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There were a few scraps of information to be gleaned from the classical authors of Greece and Rome, which had been so sifted and tortured as to yield almost any sense that was required; but even these scraps were self-contradictory, and, as we now know, were for the most part little else than fables.
The ass, who heard this, recommended himself mentally to the god Neptune, and was packing off, thinking and syllogizing within himself thus: Had not I been an ass, I had not come here among great lords, when I must needs be sensible that I was only made for the use of the small vulgar. Aesop had given me a fair warning of this in one of his fables. Well, I must e'en scamper or take what follows.
Ozanam, Labitte, and Wright, that to the number of poetical themes which Europe owes to the genius of the Celts, is to be added the framework of the Divine Comedy. One can understand how greatly this invincible attraction to fables must have discredited the Celtic race in the eyes of nationalities that believed themselves to be more serious.
All fables have some real foundation; that of El Dorado resembles those myths of antiquity, which, travelling from country to country, have been successively adapted to different localities. In the sciences, in order to distinguish truth from error, it often suffices to retrace the history of opinions, and to follow their successive developments.
And if you say that this enslavement of Woman has nothing to do with religion that ancient Hebrew fables do not control modern English customs then listen to the Vicar of Crantock, preaching at St. Crantock's, London, Aug. 27th, 1905, and explaining why women must cover their heads in church: Man's priority of creation. Adam was first formed, then Eve. The manner of creation.
His works are, as it were, isolated; he had no contemporaries. Nevertheless, his solitary voice was lifted up when those of the poet, the historian, and the philosopher were silenced. The moral and political lessons conveyed in his fables were suggested by the evils of the times in which he lived.
Philocleon glories in the absolute power he exercises over all classes; his rule is equal to that of a king. To him the greatest men in Athens bow as suppliants, begging acquittal. Some of these appeal to pity, others tell him Aesop's fables, others try to make him laugh. Most of all, he controls foreign policy through his privilege of trying statesmen who fail.
Aesop, in his inimitable fables, pourtrayed through his animals the various passions and vices of men, admirably adapting them to the characters he meant to satirize, and the abuses he endeavoured through this medium to reform.
"Why admit," objected Bouvard, "that fables are more true than the truths of historians?" Pécuchet tried to explain myths, and got lost in the Scienza Nuova. "Will you deny the design of Providence?" "I don't know it!" said Bouvard. And they decided to refer to Dumouchel. The professor confessed that he was now at sea on the subject of history. "It is changing every day.
The position in the Greek mind of Hermes as the lord of cloud is, however, more mystic and ideal than that of any other deity, just on account of the constant and real presence of the cloud itself under different forms, giving rise to all kinds of minor fables.
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