Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/32

4 the states more complete. Both powers discouraged, and the latter forbade, all combinations. So that along with a loss of real freedom the "liberty" of each separate state, or rather its isolation, became still more pronounced. It was, in fact, the passion for separate existence, rendering effective or enduring union impossible, that greatly accounts for the ease with which the subjugation of the whole race was accomplished by those two powers. It also much restricted the material influence of the Greeks on the course of the world's history. Their great achievement was to prevent the extension of the Persian power into Europe; but they can only claim a very subordinate part in the forward movement of Alexander. Yet they possessed a genius which has conquered the world. Their very passion for separatism gave birth to political science: while in philosophy, in the study of nature, in art, and literature, in nearly everything that affects our spiritual or physical well-being, the Hellenes did work of supreme excellence. In some of these things what they achieved was final, and has never been surpassed. In others, though their conclusions have been superseded by fuller knowledge and wider experience, they yet laid the foundation of a more enduring edifice. It is true that modern discoveries have shown that in many of the arts they had predecessors who lived in the same lands; yet this ancient civilisation at some unknown period met with disaster and dis- appeared. For us it was the Hellenes who took the first steps on the road which has led to the successes of modern thought and science.