real or fictitious hero, having been honored with his name in the Cadmeian colony of Thebes, was by degrees confounded with him in the popular mythology; and fabled to have been raised up by Jupiter to replace him after he had been slain by the Titans; as Altis and Adonis were by the boar, and Osiris by Typhon; symbolical tales which have been already noticed. The mystic Deity was however duly distinguished as an object of public worship in the temples: where he was associated by the Greeks with Ceres and Proserpine, and by the Romans with Ceres and Libera, (who was their Proserpine,) the reason for which, as the Stoic interlocutor observes in Cicero's Dialogue on the Nature of the Gods, was explained in the Mysteries.3 2 206. The sons of Tyndarus were by the same means confounded with the ancient personifications of the diurnal and nocturnal sun, or of the morning and evening star;4 the symbols of whose attributes, the two oval or conic caps, were interpreted to signify their birth from Leda's egg, a fable ingrafted upon the old allegory subsequent to the Homeric times; the four lines alluding to the deification of the brothers of Helen in the Odyssey being undoubtedly spurious, though extremely beautiful. Perseus is probably an entirely fictitious and allegorical personage; for there is no mention of him in either of the Homeric poems; and his name is a title of the sun," and his image the composite δ Αθηναίοι Διονυσον τον Διος και Κόρης σεβουσιν· αλλον τουτον Διονυσον· καὶ ὁ Ιακχος ὁ μυστικός τούτῳ τῷ Διονυσῳ, ουχι τῷ Θηβαιῳ, επαδεται. Arrian. lib. ii. An Attic wri ter during the independence of the Republic, would not have dared to say so much. Μυθολογουσι δε τινες και έφερον Διονυσον γεγονέναι, πολυ τοις χρόνοις προτερούντα τουτού. φασι γαρ εκ Διος και Περσεφονης Διονυσον γενεσθαι, τον ύπο τινων Σεβάζιον ονομαζομενογο οὗ την τε γενεσιν και τας θυσίας και τιμας νυκτερινας και κρυφίας παρεισάγουσι δια την αισχύνην την εκ της συνουσίας επακολουθουσαν. Diodor. Sic. lib. iv. p. 148. Σαββους γαρ και νυν ετι πολλοι τους Βακκους καλούσι, και ταυτην αφιάσι την φωνην όταν οργιάζωσι τῷ θεῷ. Plutarch. Symp. lib. iv. qu. vi. 2 1 Ηδη γαρ μενεαινε γιον Διονυσον αέξειν, Ταυροφνες μιμημα παλαιγενεος Διονύσου, Ον τεκε Περσεφόνεια δρακόντειη Διος ευνη. Dionysiac. lib. v. p. 173. Και πλησιον ναος εστι Δημητρος αγαλματα δε αυτη τε και ή παις, και δᾄδα έχων Ιακχος. Pausan. in Attic. Η που γ' αν ετι την Πραξιτέλους Δημητρα, και Κόρην, και τον Ιακχον τον μυστικών, θεοὺς ὑπολαμβανομεν. Clem. Αlex. in Protrep. 3 Lib. iii. 3. 21. 4 Και τους Τυνδαρίδας δε φασι την των Διοσκούρων δοξαν ὑπελθειν παλιν (lege παλαι) νομιζομένων είναι θεών. Sext. Εmpir. lib. ix. s. 37. 5 Od. Λ. 300-4. λελογχασε ίσα betrays the interpolator, the adjective having been written with the digamma. 6 Περσεύς ὁ ἥλιος. Schol. in Lycophr. v. 18. symbol of the gryphon humanised. Theseus appears likewise to be a personage who started into being between the respective ages of the two Homeric poems: there being no mention of him in the genuine parts of the Iliad, though the Athenian genealogy is minutely detailed;' and he being only once slightly mentioned as the lover of Ariadne in the genuine parts of the Odyssey. He seems, in reality, to be the Athenian personification of Hercules; he having the same symbols of the club and lion's skin; and similar actions and adventures being attributed to him, many of which are manifestly allegorical; such as his conflict with the Minotaur, with the Centaurs, and with the Amazons. 207. This confusion of personages, arising from a confusion of names, was facilitated in its progress by the belief that the universal generative principle, or its subordinate emanations, might act in such a manner as that a female of the human species might be impregnated without the co-operation of a male;3 and as this notion was extremely useful and convenient in concealing the frailties of women, quieting the jealousies of husbands, protecting the honor of families, and guarding with religious awe the power of bold usurpers, it was naturally cherished and promoted with much favor and industry. Men supposed to be produced in this supernatural way, would of course advance into life with strong confidence and high expectations; which generally realise their own views, when supported by even common courage and ability. Such were the founders of almost all the families distinguished in mythology; whose names being, like all other ancient names, descriptive titles, they were equally applicable to the personified attributes of the Deity: whence both became blended together; and historical so mixed with allegorical fable, that it is impossible in many instances to distinguish or separate them. The actions of kings and conquerors were attributed to personages purely symbolical; and the qualities of these bestowed in return upon frail and perishable mortals. Even the double or ambiguous sex was attributed to deified heroes; Cecrops being fabled to have been both man and woman; and the rough Hercules and furious Achilles represented with the features and habits of the softer sex, to conceal 'B. 546-50. Several of these lines seem to have been interpolated in compliment to the Athenians. 2 A. 321. 3. Ούθεν οιομαι δεινον, ει μη πλησιάζων ὁ θεος, ώσπερ ανθρωπος, αλλα έτεραις τισιν άφαις δι' έτερων και ψαυσεσι τρέπει, και εποπιμπλησι θείατερας γονης το θνητον. Plutarch. Symposiac. lib. viií. probl. 1. Justin. lib. ii. c. 6. Suidas in Kexfox. Euseb. et Hieron. in Chronic. Plutarch. de sera numin. vindicta. Eustath. in Dionys. Diodor. Sic. I. i. c. 28. the mystic meaning of which the fables of Omphale and Iole, and the daughters of Lycomedes, were invented; of which there is not a trace in the Homeric poems. 