The fifth century B.C. was not only politically, but also intellectually, the great age of Greece. In the history of thought also it makes an epoch. In it philosophic man for the first time rouses himself from a nightmare of childish guessing and a stupor of helpless wonder at the vast uncomprehended and uncontrolled panorama of external nature. For the first time he consciously realizes that he is the Spectator of it all, that the whole world’s infinite complexity exists in relation to him, and that he has not merely an eye to see but also a mind to devise and a hand to execute, if he but has a spirit to dare, that if he will but strive patiently and resolutely to co-ordinate his powers, he may aspire to control the flux and to divert it into channels conducive to the attainment of his highest ends. To the truth of which man caught his first glimpse then he has never since grown wholly blind again, though its vision has often been obscured by the intoxicants and opiates to the use of which his weakness and his sufferings have degraded him.
This first outburst of Humanism, moreover, was in some respects the greatest of the humanistic eras. For it was the freest and most spontaneous and the least hampered by man-made obstacles. All the later revivals of Humanism have been subsequent to the institution of a learned caste whose academic spirit is always largely occupied with ritual observances for giving his due (and not infrequently a good deal more) to the Demon of Pedantry; and so they have had to live and operate in and upon a more or less unfavourable atmosphere. They could not always succeed in developing their Humanism to the full.
The Humanists of the Renaissance, for example, were doubtless sincere humanists in their intentions. They tried
