an apology for troubling the world any further on so old a topic. But the world has not done with Homer yet. Like his old hero-rambler, he is TоλÚтρоπоя, and will turn up in new aspects, so long as past and future are common factors in the problem of history and humanity. Or, to use a little of his own freedom in changing figures, that ocean which washes the shores of "all human knowledges;" out of which were exhaled and into it flowed again, as the old critics affirmed, all the fountains, streams, and rivers of Greek song, eloquence, and art,' has depths not yet explored, in which slumber undiscovered pearls, which men will be still diving after, so long as intellectual pearls hold a price in the world's market. Homer was the fontal genius of Greece; and the more her later literature is studied, the more earnestly will Homer be explored in search of the prima materies of her language and her marvellously rich and varied intellectual manifestations. He has a profound moral and philosophic interest, too, for those who delight in studying the development of ideas and opinions. This tendency grows stronger daily. Everything is now studied comparatively; the human mind thus revealing the force of that inward law which impels it to complete, to harmonize, and reduce to unity the multifarious products of its activity. And what would the comparative study of antiquity be without Homer? His myths are the staple of its poets; his ideas, the germs of its philosophical systems; his verses, the metrical norms of its prosodians; his phrases, the ground-work of its syntax; his stories, the starting-point of its history; his beauties, the never-failing theme of its critics. We have not had the last of him yet, therefore. So long as the admirable splendor and variety of his poetry shall stimulate criticism, and the wide range of his genius and knowledge furnish new material for antiquarian and philosophic research and comparison, so long we shall continue to have Homer once more. The latest German philosophy has given a fresh stimulus to Homeric speculation. And here is an entirely new phase Dion. Hal. de Comp. Verb. Op. II. p. 28 (Sylb.) Eustathius. Proem. of the long-waged "controversy." Sceptical criticism has grown tired of debating the personality of Homer, and has now gone to work to blot from his immortal verse the doctrine of the soul's immortality and to prove him a mere materialist, who looked upon the whole conscious existence of man as included within the present life. Of all the Homeric heresies with which Germany has teemed since the days of Wolf, this is the boldest departure from all ancient belief, and the most abhorrent to those feelings of veneration and love with which all true scholars have regarded the father of song for nearly thirty centuries. It is, however, the theory of the works before us. "When a man departs from life," says Dr. Voelcker, “ the yuxý, according to the Homeric belief, leaves the body, and this vxý continues to exist in Hades. The word vxý, however, in Homer, signifies only the breath and the life; never, as in the language of later times, the spirit or soul.... We arrive at this result, that according to the belief of the Homeric age, it is not the soul or spirit which continues to exist after death.... Homer nowhere shows a knowledge of the mind as something separate or separable from the body. Nowhere is the idea of spirit conceived more independently than that of life itself. So corporeal indeed is the mind, that the dead in Hades are said to be destitute of mental faculties. . . . The mental faculties appear only as properties and powers of the whole man, which live so long as the body lives, and in death leave it and cease to exist... It is the yuxń therefore, and not the soul, which continues to exist... It alone has gone, and it alone, therefore, can be in Hades; it is the origin of life, it will therefore continue to live and last. (Er ist der Grund des Lebens, er wird also auch fortleben und fortdauern.") What is this yuxý, which "continues to exist," which "will continue to live and last?" Dr. Voelcker has abun 1 Das Wort uxh bedeutet bei Homer nur den Athem und das Leben, niemals... den Geist oder die Seele. 2 Homer kennt den Geist nirgends als etwas Selbständiges und als solches dem Körper entgegengesetztes, das von ihm getrennt oder trennbar fortlebte. 3 Pages 45-47. (Our figures refer to the English translation.) dantly informed us what it is not. "It is," he says, "not the soul," "not the spirit," not "the mental faculties," (for these, says Dr. V., " in death cease to exist"); it is "destitute of everything corporeal; 2 and yet it "goes into Hades;" it "continues to exist," to "live and last;" "it is a prolongation of life; on that point there is no doubt." What kind of "existence," still more of "life," is that which includes neither soul, spirit, nor mental faculties, and is destitute of everything corporeal? What is the nature of that yuxń which "will continue to live and last," and yet is not "any of these?" The answer is hard, but Dr. Voelcker undertakes it. "The word yuxý, according to its derivation from yúxw, is primarily the breath, the air, which we exhale and inhale; and this idea lies at the bottom of all the significations of the word in the language of Homer. But as the breath is one visible condition of life, which, with the second principle of life according to the conceptions of the ancients, the blood, has its seat in the breast, the word came to signify, more ordinarily, the life, without however altogether giving up the secondary meaning of breath... The yuxń with which, in the upper world, we have become acquainted under the forms of air and life, meets us in Hades; and it must be the same, for it is said to go into Hades." "In what way, then, are we to conceive the continued existence of this psyche?" 