Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/484

 452 HISTORY OF GREECE. vulgar : the god Elenchus 1 (to use a personification of Menander) the giver and prover of truth, descended ir.to their minds. Into the new intellectual medium, thus altered in its elements, and no longer uniform in its quality, the mythes descended by inherit- ance ; but they were found, to a certain extent, out of harmony even with the feelings of the people, and altogether dissonant with those of instructed men. But the most superior Greek was still a Greek, and cherished the common reverential sentiment towards the foretime of his country. Though he could neither believe nor respect the mythes as they stood, he was under an imperious mental necessity to transform them into a state worthy of his belief and respect. Whilst the literal mythe still continued to float among the poets and the people, critical men interpreted, altered, decomposed, and added, until they found something which satisfied their minds as a supposed real basis. They manufac- tured some dogmas of supposed original philosophy, and a long series of fancied history and chronology, retaining the mythical names and generations even when they were obliged to discard or recast the mythical events. The interpreted mythe was thus promoted into a reality, while the literal mythe was degraded into a fiction. 2 1 Lucian, Pseudol. c. 4. IlapaK/l^reof rjfi.lv ruvMevdvdpov TrpoAoyuv eZf, f>^ai^ iJedf, ov% o uarifioraTOf TUV ircl rrjv avaftatvoVTuv. (See Meineke ad Menandr. p. 284.) ii. sect. i. p. 126) bears well on the subject before us : " If conjectures and opinions formed at a distance have not a sufficient authority in the history of mankind, the domestic antiquities of every nation must for this very reason be received with caution. They are, for the most part, the mere conjectures or the fictions of subsequent ages ; and even where at first they contained some resemblance of truth, they still vary with the imagination of those by whom they were transmitted, and in every genera- tion receive a different form. They are made to bear the stamp of the times through which they have passed in the form of tradition, not of the ages to which their pretended descriptions relate ............ When traditionary fables are rehearsed by the vulgar, they bear the marks of a national chart c- ter, and though mixed with absurdities, often raise the imagination and more the heart: when made the materials of poetry, and adorned by the skill and the eloquence of an ardent and superior mind, they instruct the understand- ing as well as engage the passions. It is only in the management of mere antiquaries, or stript of the ornaments which the laws of history forbid tben
 * The following passage from Dr. Ferguson's Essay on Civil Society (part