No More Learning

The democratic theory is
that those Constitutions are likely to prove steadiest which have
the broadest base, that the right to vote makes a safety-valve of
every voter, and that the best way of teaching a man how to
vote is to give him the chance of practice. For the question is
no longer the academic one, "Is it wise to give every man the
ballot? " but rather the practical one, "Is it prudent to deprive
whole classes of it any longer? " It may be conjectured that it


## p. 9274 (#290) ###########################################

9274
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
is cheaper in the long run to lift men up than to hold them
down, and that the ballot in their hands is less dangerous to
society than a sense of wrong in their heads. At any rate, this
is the dilemma to which the drift of opinion has been for some
time sweeping us; and in politics, a dilemma is a more unman-
ageable thing to hold by the horns than a wolf by the ears. It
is said that the right of suffrage is not valued when it is indis-
criminately bestowed; and there may be some truth in this, for I
have observed that what men prize most is a privilege, even if it
be that of chief mourner at a funeral. But is there not danger
that it will be valued at more than its worth if denied, and that
some illegitimate way will be sought to make up for the want of
it? Men who have a voice in public affairs are at once affiliated
with one or other of the great parties between which society is
divided; merge their individual hopes and opinions in its safer,
because more generalized, hopes and opinions, are disciplined by
its tactics, and acquire to a certain degree the orderly qualities
of an army. They no longer belong to a class, but to a body
corporate. Of one thing, at least, we may be certain: that under
whatever method of helping things to go wrong man's wit can
contrive, those who have the divine right to govern will be found
to govern in the end, and that the highest privilege to which
the majority of mankind can aspire is that of being governed
by those wiser than they. Universal suffrage has in the United
States sometimes been made the instrument of inconsiderate
changes, under the notion of reform; and this from a misconcep
tion of the true meaning of popular government. One of these
has been the substitution in many of the States of popular elec-
tion for official selection in the choice of judges. The same sys-
tem applied to military officers was the source of much evil during
our civil war, and I believe had to be abandoned. But it has
been also true that on all great questions of national policy, a
reserve of prudence and discretion has been brought out at the
critical moment to turn the scale in favor of a wiser decision.
An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known
to fail in the long run. It is perhaps true that by effacing the
principle of passive obedience, democracy ill understood has slack-
ened the spring of that ductility to discipline which is essential
to "the unity and married calm of States. " But I feel assured
that experience and necessity will cure this evil, as they have
shown their power to cure others.
And under what frame of


## p. 9275 (#291) ###########################################

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9275
policy have evils ever been remedied till they became intolerable,
and shook men out of their indolent indifference through their
fears?
We are told that the inevitable result of democracy is to sap
the foundations of personal independence, to weaken the principle
of authority, to lessen the respect due to eminence, whether in
station, virtue, or genius. If these things were so, society could
not hold together. Perhaps the best forcing-house of robust indi-
viduality would be where public opinion is inclined to be most
overbearing, as he must be of heroic temper who should walk
along Piccadilly at the height of the season in a soft hat. As for
authority, it is one of the symptoms of the time that the reli-
gious reverence for it is declining everywhere; but this is due.
partly to the fact that statecraft is no longer looked upon as a
mystery but as a business, and partly to the decay of supersti-
tion,- by which I mean the habit of respecting what we are told
to respect rather than what is respectable in itself. There is
more rough-and-tumble in the American democracy than is alto-
gether agreeable to people of sensitive nerves and refined habits;
and the people take their political duties lightly and laughingly,
as is perhaps neither unnatural nor unbecoming in a young giant.
Democracies can no more jump away from their own shadows
than the rest of us can. They no doubt sometimes make mis-
takes, and pay honor to men who do not deserve it.
But they
do this because they believe them worthy of it; and though it
be true that the idol is the measure of the worshiper, yet the
worship has in it the germ of a nobler religion. But is it de-
mocracies alone that fall into these errors? I, who have seen
it proposed to erect a statue to Hudson the railway king, and
have heard Louis Napoleon hailed as the savior of society by
men who certainly had no democratic associations or leanings,
am not ready to think so. But democracies have likewise their
finer instincts. I have also seen the wisest statesman and most
pregnant speaker of our generation, a man of humble birth and
ungainly manners, of little culture beyond what his own genius.
supplied, become more absolute in power than any monarch of
modern times,- through the reverence of his countrymen for his
honesty, his wisdom, his sincerity, his faith in God and man, and
the nobly humane simplicity of his character. And I remem-
ber another whom popular respect enveloped as with a halo,-
the least vulgar of men, the most austerely genial, and the most


