them rests, but both modify these traditions and beliefs according
to the light which arises in them, and which is as much moral as
intellectual light. In so doing they are indeed in harmony with the
best instincts of the society around them, but they lead and guide
such instincts and give them shape and definiteness. In the Oresteän
trilogy of Aeschylus we have an ever-memorable assertion of the
supreme claims of human morality to human allegiance, of the eternal
truth that humanity can know no object of reverence and worship except
itself idealised, its own virtues victorious over its own vices, and
existing in the greatest perfection which it can at any given time
conceive. Somewhat the same lesson as that of the Oresteia is taught
later, with more of sweetness and harmony, but not with more force,
in the Oedipus Coloneus of Sophokles. And in Pindar we see the same
tendencies inchoate. Like Aeschylus he does by implication subordinate
to morality both politics and religion. He ignores or flatly denies
tales that bring discredit on the gods; he will only bow down to them
when they have the virtues he respects in man. Yet he, like Aeschylus
and Sophokles, does so bow down, sincerely and without hesitation, and
that poets of their temper could do so was well indeed for poetry.
By rare and happy fortune they were inspired at once by the rich and
varied presences of mythology, 'the fair humanities of old religion,'
and also by the highest aspirations of an age of moral and
intellectual advance. We do not of course always, or even often, find
the moral principles clearly and consciously expressed or consistently
supported, but we cannot but feel that they are present in the shape
of instincts, and those instincts pervading and architectonic.

And if we allow so much of ethical enlightenment to these great
spokesmen of the Hellenic people, we cannot deny something of like
honour to the race among whom they were reared. Let us apportion our