Chapter 3, Section 9, of the Greek view of life, by Goldsworthy Loes Dickinson. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Geeson. Chapter 3, Section 9, Protests against the Common View of Women. Nevertheless, there are not wanting indications, both in theory and practice, of a protest against it. In Sparta, as we have already noticed, girls, instead of being confined to the house, were brought up in the open air among the boys, trained in gymnastics, and accustomed to run and wrestle naked. And Plato, modelling his view upon this experience, makes no distinction of the sexes in his ideal republic. Women, he admits, are generally inferior to men, but they have similar, if lower, capacities and powers. There is no occupation or art for which they may not be fitted by nature and education, and he would therefore have them take their share in government and war, as well as in the various mechanical trades. None of the occupations, he says, which comprehend the ordering of a state, belong to woman as woman, nor yet to man as man. But natural gifts are to be found here and there, in both sexes alike. And so far as her nature is concerned, the woman is admissible to all pursuits, as well as the man, though in all of them the woman is weaker than the man. In adopting this attitude, Plato stands alone, not only among Greeks, but one might almost say among mankind, till we come to the latest views of the nineteenth century. But there is another Greek, the poet Euripides, who, without advancing any theory about the proper position of women, yet displays so intimate an understanding of their difficulties, and so warm and close a sympathy with their griefs that some of his utterances may stand to all time as documents of the dumb and age-long protest of the weaker against the stronger sex. In illustration we may cite the following lines from the Medea, applicable Mutatis Mutandis to how many generations of suffering wives.  And on his character, could or bad, our whole fate depends. For divorce is regarded as a disgrace to a woman, and she cannot repudiate her husband. Then, coming as she does into the midst of manners and customs strange to her, she would need the gift of divination, unless she has been taught at home to know how best to treat her bed-fellow. And if we manage so well that our husband remains faithful to us and does not break away, we may think ourselves fortunate. If not, there is nothing for it but death. A man, when he is vexed at home, can go out and find relief among his friends or acquaintances, but we women have none to look to but him. They tell us we live a sheltered life at home while they go to the wars, but that is nonsense, for I would rather go into battle thrice than bear a child once. Here the two we have been speaking mainly of the position of the wife in Greece. It is necessary now to say a few words about that class of women who were called in the Greek tongue, Chetyrai, and who are by some supposed to have represented intellectually at least a higher level of culture than the other members of their sex. In exceptional cases this no doubt was the fact. Aspasia, for example, the mistress of Pericles, was famous for her powers of mind. According to Plato, she was an accomplished rhetorician and the real composer of the celebrated funeral oration of Pericles. And Plutarch asserts that she was courted and admired by the statesmen and philosophers of Greece. But Aspasia cannot be taken as a type of the Chetyrai of Greece. That these women, by the variety and freedom of their life, may and must have acquired certain qualities of character and mind that could hardly be developed in the seclusion of the Greek home, may readily be admitted. We know, for example, that they cultivated music and the power of conversation, and were welcome guests at supper parties. But we have no evidence that the relations which they formed rested as a rule on any but the simplest physical basis. The real distinction under this head, between the Greek point of view and our own, appears to lie rather in the frankness with which this whole class of relations was recognized by the Greeks. There were temples in honor of Aphrodite Pandemos, the goddess of illicit love, and festivals celebrated in her honor. Statues were erected of famous courtesans, of Frune, for example, at Delphi, between two kings, and philosophers and statesmen lived with their mistresses openly, without any loss of public reputation. Every man, said the aura to Demosthenes, requires besides his wife at least two mistresses. And this statement, made as a matter of course in open court, is perhaps the most curious illustration we possess of the distinction between the Greek civilization and our own, as regards not the fact itself, but the light in which it was viewed. Recording by Martin Giesen. From what has been said about the Greek view of women, it might naturally have been supposed that there can have been little place in their life for all that we designate under the term romance. Personal affection, as we have seen, was not the basis of married life, and relations with Khetairai appear to have been in this respect no finer or higher than similar relations in our own times. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to conclude from these conditions that the element of romance was absent from Greek life. The fact is simply that with them it took a different form, that of passionate friendship between men. Such friendships of course occur in all nations and at all times, but among the Greeks they were, we might say, an institution. Their ideal was the development and education of the younger by the older man, and in this view they were recognized and approved by custom and law as an important factor in the state. In Sparta, for example, it was the rule that every boy had attached to him some elder youth by whom he was constantly attended, admonished and trained, and who shared in public estimation the praise and blame of his acts, so that it is even reported that on one occasion a Spartan boy having cried out in a fight, not he himself, but his friend was fined for the lapse of self-control. The custom of Sparta existed also in Crete, but the most remarkable instance of the deliberate dedication of this passion to political and military ends is that of the celebrated Theban band, a troupe consisting exclusively of pairs of lovers who marched and fought in battle side by side, and by their presence and example inspired one another to a courage so constant and high that it is stated that they were never beaten till the battle at Caironea. And when Philip, after the fight, took a view of the slain, and came to the place where the three hundred that fought his phalanx lay dead together, he wandered, and understanding that it was the band of lovers, he shed tears, and said, perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered anything that was base. Greek legend and history in fact resounds with the praises of friends, Achilles and Patroclus, Pilades and Orestes, Hormodius and Aristogaiton, Solon and Pisistratus, Socrates and Alcibiades, Epaminondas and Pelopidas. These are names that recall at once all that is highest in the achievement and all that is most romantic in the passion of Greece. For it was the prerogative of this form of love in its finer manifestations that it passed beyond persons to objective ends, linking emotion to action in a life of common danger and toil. Not only, nor primarily, the physical sense was touched, but mainly and in chief, the imagination and intellect. The affection of Achilles for Patroclus is as intense as that of a lover for his mistress, but it has in addition a body and depth such as only years of common labour could impart. Achilles wept, remembering his dear comrade, nor did sleep that Conquereth all take hold of him, but he kept turning himself to this side and to that, yearning for Patroclus's manhood and excellent valor, and all the toils he achieved with him and the woes he bear, cleaving the battles of men and the grievous waves. As he thought thereon, he shed big tears, now lying on his side, now on his back, now on his face, and then anon he would arise upon his feet and roam wildly beside the beach of the salt sea. That is the ideal spirit of Greek comradeship, each supporting the other in his best efforts and aims, mind assisting mind and hand, hand, and the end of the love residing not in an easy satisfaction of itself, but in the development and perfecting of the souls in which it dwelt. Of such a love we have a record in the elegies of Theognes, in which the poet has embodied for the benefit of Curnus, his friend, the ripe experience of an eventful life. The poems, for the most part, are didactic in character, consciously and deliberately aimed at the instruction and guidance of the man to whom they are addressed. But every now and again the passion breaks through which informs and inspires this virile intercourse, and in such a passage as the following gives us the key to this and to all the finer friendships of the Greeks. Lo, I have given thee wings, wherewith to fly over the boundless ocean and the earth, yea, on the lips of many shalt thou lie the comrade of their banquet and their mirth. Youths in their loveliness shall bid thee sound upon the silver flutes melodious breath, and when thou goest darkling underground, down to the lamentable house of death, O yet not then from honour shalt thou cease, but wonder an imperishable name, Curnus, about the seas and shores of Greece, crossing from Isle to Isle the barren main. Horses thou shalt not need, but lightly ride, sped by the muses of the violet crown, and men to come, while earth and sun abide, who cherish song shall cherish thy renown. Yea, I have given thee wings, and in return thou giveest me the scorn with which I burn. It was his insistence on friendship as an incentive to a noble life that was the secret of the power of Socrates. Listen, for example, to the account which Plutarch gives of his influence upon the young Alcibiades.  He esteemed these endeavours of Socrates, as most truly a means which the gods made use of for the care and preservation of youth, and began to think meanly of himself, and to admire him, to be pleased with his kindness, and to stand in awe of his virtue, and, unawares to himself, there became formed in his mind that reflex image and reciprocation of love, or anteros that Plato talks of. Though Socrates had many and powerful rivals, yet the natural good qualities of Alcibiades gave his affection the mastery. His words overcame him so much as to draw tears from his eyes and to disturb his very soul. Yet sometimes he would abandon himself to flatterers, when they proposed to him varieties of pleasure, and would desert Socrates, who would then pursue him as if he had been a fugitive slave. He despised everyone else, and had no reverence or awe for any but him. The relation thus established may be further illustrated by the following graceful little anecdote. Socrates and Alcibiades were fellow soldiers at Potidaia, and shared the same tent. In a stiff engagement both behaved with gallantry. At last Alcibiades fell wounded, and Socrates, standing over him, defended and finally saved him. For this he might fairly have claimed the customary prize of valor. But he insisted on resigning it to his friend as an incentive to his ambition for noble deeds. Another illustration of the power of this passion to evoke and stimulate courage is given in the story of Cleomychus, narrated by Plutarch. In a battle between the Chalcidians and the Eretrians, the cavalry of the former being hard-pressed, Cleomychus was called upon to make a diversion. He turned to his friend and asked him if he intended to be a spectator of the struggle. The youth replied in the affirmative, and embracing his friend, with his own hands buckled on his helmet, whereupon Cleomychus, charged with impetuosity, routed the foe, and died gloriously fighting. And thenceforth says Plutarch, the Chalcidians, who had previously mistrusted such friendships, cultivated and honoured them more than any other people. End of chapter 3 section 10 part 1 Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey Chapter 3 section 10 part 2 of The Greek View of Life by Goldsworthy Loes Dickinson