This book was written for the common John and Joan who is at least 20 years of age. Different people in different epochs wrote down most of the stuff that is in this book. However, a good idea here and there will show you nothing, as a touch of a painter here and there will not give you an understanding about the entire picture. Only when this painter systematizes his touches and put them in order, only then you will have the total picture.

The purpose of the 1^st book is to explain to you the chain of notions that links the social sciences with the science of the movements of the planets and the formation of the elementary particles that bind the evolution of man to Mother-Nature or Father-God. The social evolution is shown through the examination of the ever-evolving moral values of the upper, middle, and lower classes. Here I try to clarify to you your long-run interests in this ambivalent world.

A. Inductive Method

The cradle of science, as we know it, was the Mesopotamian region with its Sumerian population, from who derived contemporary Iraqis and Syrians. The simple counting was developed under the pressure of practical needs. The Sumerians, probably as all ancient men, had started counting from the use of the fingers and toes to check their goods. The word digit means not only the numbers 1, 2, 3... but also a finger or toe. Such use of fingers and toes had developed the decimal system of counting (counting in tens, tens of tens, tens of tens of tens, etc.). The position of a digit in the number determines the value it represents, and this value is a multiple of 10, of the square of 10 (10´10, or 10²), of the cube of 10 (10´10´10, or 10³), and so on, depending on the position of the digit. The Babylonians introduced 60 as the base value; the Europeans used this system until the 16^th century when the Arabs taught them the decimal system developed by the Hindus. The base sixty system still survives in the division of angles and hours. Computer science prefers the base eight system as the best for computer languages.

It is not necessary to use 10 as a base. The Maya used to use the base twenty system, probably combining the fingers and toes of a human being. In fact, it can be any whole number. If people would have eight fingers on their hands, then we would probably have the base eight system that need just eight symbols: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 0. To indicate the quantity eight we would write 10, where the 1 now means 1 times eight, just as the 1 in the 10 means 1 times ten. Nine in the base eight would be 11. Ten would be 12. Sixteen would be 20. Seventeen would be 21. Sixty-four would be 100 or 1 times (8 times 8)+0 times 8+0 units. The relevant addition and multiplication tables would change too. Thus, 7 plus 5 would be 14, and 5 times 6 would be 36.

The number zero is required to take advantage of the place value principle, because there has to be a way to distinguish 708 from 78. The Babylonians used a special symbol to separate the 7 and 8 in the 708, but did not recognize that the symbol could be treated as a number. They did not realize that zero indicates quantity and could be added and subtracted. They did not realize that zero is not just nothing. If the Yankees have not played with the Marlins, then the score was nothing. However, if they had played and failed miserably, then the score was zero.

The ancient Babylonians realized that quality is different from quantity, that two apples, two boats, and two oxen have common quantity – two. This development of the idea of quantity as separate from the idea of quality (abstraction) was the third major invention in the history of humankind after the fireplace and wheel. Each individual goes through a similar schooling intellectual process of mentally breaking numbers from their physical objects. You can imagine how difficult this process has become that even today some nomadic people, while selling several animals, will not take a lump sum for the herd but must be paid for each animal separately. They would definitely suspect such a whole-buyer in cheating.

The Sumerians also invented the four elementary operations with numbers: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. In the earliest records of the Babylonians and Egyptians are already well-developed number systems, some algebra, and simple geometry. It is probably that the idea of angle came from observations of the elbows and knees. In many languages, the word for the sides of an angle is the word for legs. In English, we speak of the legs of a right triangle, thus bringing into mathematics not only the anatomy but also the moral. Thus, science became political and politics became scientific.

The Greek word ‘geometry’ means ‘earth measure’ and the word ‘hypotenuse’ means ‘stretched against,’ apparently against the two legs of the right angle. For the ancient peoples a plane was just a surface of a piece of flat land. They were practical people and despite the low level of their technology, it is amazing how close to ours they came in their measurements. For instance, the Egyptians knew how to measure the volume of granaries and they counted the area of a circle as 3.16 times the radius squared. However, the Egyptians did not develop convenient methods of working with numbers, particularly fractions. They would reduce a fraction to a sum of fractions in each of which the numerator was unity. Thus, they would write 7/16 as 1/4 plus 1/8 plus 1/16 before the computation. Consequently, they were not as good in algebra as the Babylonians. However, they were excellent geometers, probably because the welfare of the ruling class had been severely dependent on the just proportion in taxing the constantly changing the land on the banks of the Nile. Each Egyptian peasant was receiving a rectangle of the land of the same size and with appropriate taxation. If he would lose some of it due to the annual overflow of the river, then he should report to his priest who would send the clerks to measure the loss and make a new apportioning of the peasant’s tax.

On the other hand, the Babylonians were highly skilled irrigators who had dug canals between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, making to support the thriving populous cities in that hot and dry climate. Their clay tablets show letters of credit, promissory notes, deferred payments, mortgages, and the apportioning of the business profits. They were less politically integrated than the Egyptians were and consequently relied more on their canals as the means of communication and on their commercial ties with neighbors comparatively with the Egyptian reliance on the priesthood and state bureaucracy. The Babylonian ruling classes had produced not only high quality engineers but also the builders of the States. Their systems of laws (the code of Ham-Mu-rabi, for instance) were published nearly seven centuries before Moses "received" his Ten Commandments. Moses made only some minor adjustments in the code of Ham-Mu-rabi, to accommodate it to the needs of his semi-nomadic people.

Ham-Mu-rabi emphasized the laws against perjurers as the most severe transgression against the law and society itself. This system of the laws gives the prevalence to the rights of society over the rights of individual. From this system of the laws, the contemporary inquisitorial system of criminal procedures was derived. Moses only reemphasized the prevalence of the rights of the society over the rights of the individual. However, he reflected the shift of interests and he gave the prevalence to the interests of the upper class, which rather preferred to protect life and property than to say the truth. Shortly, Ham-Mu-rabi emphasized the ‘don’t lie’ over the ‘don’t kill and don’t steal’. Moses, on the contrary, emphasized the ‘don’t kill and don’t steal’ over the ‘don’t lie’. Only the Greeks and Romans, who achieved marvelous success in building the middle-class, came up with a really new system of laws, from which derived the contemporary adversarial system of criminal procedures that gives the prevalence to the rights of individual over the rights of society.

Before the Babylonian and Jewish (inquisitorial) systems of the laws, there was the system of private family vengeance (vendettas) in a tribe, in which the victim of a crime acquired and executed a remedy privately, either personally or through a family member. Thus, the inquisitorial system of criminal justice was the direct and extreme response to the system of private vengeance. The right to initiate legal action against a criminal has been extended to all members of society (represented by the public prosecutor). The police had been exclusively bestowed with the pretrial investigative functions on behalf of society (including the victim and suspect). This exclusive power of the executive (particularly, military) branch of a government in the extreme aristocracy tends to turn into the absolute monarchy (like in France under Louis the XIV). In the case of the extreme democracy, the domination of the military bureaucracy tends to turn into the totalitarian communistic or fascistic regimes (like the communism in Russia and China under Stalin and Mao or like the fascism in Italy and Germany under Mussolini and Hitler).

Under the inquisitorial system, the prosecutor has the additional duty, besides the duty to investigative on behalf of society and victim. This additional duty consists not only in gathering evidence against the defendant, but also evidence that could prove his innocence. The European inquisitorial system explicitly prescribes that both sides have full pretrial discovery of the evidence in their possession. It also mandates that the judge takes an active role not only in the procedural part of the trial, but also in the fact-finding part. This concentration of the procedural and fact-finding powers in one hand often leads to the abuse of power.

On the contrary, the Greco-Roman system of the laws, which bolsters the American adversarial system of criminal justice, although gives the police the pretrial investigative functions on behalf of the society, still leaves the defendant and the private accuser to conduct their own pretrial investigation. Although the trial could be viewed as a forensic duel between two adversaries, there is a presiding judge who, at the start, does not know the investigative details of the case but has plenty of knowledge of the procedural laws, and there is a jury who are the real fact-finders. Such division of the work of the court is designed to counterbalance the possible abuse of the judicial power.

The inquisitorial system emphasizes the fact-finding. This system operates on the premise that in a criminal action the crucial factor is the body of facts, not the legal rules. It misses the simple anthropological fact that an observer changes the behavior of the system that is being studied by his own presence in the system. The social experience shows that the body of facts and the legal rules has equal importance for social justice and happiness of population.

Historically, the inquisitorial system develops from the system of private vengeance; and they both complete in the adversarial system of justice. On the first glance, the adversarial system seems as a backward step in the development of the social justice system; on the second glance; however, this step was in the right direction to the Golden Mean Rule, leaving behind the two extremes of the earlier systems.

I tried to show some implications of the Egyptian and Babylonian science, because it would be a mistake to look at the practical implications of science and leave out of sight its ideological implications. Those people who believe that science has only utilitarian value often neglect or degrade the value of art, philosophy, and religion. That kind of people thinks that if science was applied to irrigation, navigation, or calendar creation, then the creation of science itself was motivated only by the practical (short-sighted) problems. "After it means because of it," is the type of fallacy they usually make.

By centuries, men (usually from the ruling class who had free time, from making a living, and could afford to be obsessed with the mysteries of Mother Nature or Father God) patiently observed the movement of the sun, moon, and stars. These men gradually overcame the lack of instruments to distill from their observations the patterns of the heavenly bodies described. These Egyptians and Babylonians learned that the solar year (the year of the repetitive seasons) consists of about 365 days. They also observed that the star Sirius appeared at dawn on the day when the annual flood of the Nile reached Cairo. It probably took millennia to chart the Sirius’ path in order to predict the next flood, because their calendar of 365 days was a quarter of a day short of the correct solar year. After several years, their calendar would no longer predict when Sirius would appear at dawn. Their calendar would agree with the position of Sirius again only after 4´365=1460 years; and this Sothic cycle of 1460 years was known to the Egyptians. Such millennia-long regularities had to be recognized before they could be practically applied. Once the regularities learned, the people would live according to them – they would be fishing, hunting, sowing, reaping, and dancing as the heavens dictated. Moreover, the particular constellations would get their names according to the activities they forecasted: Sagittarius – the hunter, Pisces – the fish, Cornucopia – the horn of plenty.

Predictions of the Nile flood or a holiday even a few days in advance required an accurate knowledge of the movements of the heavenly bodies. The ruling class of priests, knowing the importance of the calendar for the regulation of daily life, capitalized on this knowledge to secure their power over the illiterate masses. The priests probably knew that the real solar year has 365 and 1/4 days in duration but made secret out of it for the rest of the public. The commoners would think that the priests had the power over the powers of nature if they could predict when the commoners should temporarily remove their homes, equipment, and cattle from the area that would be flooded. The priests would set it up with the rites and the commoners had to pay for it in the form of tax.

Science and knowledge were, are, and will be the power. From extra-terrestrial point of view, there is no difference, who has been cashing on the science. The Egyptian priests capitalized on the knowledge of macro-cosmos; the contemporary computer wizards and tycoons (the Bill Gates type) are capitalizing on the knowledge of micro-cosmos. However, from the terrestrial point of view of a member of a human society, the lack of knowledge breeds the ideological mysticism in the ruling class, spiritual poverty in the middle class, and political slavery in the lower class.

It is a common sense to associate the position of the sun, moon, planets, and stars with human affairs. Our common sense perceives that the crops, mating, and menstrual periods depend on or are controlled by those heavenly bodies. Thus, the lack of more precise knowledge leads the proud and cunning priests not to confess in ignorance but to construct immeasurable and unverifiable theories. For the Egyptian mystics, their theoretical prescriptions were essential for the future life of the dead and they accordingly constructed their pyramids and temples. For instance, the temple of the sun god at Karnak faces directly the setting sun at the summer solstice. On that day, the sun illuminates the rear wall of the temple and it is the perfect moment for the priests to display their power over the natural forces to the simpletons.

The Babylonian mystics were intrigued by the properties of numbers (particularly, three, six, and seven). They assumed that the universe was constructed in seven days. That is how we have our week. Their cabala illustrates how far the mystics were willing to go to explain the cosmic mystery in terms of numbers. The idea was that each letter of the alphabet should be associated with a number. Each word was associated with the number that was the sum of the numbers attached to the letters spelling the word. If two words have the same number, then they related. This theory was used to make predictions about someone’s death. If the man’s name coincided with the name of his newly undertaken enterprise, then, his death could be prophesied.

Because the Egyptians and Babylonians had scanty means of communication, the ruling class could easily monopolize the sciences in order to make the commoners revere, worship, and pay them. The ruling class is the state and corporate bureaucracy. A bureaucracy is always the bureaucracy first, and then, more or less the monarchical or republican bureaucracy. The restrictions on the means of transmitting knowledge are the only way to monopolize science that nobody would be able to challenge the power of bureaucrats. Thus, the Egyptian bureaucrats had been "destined" to be replaced not by the insider-revolutionaries, but by the outsider-Greeks who developed the better means of communication (alphabet, for instance) and science in general. That is why the ruling class is ruling, because it was able to better organize itself and communicate with each other (inside and outside of a nation). It is a class because it has an interest distinctive from the rest of the public – to keep the majority of a nation in their own disposal.

Sociologists, in general, accepted two basic divisions of humans – by race and by ethnicity. From physiologists came the notion that human evolution depends primarily on the physical environment. Therefore, they use a variety of measuring techniques in their observations, as in archaeology and anthropology, by examining differences in human physical characteristics. Those sociologists who draw human evolution primarily from culture and intellect (as the cultural anthropologists do), emphasize social aspects of human life (such as language, behavior, and beliefs). Trying to understand human beings and their organizations, the physical anthropologists classify people according to race – by visible physical characteristics, such as color of skin, shape of nose, eyes, ears, and hair. On the other hand, the cultural anthropologists group people into smaller units, which they call ‘ethnic groups’. The word ‘ethnicity’ is derived from the Greek word ethnos that literally means ‘nation’. Therefore, I define the ‘ethnic groups’ as the ex-nationals. The ethnic groups are the groups of individuals whose ex-nation ceased to exist or it has no jurisdiction over the territory and people among whom these individuals live in present. Add to this definition of the ethnic groups my definition of a nation as a class society, and you have a few starting instruments to work out your salvation with.

Sociologists include a number of ethnic groups into each racial group. However, those sociologists are mainly in the service of the upper class; therefore, both of their distinctions (racial and ethnic) deal with relatively minor differences among humans. Biologically, all peoples belong to a single species (Homo sapiens). It is most likely that humans originated in one narrow geographic area and in a particular distant period. Then, over a very long period, the earliest people migrated over the Earth taking advantage of land bridges, climatic changes, and other geologic events. As land areas moved and weather changed, people in different parts of the world became relatively isolated. A process of selection gradually caused each group to develop protective physical characteristics and social organization suitable to the survival of a group in its particular environment. And the leaders of these "ethnic" groups usually use those minor physical variations of the members of the different groups as the basic mean to discern "own" from "strange", "alien", "foreign". Thus, they used to use to divide people and to instigate hatred between them. ‘Divide and conquer’ was, is, and will be their motto. Therefore, you, commoners, better be knowledgeable about their main weapon and be preparing to stand your own ground if you do not wish to be the "innocent" dupes and the ‘cannon fodder’ in their schemes.

Too much has been said about the profundity of the ancient peoples and their marvelous temples and pyramids. However, most scholars agreed that the Egyptian and Babylonian scientists had one major defect, namely – their conclusions were based on the purely inductive method. For instance, if an Egyptian clerk was ordered to divide an area of a land into 100 square meter parcels, shaped in rectangles, and with the cost of fencing as low as possible, then what would be his modus operandi? He would probably lay out a rectangle with 100 square meters of area by using such dimensions as 50 by 2 with 104 meters in perimeter, then 25 by 4 with 58 meters in perimeter, then 10 by 10 with 40 meters in perimeter. He needed to find out the smallest perimeter. Since the possibilities were infinite, he could never try them all; so, he could not determine the best choice. The clerk could suspect that the square 10 by 10 meters has the smallest perimeter, however, he would not be sure that it is so. His trial-and-error method with proceeding from one experiment to another and gathering facts that would lead him to a likely conclusion that of all rectangles with 100 square meters of area the 10 by 10 meters square has the least perimeter. His experience with rectangular areas would support his conclusion, and he would probably pass it down to posterity as a veritable, reliable, scientific fact. But what about rectangles with area of 50, 175, 320, 1410, and so forth, square meters? Would he do the experiments repeatedly? This method of proving something is very, very time-consuming. Actually, such a method stimulates our patience, not our genius.

Essentially, the inductive method consists in proceeding from a simple idea to the complex one or in concluding that something is always true based on a limited number of experiments. Suppose a person has had bad experiences with dentists, and he concludes that all dentists are horrible people. So, his conclusions, obtained by inductive reasoning, appear based on facts; however, they are not established beyond reasonable doubt because there is always a possibility to find the fine, decent, and skillful dentist. There are some limitations to inductive reasoning. For example, living in New York, we cannot inductively conclude what the effect might be of a nuclear bomb being detonated on top of us. We also cannot inductively conclude what effect it may have on the entire society if our legislators adopt an untried law.

Inductive reasoning can follow many routes, and the common one is by analogy. For instance, the Egyptians believed in immortality, but they did not conceive the soul as something that might be separated from the body. Thus, they reasoned by analogy that if a living person needed food, drinks, clothes, and tools, so did a dead one. Therefore, they accordingly stuffed their tombs with those things. Reasoning by analogy is useful, but it is long way from observing squids to the construction of rockets. Reasoning inductively or by analogy might be based on the facts of experience and might be entirely correct; however, the obtained conclusion is not certain or beyond reasonable doubt. If the certainty is indispensable (as it is in the case when we would like to know beyond reasonable doubt if an airplane with 500 passengers on board would fly or fall to earth), then the inductive methods have little practical merits.

Nevertheless, there is a method of reasoning, in which the Greeks made a solid deposit and, with which today, we can be sure beyond reasonable doubt in our conclusions. And this type of reasoning is usually known as 'deduction'.

In his Dialogues, Plato uses many names, but usually his mouthpiece is Socrates; his counterparts I will call – the Sophist. In the Representative Men, Socrates asks the Sophist: "What do you consider to be the greatest blessing which you have reaped from wealth?" The Sophist answers that wealth enables him to be generous, honest, and just. Then Socrates asks him what he means by Justice; for nothing is more difficult than to give and clarify a definition. Then Socrates breaks all offered definitions until the Sophist blows his top with a roar: "if you wish to know what Justice is, you should answer and not ask, and should not pride yourself on refuting others... For there are many who can ask but cannot answer". Nevertheless, Socrates continues to provoke him and the angry Sophist gives the next Nietzschean definition:

"Listen, then, I proclaim that might is right, and Justice is the interest of the stronger... The different forms of government make laws, demo-cratic, aristo-cratic, or auto-cratic, with a view to their respective interests; and these laws, so made by them to serve their interests, they deliver to their subjects as ‘justice’, and punish as ‘unjust’ anyone who transgresses them... I am speaking of injustice on a large scale; and my meaning will be most clearly seen in autocracy, which by fraud and force takes away the property of others, not retail but wholesale. Now when a man has taken away the money of the citizens and made slaves of them, then, instead of swindler and thief he is called happy and blessed by all. For injustice is censured because those who censure it are afraid of suffering, and not from any scruple they might have of doing injustice themselves."

In the Gorgias, the Sophist denounces morality as an invention of the weak to neutralize the strong.

"They distribute praise and censure with a view to their own interest; they say that dishonesty is shameful and unjust – meaning by dishonesty the desire to have more than their neighbors; for knowing their own inferiority, they would be only too glad to have equality... But if there were a man (like the Nietzschean Superman) who had sufficient force, he would shake off and break through and escape from all this; he would trample under foot all our formulas and spells and charms, and all our laws, that sin against nature... He who would truly live ought to allow his desires to wax to the uttermost; but when they have grown to their greatest he should have courage and intelligence to minister to them, and to satisfy all his longings. And this I affirm to be natural justice and nobility. But the many cannot do this; and therefore they blame such persons, because they are ashamed of their own inability, which they desire to conceal; and hence they call intemperance base... They enslave the nobler natures, and they praise justice only because they are cowards... This justice is a morality not for men but for foot-men; it is a slave-morality, not a hero-morality; the real virtues of a man are courage and intelligence." Plato, Republic (p. 336-344), Gorgias (p. 483).

"Let us consider what will be their [the communards, VS] way of life [definitely, not gay, VS].... Will they not produce corn, and wine, and clothes, and shoes, and build houses for themselves? And when they are housed they will work in summer commonly stripped and bare-foot, but in winter substantially clothed and shod. They will feed on barley and wheat, baking the wheat and kneading the flour, making noble puddings and loaves; these they will serve up on a mat of reed or clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds of yew or myrtle boughs. And they and their children will feast -- drinking of the wine, which they have made; wearing garlands on their heads; and having the praises of the gods on their lips. They will live in sweet society, having a care that their families do not exceed their means; for they will have an eye to poverty or war.... Of course, they will have a relish – salt, and olives, and cheese, and onions, and cabbages or other country herbs which are fit for boiling. And we shall give them a dessert of figs, and pulse, and beans, and myrtle-barriers, and beech-nuts, which they will roast at the fire, drinking in moderation. And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them." Plato, Republic, p. 372.

Here we can perceive Plato’s concept of population control (by the infanticide of the feeble, on the Spartan manner), the vegetarianism, and the ‘back-to-nature’ motive. However, Plato is not a naive teenager to rest upon this idyllic picture. He asks himself a question: "Why is it that such a simplicity or this Utopia has never come?" He answers – because of greed and luxury, because men are not satisfied with a simple life. They are jealous, competitive, acquisitive, and ambitious. They soon tire of what they have, and desire for what they have not. The result is the encroachment of one group upon the territory of the rivals. A war begins. The new necessities quickly display, and demand is high. To supply the army, trade and finance develop, bringing a sharp class division. – "Any ordinary city is in fact two cities, one that city of the poor, the other of the rich, each at war with the other." An industrious middle class arises; its members seek higher social positions through new wealth – "they will spend large sums of money on their wives". The new distribution of wealth leads to political changes – wealthy traders and bankers prevail over the land-owning aristocracy and rule the State. Thus, aristocracy gives way to plutocracy (from Greek, ploutos means ‘wealth’ and crates – ‘rule’).

Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle. Aristocracy ruins itself by the excessive limiting of the inner circle of power. Plutocracy ruins itself by the excessive scramble for immediate wealth, mired in the successive row of corruption scandals. In either case, a revolution comes. When a body is weakened by neglected ills, the merest exposure may bring serious disease. So does the revolution; it may spark from a slight and petty occasion (like the French revolution, which sparked from the petty joke of the queen – "If the people have not enough bread, let them eat cakes".) Although a provocation may be petty, the causing wrongs are always strong and the result is always grave. Then the excessive democracy comes – the poor overcome their opponents, slaughtering some and banishing the rest. Although the extreme democracy gives the people an equal share of freedom and power for a short period, it also ruins itself by the insistence on its basic principle – the numeric equality. People are differ in quality, have different interests and abilities. The insistence on the equal right of all to hold office and determine the governing agenda becomes disastrous because the people are not properly equipped by education to select the best rulers and the wisest courses. To get an issue across (to get it accepted or rejected), it is only necessary to switch the public opinion by praising or mocking it in a popular spectacle; thus, the real power transfers to the media (the news-and-gossips-mongering people). As to the people they have no understanding of the real state of affairs and have to repeat the gossips. Mob-rule is a rough sea for the state ship to ride – every wind of oratory stirs up the waters and deflects the course. The offspring of such a democracy is tyranny or autocracy. The crowd so loves flattery and so eager for it that at last the most cunning and unscrupulous flatterer, calling them ‘conscious’ and himself ‘protector or father of the people’ rises to supreme power. Thus, the vicious circle of evolution is moving on with occasional disrupting revolutions.

Plato amazes that whereas in simpler matters, like shoe-making, we think that only a specially trained person will serve our purpose, in politics we assume that every one who knows how to get votes knows how to govern a city or a State. When we ill, we do not ask for the most eloquent or handsome physician; we call for a specifically trained and competent one. Then, when the entire State is ill, should we not look for the service and guidance of the wisest and the best? To devise a method of barring incontinence and corruption from public office and selecting the best to rule for the common good – that is the most important political problem.

However it may be, Plato sees behind these political problems the nature of man. To understand politics, we must understand the motives or interests of man. States are made out of the humans and the governments vary as the characters of men vary. Therefore, we should not expect to have a better State unless we have better men. Until then, the progress would be halt and the simple evolution would flow. Plato sarcastically examines our interests, with which the politicians must deal:

"How charming people are! – Always concocting and complicating their disorders, imagining they will be cured by a quack, recommended them by somebody to try, never getting better but always worse... Aren’t they as good in legislation, imagining that by reforms they will stop the dishonesty and fraud of mankind – not knowing that in reality they are cutting away at the heads of a hydra?" Plato, Republic (p.425)

According to Plato, the human interests flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. Desire includes impulse, instinct, and appetite. Desire has its seat in the loins; it is a bursting reservoir of energy, essentially sexual. Emotion includes spirit, courage, and ambition. Emotion has its seat in the heart, in the flow and force of the blood; it is the organic reaction of experience and desire. Knowledge includes thought, intellect, and reason. Knowledge has its seat in the head; it is the eye of desire, and can become the pilot of the soul.

These abilities are all in all men, but in different degrees. Some men are but the enlightenment of desire; acquisitive and restless, they submerge in material quest. They burn with lust of luxury and show. They rate their gains always as nothing compared with their neighbors. These men dominate and manipulate industry. Those emotional, whose temple of feelings is courage, who care more about victory, parades, and uniform than about real interests behind those battles, those are the army men. They are rather pugnacious than acquisitive; rather have pride in power than in possession, rather joy on the battlefield than in the market place. In addition, there are the few knowledgeable, whose delight is in meditation and understanding; who leave out both marketplace and battlefield to devote themselves to the clarification of thought; who wish rather truth than power or money. These are the sages.

The individual action is effective only when desire (warmed with emotion) is guided by knowledge. So, in the Perfect State, the industrial forces would produce but they would not rule. The military forces would protect but they would not rule. The forces of knowledge would be protected and nourished (by the military and industry), and they would rule. Unguided by knowledge, the people are a chaotic multitude, like the sheep without a shepherd. The people need the guidance of ideologists as desires need the enlightenment of knowledge. Ruin comes when the trader, whose heart beats madly by the sight of wealth, becomes ruler; or when the general uses his army to establish a military dictatorship. The trader is at his best in the economic field and the warrior – in the battlefield, because they have studied their respective sciences and dedicated their lives to their professions. However, the science of leadership includes in itself all the other sciences because a human community is an organic body, the smallest part of which should not be neglected; therefore, it is also a profession, which requires life-long dedication.

To profess means to declare publicly, to announce, affirm, and avow. To declare publicly about one’s devotion to the common interests is a moral act, because it is not just a reflection of a private interest. To dedicate oneself to a profession means not just have a livelihood. A profession engages one’s brightest abilities and long-range common interests not just his short-range private necessities. One must live for it and desire it, be prepared and competent; only such an individual should guide a nation. One must find his life-long goal or the meaning of his life; only then he will have life-long passion and self-discipline, which derived from desire (inborn or cultivated). External discipline (like a policeman with a nightstick, or a jail-keeper with a key, or a doctor with a fancy diet) will not be useful for a professional man in the long run. Cutting to the chase, the tangible question is - who will watch the watchman?

Unless wisdom and political leadership meet in one person, the State will never healthy.

So, the problems are set, what are the solutions?

Plato advises to people that if they really wish to live in a Perfect State, then they should start sending all teenagers into the country site schools to protect them from the ill habits of their parents. The Perfect State cannot be built if the youth is corrupted by the bad examples of their parents. The youth must be brought up from a clean (as it possible) slate. From the outset, to every child must be given the equal educational opportunity, because there is no way to predict where the talent and genius will break out. These abilities should be impartially searched in every class and race. Preteens should receive predominantly physical education in a gymnasium and on a playground; their entire curriculum must be compiled from sporty events; that will support their health in the rest of their lives and medicine will not be necessary. The present system of medicine only perpetuates diseases because it is not preventive. It is better to die than to spend the whole life in nursing a disease for the amusement of the quacks. The nation of a Perfect State will not afford to have malingerers and invalids.

However, the mere athletics and gymnastics would make children too one-sided, too courageous. To teach them gentleness and justice, Plato recommends music as a medium, because the soul learns harmony, rhythm, and even a disposition to justice. Music molds character, and thus shares in determining social issues. When modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State change with them. Music not only refines feelings, but also preserves and restores health. Because most diseases are the result of malfunction of the mind, they can be treated through the repair of the mind. Thus, a priest treated hysterical women with wild pipe music that excited them to dance until they exhausted and fell sleepy to the ground; when they woke up, they were cured. The unconscious behavior is touched and soothed by such methods; and only in the unconscious state of mind, the genius reveals himself. No man when conscious attains to true or inspired intuition, but rather when the power of intellect is overridden by disease or some kind of deprivation. That is why a prophet or genius appears to a commoner like a lunatic.

Sport and music provide health and grace to the soul and body; but again, too much music is as dangerous as to much athletics. Being merely an athlete is being nearly a savage and being merely a musician is being nearly a bleeding heart liberal. Sport and music must be combined and taught until the students are sixteen years old, though choral singing, like communal games, will go on through life. Music must be used to attract students to such boring disciplines, as mathematics and history. There is no reason why these studies should not be beautified and smoothed with music and song. And in the free society it is the only way to give the appropriate education to the youth, because your instructions should be presented to the mind in childhood, but not with any compulsion; for a freeman should also be a freeman in the acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge that is acquired under compulsion has no hold on the mind. Therefore, Plato advises do not use compulsion, but let early education be rather a sort of amusement; this will better enable you to find out the natural apt of the child.

We also can get some clues about their abilities by deciphering their dreams. It is well known that certain desires are supposed to be unlawful; every person appears to have them, but in some of us, they are subjected to the control of law and reason. If in a person the necessary and good desires prevail, then the unnecessary and bad desires are reduced in strength and number or entirely suppressed. Under the bad desires, Plato means those desires...

"Which are awake when the reasoning and taming and ruling power of the personality is asleep. The wild beast in our nature, gorged with meat and drink, starts up and walks about naked, and surfeit at his wish; and there is no conceivable folly or crime, however shameless or unnatural (like incest or patricide) of which such a nature may not be guilty... In all of us, even in good men, there is such a latent wild beast, which peers out in our sleep. But when a person’s pulse is healthy and temperate... having indulged his desires neither too much nor too little, but just enough to lay them to sleep, ... he is then least likely to be the sport of fanciful and lawless visions." Plato, Republic, p. 571.

Understanding of our dreams leads to understanding of our desires (interests) and respective abilities. The clear understanding of our interests leads us to understand our rights and obligations to our neighbors. However well the liberal education may be, it will be in vain without the knowledge of rights and duties. The members of the Perfect State must be united and integrated; they must understand that they are members of one family and have rights before others and duties toward others, and engage their abilities and knowledge respectively.

However, if people are jealous, competitive, acquisitive, and erotic by nature, how they all can be the freemen or brothers and sisters? Do the freemen need the police? If yes, are they free then? The only method to police them not externally but internally, the people must have a religion (a common ideology).

Religion means ‘gathering together’; and Plato believes that a nation cannot be united and strong unless its people believe in God. The idea of a mere cosmic force, a Big Bang, or Mother Nature, that is not one, is not person, could hardly inspire hope and sacrifice. Such idea could neither offer comfort to the broken hearts nor inspire courage in the battered souls. However, the idea of a living God can do all this; it can deflect or frighten the selfish person, moderate and bring under control his bad, antisocial desires. Moreover, if the belief in God is combined with the belief in personal immortality, then the hope of another and better life gives the person courage to meet his own death and to bear firmly the absence of his loved ones. One is twice armed who fights with faith.

Of course, none of the beliefs can be demonstrated. After all, our God may be only our personified ideal of our hope and love, and our soul may cease to exist (like music that dies with the musician who gave it form with his instrument). Nevertheless, it will do us no harm to believe in our God and immortality. Yet, it may do us immeasurable good because, as the believers, we do not need the police and large bureaucracy to maintain order among us.

Therefore, the mathematics, astronomy, and music must be taught to our children until their twenties because we are likely to have trouble to explain all we know if their minds are too simple. After the age of twenty, our children should go through a ruthless and impartial test, which should be not only theoretical but also practical. Every kind of ability should have a chance to show itself, and every sort of stupidity should be brought to light. Those who failed should be assigned to the economic work of the nation; they should be the farmers and factory workers. Those who passed this first test should receive ten more years of training of body, mind, and character. Then should come the second test, far severer than the first one. Those who failed should become executive aids (clerks, engineers, teachers, physicians) and military officers.

Those who passed the second test should receive ten more years for education in the leadership. They should learn to think clearly and to rule wisely. The essence of this higher education is the search for the first principles, axioms, generalizations, and laws of development. Those who passed this training should become the scientists and theoreticians. However, the latter should be tested by the concrete world. These theoreticians should compete with the cunning businessmen, hardheaded grasping individuals; in this marketplace scramble, they should learn to apply their knowledge and abilities for fifteen long years. Those who survived, scarred and fifty, sobered and self-reliant, shorn of scholastic vanity by the merciless friction of life, and armed now with the knowledge and experience of tradition and culture – those should become the rulers of the Perfect State.

For Plato, democracy means equality of opportunity, especially in education. Every person shall have an equal chance to make himself fit for the complex tasks of governing, but only those who have proved their abilities, character, and knowledge, shall be eligible to rule. Public officials shall be chosen neither by votes, nor by secret cliques pulling ropes behind the democratic scene. Nor shall any person hold office without specific training, or hold high office until he has first filled a lower office well.

His critics argued that it looks like aristocracy. Plato replied that if the people wish to be ruled by the best (that is the essence of aristocracy) but without the hereditary form of aristocracy, then they would rather call it an aristocratic democracy. There is no caste here; no inheritance of the public position or is privilege; no stoppage of talent lowly born; the son of a ruler begins on the same level, and receives the same treatment and opportunity, as the son of a shoemaker. If the ruler’s son is dull, he will be sifted at the first test; if the shoemaker’s son will show his abilities, character, and knowledge, he will become a ruler of the Perfect State. Career will be open to talent wherever it is born. This will be democracy by essence but with aristocratic form, which will be displayed by learning alone. By leadership, Plato means an active culture, wisdom that mingles with the concrete activity of life; he does not mean a closeted and impractical theoretician.

The rulers will dedicate themselves entirely to the maintenance of social freedom and will not do any work that contradicts to this goal. The ruling class will be the legislator, executor, and judge all together in one, because the flexible and speedy ruling sometimes requires changing the rules (laws) quickly, depending on the alternating circumstances. The ruling class should not have any property beyond what is necessary for the simple life with ever evolving standards of decency. They should receive from the citizens a fixed rate of pay, enough to meet the expenses of the year. They should have common meals and live together, like soldiers in a camp. If they ever acquire homes or lands or businesses of their own, they will become housekeepers and husbandmen instead of governors, enemies and tyrants instead of the allies of commoners.

This arrangement will make it unprofitable and even dangerous for the rulers to govern like a band seeking the good only for their class alone rather than that of the entire community. Thus, the vain ambitions of the rulers will be neutralized and their power made without poison; their reward will be in the sense of their necessity to the community, and corresponding fame and honor; they will value their high reputation more than material wealth. The rulers will have no wives; thus, they will be freed not only from the egoism of self, but also from the egoism of family. The ruler should not be devoted to a particular woman with his children but to the entire community. There should not be a gender barrier in such a community and least of all in education – boys and girls should have the same intellectual opportunities, the same chance to rise to the highest positions in the Perfect State. When the Sophist rejected this proposal on the assumption that it violates the principle of the division of labor between genders, Plato replied that division of labor must be by abilities and character, not by sex. If a woman showed herself capable and willing of political administration, let her rule. If a man showed himself capable and willing only of washing dishes, let him fulfill the function to which God and Nature has assigned him.

If we get such good results in the selective cattle bringing with the desired qualities with the breeding only from the best in each generation, Plato argued why should we not apply similar principles to the mating of humankind. For it is not enough to educate the child properly – he must be in the first place properly born of select and healthy ancestry; therefore, the sexual education should begin of before the impregnation and pregnancy. Therefore, the health certificates will be required of every bride and groom. Men may reproduce only when they are between 30 and 45 years old, women – between 20 and 40. Before and after the specified ages of procreation, mating should be free, on conditions that it is healthy and if there would be a fetus, it has to be aborted. Offspring, born of unlicensed mating, or deformed, should be left to die and his parents should be exposed. The marriage of the close relatives should be prohibited, as inducing degeneration.

The perfect society must be protected not only from disease, degeneration, and destruction within, but also from enemies without. The community should restrict its population within the means of subsistence and therefore be pacific; but if the neighboring States would not manage their birth control, they would necessarily plunder the prosperous State. Therefore, the State must have a sufficient number of well-trained soldiers, who will live simple life like the rulers. Every precaution must be taken to avoid the occasions of war. The primary occasion for a civil or international war is over-population; the second is trade, with the inevitable competition and disputes.

Therefore, in the political structure of the Perfect State, the small class of rulers should govern the larger class of soldiers and administrative aids. The latter, in their turn, should rule the broadest agricultural, commercial, and industrial population. This last or economic class will retain private property, private mates, and private families. To soften and moderate the competition among them, they will be regulated to prevent excessive individual wealth or poverty; any individual acquiring more than four times the average possession of the citizens must relinquish the excess to the State or unprofitable organizations. In the perfect society, each individual will have his work (to which his abilities, character, and knowledge best adapted), and not just a job to make a living. The rulers will maintain the harmonious, well-adjusted whole, which will be a Just State. So, what is Justice?

At last, Plato ventures to define it: "Justice is the having and doing what is one’s own". It means that an individual is just when he is well adjusted to his society; and a society is just when it harmoniously adjusts all its individuals in itself. Each man should perform the function for which he fits best and receive what he deserves. A just man is the well-adjusted man who is doing his (right) work in the right place and in the right time. A society of just men would be a highly efficient and harmonious community, for every individual would be in his (right) place, in his (right) time, and fulfilling his (right and appropriate) function like the members of a perfect orchestra. So organized, the society is fit and likely to survive.

Because if the members are out of their right places (when a businessman would replace a soldier or the latter would usurp the position of a ruler), the cooperation, integration, and coordination among them are destroyed; the society decays, disintegrates, and dissolves. Therefore, the social justice is the effective coordination of its parts; and the individual justice is his well adjustment to his neighbors. Every individual is a chaos or an order of desires, emotions, and ideas; let them be harmonious, and the individual survives and succeeds; let them go astray, and disintegration of personality begins and failure is inevitable. The individual justice is an order for the healthy soul and is the same as Beauty for the healthy body.

The upper class morality or the morality of masters was brought to the southern Europe on the spears of the Aryan tribes, who later become known as the Greek and Roman conquerors. Later, other waves of the Aryan nomads (the Germans and Litu-Slavonians) disseminated this moral to the rest of Europe. The moral code of the upper class was reflected by such poets as Homer, Vergil, and anonymous authors of the Song of Roland and the Song of the prince Igor.

These poems-codices were preserved by the upper classes of the Greeks, Romans, French, and Russians, respectively, as the main uniting means, which indicated and clarified for those classes their long-run interests. While reading aloud the following passage from the 2^nd book of Vergil's Aeneid, you can feel how, in violence, were molded the main moral values of the upper class of the Greeks and Romans -- bravery and loyalty.

"Pantheus, Apollo’s priest, a sacred name,
Had escaped the Grecian swords, and passed the flame:
With relics laden, to my doors he fled,
And by the hand his tender grandson led.
‘What hope, O Pantheus? Whither can we run?‘
Where make a stand? and what may yet be done?’
Scarce had I said, when Pantheus, with a groan:
‘Troy is no more, and Ilium was a town!
The fatal day, the’ appointed hour, is come,
When wrathful Jove’s irrevocable doom
Transfers the Trojan State to Grecian hands.
The fire consumers the town, the foe commands;
And armed hosts, an unexpected force,
Break from the bowels of the fatal horse.
Within the gates, proud Sinon throws about
The flames; and foes for entrance press without,
With thousand others, whom I fear to name,
More than from Argos or Mycenae came.
To several posts their parties they divide;
Some block the narrow streets, some scour the wide:
The bold they kill, the careless they surprise;
Who fights finds death, and death finds him who flies.
The warders of the gate but scarce maintain
That unequal combat, and resist in vain.’
"I heard; and Heaven, that well-born souls inspires,
Prompts me through lifted swords and rising fires
To run where clashing arms and clamor calls,
And rush undaunted to defend the walls.
Ripheus and Iph’itus by my side engage,
For valor one renowned, and one for age.
Dymas and Hypanis by moonlight knew
My motions and my mien, and to my party drew;
With young Coroebus, who by love was led
To win renown and fair Cassandra’s bed,
And lately brought his troops to Priam’s aid,
Forewarned in vain by the prophetic maid.
Whom when I saw resolved in arms to fall,
And that one spirit animated all:
‘Brave souls!’ said I, - ‘but brave, alas! in vain -
Come, finish what our cruel fates ordain.
You see the desperate state of our affairs,
And heaven's protecting powers are deaf to prayers.
The passive gods behold the Greeks defile
Their temples, and abandon to the spoil
Their own abodes: we, feeble few, conspire
To save a sinking town, involved in fire.
Then let us fall, but fall amidst our foes:
Despair of life the means of living shows.’
So bold a speech encouraged their desire
Of death, and added fuel to their fire.
"As hungry wolves, with raging appetite,
Scour through the fields, nor fear the stormy night -
Their whelps at home expect the promised food,
And long to temper their dry chaps in blood -
So rushed we forth at once; resolved to die,
Resolved, in death, the last extreme to try."

These moral values were accepted as the universal standard of the upper class, especially among the Romans; for the Roman upper class, the main virtues were manhood (enterprise), courage (bravery), and loyalty (patriotism). The Romans not only conquered, but also consolidated and organized the conquered. They have had no aptitude for mathematics, but they built aqueducts that last for two millennia. Though they were not notable political theoreticians, as the Greeks were, they organized a complicated yet stable (for a century) federation (union), in witch Italy had been loyal to them in the presence of invading armies.

The Romans strongest authority was the custom of predecessors. The body of Roman laws is one of their greatest contributions to the present urban culture. The character Romans most admired was purposeful, grave, and serious attitude; and their highest words of recommendation were manly, disciplined, and industrious. On the other hand, Pericles praised Athenians for their adaptability, versatility, and grace. This praise would sound strange to the Roman upper class, because Pericles referred his praise to the middle class dominated Athenians.

The heroic poems, like those of Homer's and Vergil's, are ideological works of the great artists, whose souls were bound by the interests of the upper class and were the reflections of those interests. The goal of the authors of heroic poems is to lead the minds of others to heroic virtues of the upper class through the beautified examples.

A particular example must not necessarily show the manner of a hero to be virtuous; however, in their entirety, these examples are a poetic beauty when they are taken in their unity. A virtuous character may be set before the students in the form of a hero or in the forms of several heroes. When a hero possesses all virtues, it is more convenient for a student to imitate to such a complete hero. Such a complete hero is Aeneas, who embodied the Vergil’s idea of perfection in his heroic poem. The painters and sculptors have usually such an idea of a perfect hero only in their minds, but their hands can rarely able to express it in material forms because the beauties of a god in a human body can be hardly expressed in the non-organic and static matter.

When a spectator pictures in his mind the Greek hero Achilles, who he saw on a stage or in a movie, he pictures the hero with those hairs, bulging muscles, warts, moles, and hard features of those actors who represent the hero. Otherwise, the hero would be no more Achilles but a common John, for Homer has thus described his creature, Achilles. Even he appears a hero, but with an imperfect character of virtue; and the spectator must gather other characteristics from other heroes, in order to compile his own idea of a perfect hero. Incompleteness of a hero in a heroic poem is not a fault of the author, because the whole poem usually has the missing characteristics of a hero. Taking look at the cause of the creation of an heroic poem, it must be acknowledged that it must teach the students to acquire those characteristics, which are necessarily for surviving of that class of a society, which could afford to pay for such a hard work.

The moral of Vergil’s poem appears not to be so clear as that of Homer’s, but both, I am sure, were useful, Aeneid to the Roman upper class and Iliad to the Greek upper class.

