Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/32

pretation—utmost which it can accomplish.—Some positive certificate indispensable as a constituent of historical proof—mere popular faith insufficient.—Mistake of ascribing to an unrecording age the historical sense of modern times.—Matter of tradition uncertified from the beginning.—Fictitious matter of tradition does not imply fraud or imposture.—Plausible fiction often generated and accredited by the mere force of strong and common sentiment, even in times of instruction.—Allegorical theory of the mythes—traced by some up to an ancient priestly caste.—Real import of the mythes supposed to be preserved in the religious mysteries.—Supposed ancient meaning is really a modern interpretation.—Triple theology of the pagan world. Treatment and use of the mythes according to Plato.—His views as to the necessity and use of fiction.—He deals with the mythes as expressions of feeling and imagination—sustained by religious faith, and not by any positive basis.—Grecian antiquity esssentially a religious conception.—Application of chronologicsft calculation divests it of this character.—Mythical genealogies all of one class, and all on a level in respect to evidence.—Grecian and Egyptian genealogies.—Value of each is purely subjective, having especial reference to the faith of the people.—Gods and men undistinguishable in Grecian antiquity.—General recapitulation.—General public of Greece—familiar with their local mythes, careless of recent history.—Religious festivals their commemorative influence.—Variety and universality of mythical relics.—The mythes in their bearing on Grecian art.—Tendency of works of art to intensify the mythical faith. 340-461

CHAPTER XVII.

THE GRECIAN MYTHICAL VEIN COMPARED WITH THAT OF MODERN EUROPE.

Μῦθος—Sage—an universal manifestation of the human mind.—Analogy of the Germans and Celts with the Greeks.—Differences between them.—Grecian poetry matchless.—Grecian progress self-operated.—German progress brought about by violent influences from without.—Operation of the Roman civilization and of Christianity upon the primitive German mythes.—Alteration in the mythical genealogies—Odin and the other gods degraded into men.—Grecian Paganism—what would have been the case, if it had been supplanted by Christianity in 500 b. c.—Saxo Grammaticus and Snorro Sturleson contrasted with Pherekydês and Hellanikus.—Mythopœic tendencies in modern Europe still subsisting, but forced into a new channel: 1. Saintly ideal; 2. Chivalrous ideal.—Legends of the Saints their analogy with the Homeric theology.—Chivalrous ideal—Romances of Charlemagne and Arthur.—Accepted as realities of the fore-time.—Teutonic and Scandavian epic—its analogy with the Grecian.—Heroic character and self-expanding subject common to both.—Points of distinction between the two epic of the Middle Ages neither stood so completely alone, nor was so closely interwoven with religion, as the Grecian.—History of England—how conceived down to the seventeenth century—began with Brute the Trojan.—Earnest and tenacious faith manifested in the defence of this early history.—Judgment of Milton.—Standard of historical evidence—raised in regrad to England—not raised in regard to Greece.—Milton's way of dealing with the British fabulous history objectionable.—Two ways open of dealing with the Grecian mythes: 1, to omit them; or, 2, to recount them as mythes.—Reasons for preferring ihe latter.—Triple partition of past time by Varro. 461-483.