## p. 9276 (#292) ###########################################

9276
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
ļ
!
independent of opinion. Wherever he went he never met a stran-
ger, but everywhere neighbors and friends proud of him as their
ornament and decoration. Institutions which could bear and breed
such men as Lincoln and Emerson had surely some energy for
good. No, amid all the fruitless turmoil and miscarriage of the
world, if there be one thing steadfast and of favorable omen, one
thing to make optimism distrust its own obscure distrust, it is the
rooted instinct in men to admire what is better and more beauti-
ful than themselves. The touchstone of political and social institu-
tions is their ability to supply them with worthy objects of this
sentiment, which is the very tap-root of civilization and progress.
There would seem to be no readier way of feeding it with the
elements of growth and vigor than such an organization of society
as will enable men to respect themselves, and so to justify them.
in respecting others.
FROM ESSAY ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS'
'Literary Essays': copyright 1870, 1871, 1890, by James Russell Lowell. Re-
printed by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers
HE fine old Tory aversion of former times was not hard to
THE bear. There was something even refreshing in it, as in a
northeaster to a hardy temperament. When a British par-
son, traveling in Newfoundland while the slash of our separa-
tion was still raw, after prophesying a glorious future for an
island that continued to dry its fish under the ægis of Saint
George, glances disdainfully over his spectacles in parting at the
U. S. A. , and forebodes for them a "speedy relapse into bar-
barism," now that they have madly cut themselves off from the
humanizing influences of Britain, I smile with barbarian self-
conceit. But this kind of thing became by degrees an unpleasant
anachronism. For meanwhile the young giant was growing, was
beginning indeed to feel tight in his clothes, was obliged to let
in a gore here and there in Texas, in California, in New Mexico,
in Alaska, and had the scissors and needle and thread ready for
Canada when the time came. His shadow loomed like a Brocken-
spectre over against Europe; the shadow of what they were com-
ing to, that was the unpleasant part of it. Even in such misty
image as they had of him, it was painfully evident that his
clothes were not of any cut hitherto fashionable, nor conceivable


## p. 9277 (#293) ###########################################

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9277
by a Bond Street tailor;—and this in an age, too, when every-
thing depends upon clothes, when if we do not keep up appear-
ances, the seeming-solid frame of this universe, nay, your very
God, would slump into himself, like a mockery king of snow,
being nothing after all but a prevailing mode, a make-believe
of believing. From this moment the young giant assumed the
respectable aspect of a phenomenon; to be got rid of if possible,
but at any rate as legitimate a subject of human study as the
glacial period or the Silurian what-d'ye-call-ems. If the man of
the primeval drift-heaps be so absorbingly interesting, why not
the man of the drift that is just beginning, of the drift into
whose irresistible current we are just being sucked whether we
will or no? If I were in their place, I confess I should not be
frightened. Man has survived so much, and contrived to be
comfortable on this planet after surviving so much! I am some-
thing of a Protestant in matters of government also, and am
willing to get rid of vestments and ceremonies and to come
down to bare benches, if only faith in God take the place of a
general agreement to profess confidence in ritual and sham.
Every mortal man of us holds stock in the only public debt that
is absolutely sure of payment-and that is the debt of the Maker
of this universe to the universe he has made. I have no notion
of selling out my shares in a panic.
It was something to have advanced even to the dignity of
a phenomenon, and yet I do not know that the relation of the
individual American to the individual European was bettered by
it; and that, after all, must adjust itself comfortably before there
can be a right understanding between the two. We had been a
desert, we became a museum. People came hither for scientific
and not social ends. The very cockney could not complete his
education without taking a vacant stare at us in passing. But
the sociologists (I think they call themselves so) were the hardest
to bear. There was no escape. I have even known a professor
of this fearful science to come disguised in petticoats. We were
cross-examined as a chemist cross-examines a new substance.
Human? Yes, all the elements are present, though abnormally
combined. Civilized? Hm! that needs a stricter assay. No
entomologist could take a more friendly interest in a strange
bug. After a few such experiences, I for one have felt as if I
were merely one of those horrid things preserved in spirits (and
very bad spirits, too) in a cabinet. I was not the fellow-being


