INDIAN COLONISATION.

13

assert that men, once existing as the conquerors, kings and benefactors of mankind, subsequently re-appeared as deified beings. If I do not establish this throughout the whole range of the so-called Greek Mythology, it is not for want of ample proof, but for lack of time sufficient to remove the disguise from the host of masqueraders that figure in the band of grotesque Greece. I have, however, unmasked not a few of the most intractable of these beings, such as the Centaurs, the Athenian grasshoppers, the Autochthons, &c., &c., who now, stripped of their disguise, at length assume the appearance of the ordinary representatives of Eastern society. Let it be observed, that this is not a process similar to the rationalism of modern German theologians, nor is it the exegetical system of Palæphatus. It does not treat of what might have been; it speaks of what was; a result obtained from the superiority of translation over plausible conjecture, applied to the solution of knotty difficulties. The learned Jacob Bryant exercised his vast erudition on a theory rendered impracticable solely by the medium of its adaptation. Seeking in multifarious dialects for that information which was to be found in one alone, he left out of sight the grand principle of the origin of the nation whose history he was investigating. Guided by the manifest light of a mighty emigration,

a native of Messene, in Sicily. His mind was trained in the philosophical school of the Cyrenaics, who had before his time become notorious for their scepticism in matters connected with the popular religion; and one of whom, Theodosius, is frequently called an atheist by the ancients. Evémerus is said to have sailed down the Red Sea, and round the southern coasts of Asia, to a very great distance, until he came to an island called Panchaea. After his return from this voyage, he wrote a work, entitled Ιερα Αναγραφή, which consisted of at least nine books. The work contained accounts of the several gods, whom Evémerus represented as having originally been men who had distinguished themselves, either as warriors, kings, inventors, or benefactors of man, and who, after their death, were worshipped as gods by the grateful people."—Smith's Great and Roman Biog., vol. ii., p. 83.

C

I have been led as much as possible by the language of that emigration. I have examined that early society, and the phases of that society, on the same broad principle that directs the researches of the modern historian when he treats of European colonies; and though many blemishes may obscure, many imperfections mar, the unity of the picture, I trust that sufficient will have been accomplished not only to prove the correctness of the principle on which this investigation proceeds, but likewise to subserve the cause of truth. The student of early Indian history will be pleased to find established by this record of primitive Greece, the fact of the wonderfully early existence of the Jaina doctrines,—a matter of keen dispute among some of the most distinguished Orientalists, but one which I doubt not will now take its place among historical facts.

I would here make a few observations upon the work of Palæphatus, who was, according to Suidas, an Egyptian or Athenian, supposed to have lived subsequently to the time of Alexander the Great. Of this author, Mr. Grote observes,1 Another author who seems to have conceived clearly and applied consistently the semi-historical theory of the Grecian myths, is Palæphatus. In the short preface of his treatise concerning incredible tales, he remarks, that 'some men, from want of instruction, believe all the current narratives, while others, more searching and cautious, disbelieve them altogether.' Each of these extremes he is anxious to avoid. On the one hand, he thinks that no narrative could ever have acquired credence unless it had been founded on truth; on the other, it is impossible for him to accept so much of the existing narratives as conflicts with the analogies of present natural phenomena. If such things ever had been, they would still continue to be, but they never have so occurred; and the extra

1 Hist. Greece, vol. i., p. 557.

HISTORICAL BASIS OF FABLE.

15

analogical features of the stories are to be ascribed to the license of the poets." Again,1—" Palæphatus handles the myths consistently, according to the semi-historical theory, and his results exhibit the maximum which that theory can ever present. By aid of conjecture we get out of the impossible and arrive at matter intrinsically plausible, but totally uncertified. Beyond this point we cannot penetrate, without the light of extrinsic evidence, since there is no intrinsic mark to distinguish truth from plausible fiction."

