3 



c< is a nameless son of Oath who has neither hands nor 

 " feet— yet he is swift in his pursuit until he seizes and* 

 " destroys the whole house and race. But the posterity 

 64 of a man whose oath is true is the better hereafter." 



Upon hearing this answer Glaucus asked to be for- 

 given for what he had said, but the Pythian goddess re- 

 plied that to tempt the god was the same thing as if he 

 had actually carried his purpose into effect. 



He then restored the deposit, but, as Juvenal says, 

 " Reddidit ergo metu non moribus" — he gave it back 

 through fear, not because it was his duty to do so — and 

 he adds that the response of the oracle became literally 

 true, for the whole family and posterity of Glaucus were 

 utterly des royed. 



The Greeks, however, commonly applauded falsehood, 

 if it were clever and turned out to be successful ; and even 

 Plato said that the lie which the gods hated was the truth- 

 ful statement of a misinformed mind. 



In the time of Homer, the river Styx was considered 

 to be the 'most sacred object by which either mortals or 

 immortals could swear, It was the river, as Virgil says, 

 " Di cujus jurare timent et fallere numen," and a compa- 

 rison was drawn by Aristotle between this idea of the 

 Greek mythology and the theory of Thales, that water was 

 the first principle of all things. Some very suggestive re- 

 marks were made by Hegel upon this point : " This an- 

 cient tradition," he says, " is susceptible of a speculative 

 " interpretation. When something cannot be proved — that 

 " is, when objective monstration fails, as, in reference to 

 " a payment, the receipt ; or, in reference to an act, the 

 " witnesses of it ; — then the oath, this certification of my- 

 ** self, must, as an object, declare that my evidence is 