## p. 9278 (#294) ###########################################

9278
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
of these explorers: I was a curiosity; I was a specimen. Hath
not an American organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions,
even as a European hath? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh? I will not keep on with Shy-
lock to his next question but one.
Till after our Civil War it never seemed to enter the head
of any foreigner, especially of any Englishman, that an American
had what could be called a country, except as a place to eat,
sleep, and trade in. Then it seemed to strike them suddenly.
"By Jove, you know, fellahs don't fight like that for a shop-till! "
No, I rather think not. To Americans, America is something
more than a promise and an expectation. It has a past and tra-
ditions of its own. A descent from men who sacrificed every-
thing and came hither, not to better their fortunes, but to plant
their idea in virgin soil, should be a good pedigree. There was
never colony save this that went forth, not to seek gold, but
God. Is it not as well to have sprung from such as these, as
from some burly beggar who came over with Wilhelmus Con-
questor, unless indeed a line grow better as it runs farther away
from stalwart ancestors? And for our history, it is dry enough,
no doubt, in the books; but for all that, is of a kind that tells in
the blood. I have admitted that Carlyle's sneer had a show of
truth in it. But what does he himself, like a true Scot, admire
in the Hohenzollerns? First of all, that they were canny, a
thrifty, forehanded race. Next, that they made a good fight from
generation to generation with the chaos around them. That is
precisely the battle which the English race on this continent
has been pushing doughtily forward for two centuries and a half.
Doughtily and silently, for you cannot hear in Europe that
crash, the death-song of the perfect tree," that has been going
on here from sturdy father to sturdy son, and making this conti-
nent habitable for the weaker Old World breed that has swarmed
to it during the last half-century. If ever men did a good stroke.
of work on this planet, it was the forefathers of those whom you
are wondering whether it would not be prudent to acknowledge
as far-off cousins. Alas, man of genius, to whom we owe so
much, could you see nothing more than the burning of a foul
chimney in that clash of Michael and Satan which flamed up
under your very eyes?
«<


## p. 9279 (#295) ###########################################

9279
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK
(1834-)
IR JOHN LUBBOCK is best known as a popularizer of science.
He was born in London April 20th, 1834, and was for a
time a student at Eton; but entered his father's bank at the
early age of fourteen, and therefore had opportunity for very limited
schooling. During all his busy life he has been much interested in
botany, zoology, and allied branches of natural history; and he has
done much to develop public interest in these branches of science,
by publishing the results of personal investi-
gation, and by throwing into popular form
the results of the work of others. He has
also taken an active interest in
a wide
range of public affairs, has been a member
of Parliament and of various educational
boards, and has been president of the Royal
Society and of the British Association for
the Advancement of Science, and a mem-
ber of many other learned bodies.

SIR JOHN LUBBOCK
Among his many volumes are 'Prehis-
toric Times, as Illustrated by Ancient Re-
mains and the Manners and Customs of
Modern Savages'; 'The Origin of Civiliza-
tion and the Primitive Condition of Man';
'The Origin and Metamorphosis of Insects';
'Ants, Bees, and Wasps'; 'On the Senses, Instincts, and Intelligence
of Animals, with Special Reference to Insects'; 'On British Wild-
Flowers Considered in Relation to Insects'; 'Flowers, Fruits, and
Leaves'; 'The Pleasures of Life'; 'The Beauties of Nature'; and
'The Use of Life. '
In the more strictly literary field he has been rather a guide to
the work of others than an independent creator. In commenting
upon The Pleasures of Life' a recent writer says: "This is a work-
aday world; and blessed be the man with the time and happy taste
to gather and put before us the choice bits which reveal us to our-
selves. " That man is certainly Sir John Lubbock. His reading has
been extensive, and he has a "flair" which leads him directly to the
appropriate quotation. In the field of natural science he has suc-
ceeded in meeting exactly the requirements of the multitude.


