RISE OF SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 45 



nymphs and graces under the bright moon — adds that 

 now is the time 



'When fiery Vulcan lights anew 

 The Cyclops' glowing forge.' 1 



Long before these fables had ceased to be tacitly 

 accepted by the people, they had begun to be rejected 

 by the more thoughtful men in the community. There 

 slowly grew up a belief in the settled and continuous 

 sequence of nature. 2 In the midst of the schemes 

 that were devised for explaining the old myths or 

 making them fit into the widening experience of later 

 ages, we may detect the dawn of the scientific spirit. 

 Observant men were now able to recognise that what 

 had been regarded by their grandfathers as evidence 

 of supernatural agency, might well have been pro- 

 duced by natural and familiar processes of change. 

 The early geographers afford us some interesting illus- 

 trations of the growth of this naturalism. Thus, Hero- 

 dotus, in his excellent description of the physical 

 geography of Thessaly, takes occasion, as a man of 

 his reverent spirit naturally would, to mention the 

 popular belief that the striking gorge of Tempe had 

 been rent open by a blow from the trident of Pos- 

 eidon. He admits the likelihood of the explanation, 

 but immediately proceeds to state his opinion that the 

 formation of this defile was not an abnormal mani- 

 festation of divine power, but was to be regarded 

 as an example of the ordinary system of the world. 



l Carm. I., iv. 7. 



2 See this subject fully discussed by Grote, History of Greece., 

 vol. i. 



