Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/350

 THE AMERICA?* JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

of embryo cultures give rise to discussion which, in turn, breeds the spirit of inquiry. Whenever sacred law from being arrested at an early stage fails to develop minuteness of detail, popular saws and maxims fill in and the sagacity of living men replaces the authority of the dead. Hesiod, whose writings became a classic for youth, stands for prudential morality, and recom- mends justice no less than thrift as a means to prosperity. We may be sure that his pungent precepts won their vogue because he was a builder of order as well as a wholesome adviser of farmers. After him the "Wise Men" filled Greece with the fame of certain pregnant moral observations and in the sixth century B. C. the poets, Theognis and Simonides, won great authority by reflections on life which throw many a gleam of light on the natural sanctions of good conduct.

The reflective stage is now reached, and the moral develop- ment of Greece becomes dramatic. The ancient sanctions are crumbling. The Sophists appear and the old reasons for right- eousness are thrown into the melting pot. Hippias declares the laws of the state to be mere arbitrary enactments. Protagoras makes the individual man "the measure of all things," exalts inclination and extols prudence. Socrates, himself a Sophist, puts his trust in individualism, declares virtue a science that can be taught, and believes that all the wicked man needs is more light. The swift collapse of the higher enginery of social con- trol can be traced in the Tragic Poets. In yEschylus morality is backed by the will of the gods; in Sophocles it is supported by a noble intuitive sense of right and wrong; in Euripides it is the conclusion dictated by a sophistical reasoning upon moral questions.

From Aristophanes we learn that in Athens this disintegrat- ing subjectivism led to a serious moral crisis. Philosophy now hurriedly left the problems of the Cosmos to attend to those of conduct. Plato with his subordination of desires to the divine faculty of Reason, and Aristotle with his sublimated gentleman- morality labored earnestly to get a solid foundation for social order. As the problem continued to press, the sunlight van-