Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/56

 42 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Old Testament as a candid sociological record. He is more liberal and cosmopolitan; he does not interpret all life in the light of a single class of ideals however lofty they may be. There is little "purpose" about Homer. His sacerdotal bias appears vanishingly slight, this being due in large part to the astonishing fact that, as an early chronicler, he seems -not to have been affiliated with the priesthood.

There is another blemish, connected more or less with the sacerdotal, of which Homer seems not yet to have been convicted. This might be called the meteorological bias, and has been foisted upon many innocent stories by the dexterous sentimentality of Max Miiller and others who seem convinced that the primitive savage, and many of his betters, were interested in the Morgenroth, more than in the vicissitudes of the struggle for existence and the competition of life.

Nor is the military bias as provoking in Homer as it is wont to be in early stories. If the fifth and other war-books of the Iliad existed alone, there might be some reason for classing Homer with military glorifiers, although even then he would exhibit a liberality of interests sufficient to stagger some of his Norse, Slavic, and other fellow-eulogists. But the fact is that the Iliad, taken by itself, is by no means barren of suggestion as to things other than of war ; and when to this is added the ethno- graphical panorama of the Odyssey, it is ungrateful to harbor any ill-feeling or impatience for the time spent on military matters.

There is more reason for saying that Homer exhibits an aristocratic bias than for charging him with any other. This is, of course, a sort of military bias and characterizes the attitude of the less powerful in an age of violence. Far less is heard of the common man, in spite of Thersites, Eumaeus, and others, than could be wished. Here inferior records at times exhibit an advantage. But popular poems are not composed describing the lowly, until a later age. To get a profitable hearing, in Homer's time, the theme must be lofty, and disassociated with the sordid and commonplace. Here seems to be an occasion for some dis- counting ; if there is any falling short it is here.

And yet, taking the poems in their entirety, it cannot be