We are Nobler.—Fidelity, generosity, concern for one's good reputation: these three qualities, combined in one sentiment, we call noble, distinguished, aristocratic; and in this respect we excel the Greeks. We do not wish to give this up at any cost under the pretext that the ancient objects of these virtues have rightly fallen in esteem, but we wish cautiously to substitute new objects for these most precious and hereditary impulses. To understand why the sentiments of the noblest Greeks must be considered as inferior and scarcely respectable in the present age, where we are still under the influence of the chivalric and feudal nobility, we must recall the words of consolation to which Ulysses gave utterance in the midst of the most humiliating situations, “Bear with it, my dear heart, bear with it! Thou hast borne with many more swinish things5 than these!” As an instance of this mythical example, consider also the tale of that Athenian officer, who, when threatened with a stick by another officer in the presence of the entire general staff, shook off his disgrace with the words, “Strike, but listen to me.” (This was Themistocles, that ingenious Ulysses of the classical [pg 202] epoch, who was just the man at the moment of disgrace to address to his “dear heart” that verse of comfort and affliction.)

The Greeks were far from making light of life and death because of an insult, as we, influenced by a hereditary spirit of chivalric adventurousness and self-devotion, are in the habit of doing; or from looking for opportunities of honourably risking life and death, as in duels; or from valuing the preservation of an unstained name (honour) more than the acquirement of an evil reputation, when the latter was compatible with glory and the feeling of power; or from remaining faithful to the prejudices and the articles of faith of a caste, when these could prevent them from becoming tyrants. For this is the ignoble secret of the good Greek aristocrat: out of sheer jealousy he treats every one of the members of his caste as being on an equal footing with himself, but he is ready at every moment to spring like a tiger on his prey—despotism. What matter lies, murders, treason, or the betrayal of his native city to him! Justice was an extremely difficult matter for people of this kind to understand—nay, justice was almost something incredible. “The just man” was to the Greeks what “the saint” was to the Christians. When Socrates, however, laid down the axiom, “The most virtuous man is the happiest,” they could not trust their ears; they thought they had heard a madman speaking. For, as a picture of the happiest man, every nobleman had in his mind the cheeky audacity and devilry of the tyrant who sacrifices everything and every one to his own exuberance and pleasure. Among people whose [pg 203] imagination secretly raved about such happiness, the worship of the State could not, of course, have been too deeply implanted—but I think that men whose desire for power does not rage so blindly as that of the Greek noblemen no longer stand in need of such idolatry of the State, by means of which, in past ages, such a passion was kept within due bounds.