of Edinburgh, Session 1869 - 70 . 
49 
in the shape of European peeis and Asiatic princes. I refuse, 
therefore, on the faith of a few specious etymologies, to see any- 
thing mythical in the main action of the “ Iliad ; ” and I deem it 
a waste of brain to seek the interpretation of a stout old Thessalian 
thane, from a Sanscrit epithet of the sun. But India is not the 
only country to which adventurous scholars have travelled in 
search of a key to unlock the mysteries of the Hellenic Pantheon. 
Mr Gladstone, as it is well known, has reverted to the expedient — 
a favourite one with our old theological giants — of explaining 
Greek gods through the medium of a primitive sacred tradition. 
There might he no objection to this if the Hebrews had possessed 
any original quarry of theologic material from which an Apollo or 
an Athena could be built up ; but the only idea that the Hebrews 
could have supplied to the Greeks was that of the one Supreme 
God, whom no doubt we have in Zeus, but unaccompanied with 
any special Hebrew character by which he might be identified. 
The same distinguished scholar’s most recent excursion into far 
Eastern lands has not brought back, in my opinion, any more 
valuable booty. That Aphrodite and Hercules were of Phoenician 
extraction, at least contained a strong admixture of Phoenician 
elements, was known long ago ; and few facts in early Hellenic 
history can be considered more certain ; but beyond this, all pro- 
positions with regard to early Phoenician influence on the persons 
of the Greek Pantheon, seem to me to stand on too slight a basis 
of ingenious conjecture to possess any scientific value. 
Having made these protests against the brilliant, but, so far as 
Greece is concerned, in my opinion barren excursions of recent 
writers into the regions of comparative mythology, I have only to 
say in conclusion, that the only safe method in the present state of 
the science of mythology, is to confine our attention to the actual 
forms and attitudes and symbols of the gods as they present them- 
selves before us in their accomplished impersonation. By tracing 
Hermes, for instance, to the breeze of the early Dawn, nothing is 
gained, even it be true; it were only a pretty fancy of the infant 
Aryan mind on the banks of the Indus, with which a pastoral 
Greek on Mount Cyllene had nothing to do. The Hermes of the 
Greeks, is plainly, in the first place, a pastoral god of increase, 
then a god of gain, when the shepherd became a merchant, and 
VOL. VII. 