The Hellenic culture of the would-be the Greeks had developed from the Myceno-Trojan culture. In the Myceno-Trojan societies, the separation of classes was not completed yet. The wealthiest and mightiest families, headed by the chieftains (who headed the small armed forces and was the highest judicial authority), controlled production and trade. The members of the chieftain’s family assisted the chieftain as officers in the army and administration; as the priests, they also supervised sanctuaries and rites. The free farmers, stockbreeders, and artisans constituted the bulk of the free population. The smallest portion of the society was the serfs and slaves (mostly the prisoners of war from the nomadic aggressive tribes).

Inability of the nepotistic bureaucracy to adapt and reasonably accommodate the development of trade and industry, and frequent foreign invasions led to disintegration and destruction of the Myceno-Trojan culture. However, it left to the later Hellenic culture its legacy of linguistic and religious forms, agriculture, metallurgy, pottery, myths, legends, a warrior culture, and the code of honor, immortalized in the Homeric epics.

The Hellenic culture started from its transitional (the Dark Age) period. The migrating Aryan tribes from the barren mountainous regions of Asia Minor had penetrated the fertile plains of Greece and Aegean islands. The word "Aryan," from Sanskrit, means just 'airy,' i.e., 'the mountain people,' or simply nomads, who came into Europe from the so-called Aryan triangle, which lies between the Caucasus, Zagros, and Taurus mountains.

One group of invaders (the Dorians) settled in the south of the peninsula and founded Sparta. Another group (the Ionians) settled on the islands and both coasts of the Aegean Sea; they founded Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, and other seaports. After a couple centuries of the economic and political disintegration, the town life was revived; the Phoenician script was developed into the more efficient Greek alphabet; the use of metals was increased and overseas trade expanded. With the expansion of the middle-class of traders and merchants, the Greeks gradually founded settlements all around the north shores of the Mediterranean and Black Seas. These colonies were autonomous city-states with close economical and cultural ties to the mainland. For centuries, the Greek youth grew up reciting the Homeric epics, admiring those heroes that strove for honorable life, facing its sufferings (and deadly relief from them) with courage.

The Iliad is a poetic history of a small portion of the Trojan War that had taken place during the Myceno-Trojan period. Mycenae was already conquered by the Dorian Greeks, now came the turn of Troy. At the beginning of this epic, Homer thus states the theme:

"The Wrath of Achilles is my theme,
That fatal wrath
Which, in fulfillment of the wish of Zeus,
Brought the Achaeans so much suffering
And sent the gallant souls of many noblemen to Hades,
Leaving their bodies as carrion for dogs and passing birds."

Homer’s moral was to urge the union of the Greek upper class, to urge the Greek confederate states and chieftains to understand who are their internal and external foes; as well as their own discipline in the unified army. To inculcate the thought of necessity for the upper class to unite under the rule of a monarch, he uses reverse psychology – he shows the ruinous effects of disagreement in the camp of those confederates.

Agamemnon gives the provocation, and Achilles feels indignation. That wrath of ‘the swift and excellent’ Achilles was rooted in his deprivation of a rightful war-prize (a captive young woman) by the chieftain Agamemnon. The latter had insulted Achilles, hurting his honor and pride; the warrior heroes should supposedly treat each other with respect. Therefore, Achilles had refused to join Agamemnon in the battle against Troy. By demonstrating that the Achaeans needed his valor and military prowess, Achilles tried to assert and affirm his honor.

Both parties are faulty in the quarrel and, in due time, they are both punished. The superior offender is compelled by circumstances to seek peace with his inferior defender on dishonorable conditions; the latter is excessively proud and refuses the offered satisfaction; thus, Achilles' stubbornness resulted in the death of his best friend, Patroclus. The greater anger is quenched by the less; thus, Achilles’ character is not completely destroyed but preserved for the following heroic deeds. In the mean time, the Greek army’s casualties are increasing and half of it is destroyed by a pestilence.

When Homer had shown the ill consequences of disagreement, then he proceeds with the reconciliation. Homer shows that the good results follow the unity of the Greeks, for the leader of their foe, Hector, is killed, and then Troy must fall. The stagnating Trojan agricultural society and its leaders had become the main obstacle for the expansion of the Ionian Greeks because it had grown too wealthy and inflexible. The Ionian Greeks tried to constitute the republic among the equal confederates while picking on the common foe. Besides, they feared that the Trojans could become their masters, but they wished to be equal, however, somebody had to lead the equals, but who and how. That was Homer’s moral, and later, became Plato’s question.

Homer used this quarrel to demonstrate a principle of the human nature that ‘wicked arrogance’ and ‘ruinous wrath’ would be a cause of the sufferings and deaths. Not only people, but also the gods, operate within a certain framework of necessity. There is a universal order of things – such an attitude of the Greek mind would constitute its fundamental difference from the Mesopotamian and Egyptian minds.

To the latter, the gods were primarily responsible for the social and individual good or evil that fell on the human beings. However, for the Greeks, though the gods are still involved in human affairs, but the human beings are now the decisive actors on the stage of life. Now people pursue their own goals; the gods can help or hinder them, but success or failure is their own. With death and life, the gods have the starting and finishing scenes of the drama; but, in between, people do their best and have their portion of glory.

In the Iliad, Hector, the prince of Troy, goes into battle with Achilles, though defeat and death appear definite. He fights neither because he is a nut about combat nor because he hates life, but because he is a prince bound by a code of honor. He knows about his rights and responsibilities, and he conscious of his reputation before his peers. In this code of the aristocratic warriors, honor means more than existence (the honorable life is not just existence). Excellence is not a god’s excellence, but the human excellence that combines thought with action (as a man’s bravery and skill in the battle).

During the transitional period, the Greek ideology was a blending of beliefs and cults of gods, inherited from the Myceno-Trojan and other Aryan beliefs that came through Asia Minor. Homer probably did not intend to influence the Greeks with his poetic treatment of the gods, nevertheless, his epics gave some clarity and structure to the Olympian ideology that came out of it. The principal gods were defined as residing on the highest peak of Mount Olympus in Northern Greece, where the palace of the chief god (Zeus) presumably was.

The Greeks conceived their gods as an expression of the disorder of the world. The Olympian gods were conceived as the personified representatives of the natural forces, which followed their own wish even to the extreme conflict with each other and with presumed disregard for the people who might be affected by their deeds. Though all gods subjected to Zeus and could not resist him openly, because of his superior strength, but sometimes they would surreptitiously deceive him. Thus, Zeus too knew the limits of his power; there still was the mysterious power of Fate behind him, to which even he must bow. Although Zeus’s wish was accomplished through Achilles’ wrath, he could not save the life of his son, the Lycian hero Sarpedon. Thus, the relativism of the moral ideology was reflected in the Greek cosmology. There were not only difference between the gods’ and people’s morality, but also between the social and individual morality, and between the all gods’ morality and the all averaging Fate’s morality.

Although cults pervaded their daily life, the Greeks already had no official body of priests who would rule the social gatherings. Instead, their best representatives chosen to serve as the priests conducted their rites and ceremonies. Their cults had increasingly become a way of expressing the individual’s affection to the community than a way of finding inner peace through personal communion with the Infinite Being. In time, their growing social conscious would challenge and reform their traditional cults. Their city-state gave an individual a feeling of belonging, for each of the citizens became intimately involved in the cultural as well as in the political life of the community.

The evolution of the Greek city-state from a tribal culture (social subconscious) to the developed political institution (social conscious) went hand by hand with their transition from a horticultural society through an agricultural society to an industrial society. No human society left better historical documents and artifacts about these transitional periods than the Greeks; that is why I give you their history as an example. However, before I continue, I think that it is necessary to give here some explanations for words that I used in the previous paragraph.

The word ‘culture’ derives from the word ‘cult’ and means the social subconscious. The form of culture consists of the physical objects of human art (clothing, food, houses, factories, books, pictures, etc.); it can be understand as the material culture or the "hardware" of a culture. The content of culture consists of the mental objects of human art (language, rituals, customs, laws, skills, and ideologies – in short, the whole system of knowledge); it can be understand as the "software" of a culture.

Politics is the form and economics is the content of the social conscious. Politics and economics comprise a State (with its bureaucracy or institutions), which is the social conscious.

The culture, politics, and economics comprise the mind of a society (its subconscious and conscious).

A soul of a society is an individual.

A class society or a nation is an organized collection of the human beings who claim property on a particular area of the earth and the majority of whom have a common culture and authorities.

A property is a set of rules for the internal and external uses and abuses. The system of property prescribes who of the humanity is included and who excluded from the use and abuse of a particular territory and resources. The culture and State develop hand by hand with the development of the proprietary system (there may be a public, community, and private ownership) and are necessary for the preservation of this system of subsistence and birth control. Indeed, the main goal of the culture (social subconscious) and State (social conscious) is to preserve the society (body) from the external and internal threats, by adjusting and balancing the interdependent parts of the entire social body.

To understand how the nations (class societies) got their territories into their private property we must see how the human beings originated and how they painfully climbed to a civilized state for nearly 3 million years.

There is evidence that the earliest human beings inhabited East Africa. The last Ice Age (which started 2.5 million years ago) compelled them to devise the primitive stone tools and wander through continents in order to survive in the harsh climate. Our ancestors lived as hunters, scavengers, and food gatherers until 10 thousand years ago they were compelled by the climatic changes to learn a new technique in the food production – the domestication of plants and animals.

The period between 2.5 million years ago and 10 thousand years ago in the development of the humankind is called the Paleolithic Age because our ancestors could not do better than the stone tools. From Greek, paleo means ‘ancient, old’ and litos means ‘stone’. The periods of the Ice Age in the history of the earth are characterized by a significant, extended cooling of the atmosphere and oceans. The earth last entered such an ice age about 2.5 million years ago. The most parts of the continents and oceans were covered with ice. However, about 10 thousand years ago, those continental ice sheets withdrew from North America and Europe. Many scientists believe that the last Ice Age is not over yet.

Ice ages occur about every 150 million years, and last a few million years. Layers of rocks that consist of hardened glacial drift provide evidence of earlier ice ages. The longest of the ancient ice ages was probably about 300 million years ago and affected all Southern Hemisphere lands. Still earlier, about 435 million years ago, another ice age extended with the ice sheets from Brazil to North Africa and all the way across to Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Paleo-magnetic measurements indicate that the South Pole then lay in West Africa. About 600 million years ago, yet another great glacial age occurred. Since the time of the earliest recorded life on earth (about 3.6 billion years ago) the planet’s average surface temperature has been about 20° C (about 70° F), with a range of uncertainty of about 5° C (about 9° F). For more than 90 percent of that time the earth has been free of ice ages, and no large glaciers have existed except in high mountains.

The probable cause of ice ages is defined by using some physicists’ astronomical observations of the galaxy. The earth and its solar system are located asymmetrically within one limb of the Milky Way galaxy. The galaxy completes one rotation about once every 300 million years, circling the solar system through constantly changing (in density) regions of interstellar dust and through changing electro-magnetic fields. Two tidal phases appear to exist for each full cycle, so that every 150 million years a very slight change takes place in the galactic environment of our solar system and probably alters the climate of our planet. In addition, the tectonic processes of the earth are also involved. Because of continental drift, periodic changes take place in the geography, the effects of which can be understood by considering the changes that preceded the present ice age.

These changes occurred about 60-70 million years ago, when a warm equatorial sea-stream (Tethys) separated the northern landmass (Laur-Asia) from the southern one (Gondwana-land), bringing warm swirling currents to all the oceans. The old southern lands were drifting northward and Africa, Arabia, and India successively collided with Eurasia. Australia was separated from Antarctica, thus allowing a cold current to circle the globe in the north-south direction. Most of the former equatorial sea-streams were blocked by land. Each ocean was now isolated and connected with polar latitudes by great swirls of cold current.

The quarterly (seasonal) points of the rotation of the galaxy might bring a slight external cooling. Then a chain reaction of cooling might be initiated by minor variations in the orbit of our planet. There were remarkable fluctuations within each ice age, which are known as cold (glacial) and warm (interglacial) phases, which correspond to a cycle of about 100 thousand years. Calculating this cold-warm cycle, Milutin Milankovitch showed that the cycle has additional modulations that make it fluctuate considerably.

These modulations correspond to three variables in the orbit of our planet. Most important of these variations is the eccentricity cycle of 93.4 thousand years – the deviation of the orbit from its almost circular path. This affects the spin rate of the earth-moon system, which increases when our planet is closer to the sun. The slower the spin rate, the stronger is the magnetic field of the earth, which, in turn, tends to repeal the incoming waves and particles of high energy from the sun, thereby cooling the climate. This deviation is responsible for the cold-warm differences about 5° C.

The second variation of the orbital cycle is the deviation of the inclination of the equatorial plane of our planet in relation to its orbital plane over a period averaging 41 thousand years. About 25 percent of the cold-warm temperature differences are due to this change, which varies around 3° C.

The third orbital phenomenon is the 25.9 thousand-year precession cycle, which is similar to the wobble of a spinning top. However, another geographic element can be accountable for the cold-warm cycles – the blockage of the sea-streams at the present ice age. Most of the Northern Hemisphere is land, which generates a continental climate, whereas the Southern Hemisphere is encircled by a continuous sea-stream that provides far more maritime climates. If the sea-streams were uniform in both hemispheres, the precession effect would be more balanced.

Milankovitch’s cold-warm cycles do not fully account for the timing of all known events and require some improvements; however, at present, his model (with some corrections) is the most accurate representation of our climatic reality.

However it might be, about 11 thousand years ago, the axis of our planet still was not pointed to the Pole Star, as it does now. The Northern Hemisphere was not the closest to the sun in the summer, thus not bearing the relatively mild summers and winters. This axial deviation resulted in a secondary cold effect that caused the winter ice caps in mountains lie unmelted far into the summer, thus causing intense droughts in the subtropics. These droughts compelled our ancestors to intensify their efforts in the struggle for surviving.

kinds of societies

For nearly three million years, our ancestors were using the stone tools to hunt and process food. Groups of families formed bands consisting of around 30-50 members. The men hunted for meat, and the women cared for the young and old, tended the fires and gathered nuts, fruits and berries. By sharing their output, men and women reinforced their social bonds. Hunting required physical strength and self-control. Hunters had to study and analyze their environment and to devise appropriate weapons. The physically or mentally deficient, who could not track and cope with animals and other problems, did not survive for long. The individuals with superior physical qualities lived longer and had more opportunities to mate and to pass their characteristics onto the next generations. However, the best survivors were those who had not only superior physical qualities but also superior intelligence. The last two types of individuals had considerably more opportunities to mate, thus gradually improving the genome of the human species.

The Paleolithic people progressed through developing spoken language and tools, thus evolving from their animal stage. The chimpanzees may use a twig as a tool to extract some insects; however, they do not save their instruments for the future use and do not progress in their tool making. On the other hand, the Paleolithic people made instruments and decorations from bones, wood, and stones. They preserved own creations, improved them, and taught the younger generations how to use them. The next important instrument that the Paleolithic people discovered was fire, which provided them with warmth, protection from predators, and allowed them to cook food and to produce other instruments. Some evidence, discovered in caves, showed that the Paleolithic people domesticated fire about 1.5 million years ago. The control of fire, tool making, and language enabled individuals to acquire and share feelings, experiences, and knowledge. Language became the decisive instrument in the transmission of knowledge from one generation to another.

The Paleolithic people developed some beliefs, with which they tried to explain life, death, the powers that operated inside and outside of their world; and they tried to establish relations with those powers. To appease the hostile powers, hunters and gatherers made offerings to them; thus emerged rituals, chants, and arts. They considered death as a transition into another life and buried their dead with offerings that might be useful in the other life. The Paleolithic people were puzzled by the mystery of life and death and worshiped the power of life. The archeologists have found many small figurines of women, made in Europe and Asia about 40-20 thousand years ago. These figurines were made from clay, wood, and ivory, and often without face but with distinctive breasts and stomachs. These fertility figurines represented the interests of the Paleolithic artists in the origin of life and in what was sustaining it.

Some 11 thousand years ago, the axial deviation of our planet resulted in a secondary cold effect that caused the winter ice caps in mountains lie unmelted far into the summer, thus causing intense droughts in the subtropics. These droughts compelled our ancestors to intensify their efforts in the struggle for surviving and they came up with the new techniques of the food production – the domestication of plants and animals. Some people no longer relied on rain in the production of crops and they moved into the river-valleys, gardening, establishing villages, polishing stone tools, making pottery, and waving fabrics. Thus, about 10 thousand years ago, the Neolithic Age (the New Stone Age) began in the Near East.

Horticulture (hortus, from Latin, means ‘garden’), the deliberate planting and cultivation of crops, was developed in the river-valleys of the Near East. At the foot of the northern Caucasus, western Taurus, and eastern Zagros Mountains, pastoralists began to domesticate the sheep and goats. The Neolithic women, in contrast with the Paleolithic ones, instead of spending time searching for grains, nuts, and fruits, grew wheat and barley near own homes; instead of tracking animals over great distances, men pastured domesticated sheep and goats in the nearby hills. Gardening made possible a new kind of community. Hunters and gatherers were needed large territories to have adequate food supply; consequently, their bands could not be more than 50-100 members, because their leaders could not effectively control them. If the band grew too large, the rivals of the leader would form a new band and moved on the new territories. However, in the new horticultural community, several hundred and even thousand people might live in a village. A few villages of 200-300 people had emerged in late Paleolithic Age in areas that had a stable food supply – near river or lake with plenty of wild wheat and barley, and herds of wild goats and gazelles. However, the Paleolithic villages were rare exceptions, not the rule.

The development of gardening and trade compelled people to gather in the village communities. The food surplus that gardening provided, freed some people to specialize in tool making. The artisans and their demand for raw materials fostered trade, sometimes across long distances, which led to the formation of trading settlements. Archeologists have uncovered several Neolithic villages, the oldest of which was established about 10 thousand years ago. The most famous of these villages are Çatal (Shatal) Hùyùk in Asia Minor and Jarmo in Mesopotamia. The construction houses and defensive walls required cooperation and a division of labor, which were on the brink of the capacity of the Paleolithic band. Such a situation necessitated the Paleolithic people to begin to organize into the tribal confederations. By shaping and baking clay, the Neolithic people made bricks for the construction of their houses and defensive walls. With the invention of the potter’s wheel, they could more quickly and precisely make pottery for cooking and storing food and liquid. The inventions of the wheel and sail improved their transportation and intensified trade; the inventions of the plow and yoke made tilling possible on larger lots than it was possible in the gardening system.

At the end of the Neolithic Age, people began to use metals. First, they used copper, which was easy to form into tools and weapons, then, bronze (a combination of copper and tin), which was harder than copper and let possible to make sharper cutting edges. Knowledge of the particular individuals grew more formal and structured, thus turning into the social culture. The horticultural societies were growing more organized and complex, and turned into the agricultural societies; consequently, villages turned into towns, and then, the first cities arose in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China around 5 thousand years ago.

As the name implies, an agricultural society is a society with the cult of land. This type of society relies for its subsistence primarily on the cultivation of crops, using plows and domesticated animals for dragging the former. The same land can be cultivated almost continuously, letting the settlements become permanent. In effect, the large fields of crops replaced the small gardens of the horticulturists and food output was increased with a substantial surplus. Such a revolution in the means of production allowed a minority of population to specialize in the other trades and professions (such as those of soldiers, artisans, blacksmiths, and merchants) and to live in the cities. The cities were larger, more populated and complex in their economic, political, and social structure than the Neolithic villages. The cities, for their food supply, depended on the inhabitants of the adjacent villages, whose farming techniques had to be sufficient to produce food surpluses. The invention of writing enabled people to organize, expand, and preserve knowledge; the social control became more efficient.

The religious ideology became the main organizing force in these primary urban cultures because it provided satisfactory explanations for the powers of nature; it helped to ease the anxiety of death, and justified the traditional rules of morality. The laws were considered as the commandments of the gods. Religion united people in the common enterprises that were needed for their collective survival, such as conquering territories that are more fertile or construction and maintenance of the irrigation systems. Religion became the special inventions of urban culture. It became organizing instruments in the hands of the ideologists, who would shape the upper class. With this instrument they could discipline, drill, and handle the large masses of people as units in their destructive assaults on "alien" peoples, their extermination, seizures, and enslavement. Later, we will see how Moses shaped the upper class of the Hebrews, with which he managed to conquer Palestine, but for now we must embrace generalities that we can understand his elusive language.

The distinct social classes begin to shape. Differentiation and integration are in full play. Different social functions require prolonged training but are necessary for the survival of a society. Such vital social function, as that of a soldier, requires talented and skilled people. This social role requires the prominent communicative abilities and the ability of a team player because the very life of a soldier (and not only his own) depends on him. Because this social role involves the heaviest stress and sacrifice, leaders must attract talents by rewarding the loyal people and giving them portions of the leadership (social) power, such as the moral prestige and wealth. In the agricultural society, this unequal distribution of social power (moral prestige and wealth) begins on a large scale, with the social stratification as its inevitable result. At the beginning, such unequal distribution appears to the majority of population as fair and just because the talents are taken from the whole population. Later, the mediocre descendants of those who personally had protected this territory from the rest of humanity, wished to save the social power while being not reciprocal (not giving a fair share of own labor into the society). Thus, they re-organized themselves into a society with the inherent and closed classes (castes). In this case, the majority begins to consider the unequal distribution as unfounded, and therefore, unfair and unjust.

A caste system is a closed (rigid) form of social stratification in which status of a member is defined by the trade, color of skin or hair, shape of nose or ears of his parents. In other words, the status is defined by the inherent external and adaptive (to the environment) characteristics, which have nothing or very little to do with the individual’s internal talents. This status and labeling of all members of a society is usually supported and entrenched by the members of the upper class who try to mask their own mediocrity behind the elaborate heraldic colors. Moreover, this is the main source of all kinds of nationalistic ideologies. The latter are nothing more as the attempts of the upper class to protect their inherent "right" to rule over a particular population and territory.

The human power consists of a social power and a personal power. The social power consists of the moral prestige and wealth. The personal power consists of beauty and charm (as an individual’s subconscious), of reason (as an individual’s conscious), and of a physical power (as the bodily endurance of an individual).

