課題 Throughout this long development,from 600B.C. to the present day, Philosophers have been divided into those who wished to tighten social bonds and those who wished to relax them.
課題 With this difference others have been associated. The disciplinarians have advocated some system of dogma,either old or new,and have therefore been compelled to be,in a greater or less degree,hostile to science, since their dogmas could not be proved empirically.They have almost invariably taught that happiness is not the good,but that"nobility"or "heroism"is to be preferred.They have had a sympathy with the irrational parts of human nature, since they have felt reason to be inimical to social cohesion.
課題 The libertarians,on the other hand,with the exception of the extreme anarchists,have tended to be scientific,utilitarian,rationalistic,hostile to violent passion,and enemies of all the more profound forms of religion. This conflict existed in Greece before the rise of what we recognize as philosophy,and is aleady quite explicit in the earliest Greek thought. In changing forms,it has persisted down to the present day,and no doubt will persist for many ages to come.
課題 It is clear that each party to this dispute―as to all that persist through long periods of time―is partly right and partly wrong.Social coheision is a necessity,and mankind has never yet succeeded in enforcing cohesion by merely rational arguments.
課題 Every community is exposed to two opposite dangers:ossification through too much discipline and reverence for tradition,on the one hand;on the other hand,dissolution,or subjection to foreign conquest,through the growth of an individualism and personal independence that makes co-operation impossible.
課題 In general,important civilizations start with a rigid and superstitious system,gradually relaxed,and leading,at a certain stage,to a period of brilliant geninus,while the good of the old tradition remains and the evil inherent in its dissolution has not yet developed. But as the evil unfolds,it leads to anarchy,thence,inevitably,to a new tyranny,producing a new synthesis secured by a new system of dogma.
課題 The doctrine of liberalism is an attempt to escape from this endless oscillation. The essence of liberalism is an attempt to secure a social order not based on irrational dogma,and insuring stability without involving more restraints than are necessary for the preservation of the community. Whether this attempt can succeed only the future can determine.
CHAPTER 1 The Rise of Greek Civilization
In all history,nothing is so surprising or so difficult to account for as the sudden rise of civilization in Greece.
課題 Much of what makes civilization had already existed for thousands of years in Egypt and in Mesopotamia,and had spread thence to neighbouring countries,
課題 BUt certain elements had been lacking until the Greeks supplied them. What they achieved in art and literature is familiar to everybody,but what they did in the purely intellectual realm is even more exceptional.
課題 They invented mathematics* and science and philosophy;they fist wrote history as opposed to mere annals;they speculated freely about the nature of the world and the ends of life,without being bound in the fetters of any inherited orthodoxy.
*Arithmetic and some geometry existed among the Egyptians and Babylonians, but mainly in the form of rules of thumb.Deductive reasoning from general premisses was a Greek innovation.
課題 What occurred was so astonishing that, until very recent times,men were content to gape and talk mystically about the Greek genius. Itis possible ,however,to understand the development of Greece in scientific terms,and it is well worth while to do so. Philosophy begins with Thales,who,fortunately,can be dated by the fact that he predicted an eclipse which,according to the astronomers,occurred in the year 585 B.C.
課題 Philosophy and science―which were not originally separate―were therefore born together at the beginning of the sixth century. What had been happening in Greece and neighbouring countries before this time? Any answer must be in part conjectural,but archeology, during the present century,has given us much more knowledge than was possessed by our grandfathers. The art of writing was invented in Egypt about the year 4000B.C., and in Babylonia not much later. In each country writing began with pitures of the objects intended.These pictures quickly became conventionalized,so that words were represented by ideograms,as they still are in China. In the course of thousands of years,this cumbrous system developed into alphabetic writing.
課題 The early development of civilization in Egypt and Mesopotamia was due to the Nile,the Tigris,and the Euphrates,which made agriculture very easy and very productive.The civilization was in many ways similar to that which the Spaniards found in Mexico and Peru.There was a divine king,with despotic powers;in Egypt,he owned all the land. There was a polytheistic religion,with a supreme god to whom the king had a specially intimate relation.There was a military aristocracy,and also a priestly aristocracy.The latter was often able to encroach on the royal power, if the king was weak or if he was engaged in a difficult war.The cultivators of the soil were serfs,belonging to the king,the aristocracy,or the priesthood.