Goethe! Philosophies have come, have gone, and have been succeeded by others. Yet we are to-day no nearer a final solution of the mystery. Codes of ethics have met and are still to-day meeting with the same fate. The world still divides sharply as it has always done; and, even where the old phrases are still employed, each new age reinterprets them to suit its own larger experience. Who shall decide these questions? Time possibly, but certainly no single age and still more certainly no single man, e. g. the reader of the tale at any given moment. Historical research has brilliantly shown that men and opinions may be for generations treated in a manner far above or far below their deserts. The judgment of contemporaries does not necessarily prove anything. Centuries may pass before justice is done and-justice may never be done. What then is the lesson of literature for those who would fain have peace in the world in the years to come? It is essentially the same as the creed of liberalism; and liberalism, we may note, is quite different from tolerance. As Mr. L. T. Hobhouse expresses it in Liberalism: The Liberal does not meet opinions which he conceives to be false with toleration, as though they did not matter. He meets them with justice and exacts for them a fair hearing as though they mattered just as much as his own. He is always ready to put his own convictions to the proof, not because he doubts them, but because he believes in them. For, both as to that which he holds for true and as to that which he holds for false, he believes that one final test applies. Let error have free play, and one of two things will happen. Either as it develops, as its implications and consequences become clear, some elements of truth will appear within it. They will separate themselves out; they will go to enrich the stock of human ideas; they will add something to the truth which he himself mistakenly took as final; they will serve to explain the root of the error; for error itself is generally a truth misconceived, and it is only when it is explained that it is finally and satisfactorily confuted. Or, in the alternative, no element of truth will appear. In that case, the more fully the error is understood, the more patiently it is followed up in all the windings of its implications and consequences, the more thoroughly will it refute itself. In the long run, unless we are willing to look forward to a future of intermittent warfare, the intercourse of men must be made to rest upon the basis of liberalism. Beyond question situations will arise which will involve very nice decisions, decisions about which there may be considerable difference of opinion even among liberals; but here as in natural science experimentation will teach. Within reasonable limits of safety to the body-politic and body-social the widest and most varied laboratory work is desirable. However learned I may be, however expert in my field, I am not omniscient, nor can I possibly pronounce, as time perhaps will pronounce, upon the merit of a proposal in which I do not myself believe. Paradoxical as it may seem, if I am a sincere seeker for truth, I shall help my antagonist to put his case in the most favorable light and coöperate with him in securing an opportunity for putting his theory to the test. I shall do this because I am convinced that his theory will not work, and that the sooner it is demonstrated that it will not work, under conditions which he himself chooses as being especially favorable for success, the better for my own position. At what, then, should we teachers of the Classics aim, first, at all hazards, for ourselves, secondly, in such measure as may be possible, for our students? To put the answer briefly, the great authors -I beg you to note the adjective the great authors, who because they possess the divining faculty of genius have something to say of permanent value on the philosophy and problems of human life, these great authors should be our intimate friends, known as such, as real personalities. There is a solidarity of mankind which transcends time and space. Despite all the difference between the ancient and the modern world, Plato speaks to us to-day no less intelligibly and with no less compelling power than John Stuart Mill, Vergil with no less power to make us feel the mystery of life than Wordsworth. Of this be sure: we may be able to translate our author, Lucretius, for instance, with absolute correctness from cover to cover; we may have at our fingers' ends the whole history of his text, his sources, his peculiarities of diction and syntax. But if this knowledge be, so to speak, dicotyledonous, if we do not understand and appreciate in terms of life the meaning of these facts, as an expression of the pathos of human life and the saving power of reason by an extraordinarily noble and virile personality, then we shall miss the finest part of the gift of literature. Others, but not we, shall know Lucretius as a thoughtful friend, shall widen the circle by including in it the other shining names of Greece and Rome and their great successors in the centuries that since have passed, and shall by daily intercourse with so many-sided a company come into that largeness of vision and wide sympathy which is real wisdom. And of wisdom it is still true, as it was in the days of Solomon, that "her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace". Iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum cuique tribuens. The conception of justice thus expressed in the opening words of the Institutes of Justinian has gained ground but slowly, as one may see, for example, by considering the four thousand years of human activity that have elapsed since the promulgation of the enlightened Code of Hammurapi. But, granted the presence of the voluntas, actively constans et perpetua, there yet remains the all-important question, by whom the ius cuiusque shall be defined, by the giver or by the receiver. From this root have sprung those countless conflicts in which with the noblest intentions men have granted, or rather imposed, receive if he (still unchangeably A.) were in B.'s situation. Voilà la comédie humaine-tragique! For B., having achieved his ius as he himself defines it proceeds then to deal with C. (who agrees with neither A. nor B.) in precisely the same spirit in which A. has dealt with him. Few, indeed, have been the successful rebels against constraint who have not in turn been eager to constrain. But literature, which is the mirror of life and therefore of man's infinite variety, will yet with the help of philosophy and history-for the help of these two disciplines is indispensable for the full comprehension of the portrayal-make it clear to every open mind that the individual does not and can not acquiesce in another's definition of his ius, and that in the future control must be exercised rather over the conditions amid which he develops his personality than over this development itself. For personality can no more be permanently enchained than could Proteus of old. A Classical Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Biography, Geography and Mythology. Edited by H. B. Walters. 