But their methods are so
different, they lay stress on such different points, and call into being
by their respective disciplines such different activities, that the face
which human nature presents when it passes from the hands of one of them
to those of the other, is no longer the same. To get rid of one's
ignorance, to see things as they are, and by seeing them as they are to
see them in their beauty, is the simple and attractive ideal which
Hellenism holds out before human nature; and from the simplicity and
charm of this ideal, Hellenism, and human life in the hands of
Hellenism, is invested with a kind of aerial ease, clearness, and
radiancy; they are full of what we call sweetness and light.
Difficulties are kept out of view, and the beauty and rationalness of
the ideal have all our thoughts. "The best man is he who most tries to
perfect himself, and the happiest man is he who most feels that he _is_
perfecting himself,"[449]--this account of the matter by Socrates, the
true Socrates of the _Memorabilia_, has something so simple,
spontaneous, and unsophisticated about it, that it seems to fill us with
clearness and hope when we hear it.
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