The social power is not just a compound of the personal powers, but is their synergy. Moral prestige is the ability of an individual or faction (interest group) to influence the governmental decisions. Wealth also can be social and personal. A social wealth consists of cultural, human, and natural resources of a nation. A personal wealth consists of personal assets and personal profits. The personal assets can consist of such objects as real estates, objects of luxury, factories, and mines, which in an industrial society can be represented by stocks and bonds. The personal profits can consist of such items as the part of the rent, dividends, and salaries, which give an individual the ability to have the free, from finding the means of subsistence, time. I do not consider wages as the personal wealth because they are just the representations of the life necessities, the means of subsistence.

Every society that wishes to survive must allocate its basic resources in the way of matching the social roles with rewards. However, the leaders of a society usually allocate the surplus resources in the way that the lion’s share of them goes to the upper class. To justify such unequal distribution the leaders need a moral ideology. Thus the moral ideology of the upper class is born, and thus it becomes the basic part of the society’s culture.

The history shows the tendency for social stratification and culture to grow simultaneously and more complex. As the anthropologists found out, the hunting and gathering societies were generally lacking a surplus. Thus, they have had no stratification because there is no way for the leaders to pass their social status and wealth on to their descendants. On this stage of their development, the societies generally have the egalitarian (brotherly) ideology and culture. Hunting and gathering people live in small primary groups that rarely exceed fifty members because the environment cannot support a large concentration of people who rely on whatever food and other means of subsistence they can gather and hunt on a day-to-day basis. Such a tribe needs for its survival several hundred square kilometers of territory.

A leader of such a tribe reveals himself in the regular contests of his physical power and intellect with the challengers (usually the most powerful people of the tribe). The revealed leader is accepted and regarded by the rest of the tribe as their protector and father. Actually, such a tribe is based on kinship because most of its members are relatives by blood and marriage. The leadership rewards usually include the choice of the most beautiful wife (the beauty of whom reflects her potential to bring the healthiest, physically and mentally, descendants) and the presiding in the tribal council, but that is about it. The leader is responsible for securing and providing the tribe’s territory and taking on own shoulders the heaviest blows of the tribe’s foes.

The other social divisions are only by gender and age because women need to look after the children; therefore, women, children, and old men are generally gatherers, and adult men are hunters. Because such people are constantly searching for food, the accumulation of material wealth would obstruct their movements. Nobody can accumulate wealth and therefore the tribe usually enjoys the brotherly relationships between its members. The moral ideologies of the hunting and gathering peoples rarely include a belief in a powerful god or gods who are active in human affairs. Instead, they usually see the world as populated by invisible spirits that must be taken into considerations, but not worshiped.

The more productive horticultural and pastoral societies still have a shortage in surplus that permits only the limited inequality in distribution and the limited stratification among the members of such tribal societies.

A horticultural society relies for its subsistence on the hoe cultivation of domesticated plants and needs a fertile soil and water, which can be found in the valley of a big river, such as Tigris or Indus. A pastoral society relies for its subsistence on domesticated herd animals and needs the large open pastureland, which can be found at the sole of a mountain range like Caucasus or Hindu Kush. These types of societies developed about 10 thousands years ago, when some hunters and gatherers began to deliberately sow, tend, and harvest edible vegetation in small gardens, and some – began to capture, breed, and tend some species of wild animals.

Horticulturalism and pastoralism are much more reliable and productive strategies than hunting and gathering. These strategies assure a steady food supply and the possibility of a surplus. A food surplus means that some people can do work other than cultivation or herding. So specialized, new statuses and roles appear, such as those of the shaman, trader, and craft worker. Through such means as trade, this surplus can be converted into such forms of wealth as sophisticated weaponry and objects of luxury. Some individuals have become more powerful than others and could even pass their social status unto their descendants. The hereditary chieftains appeared, as powerful families have been able to secure their positions in the society. Such a society can consist of several tribes with several thousands members.

The pastoral societies developed the ideologies that include a belief in a god or a family of gods with a father-god (the most powerful god), who take an active interest in human affairs and look after the people in the same manner as the people look after their flocks. However, because of insufficient surplus, the classes still were flexible and tensions between them – not so antagonistic. It means that the ideology yet to be developed into a moral one. This would occur only when a pastoral society conquer several horticultural societies and reorganized them into an agricultural society with a considerable surplus that could support the entire, hereditary, landowning class – aristocracy. The best description of such a conquest and its ideology that the history could give us is in the Bible:

"The LORD said to Moses, ‘ Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders.’

So at the LORD’ s command Moses sent them out from the Desert of Paran. All of them were leaders of the Israelites...

When Moses sent them to explore Canaan, he said, ‘Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country. See what the land is like and weather the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified? How is the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees on it or not? Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the land.’

So they went up and explored the land from the Desert of Zin as far as Rehob, toward Lebo Hamath. They went up through the Negev and came to Hebron... When they reached the Valley of Eshcol, they cut of a branch bearing a single cluster of grapes. Two of them carried it on a pole between them, along with some pomegranates and figs.... At the end of forty days, they returned from exploring the land.

They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: ‘We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large.... The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.’

Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, ‘We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.’

But the men who had gone up with him said, ‘We cannot attack those people; they are stronger than we are.’ And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored....

Joshua... and Caleb... who were among those who had explored the land, tore their clothes and said to the entire Israelite assembly, ‘ The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. If the LORD is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. Only do not rebel against the LORD. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the LORD is with us. Do not be afraid of them.’" (Numbers 13, 14)

The potential size of the agricultural societies is much greater than that of the previous, tribal societies. It can run to several million people and several million square kilometers of territory. The security and protection of such large territories and populations require huge armies that would develop elaborate bureaucracy for their supply. Now the surplus allows for the establishment of such armies and cities for their supply. Although the industrial and commercial population of the cities slowly grows, yet it is a considerable minority among the generally rustic population. For the efficient protection of the huge territory and population, an army needs an efficient chain of command to coordinate the activities of the soldiers in a battlefield as well as in a camp. Thus, the army develops its officer corpus, its formal organization – its bureaucracy, with a hierarchical authority structure that operates under explicit rules and procedures.

Although the embryonic and fetal stages of the bureaucracy can be traced to the family and tribal society structures, the well-developed bureaucracy appears only in the agricultural societies that have a sufficient surplus to afford a standing army. Rights and responsibilities within the officer corpus are already attached to the office that an individual occupies, and not to the individual. Now the formal approach to any organization can be done through displaying the relationships of the various official positions to one another, without any reference to the actual individuals. Although ‘bureaucracy’ often seems inefficient to those people who see the officials as blinded by petty regulations and ‘red tapes’, yet it can be efficient when it is highly rewarded. In fact, the present bureaucracy always tries to get its lion share from the nation’s surplus whereas the past bureaucracy (now called aristocracy) would always poke their damaged parchments of pedigree in the noses of the nouveau riche bureaucrats, requiring on these pity grounds their share of the national surplus. Eventually they would find the common ground how to divide the pie; if not... then, a revolution comes and new and more efficient bureaucracy emerges.

However it can be, the agricultural societies tend to be at war and in systematic empire building because ‘an attack is a better defense’. These conditions demand an effective military organization, and permanent armies appear for the first time. The need for efficient communication and transport breeds the development of roads and navies. Previously isolated villages are brought under close supervision of the central government. This body of a State develops from the officer corpus into the full-fledged bureaucracy that has the following common characteristics: division of labor, hierarchy and rules, record keeping and impersonality.

The division of labor by gender and age of the previous forms of societies now develops into the clear-cut division of labor by functions of governing, which previously were entirely in the hands of the tribal leaders or chieftains. First, the division of labor in an agricultural society necessitates its leaders to divide own assistants into the clerical, military, and civil bureaucrats. The clerical bureaucracy serves to create a nation (a class society); the military bureaucracy serves to destroy the external and internal foes of the upper class; and the civil bureaucracy serves to maintain order between classes in a society. Each of these bureaucracies usually requires further division into the law-giving and law-enforcing (legislative, executive, and judicial) branches.

Keep in mind that the boundaries between the bureaucratic branches are not stiff but in constant flux, because they often use each other to accomplish their common goal, the goal of the upper class – to keep the lower classes in their disposal. Keep in mind that we all use each other in our particular interests – wives use husbands, husbands use wives; children use parents, parents use children. If people would not use each other, there would not be the highly structured societies with their institutes of marriages and other institutions. The question is not who is using whom, but is it reciprocal, is it balanced? The static possession of the material is the primary useful social function of the upper class, and the dynamic use of the material is the primary activity of the middle-class. Therefore, the upper class people tend to be conservative and stabilizing, while the middle-class people tend to be loose and destructive liberals. Both these functions are necessary to move a society forward (to be progressive but not self-destructive at the same time).

For instance, the military bureaucracy gradually develops such offices as infantry, cavalry, supply of weaponry, supply of food, etc. Each member of such an office has a specialized job to do. The army has a hierarchical authority that takes the shape of a pyramid, with greater authority for the few generals at the top and less for the many soldiers at the bottom. Each official takes orders only from the above-staying official and gives orders only to the below-staying officials. The army has a specialized staff of commanders and record keepers, the sole function of whom is to keep running the whole army smoothly. The need for accurate records of taxation and governmental transactions leads to the invention of better systems of writing. The written records (files) are kept of all governmental activities. The leaders acquire the knowledge of the human nature and better state building. At the beginning of an army building, they select soldiers based on a few principles, such as loyalty to their leaders and hatred to the leaders’ enemies (this principle masked under the name ‘patriotism’); ambition and virtues (such as manhood and bravery) to be promoted.

These principles must be implanted in the heads of the potential soldiers with the milk of their mothers; therefore, they should be cited and sung in a poetical form by generations. That is where the leaders need such poets as Homer, Vergil, or the writer of The Song of Roland. Thus, the latter sang:

Roland replies: ' Now may God grant us that.
We know our duty: to stand here for our King.
A man must bear some hardships for his lord,
stand everything, the great heat, the great cold,
lose the hide and hair on him for his good lord.
Now let each man make sure to strike hard here:
let them not sing a bad song about us!
Pagans are wrong and Christians are right! ’

Thus, the moral ideology was molded, and all atrocities that came with it were excused or justified by its creators. However, when the armies are already built, the leaders know that if they wish a better officer corpus, they must create the conditions of the conscious execution of one’s duties. It means that a soldier must have the equal opportunity for unfolding all his talents. Therefore, candidates for the upper positions should be appointed based on seniority and merits, not on the grounds of favoritism or nepotism. The leaders also know that the officers should interact with each other and with the outsiders in detached and impersonal manner for speedy execution of their orders. Therefore, the officers should keep their personal feelings aside of official conduct. Thus, an elaborate system of rules and regulations begins to develop into a written system of laws, which should be used for the every day operations of the officials.

However, the formal (based on laws) structure of a bureaucracy always cohabits with the informal practices, for people get to know each other in their other social roles, not only as the state officials. Particularly, the leaders themselves are guilty in building the informal social network because they have wives, children, and relatives, and they feel that they create the laws, and therefore, can change them or neglect them for a while. As Russians say, "A fish decays from its head, although it used to be cleaned from its tail". Following the tortuous route of the bureaucratic channels is no less irritating to insiders than it is to outsiders; however, the insiders have advantage over the outsiders because they can faster learn shortcuts through the system. Moreover, the bureaucrats use their knowledge of informal networks to help or sabotage someone (in who they have interest) by bending or evading the laws.

Moreover, the pyramidal hierarchical system of the bureaucracy has a built-in dysfunction, which identified by the sociologists as: inefficiency in unusual cases, "trained incapacity", goal displacement, bureaucratic expansion, and authoritarian structure. Officers can easily and effectively handle the typical cases by applying uniform rules and procedures, yet they stump when unprecedented case arises. The latter may circulate from desk to desk for years before it might come to someone who has authority and will-to-decide. Alternatively, relying on their predictable routines, the bureaucrats tend to respond to unfamiliar problems with familiar (and sometimes inappropriate) procedures. Overtime, officers tend to grow in the goals of the organization and build the momentum and inertia. When the old goals are reached and the new ones are born, some bureaucrats tend not simply resign from their old jobs and look for the new ones. They fear that their knowledge is inadequate for the new jobs; thus, they either claim that there is still work to be done in their old jobs or they artificially create the new work by destroying the results of the previous work.

As C. Parkinson points out: "The natural tendency of any formal organization is to grow. Officials [the appointed leaders, VS] have to appear busy, and therefore they create tasks for themselves. In due course, they have so much work to do that they need assistants. When an official has an assistant, however, the burden of work on the official actually increases, because he now has to supervise the subordinate. Much of the subordinate’s time is taken up in turn with submitting reports to the superior official. As work continues to expand, more assistants and officials are added..." thus multiplying personnel, which spends time and effort on form filling, memo writing, and file keeping and on checking the form filling, memo writing, and file keeping of others. Parkinson argues that the bureaucrats spend an immense amount of time and effort and all of this activity is unnecessary. Concerning the first part of his argument, I think that the bureaucrats’ efforts in the time biting can be accounted, and it costs to the taxpayers somewhat less or around the national surplus. Another question – is their service necessary? Moreover, if the answer is positive, then a new question arises – for whom? On these questions, I will answer shortly after.

By form, the structure of a bureaucracy is a pyramidal system of horizontal layers laid on top of each other and decreasing in size toward the top. By essence, the officers of a horizontal level are equal in rank, but they rarely communicate with each other in their working capacities. Supposedly, all working orders stream downward and formal response flows upward without obstacles. Because the vertical structure of the bureaucracy is a hierarchy of unequal partners, the equal officers of the same level (communicating with each other informally) tend to develop an attitude "us versus them" – against those who are at the top as well as against those who are at the bottom. They consider themselves as a team, but as the team in a training process when it is against a coach, and not in a real game when it is against another team of equals. They can cheat in front of the coach, but they cannot fool the spectators in the actual game. This attitude and development of the informal relationships between each other lead the equal officers to conceal their mistakes and inefficiencies from their supervising political leaders. Sometimes it leads to complete distortion of the responses and those at the top of the hierarchy are unaware of the real problems or feelings of those at the bottom. Thus, the political leaders might be "clueless" in such situations and their orders might remind the actions of those who "try to catch a black cat in a dark room," as the Chinese would say. From this particular moment in its development, the bureaucracy got its bad name. However, is it really as bad as it sounds? Is the bureaucracy always inefficient?

The state bureaucracy develops from the army bureaucracy. Any big problem or goal (like the protection of a large territory and population, or building a pyramid, or the construction of a railroad and a spacecraft) requires a large organization for its resolution in the reasonable time span. Only small organizations (like a family, or a tribe, or a small-scale enterprise, which have small problems to resolve and friendly relationships to begin with) can afford the informal, friendly, and equal relationships among its members. However, a resolution of a big problem requires many people and large resources, therefore, it requires a large organization (like a corporation or State), where gathered sympathetic and apathetic people. Somebody must to sort those people down from squabbling with each other and accommodate them for resolving the common large goal of the organization. This somebody must have either a moral-political authority (which is elective, and like that of Moses’) or an administrative authority (which is appointive, and like that of Aaron’s). To be elected (to become a political leader), an individual must show to his electors that he knows and understand the common problem(s) and capable to resolve it in the interests of the majority of the electors. To be appointed (to become an administrative or appointed leader), an individual must show loyalty to his political leader.

The largest effective organization that people could devise for the effective implementation of their interests is the State (or the federation of States – Empire). The forms of a State essentially depend on the development of its population and their knowledge of own interests. At its toddler stage of development (in the agricultural societies), a State usually took the familiar, hierarchical, army form – monarchy (the rule of one), with its officer corpus – as its aristocracy. In such States, the army officers were simultaneously the state administrators. They had access to knowledge and facilities that were not available to others, and they could control much of the information that flowed down to the rest of the people. Thus, the army bureaucrats could effectively eliminate the rest of the public from the electorate. Eventually, they should realize their own interests as contrasting to the interests of the rest of the population, and they would take the attitude "us against them". "Us" were those who had the weapons and who could stand for their interests; they are aristocracy – the upper class. "Them" were those low, vulgar, ordinary, common people who could not stand for their interests with the sword in hand; they are the lower class. Now the army officers could choose their own leader who would protect their own, aristocratic interests against the interests of the common people. Thus the separation of an agricultural society resulted in the upper and lower classes and thus was born the cult of a hero (the Nietzschean Superman) and the morality of masters – loyalty, valor, and intellect.

However, all bureaucracy is not always the millstone on the wheel of progress, as Karl Marx asserted in his analysis of the two-class societies. On the contrary, in my book, all historic nations (class-societies) have been comprised from three major classes; only in times of decay and disintegration they were polarized and looked like as the two-class societies. Moreover, only those hereditary bureaucrats are useless for the prosperity and happiness of the middle-class, who ‘have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing,’ as Talleyrand (a minister of foreign affairs of the Napoleonean France) said about the restored Bourbons. I hope that I can show you why.

To see more clearly, how the separation of the agricultural society was practically implemented, we should look at the history of Sparta. We already know that between the 11^th and the 8^th centuries before the new era, Europe was submerged into its 1^st Dark Age. The Myceno-Trojan culture was dying because only several small horticultural societies, each with its own ruling chieftain, had it. If these societies were united under one leadership, they probably would effectively defend themselves against the aggression of the nomadic Aryan tribes. So probably the Canaanites, Hittites, and other Palestinian societies would effectively defend themselves against the aggression of the Jews if they would not be divided among themselves. However, the history does not like the subjunctive mood.

The Myceno-Trojan societies (as well as the Palestinian societies) were the horticulturists who rather die protecting own garden than protecting the common pastureland. Each one of them, as a separate society, had no surplus to afford a standing army. Their leading families could not find the common ground, stop the quarrels among themselves, and have the political will to unite under the rule of one of them to meet effectively the common foe. And this foe was the Aryan over-populated tribes of the Dorians and Ionians. The Dorians penetrated the Peloponnesian peninsula and conquered the south of it, including Mycenae. The conquerors founded their settlement and called it – Sparta; thus, they become known as Spartans. The Spartans kept the defeated Mycenaeans as the state serfs (helots) who did all agricultural work for them; they owned the serfs rather collectively (as the upper class) than individually. Several times the Mycenaeans tried to free themselves from the servitude. However, every time the Spartans had cruelly suppressed each uprising. The bloody struggle with the serfs put its heavy burden on the Spartan conscious – their State and laws.

To maintain their dominion over the serfs, who outnumbered them ten to one, the self-made aristocrats of Sparta transformed their moral of masters (bravery in violence and loyalty in peace) into the State’s laws. According to these (Lycurgian) laws, the Spartan society was divided into three classes: lower class of the serfs (helots – agricultural workers, who had no rights at all, even the right for emigration). There also was the middle class of the trade- and craftsmen (perioikoi, who were free to move around but were not the real citizens, because they had no rights to choose the political authority). And, of course, there was the upper class of military and civil bureaucrats.

According to these laws, the only activity that was allowed to the upper class was to serve the State. It means that they should serve themselves by training themselves in the arts of war. Military training for upper-class boys began at age seven. They were drilled and indoctrinated; they exercised, competed, and endured the physical hardship. The Spartan soldiers were admired by the members of the upper classes of the other Greek societies for their courage, obedience to law, and achievement in molding themselves according to an ideal. The Spartan soldiers were better trained, disciplined, and physically fit than other Greeks.

To keep constantly the serfs in fear and subservient state, the aristocrats converted themselves into a military camp. Thus, they effectively isolated themselves not only from the lower classes of own society, but also from the others Greek societies, economically and culturally as well. Sparta became a closed military town that did not share in the cultural uprising of the Ionic Greeks. The cultural retardation of the Spartans stamped on them the general unhappiness as the heavy price for their military strength.

At the end of the 6^th century BC, the young Aryans, who became the upper classes of the Greeks, engaged into a struggle for world domination with the old Aryans, who conquered and organized the Persian Empire. In this struggle, Sparta emerged as the leading force of the Dorian Greeks and organized a confederation (Peloponnesian League) of the fellow-States among them. (For simplicity’s sake, I will call this confederation the Dorian confederation.) The Spartans always viewed the Dorian confederation as an instrument for the common Greeks defense, not for aggression and acquiring new territories. The Spartan leaders were reluctant to send their soldiers far from home, where they were needed to control the serfs. Thus, the Spartans pursued the isolationism in their foreign policy. Probably their motto was "Greece for the Greeks".

Whereas politically Sparta was a land military power, economically it was exclusively agricultural. On the contrary, Athens, which was founded by the Ionian Aryans on the peninsula of Attica near the coast, possessed a great navy and was the commercial and industrial leader among the Greeks. The ambitious upper class of the Athenians endeavored to expand their cultural and economic hegemony all over the Mediterranean coasts. The Athenian upper class wished to protect their State from the external and internal enemies; however, their internal policy sought the political freedom and full development of the human personality of citizens (the members of the upper and middle classes). On the other hand, to the Spartan upper class, freedom meant preserving their independence from the outsiders and maintaining their use and abuse of the insiders (commoners and serfs). The economical, political, and cultural views of the two leading powers of the Greek world became increasingly antagonistic and clash between them became inevitable.

In this struggle between the Greek upper classes themselves, the relatively open Athenians might engage the middle-class into this struggle for power, and became a temporal economic and cultural leader of the Hellenic urban culture. To understand how they could possibly engage the middle-class into the struggle for what is apparently not in their interests, we must understand the interests of the latter and their moral ideology.

The specific directions how to clean myself and actualize my human potential comes under the name of yoga that means yoke – discipline. Each of us has a unique trajectory of experiences, but all of them fall under four basic personality types: a) some people are primarily reflective; b) some people are basically emotional; c) some are essentially active; d) others are bent on the psycho-somatic experiments.

The types are not rigid, for every human being possesses all four talents, but it makes sense to go with a prevailing one. Because the aim of the disciplines (yogas) is to render the surface, external-Self (body and conscious) transparent to its underlying divinity (its soul or internal-Self), it must first be cleansed of its gross impurities. The selfish, egoistic acts restrict and make the soul’s borders finite, but the altruistic acts dissolve them into infinity. Ill-wish confuses the digestive process of subconscious, but good will helps it. The selfish wish-to-receive restricts the inner, infinite-Self and makes it superficial, external-Self; while the altruistic want-to-give dissolves the border of the external-Self and turns it into the inner-Self.

