Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/160

144 the unbeliever is capable of truly loving a woman, and piety exists forever only at the expense of true humanity.

But to return to our Greek ideal. Ancient Greek life was simple, natural; the Greek life of the future, as the outgrowth of the entire preceding history, will for this reason also prove infinitely more varied, more conscious, and nobler. Womankind also must, therefore, be thought of quite differently from what we see in the figures of Greek women, which are indeed noble and classically simple, but for this very reason also somewhat ‘monotonous and inflexible. Hitherto we have sought for ideals, in the representations of the plastic arts, especially among the ancient Greeks. I am of the opinion that this has been unjust towards a later development, and has too much disregarded the laws of this development. Who doubts that ‘historical life is progressive instead of retrogressive in all directions? And why, even if classic Greece in its specific combination could not repeat itself as a whole, should not individual elements be found in the entire rich field of history which, if a later age should again construct of them a whole, must produce a richer and nobler life than that of the Greeks has been? (We do not even mention here the political anomalies and inhumanities of the Greeks.) It can hardly be contested that we are more advanced than the Greeks, not only in the sciences,