Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/67

 PLAUSIBLE FICTION. 51 to be in any way worthy of belief. It cannot be shown that they possessed any means of knowledge, while it is certain that they could have no motive to consider historical truth : their object was to satisfy an uncritical appetite for narrative, and to interest the emotions of their hearers. Mr. Clinton says, that " the per- sons may be considered real when the description of them is consistent with the state of the country at that time." But he has forgotten, first, that we know nothing of the state of the country except what these very poets tell us ; next, that fictitious persons may be just as consonant to the state of the country as real persons. While, therefore, on the one hand, we have no independent evidence either to affirm or to deny that Achilles or Agamemnon are consistent with the state of Greece or Asia Minor, at a certain supposed date 1183 B. c., so, on tLe other hand, even assuming such consistency to be made out, this of itself would not prove them to be real persons. Mr. Clinton's reasoning altogether overlooks the existence of plausible Jfction, fictitious stones which harmonize perfectly well with the general course of facts, and which are distinguish ed from matters of fact not by any internal character, but by the circumstance that matter of fact has some competent and well- informed witness to authenticate it, either directly or through legitimate inference. Fiction may be, and often is, extravagant and incredible ; but it may also be plausible and specious, and in that case there is nothing but the want of an attesting certificate to distinguish it from truth. Now all the tests, which Mr. Clin- ton proposes as guarantees of the reality of the Homeric persons, will be just as well satisfied by plausible fiction as by actual matter of fact : the plausibility of the fiction consists in its satis- fying those and other similar conditions. In most cases, the tales of the poets did fall in with the existing current of feelings in their audience : " prejudice and vanity" are not the only feelings, but doubtless prejudice and vanity were often appealed to, and it was from such harmony of sentiment that they acquired their hold on men's belief. Without any doubt, the Hiad appealed most powerfully to the reverence for ancestral gods and heroes among the Asiatic colonists who first heard it : the temptation ol putting forth an interesting tale is quite a sufficient stimulus to the invention of the poet, and the plausibility of the tale a suffi-