208. When the Greeks made expeditions into distant countries either for plunder, trade, or conquest; and there found deified heroes with titles corresponding either in sound or sense to their own, they without further inquiry concluded them to be the same; and adopted all the legendary tales which they found with them whence their own mythology, both religious and historical, was gradually spread out into an unwieldy mass of incoherent fictions and traditions, that no powers of ingenuity or extent of learning could analyse or comprehend. The heroes of the Iliad were, at a very early period, so much the objects of public admiration, partly through the greatness of the war, the only one carried on jointly by all the States of Greece prior to the Macedonian usurpation, and partly through the refulgent splendor of the mighty genius by which it had been celebrated; that the proudest princes were ambitious of deducing their genealogies from them, and the most powerful nations vain of any traces of connexion with them. Many such claims and pretensions were of course fabricated, which were as easily asserted as denied; and as men have a natural partiality for affirmatives, and nearly as strong a predilection for that which exercises their credulity, as for that which gratifies their vanity, we may conclude that the assertors generally prevailed. Their tales were also rendered plausible, in many instances, by the various traditions then circulated concerning the subsequent fortunes and adventures of those heroes; some of whom were said to have been cast away in their return; and others expelled by usurpers, who had taken advantage of their long absence; so that a wandering life supported by piracy and plunder became the fate of many. Inferences were likewise drawn from the slenderest traces of verbal analogies, and the general similarity of religious rites; which, as they co-operated in proving what men were predisposed to believe, were admitted without suspicion or critical examination. Strabon. lib. iii. p. 150. 280 OXFORD ENGLISH PRIZE ESSAY, For 1822. THE STUDY OF MORAL EVIDENCE. Fidei dentur quæ fidei sunt.-DE AUGMENTIS. THE attainment of truth is, or ought to be, the great object of our intellectual pursuits, which are important only as they fit us to discharge with propriety the parts we are severally called to act. But as we are very liable to be deceived, this attainment involves an investigation into the tests by which we may discriminate between truth and error, and learn to recognise the one while we reject the other in other words, it involves an inquiry into the nature of evidence in general, and the peculiarities which distinguish the different forms of proof which the human mind is capable of receiving. All evidence may be reduced into the two great classes of demonstrative and moral. It is with the former exclusively that the mathematician is conversant, and his deductions are generally considered to possess the merit of absolute certainty; a claim which has not been conceded to the moral reasoner, whose arguments must all be derived from probabilities; and these, it is generally conceived, can never, by any possible accumulation, amount to such certainty as that which attends the study of demonstrative truth. It is not indeed surprising, that demonstrative evidence should have received the preference of scientific men, who could not fail to admire the luminous precision of its language, the secure and elegant process of its reasoning, and the incontrovertible certainty of its results. Nothing can be more satisfactory, either to the sincere disciple of truth, or the indolent speculator, than to be conducted to complete conviction by an irresistible impulse which at once removes the danger of falling into a single fallacy, and precludes the necessity of ascertaining the relative value of contradictory arguments. The manifest defect, however, of such reasoning is, that, though it may serve to carry on the abstract investigations of the philosopher, it is inapplicable to by far the greater part of our actual occupations. Whatever estimate, on the contrary, we may form of the credit due to moral evidence, this at least is certain, that it is on probabilities alone that we build those conclusions which carry us through the practical detail of life. The pure mathematics are extremely confined in their operation, and by themselves would be of no ultimate utility beyond the mere exercise of the reasoning powers; and we shall have occasion to observe hereafter, that even in this respect their advantage is limited and equivocal. Though our knowledge, for instance, of the laws which regulate the physical phenomena of the universe can only be reduced to the precision of science by the application of mathematical proof, yet it is not by the cautious and shortsighted process of demonstration, that genius has been able to extend the boundaries of our knowledge by the discovery of those laws, and thus to introduce the mathematician to subjects of contemplation with which he must otherwise have remained for ever unacquainted. We view with just admiration the discoveries which Newton made of the laws which prevail throughout the boundless extent of space; but the basis of the lofty fabric he has reared is an assumption of which there is no proof but in analogy,-the lowest species of moral evidence. We observe that, as far as our experience reaches, when a body is impelled from an elevated station, it tends towards the earth with an uniformly accelerated velocity; but what certainty have we that the laws of gravity, which we cannot demonstrate to be universally applicable even to the earth we inhabit, have any existence whatever in regions so far removed from our observation? We find, indeed, that on these principles we can account for the motions of the heavenly bodies, and that, assuming gravity as a datum, all our subsequent calculations may be conducted with the utmost degree of mathematical precision. But this coincidence may, for any thing we can demonstrate to the contrary, be purely accidental, and have no more real connexion with those phenomena than that of a key with the lock which it happens to fit, but for which it was not originally designed. All such assumptions, though founded on the most comprehensive induction, would be at once rejected as uncertain by the mere geometrician. But the "subtilty of nature," in its turn, rejects his uncompromising precision, and will not exhibit its wonders but to the disciple of a more tolerant philosophy. Without the aid of moral reasoning, science must for ever be confined to the unprofitable office of evol |