AN ANALYSIS OF THK 



Fig. 25. 



A restoration of the Unicorn, after Leibnitz. 



inference. It is the first step that costs ; once having accepted the existence of the 

 unicorn, the rest was easy. 



Even when an actual animal is described, — often figuratively, never faultlessly, 

 — is there not a wide margin left for error to roam over? In a scientific sense, the hip- 

 popotamus described by Herodotus,* as having the hoof of an ox, and the mane and 

 tail of a horse, is of course absurd ; in an artistic sense, a quadruped thus hoofed and 

 maned would be simply monstrous. The intention of Herodotus to convey the notion 

 that the hippopotamus was an animal combining ox and horse-like characters was cer- 

 tainly successfully carried out by the use of figurative expressions, which, so far 

 from suggesting a portrait of the creature itself, would directly mislead.f 



* Swayne's Herodotns, 50. 



t There is a curious example of this kind of misinterpretation in Retsch's outline drawings of Goetlie's Faust. In 

 the first scene witli Mepliistoplioles a poodle (wliich contains, as a "nucleus," the essence of the demon) undergoes 

 transformation. 



" Faust. Er liebt sich mit G-ewalt ! 

 Das ist nicld eines Ilu.jules Gesfalt f 

 . W elch ein Gespenst hracht' ich ins Haus ! 

 Schon sieht er wie ein Nilpferd aus, 

 Mit feurigen Augen, schrecltlichem Gebiss. ' ' 

 Retscii draws as appearing before the eyes of the astonished Faust, not a hipiM)iiotainus. (Nilpferd) but an 

 ciiiii'mous piiodle. 



