Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/467

 PLAUSIBLE FICTION, HOW GENERATED 435 influence of imagination and feeling is not confined simply to the process of retouching, transforming, or magnifying nanatives originally founded on fact ; it will often create new narratives of its own, without any such preliminary basis. Where there is any general body of sentiment pervading men living in society, whether it be religious or political love, admiration, or antipathy all incidents tending to illustrate that sentiment are eagerly wel- comed, rapidly circulated and (as a general rule) easily accred- ited. If real incidents are not at hand, impressive fictions will be provided to satisfy the demand. The perfect harmony of such fictions with the prevalent feeling stands in the place of certi- fying testimony, and causes men to hear them not merely with credence, but even with delight : to call them in question and require proof, is a task which cannot be undertaken without in- curring obloquy. Of such tendencies in the human mind, abun- dant evidence is furnished by the innumerable religious legends which have acquired currency in various parts of the world, and of which no country was more fertile than Greece legends which derived their origin, not from special facts misreported and exaggerated, but from pious feelings pervading the society, and translated into narrative by forward and imaginative minds legends, in which not merely the incidents, but often even the personages are unreal, yet in which the generating sentiment is conspicuously discernible, providing its own matter as well as its own form. Other sentiments also, as well as the religious, pro- vided they be fervent and widely diffused, will find expression in current narrative, and become portions of the general public be- lief every celebrated and notorious character is the source of a thousand fictions exemplifying his peculiarities. And if it be true, as I think present observation may show us, that such crea- tive agencies are even now visible and effective, when the mate- rials of genuine history are copious and critically studied much more are we warranted in concluding that, in ages destitute of records, strangers to historical testimony, and full of belief in divine inspiration both as to the future and as to the past, narra tives purely fictitious will acquire ready and uninquiring credence, .Review" for May, 1843, on Niebuhr's Greek Legends, with wlvch article much in the present chapter will be found to coincide.