TWO:When we entered the town in our motor-car, those of the unfortunate population who had escaped from the murderous massacre had already left the town. Between the ruins and the deserted French Red Cross cars we drove to the pontoon bridge which the Germans had flung across the river by the side of the Meuse bridge, which had been blown up. Here we were stopped by German soldiers who guarded the pontoon bridge. In a caf we came across a few of the citizens who had remained. These unfortunate people had no home, no money, and no food, lacked the wherewithal to go farther away, and now depended on the charity of the murderers of their relatives. Twice a day they were allowed to call at one of the German stores for a piece of bread, in exchange for a ticket which167 they might get at the commander's office. The Germans, upholders of morality and "Kultur," saw to it that their victims did not overeat themselves.Once more, looking at the whole current of Greek philosophy, and especially the philosophy of mind, are we entitled to say that it encouraged, if it did not create, those other forms of individualism already defined as mutinous criticism on the part of the people, and selfish ambition on the part of its chiefs? Some historians have maintained that there was such a connexion, operating, if not directly, at least through a chain of intermediate causes. Free thought destroyed religion, with religion fell morality, and with morality whatever restraints had hitherto kept anarchic tendencies of every description within bounds. These are interesting reflections; but they do not concern us here, for the issue raised by Hegel is entirely different. It matters nothing to him that Socrates was a staunch252 defender of supernaturalism and of the received morality. The essential antithesis is between the Socratic introspection and the Socratic dialectics on the one side, and the unquestioned authority of ancient institutions on the other. If this be what Hegel means, we must once more record our dissent. We cannot admit that the philosophy of subjectivity, so interpreted, was a decomposing ferment; nor that the spirit of Platos republic was, in any case, a protest against it. The Delphic precept, Know thyself, meant in the mouth of Socrates: Let every man find out what work he is best fitted for, and stick to that, without meddling in matters for which he is not qualified. The Socratic dialectic meant: Let the whole field of knowledge be similarly studied; let our ideas on all subjects be so systematised that we shall be able to discover at a moments notice the bearing of any one of them on any of the others, or on any new question brought up for decision. Surely nothing could well be less individualistic, in a bad sense, less anti-social, less anarchic than this. Nor does Plato oppose, he generalises his masters principles; he works out the psychology and dialectic of the whole state; and if the members of his governing class are not permitted to have any separate interests in their individual capacity, each individual soul is exalted to the highest dignity by having the community reorganised on the model of its own internal economy. There are no violent peripeteias in this great drama of thought, but everywhere harmony, continuity, and gradual development.
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