## p. 9280 (#296) ###########################################

9280
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK
THE HABITS OF ANTS
THE
From The Beauties of Nature. Copyrighted 1892, by Macmillan & Co.
HE communities of ants are sometimes very large, numbering
even up to 500,000 individuals; and it is a lesson to us, that
no one has ever yet seen a quarrel between any two ants
belonging to the same community. On the other hand, it must
be admitted that they are in hostility not only with most other
insects, including ants of different species, but even with those
of the same species if belonging to different communities. I have
over and over again introduced ants from one of my nests into
another nest of the same species; and they were invariably at-
tacked, seized by a leg or an antenna, and dragged out.
It is evident, therefore, that the ants of each community all
recognize one another, which is very remarkable. But more than
this, I several times divided a nest into two halves, and found
that even after a separation of a year and nine months they
recognized one another, and were perfectly friendly; while they
at once attacked ants from a different nest, although of the same
species.
It has been suggested that the ants of each nest have some
sign or password by which they recognize one another. To test
this I made some insensible. First I tried chloroform; but this
was fatal to them, and . . . I did not consider the test satisfac-
tory. I decided therefore to intoxicate them. This was less easy
than I had expected. None of my ants would voluntarily degrade
themselves by getting drunk. However, I got over the difficulty
by putting them into whisky for a few moments. I took fifty
specimens,-twenty-five from one nest and twenty-five from an-
other,― made them dead drunk, marked each with a spot of
paint, and put them on a table close to where other ants from
one of the nests were feeding. The table was surrounded as
usual with a moat of water to prevent them from straying. The
ants which were feeding soon noticed those which I had made
drunk. They seemed quite astonished to find their comrades in
such a disgraceful condition, and as much at a loss to know what
to do with their drunkards as we are. After a while, however,
to cut my story short, they carried them all away; the strangers
they took to the edge of the moat and dropped into the water,
while they bore their friends home into the nest, where by de-
grees they slept off the effects of the spirit. Thus it is evident


## p. 9281 (#297) ###########################################

SIR JOHN LUBBOCK
9281
that they know their friends even when incapable of giving any
sign or password.
This little experiment also shows that they help comrades in
distress. If a wolf or a rook be ill or injured, we are told that it
is driven away or even killed by its comrades. Not so with ants.
For instance, in one of my nests an unfortunate ant, in emer-
ging from the chrysalis skin, injured her legs so much that she
lay on her back quite helpless. For three months, however, she
was carefully fed and tended by the other ants. In another case
an ant in the same manner had injured her antennæ. I watched
her also carefully to see what would happen. For some days she
did not leave the nest. At last one day she ventured outside,
and after a while met a stranger ant of the same species, but
belonging to another nest, by whom she was at once attacked.
I tried to separate them; but whether by her enemy, or perhaps
by my well-meant but clumsy kindness, she was evidently much
hurt, and lay helplessly on her side. Several other ants passed
her without taking any notice; but soon one came up, examined
her carefully with her antennæ, and carried her off tenderly to
the nest. No one, I think, who saw it could have denied to that
ant one attribute of humanity, the quality of kindness.
The existence of such communities as those of ants or bees
implies, no doubt, some power of communication; but the amount
is still a matter of doubt. It is well known that if one bee or
ant discovers a store of food, others soon find their way to it.
This, however, does not prove much. It makes all the difference
whether they are brought or sent. If they merely accompany on
her return a companion who has brought a store of food, it does
not imply much. To test this, therefore, I made several experi-
ments. For instance, one cold day my ants were almost all in
their nests. One only was out hunting, and about six feet from
home. I took a dead bluebottle fly, pinned it on to a piece of
cork, and put it down just in front of her. She at once tried to
carry off the fly, but to her surprise found it immovable. She
tugged and tugged, first one way and then another, for about
twenty minutes, and then went straight off to the nest. During
that time not a single ant had come out; in fact, she was the
only ant of that nest out at the time. She went straight in; but
in a few seconds-less than half a minute - came out again with
no less than twelve friends, who trooped off with her, and event-
ually tore up the dead fly, carrying it off in triumph.
XVI-581


## p. 9282 (#298) ###########################################

9282
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK
Now the first ant took nothing home with her; she must
therefore somehow have made her friends understand that she
had found some food, and wanted them to come and help her to
secure it. In all such cases, however, so far as my experience
goes, the ants brought their friends; and some of my experi-
ments indicated that they are unable to send them.
Certain species of ants, again, make slaves of others, as Huber
first observed. If a colony of the slave-making ants is changing
the nest, a matter which is left to the discretion of the slaves,—
the latter carry their mistresses to their new home. Again, if I
uncovered one of my nests of the fuscous ant (Formica fusca),
they all began running about in search of some place of refuge.
If now I covered over one small part of the nest, after a while
some ant discovered it. In such a case, however, the brave lit-
tle insect never remained there; she came out in search of her
friends, and the first one she met she took up in her jaws, threw
over her shoulder (their way of carrying friends), and took into
the covered part; then both came out again, found two more
friends and brought them in, the same manoeuvre being repeated
until the whole community was in a place of safety. This, I
think, says much for their public spirit; but seems to prove that
-in F. fusca at least-the powers of communication are but
limited.
One kind of slave-making ant has become so completely de-
pendent on their slaves, that even if provided with food they will
die of hunger, unless there is a slave to put it into their mouth.
I found, however, that they would thrive very well if supplied
with a slave for an hour or so once a week to clean and feed
them.
But in many cases the community does not consist of ants
only. They have domestic animals; and indeed it is not going
too far to say that they have domesticated more animals than we
have. Of these the most important are aphides. Some species
keep aphides on trees and bushes, others collect root-feeding
aphides into their nests. They serve as cows to the ants, which
feed on the honey-dew secreted by the aphides. Not only, more-
over, do the ants protect the aphides themselves, but collect their
eggs in autumn and tend them carefully through the winter,
ready for the next spring. Many other insects are also domesti-
cated by ants; and some of them, from living constantly under-
ground, have completely lost their eyes and become quite blind.


