bright.' On the whole the gods which are its denizens are humanized and
humane, the friends and allies of men, who therefore feel themselves not
abased or helpless in their relations with them. 'Of one kind are gods
and men,' and their common world is one in which men feel themselves at
home. Dark shadows there are, but they hide no mysteries to appal and
unman. The imagination is free to follow its own laws, and so to create
what is lovely and lovable. Language is no longer a tyrant but a willing
and dexterous servant, and the Greek language reflecting, as all
language does, the spirit of its users, is the most perfect instrument
that the human mind has ever devised for the expression of its dreams.
The works which were then created have ever since haunted the mind of
Europe like a passion, and we are right in speaking of them as immortal,
'a joy for ever'.

In such a manner the Greek mind humanized its world, and in doing so
humanized itself, or rather divinized itself, without stretching to the
breaking-point the strands which bound itself to its world. But it did
not stop there, and we do it wrong if we dwell too exclusively on its
triumphant achievements in literature and art. For 'speech created
thought, which is the measure of the universe'. The Greeks were not only
supreme artists but also the pioneers of thought. They first took the
measure of the Universe in which they lived, asserting the mind of man
to be its measure, and it amenable and subject to reason. The world they
lived in was not only beautiful to the imagination, it was also
reasonable, penetrable, and governable by the intellect. The ways of it
and everything in it were regular and orderly, predictable, explicable
not eccentric, erratic, baffling and inscrutable. Not only was Nature
knowable; it was also through knowledge of it manageable, a realm over
which man could extend his sway, making it ever a more and more
habitable home. In it and availing himself of its offered aid he built