GREEK AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS 143 



speed of utterance. The rate of pronunciation must be an unknown 

 quantity: certainly it cannot necessarily be inferred from speed of 

 thought; even if it is true, as Steinthal maintained, that the moderns 

 think quicker than the ancients, this is not a sure guide to the rate 

 of speed of Greek speech. 1 Certain inferences point, however, to the 

 probability of a quick tempo: the abundance of short vowels, the 

 large number of short monosyllables and dissyllables, especially 

 particles (contrast ye with quidem, Se with autem, vero}, 2 the avoidance 

 of hiatus, of which Latin, unlike its descendant French, is careless. 

 We may not err in thinking Attic as spoken with ease and rapidity. 

 Nonnus, 37, 319, says raxvpuOos 'ArQls <cm/iy. Latin may have been 

 uttered more slowly but with greater energy than Attic, though the 

 law of iambic shortening points to some rapidity. The Dorians 

 spoke with deliberation. 



Form 



The varied gifts of the Greeks are reflected by the varied formal 

 means of expression at their command. The abundance of formative 

 suffixes, the extent of the verbal system, 3 the limitless possibilities 

 of composition, mark the exceeding richness of Greek on the purely 

 formal side. The elasticity of the language gives play to the subtler 

 affinities of personality. Sanskrit is equally rich, if not richer, in 

 form; but it stiffened into rigidity: both language and literature are 

 deficient in dramatic quality, in personality. A unity to which every- 

 thing is sacrificed is a dead uniformity. In Greek ossification was 

 prevented in part by the vigorous life of the dialects, many of which, 

 not one merely, were irradiated by the genius of poetry. The formal 

 resources of Greek are applied with a distinctness that is widely at 

 variance with the indiscriminateness of uninflected languages, such 

 as English, which may use the same word as noun, verb, and inter- 

 jection, as in the case of hollo. Regularity in Greek coexists with 

 wealth of form, with freedom of differentiation and of analogy. 

 The larger use of writing, the development of literature, restricted to 



1 Rapidity of Greek thought is indicated by syntactical attraction and assimi- 

 lation which compress the separate members of a sentence; by the swift transition 

 from direct to indirect discourse and the reverse; by the frequency of ellipsis, as 

 of the substantive verb, or when a sentence begins with the impetuous i\\d; bv the 

 frequent omission of either the protasis or the apodosis; by the use of brachylogy ; 

 by the construction vpbs rb ainjMiv6n.tvov; by the innumerable forms of anacoluthon; 

 by the use of various figures of speech such as aposiopesis; by diverse locutions, 



such as dlffff t> Spaaov. 



2 Cf. Demosth. 18, 179, oJ/c tlirov /uiv ravra OVK ypenj>a Se, ovS' eypa^a p^v OVK firpt* 

 ff&evffa 5f, ou5' tirpfffpfvffa. /u/ OVK faeiffa, 6i &i]0aiovs, with Quint. 9, 3, 55, non enim 

 dixi quidem sed non scripsi, nee scrips! quidem sed non obii legationem, nee 

 obii quidem sed non persuasi Thebanis. 



3 In Greek 507 verbal forms are possible, in Latin 143, in Sanskrit 891 ; though 

 as regards the number of forms actually in constant use Sanskrit is not superior 

 to Greek. 