One’s extremism in the altruistic want-to-give oneself to another is called the Platonic love. One’s extremism in the egoistic wish-to-receive another only for oneself is called the jealous love. Thus, a healthy love would require a careful and balanced combination of the above-mentioned extreme loves; it would require their reciprocity. Therefore, the first step of every discipline involves the cultivation of such habits as truthfulness, self-control, non-injury, non-stealing, cleanliness, and self-discipline. Finding of one’s moral values and practicing them is indispensable preliminary to any yoga. (Any ideologist, who wishes that his ideology would last longer than a day, knows that this ideology must have a moral base.)

a) the discipline for people with the reflective character

The discipline for the reflective personality (jnana yoga) intended for those people who have a strong reflective bent. Thinking is important for such people. They are imaginative and live in and through their heads because their images and ideas have for them a virtual vitality; they sing and dance with their images and ideas. Thoughts have physical effects for such thinkers. When such a thinker wishes to expand the boundaries of his soul into infinity through knowledge, the discipline recommends that he must be aware that this is not only the encyclopedic knowledge, but also an intuitive discernment that eventually transforms the thinker into that which he already knows. This discernment is the power of the thinker to distinguish between his external-Self (body and conscious), which obstructs the thinker’s vision of the whole and deflects his attention from the larger, inner-Self (subconscious and soul). It is the same as the crowd of stars in the Milky Way, behind which we cannot see the nucleus of our galaxy. Cultivating this discernment goes through three states: learning, thinking, and shifting our mind into our soul.

Learning proceeds through listening to sages and reading scripts to be introduced to the knowledge of the essential being (soul) inside us that is Infinity.

Thinking proceeds through prolonged and intensive reflection of a hypothesis that assumes that life must start somehow. The soul of a student must change from idea to its realization. A Hindu would offer to his disciple some lines of reflection, for example, to examine his everyday language and ponder its implications. For instance, the word ‘my’ always implies a distinction between the possessor and possessed. When I speak of my home or my cow, I do not suppose that any of those objects is I. However, I also speak of my body, my mind, or my soul, as differentiating myself from them. So, what is this ‘I’ that possesses my body, mind, and soul, but is not their equivalent? There is the flow of blood in my body and the regenerative process will renew it in a month or so; and my mind will change too. Yet, throughout their renewal, I will remain the same person – the person who believes that I was in my past, I am present now and here, and I will live some time from now. What is this in me that am more constant than my body and mind?

The task of this discipline is to find out the developmental stage of the disciple and correct his false identification to the role that is precisely what his personality is. If he is unable to remember his previous roles (of a monkey, a cow, or a State leader), then he is blind to his future roles. By turning his awareness inward, he must pierce the multiple layers of his personality until he reaches the joyfully unconcerned inner-Self (subconscious and soul). Such reflections will eventually open the gate of the Infinite Self that underlies his finite-Self (body and conscious). The two will become increasingly different in his perception and then he will be ready for the third step – to shift his finite-Self to his infinite-Self (soul).

The direct way for the disciple to do so is to think of himself as a ghost, and not only during his meditations, but also during his daily tasks. This exercise helps him to discern between his mind and soul and to think of his mind in the third person. Instead of thinking: ‘I am shopping’, he thinks: ‘John is shopping’. He sees himself as detached in order to visualize himself through the omnipresent point of view of the security cameras around the shopping mall. Thinking of self as of the third person does two things simultaneously – it lets him discern between his mind and his soul, and forces his mind to submerge on a deeper level (through knowledge, identical with the knowledge of the infinite Being). Thus, the disciple becomes entirely what he always was at his heart. The guiding image of this discipline is that of an infinite sea encircling the atolls of our finite selves. This sea typifies the all-pervading infinite Self, which is as well within us as without, and with which we ought to search for identity. A thus envisioned God is uni-personal and includes in Himself an infinite number of forms (personalities).

This discipline for the reflective people is the shortest way to the divine realization, but it also the hardest way that requires superior rationality and poor emotions, and therefore, is only for a few people. The majority of the population lives under the rule of their emotions, leaving their reason on a back burner.

b) the discipline for the emotional people

By in large, the people live by their hearts, not by their minds. Many emotions siege the human heart, but the strongest of them is love. Even hate can be interpreted as a reaction on the thwarting of love. Moreover, people tend to become like those whom they love. Therefore, the discipline (bhakti yoga) advises the emotional people to direct, to channel their excessive love toward God. "As the waters of the Ganges flow incessantly toward the ocean", says God through the writer of the Bhagavata-Purana, "so do the minds of the emotional people move constantly toward Me, the Supreme Person residing in every heart".

In contrast with the reflective people (for whom God is uni-personal and infinite), the emotional people’s feelings are more real than thoughts, and therefore, God appears different and finite with each encounter with Him. The healthy love tries to unite two or more individuals into one, not to divide one into several. Therefore, the emotional discipline advises to its disciple to reject all suggestions that he and God are one and the same. Rather he should insist on God’s otherness, because there would not be love between a mother and her child if they were one. When the disciple firmly believes that he and God are different, then he will strive to adore God, not identify himself with Him. A scientist may admire the cold abstract infinity, but the normal object of a commoner’s adoration is a person with the specific character. Therefore, the disciple must choose the most preferred form of God. The selected representation will be his adopted form of divine. He must not avoid other forms, but the chosen one will always enjoy a special place in his heart. The ideal form for the majority of people will be a human form of the God’s incarnations, because our hearts are already attuned to love people. The disciple must love God and love Him dearly in fact, not just claim such love by having any latent reason (even such as to be loved in return); he must love Him with the Platonic love for love’s sake alone. He will feel joy in the same degree, as he will succeed in this love experience. Moreover, every increase of his love toward God will weaken his affections toward temporal persons and things, which have had so much influence over him before he came to this discipline.

To dispel the charm of the material world, Hinduism produced several hundred images of God and thousands of rituals so colorful and material as to introduce the human heart to what they represent but themselves are not. The frequent service in those rites imperceptibly becomes a genuine appeal of the heart. The frequent prayer brings warm and joy into the heart of a disciple.

The emotional discipline uses many nuances in its models of the relationship between God and his devotee, but usually it uses the image of the loving father (for his present child) or the groom (loving his future child). The discipline acknowledges the presence of overtones between those relations (between friends, man and woman, parents and child). However, the emotional discipline holds that all of these modes should have their place in strengthening the believer’s love to God; therefore, it encourages the disciple to use them all in his prayers.

c) the discipline for the active people

The discipline for the active people, intended for individuals with active character, is the way to God through work. The work discipline (karma yoga) advises to its disciple to discern between job and work. Job is what we do temporarily for living, without our hearts and minds. Work is what we want-to-do throughout our lives with all our hearts and minds. Ultimately, the bend to work is rather psychological than economic. Forced to early retirement, such people become extremely irritable and soon die. They have a name "workaholics", and vary from the compulsive housekeepers to the great scientists. To such people the discipline says, ‘You do not have to retire because you can find God in every object around you. Throw yourself into your work with all your heart and mind. Learn the secret of your work by which your every movement can carry you toward God and do it wisely so that it can bring the highest joy and satisfaction.’ How it can be done, depends on the disciple’s predominant disposition – emotional or reflective.

If the disciple has active and emotional inclinations, then the work discipline advises to shift his interests and his love toward his personal God, whom he is experiencing as distinct from himself.

His work can be a vehicle for self-transcendence, for every action performed upon the external world reacts on the actor. Everything he does only for his own profit adds another layer to his ego, thus increasingly insulating him from God. On the contrary, everything that is done without thought of profit for himself diminishes his egoism until the final barrier between him and God is broken. For instance, if he chops a bush that obscures his view from a window, he marks the process of chopping as a selfish one and his job scores him back accordingly. If he chops the bush because his ill child needs more sun, the chopping process would leave different marks on him.

When the disciple has acted no longer for his personal rewards, people regard him as if God has prompted his actions, or as if his actions have been enacted by God’s energy. Now actions lighten his ego instead of hardening it. His every task becomes a sacred ritual, lovingly fulfilled as a living sacrifice to God’s glory. "Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer in sacrifice, whatever you give, whatever austerity you practice... do this as an offering to Me. Thus shall you be free from the bondage of actions that bear good and evil results... Do without attachment to work you have to do. Surrendering all action to Me, freeing yourself from longing and selfishness, fight – unperturbed by grief", says God through the writer of the Bhagavad-Gita. When all claims on work have been renounced, including whether it will succeed or not, the disciple’s actions no longer swell his ego. Thus, the disciple works out the accumulated impressions of previous deeds without acquiring the new ones.

If the disciple has active and reflective inclinations, then the work discipline advises him to transcend the smallness of his finite-Self by identifying himself with the uni-personal Infinite Being that resides at the core of his heart. In this case, the principle advice is the same – the disciple must work unselfishly. However, his approach to work should be slightly different from that of the active emotional disciple. The scientific mind of the active reflective disciple bends to find the idea of the Infinite Being at the bottom of his heart, which is more meaningful and attractive than the idea of the Creator who watches over His world with love. Therefore, the way that leads to his enlightenment is through his detachment from his finite, practical-Self (mind) while he works. People usually approach their work in terms of causes and effects; they constantly think about the results of their actions (or the pay that work may bring); this process inflates, thickens, and insulates their egos. Therefore, the disciple must draw a line between his mind that acts, and his eternal-Self (soul) that observes his action. While he was working, only his mind was at work. "While seeing, breathing, speaking, making letting go, opening and closing the eyes, he observes only senses moving among sensual objects", as the writer of the Bhagavad-Gita put it eloquently. Now he must bring his soul into his work. When he becomes increasingly indifferent to the results of his deeds, he will appreciate the dictum of the Bhagavad-Gita: "To work you have the right, but not to the fruits thereof". Thus, duty for duty’s sake becomes his motto.

The disciple should try to do each thing that comes as if it were the only thing to be done in his life. Having done it, he should proceed to the next task in the similar manner. Fully concentrating on each of his tasks, the disciple will resist impatience, excitement, and the vain attempt to do or think of a dozen tasks at once. Thus concentrating his genius on one task at the time, he will resist idleness and laziness that are other forms of selfishness. Then the disciple will learn to accept loss, pain, and shame with calm and equanimity, knowing that these are also teachers.

Both kinds of the active disciples should engage in a radical reduction of diet and sex, which designed to starve the finite ego (mind) of the disciple by depriving him of the results of his action that feed his ego.

d) the psychosomatic discipline

This discipline (raja yoga) designed for people who have the scientific bend or the balanced reflective-emotional character. This discipline is the way to God through psychosomatic experiments. (A raja, from Sanskrit, means ‘a king,’ apparently the one who must keep the opposite forces of the society in balanced unity; from Greek, psyche means ‘mind,’ and soma means ‘body’.) The discipline approaches the mind and body as scientifically as is possible for the form to study its content. The approach calls for a strong suspicion that the individual inner-Self is more than just a combination of conscious and subconscious. For those who possess these characteristics, the discipline outlines a series of steps in a psychosomatic experiment. If it does not produce the expected results, then the theory did not work out for this particular experimenter. However, the discipline claims that the future experiences will confirm this theory.

The natural sciences do their experiments on the external (to the observer) objects; on the contrary, a disciple of the psychosomatic discipline experiments not only on his body but also on his mind. The experiments take the form of practicing prescribed physical and mental exercises and observing their subjective effects.

The basic theory of the Hinduism assumes that the human self is a layered content. The detailed analysis of those layers does not necessary for my purpose; it is enough for now to summarize the theory by reducing the layers to the principal four. The first layer is our body. The next one is our conscious of the mind. The third layer is our subconscious of the mind. The individual has built up his conscious through his present life experiences. However, his subconscious had been built through the experiences in his previous lives. Most of these past experiences have been lost for his present memory (conscious), but they continue to shape his life surreptitiously, through dreams and subconscious impulses. Underlying the conscious and subconscious mind, stands the fourth layer – the soul, the gate of the Infinite-Self, the Infinite-Being, the Infinite, the Eternal. As God says through the writer of the Bhagavad-Gita: "I am smaller than the minutest atom, likewise greater than the greatest. I am the whole, the diversified-multicolored-lovely-strange universe. I am the Ancient One. I am Man, the Lord."

If the disciple could drag out portions of his subconscious, he would experience a remarkable expansion of his powers. The discipline also aims to help the disciple to retreat past inconsequential experiences and to make them sequential. Thus, the discipline goes beyond the present life experience. It is rather a ‘nonviolent’ resistance to the routine daily existence that can distract the disciple from the unknown interests and demands that can rise from the bottom of his heart. The successful disciple lifts the solutions of his routine problems to the new magnitude, not passes them around, because he now has access to the unquenchable source from which all people and things are renewed. In body, he remains individual, but spiritually he becomes characterless, universal.

The purpose of the psychosomatic discipline is to demonstrate the validity of this four-layer human self by prescribing the disciple to direct personal experience of "the beyond that is within". Its intent is to drive the psychic energy of the inner-Self to the darkest spots of the external-Self, to enlighten it and the individual.

Of course, this experiment can be risky, but if something goes wrong – at best, the disciple will lose some time; at worst, his conscious can disintegrate into psychosis. However, if the experiment is rightly done, the disciple will able to integrate the insights of his past-lives experiences and will emerge enlightened with self-knowledge and greater self-control.

The experiment that purported to prove the proposed theory should proceed in four steps. The first step concerns the moral preliminaries with which all four disciplines begin. The experimenter-disciple must abstain from lying, injuring, stealing, greed, and sensuality. The second step is to be observant – self-controlled, clean, content, studious, and contemplative of the divine. The disciple who set himself for rediscovery will be distracted from his task by his bodily cravings and mental inquietude. Just as the disciple may start concentrating, he may have an urge for a sip of water or a scratch of his nose. The first two steps of the discipline seek to prevent and eliminate such distractions. Although the discipline concerns with the mind, it goes through the body because, in the final analysis, they are one.

The disciple attempts to reach a bodily state midway between discomfort and complete relaxation. To achieve such a balance, the disciple must use some of the 84 postures; the best known of them is the ‘lotus’ posture. If you take into consideration that standing induces fatigue, chairs invite slumping, and reclining encourages sleep, then you will understand the necessity of a correct position of the body that it can remain stiff and alert for the long sessions. The disciple must also train his breathing because unbridled breathing can interrupt his meditation. Bronchial irritations trigger coughs and other irregularities. Beyond general health, the main reason of the first two steps is to keep the body of the disciple from distracting his mind while he is concentrating. Therefore, the disciple must learn to be insensitive to his surroundings, because he is testing the theory (that the deepest truth is opened only to those who turn their attention inward) and, in this experiment, his physical senses (that direct his attention outward) may probably be destructive. When the postures, respiration, and insensitivity have been mastered, the disciple should feel himself comfortable and ready for meditation.

The third step is intended for the disciple to learn how to concentrate only on one thing at a time, because such a complete concentration excludes the mental irritability from other things. When the outer intrusions are stopped and the disciple is alone with his mind, its processes (memories, daydreams, and anticipations) may cause the mind to ripple like a stormy sea with its ever-changing reflections. Left alone, the mind rarely stays calm and clear. (As the contemporary psychologists counted – the ‘normal’ mind stays concentrated on an object without interruptions for three and a half seconds.) If the mind could be focused on one object at a time, would not its strength be concentrated, like the concentrated light of a magnifying glass? Therefore, the disciple must condition his mind to focus protractedly on an object to fathom it deeply. He begins by relaxing his mind to allow thoughts, which need release, to flow from his subconscious into his conscious, from where he can easily purge them. Only then he selects something to concentrate on (preferably the object that matters less), and keeps his mind on the object. On this stage of practicing, his mind has been stabilized to the point where it would flow uninterrupted toward its object. However, it has not yet lost conscious of itself as an object different from the one on which it has been focusing.

In the fourth step, when the disciple’s concentration deepens into meditation, the union between him and his object grows to the point where his conscious submerges into his subconscious where he and his object emerges as one. The merger is possible because both of them have a connection with the Creator of All Things. The distinctive future of this step is that the disciple must dissolve his own form (conscious) and the form of his object, because forms are limiting boundaries. To be one with his object and know how it feels itself, the observer must exclude all forms, including mental. His mind is functioning, but functioning without its form – the thought. (Descartes would say: "I am thinking, therefore, I exist", but a Hindu would say: "I really exist when I am not thinking".)

When the observer is united with what is observed, then the observer has been brought to the knowledge of the Infinite Being and has been dissolved into Him. The disciple has finished his experiment successfully when he has attained the insight "That, verily, that Thou are". Most of the disciples continue to practice and be observant because the truth is sweet, and Hinduism encourages them to test and combine all four disciplines as it best fits for their needs. However, what are their needs?

As you can see, Hinduism is a two-world ideology, with which you can go either way – to understand this reality or to escape into the "higher" reality. You also can see from the final season of a human life that Hinduism assumed that the individual (while building own theory of life and death) has no choice but to build it individually. Thus, the content of this theory should be about the individual, because the life and death are individual. However, the older Aryans has missed the possibility of a theory about the individualistic society – its life and death. The Greeks, the younger Aryans, accomplished this task. Having developed commerce and industry, the Greeks had increasingly become to envision the society as the only highway to the good and dignified life of the individual in this reality.

In the early stage of the development of their social conscious, the Ionian Aryans still went along the riverbed of their ancestral thought of the Hindus and Sumerians. They conquered the Attica and founded Athens and their social development looked like that of the Spartans. They turned the conquered horticultural population into the agricultural slaves and themselves into the military administration, with the hereditary aristocracy and a monarch. However, the things turned sour for them soon, because the mountains were the natural barriers for the agricultural economic. Unlike the Spartans, the Athenians possessed only the coastal strip of land. The necessity to overcome their own overpopulation through the intensive agriculture and colonization led to development of navy, commerce, and industry. Many people from the upper class should, like Jason, go for their own Golden Fleece and learn new skills and professions. The political form of the military bureaucracy and monarchy restrained this development in economics. Thus, after a coup d’etat, the paramilitary bureaucracy took power into their hands and the aristocratic republic was founded in the eighth century before the new era. Gradually, the tensions mounted between the landowning aristocracy, who dominated the republican government, and the newly rich and ambitious middle class of merchants and traders, who wanted their fair share in governing Athens.

The farmers, who borrowed from the aristocracy under high percentage and mortgaged their lands as security, lost their property and even became enslaved because they could not pay the accumulated debts. Most of the farmland passed into the hands of a few aristocratic families. The embittered middle class demanded redistribution of land. The aristocratic government appointed a commission, with Draco as its head, to draw a new code of laws. Although the Draconian laws reduced the arbitrariness of the aristocratic judges, the penalties remained extremely severe. The middle class continued to rally around the slogans of cancellation of their debts and the redistribution of land.

To deflect the approaching civil war, the aristocracy elected Solon (a philosopher who long time was studying abroad and considered as a neutral foreigner to the upper and middle classes) as their president and gave him the dictatorial power to work out the necessary laws. Solon (c. 640-559 BC) believed that there is the order in the universe. He believed that the universal law underlies the social life, and that a principle of fairness and justice underlies the human community, and if people violate this ever evolving standard of justice, they ruin their community. Solon held that the written laws should be in harmony with the natural order of things, and he withdrew the judicial questions of fairness from the sphere of the gods and gave them a humanitarian foundation. He attributed the community’s problems to the specific behavior of individuals and he sought for them the practical solutions. Thus, he found that the excessively wealthy landowners, through their greed, had disrupted the community and brought it about to a civil war.

Solon had a concern for the interests of the whole community; therefore, he avoided the radical extremes in his decision-making and treated the upper and middle classes with moderation. He refused to go along with the extremists who wished to confiscate and redistribute the land of the aristocracy.

His economic reforms aimed to restrain the extremely wealthy aristocrats and to improve the standard of living of the middle-class. He canceled the debts of the latter, freed those who were enslaved for debts, and redeemed those who was sold abroad. Recognizing that the soil of Attica was not fertile for growing wheat, he urged the farmers to cultivate the wine grapes and oily olives, the products of which could be exported. He acknowledged the fine quality of the native reddish-brown clay and urged the Athenians to develop pottery for export. The engraved and decorated vases became a major luxury export of the Athenians throughout the Mediterranean world. For the protection of the free trade, the military and freight navy was required; and to encourage the industrial and commercial expansion, he granted citizenship to foreign artisans who wished to migrate to Athens. He also made it compulsive that all fathers taught their sons a trade. His economic reforms had transformed Athens into a great commercial and industrial center of the ancient world.

His political reforms rested on the inference that although the aristocrats had abused the electoral system they should continue to have the key positions in the government, because the middle class were not prepared for self-governing. However, the very structure of the government should be changed. He proposed that the supreme body of the State should be the Assembly of all adult males of the upper and middle classes, who would be the legislative body, which would elect the executive body (of Four Hundred) and would accept or reject the laws proposed by the executives.

Solon established a property requirement for being a member of the executive body and thus effectively deprived the lower middle-class of the illumination and fair representation of their interests. By establishing a property requirement for being a member of the legislative Assembly, he effectively deprived the lower class of non-proprietors (the serfs – agricultural workers, slaves – industrial workers, and adult females) of real citizenship and of the fair representation of their interests. On the other hand, he opened the highest positions in the bureaucracy to the newly rich men of the middle class, thus depriving hereditary aristocracy of its most devastating (for the community’s well-being) feature – the nepotistic mediocrity. It also meant that the paramilitary bureaucracy was transformed into a civil one.

Successfully completing his reforms, Solon retired from the executive office. Although a group of the aristocratic bureaucrats urged him to stay in power longer and rule the State as a leader of their junta, he refused to do so. Thus, he personally demonstrated the power of the moral principle of justice and proved his integrity to the Athenian society. Believing that the justice is the observance of the common interests that unite a community, he did not think that he would fairly represent those interests any longer.

With the growth of the economic power of Athens, the factional struggle inside and between the upper and middle classes for its fair distribution continued. The tyranny of the mediocre hereditary bureaucracy was hard to swallow even for some of the members of the hereditary aristocracy. It frequently occurred in the Greek city-states that the ambitious and knowledgeable aristocrats asked and became the leaders of the middle-class in its struggle against the aristocracy. To show that they represent the needs of the entire community, these leaders often supported the extension of the citizenship to the non-proprietors and even to foreigners, as to increase their own base of the popular support. Thus, Pisistratus, a talented aristocrat, organized a faction (a special interest group) of the newly rich men and, in 546 BC, secured the political power of his party by exiling some members of the aristocratic faction.