## p. 9283 (#299) ###########################################

SIR JOHN LUBBOCK
9283
But I must not let myself be carried away by this fascinating
subject, which I have treated more at length in another work. I
will only say that though their intelligence is no doubt limited,
still I do not think that any one who has studied the life history
of ants can draw any fundamental line of separation between
instinct and reason.
When we see a community of ants working together in per-
fect harmony, it is impossible not to ask ourselves how far they
are mere exquisite automatons, how far they are conscious beings.
When we watch an ant-hill tenanted by thousands of industrious
inhabitants, excavating chambers, forming tunnels, making roads,
guarding their home, gathering food, feeding the young, tending
their domestic animals,- each one fulfilling its duties industriously,
and without confusion,-it is difficult altogether to deny to them
the gift of reason; and all our recent observations tend to con-
firm the opinion that their mental powers differ from those of
men not so much in kind as in degree.
SAVAGES COMPARED WITH CHILDREN
From Pre-Historic Times >
SAVO
AVAGES may be likened to children; and the comparison is not
only correct, but also highly instructive. Many naturalists
consider that the early condition of the individual indicates
that of the race,—that the best test of the affinities of a species
are the stages through which it passes. So also it is in the case
of man: the life of each individual is an epitome of the history of
the race, and the gradual development of the child illustrates that
of the species. Hence the importance of the similarity between
savages and children. Savages, like children, have no steadiness.
of purpose.
Speaking of the Dogrib Indians, we found, says
Richardson, "by experience, that however high the reward they
expected to receive on reaching their destination, they could not
be depended on to carry letters. A slight difficulty, the prospect
of a banquet on venison, or a sudden impulse to visit some
friend, were sufficient to turn them aside for an indefinite length
of time. " Even among the comparatively civilized South Sea
Islanders this childishness was very apparent. "Their tears in-
deed, like those of children, were always ready to express any
passion that was strongly excited, and like those of children they


## p. 9284 (#300) ###########################################

9284
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK
also appear to be forgotten as soon as shed. " D'Urville also
mentions that Tai-wanga, a New Zealand chief, cried like a child
because the sailors spoilt his favorite cloak by powdering it with
flour.
"It is not," says Cook, "indeed strange that the sorrows
of these artless people should be transient, any more than that
their passions should be suddenly and strongly expressed; what
they feel they have never been taught either to disguise or sup-
press; and having no habits of thinking which perpetually recall
the past and anticipate the future, they are affected by all the
changes of the passing hour, and reflect the color of the time,
however frequently it may vary. "
We know the difficulty which children find in pronouncing
certain sounds: rand, for instance, they constantly confound.
This is the case also among the Sandwich-Islanders and in the
Ladrones, according to Freycinet; in Vanikoro; among the Dam-
maras; and in the Tonga Islands. Mr. Darwin observed that the
Fuegians had great difficulty in comprehending an alternative;
and every one must have noticed the tendency among savages to
form words by reduplication. This also is characteristic of child-
hood among civilized races.
Again, some of the most brutal acts which have been recorded
against them are to be regarded less as instances of deliberate
cruelty than of a childish thoughtlessness and impulsiveness. A
striking instance of this is recorded by Byron in his narrative of
the 'Loss of the Wager. ' A cacique of the Chonos, who was
nominally a Christian, had been out with his wife to fish for sea-
eggs, and having had little success, returned in a bad humor.
"A little boy of theirs, about three years old, whom they appeared
to be doatingly fond of, watching for his father and mother's
return, ran into the surf to meet them: the father handed a
basket of eggs to the child, which being too heavy for him to
carry, he let it fall; upon which the father jumped out of the
canoe, and catching the boy up in his arms, dashed him with the
utmost violence against the stones. The poor little creature lay
motionless and bleeding, and in that condition was taken up by
the mother, but died soon after. "
In fact, we may fairly sum up this part of the question in a
few words by saying, as the most general conclusion which can
be arrived at, that savages have the character of children with
the passions and strength of men.


