many of our politicians justified by urgent public necessity[151:1]. It is hardly worth while to give instances of this notorious laxity in European public life. Is it reasonable, is it fair, to try Demosthenes by a far higher standard? This is why I contend that it is illogical and unhistorical to argue that because Demosthenes was an honourable man and a patriot, therefore he could not have done what he was convicted of doing by the Areopagus[152:1]. [Sidenote: Low average of Greek national morality.]