INTELLIGENCE AND MORALS 1 



&quot;XT* XCEPT the blind forces of nature,&quot; said 

 * * Sir Henry Maine, &quot; nothing moves in this 

 wj^cjLwhrch is jaot Greek in its origin.&quot; And if 

 we ask why this is so, the response comes that the 

 Greek discovered the business of man to be pursuit 

 of good, and intelligence to be central in this quest. 

 The utmost to be said in praise of Plato and Aris 

 totle is not that they invented excellent moral the 

 ories, but that they rose to the opportunity which 

 the spectacle of Greek life afforded. For Athens 

 presented an all but complete microcosm for the 

 study of the interaction of social organization and 

 individual character. A public life of rich diver 

 sity in concentrated and intense splendor trained 

 the civic sense. Strife of faction and the rapid 

 oscillations of types of polity provided the occasion 

 for intellectual inquiry and analysis. The careers 

 of dramatic personalities, habits of discussion, ease 

 of legislative change, facilities for personal ambi- 



1 A public lecture delivered at Columbia University in 

 March, 1908, under the title of &quot;Ethics,&quot; in a series of 

 lectures on &quot;Science, Philosophy, and Art.&quot; Reprinted 

 from a monograph published by the Columbia University 

 Press. 



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