MAN AND NATURE 



Age of Pericles established standards that still remain 

 unexcelled. In all the subtleties of thought, we feel 

 that the Greeks had reached intellectual bounds that 

 we have not been able to extend. 



But when, on the other hand, we consider the ma- 

 terial civilization of the two epochs, we find contrasts 

 that are altogether startling. The little world of the 

 Greeks nestled about the Mediterranean, bounded on 

 every side at a distance of a few hundred leagues by a 

 terra incognita. The philosophers who had reached 

 the confines of the field of thought, had but the narrow- 

 est knowledge of the geography of our globe. They 

 traversed at best a few petty miles of its surface on 

 foot or in carts; and they navigated the Mediterranean 

 Sea, or at most coasted out a little way beyond the 

 Pillars of Hercules in boats chiefly propelled by oars. 

 By dint of great industry they produced a really aston- 

 ishing number of books, but the production of each one 

 was a long and laborious task, and the aggregate num- 

 ber indited during the Age of Pericles in all the world 

 was perhaps not greater than an afternoon's output 

 of a modern printing press. 



In a word, these men of the classical period of 

 antiquity, great as were their mental, artistic, and 

 moral achievements, were as children in those matters 

 of practical mechanics upon which the outward evi- 

 dences of civilization depend. Should we find a race 

 of people to-day in some hitherto unexplored portion 

 of the earth did such unexplored portions still exist 

 living a life comparable to that of the Age of Pericles, we 

 should marvel no doubt at their artistic achievements, 



