Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/58

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THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

living witness before us of the persistence of legend, for ages unmodifiable in the face of fact, science, and changing stand- ards ; perhaps Homer was not to the Greek what the Old Testa- ment was to our fathers, but the difference is one of degree merely.

Again, it appears that changes of relatively small magnitude would not have altered the scientific value of Homer materially. From the sociological standpoint, where culture-epochs are regarded rather than years and decades, there appear to be no divergences between the Iliad and Odyssey, or between parts of either poem sufficient to mar in its essentials the consistent type of civilization exhibited. From the standpoint of this science, everything points to the coherence and oneness of Homer. For these reasons the social scientist who delves in the records of civilization may pass over with little danger the highly technical and apparently quite unsettled discussion of text-chronology. This is a great economy of effort. It is not clear why the same attitude might not be adopted in the case of the Nibelungen-Lied, in spite of the labors of Lachmann and others expended upon it. Presumably, it would be impossible with the Old Testament, and for this reason, again, that congeries of documents is less available for scientific purposes than is the unified and consistent Homer.

It may seem at first sight a trivial matter upon which to base scientific preference, but it is none the less true that Homer's manner and simple straightforwardness, together with the beauty of his work, instinctively prejudice one in his favor. Candor speaks for itself ; and while general attractiveness may not be an ideal quality in scientific material, it is a very practical one. Would that all ethnographers, particularly the Germans, were able to render their accounts as attractive as do Homer and Herodotus ! Homer's work is certainly in incomparably better taste, as judged by present-day criteria, than is that of most of his fellows in the epic art.

There is, finally, one circumstance which lends to Homer a sort of distinctive racial importance far and away ahead of that of any of the other chronicles of antiquity, except perhaps the