persuasion, not blind will and brute force, are the instruments of government. The citizen must, therefore, be versed in logic and eloquence,[801] that he may think correctly and explain clearly and forcibly to others the convictions which determine his own judgment. We have thus a cycle of Greek studies with the reasons on which they were founded. Footnote 796: Plat. de Rep. ii. t. i. p. 112. sqq. Stallb. Cf. Hardion, Dissert. sur l’Eloquence, iii. Biblioth. Academ. t. iii. p. 194. p. 210. sqq. Footnote 797: See Schoel. Hist. de la Lit. Grecq. i. 288. Lowth. Poes. Sacr. Hebr. p. 12. Leipz. Footnote 798: Plat. de Rep. ii. t. i. p. 115. Stallb. On the ardent and noble temperament of Athenian youth, see the note of Valckennaer, ad Xenoph. Mem. iii. 3. 13. p. 286. Schneid. Cf. Plat. de Rep. v. t. i. p. 345. Footnote 799: Aristot. Polit. iii. 4. Footnote 800: Plat. de Rep. v. t. i. p. 393. seq. Stallb. Footnote 801: Plat. Gorg. t. iii. p. 27. De Rep. t. vi. p. 358. sqq. Bekk. With regard to their religious education, which commenced in the nursery and was interwoven with every other study, it may be observed that without it no person at Athens could rise to any eminence, or command, even in private life, the respect of his fellow-citizens. To be in favour with them a man must be supposed to stand well with the gods. They conceived, in fact, that while conscience remained unstifled, there would be a sense of religion, and that when this went, probity, for the most part, and honour fled along with it. For regarding the deity in the light of a parent,—"we are all his offspring,"—irreligion appeared to them something like a disposition to parricide, a compound of injustice with the basest and most atrocious ingratitude. Arrived at this pitch, a man to compass his ends would scruple at nothing. They, therefore, regarded every symptom of impiety as a blow aimed at the democracy, of which Zeus was king. He who tramples on his country’s religion, which is the basis of all its laws, will infallibly, if it be in his power, trample next on those laws themselves, and next on his fellow-citizens whom the laws protect. Hence the terror, the vengeance, and, indeed, the cruelty arising out of the mutilation of the Hermæ, and the profanation of the mysteries, and the prosecution which followed, of Alcibiades, Andocides, and the rest. An attempt had been made to break down that enclosure of reverential sanctity which surrounded the commonwealth, and commended it to the protection of heaven. They considered the act a formal renouncing of the Almighty, and feared,—so imperfect were their notions,—lest the impiety of the few should redound to the detriment of the whole.