Pisistratus’ government acted in accordance with Solon’s constitution. Its economic reforms were concern with the problems of the middle-class. The land confiscated from the exiled aristocrats was divided between the small farmers, who also were granted the state loans. His government initiated the construction of aqueducts and promoted other architectural projects; it encouraged sculptors and painters, arranged for the public recitals of the Homeric epics, and founded festivals that included the dramatic performances. This refined culture, formerly being affordable only to the aristocracy, now became available to the commoners. Thus, Pisistratus’ government led Athens to emerge as the cultural capital of the Greeks, and later – of the ancient world.

When Pisistratus died, his two sons headed the government. The partisans of the exiled aristocrats soon assassinated one of them, and the other was driven from Athens by the Spartans who intervened on behalf of the exiled aristocrats, wishing to restore the latter to power. However, the young, ambitious, and knowledgeable aristocrat Cleisthenes managed to organize the middle-class and headed a new government in 527 BC. His government had its major political accomplishment in redistricting the voters. The old voting system was based on the genetic allegiance of an individual to his tribe (clan). The members of a tribe chose their representatives in the state government as tribal leaders. This system had caused many bitter fights in Athens because after five hundred years of history it was difficult to find out and prove one’s pedigree. Cleisthenes’ government replaced this practice of the traditional authority with a new system of choosing leaders by residential areas. The new voting system effectively insured that the loyalty to the State (which is the organization that should protect the common interests of citizens) would surpass the historic allegiance by blood (which no longer protected fairly and justly the interests of a commoner). Thus, finally, the Athenians became not the Ionians or Dorians but the Greeks. Although some shameful aristocratic features still existed in the government (like the notorious Council of the Areopagus – that consisted of the retired high-ranking bureaucrats), but Athens persistently moved toward the hegemony of the middle-class.

Meanwhile, on another shore of the Aegean Sea, the descendants of the older branch of the Aryans (who had built their Persian Empire) subjugated the Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor (the colonists of the younger branch of the Aryans). Although the Greeks of Asia Minor were left autonomy, the Persians heavily taxed them. In 499 BC, the Greeks of Asia Minor started their war for independence from the Persians. Trying to help the nearest relatives and business partners, the Athenians sent twenty military ships to aid the Greeks, fighting for their independence. In retaliation, Darius I, the king of Persians sent an expedition corpus to Greece. The Athenians defeated the Persians on the plains of Marathon. Ten years later, the Persians organized a new expedition with a quarter of a million men and more than a half of a thousand ships. The older Aryans decided that they could reduce the younger Aryans to the subservient state.

Herodotus perceived this encounter as a struggle for the Greeks’ freedom. In his Histories, Herodotus described as three hundred Spartans, staying at the narrow mountain pass of Thermopylae, resisted to the outnumbering Persians. They resisted "to the last with their swords if they had them, and if not, with their hands and teeth, until the Persians, coming on from the front over the ruins of the wall and closing in from behind, finally overwhelmed them". The Persians continued to attack and burned a deserted Athens. The Greeks regrouped and under the leadership of Themistocles lured the Persian fleet into the narrows of the Bay of Salamis and destroyed it. The outnumbered Greeks managed to defeat the Persians because they were more conscious about their interests than the Persians, and because the Greek ships were designed better and were more maneuverable than the Persian ships. A year later, the Spartans defeated the Persians in the land battle of Plataea. Thus, the younger Aryans effectively aborted the older Aryans’ quest for the world domination. However, the moral prestige (confidence, pride, and arrogance) that came with the victory, incited the Athenians for the dominance in Greece, and later, instigated the Macedonian Greeks (who became the victors in the struggle between the Spartans and Athenians) for the world domination.

Immediately after the Persian Wars, nearly two hundred of the Ionian Greek city-states, under the leadership of Athens, organized a confederation (the Delian League) to protect selves from the future Persian invasions. (For simplicity sake, I will call this confederation the Ionian confederation.) Conceived as a voluntary association of the independent Greek States, the confederation gradually became an instrument of Athens’ domination. Athens supplied the bulk of the human and material resources necessary for the protection of Greeks from the pirates and Persians. The Athenians consciously and eagerly manipulated the confederation for own economic and political advantage over the fellow-states (see the conversation between Socrates and the Sophist). They did not see the antagonism between imperialism and democracy in the international affairs because they did not see the antagonism between the hegemony of the middle-class and the depressing state of the lower class of the serfs, slaves, and women inside their own society. When 24 centuries later we have slightly improved our foreign and domestic policies – do you think it is just a coincidence? Aren’t our imperialistic policies toward Latin America the same sort as the policies of the Athenians toward their neighbors were? Isn’t the imperialism just the rotten remnants of the military bureaucratic mentality?

The Athenians smacked their empire because with their dominance in Greece they quickly acquired unjustifiable wealth and moral prestige. They used directly and indirectly the confederate treasury to finance the public works in Athens. They considered such a state of things as natural, for it is "natural" when a strong state increases its might at the expense of the weaker ones. Moreover, they boldly claimed that the other fellow-States benefited from the Athenian hegemony in the confederacy; and under this pretense, they forbade the other fellow-States to withdraw from the confederacy, crushed their revolts and stationed garrisons on their territories. Although the fellow-States did receive protection, did enjoy increased trade, and were not overtaxed, they resented Athenian domination and the sheer arrogance of its administrators. The hatred for Athenian imperialism grew inside of the Ionian confederation as well as in the Dorian confederation, along with the decreasing threat of the new Persian invasion. The Athenian imperialism, as the minor consequence of the Persian Wars, would be mounted in time as the major one.

However, for a while, the major consequence of the Persian Wars was the bloom of the Athenian economic and political life. The democratic institutions continued to be entrenched and, in 462 BC, the aristocratic Council of the Areopagus was stripped of its moral prestige and ability to influence the public policy. The Athenian State became a direct democracy for the members of the upper and middle classes, because they all were the electors and electorees – the citizens and own representatives at the same time. In the legislative Assembly, in which all adult males of the upper and middle classes were gathering some forty times a year, Athenians made the laws. Here they debated and voted on the essential social issues – such as the declaring wars, signing treaties, and spending the public funds. The small-size enterprise shopkeeper and the wealthy aristocrat had their opportunity to express own opinions in the Assembly, to vote as representatives, and be elected as executives. By the mid-5^th century BC, the common interests of the upper and middle class Athenians, as expressed in their Assembly, was supreme for them.

The executive office (the Cleisthenes Council of Five Hundred that replaced Solon’s Council of Four Hundred) managed the military installations, ports, mills, factories, and other social properties and prepared the agenda and projects of laws for the Assembly. The members of the executive office should be chosen annually by lot and could not serve more than twice in a lifetime, thus preventing their domination over the legislative Assembly. Some 350 districts chose their magistrates also by lot and for year tenure. The Assembly elected only 10 military generals (whose positions required special knowledge and personal characteristics) for the ten-year tenure.

Although, by form, Athens was the direct self-ruling of the middle class, by essence, the aristocrats continued to dominate the political life for most of the fifth century. The generals and leading politicians in the Assembly were frequently voted from the upper class, because the aristocrats had more free time to acquire the special knowledge needed to perform these duties. Eventually, the newly rich men, under the Pericles’ leadership, challenged the aristocratic dominance and, in the last third of the fifth century, the payment for government officials was introduced in the Assembly. It meant that a commoner could afford to leave his job for a year to serve in an executive or judicial office.

Because of the lot system of the Athenian democracy, many observers described the Athenian State as a government of amateurs; there were no professional (for lifetime) administrators, soldiers, or judges. The commoners and aristocrats alike, but in different proportions, performed the governmental duties. The Athenian governmental system was based on the assumption that the average member of the upper and middle classes of proprietors is capable of consciously (intelligently) participating in the affairs of the State. Thus, Athenians equated personal excellence with good citizenship.

During Pericles’ leadership, Athenians achieved the peak of their economic, political, and cultural development. After the first year of the Peloponnesian War, which lasted the last third of the fifth century BC and was between Ionian and Dorian confederations, Pericles made a speech honoring those Athenians who sacrificed their lives for the Athenian democratic ideal:

"Our constitution doesn’t copy the laws of neighboring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Our administration favors the many and not of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. Our laws afford equal justice to all in their private differences. As to the social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity; class considerations not being allowed and the claim of excellence is also recognized. Poverty does not bar the way to a man who is able to serve the State... The freedom that we enjoy in our social life, extends also to our private life, in which we are not suspicious of one another, not angry with our neighbor if he does what he likes... all that eases our private relations doesn’t make us lawless as citizens.... Reverence pervades our public acts; we are prevented from doing wrong by respects for authority and for the laws.... Further, we provide plenty of means for the mind to refresh itself from business. We celebrate games and sacrifices all the year round, and the elegance of our private establishments shapes our daily source of pleasure and helps to distract us from what causes us distress. While the magnitude of our city draws the produce of the world into our harbor, so that to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are familiar a luxury as those of his own.... Our love for the beautiful things does not lead to extravagance and our love for knowledge does not make us soft. Wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it. Our public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to; and our commoners, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still fair judges of public matters. For, unlike any other nation, we regard the citizens who take no part in these duties not as unambitious but as useless. And we are able to judge proposals even if we cannot originate them; instead of looking on a discussion as an obstacle in the way of an action, we think it is an indispensable preliminary to any wise action. Again, all in our enterprises we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation... although with the rest of mankind, a decision is the fruit of the doubtful ignorance... But the prize for courage will surely be awarded most justly to those who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger." Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, bk. 2, ch. 37-40.

Throughout the speech, Pericles contrasted the Spartan, aristocratic, upper-class moral ideal with the Athenian, democratic, middle-class moral ideal – daring with deliberation. Unlike the Spartans, the Athenians valued both – the political freedom and economic creativity. Indeed, Pericles recognized that the political freedom unleashed an enormous amount of the creative energy in the economic life, letting Athens reach the extraordinary cultural achievements.

Although the Dorian and Ionian Greeks have shared some cultural elements, such as language and literature, they remained politically divided because of their economic differences. Sparta and other members of the Dorian confederation were the agricultural states, which felt that the industrial and dynamic Athens and other members of the Ionian confederation threatened not only their political independence but also the economic way of life. Agricultural economics requires only territorial expansion, leaving the culture intact for millennia. Whereas industrial economics does not necessary require the territorial expansion, but it requires the intensive cultivation and use of the present territory to maintain the growing population. The industrial society intensifies the use of the scientific knowledge to the technology of production. This intensity in the agricultural business goes through matching the soil with the crops and domestic animals that it can sustain in the maximum volume. The chosen crops or animals would be intensively selected and their products would go into the industry for the final processing. The bulk of the final product would go for export, not for the local consumption. The commerce and finances would create new needs, and new industries and new technologies would emerge to satisfy them.

Industrialism is a highly intensive and efficient subsistence strategy, for it allows the minority to feed effectively the majority of the population. Now a society reached a point of its economic development where it became more important not only to produce plenty, but to effectively (speedy and without losing) distribute what was produced. Industrialism is the intensive production. However, in greater degree, it is also the intensive and effective distribution and exchange. A developing infrastructure between the productive organs is the major characteristic of an industrial society. Indeed, at the peak of their economic and political development, Athens had only a third of their population (mostly serfs) employed in agricultural business. The Athenian population grew very rapidly in the early stages of their industrialization because people lived longer because of better living standards (better roads, sanitation, communication, etc.). Their society became highly urbanized, with the bulk of the population living in or around Athens, where most jobs were located. Their economy became intensive, vast, complex, and pervasive in its effects on the politics and culture. The influence of traditional religion decreased considerably, for people no longer share similar life experiences; consequently, they held many different and competing ideologies. Education became a major social institution because the industrialization requires mass literacy.

Feeling that their simplistic agricultural way of life would soon be eliminated, the Spartans invaded Attica in 431 BC and set on fire the Athens’ countryside. One year later, a plague that came from Ethiopia through Egypt killed nearly third of the Athenians, including Pericles. Because the Ionian confederates had the superior navy and the Dorian confederates were unable to crash the Ionian ground troops, the first ten years of the war ended in stalemate, and the tired combatants signed a piece treaty.

Six years later, the Athenian imperialism erected again, for the population quickly increased and required new colonization, the best possible of which the Athenians saw in Sicily. Syracuse, the main city of Sicily, resisted the Athens’ expansion. Intoxicated by the prospects of being riches soon, the Athenians approved the Sicilian expedition. In 415 BC, the largest expedition corpus was dispatched for Sicily under the command of three generals (two of them from the upper class); there was a constant scramble between the upper and middle classes for the highest positions in the army.

"The Athenian envoys arrived from Sicily, and the Egestaeans with them, bringing the 60 talents [about 1.3 ton] of uncoined silver, as a month’s pay for 60 ships, which they were to ask to have sent to them. The Athenians held an assembly, where they heard a report from the Egestaeans and from their own envoys, as attractive as it was untrue. After hearing the state of affairs (in general and in particular as to the money, of which, it was said, there was abundance in the temples and the treasury), the Athenians voted to send 60 ships to Sicily, under the command of Alcibiades... Nicias... and Lamachus... who were appointed with full power. The expedition was bound to help the Egestaeans against the Selinuntines, to restore Leontini upon gaining any advantage in the war, and to order all other matters in Sicily, as they should deem best for the interests of Athens.

Five days after this, a second assembly was held, to consider the speediest means of equipping the ships, and to vote whatever else might be required by the generals for the expedition. Nicias (who had been chosen to the supreme command against his will) thought that the State was not well advised but upon a slight and specious pretext was aspiring to the conquest of the whole of Sicily (a great matter to achieve). He came forward in the hope of diverting the Athenians from the enterprise, and gave them the following counsel:

‘We should still examine whether it is better to send out the ships at all... Individually, I gain in honor by such course, and fear as little as other men for my person – not that I think a man need be any the worse citizen for taking some thought for his person and state. On the contrary, such a man would for his own sake desire the prosperity of his country more than others...

I affirm, then, that you live many enemies behind you here to go there far away and bring more back with you. You imagine, perhaps, that the treaty, which you have made, can be trusted. A treaty that will continue to exist nominally, as long as you keep quiet (for nominal it has become, owing to the practices of certain men here and at Sparta). However, this treaty, in case of a serious reverse in any quarter, would not delay our enemies a moment in attacking us. First, because the convention was forced upon them by disaster and was less honorable to them than to us; and secondly, because in this very convention there are many points that are still disputed. Again, some of the most powerful states have never yet accepted the arrangement at all. Some of these are at open war with us. Others (as the Spartans do not yet move) are restrained by truces renewed every 10 days. And it is only to probable that if they found our power divided... they would attack us vigorously with the Siceliots, whose alliance they would have in the past valued as they would that of few others.

A man ought, therefore, to consider these points, and not to think of running risks with a country placed so critically, or of grasping at another empire before we have secured the one we have already. For, in fact, the Thracian Chalcidians have been all these years in revolt from us without being yet subdued, and others on the mainland yield us but a doubtful obedience. Meanwhile the Egestaeans, our allies, have been wronged, and we run to help them, while the rebels who have so long wronged us still wait for punishment. And yet the latter, if brought under might be kept under; while the Sicilians, even if conquered, are too far of and too numerous to be ruled without difficulty. Now it is folly to go against men who could not be kept under even if conquered, while failure would leave us in a very different position from that which we occupied before the enterprise.

The Sicilians, again, to take them as they are at present, in the event of a Syracusan conquest (which the Egestaeans most use to frighten us), would to my thinking be even less dangerous to us than before. At present they might possibly come here as separate states for love of Sparta; in the other case one empire would scarcely attack another; for after joining the Peloponnesians to overthrow ours, they could only expect to see the same hands overthrow their own in the same way. The Hellenes in Sicily would fear us most if we never went there at all, and next to this, if after displaying our power we went away again as soon as possible. We all know that which is farthest off and the reputation of which can least be tasted, is the object of admiration; at the least reverse to us they would at once begin to look down upon us, and would join our enemies here against us. You have yourselves experienced this about the Sparta and their allies, whom you become despising suddenly, after unexpected success, and whom you feared at first. That success tempted you further to aspire to the conquest of Sicily. Instead, however, of being puffed up by the misfortunes of your adversaries, you ought to think of breaking their spirit before giving yourselves up to confidence. You ought to understand that the one thought awakened in the Spartans by their disgrace is how they may even now, if possible, overthrow us and retired their aristocratic dishonor, inasmuch as they have for a very long time devoted selves to the cultivation of military renown above all. Our struggle therefore, if we are wise, will not be for the barbarian Egestaeans in Sicily, but to defend ourselves most effectively against the aristocratic machinations of Sparta.

We should also remember that we are only now enjoying some despite from a great pestilence and from war, to the no small benefit of our estates and persons. And that it is right to employ these at home on our own behalf, instead of using them on behalf of these exiles whose interest it is to lie as well as they can. And who do nothing but talk themselves and leave the danger to others. And who, if they succeed, will show no proper gratitude and, if they fail, will drag down their friends with them. And if there be any man here, overjoyed at being chosen to command, who fairness you to make the expedition, merely for ends of his own. Especially if that man is still too young to command and seeks to be admired for his stud of horses, but on account of heavy expenses hopes for some profit from his appointment. Do not allow such a one to maintain his private splendor at his country’s risk, but remember that such persons injure the public fortune while they squander their own. Remember that this is a matter of importance, and not for a young man to decide or hastily to take in hand.

When I see such persons now sitting here to at the side of that same individual and summoned by him, alarm seizes me. And I, in my turn, summon any of the older men that may have such a person sitting next him, not to let self be checked by shame, for fear of being thought a coward if he does not vote for war. Instead, he should remember how rarely success is gained by wishing and how often by forecast; he should leave to the youth the mad dream of conquest. And as a true lover of his country (now threatened by the greatest danger in its history), such a man should hold up his hand on the other side. And he should vote that the Sicilians be left in the limits now existing between us – limits of which no one can complain... to enjoy their own possessions and to settle their own quarrels. Let the Egestaeans, for their part, to be told to end by themselves the war with the Selinuntines, which they began without consulting the Athenians. And that for the future, we do not enter alliance, as we have been used to do, with people, whom we must help in their need and who can never help us in ours.

And you, Prytanis, if you think it your duty to care for the commonwealth, and if you wish to show yourself a good citizen, put the question to the vote, and take a second time the opinions of the Athenians. However, you are afraid to move the question again and incur any charge; therefore, you will not be the physician of your misguided city. The virtue of men in office is briefly this -- to do their country as much good as they can or, in any case, to do no harm that they can avoid.’

Such were the words of Nicias. Most of the Athenians who came forward spoke in favor of the expedition and of not annulling what had been voted, although some spoke on the other side. By far the warmest advocate of the expedition was, however, Alcibiades... who wished to thwart Nicias both as his political opponent and because of the attack he had made upon him in his speech. Besides, Alcibiades was exceedingly ambitious of a command by which he hoped to reduce Sicily and Carthage. He also hoped for personal gain in wealth and reputation by means of his military successes. For the position he held among the citizens led him to indulge his tastes beyond what his real means would bear, both in keeping horses and in the rest of his expenditure; and this later on had not a little to do with the ruin of the Athenian State. Alarmed at the greatness of the license in his own life and habits, and aunt the ambition which he showed in all things, whatsoever that he undertook, the mass of the people marked him as an aspirant to the tyranny and became his enemies. Although, in his public life, his conduct of the war was as good as could be desired, in his private life, his habits gave offense to everyone. Thus causing the Athenians to commit affairs to other hands, and thus, before long, to ruin the State. Meanwhile he now came forward and gave the following advice to the Athenians:

‘Athenians, I have a better right to command than others. I must begin with this, as Nicias has attacked me and, at the same time, I believe myself to be worthy of it. The things, for which I am abused, bring fame to my ancestors and to myself, and also profit to my country. The Hellenes, after expecting to see our city ruined, who rule all of by the war, concluded it to be even greater (than it really is) by reason of the magnificence, with which I represented it at the Olympic games. I sent there the seven chariots (a number never before entered by any private person), and I won the first prize, and was second and forth, and took care to have everything else in a style worthy of my victory. Custom regards such displays as honorable, and they can not be made without leaving behind them an impression of power. Again, any splendor that I may have exhibited at home in providing choruses or otherwise, is naturally envied to by my fellow citizens, but in the eyes of foreigners has an air of strength as in the other instance. And this is no useless folly, when a man at his own private cost benefits not himself only, but his city. Nor is it unfair that he, who prides himself on his position, should refuse to be equated with the rest. He, who is badly off, has his misfortunes all to himself. As we do not see men courted in adversity, on the like principle a man ought to accept the insolence of prosperity. Or else, let him first allot out equal measure to all, and then demand to have it allotted out to him. What I know is that persons of this kind, who have attained to any distinction (although they may be unpopular in their lifetime, in their relations with their fellow men and especially with their equals), leave to posterity the desire of claiming connection with them, even without any ground. And they are boasted by the country to which they belonged, not as strangers or evildoers, but as fellow countrymen and heroes. Such are my aspirations and, however, I am abused for them in my private life, the question is whether anyone manages public affairs better than I do. Having united the most powerful States of the Peloponnesus, without great danger or expense to you, I compelled the Spartans to make their stake upon the issue of a single day at Mantinea; and although victorious in the battle, they have never since fully recovered confidence.

Thus did my youth and so-called monstrous folly that found fitting arguments to deal with the power of the Peloponnesians, and, by its ardor, win their confidence and prevail. Do not be afraid of my youth now, but while I am still in its flower, and Nicias appears fortunate, avail yourselves to the utmost of the services of us both. Nor should you rescind your resolution to sail to Sicily, on the ground that you would be going to attack a great power. The cities in Sicily are peopled by motley rabbles, who easily change their institutions and adopt new ones in their stead. Consequently, the inhabitants, being without any feeling of patriotism, are not provided with arms for their persons, and have not regularly established themselves on the land. Every man thinks that either by fair words or by party strife he can obtain something at the public expense, and then, in case of a catastrophe, settle in some other country, and makes his preparations accordingly. From a mob like this, you need not look for either unanimity in counsel or unity in action. They will probably come in one by one, as they get a fair offer, especially if they are torn by civic strife, as we are told. Moreover, the Sicilians have not so many hoplites as they boast. Just as the Hellenes generally did not prove to be so numerous as each State reckoned itself. But Hellas greatly overestimated their numbers and has hardly had an adequate force of hoplites throughout this war. Therefore, the States in Sicily, from all that I can hear, will be found as I say. And I have not pointed out all our advantages, for we shall have the help of many librarians the barbarians, who from their hatred of the Syracusans will join us in attacking them. Nor will the powers at home prove any hindrance if you judge rightly. Our fathers (with these same adversaries, which it is said we shall now leave behind us when we sail, and the Persians as their enemy as well) were able to win the empire, depending solely on their superiority at sea. The Peloponnesians have never had so little hope against us as at present. And let them be ever so optimistic, although strong enough to invade our country even if we stay at home, they can never hurt us with their navy, as we leave one of our own behind us that is a match for them.

