has a playful trick of escorting vessels for its own amusement, 

 whose presence signified fair weather, and whose parental at- 

 tachment to its offspring won their esteem — quite apart from its 

 fabled, perhaps real, love of music or at least of noisy sounds — 

 were pleased to invest it with feelings akin to their own. They 

 were fond of the dolphin; what more natural and becoming 

 than that the dolphin should be fond of them?" (Birds and 

 Beasts of the Greeks Anthology, p. i6i.) 



But Douglas was undisillusionedly wrong, and the dolphins 

 are right, and so is the "mankind" that believed in their friend- 

 liness. Though pleased to see the dolphins play, it is to be re- 

 gretted that Douglas did not mind his compass and his way, for: 



Had the curteous Dolphins heard 

 One note of his, they would have dar'd 

 To quit the waters, to enjoy 

 In banishment such melody. 



John Hall, 1646. 



In order to avoid any imputation that I may be attempting to 

 play Euhemerus" to the dolphin's tale, the facts may be allowed 

 to speak for themselves — always remembering that facts never 

 speak for themselves, but are at the mercy of their interpreters. 

 All, then, that I am concerned to show here, by citing the con- 

 temporary evidence, is that, in essence, the so-called myths of 

 the ancients were based on solid facts of observation and not, as 

 has hitherto been supposed, on the imaginings of mythmakers. 



^Euhemerus {circa second half of the fourth century B.C.) attempted a rationalistic 

 explanation of the mythology prevailing in his time. The theory he propounded, in his 

 novel of travel, Sacred History, was simply an extension of the current skeptical-scien- 

 tific attitude to matters which until that time had been accepted without question. 

 That theory was that the gods were merely men who because of their great exploits 

 or beneficence had been accorded divine honors. In Crete, coming upon the remains 

 of a tomb bearing the name of Zeus, Euhemerus argued that even Zeus had probably 

 been no more than a great conqueror, who died and was buried in Crete, and after- 

 wards deified. This creditable anthropological attempt to historicize mythology, though 

 it failed to convince, is nevertheless worthy of great respect. As A. B. Cook wrote, if 

 Euhemerus said that Zeus was a Cretan king when he ought to have said that Cretan 

 kings played the part of Zeus, it is a pardonable error. (Zens, I, 662.) 



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