122 



COSMOS. 



But that which, as has already been frequently remarked, 

 has rendered the geographical position of the Mediterranean 

 most beneficial in its influence on the intercourse of nations, 

 is the proximity of the eastern continent, Avhere it pi-ojects 

 into the peninsula of Asia Minor ; the number of islands in 

 the jEgean Sea, which have served as a means for facilitating 

 the spread of civilization ;^ and the fissure between Arabia, 

 Egypt, and Abyssinia, through which the great Indian Ocean 

 penetrates under the name ol the Arabian Gulf or the Red 

 Sea, and which is separated by a narrow isthmus from the 

 Delta of the Nile and the southeastern coasts of the Mediter- 

 ranean. By means of all these geographical relations, the in- 

 fluence of the sea as a connecting element was speedily man- 

 ifested in the growing power of the Phoenicians, and subse- 

 quently in that of the Hellenic nations, and in the rapid ex- 

 tension of the sphere of general ideas. Civilization, in its 

 early seats in Egypt, on the Euphrates, and the Tigris, in 

 Indian Pentapotaraia and China, had been limited to lands 

 rich in navigable rivers ; the case was different, however, in 

 Phoenicia and Hellas. The active life of the Greeks, espe- 

 cially of the Ionian race, and their early predilection for mar- 

 itime expeditions, found a rich field for its development in the 

 remarkable configuration of the Mediterranean, and in its rel- 

 ative position to the oceans situated to the south and west. 



curs iu Greek poeti'v, is by no means to be ascribed to actual experi 

 ence, which may have been invested, from credulity and love of the 

 marvelous, with a fabulous character, as has been conjectured especial- 

 ly with respect to the Phoenician maritime legends, but rather that it 

 vvas to be traced to the roots of the images which lie in certain ideal 

 presuppositions and requirements of the feelings, on which a true geo- 

 graphical knowledge has only gradually begun to work. From this fact 

 there has often resulted the interesting phenomenon that purely sub- 

 jective creations of a fancy guided by certain ideas become almost im- 

 perceptibly blended with actual countries and well-known objects of 

 scientific geography. Fi'om these considerations, it may be inferred 

 that all genuine or artificially mythical pictures of the imagination be- 

 long, in their proper ground-work, to an ideal world, and have no orig- 

 inal connection with the actual extension of the knowledge of the earth, 

 or of navigation beyond the Pillars of Hercules." The opinion ex- 

 pressed by rae in the French work agreed moi'e fully with the earlier 

 views of Otfried Mttller, for, in the Prolegomenon zu einer wissenschoft- 

 lichen Mythologie, s. 68 und 109, he said very distinctly that, '' iu myth- 

 ical narratives of that which is done and that w^hich is imagined, the 

 real and the ideal are most closely connected together." See, also, on 

 the Atlantis and Lyktonia, Martin, Etudes sur le Tim6c de Plalon, t. i. 

 p. 293-326. 



* Naxos, by Ernst Curtius, 1846, s. 11; Droysen, GcschicJdc der Bil 

 i«;2^ des Hellenistischen Staatcnsystems. 1843, s. 4-P. 