In this state of affairs what reason can we give to ourselves for holding back, or what excuse can we offer to our allies in Sicily for not helping them? They are our confederates, and we are bound to assist them, without objecting that they have not assisted us. We did not take them into alliance to have them help us in Hellas, but that they might so annoy our enemies in Sicily as to prevent them from coming over here and attacking us. It is thus that empire has been won, both by us and by all others that have held it, by a constant readiness to support all, whether barbarians or Hellenes, that invite assistance. Since if all were to keep quiet or to choose whom they ought to assist, we should make but few new conquests, and should imperil those we have already won. Men do not rest content with parrying the attacks of a superior, but often strike the first blow to prevent the attack being made. Moreover, we cannot fix the exact point at which our empire shall stop. We have reached a position in which we must not be content with retaining what we have but must scheme to extend it for. If we cease to rule others, we shall be in danger of being ruled by others. Nor can you look at inaction from the same point of view as others, unless you are prepared to change your habits and make them resemble theirs.

Be convinced then that we shall augment our power at home by this adventure abroad, and let us make the expedition, and so humble the pride of the Peloponnesians by sailing off to Sicily, and letting them see how little we care for the peace that we are now enjoying. At the same time, we shall either become masters, as we very easily may, of the whole of Hellas through the accession of the Sicilian Hellenes, or in any case ruin the Syracusans, to the no small advantage of ourselves and our allies. Our ability to stay if successful, or to return if not, will be secured to us by our navy, as we shall be superior at sea to all the Sicilians put together. And do not let the passive policy which Nicias advocates, or his setting of the young against the old, turn you from your purpose. Instead, in the good old fashion, by which our fathers, old and young together, by their united counsels brought our affairs to their present height, do you endeavor still to advance them? You should understand that neither youth nor old age can do anything the one without the other; but that levity, sobriety, and deliberate judgment are strongest when united, and that, by sinking into inaction, the city, like everything else, will wear itself out, and its skill in everything decay. However, each fresh struggle will give it fresh experience, and make it more used to defend itself, not in word but in deed. In short, my conviction is that a city, not inactive by nature, could not choose a quicker way to ruin itself than by suddenly adopting such a policy. The safest rule of life is to take one’s character and institutions for better and for worse, and to live up to them as closely as one can.’

Such were the words of Alcibiades. After hearing him and the Egestaeans and some Leontine exiles, who came forward reminding them of their oaths and imploring their assistance, the Athenians became more eager for the expedition than before." Ibid. Bk.6, ch.8-19.

From these speeches of two Athenian generals, you can easily discern the two moral ideologies, and who is I-me-my, arrogant aristocrat and who is we-us-our, modest democrat.

The Athenian expedition corpus could not overcome the Syracusans and appealed for reinforcement. The Athenians repeated their recklessness and sent a second large expedition to Sicily. The Athenians' strategy to divide Sicilian cities failed. Failure continued in their tactics. The army grew tired physically and morally, and the Athenians decided to withdraw. There was a moon eclipse just when the Athenians were ready to depart. They took it for an evil omen and decided to postpone their evacuation for 27 days. This period was enough for the Syracusans to block the mouth of their harbor, preventing the Athenians' escape. The Athenians tried to escape by land. In this retreat they were attacked from all sides by the Syracusans, run in panic, leaving their wounded behind. They were trapped; then they surrendered. Most of the captives died of hunger and disease in the Sicilian rock quarries. The Athenians and their allies lost nearly 50 thousand men and 200 ships in this reckless adventure.

Fearing the Athenian expansion in Sicily and strengthened by financial support from the Persians, Sparta moved toward the continuation of the war. After the Sicilian catastrophe, many Ionian confederates defected, and the besieged and isolated Athens (with a decimated navy and a trickling down food supply) surrendered. The Dorian confederates dissolved the Ionian confederation and left Athens with only a handful of the merchant ships. They demolished the city’s protective walls; however, they did not massacre or enslave the Athenians.

The Peloponnesian War effectively suppressed the economic, political and cultural development of Athens and shattered the industrialization of the Hellenic urban culture.

The economic devastation and disorganization (multiplied by the remnants of the tribal hatred between the Dorians and Ionians, and the hatred between the upper and middle classes) led to political disintegration of the Greeks. During the protracted war, the Greeks became brutal and selfish; they neglected their civic duties; their moderation degenerated into extremism and revolution. The scramble between the upper and middle classes (between the aristocrats and democrats) had been growing again. The aristocrats wished to concentrate the political power in own hands and the democrats tried to assert the achieved level of the political freedom. Both sides sought to dominate the Assembly and courts by using the unlawful methods -- both resorted to bribery and even to the assassination of their opponents. During the Peloponnesian War, the conflicts between these factions erupted into the civil wars in many city-states (including Athens) and ruined the economic and moral basis of the Hellenic society. Thucydides thus described the Greeks’ moral and economic decay:

"The Corcyraean revolution began with the return of the prisoners taken in the sea fights off Epidamnus. They had been nominally released by the Corinthians [the Dorian confederates, VS], upon the security of 800 talents [about 18 tons, VS] given by their proxy, but in reality upon their engagement to bring Corcyra under the rule of Corinth. These men proceeded to scrutinize each of the citizens, and to intrigue with the aim of detaching the city from Athens. Upon the arrival of an Athenian and a Corinthian vessels, with envoys onboard, a conference was held in which the Corcyraeans voted to remain allies of the Athenians according to their agreement, but to be friends of the Peloponnesians [the Dorians, VS] as they had been formerly. Meanwhile, the returned prisoners brought Peithias, a volunteer proxy of the Athenians and leader of the commoners, to trial, upon the charge of enslaving Corcyra to Athens. He, being acquitted, retaliated by accusing five of the aristocrats of their number of cutting stakes in the ground sacred to Zeus and Alcinous. The legal penalty was a stater [nearly 2 drachmas or 16 g of gold] for each stake. Upon their conviction and because the amount of the penalty was very large, they protested and organized a sitting strike in the temples, demanding to be allowed to pay it by installments. However, Peithias, who was one of the Council, prevailed upon that body and demanded to enforce the law. The accused aristocrats, being desperate and learning that Peithias had the intention, while still a member of the Council, to persuade the people to conclude a defensive and offensive alliance with Athens. They banded together, armed with daggers, and suddenly bursting into the Council, killed Peithias and sixty others Council members and private persons. Some few only of the party of Peithias took refuge in the Athenian trireme [the battle ship, VS], which had not yet departed.

After this outrage, the conspirators summoned the Corcyraeans to an assembly, and said that this would turn out for the best and would save them from being enslaved by Athens. They moved to receive neither of the fugitives unless the latter came peacefully in a single ship, treating any larger number as enemies. They compelled to adopt this motion and instantly sent off envoys to Athens to justify what had been done and to dissuade the refugees there from any hostile proceedings, which might lead to a reaction.

Upon the arrival of the embassy, the Athenians arrested the envoys and all who listened to them as the revolutionists, and lodged them in Aegina. Meanwhile, a Corinthian battle-ship arriving in the island with Spartan envoys, those in control of Corcyra attacked the people [the democrats] and defeated them in the battle. Night coming on, the democrats took refuge in the Acropolis [the citadel] and the higher parts of the city, and concentrated themselves there, having also possession of the Hyllaic harbor, their adversaries occupying the Agora [the marketplace, VS]... The next day passed in skirmishes of little importance, each party sending into the country to offer freedom to the slaves and to invite them to join them. The mass of the slaves answered to appeal of the democrats. The aristocrats had hired eight hundred mercenaries from the mainland.

After a day’s interval hostilities recommenced, victory remaining with the democrats, who had the advantage in numbers and position; the women bravely assisting them, pelting with files from the houses, and supporting the hand-to-hand fighting with a fortitude beyond their gender. Toward dusk, the aristocrats in full rout, fearing that the victorious commoners might assault and carry the arsenal and put them to the sword, set fire to the houses round the marketplace and the lodging-houses, in order to bar their advance. They spared neither their own houses, nor those of their neighbors. Much stuff of the merchants was consumed and the city risked total destruction if a wind had come to help the flame... Hostilities now ceased, and while both sides kept quiet, passing the night on guard, the Corinthian battle-ship stole out to sea upon the victory of the democrats, and most of the mercenaries passed over secretly to the continent.

The next day the Athenian general, Nicostratus... came up from Naupactus with 12 ships and 500 Messenian hoplites [the Messenians were exiled by the Spartans and the Athenians settled them at Naupactus, V.S.]. He at once endeavored to bring about a settlement and persuade the two parties to agree together to bring to trial ten of the ringleaders of the aristocrats. The latter were no longer in the city, while the rest were to live in peace, making terms with each other, and entering an alliance with the Athenians. Thus arranged, he was about to sail away, when the leaders of the democrats induced him to leave them five of his ships to make their adversaries less disposed to make trouble, while they manned and sent with him an equal number of their own. He had no sooner consented, than they began to enroll their enemies for the ships; and these, fearing that they might be sent off to Athens, protested with a sitting strike in the temple of the Dioscuri. When an attempt by Nicostratus to reassure them and to persuade them to rise proved unsuccessful, the democrats, armed upon this pretext, and alleging the refusal of their adversaries to sail with them as a proof of the hollowness of their intentions, took their arms out of their houses. They would even have killed some whom they fell in with if Nicostratus had not prevented it. The rest of the aristocratic party, being not less than four hundred in number and seeing what was going on, protested with a sitting strike in the temple of Hera. They protested until the democrats, fearing that the aristocrats might adopt some desperate resolution, induced them to rise, and conveyed them over to the island in front of the temple where provisions were sent across to them.

At this stage in the revolution, on the fourth or fifth day after the removal of the aristocrats to the island, the Dorian ships arrived from Cyllene where they had been stationed since their return from Ionia. They had 53 ships in number, still under the command of Alcidas, but with Brasidas also onboard as his adviser. They dropped anchors at Sybota – a harbor on the mainland, at daybreak made sail for Corcyra.

The democrats, in great confusion and alarm at the state of things in the city and at the approach of the invader, at once proceeded to equip 60 vessels. They sent out the ships as fast as they were manned, against the enemy, in spite of the Athenians recommending them to let them sail out first, and to follow themselves afterwards with all their ships together. Upon their vessels coming up to the enemy in this straggling fashion, two immediately deserted, in others the crews were fighting among themselves, and there was no order in anything that was done. So got the Dorians, seeing their confusion, placed 20 ships to oppose the Corcyraeans, and arranged the rest against the 12 Athenian ships, amongst which were two vessels: Salaminia and Paralus.

While the Corcyraeans (attacking without judgment and in small detachments) were already crippled by their own misconduct, the Athenians (afraid of the numbers of the enemy and of being surrounded) did not venture to attack the main body or even the center of the division opposed to them. Instead, they fell upon its wing and sank one vessel. After that the Dorians formed in a circle, and the Athenians rowed round them and tried to throw them into disorder. Perceiving this, the Dorian division that opposed to the Corcyraeans (fearing a repetition of the disaster of Naupactus) came to support their friends. The whole fleet, now united, bore down upon the Athenians, who retired before it, baking water, withdrawing as leisurely as possible in order to give the Corcyraeans time to escape while the enemy was thus kept occupied. Such was the character of this sea fight, which lasted until sunset.

The Corcyraeans now feared that the enemy would follow up their victory and sail against the city and rescue the aristocrats in the island, or strike some other equally decisive blow, and accordingly carried the aristocrats over again to the temple of Hera, and kept guard over the city. The Dorians, however, although victorious in the sea fight, did not venture to attack the city, but took the 13 Corcyraean vessels that they had captured, and with them sailed back to the continent from whence they had put out. The next day they again refrain from attacking the city, although the disorder and panic were at their height, and though Brasidas, it is said, urged Alcidas, his superior officer, to do so, but they landed upon the promontory of Leukemme and laid waste the country.

Meanwhile, the democrats (being still in great fear of the fleet attacking them) came to a parley with the aristocrats and their friends, in order to save the city. They convinced some of the aristocrats to go on board the ships, of which they still manned 30, against the accept attack. But the Dorians (after plundering the country until midday) sailed away. Toward nightfall they were informed by beacon signals of the approach of 60 Athenian vessels from Leucas, under the command of Eurymedon... which had been sent off, by the Athenians, upon the news of the revolution and of the fleet with Alcidas being about to sail for Corcyra.

The Dorians, accordingly, set off at once, in haste, by night, for home, coasting along shore. They hauled their ships across the Isthmus of Leucas, in order not to be seen doubling it, so departed. The Corcyraeans (made aware of the approach of the Athenian fleet and of the departure of the enemy) brought the Messenians from outside the walls into the city, and ordered the fleet, which they had manned to sail round into the Hyllaic harbor. While it was so doing, they slew such of their enemies as they laid hands on, killing afterwards as they landed them, those who they had persuaded to go onboard the ships. Next they went to the sanctuary of Hera and persuaded about 50 men to take their trial, and condemned them all to death. The mass of the aristocrats who had refused to do so, on seeing what was taking place, slew each other there in the consecrated ground; while some hanged themselves upon the trees, and others destroyed themselves as they were severally able. During seven days that Eurymedon stayed with his 60 ships, the democrats were engaged in butchering those of their fellow-citizens whom they regarded as their enemies. Although the attributed crime was that of attempting to put down the democracy, some were slain also for private hatred, others by their debtors because of the moneys owed to them. Death thus raged in every shape. As usually happens at such times, there was no length to which violence did not go. Fathers killed their sons and refugees were dragged from the altar or slain upon it, while some were even walled up in the temple of Dionysus and died there.

So bloody was the march of the revolution, and the impression which it made was the greater as it was one of the first to occur. Later, one may say that the whole Hellenic world was convulsed. Struggles, being everywhere, made by the popular leaders to bring in the Athenians and by the aristocrats to introduce the Spartans. In peace, there would have been neither the pretext nor the wish to wait such an invitation. But in war, with an alliance always at the command of either faction for the hurt of their adversaries and their own corresponding advantage, these opportunities commanded to the revolutionary parties to bringing in the foreigner that was never welcomed in the peace time. The sufferings, which revolution entailed upon the cities, were many and terrible. Such sufferings, as have occurred and always will occur, as low as the nature of mankind remains the same, though in a severer or milder form, and name varying in their symptoms, according to the variety of the particular cases.

In peace and prosperity states and individuals have better sentiments because they do not find themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities; but were takes away the easy supply of daily wants and so proves a rough master that brings most men’s characters to a level with their fortunes. Revolution thus ran its course from city to city, and the places which it arrived at last, from having heard what had been done before, carried to a still greater excess the refinement of their inventions, as manifested in the cunning of their enterprises and the atrocity of their reprisals.

Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless boldness came to be considered the courage of a loyal supporter; prudent hesitation – specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question – incapacity to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness, cautious plotting – a justifiable means of self-defense. The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy, his opponent – a man to be suspected. To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to forestall a plot – a still shrewder. However, to try to provide against, having to do either, was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries. In short, to foresee an intending criminal, or to suggest the idea of a crime there where it lacked, was equally praiseworthy. Until even blood-tie became weaker than party-tie because of the superior readiness of those united by the latter to dare everything without reserve. For such associations sought not the blessings derivable from established institutions but were formed by ambition to overthrow them. The confidence of the party members in each other rested less on any religious sanction than upon the partnership in crime.

The fair proposals of an adversary were met with jealous precautions by the stronger of the two, and not with a generous confidence. Revenge also was held of more account than self-preservation. Oaths of reconciliation, being only offered on either side to meet an immediate difficulty, held well only so long as no other weapon was at hand. However, when opportunity arose, he, who first ventured to seize it and to take his enemy off his guard, thought this treacherous vengeance sweeter than an open one. When the considerations of his safety were satisfied, the vengeance became sweeter because the success by treachery had won him the prize for superior intelligence. Indeed, it is generally the case that men call readier the rogues as clever than they call the simpletons as honest. Men are as ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being the first.

The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition, and from these passions proceeded the violence of parties, once engaged in contention.

The leaders in the cities made the fairest professions – on the one side, with the cry of a political equality of democracy, on the other side, with the cry of a moderate aristocracy. Nevertheless, they both sought prizes for themselves in those public interests which they pretended to cherish and, stopping at nothing in their struggles for ascendancy, engaged in direct excesses. In their acts of vengeance they went to even greater lengths, not limiting them to what justice or the good of the state demanded, but making the party caprice of the moment the only standard. They both invoked, with equal readiness, the condemnation of an unjust verdict or the authority of the strong arm to glut the animosities of the hour. Thus religion was in honor with neither party; but the use of the eloquent phrases, to arrive at guilty verdicts, was in high reputation. Meanwhile, the moderate part of the citizens perished between the two, either for not joining in the quarrel or because envy would not permit them to escape.

Every form of iniquity took root in the Hellenic countries because of those troubles. The ancient simplicity, into which honor so largely entered, was laughed down and disappeared. The society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow. To put an end to this, there was neither promise to be depended upon nor oath that could command respect. All parties, dwelling rather in their calculation upon the hopelessness of a permanent state of things, were more intent upon self-defense than capable of confidence.

In this contest, the blunter wits were most successful. Apprehensive of their own deficiencies and of the cleverness of their antagonists, they feared to be entangled into a debate and to be surprised by the combinations of their more versatile opponents. Therefore, they boldly had resorted to actions; and their adversaries often fell victims to own lack of precaution, arrogantly thinking that they would know in time and that it was unnecessary to secure by actions what policy could provide.

Meanwhile Corcyra gave the first example of most of the crimes alluded to: firstly, of the retaliation exacted by the lower classes, who had never experienced equitable treatment or indeed anything but insolence from their rulers. Secondly, of the gross injustice of those who desired to get rid of their accustomed poverty and ardently coveted their neighbors’ goods. And thirdly, of the savage and pitiless excesses, into which, men, who had begun the struggle not in a class but in a party spirit, were hurried by their unruly passions. In the confusion, into which life was now thrown in the cities, the human nature, always rebelling against the law and now its master, gladly showed itself unruly in passion, above respect for justice, and the enemy of all superiority. The human nature, had it not been for the fatal power of envy, showed itself unruly because any its pivotal point would not have been set above religion and gain above justice. Indeed, men, who too often take upon themselves in the prosecution of their revenge and set the example how to get rid of those general laws to which everyone can look for salvation in adversity, these very men allow these laws to subsist until the day of danger when the aid of these laws may be required for their own salvation.

While the revolutionary passions, thus for the first time, displayed themselves in the factions of Corcyra, Eurymedon and the Athenian fleet sailed away. After that, some 500 Corcyraean exiles, who had succeeded in escaping, took some forts on the mainland and, becoming masters of the Corcyraean territory on the mainland, made this their base to plunder their countrymen in the island. They did so much damage as to cause a severe famine in the city. They also sent envoys to Sparta and Corinth to negotiate their restoration. However, meeting with no success, they got together boats and mercenaries and crossed over to the island, being about 600 in all. They burned their boats, so as to have no hope except in becoming masters of the country, and went up to Mount Istone. Fortifying themselves there, they began to harm those in the city and obtain command of the country.

At the close of the same summer, the Athenians sent 20 ships under the command of Laches... and Charoeades... to Sicily, where the Syracusans and Leontines were at war. The Syracusans had for allies all the Dorian cities except Camarina – these had all been included in the Lacedaemonian [Dorian] confederacy from the commencement of the war, though they had not taken any active part in it – the Leontines had Camarina and the Chalcidian cities. In Italy, the Locrians were for the Syracusans, the Rhegians for their Leontine kinsmen. The allies of the Leontines now sent to Athens and appealed to their ancient alliance and to their Ionian origin, to persuade the Athenians to send them a fleet, as the Syracusans were blockading them by land and sea. The Athenians sent it upon the plea of their common descent, but in reality to prevent the export of Sicilian corn to the Peloponnesus and to test the possibility of bringing Sicily into subjection. Accordingly they established themselves at Rhegium in Italy, and from thence carried on the war in concert with their allies." Ibid. Bk.3, ch.70-86.

During the three decades before this war, the Athenian middle-class has had Pericles’ effective leadership. In the Assembly, Pericles could assert with sounded arguments those policies, which he saw as for the common good and often he had won over those that were directed in the interests of a few aristocrats. After Pericles’ death and during the war, the new Athenian leaders, instead of examining issues soberly on their substance (the benefit of majority in the long run), rather preferred to support policies that would gain them the popular votes now-and-here. In their turn, these votes would give the leaders an opportunity to gain the personal wealth in the short-run. Having such leaders, the Assembly at times acted over-eager and unwise, as it did taking decisions about the Sicilian expedition. After the failure of this expedition, the already deteriorated moral of the Athenians was decaying by the hour; frequent panic and riots had led the aristocrats to power and they gained control of Athens in 411 BC. Seeking to deprive the middle-class of its political influence, the aristocrats reformed the executive body (of the 500 into the 400) and restricted citizenship to 4000 men. However, the crews of the Athenian fleet, loyal to the democrats, challenged the authority of the new government and forced the aristocrats to flee.

When the Spartan aristocrats defeated the Athenians in 404 BC, they restored the aristocratic rule in Athens. The executive body of thirty, led by Critias, trampled on the democratic rights of the Athenians, confiscated their property and condemned many people to death. In less than a year, the new military bureaucracy was deposed by the returned exiles who led the uprising.

The Peloponnesian War was the great crisis of the Hellenic urban culture, after which it could not fully recover – either bodily (economically) or spiritually (politically). The general result of this war and these revolutions was a deterioration of the Greek culture (their economics and politics). The industrialization of the Ionian States, including Athens, was shattered; and the tiny remnants of the middle-class again had to wear a yoke of the hereditary bureaucracy. The Greeks’ social conscious (civic responsibility) and their devotion to the commonwealth that marked the Age of Pericles, now degenerated into the egoistic concern for private affairs and non-civic ir-responsibility. Increasingly, the professional bureaucrats, rather than the common people, would execute the social goals (and even would define those goals); the mercenaries began to replace the citizen-soldiers.

