THE crucial feature of the Greek conception of life was the
dramatic distinction which it made between will and the
conditions with which will had to cope. Just as surely as our
birth on the planet Earth gives us a place, definite, however
infinitesimal, in the solar system, relating us in our degree to
all that occurs within the orbit of the farthest satellite, so
it is clear that our position, geographically, ethnologically,
historically, upon that planet, places us from the beginning at
definite points on lines of cause and effect, to which, as human
beings, we can but exercise the function of acceptance. This
Not-to-be-refused, which modern science calls natural law, was
simply to the Greek an unexplained and unexplored Necessity or
Fate. To the ancients, a curse, for example, was no exercise of
the volition of the speaker. It was in no sense a threat. Our
own more frivolous use of the word is a case of degradation by
the death of a conception. To the old Greek, as indeed to the
[paragraph continues] Hind