This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen Chapter 3 section 10 friendship part 2 So much indeed were the Greeks impressed with the manliness of this passion, with its power to prompt to high thought and heroic action, that some of the best of them set the love of man for man, far above that of man for woman. The one they maintained was primarily of the spirit, the other primarily of the flesh, the one bent upon shaping to the type of all manly excellence, both the body and the soul of the beloved, the other upon a passing pleasure of the senses. And they noted that among the barbarians who were subject to tyrants, this passion was discouraged, along with gymnastics and philosophy, because it was felt by their masters that it would be fatal to their power. So essentially was it the prerogative of freedom, so incompatible with the nature and the status of a slave. It is in the works of Plato that this view is most completely and exquisitely set forth. To him love is the beginning of all wisdom, and among all the forms of love that one in chief, which is conceived by one man for another, of which the main operation and end is in the spirit, and which leads on and out from the passion for a particular body and soul, to an enthusiasm for that highest beauty, wisdom and excellence, of which the most perfect mortal forms are but a faint and inadequate reflection. Such a love is the initiation into the higher life, the spring at once of virtue of philosophy and of religion. Always operative in practice in Greek life, it was not invented, but interpreted by Plato. The philosopher merely gave an ideal expression to what was stirring in the heart of every generous youth, and the passage which we have selected for quotation may be taken as representative not only of the personality of Plato, but of the higher aspect of a characteristic phase of Greek civilisation. And now, taking my leave of you, I will rehearse a tale of love, which I heard from Diotima of Mantinea, a woman wise in this and in many other kinds of knowledge. She was my instructor in the art of love, and I shall repeat to you what she said to me. On the birthday of Aphrodite there was a feast of the gods, at which the god Poros, or Plenty, who is the son of Metis, or discretion, was one of the guests. When the feast was over, Penea, or poverty, as the manner is on such occasions, came about the doors to beg. Now, Plenty, who was the worse for Nectar, there was no wine in those days, went into the garden of Zeus, and fell into a heavy sleep. And poverty, considering her own straightened circumstances, plotted to have a child by him, and accordingly she lay down at his side and conceived love, who partly because he is naturally a lover of the beautiful, and because Aphrodite is herself beautiful, and also because he was born on her birthday, is her follower and attendant. And as his parentage is, so also are his fortunes. In the first place he is always poor, and anything but tender and fair as the many imagine him, and he is rough and squalid, and has no shoes nor a house to dwell in. On the bare earth exposed he lies, and the open heaven in the streets, or at the doors of houses, taking his rest. And like his mother, he is always in distress. Like his father too, whom he also partly resembles, he is always plotting against the fair and good. He is bold, enterprising, strong, a mighty hunter, always weaving some intrigue or other, keen in the pursuit of wisdom, fertile in resources, a philosopher at all times, terrible as an enchanter, sorcerer, sophist. He is by nature neither mortal nor immortal, but alive and flourishing at one moment, when he is in plenty, and dead at another moment, and again alive by reason of his father's nature. But that which is always flowing in is always flowing out, and so he is never in want and never in wealth, and further he is in a mean between ignorance and knowledge. The truth of the matter is this, no God is a philosopher or seeker after wisdom, neither do the ignorant seek after wisdom. For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself. He has no desire for that of which he feels no want. But who then, Deotima, I said, are the lovers of wisdom, if they are neither the wise nor the foolish? A child may answer that question, she replied, they are those who are in a mean between the two. Love is one of them, for wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and love is of the beautiful, and therefore love is also a philosopher or lover of wisdom, and being a lover of wisdom is in a mean between the wise and the ignorant. And of this too his birth is the cause, for his father is wealthy and wise, and his mother poor and foolish. Such my dear Socrates is the nature of the spirit love. I said, oh thou stranger woman, thou sayest well, but assuming love to be such as you say, what is the use of him to man? That Socrates, she replied, I will attempt to unfold. Of his nature and birth I have already spoken, and you acknowledge that love is of the beautiful, but someone will say, of the beautiful in what, Socrates and Deotima? Or let me put the question more clearly, and ask, when a man loves the beautiful, what does he desire? I answered her that the beautiful may be his. Still, she said, the answer suggests a further question. What is given by the possession of beauty? To what you have asked, I said, I have no answer ready. Then she said, let me put the word good in the place of beautiful, and repeat the question once more. If he who loves, loves the good, what is it then that he loves? The possession of the good, I said. And what does he gain who possesses the good? Happiness, I replied, there is less difficulty in answering that question. Yes, she said, the happy are made happy by the acquisition of good things. Nor is there any need to ask why a man desires happiness. The answer is already final. You are right, I said. And is this wish and this desire common to all? And do all men always desire their own good? Or only some men, what say you? All men, I replied, the desire is common to all. Then she said, the simple truth is that men love the good. Yes, I said. To which must be added that they love the possession of the good? That must be added too. Then love, she said, may be described generally as the love of the everlasting possession of the good. That is most true. Then if this be the nature of love, can you tell me further? She said, what is the manner of the pursuit? What are they doing who show all this eagerness and heat which is called love? And what is the object which they have in view? Answer me. Nay, dear Tima, I replied, if I had known, I should not have wondered at your wisdom. Neither should I have come to learn from you about this very matter. Well, she said, I will teach you. The object which they have in view is birth in beauty, whether of body or soul. I do not understand you, I said. The oracle requires an explanation. I will make my meaning clearer, she replied. I mean to say that all men are bringing to the birth in their bodies and in their souls. There is a certain age at which human nature is desirous of procreation. Procreation which must be in beauty and not in deformity. And this procreation is the union of a man and woman, and is a divine thing. For conception and generation are an immortal principle in the mortal creature, and in the inharmonious they can never be. But the deformed is always inharmonious with the divine, and the beautiful harmonious. Beauty then is the destiny or goddess of parturition who presides at birth. And therefore when approaching beauty the conceiving power is propitious and diffusive and benign and begets and bears fruit. At the sight of ugliness she frowns and contracts and has a sense of pain and turns away and shrivels up and not without a pang refrains from conception. And this is the reason why when the hour of conception arrives and the teeming nature is full there is such a flutter and ecstasy about beauty whose approach is the alleviation of the pain of travail. For love Socrates is not as you imagine the love of the beautiful only. What then? The love of generation and of birth in beauty. Yes, I said. Yes indeed, she replied. But why of generation? Because to the mortal creature generation is a sort of eternity and immortality. She replied. And if, as has been already admitted, love is of the everlasting possession of the good. All men will necessarily desire immortality together with good. Wherefore love is of immortality. End of chapter 3 section 10 part 2 Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey Chapter 3 section 10 part 3 of The Greek View of Life by Goldsworthy Loes Dickinson This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen Chapter 3 section 10 friendship part 3 I was astonished at her words and said, Is this really true? Oh, thou wise Diodema. And she answered with all the authority of an accomplished sophist. Of that Socrates you may be assured. Think only of the ambition of men, and you will wonder at the senselessness of their ways, unless you consider how they are stirred by the love of an immortality of fame.  Do you imagine that Alcestis would have died to save Admetus, or Achilles to avenge Patroclus, or your own Chodros, in order to preserve the kingdom for his sons, if they had not imagined that the memory of their virtues, which still survives among us, would be immortal? Nay, she said, I am persuaded that all men do all things, and the better they are the more they do them, in hope of the glorious fame of immortal virtue, for they desire the immortal. Those who are pregnant in the body only, make themselves to women and bigot children. This is the character of their love. Their offspring, as they hope, will preserve their memory, and give them the blessedness and immortality which they desire in the future. But souls which are pregnant, for there suddenly are men who are more creative in their souls than in their bodies, who perceive that which is proper for the soul to conceive or contain. And what are these conceptions? Wisdom and virtue in general. And such creators are poets and all artists who are deserving of the name inventor. But the greatest and fairest sort of wisdom by far is that which is concerned with the ordering of states and families and which is called temperance and justice. And he who in youth has the seed of these implanted in him and is himself inspired when he comes to maturity desires to beget and generate. He wonders about seeking beauty that he may beget offspring. For in deformity he will beget nothing and naturally embraces the beautiful rather than the deformed body. Above all, when he finds a fair and noble and well nurtured soul he embraces the two in one person and to such a one he is full of speech about virtue and the nature and pursuits of a good man. And he tries to educate him and at the touch of the beautiful which is ever present to his memory even when absent he brings forth that which he had conceived long before and in company with him tense that which he brings forth and they are married by a far nearer tie and have a closer friendship than those who beget mortal children for the children who are their common offspring are fairer and more immortal. Who when he thinks of Homer and Hesiod and other great poets would not rather have their children than ordinary ones who would not emulate them in the creation of children such as theirs which have preserved their memory and given them everlasting glory or who would not have such children as like Kurgus left behind him to be the savers not only of Lachidaemon but of Hellas as one may say. There is Solon too who is the revered father of Athenian laws and many others there are in many other places both among Hellenes and Barbarians who have given to the world many noble works and have been the parents of virtue of every kind and many temples have been raised in their honour for the sake of children such as theirs which were never raised in honour of anyone for the sake of his mortal children. These are the lesser mysteries of love into which even Eusocrates may enter to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of these and to which if you pursue them in a right spirit they will lead. I know not whether you will be able to attain