580 Illustrations. Cambridge: at the University Press (1916). $6.00. Although the number of Classical Dictionaries in the various languages which serious students of the Classics are supposed to be able to use is already a large one, there is always room for a good manual of the kind, of moderate compass, in English. The one before us is about as brief as a work covering so wide a range of subjects can reasonably be expected to be, it is well printed, and it is handsomely and adequately illustrated. The only real test of such a book is actual use and the reviewer has therefore kept a copy at his elbow for some weeks and has consulted it frequently. He has found it on the whole very satisfactory and he offers a list of criticismis primarily as evidence of good faith, to show that his review is not based upon a perfunctory examination. The marking of the Latin quantities is erratic; at least the reviewer can discover no principle on which long vowels are marked or left unmarked. Italia is surely wrong, if we recognize Quintilian as an authori.y. If villicus is to be written (the spelling is wrong and the quantity dubious with that orthography), why not vīlla, lūstrum, tēcta, etc.? One might fairly ask that readers of Horace should have their needs met by a book of this kind, but one looks in vain for oenophorus (Serm. 1.6.109; see American Journal of Archaeology 13.30 ff.), for larva as a mask (Serm. 1.5. 64), for Tigellius, and for quinquevir (Serm. 2.5.56). Those whose reading goes farther will miss essedarius in the sense of a kind of gladiator, the various metaphorical uses of canis, pulvinar in the meaning seen in Suetonius, Augustus 45.1 and Claudius 4.3, Latinitas as a quality of, style, and inferiae. The last word, strangely enough, does not appear in Marquardt's Index, although it finds a place in that of Volume 4 of Müller's Handbuch. It may well be (in some cases is) the fact that these words are mentioned incidentally, as is cryptoporticus under crypta, but some at least are important enough to be given a special heading, even though only a cross-reference be added. Naturally, not all the articles are of equal merit. That on Satura seems especially defective; the Menippean satire is not mentioned at all (nor is Monippus) and Petronius does not belong in the list of satirists. The same general criticism may be passed upon the article cursus honorum, while to make libertina synonymous with hetaera seems rather of the nature of a slander. The description and the representation of the cotylus (cotyla) are exceedingly dubious; see Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 2.89 ff. To say that Suetonius's "other works than the De Vita Caesarum> are all lost" is a slight exaggeration, seeing that their remains, with the translation, occupy over a hundred pages in the Locb Library. We all have our 'taboos' and the reviewer is moved to such wrath by designations like "G. Iulius Caesar" and that ilk, that he begs for space to say a word or two on a subject some aspects of which seem to be neglected in our books of reference. We all know that C. and Cn. stood for Gaius and Gnaeus, but G. and Gn. never became good usage. In Ricci's excellent little handbook the former is relegated to the provinces, from the second century onward. One therefore shies at "G. Suetonius Tranquillus", "G. Plinius", etc., in a book of this class. The English translation of C. Iulius Caesar is Gaius Julius Caesar, and to the reviewer "C. Caesar" and "M. Cicero" are an abomination in an English rendering. They do not occur in this Dictionary, but that they are tolerated in our Schools seems evident from the number of students who habitually use such expressions and by the growing number of those who actually do not know for what the abbreviations stand; experto crede. Consistency in the use of the forms proper to Latin and to English respectively is not easy, although it is child's play compared with a similar consistency in pronunciation, but it should be observed at least by scholars and by teachers. UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. JOHN C. ROLFE. THE CLASSICAL WEEKLY is published by The Classical Association of the Atlantic States, weekly, on Mondays from October 1 to May 31 inclusive, except in weeks in which there is a legal or School holiday, at Barnard College, Broadway and 120th St., New York City. All persons within the territory of the Association who are interested in the language, the literature, the life and the art of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, whether actually engaged in teaching the Classics or not, are eligible to membership in the Association. Application for membership may be made to the Secretary-Treasurer, Charles Knapp, Barnard College, New York. 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HAR GE The Entire Language at Four Glances The eight parts of speech, outlined in full with forms, rules "At a glance the student can see the essential parts of Latin Grammar” -Frank T. McClure, Teacher, Allegheny High School, Pittsburg, Pa. Adopted for general class-room use by teachers in over sixty regular High Schools Handy in Form The four charts, each 14x18 inches, appear on th four double pages of a 10-page Price per copy, 40c 10% discount on orders of I dozen or over. : JOHN C. GREEN, Jr. Latin Instructor, BLAIR ACADEMY BLAIRSTOWN, N. J. |