Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/383

 STIMULUS TO MYTHOPffilC FACULTY. 351 Though we may thus explain the mythopoeic fertility of the t^>eeks, I am far from pretending that we can render any suffi- cient account of the supreme beauty of their chief epic and ar- tistical productions. There is something in the first-rate produc- tions of individual genius which lies beyond the compass of philo- sophical theory : the special breath of the Muse (to speak the language of ancient Greece) must be present in order to give them being. Even among her votaries, many are called, but few are chosen ; and the peculiarities of those few remain as yet her own secret. We shall not however forget that Grecian language was also an indispensable requisite to the growth and beauty of Grecian mythes its richness, its flexibility and capacity of new com- binations, its vocalic abundance and metrical pronunciation : and many even among its proper names, by their analogy to words really significant, gave direct occasion to explanatory or illustra- tive stories. Etymological mythes are found in sensible pro- portion among the whole number. To understand properly then the Grecian mythes, we must try to identify ourselves with the state of mind of the original my- thopreic age ; a process not very easy, since it requires us to adopt a string of poetical fancies not simply as realities, but as the governing realities of the mental system; 1 yet a process 1 The mental analogy between the early stages of human civilization and the childhood of the individual is forcibly and frequently set forth in the works of Vico. That eminently original thinker dwells upon the poetical and religious susceptibilities as the first to develop themselves in the human miad, and as famishing not merely connecting threads for the explanation of sensible phenomena, but also aliment for the hopes and fears, and means of socializing influence to men of genius, at a time when reason was yet asleep. He points out the personifying instinct ("istinto d' animazione "_) as the spontaneous philosophy of man, " to make himself the rule of the uni- verse," and to suppose everywhere a quasi-human agency as the determining cause. He remarks that in an age of fancy and feeling, the conceptions and language of poetry coincide with those of reality and common life, instead of standing apart as a separate vein. These views are repeated frequently (and with some variations of opinion as he grew older) in his Latin work De Una Universi Juris Principio, as well as in the two successive redactions, of his great Italian work, Scienza Nuova (it must be added that Vico as an expositor is prolix, and does not do justice to his own powers of original thought) : I select the following from the second edition of the latter treatise,