One of the most interesting of the contrasts generally drawn between Christian and heathen ethics, is that which concerns the very difficult virtue of SELF-ESTIMATE. “Let every man,” says St. Paul, {230} “strive not to think of himself beyond what he ought to think, but soberly, according as God has divided to every man the measure of faith.” And accordingly we find that in the lives of eminent Christians, as well as in formal treatises on Christian ethics, humility has always had a prominent place assigned to it in the roll of the virtues. But here again we must beware of running into a vulgar extreme, by imagining that the Greeks and Romans knew nothing of this virtue, and that they systematically fostered pride and self-importance. It is no doubt true, as every schoolboy knows, that the word ταπεινός, which in classical Greek signifies _mean_ and _paltry_, in New Testament Greek is used to designate that sort of person who thinks of himself modestly, or, as St. Paul in the verse quoted says, “soberly;” but the mere change in the shade of colour belonging to certain words when passing from Attic into Alexandrian Greek, proves nothing in such a case; and if the matter is to be settled by words, the phrase σωφρονεῖν used by St. Paul, taking the place of the ταπεινοφροσύνη of other passages, is the very word by which the Greek moralists constantly express that golden mean between a high and a low estimate of self, which Aristotle their spokesman lauds as the habitual tone of the perfectly virtuous man. So far indeed was the Hellenic mind from recognising no sin in pride, that it looked upon self-exaltation and ramping self-assertion in every form as not only a great sin, but the mother of all sins. This sin they designated by the significant term ὕβρις--a word which etymologically signifies _beyond the mark_, and which, if it had not already existed, might well have been coined by {231} Aristotle, had he been given, like Bentham, to the pedantry of making a language for himself. “Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum.”