but I will do my utmost to inform you and do you follow if you can for he who would proceed right in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms and first if he be guided by his instructor a right to love one such form only out of that he should create fair thoughts and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit how foolish would he be not to recognise that the beauty in every form is one and the same and when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one which he will despise and deem a small thing and will become a lover of all beautiful forms in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the outward form so that if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness he will be content to love and tend him and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family and that personal beauty is a trifle and after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences that he may see their beauty being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution himself a slave, mean and narrow minded but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of beauty he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom until on that store he grows and waxes strong and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science which is the science of beauty everywhere to this I will proceed pleased to give me your very best attention he who has been instructed thus far in the things of love and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty and this Socrates is the final cause of all our former toils a nature which in the first place is everlasting not growing and decaying or waxing and waning secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in another or at one time or in one relation or in one place fair at another time or in another relation or at another place foul as if fair to some and foul to others or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the bodily frame or in any form of speech or knowledge or existing in any other being as for example in an animal or in heaven or in earth or in any other place but beauty absolute separate, simple and everlasting which without diminution and without increase or any change is imparted to the ever growing and perishing beauties of all other things he who from these ascending and the influence of true love begins to perceive that beauty is not far from the end and the true order of going or being led by another to the things of love is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty using these as steps only and from one going on to two and from two to all fair forms and from fair forms to fair practices and from fair practices to fair notions until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty and at last knows what the essence of beauty is this my dear Socrates said the stranger of Mantynea is that life above all others which man should live in the contemplation of beauty absolute a beauty which if you once beheld you would see not to be after the measure of gold and garments and fair boys and youths whose presence now entrances you and you and many a one would be content to live seeing them only and conversing with them without meat or drink if that were possible you only want to look at them and to be with them but what if man had eyes to see the true beauty the divine beauty I mean pure and clear and unalloyed not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life thither looking and holding converse with the true beauty simple and divine remember how in that communion only beholding beauty with the eye of the mind he will be enabled to bring forth not images of beauty but realities for he has hold not of an image but of a reality and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal if mortal man may would that be an ignoble life such fidress and I speak not only to you but to all of you where the words of Diotima and I am persuaded of their truth and being persuaded of them I try to persuade others that in the attainment of this end human nature will not easily find a helper better than love and therefore also I say that every man ought to honour him as I myself honour him and walk in his ways and exhort others to do the same and praise the power and spirit of love according to the measure of my ability now and ever I have thought it worthwhile to quote this passage in spite of its length partly for the sake of its own intrinsic beauty partly because no account of the Greek view of life could be complete which did not insist upon the prominence in their civilisation of the passion of friendship and its capacity of being turned to the noblest uses that there was another side to the matter goes without saying this passion like any other has its depths as well as its heights and the ideal of friendship conceived by Plato was as remote perhaps from the experience of the average man as Dante's presentation of the love between man and woman still the fact remains that it was friendship of this kind applied to the Greek that element of romance which plays so large a part in modern life and it is to this and not to the relations between men and women that we must look for the highest reaches of their emotional experience End of chapter 3, section 10 Recording by Martin Geeson in Hazelmere Surrey Chapter 3, section 11 of the Greek view of life by Goldsworthy Lowe's Dickinson This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Martin Geeson Chapter 3, section 11 Summary If now we turn back to take a general view of the points that have been treated in the present chapter we shall notice in the first place that the ideal of the Greeks was the direct and natural outcome of the conditions of their life it was not something beyond and above the experience of the class to which it applied but rather was the formula of that experience itself in philosophical phrase it was imminent not transcendent because there really was a class of soldier citizens free from the necessity of mechanical toil possessed of competence and leisure and devoting these advantages willingly to the service of the state therefore their ideal of conduct took the form we have described it was the ideal of a privileged class and postulated for its realisation not only a strenuous endeavour on the part of the individual but also certain adventitious gifts of fortune such as health, wealth and family connections these were conditions that actually obtained among members of the class concerned so that the ideal in question was not a mere abstract ought but an expression of what approximately at least was realised in fact but this which was the strength of the ideal of the Greeks was also its limitation their ethical system rested not only on universal facts of human nature but also on a particular and transitory social arrangement when therefore the city-state with its sharp antithesis of classes began to decline the ideal of the soldier-citizen declined also the conditions of its realisation no longer existed and ethical conceptions passed into a new phase in the first place the ideal of conduct was extended so as to apply to man as man instead of to a particular class in a particular form of state and in the second place as a corollary of this those external goods of fortune which were the privilege of the few could no longer be assumed as conditions of an ideal which was supposed to apply to all consequently the new ideal was conceived as wholly internal to be virtuous was to act under the control of the universal reason which was supposed to dwell in man as man and such action was independent of all the gifts of chance it was as open to a slave as to a freeman to an artisan as to a soldier or a statesman the changes and chances of this mortal life were indifferent to the virtuous man rack as on the throne he was lord of himself and free this conception of the stoics broke down the limitation of the Greek ideal by extending the possibility of virtue to all mankind but at the same time it destroyed its sanity and balance for it was precisely because of its limitation that the ideal of the Greeks was approximately at least an account of what was and not merely of what ought to be a man possessed of wealth and friends of leisure health and culture really could and did achieve the end at which he was aiming but the conception of one who without any such advantages on the contrary with positive disadvantages poor sickly and a slave perhaps or even in prison or on the rack should nevertheless retain unimpaired the dignity of manhood and the freedom of his own soul such a conception if it is not chimerical is at any rate so remote from common experience and not capable of serving as a really practical ideal for ordinary life but an ideal so remote that its realization is despaired of is as good as none and the conception of the stoics if it was more comprehensive than that of Aristotle was also less practical and real by virtue nevertheless of this comprehensiveness the stoic ideal is more akin to modern tendencies than that of the soldier citizen in the city-state to provide for the excellence of a privileged class at the expense of the rest of the community is becoming to us increasingly impossible in fact and intolerable in idea but while admitting this we cannot but note that the Greeks at whatever cost did actually achieve a development of the individual more high and more complete than has been even approached by any other age whether it will ever be possible under totally different conditions to realize once more that balance of body and soul that sanity of ethical intuition that frank recognition of the whole range of our complex human nature with a view to its harmonious organization under the control of a lucid reason whether it will ever be possible again to realize this ideal and that not only in the members of a privileged class but in the whole body of the state is a question too problematical to be raised with advantage in this place but it is impossible not to perceive that with the decline of the Greek city-state something passed from the world which it can never cease to regret and the recovery of which if it might be in some perfect form must be the goal of its highest practical endeavors immense no doubt is the significance of the centuries that have intervened but it is a significance of preparation and when we look beyond the means to the wished-for end limiting our conceptions to the actual possibilities of life on earth it is among the Greeks that we seek the record of the highest achievement of the past and the hope of the highest possibilities of the future End of Chapter 3 The Greek View of the Individual Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey Chapter 4, Section 1 of The Greek View of Life by Goldsworthy Loes Dickinson This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Martin Giesen Chapter 4, The Greek View of Art Section 1, Greek Art An Expression of National Life In approaching the subject of the art of the Greeks we come to what more plausibly than any other may be regarded as the central point of their scheme of life we may have already noticed in dealing with other topics how constantly the aesthetic point of view emerges and predominates in matters with which, in the modern way of looking at things it appears to have no direct and natural connection We saw, for example, how inseparable in their religion was the element of ritual and ceremony from that of idea how in their ethical conceptions the primary notion was that of beauty how they aimed throughout at a perfect balance of body and soul and more generally in every department at an expression of the inner by the outer complete and perfect that the conception of a separation of the two became almost as impossible to their thought as it would have been unpleasing and discordant to their feeling Now such a point of view is in fact that of art and philosophers of history have been amply justified in characterising the whole Greek epoch as preeminently that of beauty But if this be a true way of regarding the matter we should expect to find that art and beauty had for the Greeks a very wide and complex significance There is a view of art and it is one that appears to be prevalent in our own time which sets it all together outside the general