PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 483 



But that ^vhich, 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, where it projects 



boldt, Examen critique, t. i. pp. 112 and 171; Otfried Miiller, Minyer, 

 B. 64; and the latter again in a too favourable critique of my memoir 

 on the Mythische Geographic der Griechen, (Go'tt. gelehrte Anzeigen, 

 1838.) I expressed myself as follows: "In raising questions which 

 are of so great importance with respect to philological studies, I 

 cannot wholly pass over all mention of that which belongs less to the 

 description of the actual world, than to the cycle of mythical geography. 

 It is the same with space as with time. History cannot be treated 

 from a philosophical point of view, if the heroic ages be wholly lost 

 sight of. National myths when blended with history and geography, 

 cannot be regarded as appertaining wholly to the domain of the 

 ideal world. Although vagueness is one of its distinctive attributes, and 

 symbols cover reality by a more or less thick veil, myths, when intimatel^ 

 connected together, nevertheless reveal the ancient source, from which 

 the earliest glimpses of cosmography and physical science have been 

 derived. The facts recorded in primitive history and geography, are not 

 mere ingenious fables, but rather the reflection of the opinion generally 

 admitted regarding the actual world." The great investigator of anti- 

 quity (whose opinion is so favourable to me, and whose early death in the 

 land of Greece, on which he had bestowed such profound and varied 

 research, has been universally lamented,) considered, on the contrary, 

 that " the chief part of the poetic idea of the earth, as it occurs in Greek 

 poetry, is by no means to be ascribed to actual experience, which may 

 have been invested, from credulity, and love of the marvellous, with a 

 fabulous character, as has been conjectured especially with respect 

 to the Phoenician maritime legends ; but rather that it was to be 

 traced to the roots of the images which lie in certain ideal presuppo- 

 sitions and requirements of the feelings, on which a true geographical 

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

 has often resulted the interesting phenomenon, that purely subjective 

 creations of a fancy guided by certain ideas, become almost imperceptibly 

 blended with actual countries, and well-known objects of scientific geogra- 

 phy. From these considerations it may be inferred, that all genuine, or 

 artificially mythical pictures of the imagination belong, in their proper 

 groundwork, to an ideal world, and have no original connexion with the 

 actual extension of the knowledge of the earth, or of navigation beyond 

 the Pillars of Hercules." The opinion expressed by me in the French 

 work, agreed more fully with the earlier views of Otfried Miiller, for in 

 the Prolegomenon zu einer wissenschaftlichen Mytliologie, s. 68 and 

 109, he said very- distinctly, that " in mythical narratives of that which 

 is done and that which is imagined, the real and the ideal, are most 

 closely connected together." See also on the Atlantis and Lvktonia, 

 Mai tin Etudes sur le Timee de Platan, t. i. pp. 293 326. 



2r 2 



