Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/486

 480 MUNICIPAL KEGIME DISAPPEAKS. BOOK V. himself nip within himself, to find in himself duty, virtue, and reward. It does not forbid him to meddle with public affairs; it even invites him to aflPairs of Ptate, still warning him, however, that his principal labor ought to have for its object his individual im- provement, and that whatever the government may be, his conscience ought to remain free, — a great prin- ciple which the ancient city had always disregarded, but which was destined to become one of the most sacred rules of politics. Men now begin to understand that there are other duties besides those towards the state, other virtues besides civic virtue. The mind is attached to other objects besides country. The ancient city had been so powerful and so tyrannical that man had made it the object of all his labor and of all his virtues. It had been his standard of the beautiful and the good, and excei^t for that there was no heroism. But now Zeno teaches man that he has a dignity, not as a citizen, but as a man ; that besides his obligations to the law, he has others to himself; and that the supreme merit is not to live or to die for the state, but to be virtuous and to i)lease the Deity. These were somewhat selfish virtues, which left national independence and liberty to fall; but they gave the individual more importance. The public virtues went on declining, while the per- sonal virtues were evolved and came forth into the world. They had at first to struggle both against the general corruption and against despotism. But they became rooted in the minds of men by degrees, and, as time went on, became a power which every govern- ment had to take into account; and it was of the first importance that the rules of politics should be modi- fied, so that a free place might be made for them.