trend of national life and ideas which asserts that it has no connection with ethics, religion, politics or any of the general conceptions which regulate action and thought that its end is in itself and is simply beauty and that in beauty there is no distinction of high or low no preference of one kind above another Art thus conceived is in the first place purely subjective in character The artist alone is the standard and any phase or mood of his however exceptional, personal and transitory is competent to produce a work of art as satisfying and as great as one whose inspiration was drawn from a nation's life reflecting its highest moments and its most universal aspirations and ideals so that for example a butterfly drawn by Mr. Whistler would rank as high say as the Parthenon and in the second place in this view of art the subject is a matter of absolute indifference the standards of ordinary life, ethical or other do not apply there is no better or worse but only a more or less beautiful and the representation of a music hall stage or a public house bar may be as great and perfect a work of art as the Venus of Milo or the Madonna of Raphael this theory which arises naturally and perhaps inevitably in an age where national life has degenerated into materialism and squalor and the artist feels himself a stranger in a world of philistines we need not here pause to examine and criticise it has been mentioned merely to illustrate by contrast the Greek view which was diametrically opposed to this and valued art in proportion as it represented in perfect form the highest and most comprehensive aspects of the national ideal to say this is not of course to say that the Greek conception of art was didactic for the word didactic when applied to art has usually the implication that the excellence of the moral is the only point to be considered and that if that is good the work itself must be good this idea does indeed occur in Greek thought we find it for example paradoxically enough in so great an artist as Plato but if it had been the one which really determined their production there would have been no occasion to write this chapter for there would have been no Greek art to write about the truer account of the impulse that urged them to create is that given also by Plato in an earlier and more impassioned work in which he describes it as a madness of those who are possessed by the muses which enters into a delicate and virgin soul and their inspiring frenzy awakens lyrical and other numbers with these adorning the myriad actions of ancient heroes for the instruction of posterity but he who having no touch of the muses madness in his soul comes to the door and thinks that he will get into the temple by the help of art he I say and his poetry are not admitted the sane man is nowhere at all when he enters into rivalry with the madman the presupposition in fact of all that can be said about the Greek view of art is that primarily and to begin with they were by nature artists judged simply by the aesthetic standard without any consideration of subject matter at all or any reference to intellectual or ethical ideals they created works of art more purely beautiful than those of any other age or people their mere household crockery their common pots and pans are cast in shapes so exquisitely graceful and painted in design so admirably drawn and composed that any one of them has a higher artistic value than the whole contents of the Royal Academy and the little clay figures they used as we do China ornaments put to shame the most ambitious efforts of modern sculpture who for example would not rather look at a Tanagra statuette than at the equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington the Greeks in fact quite apart from any theories they may have held where artists through and through and that is a fact we must carry with us through the whole of our discussion End of chapter 4 section 1 Recording by Martin Geeson in Hazelmere Surrey Chapter 4 section 2 of the Greek view of life by Goldsworthy Loes Dickinson This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Martin Geeson Chapter 4 section 2 Identification of the aesthetic and ethical points of view But on the other hand it seems to be clear from all that we can learn that their habitual way of regarding works of art was not to judge them simply and exclusively by their aesthetic value On the contrary in criticising two works otherwise equally beautiful they would give a higher place to the one or the other for its ethical or quasi-ethical qualities This indeed is what we should expect from the comprehensive sense which as we have seen attached in their tongue to the word which we render beautiful The aesthetic and ethical spheres in fact were never sharply distinguished by the Greeks and it follows that as on the one hand their conception of the good was identified with that of the beautiful so on the other hand their conception of the beautiful was identified with that of the good Thus the most beautiful work of art in the Greek sense of the term was that which made the finest and most harmonious appeal not only to the physical but to the moral sense and while communicating the highest and most perfect pleasure to the eye the ear had also the power to touch and inform the soul with the grace which was her moral excellence of this really characteristic Greek conception this fusion so instinctive as to be almost unconscious of the aesthetic and ethical points of view no better illustration could be given than the following passage from the Republic of Plato where the philosopher is describing the effect of beautiful works of art and especially of music on the moral and intellectual character of his imaginary citizens We would not have our guardians grow up amid images of moral deformity as in some noxious pasture and their brows and feet upon many a baneful herb and flower day by day, little by little until they silently gather a festering mass of corruption in their own soul Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of the beautiful and graceful then will our youth dwell in a land of health amid fair sights and sounds and receive the good in everything and beauty, the effluence of fair works shall flow into the eye and ear like a health-giving breeze from a purer region and insensibly draw the soul from earliest years into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason There can be no nobler training than that, he replied and therefore I said Glaucon musical training is a more potent instrument than any other because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul on which they mightily fasten imparting grace and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful and also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature and with a true taste while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good and becomes noble and good he will justly blame and hate the bad now in the days of his youth even before he is able to know the reason why and when the reason comes he will recognize and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar this fusion of the ideas of the beautiful and the good is the central point in the Greek theory of art and it enables us to understand how it was that they conceived art to be educational its end in their view was not only pleasure though pleasure was essential to it but also and just as much edification Plato indeed here again exaggerating the current view puts the edification above the pleasure he criticizes Homer as he might criticize a moral philosopher pointing out the inadequacy from an ethical point of view of his conception of heaven and of the gods and dismissing as injurious and of bad example to youthful citizens the whole tissue of passionate human feeling the irrepressible outbursts of anger and grief and fear by virtue of which alone the Iliad and the Odyssey are immortal poems instead of ethical tracts and finally with a half reluctant ascent to the course of his own argument he excludes the poets altogether from his ideal Republic on the ground that they encourage their hearers in that indulgence of emotion which it is the object of every virtuous man to repress the conclusion of Plato by his own admission was half paradoxical and it certainly never recommended itself to such a nation of artists as the Greeks but it illustrates nevertheless the general bent of their views of art that tendency to the identification of the beautiful and the good which while it was never pushed so far as to choke art with didactics for Plato himself even against his own will is a poet yet served to create a standard of taste which was ethical as much as aesthetic and made the judgment of beauty also a judgment of moral worth quite in accordance with this view we find that the central aim of all Greek art is the representation of human character and human ideals the interpretation of nature for its own sake in the narrower sense in which nature is opposed to man is a modern and romantic development that would have been unintelligible to a Greek not that the Greeks were without a sense of what we call the beauties of nature but that they treat them habitually not as the center of interest but as the background to human activity the most beautiful descriptions of nature to be found in Greek poetry occur incidentally only in the choral odes introduced into their dramas and among all their pictures of which we have any record there is not one that answers to the description of a landscape the subject is always mythological or historical and the representation of nature merely a setting for the main theme and on the other hand the art for which the Greeks are most famous and in which they have admittedly excelled all other peoples is that art of sculpture whose special function it is not only to represent but to idealize the human form and which is peculiarly adapted to embody for the sense not only physical but ethical types and more remarkable still as we shall have occasion to observe later the very art which modern men regard as the most devoid of all intellectual content the most incommensurable with any standard except that of pure beauty I refer of course to the art of music was invested by the Greeks with a definite moral content and worked into their general theory of art as a direct interpretation of human life the excellence of man in short directly or indirectly was the point about which Greek art turned that excellence was at once aesthetic and ethical and the representation of what was beautiful involved also the representation of what was good this point we will now proceed to illustrate more in detail in connection with the various special branches of art End of Chapter 4 Section 2 Recording by Martin Geeson in Hazelmere Surrey Chapter 4 Section 3 of The Greek View of Life by Goldsworthy Loes Dickinson This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Martin Geeson Chapter 4 Section 3 Sculpture and Painting Let us take first the plastic arts, sculpture and painting and to bring into clear relief the Greek point of view let us contrast with it that of the modern Impressionist to the Impressionist, a picture is simply an arrangement of colour and line the subject represented is nothing, the treatment, everything it would be better on the whole not even to know what objects are depicted and to judge the picture by a comparison with the objects or to consider what is the worth of the objects in themselves or what we might think of them if we came across them in the connections of ordinary life is simply to misconceive the whole meaning of a picture for the artist and for the man who understands art all scales and standards disappear except that of the purely aesthetic beauty which consists in harmony of line and tone the most perfect human form has no more value than a splash of mud or rather both mud and human form disappear as irrelevant and all that is left for judgement is the arrangement of colour and form originally suggested by those accidental and indifferent phenomena in the Greek view on the other hand though we certainly cannot say that the subject was everything and the treatment nothing for that would be merely the annihilation of art yet we may assert that granted the treatment granted that the work