They do, however, claim for "the tyrants" in general that "in the first place their orderly government provided _for the first time_ the conditions which are essential to artistic and literary production. Secondly, it was their policy to foster in all possible ways everything that contributed to the magnificence of the States." If it be meant to include under the head of _tyrannoi_ the early feudal chieftains before whom the bards chanted, the issue is merely confused. If not, the proposition is untenable. If again it be argued that the Mausoleum was a finer thing than the Parthenon, or quite as well worth having, the real issue is missed. It is significant that Grote's anti-rationalistic critics make no attempt to gauge the respective effects of "tyrannic" and democratic or oligarchic rule on the _inner_ life of men, which is what Grote chiefly considered. Neither is this, the vital issue, once faced in the essay of Hegewisch "On the Epoch of Roman History most Fortunate for the Human Race" (French trans. by Solvet, 1834), or in the encomiums of Gibbon, Mommsen, and Renan, before cited (p. 89, _note_). As has been shown above, there is no instance of a new and great intellectual development taking its rise or visibly going forward (save as at Alexandria under the Ptolemies) under the auspices of even a good despot in antiquity; though such a despot might at times usefully preserve the peace and cherish writers and artists. Here, then, is a sociological clue that should be followed. The reasonable inference seems to be that democratic conditions, other things being equal, tend most to elicit human faculty.