## p. 9285 (#301) ###########################################

9285
LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA
(120-200? A. D. )
BY EMILY JAMES SMITH
D
URING the middle and end of the second Christian century, a
revival of Greek letters gave us the remarkable movement
known as the New Sophistic. For the most part futile in
aim and pedantic in method, the sophistic offers such a spectacle of
solemn and fatuous frivolity that the lover of Hellenism knows not
where to look. But by sheer force of monopoly in education and
literature, the school counted as its disciples whatever men of talent
the century produced; and among them a man of letters of almost
the highest rank. Having as their aim
nothing less than a forcible recovery of the
productive Greek genius, the sophists fol-
lowed a vigorous propedeutic in the works
of the great masters. A critical knowledge
of the vocabulary of Plato, of the Attic
orators, and of the Old Comedy, was the
foundation of every sophist's skill. This
erudition, in itself respectable and helpful,
was however put to foolish use. The dif-
ference between using the language of De-
mosthenes and being one's self an orator
was overlooked. Famous sentences of great
writers were worked over, rearranged, and
presented as a fresh creation,-as Virgil-
ian tags to-day coldly furnish forth the English schoolboy's verses.
It was probably the influence of Rome that determined the revival
as oratorical in form; the empire furnished it with endowed chairs
of rhetoric, with a royal audience, and with political importance: yet
it was held a solecism by the sophists to introduce a Roman name
or an allusion to Rome into a Greek composition.

LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA
Worldly ambition, then, and literary tastes pulled in the same
direction; and for a clever lad, growing up in a far Syrian village,
conscious of great gifts, and of a tumultuous egoism, there was no
alternative. Breaking away from the handicraft to which he was
apprenticed, Lucian betook himself, still a boy of fifteen, to the study
of Greek and to the profession of rhetoric. Asia Minor was full of


## p. 9286 (#302) ###########################################

9286
LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA
sophists. It is not likely that Lucian was able to afford a course
under any of the great masters, and he nowhere speaks of any such
thing. But the air was so full of their theories, and their public per-
formances were so frequent, that an apt student could easily learn
what their art was like. At any rate, we know that Lucian's ambi-
tion was successful: that he acquired what culture the sophistic had
to offer, won a share of its prizes,- and then broke with it, laugh-
ing at its methods and pretensions with the detachment of a critic
of to-day. The modern reader of Lucian is impressed by no qual-
ity more strongly than by his spontaneity; an adequate estimate of
his talent must be based on the reflection that this spontaneity is
inclosed in stereotyped forms and expressed in an acquired language.
His fair structure is raised on made ground. He owed the tools he
worked with, as well as the designs he followed, to the sophistic; and
the weapons that he turned on his preceptress were from her own
anvil. A man cannot, by criticizing his early education, rid himself
of the effects of it; and in spite of Lucian's conscious originality,
scorn of pedantry, and apparent disregard of convention, we must
realize that he is after all but the most favorable example of what
the sophistic training could do.
Possessed of a sense of humor that permitted even his irritable
vanity no illusions, and of a deep conviction of the unimportance of
serious matters, Lucian would have been delighted to hear that the
theologians and moralists of a new era were destined to take him
seriously. It is undeniable that he spoke slightingly of the Christians
on the one hand, and on the other took liberties with Olympus; but
it can hardly be proved that he was interested either in hastening
the end of th old order or in deferring the installation of the new.
In the extraordinary spiritual conditions of the second century of our
era, Lucian's attitude finds a background so striking as to produce a
feeling that in some way, contrary to the general laws of things, he
stood alone, unrelated to the spirit of his age, and without sympathy
as without peers.
Religion was under the protection of the empire
and of Stoicism; strange new doctrines were freely taught and fol-
lowed with fanaticism; the soul was not only held immortal, but was
believed to revisit the earth after its liberation from the body; new
oracles made themselves heard; philosophy leaned to mysticism. And
in this heyday of error a great writer appeared, distinguished next
to his literary gifts by a coolness of judgment in such matters, and
a taste for the truth, that would have been remarkable in any age.
The 'Dialogues of the Gods,' probably the most famous of Lucian's
works, from which the first two selections in this collection are made,
were written to be delivered by him in person before a popular
audience. When an author under these circumstances devoted his