was beautiful the first and indispensable requirement its worth was determined by the character of the subject sculpture and painting in fact to the Greeks were not merely a medium of aesthetic pleasure they were ways of expressing and interpreting national life as such they were subordinated to religion the primary end of sculpture was to make statues of the gods and heroes the primary end of painting was to represent mythological scenes and in either case the purely aesthetic pleasure was also a means to a religious experience let us take for example the statue of Zeus at Olympia the most famous of the works of Phidias this colossal figure of ivory and gold was doubtless according to all the testimony we possess from a merely aesthetic point of view among the most consummate creations of human genius but what was the main aim of the artist who made it what the main effect on the spectator the artist had designed and the spectator seemed to behold a concrete image of that Homeric Zeus who was the centre of his religious consciousness the Zeus who nodded his dark brow and the Ambrosial locks waved from the king's immortal head and he made great Olympus quake those who approach the temple says Lucian do not conceive that they see ivory from the Indies or gold from the mines of Thrace no but the very son of Cronos and Rhea was transported by Phidias to earth and set to watch over the lonely plain of Pisa he was, says Dion Chrysostom the type of that unattained ideal Helas come to unity with herself in expression at once mild and awful as befit the giver of life and all good gifts the common father, saviour and guardian of men dignified as a king, tender as a father awful as giver of laws kind as protector of suppliants and friends simple and great as giver of increase and wealth revealing in a word in form and countenance the whole array of gifts and qualities proper to his supreme divinity the description is characteristic of the whole aim of Greek sculpture the representation not only of beauty but of character not only of character but of character idealized the statues of the various gods derive their distinguishing individuality not merely from their association with conventional symbols but from a concrete reproduction in features, expression, drapery, pose of the ethical and intellectual qualities for which they stand an Apollo differs in type from a Zeus an Athenae from a Demeter and in every case the artist works from an intellectual conception bent not simply on a graceful harmony of lines but on the representation of a character at once definite and ideal primarily then Greek sculpture was an expression of the national religion and therefore also of the national life for as we saw the cult of the gods was the centre not only of the religious but of the political consciousness of Greece and an art which was born and flourished in the temple and the sacred grove naturally became the exponent of the ideal aspect of the state it was thus for example that the Parthenon at Athens was at once the centre of the worship of Athenae and a symbol of the corporate life over which she presided the statue of the goddess having as its appropriate complement the freeze over which the spirit of the city moved in stone and thus too the statues of the victors at the Olympian games were dedicated in the sacred precinct as a memorial of what was not only an athletic meeting but also at once a centre of Hellenic unity and the most consummit expression of that aspect of their culture which contributed at least as much to their aesthetic as to their physical perfection Sculpture in fact throughout was subordinated to religion and through religion to national life and it was from this that it derived its ideal and intellectual character and so far as our authorities enable us to judge the same is true of painting the great pictures of which we have descriptions were painted to adorn temples and public buildings and represented either mythological or national themes such for example was the great work of Polygnotus at Delphi in which was depicted on the one hand the sack of Troy on the other the descent of Odysseus into Hades and such his representation of the battle of Marathon in the painted porch that led to the Acropolis of Athens and even the vase paintings of which we have innumerable examples and which are mere decorations of common domestic utensils have often enough some story of gods and heroes for their theme whereby over and above their purely aesthetic value they made their appeal to the general religious consciousness of Greece painting like sculpture had its end in a sense outside itself and from this very fact derived its peculiar dignity simplicity and power from this account of the plastic art of the Greeks it follows as a simple corollary that their aim was not merely to reproduce but to transcend nature for their subject was gods and heroes and heroes and gods were superior to men of this idealizing tendency we have in sculpture evidence enough in the many examples which have been preserved to us and with regard to painting there is curious literary testimony to the same effect Aristotle for example remarks that even if it is impossible that men should be aseuxis painted them yet it is better that he should paint them so for the example ought to excel that for which it is an example and in an imaginary conversation recorded between Socrates and Parasius the artist admits without any hesitation that more pleasure is to be derived from pictures of men who are morally good than from those of men who are morally bad in the Greek view in fact as we saw physical and moral excellence went together and it was excellence they sought to depict in their art not merely aesthetic beauty though that was a necessary presupposition but on the top of that ideal types of character representative of their conception of the hero and the god art in a word was subordinate to the ethical ideal or rather the ethical and aesthetic ideals were not yet dissociated and the greatest artists the world has ever known worked deliberately under the direction and inspiration of the ideas that controlled and determined the life of their time End of Chapter 4 Section 3 Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey Chapter 4 Section 4 of the Greek view of life by Goldsworthy Loes Dickinson This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Martin Giesen Chapter 4 Section 4 Music and the dance Turning now from the plastic arts to that other group which the Greeks classed together under the name of music namely music in the narrower sense dancing and poetry we find still more clearly emphasised and more elaborately worked out the subordination of aesthetic to ethical and religious ends music in fact as they used the term was the centre of Greek education and its moral character thus became a matter of primary importance by it were formed it was supposed the mind and temper of the citizens and so the whole constitution of the state the introduction of a new kind of music says Plato must be shunned as imperiling the whole state since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions the new style he goes on gradually gaining a lodgement quietly insinuates itself into manners and customs and from these it issues in greater force and makes its way into mutual compacts and from compacts it goes on to attack laws and constitutions displaying the utmost impudence until it ends by overturning everything both in public and in private and as in his republic he had defined the character of the poetry that should be admitted into his ideal state so in the laws he specially defines the character of the melodies and dances regarding them as the most important factor in determining and preserving the manners and institutions of the citizens nothing at first sight to a modern mind could be stranger than this point of view that poetry has a bearing on conduct we can indeed understand though we do not make poetry the centre of our system of education but that moral effects should be attributed to music and to dancing and that these should be regarded as of such importance as to influence profoundly the whole constitution of a state will appear to the majority of modern men an unintelligible paradox yet no opinion of the Greeks is more profoundly characteristic than this of their whole way of regarding life and none would better repay a careful study that moral character should be attributed to the influence of music is only one and perhaps the most striking illustration of that general identification by the Greeks of the ethical and the aesthetic standards on which we have so frequently had occasion to insist virtue in their conception was not a hard conformity to a law felt as alien to the natural character it was the free expression of a beautiful and harmonious soul and this very metaphor harmonious which they so constantly employ involves the idea of a close connection between music and morals character in the Greek view is a certain proportion of the various elements of the soul and the right character is the right proportion but the relation in which these elements stand to one another could be directly affected it was found by means of music not only could the different emotions be excited or assuaged in various degrees but the whole relation of the emotional to the rational element could be regulated and controlled by the appropriate melody and measure that this connection between music and morals really does exist is recognized in a rough and general way by most people who have any musical sense there are rhythms and tunes for example that are felt to be vulgar and base and others that are felt to be ennobling some music, Wagner's for instance, is frequently called immoral Gounou is described as innovating Beethoven as bracing and the like and however absurd such comments may often appear to be in detail underlying them is the undoubtedly well grounded sense that various kinds of music have various ethical qualities but it is just this side of music which has been neglected in modern times that was the one on which the Greeks laid most stress infinitely inferior to the moderns in the mechanical resources of the art they had made it appears a far finer and closer analysis of its relation to emotional states with the result that even in music which we describe as the purest of the arts congratulating ourselves on its absolute dissociation from all definite intellectual conceptions even here the standard of the Greeks was as much ethical as aesthetic and the style of music was distinguished and its value appraised not only by the pleasure to be derived from it but also by the effect it tended to produce on character of this position we have a clear and definite statement in Aristotle virtue he says consists in loving and hating in the proper way and implies therefore a delight in the proper emotions but emotions of any kind are produced by melody and rhythm therefore by music a man becomes accustomed to feeling the right emotions music has thus the power to form character and the various kinds of music based on the various modes may be distinguished by their effects on character one for example working in the direction of melancholy another of effeminacy one encouraging abandonment another self-control another enthusiasm and so on through the series it follows that music may be judged not merely by the pleasure it gives but by the character of its moral influence pleasure indeed is essential or there would be no art but the different kinds of pleasure given by different kinds of music are to be distinguished not merely by quantity but by quality one will produce a right pleasure of which the good man will approve and which will have a good effect on character another will be in exactly the opposite case or as Plato puts it the excellence of music is to be measured by pleasure but the pleasure must not be that of chance persons the fairest music is that which delights the best and best educated and especially that which delights the one man who is preeminent in virtue and education we see then that even pure music to the Greeks had a distinct and definite ethical bearing but this ethical influence was further emphasized by the fact that it was not their custom to enjoy their music