If the time should ever come when men will no longer be led by revelation, when they will reject miracle and prophecy, and determine to be led by the mere light of reason (men have often anticipated such a future, regardless of the fact that hitherto religious scepticism has always ended in a recoil from this liberty, and a revival of positive and even superstitious creeds)--if, I say, such an age should ever lay aside the Christian faith, there will still remain the ethical types which Zeno and Epicurus have crystallised in their systems--there will always remain the man of duty and the man of pleasure, the man who lives for others and he who lives for himself, in terms of modern philosophic jargon, the Altruist and the Egoist, the Spiritualist and the Materialist. * * * * * And here I break off my unfinished task, unfinished indeed as it must be, for beyond the many things that I have omitted though I knew them, there are many more omitted because I knew them not, because I have not fathomed the unfathomable depth and the myriad variety of that genius which is living, and suggesting, and working all through the ideal aspects of our modern life. There are probably few men who have lived longer and more intimately with the old Greeks, in more phases of their life, ever probing and seeking for deeper and better knowledge of their vast legacy to mankind, of which the rodent tooth of time, the sacrilegious hands of men, have lost or destroyed so much. The farther I seek, the wider the vistas I see opening before me. So now, when my part in the race is nearly run, there remains to me no higher earthly satisfaction than this, that I have carried the torch of Greek fire alight through a long life--no higher earthly hope than this, that I may pass that torch to others, who in their turn may keep it aflame with greater brilliancy perhaps, but not with more earnest devotion, “in the Parliament of men, the Federation of the world.” INDEX A Achæan League, organisation and dissolution, 203, 204 _Acontius and Cydippe_, love story of a modern type, 94 Actium, battle, 71 _Æneid_ of Virgil, _see_ Virgil Æolic school, characteristic, 53 Æschylus, source of his tragedy, 36, 37; one of the “three tragic poets,” 47; Milton’s view of, 47; characters of his plays, 48; judge of tragedy, 73; music of, 136 _Agamemnon_: great play, 27; opening of, 48; “vulgar and trivial persons,” 48; contributes to Byron, 55; Browning’s version, 57; often translated into English, 58 _Prometheus Vinctus_: model for _Paradise Lost_, 47 Æsculapius, shrine of, 176 _Agamemnon_, _see_ Æschylus Agatharchus, discovers principles of perspective, 130 Alcæus, poet, 37 _Alexander_, _Life of_, 97 Alexandria, library, collecting of, gives impetus to literary criticism, 91 Alexandrian school, development of mechanics, 162; invention of the _sakia_, 165 _Alkestis_, _see_ Euripides