Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/42

 24 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. over. There is now more leisure to consider all things and contemplate man. But the manner of this con- templation is still shaped by Eoman traits. There is no disinterested quest of knowledge, no full philoso- phy. Since Aristotle, that had hardly thriven even with the Greeks. Philosophy had tended to narrow to a guide of life. The Eoman had never any com- pleter thought of it. He had asked always from his Greek tutors for its practical teachings, by which to conduct his life more satisfactorily. He desired to know for that purpose. Yet in these great imperial times, he wished to know life's full enlightenment in order to conduct it well, if, indeed, not beautifully. He would have the dya^ov, though he never quite felt or knew the koAov. Life still presented itself to the Roman in modes of doing rather than in modes of being. The Greek-enlightened Roman was still self-reliant and self-controlled. But now these qualities were as much the result of philosophic consideration as of native strength of character. He was now self-reliant because his philosophy taught him that the human soul must rely on its own strength. He had not yet conceived that there might be an inner spiritual aid which was not the man himself. He was now self- controlled because philosophy taught him the misery entailed by any other state. He was rational and still relied on reason. Yet incidentally he was superstitious, and reverent still with great force of conservatism. To the close of the Republic the Romans were provincials. In Cicero's time their stiff provincial dignity turned to dignified urbanity, as was natural