Volume 1

Universities and their sons : history, influence and characteristics of American universities, with biographical sketches and portraits of alumni and recipients of honorary degrees / editor-in-chief, General Joshua L. Chamberlain ; introduction by W.T. Harris.

Date:
1898-1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Universities and their sons : history, influence and characteristics of American universities, with biographical sketches and portraits of alumni and recipients of honorary degrees / editor-in-chief, General Joshua L. Chamberlain ; introduction by W.T. Harris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    bases itself upon familiarity with Greek models. More than this, the flesh and blood of litera- ture, the means of its expression, the vehicles in which elevated sentiment and ideal convictions are conveyed, largely consist of trope and metaphor derived from Greek mythology. Before science and the forms of reflection existed, the first method of seizing and expressing spiritual facts consisted of poetic metaphor and personification. Images of sense were taken in a double meaning; a material and a spiritual meaning in inseparable union. Not only Anglo-Saxons but all European nations, even the ancient Romans, are indebted to Greek genius for this elementary form of seizing and expressing the subtle, invisible activi- ties of our common spiritual self-hood. One can never be at home in the realm of litera- ture without an acquaintance with this original production of the Greek people. More than this, the Greek people, essentially a theoretically inclined race, advanced themselves historically from this poetic personification of nature towards a more definite, abstract seizing of the same in scientific forms. And hence with the Greek race philosophy and science are also indigenous. The Greek language is specially adapted to the function of expressing theoretical reflections, and in the time of the historical culmination of the Greek race, appeared the philosophical thinkers, who classified and formulated the great divisions of the two worlds, man and nature. All subsequent science among European peoples has followed in the wake of Greek science; availing itself of Greek insight, and using the very technical designations invented by the Greek mind for the expression of those insights. This may be realized by looking over the works of Aristotle and taking note of the technical terms and the names of sci- ences derived from him. The theoretical survey of the world in its two phases of development, aesthetical or literary, and reflective or scientific, is therefore Greek in its genesis; and a clear conscious- ness of the details and of the entire scope of that side of our activity, requires the use of the elementary facts — the primitive points of view that belong to the genesis or history of the development of this theoretical survey; just as a biological science explains the later forms as metamorphoses of the earlier. A knowledge of Greek life and literature is a knowledge of the embryonic forms of this great and important factor (the philosophy and poetry) in modern civilization. The Roman contribution to modern civilization is widely different from that of the Greeks. Instead of aesthetic or theoretic contemplation, the Roman chooses the forms of activity of the will for his field of view. He has formulated the rules of civil activity in his code of laws. He has seen the mode and manner in which man must limit his prac- tical activity in order to be free. He must act in such a manner as to reinforce his fellow-men and not lame or paralyze their efforts, and thereby also destroy the products of his own activity by cutting himself off from the help of his neighbors.