pure what they called music as has been already pointed out was an intimate union of melody, verse and dance so that the particular emotional meaning of the rhythm and tune employed was brought out into perfect lucidity by the accompanying words and gestures thus we find for example that Plato characterizes a tendency in his own time to the separation of melody and verse as a sign of a want of true artistic taste for he said it is very hard in the absence of words to distinguish the exact character of the mood which the rhythm and tune is supposed to represent in this connection it may be interesting to refer to the use of light motif in modern music here too a particular idea if not a particular set of words is associated with a particular musical phrase the intention of the practice being clearly the same as that which is indicated in the passage just quoted namely to add precision and definiteness to the vague emotional content of pure music and this determining effect of words was further enhanced in the music of the Greeks by the additional accompaniment of the dance the emotional character conveyed to the mind by the words and to the ear by the tune was further explained to the eye by gesture, pose and beat of foot the combination of the three modes of expression forming thus in the Greek sense a single imitative art the dance as well as the melody came thus to have a definite ethical significance it imitates, says Aristotle, character, emotion and action and Plato in his ideal republic would regulate by law the dances no less than the melodies to be employed distinguishing them too as morally good or morally bad and encouraging the one while he forbids the other the general Greek view of music which has thus been briefly expounded the union of melody and rhythm with poetry and the dance in view of a definite and consciously intended ethical character may be illustrated by the following passage of Plutarch in which he describes the music in vogue at Sparta the whole system it will be observed is designed with a view to that military courage which was the virtue most prized in the Spartan state and the one about which all their institution centred music at Sparta actually was what Plato would have had it in his ideal republic a public and state regulated function and even that vigorous race which of all the Greeks came near us to being Philistines of virtue thought fit to lay a foundation purely aesthetic for their severe and soldierly ideal their instruction in music and verse says Plutarch was not less carefully attended to than their habits of grace and good breeding in conversation and their very songs had a life and spirit in them that inflamed and possessed men's minds with an enthusiasm and ardour for action the style of them was plain and without affectation the subject always serious and moral most usually it was in praise of such men as had died in defence of their country or in division of those that had been cowards the former they declared happy and glorified the life of the latter they described as most miserable and abject there were also vaults of what they would do and boasts of what they had done varying with the various ages as for example they had three choirs in their solemn festivals the first of the old men the second of the young men and the last of the children the old men began thus we once were young and brave and strong the young men answered them singing and we're so now come on and try the children came last and said but we'll be strongest by and by indeed if we will take the pains to consider their compositions and the airs on the flute to which they marched when going to battle we shall find that terpanda and pinda had reason to say that music and valor were allied the way of regarding music which is illustrated in this passage and in all that is said on the subject by Greek writers is so typical of the whole point of view of the Greeks that we may be pardoned for insisting once again on the attitude of mind which it implies music as we saw had an ethical value to the Greeks but that is not to say that they put the ethics first and the music second using the one as a mere tool of the other rather an ethical state of mind was also in their view a musical one in a sense something more than metaphorical virtue was a harmony of the soul the musical end was thus identical with the ethical one the most beautiful music was also the morally best and vice versa virtue was not prior to beauty nor beauty to virtue they were two aspects of the same reality two ways of regarding a single fact and if aesthetic effects were supposed to be amenable to ethical judgment it was only because ethical judgments at bottom were aesthetic the good and the beautiful were one and the same thing that is the first and last word of the Greek ideal and world thus on the one hand virtue was invested with the spontaneity and delight of art on the other art derived from its association with ethics emotional precision in modern times the end of music is commonly conceived to be simply and without more ado the excitement of feeling its value is measured by the intensity rather than the quality of the emotion which it is capable of arousing and the auditor abandons himself to a casual succession of highly wrought moods as bewildering in the actual experience as it is exhausting in the after effects in Greek music on the other hand if we may trust our accounts while the intensity of the feeling excited must have been far less than that which it is in the power of modern instrumentation to evoke its character was perfectly simple and definite melody, rhythm, gesture and words were all consciously adapted to the production of a single precisely conceived emotional effect the listener was in a position clearly to understand and appraise the value of the mood excited in him instead of being exhausted and confused by a chaos of vague and conflicting emotion he had the sense of relief which accompanies the deliverance of a definite passion and returned to his ordinary business purged as they said and tranquilized by a process which he understood directed to an end of which he approved End of Chapter 4, Section 4 Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey


Hey guys, how you doing? This is your boy Rich from RichTVLive and you too can join the club at richpakesdaily.com where you can learn how to win and trade. Hi, how's everybody doing today? I'm your host Rich and we have a RichTVLive with our very special guest, the Chief Business Officer of INX, Douglas Borthwick. How you doing today, Douglas? I'm great, Rich. Thank you very much for having me. It's great to be here. Very excited to have you on the show. Thank you for joining us. My first question is INX is the world's first and only SEC registered security to IPO on the blockchain. Can you tell us more about the company? Certainly, INX came from an idea that our CEO, Shai Datika, had in 2017. He was looking at ICOs and he said, look, these ICOs are completely illegal. You can't raise money from the general public without going through the SEC. And he went to the SEC and he said, listen, I want to do something similar, but I want to do it with a fully registered security. And he said, well, you're going to have to build a prospectus for that. And he came back with MWE, a big law firm in New York and Ernst & Young. And over 950 days, we worked with the SEC with all the risk factors that are associated with cryptocurrencies and the blockchain and had never been done before for a registered security for a prospectus.  And it wasn't the case this time. We ended up completing it, getting the SEC to sign off on it. And on the back of that, we then opened up a website and raised around $85 million, just shy of that, from 7,250 investors in 74 countries. Now, with that capital, we kind of set it on our vision. Our vision was to have cryptocurrency trading, security token trading, which are digital securities and working with anywhere from retail all the way to institutional. Now, since then, we've built a work chest of just shy of $90 million. We also have, we bought a broker dealer and ATS and also a transfer agent. Right now, that's INX Securities. INX Securities is currently has the largest market capital of security tokens in the United States. And I believe that trades the most volume. And then on top of that, we also have the cryptocurrency trading business. Our cryptocurrency trading business is open right now in 31 U.S. states where we have money transmitter licenses. But we also have worked with other countries as well and have folks from other countries trading on our platform. And on top of that, we also bought an inter-dealer broker called ILS Brokers that currently is big in Israel, but it's NFA registered. And so we're opening up in Europe and the United States to offer derivative products like non-deliverable forwards in Bitcoin and Ethereum. Now, first of all, we're not just retail, we're about institutions as well. ILS Brokers deals with something like 50 tier one tier two banks. And so we get a seat at the table now talking to the larger banks about what they want in terms of cryptocurrency because they've got a lot of high net worth individuals that want exposure to Bitcoin, but the banks don't want to take delivery of Bitcoin per se. And so they want to do derivative instruments that have sort of the flavor of it and they have the movement of it, certainly the price appreciation. And so you have to do that through what's called a non-deliverable forward or derivative instrument. And that's something I was very heavily involved in in my prior career when I was Morgan Stanley for 10 years. Why is now the perfect time for INX to enter the public markets? Well, I think it's always a great time to enter the public markets because then you can bring clarity in something that normally is very opaque. I think there's a lot of folks in our business, in the cryptocurrency business or in the digital securities business that are private companies. And I think there's a lot of folks that are investors out there that want to invest in what we see as the future. I think one of the most astounding things is that I'd say about a year ago, the ex-SEC had Clayton to speech in Philadelphia. He said in the next three to five years, you could see all assets moving on the blockchain. So that's all of the equities that you know, that's about $115 trillion of equities, about $120 trillion of fixed income. And that's a lot more than what you know right now, which is around $2 trillion worth of cryptocurrencies and the like. So a lot of movement we expect or what we call the great migration is going to happen. And that's what we're really building a platform for is to be part of that process. People always like movement into new technologies, and they always like getting into, I guess, the guys that sell the shovels and the spades. And that's the kind of business that we are in where we allow and enable people to be able to trade in digital assets, whether it's cryptocurrency or digital securities. But we also are working on helping companies that are currently listed on other types of platforms, let's say the OTC, for example, come off of that and then list on an ATS. Now, why would you want to list on our ATS? Well, you'd want to list because we're open about 5.4 times more. And that means that we're open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. And the way that equities are currently set up is to be open from 9.30 in the morning till 4 at night. Now, that might be great if you're in the United States, but it's not very good if you're somewhere else and you want to trade a U.S. registered security. And so we're working on that with a lot of lawyers to figure out the ways to do it. Now, recently, one client came to us, EV Biologics, they put out a press release that said they want to de-list from the OTC, they want to drop their ticker, and they want to list on INX. And the reason being, well, first of all, the 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But also the security tokens right now, there's a lot of guys that have naked shorts against a lot of issuers on the OTC. I think EV Biologics is on like an 80% naked short on it. And it brushes the market cap. But becoming a security token