Two great classes of the people, the slaves and women, were almost excluded from such qualities; even the free population doubtless contained a far greater proportion of very ignorant and very superstitious persons than we are in the habit of imagining.
Bagehot highlights the exclusion of certain groups, like slaves and women, from the intellectual advancements of ancient Athens.
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He gave an excellent moral example to his contemporaries, but he is an instance of those whose good dies with them, while their evil lives after them.
Savages waste away before modern civilisation; they seem to have held their ground before the ancient.
No doubt this momentary gain is bought at a ruinous after-cost.
But, above all things, they were frightened of 'the world;' the spectacle of nature filled them with awe and dread.
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