Once more I must revert to personality, the fundamental value of the
European. In antiquity, even in Greece and Rome, personality in its
higher sense did not exist. The hero was the epitome of all the energies
of the nation, a term for the striving of the community; the statesman
was the incarnate political will of the people; even the poet's ideal
was the representation of the Hellenic type in all its aspects.
Agamemnon was no more than the intelligent ruler, Achilles the
headstrong hero, Odysseus the cunning adventurer. The individual was a
member and servant of the tribe, the town, the state; each man knew that
his fellow did not essentially differ from him; and even at the period
when Hellas was at its meridian the individuals were, compared to modern
men, but slightly differentiated. But the Greek differed from the
Oriental, the barbarian, inasmuch as he felt himself no longer a
component part of nature, but realised his distinct individuality.
We find the first germs of the new creative principle of personality in
the Platonic figure of Socrates who, first of all, conceived the idea of
a higher spiritual love, blended it with the love of ideas and separated
it sharply from base desire. Though his conception was not yet personal
love in the true sense, it was nevertheless a spiritual divine love. The
Greek State could not tolerate him, and sentenced him to death. But this
same Socrates also said (in "Crito") that man was indebted to the State
for his existence. "Did not thy father, in obedience to the law, take
thy mother to wife and beget thee?" This sentiment was as antique as it
could well be, and the death of Socrates--as related by Plato--was the
most magnificent confirmation of the Greek idea that the individual,
even the wisest, was entirely subordinate to the community.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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