means that right now there's no way to short a security token because there's no rehypothecation. Traditionally, I think you remember this with GameStop, folks talked about GameStop and on Reddit, and they were saying, listen, this is crazy. I buy GameStop. I put it out, let's say Morgan Stanley, Morgan Stanley rehypothecates it or lends it to hedge funds who then short it. That doesn't really work. With the digital securities, what we've done is we've set them up more like a DeFi way where you keep it and you store it on your own wallet. Now, in the future, our belief is that folks won't hold their hold digital securities on a wallet on their phone, along with NFTs of their driver's license, their birth certificate, their college diploma, their VAC certificates, and they'll also hold their digital currencies on their phone and their own wallet. And they'll be able to use that to access and transfer money or securities going forward. So we're sort of like we think of ourselves as the backbone of this industry. Obviously, we had to be leaders. And so when people talked about Nike moving on to the blockchain or Amazon, moving their equity on the blockchain, there was no way to do it before. Before we came along, a security token or a digital asset was just for wealthy folks, accredited investors. And they were private securities, Reg D or Reg S. And we said, well, if someone like Nike wants to move the blockchain, they have to open it up to retail investors. So that's why we put together our perspective. We proved that you can do something in a way that it's regulated. And now we've got a nice pipeline of folks that are coming to us and saying, look, we want to raise capital the same way you did. And we'll be releasing a lot of this over the next year. Now that leads me to my next question. You touched on it a little bit. Regulators have been cracking down on crypto over the last few years. Luckily, INX has already obtained licensing and formed relationships with regulators. Can you talk a little bit about that? And now it has helped you stay well ahead of your competition. Well, the way we like to put it is it's better to have the regulators in the passenger seat than in the rearview mirror. And I think that a lot of folks in the crypto world came from, I'd say the technology space where they kind of looked at Facebook and said, well, you run fast and break things, and then you can fix them later. And the INX view was rather than be the hair, let's be the tortoise, let's work with the regulators because the financial arena is very different from let's say social media arena. You can't upset the regulators, you have to work with them. And certainly, you're right, regulators have been clamping down. When I see NFTs trading on a platform between two anonymous individuals for $50 million, that kind of smells a little bit to me like money laundering. And in the old days, if you wanted to move 50 million from one country to another, you stuffed it in a car, these days, you buy a JPEG from someone and you call it an NFT. And so INX, I think, really wants to work with the regulators in all spaces. We've worked with the states in the United States. That's what the money transmitter licenses are for that allow us to trade cryptocurrency. But we've also worked with the SEC and FINRA. And we have, you know, one of the only digital platforms where you can actually trade digital securities. And I think that's very exciting. It's extremely exciting. INX successfully completed the world's first SEC registered security token IPO raising. Can it tell us more about this? Sure. What we wanted to do was create a community. And you can do that, obviously, when you do a security token. And we sold tokens, these security tokens on the Ethereum blockchain ERC 1404 was standard. And we did it. And what we did was we sold 40% of our profits in the future, if we have any. So our cumulative net operating cash flow, 40% of that immediately gets stripped out. If it's positive and gets attributed to token holders. So we didn't sell equity. There was no voting rights with this. But it's something that we think a lot of folks are interested. I've had guys come to me, they've got vaccines for cancers. And they say, look, you know, we need to raise money about 100 million for the FDA to get through through the process. The traditional way would be to go to VCs or to private equity folks, sell a lot of your equity, a couple of board seats. And by the time you end up getting through the FDA, maybe the guys, the founders aren't there anymore, and they've just sold their IP. If they did a security token, and they base a percentage of should they be successful, that then they would have that cash flow go to the token holders. Well, you know, that to me, that's like, that's a gimme, right? I mean, if if I think that someone's going to cure for cancer, I don't really care, I care less about the IP and I care more about the profits is going to be coming out on the back end. And there's a lot of people that have come to us. You know, one of the most recent things and very exciting things was we signed an LOI with a company called ALK Capital, they're the owners of Burnley Football Club. Now Burnley is in the Premier League in the UK. And they've got you know, soccer team, and they've got other sports and franchises that have game day revenues or transfer fees, that sort of thing. They're looking into ways that they can engage their community.   How about if you actually got some profits from how the team did? And I think that that's the sort of thing that's very, very exciting. There's a lot of companies that want to get into that space. So it's not just about selling equity as a digital security. It's also about selling cash flows. And there's infinite different ways you can use a security token or a digital security in that space. Now the company also recently completed two key strategic acquisitions. Can you tell us a bit about these? Yeah, certainly. Well, we've done a lot of acquisitions. I say that the most recent ones was our purchase of open finance, open finance was a broker dealer and ATS for digital securities were very fast into the game, one of the first. And they ran out the gate and they were offering really private securities only to accredited investors. And when you do that, you know, maybe there's a thousand people or 2,000 people you can sign up for your platform. Maybe only 50 will log in every day and see where the price is. And our view was if you really want security tokens to be successful, you've got to bring in retail, which after buying that we brought the INX token on to that and listed it there. So it's very key. Now the really interesting thing about that purchase was the way that you do custody. It's not the way you do custody at a traditional ATS or where you do custody on the platform. Rather, what we do is we did custody the same way that DeFi is done, which is using MetaMask wallets. Now when we went out there and said we were going to do this, I'd say maybe there was a million people using MetaMask wallets. Well, today there's 17 and a half million people on a daily basis, really on the back of the NFT craze, because that's how people trade NFTs and it's also how people trade DeFi. So I think, you know, again, we got ahead of the game and we figured out the way to do it correctly, but it also now allows us to trade 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Another purchase we made was the token soft transfer agent. That's going to be a very interesting force. It's going to allow us to do what we call nose to tail. So when someone comes to us and says, look, we want to raise capital, we say, oh, absolutely, we can print the tokens for you. We can act as the transfer agent and watch, you know, as tokens go from one person to the other. You could also watch that on etherscan, by the way. And on the back of that, we then go into the, after we've printed the tokens, we go to the broker dealer that we purchased and there we can help raise the capital. For some, we can put an invest now button on someone's website. We can then introduce them to the community, to other folks through social media, and then folks will invest and then after they've invested, they've raised the capital, we can then list it on our ATS. So nose to tail, it's a fantastic thing. Now, also having the cryptocurrency trading is also very interesting because it means that folks can take Bitcoin or Ethereum, transfer it in there, have it translated into dollars, use the dollars to purchase securities, and then trade. And that means they can trade 24 hours a day and they can do transfers 24 hours a day, even on weekends because we don't have to rely on the fiat banking system. What are the benefits of security tokens and how is the INX using this new financial instrument to open the crypto and security token market to the entire investment community? Well, the benefits for running security tokens are, well, as an issuer, the benefits are, if I want to pay a dividend, I can pay it directly into someone's wallet, I could pay it in Ethereum, I could pay it in USDC, I could pay it in dollars into their bank account. So that's not bad and I cut out a lot of middlemen. Maybe traditionally, if an issuer has a $100, they need to give it out as a dividend, maybe $97 gets into someone's pocket. So it's much more efficient. The other one is we're settling on the blockchain and everyone gets to hold their tokens themselves and custody themselves. I think that takes out a lot of middle men as well. So it becomes much more efficient. The whole capital raising becomes more efficient too because you're not dealing with, let's say, an investment bank that goes out there to raise the capital and then comes in and said you can raise the capital yourself and you can cut them out. I think that's very interesting, but the ability to trade 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year is phenomenal because it matches what you can do with crypto and that crypto never sleeps and our view is that security shouldn't sleep either and whether it's a private security like a rag D or rag S or whether it's a public security that's done through an F1 or S1 prospectus, people should be able to trade it in their time zone in their time and I think that that's something that we've figured out, we've managed to thread the needle on that and that's going to be very exciting. Can you tell us more about INX's robust and proprietary trading platform and why it's different from other crypto trading platforms? Well, I'd say that most platforms say they're robust, obviously, but a lot of guys end up licensing their technology and what INX did is we built the technology from the ground up ourselves. So we have our own developers, we've got our own folks that put these together and what we're doing in the first quarter of this year, we'll be releasing an app where you can trade cryptocurrency right now, you can only do it on a website and then later on in the summer, we'll be introducing an app that's going to have the securities on it and the cryptocurrencies and you can trade back and forth between the two, so like a UI, UX experience that hasn't been done before, something like a Coinbase doesn't offer digital security, someone like Kraken doesn't either or Binance because they don't have the licensing but we've got the licensing, so in the front end, the UI, UX, that's to the user, they don't see all the different regulators behind it but once they start trading, in the behind the scenes, we're going back and forth between two different platforms and many different regulators. Now, INX has a management team with over a century of cumulative experience in capital markets, banking and financial technology. Can you tell us more about the key players on your team? Sure, I'll tell you, from the get go shy to take our CEO, attracted some interesting folks, we got Charlie Lee was one of the earliest investors, he invented Litecoin, Ricardo Spagni's behind Monero, and then he attracted folks like Alan Silbert, Alan is my colleague in New York, myself obviously, I've got about 25 years of experience working at Morgan Standing, running proprietary trading at Merrill Lynch in Latin America at Standard Chartered, and then he also