With the concluding remarks of Mr. Grote, I entirely agree. The system of Palæphatus is essentially semihistorical, inasmuch as it is by the aid of conjecture, and conjecture alone, that he arrives at matters intrinsically plausible, yet totally uncertified. But with the certainty that Sanscrit was the language of Pelasgic and Hellenic Greece, we have exactly that "intrinsic mark" which is the test of truth and fiction; and, what is scarcely less valuable, that which will enable us to divide historical fact from etymological fiction. Both logographers and poets, from the most ancient date, not excepting Homer and Hesiod, manifest a profound ignorance, or a profound. contempt, for the primitive state of their native land. The divinities of Homer totally misled subsequent poets and logographers; while the autochthonous parentage of the people of Erectheus, as sung by Hesiod, and the Attic symbol of the grasshopper, will demonstrate how very early both the old language and the old religious duties of Greece were merged in a new order of things. The mysteries of Hellas, once the public and undisputed worship of the whole land, were henceforward the only asylum for a religion whose adherents, the Helots, were crushed by foreign conquest. We shall, therefore, be cautious in taking for our guide, in matters of Pelasgic, or mythologic,

1 Hist. Greece, vol. i., p. 661.

or heroic history, either Homer or Hesiod, logographer or poet, save when their accounts are conformable to Sanscrit sources. While Hesiod has taken for Greek, or adopted as Greek, the Harpies, the Cyclopes, Poseidon, Here, Erectheus, the Centaurs, the Gorgons, Typhoeus, and a host of agencies, who at once become monsters under his transforming hand, it will be the business of the historical student, whenever such terms have been misunderstood, or mistranslated by that author, to restore them to their original and consequently correct signification. A positive and clear history will thus be found to arise simultaneously with the true nomenclature. The same effect will be produced by the same process with the logographers. In many cases these authorities have so metamorphosed the original names of men, cities, and religious rites, that nothing but a specific course of study, founded on the principles here laid down, and wrought out by the light of persevering sagacity, brought to bear at once upon the twofold literature of the East and West, can restore these corrupt or mistaken travesties to their true form. This, then, (and let us not be ashamed to confess it) is a branch of study of which we have been hitherto entirely ignorant. But our prejudices and our taste equally revolt against a scrutiny that tends to destroy that atmosphere of poetic vitality with which our heroes were invested; the idea of which is so strongly intertwined with our very nature, so interwoven with all that is graceful in art and beautiful in poetry, that the strongest thirst for truth can scarcely persuade us to abandon the enchanting spot, where the united glories of mind and art detain us in a dazzling

trance.

II.

THE SOURCES OF HELLENIC HISTORY.

"Still, if our course be consecrated to philology, we will not therefore banish the study of facts and ideas. We will not close our eyes upon the most brilliant light that has come from the East; and we will endeavour to comprehend the grand spectacle presented to us. We will study India with its philosophy and its myths, its literature, and its laws, in its language. Nay, it is more than India, it is a page of the origin of the world that we will attempt to decipher.

"We are deeply convinced, that in the same proportion as the study of word6 (if it be possible), without that of ideas, is frivolous and worthless, that of words, considered as the visible symbols of thought, is solid and fruitful. There can be no genuine philology without philosophy."—Professor Bournouf, Discourse on the Sanscrit and its Literature, pronounced at the College of France.

If all that we are destined ever to learn of primitive Hellas is to be gained from the books of her historians alone, then the amount of our knowledge will be scanty indeed, and a hope of any addition to the mysterious volumes which contain the records of her early life, will be for ever precluded. All the evidences arising from Hellenic sources have been sifted, combined, and classified, with a sagacity the most profound; and the early history of Greece, as eliminated from her own writers, has reached the "ultima Thule" of fact or of positive infidelity. The ardent enquirer after truth, repulsed at the mysterious gates of this city of the dead, burns to effect an entrance within its silent gloom. In his restless zeal, he tries every avenue of hope. His courage rises with the difficulties of his enterprise, and if, like the great explorer of the tombs of Egypt, he is for a time deserted by light, he summons fresh courage to meet the emergency. Into how narrow a compass does all our knowledge shrink, of that first, that strange people the Pelasgi! It is on the very threshold of the temple of history that we are doomed to encounter this mockery of life. I shall hopefully grapple with the phantom. But

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