Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/894

874 One word, however, upon the "days" of Genesis. We do not hear the authority of Scripture impeached on the ground that it assigns to the Almighty eyes and cars, hands, arms, and feet; nay, even the emotions of the human being. This being so, I am unable to understand why any disparagement to the credit of the sacred books should ensue because, to describe the order and successive stages of the Divine working, these have been distributed into "days." What was the thing required in order to make this great procession of acts intelligible and impressive? Surely it was to distribute the parts each into some integral division of time, having the character of something complete in itself, of a revolution, or outset and return. There are but three such divisions familiarly known to man. Of these the day was the most familiar to human perceptions; and probably on this account its figurative use is admitted to be found in prophetic texts, as, indeed, it largely pervades ancient and modern speech. Given the object in view, which indeed can hardly be questioned, docs it not appear that the "day," more definitely separated than either month or year from what precedes and what follows, was appropriately chosen for the purpose of conveying the idea of development by gradation in the process which the book sets forth?

I now come to the last portion of my task, which is to follow Dr. Réville into his exposition of the Olympian mythology. Not, indeed, the Homeric or Greek religion alone, for he has considered the case of all religions, and disposes of them with equal facility. Of any other system than the Olympian, it would be presumption in me to speak, as I have, beyond this limit, none but the most vague and superficial knowledge. But on the Olympian system in its earliest and least adulterated, namely, its Homeric, development, whether with success or not, I have freely employed a large share of such leisure as more than thirty years of my Parliamentary life, passed in freedom from the calls of office, have supplied. I hope that there is not in Dr. Réville's treatment of other systems that slightness of texture and that facility and rapidity of conclusion which seem to me to mark his performances in the Olympian field.

In the main he follows what is called the solar theory. In his widest view he embraces no more than "the religion of nature" (pp. 94, 100), and he holds that all religion has sprung from the worship of objects visible and sensible.

His first essay is upon Heracles, whom I have found to be one of the most difficult and, so to speak, irreducible characters in the Olympian mythology. In the Tyrian system Heracles, as Melkart, says Dr. Réville in p. 95, is "a brazen god, the devourer of children, the terror of men"; but, without any loss of identity, he becomes in the Greek system "the great lawgiver, the tamer of monsters, the peacemaker, the liberator." I am deeply impressed with the danger that lurks in these summary and easy solutions; and I will offer a few words first on the Greek Heracles generally, next on the Homeric presentation of the character.

Dr. L. Schmidt has contributed to Smith's great Dictionary a large and careful article on Heracles—an article which may almost be called a treatise. Unlike Dr. Réville, to whom the matter is so clear, he finds himself out of his depth in attempting to deal with this highly incongruous character, which meets us at so many points, as a whole. But he perceives in the Heracles of Greece a mixture of fabulous and historic elements; and the mythical basis is not, according to him, a transplanted Melkart, but is essentially Greek. He refers to Buttmann's "Mythologus" and Müller's "Dorians" as the best treatises on the subject, "both of which regard the hero as a purely Greek character." Thus Dr. Réville appears to be in conflict with the leading authorities, whom he does not confute, but simply ignores.

Homer himself may have felt the difficulty, which Dr. Réville does not feel, for he presents to us, in one and the same passage, a divided Heracles. Whatever of him is not eidolon, dwells among the Olympian gods. This eidolon, however, is no mere shade, but something that sees and speaks, that mourns and threatens; no "lawgiver," or "peacemaker," or "liberator," but one from whom the other shades fly in terror, set in the place and company of sinners