3 We await the disclosure with profound interest. "The word edwλov," continues Dr. V., "conducts us to the right explanation; a word which, with reference to this point has hitherto been entirely neglected, and yet makes everything clear. Formed from eldw, eïdoμai, it comprehends the three significations of eidoμai, being seen, seeming, and resemblance or similarity." 4 Dr. V. cites the edwhov of Iphthime which Athene presented to Penelope in a dream (Od. 4. 795 sqq.), and that of Æneas placed before the eyes of the Trojans and the Greeks by Apollo (II. Ihr seyn hört auf mit der Existenz des Körpers. 2 Die (die Todte) sind also ohne alles Körperlische. 4 pp. 47, 48. 5. 449-51). No one will dispute the sense which Dr. V. attaches to είδωλον. "If it be true," he continues, "that eldwλov contains the explanation of ʊyń" (which, by the way, Dr. V. has not yet proved, nor even attempted to prove, but from which mere assumption he proceeds quietly to deduce his whole theory of the Homeric psychology)," the above three characteristics" (i. e. erscheinung, scheinbild, ebenbild) "must also belong to the xal of the dead. And such in reality is the case, and they denote precisely the nature of them. They are apparitions.. only phantoms and deceptive appearances, although in all respects completely like the original.” 1 "The nature of the eldwλa is still more precisely defined by the ideas of air and life, which, in accordance with its etymology, have been pointed out in the word vxý... The airy nature of these beings. . admits of further confirmation by Homeric passages. The usage handed down in the language, of explaining eldwλov by vepéλn would of itself be suf ficient to attest that these forms were composed of air... The airy nature of these beings is denoted by several epithets. They are called ἀκήριοι, νεκύων ἀμενηνὰ κάρηνα, etc. immaterial nature of these forms is further confirmed by the circumstance that they are devoid of sense and consciousness till they have drunk blood.... With the blood, consciousness returns." 2 The "To the shade of Teiresias alone, as a mark of special favor, is it granted to retain his understanding; .. all the rest are destitute of it." 3 "From the idea of eldwλov, as exhibited above, it naturally follows that the dead took with them, into Hades, the external form and figure of the once real man whom they represented. This is completely confirmed." Dr. V. appeals to the appearance of Patroclus, in a dream, to Achilles (II. 23, 65 sqq.)..." It is always the exact copy of the real man, and that too as he was at the time of his death. Their mental state is, in like manner, transplanted beneath the 1 ' p. 48. 2 pp. 49, 50. 8 p. 51. earth. All in that region are represented, by Homer, as having remained the same." 1 Such is Dr. Voelcker's theory of the Homeric psychology. The positive attributes of the yuxý are breath, air, life, continued, perpetual life ("it will continue to live and last"); it has "external form and figure," and "is always the exact copy of the once real man; even "the mental state is transplanted beneath the earth." Negatively viewed, the Homeric yuxý is "not the soul," "not the spirit;""it is destitute of understanding," "destitute of mental faculties," "immaterial," "destitute of every. thing corporeal?" If these yuxai are "destitute of everything corporeal," how can they have "external form and figure?" These are attributes of body and of body only. How can they "drink blood" or thirst for it? If they are "destitute of understanding" and "mental faculties," how can their "mental state" be "transplanted beneath the earth?" Can there be such a thing as mode without substance?"mental state" without "mental faculties?" If they are "destitute of understanding" and "mental faculties," how is it that with the (drinking of) "blood consciousness returns?" Returns to what? To that which is "destitute of understanding and mental faculties!" An attribute, again, without a subject. A psyche which is "destitute of everything corporeal," bears "external form and figure," thirsts for blood and drinks it, and thus exhibits corporeal quality, appetite, and capacity! A psyche which is "destitute of understanding and mental faculties," carries along with it its "mental state beneath the earth," and experiences a return of consciousness with the drinking of blood. A psyche which is neither soul nor spirit, which is "destitute of mental faculties" and "of everything corporeal," "continues to exist, to live and last;" it even "ascends out of Hades and shows itself" to a friend still in the flesh- acts which involve volition and of course consciousness, and imply the possession -- 1 pp. 52, 53. |