brought in a board of David Wield who is the vice chairman of NASDAQ and the inventor of the jobs actor security tokens, Tom Lewis, Tom is very well known, he was the CEO of Ameritrade and the Green Exchange, and also Nick Thadani who's well known in Canada, he was the CEO of the Toronto Stock Exchange. So a lot of folks there, but also Jonathan Azarwal who you may not know, but I think the crypto community knows, he was the first guy to come up with a way to borrow and lend Bitcoin, he ended up selling his company to Alex Machinsky who runs Celsius and became Celsius, that company. So we've got a lot of experience, our CTO, Paz Diamant was the CTO over at eToro X, and we managed to bring him over as well to work with us, but we've got an incredible team of guys that come from the blockchain space and the traditional finance space, really working together with one common vision, one common goal was set out by Shai Dutikar, CEO. What should investors watch out for from INX in 2022? Well, 2022 is going to be all about apps, we've got obviously the two apps coming that I just talked about, but also raises, you know, we're going to be raising a lot of capital for different types of companies. I've talked about ALK Capital and Burnley Football Club, but there's a lot more companies as well. We've got Bitcoin miners that are looking to raise capital. We've got folks with gold in the ground. This is very interesting, you know, that kind of thing where you've got, you know, pristine wilderness, but I have actually had gold under it. Now, you can't get to the gold because that's going to upset the environmentalists. So instead, let's sell that to the environmentalists and they can own something that has gold. But Bitcoin mining is very, very interesting right now. We've got Bitcoin miners and some of them have an idea where on a monthly basis they'll give out a dividend, maybe like, you know, half of the Bitcoin that they're mining. Now that comes out to something like 3 to 5% yield on a monthly basis, around 87% yield per year. Coming out with projects like these, I think, is going to be very, very exciting for folks because I think a lot of people want to own securities, but they also aren't sure about owning, let's say, crypto as the underlying. And different tax laws in different countries are more advantageous a lot of the time for owning securities rather than owning crypto. So, you know, we're managing to thread the needle for a lot of different issuers in terms of what they're looking for. So, new issues, look out for that, and also look out for the apps. Douglas, how can investors get in touch with the company? Well, they can get in touch with the company really by following us on social media, DMing us over there, that's at INX Group, or you can get in touch with me at DCBorthwick. You can also go to INX.CO, that's our main website, and it's got a lot of different emails and contact information there. Thank you for your time today, the Chief Business Officer of INX. Now, I must remind everyone that Rich TV Live is strictly for information and education purposes. Please, do your due diligence, do your research before you invest in anything we talk about or discuss here on Rich TV Live. In saying that, I think this is a very special project, extremely unique. Put them on your radar, put them on your watchlist. I think they're extremely undervalued, underappreciated, underexposed, and thank you for joining us today. Douglas Borthwick, the Chief Business Officer, would love to invite you back if you ever have any big breaking news or anything you want to discuss back on Rich TV Live, Douglas. Rich, thank you very much, and I'll add this disclaimer for myself. Nothing that I'm saying is investment advice and I've got no licensing to give any investment advice. We really appreciate being here. Underexposed, I think, is certainly something that's very true about our organization. Take a look at us, find out about us, and now we're trading on the NEO as well for the equity, so that's very exciting too. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Rich. Hey, my pleasure. Love to have you back anytime we have big breaking news or anything you want to discuss. I must remind everyone that Rich TV Live is always here for you. If you like the videos, please smash the like button, comment them below, share the video everywhere, and subscribe. If you're not winning, you're probably not watching because we bring you the winners and we bring them to you first. Put INXD on your radar, on your watch list. Thank you for watching everybody. Thank you for joining us, Douglas, and we'll see you guys soon. Thank you very much.


Alright, here we are. Does this sound any better? This is a new microphone. Actually, it's an old microphone, but I've resurrected it. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on with the audio. Alright, taking a midday break, heading to the post office, and gotta stretch. Stay cool out there, and don't get wet. The microphone. The microphone. This is the old microphone. As you can see, there's got tape on it, super glue. So this, I have another one, and I'm using it right now. I don't know if it really works, hopefully. I know you can hear me, but I don't know what the quality is like. Anyway, I digress. Alright, folks. Comment of the week, right? Comment of the week. It's time. It's time. But, it's also time for the postcard of the week. The postcard is just keep coming in. I believe this is number five. Thank you. I'm so glad. I got a PO box. Thank you for encouraging me, especially Bud, to get a PO box. Everybody out there. This is amazing. And if this keeps up, if you guys keep this up, we're gonna have to do a postcard of the week as well. Alright. Here we go. This is the postcard. It's one of those postograms where you can upload photos from your phone, and then they mail you the photos in a postcard form. Pretty sweet. Pretty sweet. Postagramapp.com, a little free promotion for them. That is not a paid advertisement, by the way. Alright, here it is from Marion. Marion wrote, hello wonderful D'Amore family. Thought I would send you a collection of pictures of your favorite sister. You can add it to your postcard collection. Love your vlog. Thanks for reminding us to seek beauty, work hard, and love each other. Love Marion. Ah, Marion. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time to send this to us. I will show this to True Love tonight. She's gonna flip out. Alright, on to the comment of the week, which this was like a no-brainer. Oh my gosh. This is just such a great one. It's pretty long, so bear with me. I'm not gonna talk much about it other than to say thank you. Damien for sharing about your story. Here it goes. And this is in connection to the question of the day, what is your first name? So I asked that question last, maybe Friday or Thursday, because I was just curious because there was people commenting, but I didn't know your first name. And I wanna be on a first name basis. So Damien took the time to explain his first name. Here it is. My name is Damien. And after, Saint Damien of Molokai. We went to Hawaii for our honeymoon and boated over to Molokai for one of our excursions. Got to see Father Damien's leopard colony, amazing, and his church, St. Philharmonus. We hiked down the sea cliff and on our way back up, my wife fell and cut open her wrist on the rocks. It was just us. Our guide was well behind us with a girl he brought along who was just wearing flip-flops for footwear. Thankfully, I stopped the bleeding. Our guide finally caught up with us but had no first aid kit. Some guide. She got treated on the ferry ride back, waters were choppy like the opening scene of Gilligan's Island. Cue the music. I lost my Mocha Mama drink, found a doctor on call, and got stitches. The next morning at 4am, we biked down a volcano. My wife did so one-handed. I also have 12 middle names, but that's another story. Oh man! That's an amazing comment. I don't know where the whole, like, I lost my Mocha Mama drink. I don't know what that means, Damien, but other than that, that's an amazing comment of the week. Thank you, as always, and in case you did not know, every Monday I read the best comment from the previous seven days. So I'll give you a shout out in the comment below. Oh yeah, and don't forget to check out Damien's channel in the description below. Go check it out. He's got great vlogs, great videos of his family up in Wisconsin. All right. That's that. Time to head home.  Families at the park. Look what I found. Yes, indeed. Steak.  Thank you, huh? Maybe that was some of the steak. Don't mind if I do. Show me. Come on, look who came in the mail to the PO box. Love you, Marion. That's the best postcard we've ever had. Yes, sir. Thank you, Marion, for taking care of a man in his shed slash garage. That is for you. And just wrapping up this day, it's about 7.30. We put our boys down to bed early. We're not afraid. Be not afraid of the early bedtime. You know, they just, especially they're not napping anymore, really. So we're not afraid to put them down early because they just start losing it at like 6. I mean, we're talking mail down city. But anyhow, God love them. They're just trying to make it in this world just like you. Hard at your dishes. Is that the, yes it is. Is that the question of the day? Yes it is. Do you do your dishes via the hand or via the dishwasher? How do you do your dishes? How do you prefer to do your dishes? Do you like doing your dishes? However you want to answer that, you just comment below. Appreciate it. I love each other by doing each other's dishes.


After 50 days in Hamas' captivity in Gaza, Israeli-Irish child hostage Emily Corenburg reunited with her sister Natalie Hand, following her return to Israel on November 25.The 9-year-old was kidnapped from a friend's house in Kibbutz Biyari on October 7 by Hamas militants who swarmed into Israeli communities in a deadly onslaught that prompted Israel to launch a war on Hamas in Gaza. Her father, Tom Hand, said on November 26 that his daughter has lost weight but was doing better than. Expected, Gemily returned in the second of four batches of hostages agreed under an Israel-Hamas true-steal to be released. We'd like to thank everyone that has helped and supported us throughout this whole 50 days. We'll do it without you.


We haven't seen anything like this since really since the Great Depression here in our state. Many students have been out of work ever since the pandemic hit, with tuition and rent still due. Some have been struggling to find a job. Kenzie is a senior and had a job at the International House in the spring. Several months later, it's still closed. This of us left to go home, not knowing that like it wasn't going to open up again. You can't really breathe easy until you know that you have something lined up. Emmanuel is also a senior and had two jobs in the restaurant business. His work also to a halt. Financially, it has been hard. I was left without a job and I haven't been able to work like I did before since. According to a campus survey from the Career Center, 32 percent of students have lost internships completely, while others have been able to get work online. There's opportunities that can be done virtually. But what about the job market in general? Michael Bernick is the former director of the California Employment Development Department with some state insight. There's been no significant uptick in hiring. And we've seen businesses closing permanently. And that's very much of concern to us in the California economy. However, some business owners have been able to hire students during this time. My whole team is fairly new. I would say I'm trying to give the students that are living here that need to pay their rent, give them an opportunity to be able to do that. Graduating seniors entering the workforce soon are unsure of what's to come next. I'm definitely worried about, you know, my future prospects of finding a job after I graduate. For the meantime, take anything. If a student puts time and energy into finding an opportunity, they will have a job after school. Manuel and Kenzie have both found internships off campus recently, but many other students are still on the search. I'm Amanda Ramirez, CalTV News.