THE GREEK ATTITUDE 



As we gradually recover the records of the peoples 

 who inhabited the eastern shores of the Mediterra- 

 nean we recognize more clearly that a high state of civ- 

 ilization can be attained in government, literature, 

 art, and religion with, at the same time, almost no 

 knowledge of natural law and with but little interest 

 in physical phenomena. In Greece, in Egypt, and in 

 Asia Minor, even so late as the Homeric period, not 

 only ethical ideas were personified as anthropomorphic 

 gods but also every natural phenomenon was thought 

 of as directed by, and imbued with, a living spirit or 

 minor god. Each spring had its nymph, each tree its 

 dryad, and the winds and waves were controlled by 

 their deities. How far clearly, if at all, men could sep- 

 arate the material nature of the world from these per- 

 sonified forces which they supposed controlled matter, 

 we are unable to imagine. But we find faint indica- 

 tions that there had grown up in the minds of the 

 more thoughtful Greeks the conviction that behind 

 the gods, who were swayed by human emotions and 

 passions, was an unalterable and inexorable Fate 

 which guided the apparently free decisions of the 

 gods on Mt. Olympus in a predetermined path. This 

 idea of Fate may very well have arisen from the ap- 

 preciation, dimly foreseen and shadowy in the be- 

 ginning, of natural forces which acted indifferently 

 to the desires of gods and men. However this may be, 

 we are confronted by the fact that this animistic con- 



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