i68 JOURNAL OF THE [july, 



been a controversy going on in his day, something like the con- 

 flict between science and theology supposed to have been waged 

 at later periods : for he says : " I am well aware that, through 

 the same disregard of religion which has led men into the 

 present prevailing opinion, of the gods r^ver giving portents 

 of any future events, no prodigies are now either reported to 

 government or recorded in histories. But, for my part, while 

 I am writing the transactions of ancient times, my sentiments, I 

 know not how, become antique, and I feel a kind of religious 

 awe which compels me to consider that events which the men of 

 those days, renowned for wisdom, judged deserving of the atten- 

 tion of the state and of public expiation, must certainly be 

 worthy of a place in my history " (Bk. XLIII., Ch. XIII.). 



Somewhat in the same strain of half skepticism and half 

 apology is the passage in Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus, which 

 says : " Indeed, we will not deny that images may have 

 sweated, may have been covered with tears, and emitted drops 

 like blood. For wood and stone often contract a scurf and 

 mouldiness that produces moisture; and they not only exhibit 

 many different colours themselves, but receive variety of tinct- 

 ures from the ambient air : at the same time there is no reason 

 why the Deity may not make use of these signs to announce 

 things to come. It is also very possible that a sound like that 

 of a sigh or a groan may proceed from a statue, by the rupture 

 or violent separation of some of the interior parts; but that an 

 articulate voice and expression so clear, so full and perfect, 

 should fall from a thing inanimate, is out of all the bounds of 

 possibility; for neither the soul of man, nor even God himself, 

 can utter vocal sounds, and pronounce words, without an organ- 

 ized body and parts fitted for utterance. Wherever, then, history 

 asserts such things, and bears us down with the testimony of 

 many credible witnesses, we must conclude that some impres- 

 sion not unlike that of sense influenced the imagination and 

 produced the belief of a real sensation; as in sleep we seem 

 to hear what we hear not, and to see what we do not see." 



Notwithstanding this rather just canon of criticism, Plutarch 

 does not refuse to repeat, and apparently to endorse, those 

 accounts of prodigies which had come down to him in 

 histories and other writings, particularly the stories derived 

 from Livy. Thus, besides many other such marvels, he men- 



