22 COSMOS. 



remarks, they must not be extended to the whole of antiquity ; 

 and I moreover consider that we take a very Hmited view of 

 antiquity when, in contradistinction to the present time, we 

 restrict the term exclusively to the Greeks and Romans. A 

 profound feeling of nature pervades the most ancient poetry 

 of the Hebrews and Indians, and exists, therefore, among na- 

 tions of very different descent — Semitic and Indo-Germanic. 



We can only draw conclusions regarding the feelings enter- 

 tained by the ancients for nature from those expressions of the 

 sentiment which have come down to us in the remains of their 

 literature, and we must, therefore, seek them with a care, and 

 judge of them with a caution proportionate to the infrequency 

 of their occurrence in the grand forms of lyric and epic poetry. 

 In the periods of Hellenic antiquity — the flowery season in 

 the history of mankind — we certainly meet with the tenderest 

 expressions of deep natural emotion, blended with the most 

 poetic representations of human passion, as delineating some 

 action derived from mythical history ; but specific descriptions 

 of nature occur only as accessories, for, in Grecian art, all 

 things are centered in the sphere of human life. 



The description of nature in its manifold richness of form, 

 as a distinct branch of poetic literature, was wholly unknown 

 to the Greeks. The landscape appears among them merely 

 as the back-ground of the picture of which human figures con- 

 stitute the main subject. Passions, breaking forth into action, 

 riveted their attention almost exclusively. An active life, 

 spent chiefly in public, drew the minds of men from dwelling 

 with enthusiastic exclusiveness on the silent workings of na- 

 ture, and led them always to consider physical phenomena as 

 having reference to mankind, whether in the relations of ex- 

 ternal conformation or of internal development.* It was al- 

 most exclusively under such relations that the consideration 

 of nature was deemed worthy of being admitted into the do- 

 main of poetry under the fantastic form of comparisons, which 

 often present small detached pictures replete with objective 

 truthfulness. 



At Delphi, pseans to Spring were sung,t being intended, 



* Schnaase, Geschichte der bildenden Kunste bei den Alien, bd. ii., 

 1843, s. 128-138. 



t Flat., de E. I. apud Delphos, c. 9 [an attempt of Plutarch's to explain 

 the meaning of an inscription at the entrance of the temple of Delphi. 

 — Tr."]' Regarding a passage of Apollonius Dyscolus of Alexandria 

 {Mirab. Hist., c. 40), see Otfr. MliUer's last work, Gesch. der Griech. 

 Litteratur, bd. i., 1845, s. 31. 



