Page 39 - CONSCIENCISM By Kwame Nkrumah_Neat

3 2 CONSCIENCISM PHILOSOPHY AND SOCIETY 33
of as being rooted in the divine will it becomes hard to contest. The above contrast ofGreek society with oriental society should
It therefore assumes the form of an authoritarianism which, if not suggest that Greek society was without theocratic manifes­
unhindered, can come to revel in the most extreme oppression. tations, as is often thought. Greek society had theocratic mani­
The history of societies in which priests have wielded political festations which were intensified under Persian rule.
power abundantly illustrates tllls tendency. The pre-Thales hereditary aristocracy comprising the land­
In the particular case of Greek societies, however, certain owning class converted the ancient clan cults into hereditary
qualifications need to be made. The early Greeks without doubt priesthoods. To these priesthoods was assigned the power of
had a religion. This religion was distinguished by its lack of an passing and executing sentence at their discretion, especially on those
established creed. Nevertheless, the Greek priests enjoyed social­ who were accused ofhomicide. As private property grew, so did
political power, by which they could among other things institute the incentive to homicide on the part of those who wished to
action at court on charges of irreligion. This alone was a power .. ensure that they inherited property. The power ofthe aristocratic
which could be translated into political terms even as late as during priesthood was based on the belief that those who committed
trial of Socrates. certain crimes infringed the sacred moral order ofsociety, and that
The Greek religion was congregationaL This fact helped to they needed to expiate their crimes and be absolved if the whole
consolidate priestly power, for when rites are performed com­ community was not to be thrown into jeopardy. The idea that the
munally and not individually (in order that a small farming com­ . whole community was endangered before the gods as a result of
munity should be insured by the gods against drought and famine), certain malpractices of individuals was not abandoned even by
the priest is encouraged to come down heavily on individuals who Solon, a contemporary of Anaximander.
by their irreligion endanger the community or the state. And Thales' first revolution therefore knocked the bottom out of
was true with the Greeks. It was as their religion became les!> the theocratic and crypto-theocratic manifestations of Greek
congregational and more individual that the power of the priest, society. In destroying the gods as explanatory devices, he neutral­
already implicitly queried by the new philosophies, diminished ized them and undermined the social effectiveness ofthe aristocratic
significantly. The rise ofthe mercantile class, with its dependence priesthood.
on mechanical arts rather than religious ritual, tended to reduce the The second revolution consisted in his contention that the unity
social relevance ofthe priest and encouraged the individualizatlon ofnature consisted not in its being but in its materiality. His choice
of Greek religion. It was tllls growing irrelevance of the priest ofone substance for his monism had its root in mercantilism, in the
which Thales emphasized by dispensing with the gods altogether belief that all goods were exchangeable in tetrns of a common
as sources ofexplanation ofnatural or social phenomena. denominator. Water, the common denominator which Thales
Thales was able peacefully to spearhead tllls intellectual revo­ chose, fittingly reflected the Ionian dependence on its navy for its
lution, which was itself a reflection of a social revolution, because mercantilism, the growth of the navy being crucial for Ionia's
the Greek priesthood did not in the strictest sense form a class. The Mediterranean trade.
Greeks, mindful of the massive constricting power which the But the interaction between the alteration of social circum­
priesthood could exert if it formed a class, shunned the oriental stances and the content of consciousness is not one-sided, for
example, discouraged life-priests, and otten flXed the length of circumstances can be changed by revolution and revolutions are
time for which one was a priest or priestess. Moreover, the high­ brought about by men, by men who think as men of action and
priesthood was often invested ex officio in the political leader. act as men of thought. It is true that revolutionaries are produced