Ancient Greece

If the Greek classics are to be read with any benefit by modern men,they must be read as the work of men like ourselves.What we lose in reverence we gain in sympathy for that group of troubled,uncertain,and very modern men.The Athenian writers were the first of modern men.They discussed questions we still discuss.Their writings are our dawn.The early psychologist Carl Jung wrote on the differences between pre-Athenian thought and modern thought.The former was a thinking in images,akin to dreaming;the latter a thinking in words.The pre-Athenian was a world of subjective fantasies like the world of children.Myths,says Jung,are the mass dreams of peoples,and dreams are the myths of individuals.The work of hard and disciplined thinking by means of carefully analyzed words and statements,which was begun by the Greek thinkers was a necessary preliminary to the development of modern thought and science.