The economically and politically retarded Sparta could not unite the Greek world; only the industrial and open-minded Athens could do it. In many city-states, the aristocratic Spartans replaced the democratic governments with the aristocratic puppet-regimes under the supervision of a Spartan governor. However, because of the vast territories and the difficulties in communication, soon the Ionian city-states had thrown off the Spartan yoke, formed new systems of alliances and persisted in their external and internal conflicts.

For the Ionian Greeks, reasoning, living with human dignity (which is not the arrogance and haughtiness of aristocrats, and is not the humbleness and the bootlicking of slaves) and with democratic institutions here-and-now were of primary importance. The Ionian Greeks’ interest in the average John was so great that even their gods were anthropomorphic, that is, created in the image and shape of man – slightly idealized man, of course.

Zeus was the powerful chief of the gods and ruler of the heavens. Apollo was the sun god, the god of wisdom, light, poetry and healing. He was usually depicted as serene, poised, and majestic. Dionysus was the god of intoxication, ritual, and drama. Athena was the goddess of wisdom and patroness of Athens. According to a legend, she was born by springing fully-grown from the head of Zeus. Aphrodite was the goddess of love, fertility and beauty. They were gods and goddesses in the form of humans. And like humans, they hated and loved each other – they were angry and jealous, and fought battles; they were joyful and happy, and made love. They also took sides in the human affairs and wars. The middle class ideology of the Ionian Greeks reflected their interests through the imaginative actions of their gods, who acted with certain aspects of human characters, at their idealized best for the commoners. The ideologists (priests, poets, and sculptor) created these images and materialized those gods in the form of powerful, dignified, and graceful human beings. A few cultures had believed in such humane gods.

For example, the Egyptian gods were depicted through the extremely distorted animal and human forms. But the Ionian Greeks believed into themselves to be the module, or basic unit of measure; that is why they presented themselves in their sculpture of themselves and their gods. The sculpted figures are strong and straight, with many vertical lines to emphasize their strength, much like a column, the predominant element in the Greek temple architecture. This cultural association between man and the architectural column indicates that the Greeks identified the human being with the characteristics of the column: strong, orderly, erect, dignified, and handsome.

The column symbolized the living man, his human reason (conscious) and his animal (procreative) spirit (subconscious). Thus, we think of the Ionian Greeks dedicating their multi-columnar temples not only to the ideas of natural powers (gods), but also to the ideal man, the substitute of the average John. Thus, the commoner, with his common sense, indeed, became the measure of all things, even of his gods. As each column contributed to the support of the whole structure, so each commoner contributed his support to the whole community.

In their concept of the community (polis – the city-state) lies the Ionian Greeks’ greatest creation. Their polis (from which comes such words as politics and police), their city-state, their institutions or bureaucracy was created through the process of trial and error, with the intent to find out such a form of government, which would not oppress the commoners, like the previous, monarchical form did. Rather, the Ionian Greeks realized their interests as the interests of the majority, of the commoners; and they were committed to materialize these interests into the republican form of their bureaucracy. Thus, their republican ideal influenced all aspects of their lives – their spiritual and material culture (customs, science, and art).

The spiritual center of the city-state was the State, its republican bureaucracy, which presided in a high and sacred place of the city. Originally, it was a fortified stronghold, but it became more a symbolic than a practical place. It was called the Acropolis (from Greek, acro means ‘high’, and polis means ‘citadel’). Upon it was focused much of the ritual and ceremony of Greek life. The Athenian Acropolis was crowned by a mere handful of buildings, erected during the Periclean Age of Athens. There is a building at the entrance of it, which is called the Propylaea. Right next to it stands a tiny temple dedicated to the patron goddess of Athens for her help in the victory over the Persians. Toward the center of this vast platform were built two more temples, the Erechtheum and the Parthenon. The latter was dedicated to the goddess Athena and housed her statue, made of ivory and gold.

Humongous dimensions of the Egyptian pyramids did not inspire the Ionic imagination. Rather, the Ionian Greeks took pride in painstaking refinements and subtleties of their artworks. The above mentioned four buildings are not a large number to crown a great age. But to the Ionian artists, as to the Dorian athletes, excellence was a goal to be pursued in all aspects of life. Attainment of perfection, of the complete realization of one’s potential, was called arete (virtue).

The Greek ethical theories circled around the notion of virtue (arete). The dominant upper class of the Dorians, through their ideologists, worked out their virtues as ‘manhood and excellence’. The dominant middle-class of the Ionians worked out their virtues as ‘goodness and excellence’. The virtues of manhood were bravery in war and loyalty (discipline) in peace. The virtues of goodness were daring with deliberation in business. Both of the Greeks understood the virtue of excellence as the activity by which someone or something performed his or its function well. Thus, the function of a knife is to cut; a good or excellent knife cuts well. However, the inanimate objects and animals could not have manhood or goodness (bravery or prudence); only humans (in a human society) have such functions.

If you will still insist that a horse, for instance, might have manhood (bravery and loyalty) in a battle, I will say that, firstly, the horse might have horse-hood, not manhood. Secondly, if the horse would understand what the people (including its master) were fighting for, this horse would run from the battlefield as a scalded one, with or without its master. If you would continue the argument and sarcastically ask: ‘How do you know what the horse would think, for you are not a horse?’ I would answer, that ‘Right now I am not a horse, but my human experience shows me that 99.99% of horses would do the job, allotted for them by a new master, as well as they did for a past master, if the new master feeds and shelters them appropriately. Horses do not have human bravery and human loyalty to human superiors. They might have their horse-leader when they are in a herd, but they do not understand the human concept of superiority, which is valid only in a human herd (I mean society). For a horse, its groom (who takes care of it) might be far more superior to the groom’s king (who can ride on both of them). Therefore, I believe that animals, plants, and inanimate objects cannot have human manhood or goodness, but they can be the excellent means for humans and the excellent extensions of a human society, but not the indispensable parts of it, as humans do. Imagine that a pig would be the president of our empire… Then, we would be the members of Orwell’s Animal Farm, and not of a human society. Although a few humans can behave like pigs, but they are exceptions, not the rule; and usually they are either in a prison or in a mental institution.

Matter (God and Nature) organizes inanimate objects, which consist of this same matter that is transforming from one living form into another, from one system of organization into another. We usually call this transitional stage – death. For instance, two centuries ago, my grand-, grand-…grand-pa cut a tree. From the tree’s corpse, he built a country-house, which was gradually decaying. Probably in the time of my grand-, grand-son, it will completely turn into dust, from which a new tree will spring and, in five centuries, my grand-, grand-…grand-son will cut that tree and built from its corpse a new country-house, which will decay and… you’ve got the picture. All living objects decay to the molecules, atoms, electron-positrons, etc., and finally, to the waves of light (repulsive force – energy) and the waves of dark (attractive force – gravity). From that point, the matter begins its re-organization by using its principle of duality – love and hate (attractive and repulsive forces). Its ascension goes through the levels of organization – to leap to the next level of organization the matter has to reach its critical mass. From which level of organization (atomic, molecular, one-molecule object, two-molecule object, etc., one-cell object, two-cell object, etc.) should we start to label the objects as alive, I do not know. It is rather a matter of convention (politics) than of science – the abortionists know it better. However, I believe that all the laws of nature and society (such as the laws of gravity and of supply and demand, for instance) flow from this principle of matter – the law of love and hate (gravity and energy or, if you prefer, Mother Nature and Father God). It is enough for this subject, for the rest will be addressed in the third book.

Plato argues in his Republic that when reason rules the soul, as is its function, the soul is virtuous (that is, it has and manhood and goodness). As such, the human soul possesses wisdom (temperance and justice) and bravery. That is, Plato tried to make an "excellent" mixture of the virtues of the middle and upper classes.

For Aristotle, the virtuous individual habitually chooses his path of action according to a rational mean between two extreme vices. Thus, when faced with a fearful situation, the individual chooses the mean, which is courage, rather than wallows in an excess of fear, which is cowardice, or proceeds boldly and fearlessly, which is recklessness. Aristotle, in his Ethics, recognized that people are not always rational and their passionate characteristics can never be eradicated, and therefore, should not be ignored. Aristotle considered surrendering oneself completely to own desire as descending into the animal stage of one’s development. However, completely depriving oneself of the gratification of own desire and living as a hermit would be a foolish and unreasonable rejection of human nature. Aristotle stated that by proper training one could learn to curb one’s desires and achieve moral excellence when one rationally avoided the extremes of behavior. "Nothing in excess" was Aristotle’s motto.

However, Aristotle was inconsistent and did not stress the constant feature of his Golden Mean Rule. There is nothing wrong with the want-to-give and wish-to-receive in a short-run situation, but they become extremes if they are practiced too long or as the long-range interests. One, who submitted self to the constant influence of one’s extreme desires, may finish as a beggar or as an insane; that is, his prolonged acting to achieve the extreme desire would crystallize into his constant social function. However, the constant practice of the Mean Rule brings the individual into the state of internal and external harmony, balance, and will-to-take what is just. Thus, he would find his social function, his role in a society, which is in accord with his innate talent; thus, he becomes a peaceful and law-abiding citizen. There is nothing wrong with an individual who has wished-to-be a hero (to-receive respect from the society) and, when opportunity occurred, has jumped into a flaming house and saved a child. However, when his wish-to-be a hero becomes his constant obsession to be in the public eye, then, his passive wish-to-receive may transform into active want-to-give (dialectics shows that extremes converge into each other). Thus, he may start artificially setting other houses on fire in order to give his "helping" hand to save their residents. Thus, his extreme and constant obsession of being a hero would play a dirty joke on him (making him a criminal instead of a hero) and would jeopardize the lives and property of others. That is what happened with Nero, a Roman emperor.

In essence, Aristotle, following Plato, also tried to make an "excellent" mixture of the virtues of the upper and middle classes. Probably that is why his Ethics, in large, have only been read by aristocrats. Nevertheless, even they could not act on his prescriptions because, to be a courageous one, the individual must act spontaneously and make a decision instantaneously. The individual’s hesitating reason would not allow him to find the Golden Mean instantaneously in an unexpected situation. While he is hesitating, others are evaluating his deeds and will pronounce him a hero, commoner, or scoundrel; thus, others would not perceive him as a courageous one if he would reason and hesitate. That is why most of the heroes would tell you that they acted without deliberation or hesitation, and they just did their job, their duty. Thus, the morality of the upper class (bravery) must be separated from the morality of the middle class (prudence). You cannot be good for all. There would not be class divisions in a society if there would be no necessity in the separation of such human characteristics as bravery and deliberation, and corresponding social functions – the military and civil bureaucrats.

The Dorian and Ionian Greeks and two of their major authorities on ethics (Plato and Aristotle) agreed that the virtue of excellence is an activity by which someone or something performed his or its function well. The inanimate objects, as the products of the prudent commoners, could be excellent if those commoners act habitually in accord with a rational mean between two extreme vices. To achieve excellence in art, Aristotle said, the correct proportions of a building were those which respected the scale of the common man, and reached a mean between extremes. Thus, the buildings of the Athenian Acropolis are an excellent example of the achievement of the middle class dominated Ionian Greeks in architecture.

The plan of the basic temple form actually changed little over the five centuries of the Greek dominance in the Mediterranean. They just refined this basic temple form. They looked for the best proportions of the various elements, which together make up the temple. Among the 300-odd Greek temples that are preserved to us, many are smaller than the Parthenon, and many are larger. But it seems to me that the Parthenon best represents the middle-class ideal of excellence.

For example, the columns of some temples seem massive and crude (as those of the Basilica comparatively with those of the Parthenon) while others seem tall and elegantly detailed (as those of the Erechtheum comparatively with those of the Parthenon). The Parthenon columns reflect the Golden Mean between the extremes of the Basilica and Erechteum’s columns. Hence, the Parthenon represents the architectural apogee of the middle-class dominated Ionian Greeks – the balance, harmony, and proportion of their spiritual and material culture. Because it was dedicated to the patroness of Athens, the Parthenon was a reflection of the ideological (religious) ideal of the middle class dominated society. Its architects had little or no practical requirements to consider; thus, they came up with the idea to express the middle-class culture (its ‘software’) in the ‘hardware’ variant. Since Athena was the goddess of wisdom, the Athenian commoners would best serve their own prudence by a temple that incorporated logic and reason.

What could be more logical than geometry? Hence, the Parthenon was based on the geometrical formula known as the Golden Ratio. The Greeks reckoned that by dividing any straight line AB into two equal parts and taking a part as the second base of the rectangle they would have the necessary instruments to construct the Golden Ratio. They would erect a perpendicular BD at point B, equal to CB and AC. Then they would draw the hypotenuse, and would mark off DE, equal to BD, CB, and AC. Thus, they would get a segment AE that would not be equal all other segments. If they would mark off this segment AE on the original line as the segment AF (AE=AF). Then the point F would divide the original line into two unequal parts: AF and FB. The relation of AF to FB is the Golden Ratio. This Ratio can also be expressed algebraically. The Golden Ratio is such a proportion that would be produced by a line segment that is divided the line into two parts. The longer part (a) relates to the shorter part (b) as the entire segment (a + b) relates to the longer part (a); that is, a/b = (a + b)/a. The value of the Golden Ratio is approximately 8/5 or 1.618.

The height and width of the Parthenon are in the Golden Ratio. Thus, the middle-class Greeks’ rational of beauty was materialized in their architecture. However, the Ionian Greeks were not slaves to 2D (two-dimensional) geometry. To the contrary, they felt in their guts that there is 3D geometry and that the earth is not flat, but they could not prove it yet. Therefore, the Parthenon has the subtle refinements of the minute variations of 2D geometric form.

The steps of the Parthenon have a slight convex (bulging) curve toward their center. These variations alter the otherwise straight lines and mathematical regularity of the building. The columns are not equally spaced, but are slightly closer together at the corners, as if the thrust is greater in the corners of the building. The platform, from which the building rises, and the roof above it were curved slightly, as if the earth was round. Thus, the Ionian Greeks tried not to disrupt the water- and life-cycles. The columns also bulge slightly in the center, as if they bear the heavy load. These slight deviations from 2D geometry were probably intended to reflect the sense of flowing, of swelling, of life, and of nature (its completion and unity). Thus, the middle-class dominated Ionian Greeks showed that they were not slaves of the extreme deductive reasoning, but they also relied on their intuition and inductive reasoning, keeping own culture in systematic balance and harmony.

Standing next to the Parthenon is the Erechtheum. Its columns are of the Ionic style. Compare them with the simpler Doric-style columns of the Parthenon. The Ionic-style column (shown on the right) is taller and slender than the shorter, stockier, and more massive Doric-style column. And the Ionic-style capital has elaborate spirals, like the horns of a ram, while the Doric-style capital is very plain. (As usual, the aristocratic ideologists, who coined the names of the column styles, mixed up their content with their forms, thus, trying ‘to catch a fish in the murky waters’; however, for the time being, we will use their terminology.)

The two buildings are complementing each other, just as reason (conscious) and emotion (subconscious) of each human being are complementing each other in his mind (soul). The massive, symmetrical and masculine Parthenon stands juxtaposed to the more elegant, graceful, and feminine Erechtheum. The most distinctive feature of the Erechtheum is the Porch of the Maidens. The columns of this porch represent the direct association of a column with a human being. This porch showed that 2D geometry was not enough to fulfill the middle-class ideals, to achieve the virtue of daring with deliberation.

This virtue was also reflected in the Ionian Greeks’ idea of perfection in the human body. They admired not just the brute strength in man but also the grace and beauty in woman. Their balance in the deductive and inductive reasoning can be seen also in their sculpture. For example, Polyclitus’ statue of the Spearbearer has reflected the same concern for proportion that can be seen in the architecture of the Periclean epoch. Polyclitus, whose works are dated between the years 450-420 BC, made a careful study of the proportions of the human body and wrote the Canon, a treatise on the subject. His sculptures have powerful muscular frames, with the faces that are square rather than oval and with broad brows, straight noses, and small chins, the lines of which are sharply defined. His contemporaries praised him for his technical skill, delicacy of finish, and beauty of line. Polyclitus sculpted his Spearbearer in accord with the Golden Ratio, which he applied to his contemporary idealized commoner. Thus, the building and its sculpture were conceived as totalities that consisted of orderly and harmonious parts, as well as their environment.

The Ionian Greeks were also sensitive to the natural rhythms of life, and they took much of the old Aryan ideology. Their sense of rhythm can be seen in the sculpture that encircles the Parthenon in the frieze behind the columns. Although the rhythm is repetitious, there are subtle variations; just as in nature, things are never repeated exactly. Realistic bulging veins and rippling muscles of the horses can be seen; however, this naturalism in reflection was controlled by harmonious combination of the deductive and inductive reasoning. The rhythm of the sculpture was reinforced by the rhythm of the columns. All aspects had profound interdependence, and only taken together did they reflect the whole common man and his world. All aspects were reasonably blended and harmonized, thus achieving a systematic balance or a virtue of excellence. How was that balance destroyed?

The decline of the civic responsibly among the citizens was the major factor that contributed to the decline of the Greek city-states. The vitality of the State depends on the willingness of its citizens to give priority to the commonwealth over their private concerns. Thus, the main principle of a democracy is the rule of the majority. Of course, the Athenian democracy had its limitations. The lower class of serfs, slaves, and women was politically neutered and deprived of the citizenship. Today, most of us believe that slavery contradicts political freedom, but to the Greeks, these notions were complimentary. The Greeks assumed that if an individual chooses not to die with glory but to exist in shame that is his choice and his freedom. They did not yet understand how an individual could be conditioned to a subservient state from the moment of his conception. However, we should not underestimate the Athenian democracy because it had some flaws. Their idea of a State as a community from citizens, through citizens, and for citizens, is the keystone of the contemporary Legal State – the government that based its actions not on brutal military force, but on laws devised, debated, altered, executed, and obeyed by free citizens.

This idea of the Legal State, as the embodiment of the social conscious, could have arisen only in a society the individuals of which were aware of and respected own individual conscious – own reason. When the society respects the individual, the latter, in his turn, respects the former; thus, the society becomes a self-sufficient and stable by its form. Indeed, during nearly two hundred years after Cleisthenes, Athens has had only two short-lived attempts to topple the republican government; and both attempts were made during the Peloponnesian War.

The Greeks removed the mysticism from the sphere of public politics. Holding that the government is the major mean of the people to satisfy their needs (interests), the Athenians regarded their leaders neither as gods nor as priests, but as men who had demonstrated their physical and intellectual capacities for the leadership. However, the Greek political life demonstrated the extremes of the best and worst of the political freedom. On the one side, as Pericles proudly said, the political freedom encouraged the active citizenship, reasoned debate, and government by law; on the other side, as Thucydides lamented, the political freedom degenerated into the factionalism, demagoguery, violent selfishness, and civil war. The Greek politics, as their social conscious, also revealed both the capacity and the limitation of the civic duties.

Originally, the city-state derived from the tribal institutions of the Aryan nomadic people who developed a cult of a divine hero with its corresponding monarchical bureaucracy. The laws, first, was directly and later – indirectly, bestowed on the people by the gods. When the Greeks’ intellectuals became more pervasive (and realized that the laws are the reflections of the social interests), then the gods’ directives lost their authority. When the sociologically illiterate masses lost their regard for the laws and did not yet learn or see that the laws reflect their own long-run interests, then their respect for the laws diminished and weakened the moral foundation of the society. Because the majority of the population was the sociologically illiterate, the result displayed that the Greeks became morally uncertain, with a consequence of the party conflicts and politicians scrambling for personal gains.

To that time, the Greek social life already had plenty of experiences and now came the time when these social experiences should be resorted to; thus came the time of the deductive method of thinking and such thinkers as Socrates and Plato. Recognizing the danger of the moral uncertainty, the aristocrats insisted that the laws must again be conceived as the gods’ emanations and the people must treat them with awful reverence. That is why Plato, while championing the reason and aspiring to study and to arrange human life according to universally valid standards, also wanted-to-teach the youth with the tales (the "royal lies", as he called them) about the divine origin of the laws. On the one hand, for Plato, the Perfect State could not be founded on the upper class tradition and its extreme offspring – the doctrine of the mighty being right (for the inherited aristocratic attitudes did not derive from the rational standards). On the other hand, his Perfect State aimed at the moral improvement of its citizens, not at the increase of the State’s power. Therefore, the crux of the problem transferred, for Plato, into the area of the citizenship. Indeed, who is the real citizen?

An aristocrat by birth and character, Plato believed that it was foolish to expect from the commoner to think rationally about economics and politics. Plato’s Republic was his criticism of the Athenian democracy, which permitted the common man to speak freely in the Assembly, to vote, and, by lot, to be selected for an executive office. He wished-to-believe in the democratic ideal, but he knew that the commoner usually has no time or ability to dig the essence of a question at hand. The second danger of the democracy, he conceived as that its leaders were chosen for non-essential reasons like eloquence, handsome looks, and family background. The third danger of the democracy, he considered as that it could degenerate into anarchy when the citizens, intoxicated by the protection of their rights, could lose the balance and forget their responsibilities and respect for the laws:

"The citizens become so sensitive that they resent slightest application of control as intolerable tyranny, and in their resolve to have no master they end up by disregarding even the law, written or unwritten." Plato, The Republic, p. 289.

Such liberality leads to the confused morality, continued Plato:

"The parent falls into the habit of behaving like the child, and the child like the parent: the father is afraid of his sons, and they show no fear or respect for their parents, in order to assert their freedom... the young... argue with... [their parents, VS] and will not do as they are told; while the old, anxious not to be thought disagreeable tyrants, imitate the young and condescend to enter into their jokes and amusements." Ibid. p. 289.

When the democratic State became internally unstable, the fourth danger displayed. A demagogue would come to power by promising to plunder the rich to benefit the poor. To maintain his rule, such a ‘Robin Hood’ would

"stir up one war after another, in order that the people may feel their need of a leader, and also be so impoverished by taxation that they will be forced to think of nothing but winning their daily bread, instead of plotting against him." Ibid. p. 293.

Because of these built-in dangers of the democracy, Plato believed that Athens would be ruled justly only when the wisest people, the scientists and philosophers, come to the political power.

"Unless... political power and philosophy meet together... there can be no rest from troubles... for States... for all mankind." Ibid. p. 179.