Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/462

 430 HISTORY OF GREECE. in respect to positive certificate also. The Crusades are a curious phenomenon in history, but we accept them, nevertheless, as an unquestionable fact, because the antecedent improbability is sur- mounted by adequate contemporary testimony. When the like testimony, both in amount and kind, is produced to establish the historical reality of a Trojan war, we shall not hesitate to deal with the two events on the same footing. In applying the semi-historical theory to Grecian mythical nar- rative, it has been often forgotten that a certain strength of testi- mony, or positive ground of belief, must first be tendered, before we can be called upon to discuss the antecedent probability or improbability of the incidents alleged. The belief of the Greeks themselves, without the smallest aid of special or contemporary witnesses, has been tacitly assumed as sufficient to support the case, provided only sufficient deduction be made from the mythi- cal narratives to remove all antecedent improbabilities. It has been taken for granted that the faith of the people must have rested originally upon some particular historical event, involving the identical persons, things, and places which the original mythes exhibit, or at least the most prominent among them. But when we examine the pyschagogic influences predominant in the so- ciety among whom this belief originally grew up, we shall see that their belief is of little or no evidentiary value, and that the growth and diffusion of it may be satisfactorily explained without supposing any special basis of matters of fact. The popular faith, so far as it counts for anything, testifies in favor of the en- tire and literal mythes, which are now universally rejected as incredible.. 1 We have thus the very minimum of positive proof, 1 Colonel Sleeman observes, respecting the Hindoo historical mind " History to this people is all a fairy tale." (Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official, vol. i. ch. ix. p. 70.) And again, " The popular poem of the Ramaen describes the abduction of the heroine by the monster king of Ceylon, Rawun ; and her recovery by means of the monkey general, Hun- nooman. Every word of this poem, the people assured me was written, if not by the hand of the Deity himself, at least by his inspiration, which was the same thing and it must consequently be true. Ninety-nine out of a hundred, among the Hindoos, implicitly believe, not only every word of the poem, but every word of every poem that has ever been written in Sanscrit. If you ask a man whether he really believes any very egregious absurdity quoted from these books, he replies, with the greatest naivete in the world, li