106 INDOOR STUDIES 



institutionalism, as opposed to the spirit of individ- 

 ualism. Greek culture centres in institutions, and 

 the high character of their literary and artistic pro- 

 ductions was the expression of qualities which did 

 not merely belong to individuals here and there, but 

 were current in the nation as a whole. With the 

 Greek the state was supreme. He lived and died 

 for the state. He had no private, separate life and 

 occupation, as has the modern man. The arts, ar- 

 chitecture, sculpture, existed mainly for public uses. 

 There was probably no domestic life, no country 

 life, no individual enterprises, as we know them. 

 The individual was subordinated. Their greatest 

 men were banished or poisoned from a sort of jeal- 

 ousy of the state. The state could not endure such 

 rivals. Their games, their pastimes, were national 

 institutions. Public sentiment on all matters was 

 clear and strong. There was a common standard, 

 an unwritten law of taste, to which poets, artists, 

 orators appealed, Not till Athens began to decay 

 did great men appear,, who, like Socrates, had no 

 influence in the state. This spirit of institutional- 

 ism is strong in Matthew Arnold; and it is not 

 merely an idea which he has picked up from the 

 Greek, but is the inevitable outcropping of his in- 

 born Hellenism. This alone places him in opposi- 

 tion to his countrymen, who are suspicious of the 

 state and of state action, and who give full swing to 

 the spirit of individualism. It even places him in 

 hostility to Protestantism, or to the spirit which be- 

 gat it, to say nothing of the dissenting churches. It 



