Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/385

 GRECIAN IMAGINATION AND SENTIMENT. 353 phenomena were grouped, and towards whom curiosity, sympa- thies, and reverence were earnestly directed. The adventures of such persons were the only aliment suited at Dnce both to the appetites and to the comprehension of an early Greek ; and the mythes which detailed them, while powerfully interesting his ralmente niegato di poter formare la vasta imagine di cotal donna che dicono Natura simpatelica, che mcntre con la bocca dicono, non hanno nulla in lor mente, perocche la lor mcntc 6 dentro il falso. che e nulla; ne* sono soccorsi dalla fantasia a poterne formare una falsa vastissima imagine. Cosl ora ci & naturalmente niegato di poter entrare nella vasta immaginativa di queiprimi uomini, le menti dci quali di nulla erano assottigliate, di nulla astratte, di nulla spiritualezzate Onde dicemmo sopra ch' ora appena intender si pud, affalto immaginar non s pu6, come pensassero i primi uomini che fondarono la umanita gentilesca." In this citation (already almost too long for a note) I have omitted several sentences not essential to the general meaning. It places these early divine fables and theological poets (so Vico calls them) in their true point of view, and assigns to them their proper place in the ascending movement of hu man society : it refers the mythes to an early religious and poetical age, in which feeling and fancy composed the whole fund of the human mind, over and above the powers of sense : the great mental change which has since taken place has robbed us of the power, not merely of believing them as they were originally believed, but even of conceiving completely that which their first inventors intended to express. The views here given from this distinguished Italian (the precursor of F. A. Wolf in regard to the Homeric poems, as well as of Niebnhr in regard to the Roman history) appear to me no less correct than profound ; and the obvious inference from them is, that attempts to explain (as it is commonly called) the mythes (/. e. to translate them into some physical, moral or his- torical statements, suitable to our order of thought) are, even as guesses, essentially unpromising. Nevertheless Vico, inconsistently with his own general view, bestows great labor and ingenuity in attempting to discover internal meaning symbolized under many of the mythes ; and eren lays down the position, " che i primi uomini della Gentilita essendo stati sempli- cissimi, quanto i fanciulli, i quali per natura son veritieri : le prime favole non poterono finger nulla di falso : per lo che dovettero necessariamente es- sere vere narrozioni." (See vol. v. p. 194 ; compare also p. 99, Axiom xvi.) If this position be meant simply to exclude the idea of designed imposture, it may for the most part be admitted ; but Vico evidently intends something more. He thinks that there lies hid under the fables a basis of matter of fact not literal but symbolized which he draws out and exhibits under the form of a civil history of the divine and heroic times : a confusion of doc- trine the more remarkable, since he distinctly tells us (in perfect conformity with the long passage above transcribed from him) that the special matter of VOL. i. 23oc.