Historical-critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology

AUTHOR’S NOTES

AUTHOR’S NOTES LECTURE ONE a. Od. XIX, 203. b. Aurae temporum meliorum, quae in fistulas Graecorum inciderunt. c. Ouvtoiv eivsiu oiv poitvsanteõ Theogoivhn VEllhsin. II, 53. d. Wolfii Prolegg. ad Homer. p. LIV. not. e. Theog. v. 881 ss. Auvtavr evpeiv rva povnon mavcareõ Theoiv evxetevlessn ,/ Tithvnessi dev timavwn crivnanto bih ~␸i,/ Dhv rva totv wvtrunon basileuvemen hvdev avnavssein Gavihõ ␸radmosuvnhsin ovluvmpion euvruvora Zh ~nv VAqanavtwn ov dev yoi/sin evu? diedavssato timavõ. [The relevant passage from the Theogony follows: “And when the divine gods ended their toil, and had settled violently their struggle with the Titans for honor, at Earth’s behest they urged far-seeing Olympian Zeus to reign over and rule them. Thus he divided their rank and dignities among them—Trans.] Herodotus’s expressions are ouvtoi (Hesiod and Homer) dev eivoi — toivsi Theoi?si tavõ evpwnumivaõ dovnteõ caiv timavõ te caiv tevcnaõ dielovnteõ. C.f. Theogon. V. 112. VWõ tv av␸enaõ davssanto caiv wvõ timavõ dievlanto. With the many discussions to which Herodotus’s passage has given occasion, one can only be amazed that, to my knowledge, it has never been thought in those of Hesiod. f. Posthumous Writings, Part XI, p. 190. g. Those who, from the other side, have their reasons to isolate what is Greek as much as possible and keep distant from every general connection have invented the name Indianophile for the others who desire the explanation for everything in the Indian. I did not wait for this coinage in order to explain myself, in the essay on the deities of Samothrace, against every derivation of the Greek representations from the Indian; this happened itself 177 prior to the well-known declaration in Goethe’s West-Eastern Divan. There (p. 30) it is definitely expressed that the Greek system of the gods in particular is to be traced back to a higher origin than the Indian representations. Had the first concepts not come to the Pelasgians (from whom everything Hellenic proceeded) from such outflows—that is, not, on the contrary, from out of the source of mythology itself—their representations of the gods would never have been able to unfold into such beauty. h. Lib. II, c. 79. LECTURE TWO a. As is well known, allegory is from avllo (an-other) and avgoreuvein (to say). b. Quae est enim gens, aut qoud genus hominum, qoud non habeat sine doctrina anticipationem quondam deorum? quam appellat provlhpyin Epicurus , id est anteceptam animo rei quondam informationem, sine qua nec intelligi quidquam, nec quaeri, nec disputari potest. Cicero, de nat. Deor, I, 16. c. Cum non instituto aliquo, aut more, aut lege sit opinio constituta, maneatque ad unum omnium firma consensio, intelligi necesse est, esse deos. Ibid., 17. d. Kant, where he speaks of the former theory of phlogiston, mentions a young American savage who, asked about what astonished him so very much about the English beer that flowed forth as foam from out of an unearthed bottle, gave the answer: I am not astonished that it comes out; I only wonder how you were able to put it in. e. The writings of Dornedden (one of the former Göttingen lecturers), the Phamenophis and others, according to which the whole Egyptian system of the gods is only a calendar system, a veiled representation of the yearly motion of the sun and of the change, posited with that, of phenomena in the course of an Egyptian year. f. De origine et causis Fabularum Homericarum (Commentt. Gott. T. VIII). g. Nec vero hoc (per fabulas) philosophandi genus recte satis appelatur allegoricum, cum non tam sententiis involucra quaererent homines studio argutiarum, quam qoud animi sensus quomodo aliter exprimerent non habebant. Angustabat enim et coarctabat spiritum quasi erumpere luctantem orationis difficultas et inopia, percussusque tanquam numinis alicujus afflatu animus, cum verba deficerent propria, et sua et communia, aestuans et abreptus exhibere ipsas res et repraesentare oculis, facta in conspectus ponere et in dramatis modum in scenam proferre cogitata allaborabat. Heyne 1. c. p. 38. h. Plato, Phaedr., p. 229; De Rep., III, p. 391. D. i. Cicero, De Nat., D. L. III, c. 24. Magnum molestiam suscepit et minime necessariam primus Zeno, post Cleanthes, deinde Chrysippus com178 Author’s Notes mentitiarum fabularum reddere rationem, vocabularum, cur quique ita appellati sint, causus explicare. Quod cum facitis, illud profecto confitemini, longe aliter rem se habere atque hominum opinio sit: eos enim, qui Dii appellentur , rerum natura esse...