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LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA
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talents to parodying the popular religion, what idea are we to form
as to his own attitude, that of his hearers, and the effect he hoped
to produce? It seems idle to imagine either that Lucian's audience
was a band of atheists, drawn together primarily by the spirit of
philosophic controversy; or that Lucian himself, without being sure
of the temper of his hearers, was willing to risk unpopularity, if need
be, in the interests of truth as he conceived it. The second alter-
native was Friedländer's view, and is indeed generally held.
But we
may be sure, from Lucian's own account of the genesis of the new
form of comic dialogue, that his interest in its workings was chiefly
literary; it was the literary possibilities of Olympus that inspired
the 'Dialogues of the Gods. ' There is no trace in them of the bitter-
ness of polemic, or the forcing of the note that we should expect to
find if he relied on his irreverence as his chief charm. And next to
satisfying his own high standard of literary excellence, his chief
preoccupation was to recommend himself to the public. When his
attacks on contemporary philosophy passed the limit of what the pub-
lic wanted in that line; when his praise of a great person, or the
variance between his theory and practice in the matter of taking sal-
aries, were the subject of unflattering comment,- he was at pains
to meet objections and explain them away. Half a dozen passages
betray his sensitive vanity and his desire that men should speak well
of him. With these evidences of his temperament and his methods, it
is impossible to believe in him as an apostle.
The revival of orthodoxy which marked the religious thought of
the second century was a voluntary reaction against the skepticism
of the preceding age; men agreed to believe in the gods because
they could not bear to do without them. The literature of the day
shows a conscious surrender of the rights of the intellect, a willing-
ness to blink the truth if error satisfied the heart; a desire to mar-
shal the hopes and fears connected with the supernatural among the
motives toward right conduct, and a bewilderment in scientific mat-
ters that left room for the existence in heaven and earth of many
things inexplicable by any philosophy. The difference between an
artificial religious attitude like this, and the uncritical faith of men
who believe in the gods on grounds that they have never thought of
questioning, must be taken into account before we can estimate the
effect of Lucian's parodies. Though Aristides might write a hymn.
to Zeus, and Dion celebrate him in all his functions, still each man
had his own complex of ideas represented by the name; and it is
hardly possible that to thoughtful minds it still called up with mov-
ing force the Homeric husband of Hera. The laborious task was not
to throw off the phraseology and demeanor of orthodoxy, but to pre-
serve them; and Lucian declined to make the effort.


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9288
LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA
His parody, then, of the Homeric gods, though it undoubtedly pro-
duced in many of his hearers a pleasurable thrill of misgiving, a
sense of almost perilous audacity in the light use of words once
sacred, derived its effect primarily from its literary quality. We may
safely say that the substitution of every-day prose for the epic style
in the mouths of the gods was more striking to the audience than
the ethical and theological inferences to be drawn from the dialogues.
That is to say, the inferences must have been tolerably familiar to
men's minds before such an entertainment could be risked by a pop-
ular performer. In these dialogues Lucian keeps to the authorities.
He takes each situation as he finds it, and holds tradition sacred,
showing a literary preoccupation obviously incompatible with a serious
tendency. Most of them show little of the malice of caricature; the
scene between Aphrodite and Selene, included here, with its charm-
ing pictures of the sleeping Endymion, would not have shocked the
Theocritean worshipers of Adonis. Those in which the comic element
is stronger, still stand on their own merits as character studies; and
the fact that the persons concerned were once held to be divine seems
to have been less before the author's mind than the fact that Homer
once treated of them in the grand manner, clothing even undignified
situations in a majesty which it was Lucian's delight to tear away.
Most handbooks of the history of ancient philosophy include Lu-
cian's name, though with some vagueness in the statement of their
grounds for so doing. It is true that he had a great deal to say
about philosophers, and something about philosophy; but this was the
result of two accidental circumstances. One of these was the fact of
Plato's style, which had an irresistible claim on him as a man of let-
ters; the other was the prevalence of philosophers as a picturesque
element in that contemporary society which he was interested in
describing. The Platonic system as a lesson in expression, and con-
temporary systems as social phenomena, occupied him greatly; with
the fortunate result that we know how each affected a man of the
world. In close relation to the literary hold of Plato himself on
Lucian, we must take into account the attraction that existed for
his taste in the decency of the contemporary Platonic discipline and
the exclusiveness of the Platonic temper. The Platonist in Lucian's
Symposium is the type of propriety in appearance and conduct, and
exhibits a strained and scornful courtesy. Plato himself remains
aloof, even beyond the grave, and is found neither in Hades nor in
the Isles of the Blest, preferring to dwell in his own Polity. But
this exclusiveness was too congenial to Lucian to be dwelt on with
any vigor of sarcasm, and indeed he reflects part of it in his remarks
on the shoemaker in philosophy. For physical theory and meta-
physics he never had a serious word, rejecting them with an easy


