The first and most obvious achievement of the Greek mind was the deliverance of itself in the sphere of the imagination. Behind the fair creations of Greek art lies a dark and ugly background, but it does lie behind them. That was its first conquest. Under the magic spell of Art the hateful and terrifying shapes of barbarous religion retreated and the world of imagination was peopled with gracious and attractive figures. The Greek Pantheon is, for all its defects, a world of dignified and beautiful humanity. 'No thorn or threat stains its beauty bright.' On the whole the gods which are its denizens are humanized and humane, the friends and allies of men, who therefore feel themselves not abased or helpless in their relations with them. 'Of one kind are gods and men,' and their common world is one in which men feel themselves at home. Dark shadows there are, but they hide no mysteries to appal and unman. The imagination is free to follow its own laws, and so to create what is lovely and lovable. Language is no longer a tyrant but a willing and dexterous servant, and the Greek language reflecting, as all language does, the spirit of its users, is the most perfect instrument that the human mind has ever devised for the expression of its dreams. The works which were then created have ever since haunted the mind of Europe like a passion, and we are right in speaking of them as immortal, 'a joy for ever'. In such a manner the Greek mind humanized its world, and in doing so humanized itself, or rather divinized itself, without stretching to the breaking-point the strands which bound itself to its world. But it did not stop there, and we do it wrong if we dwell too exclusively on its triumphant achievements in literature and art. For 'speech created thought, which is the measure of the universe'. The Greeks were not only supreme artists but also the pioneers of thought. They first took the measure of the Universe in which they lived, asserting the mind of man to be its measure, and it amenable and subject to reason. The world they lived in was not only beautiful to the imagination, it was also reasonable, penetrable, and governable by the intellect. The ways of it and everything in it were regular and orderly, predictable, explicable not eccentric, erratic, baffling and inscrutable. Not only was Nature knowable; it was also through knowledge of it manageable, a realm over which man could extend his sway, making it ever a more and more habitable home. In it and availing himself of its offered aid he built his households and his cities, dwelling comfortably in his habitations. But the thought which enabled him to lay a secure basis, economic and social or political, for his life had other issues and promised other fruit. The Greek mind became interested in knowledge for its own sake and in itself as the knower of its world.