And the greater part of Greek
literature, beginning with Homer and including the tragedians,
philosophers, and, with the exception of the Comic poets (whose business
was to raise a laugh by whatever means), all the greater writers of Hellas
who have been preserved to us, are free from the taint of indecency.
Some general considerations occur to our mind when we begin to reflect on
this subject. (1) That good and evil are linked together in human nature,
and have often existed side by side in the world and in man to an extent
hardly credible. We cannot distinguish them, and are therefore unable to
part them; as in the parable 'they grow together unto the harvest:' it is
only a rule of external decency by which society can divide them. Nor
should we be right in inferring from the prevalence of any one vice or
corruption that a state or individual was demoralized in their whole
character. Not only has the corruption of the best been sometimes thought
to be the worst, but it may be remarked that this very excess of evil has
been the stimulus to good (compare Plato, Laws, where he says that in the
most corrupt cities individuals are to be found beyond all praise).
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