PROFESSOR MAHAFFY'S WARNINGS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9994, 15 March 1910, Page 7

PROFESSOR MAHAFFY'S WARNINGS.

Professor Mahaffy. the great I authority on all things Grecian, has I some serious warnings for to-day in his new book on "What Have the Greeks Done for Modern Civilisation? "The danger I see before this generation," he says, "is that which came upon the Roman world insensibly and which resulted in a decadeuce not arrested till it sank into the night of the Dark Ages. The liter empire was content to take Greek art and Greek letters at secondhand, and to substitute Latin culture for the models wnich had educaetd their greatest masters. THE HAPPINESS OF A SIMLPER AGE. "So we, too, with ail our science, with our increase of material knowledge, and our restless running to and fro, may sink into an ugly, tame, joyless conglomeration of societies, for whom new discoveries supply hosts of new conveniences, but no return to the happiness and content-.

ment of a simpler age. Our purblind, toothless children may have their congenital defects vamped up by sciencp, and without it we should, indeed, be stranded upon the reefs of despair. But happiness does not lie here."

"What," he continues, "was the remedy adopted by the middle classes (of Greece) to maintain themselves in comfort? An expedient not unknown in this country and for not very dissimilar reasons It was the limitation of families, the avoidance of the duty and cost of bringing up chidren, so that Polybius speaks of it as the signal feature of the Greece of his day, the strange barrenness

that had come upon the once prolific inhabitants of the land. CoulJ I offer you a clearer proof of the modem character of this civilisation? . . . And it may not be out of place to remind you that even with many differences of age, of place, and of ciicumstances, the same moral causes that produce decay in one civilisation are likely to produce it m another." WARNINGS ABOUT MUSIC. When we come to music. Professor Mahaffyhas a stiking waning to give The Greeks believed firmly that "the pactice of music has a direct and powerful effect upon the morals of average men." Our modern music disregards its ethical force. "We have generally assumed that music as such had no influence in moulding morals. We feel that it

may be so in the acessories, that the j constant singing of love duets and , the associating with theatrical com- i panv may do harm and the associa- j ting with seriojs musicians may do ; good; but modern people seem hard- j ly to dream that music such as Wag- j ner's, apart from the words, may ■ have a direct effect upon morals. And i yet it is here that we might have in- ' curred a great and honourable debt to the Greek c , and have used their , wisdom to save our youth from serious danger. This is a conviction not ; of to-day or yesterday, but of forty years standing. LANCELO OR GALAHAD? "I know there are people who think transcendant genius such as that of Napoleon, or. in his way, of Wagner affords a justification, or at least an excuse, for such lawlessness. And you have heard much talk about the Superman, whose main attribute se:iri3 to me infra human when the rights of others are concerned. To me the veritable Superman is not the slave of his own passions, who satisfies them at the expense of others, but the master of himself, who, because he is pure, feels and helps tne weakness of his neighbours. Not Sir Lancelot, but Sir Galahad, is the ideal of chivalry."