target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_d0c2607a-89bb-570b-91e7-8a05987bb2d4">[101] As at Megara (Grote, ii, 418).
[102] See Grote, ii, 381, as to the general development.
[103] But cp. Grote, ii, 420, as to the case of Megara.
[104] Grote, ii, 490–94.
[105] Cp. Meyer, ii, 651.
[106] Bury, pp. 183–84.
[107] Eduard Meyer writes of Solon (ii, 649) that "aller Radicalismus liegt ihm fern"; and, two pages later, as to the freeing of the peasantry, that "Hier konnte nur ein radicales Mittel, ein Bruch des formellen Rechts, Hülfe bringen."
[108] Grote (ii, 471) finds this incredible; it is hard to see why. Plutarch (14, 16) is explicit on the point; so also the Athenian Polity, c. 11.
[109] Friends of Solon's in the upper classes took advantage of a disclosure of his plans to buy up land in advance, escaping full payment under his law cancelling debts (Plutarch, Solon, c. 15; Aristotle, Athenian Polity, c. 6). See Plutarch, c. 16, as to the moderation and popularity of Peisistratos.
[110] See below, pt. ii, ch. ii, § 1.
[111] Plutarch, Solon, 13, 29.
[112] As to his tactic in building up a party see Busolt, Griech. Gesch. 1885, i, 550–53. But the panegyric of Peisistratos as a ruler by Messrs. Mitchell and Caspari (abr. of Grote, p. 58) is extravagant. The tyrant is there extolled for the most primitive device of the ruler seeking popularity, the remission of taxes to individuals.
[113] Grote, ii, 468, 496.
[114] Herodotus, v, 66–69.
[115] Plutarch, Solon, c. 24.
[116] Bk. vii, c. 15.
[117] Plutarch, Alcibiades, c. 34.
[118] Grote, ch. 46.
[119] Cp. Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, iv, § 446.
[120] Rev. A.S. Way's translation of Euripides, Medea, 829–30.
[121] Thucydides, ii, 40.
[122] Griechische Culturgeschichte, i, 11; cp. ii, 386–88, 394, etc. And see Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, ii, 727–29, 734, etc. For an able counter-pleading, see the essay of Mr. Benn, "The Ethical Value of Hellenism," in Intern. Jour. of Ethics, April, 1902, rep. in his Revaluations, Historical and Ideal, 1909.
[123] Cp. Fustel de Coulanges, La cité antique, ed. 1880, pp. 260–64; E. Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, ii, 728.
[124] Grote, iv, 489–90.
[125] Thucydides, v, 85 sq.
[126] Cp. Maisch, Manual of Greek Antiquities, Eng. tr. § 66.
[127] Grote, iv, 539. Cp. Thirlwall, i, 181–83.
[128] The view here set forth is fully borne out by the posthumous Griechische Culturgeschichte of Burckhardt. Cp. i, 249–57.
[129] Plutarch, Pericles, c. 17.
[130] Xenophon, Memorabilia, iii, 5, 18. Cp. Grote, iv, 465. As Grote goes on to show, the same general statement holds good of Rome after her victory over Carthage, of the Italian Republics, and of the feudal baronage in England and elsewhere.
[131] Grote, vi, 315–17, 518, rightly insists on the moderation of the people after the expulsions of the Four Hundred and the Thirty Tyrants.
[132] Plutarch, Pericles, c. 17; Grote, iv, 510; T. Davidson, The Parthenon Frieze, 1882, pp. 82–128.
[133] Grote, pt. ii, ch. ii (ed. 1888, ii, 173–78); Freeman, History of Federal Government, ed. 1893, p. 103.
Chapter IV
THE LAWS OF SOCIO-POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT
§ 1
The word "progressive," however, raises one of the most complex issues in sociology. It would be needless to point out, were it not well to anticipate objection, that the foregoing summaries are not offered as a complete theory of progress even as commonly conceived, much less as sufficing to dismiss the dispute[134] as to what progress is, or what basis there is for the modern conceptions bound up with the word. Our generalisations proceed on the assumption—not of course that human affairs must constantly improve in virtue of some cosmic law, but—that by most men of any education a certain advance in range of knowledge, of reflection, of skill, of civic amenity, of general comfort, is held to be attainable and desirable; that such advances have clearly taken place in former periods; and that the due study of these periods and of present conditions may lead to a further and indefinitely prolonged advance. Conceiving progress broadly as occurring by way of rise in the quantity and the quality of pleasurable and intelligent life, we beg the question, for the purposes of this inquiry, as against those who may regard such a tendency with aversion, and those who may deny that such increase ever takes place. Taking
