370 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and those of the civilizations into which it was afterward transplanted. 

 The inadequacy of the treatment which the anecdote has hitherto 

 received is forcibly illustrated by an article in a late number of the 

 " Nineteenth Century," in which Moncure D. Conway essays to unfold 

 the principles lying at its root. Mr. Conway precipitately assumes 

 that it is the product of theological conceptions, and, by confusing it 

 with purely religious Hindoo legends, designed to inculcate the virtue 

 of self-sacrifice, forecloses at the threshold of his inquiry all hope of 

 conducting it to a successful issue. 



He regards it as one of the earliest fables concerning the ever-con- 

 flicting principles of retaliation and forgiveness. To him Shylock is 

 Indra tearing Vishnu's breast ; Elohim demanding Isaac's death ; the 

 First Person exacting the Second Person's atoning blood. Antonio 

 stands for the Christ, the forgiver, the sufferer. Antonio suffering for 

 Bassanio is the just suffering for the unjust. The representative fig- 

 ures of the Venetian court-room are only transformations from the 

 flying doves and pursuing hawks, bound victims and exacting deities 

 of ancient mythology. Portia is that human heart which in every age, 

 amid hard dogmatic systems and priestly intolerance, has steadily ap- 

 pealed against the whole vindictive system, whether Jewish or Chris- 

 tian. She is made to assume the ermine because, with his wonted 

 felicity, Shakespeare perceived that the genius of this human senti- 

 ment, slipping through the technicalities of priest-made law, could be 

 most fitly impersonated by a woman. 



Now, while we can not concede the soundness of this interpretation, 

 it is justly entitled to the praise which next to a positive indorsement 

 will be most gratifying to one of Mr. Conway's philosophic turn of 

 mind, that it is so palpably and almost comically unsound as to be 

 perfectly harmless. It so obviously rests upon a systematic belittle- 

 ment of the essential and exaggeration of the non-essential in the 

 story, that, though interesting reading for all, there is little danger of 

 its misleading any. 



The widely diffused story of the bond originated in strictly legal 

 conceptions. It embalms in an excellent state of preservation several 

 interesting phases of early law. 



Whether it is the record of an actual occurrence, it is alike imma- 

 terial and impossible to determine. Certain it is that both the facts 

 and the law of the case are substantially historical. They precisely 

 represent views concerning contract, criminal liability, and law reform, 

 which, however absurd they may appear to us, have widely prevailed, 

 and must be regarded as characteristic of certain early stages of intel- 

 lectual development. In the bond itself, as it was regarded by the in- 

 terested parties, we recognize the substance of the debtor's life-pledging 

 contract which filled so large a place in the commercial economy of 

 ancient societies. As a means of securing the payment of debt, the 

 pledging one's life and the lives of the members of one's family, in the 



