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The most substantial result of his exploits, which read more like fable than authentic history, was to spread Hellenism, to diffuse at least a tincture of Greek civilization, together with some acquaintance with the Greek language, over the lands of the East.
The struggle between phalanxes and cohorts, between a mercenary army and a militia, between military monarchy and senatorial government, between individual talent and national vigour this struggle between Rome and Hellenism was first fought out in the battles between Pyrrhus and the Roman generals; and though the defeated party often afterwards appealed anew to the arbitration of arms, every succeeding day of battle simply confirmed the decision.
And all that we have been saying, and indeed any glance at the world around us, shows that with us, with the most respectable and strongest part of us, the ruling force is now, and long has been, a Puritan force, the care for fire and strength, strictness of conscience, Hebraism, rather than the care for sweetness and light, spontaneity of consciousness, Hellenism.
Above and beyond the inadequate solutions which Hebraism and Hellenism here attempt, extends the immense and august problem itself, and the human spirit which gave birth to it. And this single illustration may suggest to us how the same thing happens in other cases also.
The Greek comedy which formed its basis was morally so far a matter of indifference, as it was simply on the same level of corruption with its audience; but the Roman drama was, at this epoch when men were wavering between the old austerity and the new corruption, the academy at once of Hellenism and of vice.
These probably consisted of the low grounds between the Indus and the foot of the mountains the districts of Peshawur, Bunnoo, Murwut, Shikarpoor, and Kurrachee which are now in British occupation. Thus Hellenism in these parts receded more and more, the Sanskritic Indians recovering by degrees the power and independence of which they had been deprived by Alexander.
The highly-organized society of its adherents measured its strength in several sharp conflicts with the Imperial administration, from which it emerged victorious, and it was proclaimed the official religious organization of the Empire by the very emperor that founded Constantinople. The established Christian Church took the best energies of Hellenism into its service.
The nations of our modern world, children of that immense and salutary movement which broke up the pagan world, inevitably stand to Hellenism in a relation which dwarfs it, and to Hebraism in a relation which magnifies it. They are inevitably prone to take Hebraism as the law of human development, and not as simply a contribution to it, however precious.
On the one hand, as Hellas resolved itself into Hellenism, so now Latium resolved itself into Romanism; the national development of Italy outgrew itself, and was merged in Caesar's Mediterranean empire, just as the Hellenic development in the eastern empire of Alexander.
Influenced by Greek civilization, the Jews in turn exercised decisive influence upon their heathen surroundings, and introduced a new principle of development into the activity of the cultivated classes. The Greek translation of the Biblical writings formed the connecting link between Judaism and Hellenism.
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