!76 



DISCOVERY 



value will lie in these directions, less, that is, in treating 

 the neurotic conditions than in preventing them by giving 

 a deeper understanding of the individual and social 

 difficulties from which they arise. 



Mr. Flugel's book is therefore, in its way, no less 

 important than Professor Freud's, for this reason : the 

 problems with which it deals, the reaction of the family 

 relationships upon the character of the individual and his 

 attitude towards society, are as urgently in need of study as 

 they have hitherto proved baffling. The author professes to 

 do little more than to apply the methods of psjxho-analysis 

 to these problems and to summarise the work of other 

 investigators : yet he has added, as his own conclusions, 

 some very valuable indications of the lines along which 

 the difficulties arising out of the family relationships may 

 hi guarded against and minimised. These conclusions 

 he has modestly relegated to the last chapters in which, 

 observing a distinction only too rarely to be met with 

 among psychological writers, he has confined those 

 t'.ieories that are not yet clearly supported by observation 

 and induction. It is possible that many readers may 

 find the views expressed difficult to accept, and on one 

 p lint, that of the origin of birth-phantasies, the author 

 seems to take up an extreme position ; but the whole 

 b3ok is closely reasoned (though sometimes the evidence 

 sesms a little frail to support the theories built upon it), 

 and clearly, even brilliantly written. Many subjects 

 cjme within the scope of the title — folk-lore, history, 

 religion, literature — and a wide circle of readers should 

 find the b:)ok valuable and interesting. 



F. A. H.\MPTON. 



RECENT DISCOVERIES IN LATER GREEIy 

 LITERATURE 



New Chapters in the History of Greek Literature, Recent 

 Discoveries in Greek Poetry and Prose of the Fourth 

 and Following Centuries B.C. Edited by J. U. Powell 

 and E. A. B.\rber. (The Clarendon Press, O.xford, 

 los. 6i.) 

 In tlois book, which appears a round thirty years alter 

 Professor Percy Gardner's New Chapters in Greek History^ 

 Oxford pauses to take stock of the results achieved in 

 a branch of research in which she has won high dis- 

 tinction in the interval. With the papyrological dis- 

 coveries of the past thirty years, the names of Grenfell 

 and Hunt, of Queen's College, will always be promi- 

 nentlv associated ; we have abundant evidence in the 

 present book that other colleges are well equipped to take 

 their share in one section of the heavy task still awaiting 

 completion, the interpretation and criticisms of the new 

 " literary documents." The book naturally confines itself 

 to the " literary " papyri and inscriptions ; we must not 

 forget that these represent, in bulk, but a small part of 

 the new evidence wliich the papyri alone have placed in 

 tlie hands of the student of ancient civilisation. 



For the classical student Greek Literature used to mean 

 the Literature of Athens, with Homer for preface, and 

 Theocritus for epilogue. He had heard of other 

 .Alexandrians, but, unless he was interested in Roman 

 literary origins, he seldom read them. The period 



between the bloom of Athens and tlie last century of the 

 Roman Republic, a period of great interest to the his- 

 torian, was for the student of Literature practically a 

 blank. Menander, Herondas, Ephorus, and others were 

 little more than names. The student could see that 

 Menander had a profound infiuence on Roman Comedy, 

 but he had not the least idea why. 



And lo, these names are names no longer, but living 

 men. Authors in every literary genre, morahsts, lyric 

 pacts, liistorians, dramatists, orators, walk on to the 

 stage of Literature and make their bow. The parts they 

 have to declaim are generally brief ; but it is something 

 to learn Menander's idea of the construction of a plot, to 

 get a real hold on the shadowy Plulodemus, to know at 

 last what was wrong with the music of Timotheus. We 

 are already so familiar with the Constitution of Athens 

 and with Herondas that we are apt to forget that both are 

 discoveries of the last thirty years. 



.\ brief review- like the present must select, and we 

 make no apologj- for singling out for special notice — as 

 the editors require no apology for incluling — a document 

 which falls outside the limit of period fixed in the sub- 

 title of the book. Tlie Epicurean philosophers, as the 

 new Pliilodemus comes to remind us, forestalled the 

 Christian doctrine of verbal inspiration with all its impli- 

 cations, and condemned themselves to interminable dis- 

 cussions as to " what Epicurus or Metrodorus, or any of 

 the other masters, reaUy said or meant." It takes our 

 breath away to learn how seriously Pliilosophy took her- 

 self in those days. The Epicurean fraternities in different 

 cities were in continual communication with each other, 

 controversy over the meaning of the ipse dixit went 

 merrily forward, and you had a Rhodian and an Athenian 

 interpretation just as in later days you find a Con- 

 stantinopolitan confronted by an Alexandrian exegesis. 

 We hear complaints that the " disputants do not even 

 take the trouble to check their references. They say, 

 ' Epicurus wrote thus,' but they cannot say wliere " — 

 reminding us of a delicious remark in a letter of Synesius, 

 the soldier-bishop of Cyrene, that " he couldn't remember 

 the exact words, but could assure liis correspondent that 

 this statement is attributed to God in the Bible." Late in 

 the second century of our era an Epicurean of Oenoanda 

 in Lycia, called Diogenes, built a stoa and engraved on 

 it an inscription on the scale of the Monumentum 

 A ncyranum, in wliich the whole gospel of Epicurus was 

 placed b.efore the eyes of citizens and strangers, that no 

 man might perish for lack of the " medicine of salvation." 



Tliis is the true missionary spirit, and the inscription, 

 of which large fragments remain, reveals a most interest- 

 ing character, who is somewhat shaky in his history of 

 philosophy, but conveys his earnest message in excellent 

 Greek. We recall that at this very period the Pauline 

 Churches to the north of Lycia w-ere actively engaged in 

 missionary work, and that a Roman road led from 

 Laodicea to Oenoanda, and we find ourselves wondering 

 whether Diogenes and his fellow Epicureans did more to 

 help or to hinder the efforts of the Christian missionaries. 

 In Lycia the history of Cliristianity in the first three 

 centuries is a total blank ; at the end of the third century 



