happily calls them in his Battle of the Books,—­“the two noblest of things, sweetness and light."[401] The[Greek:  euphuaes] is the man who tends towards sweetness and light; the[Greek:  aphuaes], on the other hand, is our Philistine.  The immense spiritual significance of the Greeks is due to their having been inspired with this central and happy idea of the essential character of human perfection; and Mr. Bright’s misconception of culture, as a smattering of Greek and Latin, comes itself, after all, from this wonderful significance of the Greeks having affected the very machinery of our education, and is in itself a kind of homage to it.

In thus making sweetness and light to be characters of perfection, culture is of like spirit with poetry, follows one law with poetry.  Far more than on our freedom, our population, and our industrialism, many amongst us rely upon our religious organizations to save us.  I have called religion a yet more important manifestation of human nature than poetry, because it has worked on a broader scale for perfection, and with greater masses of men.  But the idea of beauty and of a human nature perfect on all its sides, which is the dominant idea of poetry, is a true and invaluable idea, though it has not yet had the success that the idea of conquering the obvious faults of our animality, and of a human nature perfect on the moral side,—­which is the dominant idea of religion,—­has been enabled to have; and it is destined, adding to itself the religious idea of a devout energy, to transform and govern the other.

The best art and poetry of the Greeks, in which religion and poetry are one, in which the idea of beauty and of a human nature perfect on all sides adds to itself a religious and devout energy, and works in the strength of that, is on this account of such surpassing interest and instructiveness for us, though it was,—­as, having regard to the human race in general, and, indeed, having regard to the Greeks themselves, we must own,—­a premature attempt, an attempt which for success needed the moral and religious fibre in humanity to be more braced and developed than it had yet been.  But Greece did not err in having the idea of beauty, harmony, and complete human perfection, so present and paramount.  It is impossible to have this idea too present and paramount; only, the moral fibre must be braced too.  And we, because we have braced the moral fibre, are not on that account in the right way, if at the same time the idea of beauty, harmony, and complete human perfection, is wanting or misapprehended amongst us; and evidently it is wanting or misapprehended at present.  And when we rely as we do on our religious organizations, which in themselves do not and cannot give us this idea, and think we have done enough if we make them spread and prevail, then, I say, we fall into our common fault of overvaluing machinery.