Greece, the most intellectual
of all nations of all times, died in mental senility of moral
paralysis. Of Socrates's and Plato's "following after truth" nothing
remained but the gossipy curiosity of a second childhood, living
only to tell or to hear some new thing. And the schools of
philosophy were closed because they had nothing to tell which was
worth the knowing or hearing. All the wealth of the world was poured
into Rome, the home of Stoic philosophy, and it was smothered, and
died in rottenness under its material prosperity.
A family, race, or nation starts out fresh in its youthful physical
and mental vigor and strict obedience to moral law and in its faith
in God. For these reasons it survives in the struggle for existence.
It grows in extent and power, in intelligence and wealth. But with
this increase in wealth and power comes a deadening of the mind to
the claims of moral law, and an idolatrous worship of material
prosperity. The new generation looks upon the stern morality and
industry and self-control of its ancestors as straight-laced and
narrow. Morality may not be unfashionable, but any stern rebuke of
immorality is not conventional. Strong moral earnestness and
whole-souled loyalty to truth are not in good form. Wealth and
social position become the chief ends of men's efforts, and, to buy
these, unselfishness and truth and self-respect are bartered away.
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