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LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA
9289
assumption of superiority on the ground that their advocates differed
among themselves and used terms unintelligible to a layman; and it
was not only the contemporary presentation to which he objected,
but that of the originators as well, Plato among the rest.
Besides these two feelings for Platonism,- indifference to its
metaphysics and enthusiasm for its form,-Lucian had a deep dis-
trust of it in a practical matter that interested him greatly; viz. , the
question of the marvelous and its credibility. The Platonic doctrine
of the future state of the soul had expanded into a variety of fantas-
tic beliefs, developed by the Stoics for ethical purposes into a doc-
trinal basis for ghost stories. In one aspect the "dæmon" was an
underling and emissary of the supreme godhead, immortal but subject.
to sensation, working with men in all ways, and appearing to them
in visible shape as this god or that. In another aspect it was man's
own soul, divine in essence though conditioned by the limitations
of bodily life, which when freed from its earthly hamper came freely
among men out of pity for their impotent condition, which it once
shared. These two conceptions of the dæmon converged in the gen-
eral notion of innumerable supernatural agencies, corporeal and
therefore of like passions with men, who spoke through the oracles,
possessed epileptics, haunted houses, and conveniently accounted for
the inexplicable in general.
The manifestations of this belief and the unscrupulous use made
of it by impostors constituted a burning question with Lucian; and
in his travels through the world, this phase of folly moved him to
more than disinterested literary treatment. We have seen how little
odium theologicum he brought to bear on Olympus, even contriving to
give his readers a fresh impression of the ineffable beauty of god-
desses and the petulant grace of nymphs. And even when his quick
and impatient mind was playing with the philosophers, whether
selling them at auction in pure frolic, or as a man of the world tell-
ing a friend with innuendo how they dine, or ranging himself with
the great dead and haranguing his contemporaries with a rhetoric at
which he smiled himself, it is plain that in his eyes the literary
opportunities they gave him excused their existence. After all, he
did not excite himself about them. But one set of persons and ideas
so stirred him as to break through his serenity, and bring him down
from his seat as a spectator to try a fall himself. In the Philo-
pseudes,' the third of the selections here given,-a Stoic, a Platon-
ist, a Peripatetic, and a Pythagorean, meeting at the bedside of a sick
friend, exchange tales of the marvelous, and try to persuade Tychi-
ades, the champion of common-sense, that dæmons exist, and phan-
tasms, and that the souls of the dead walk the earth, appearing to
whom they will. Of the sects represented, it was the Platonists and
Pythagoreans who were chiefly responsible for the degradation of the


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LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA
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dæmon theory; and Lucian's feeling toward them is expressed in
the dialogue with successful malice. Apart from this consideration,
the most significant passage for Lucian's philosophy expresses his
approval of Democritus's steadfast conviction that souls do not exist
after they leave the body. His agreement with Democritus and the
Epicureans in this matter, more fully expressed in his remarkable
pamphlet on Alexander the charlatan of Abonotichas, seems to be
the nearest approach he made towards seriously adopting the tenets
of a sect.
nor
The selections given here, and this commentary on them, cover
the chief ground of debate in regard to Lucian. Neither a theologian
philosopher, he contrived by means of his literary gift so to
clothe ideas in themselves unimportant as to give them a goodly
chance of immortality. The Christian scholiasts of the Byzantine age
read him with anathemas; the scholars of the Renaissance recovered
him with delight; Erasmus and Sir Thomas More used him as a
literary model; Raphael and Dürer illustrated him. In recent days
Mr. Pater has given him a fresh vogue with the general reader; and
scholars are busy with his text, his style, and his antiquities. Inter-
est in him is not likely to fail: he lived in a period of vital historic
issues. By birth a Syrian, politically a Roman, intellectually the last
of the Hellenes, he stands as an epitome of the most momentous of
international episodes.
Swith
Quily James
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. -There is no complete modern English
translation of the works of Lucian. The following translations of
selected works have appeared within the last ten years:- 'Lucian's
Dialogues': Howard Williams, M. A. , London, 1888. 'Selections from
Lucian': Emily James Smith, New York, 1892. Contents: The Dream,
Zeus in Tragedy, The Ass, The Cock, Toxaris, The Halcyon, A True
History, The Sale of Lives. Six Dialogues of Lucian's': Sidney T.
Irwin, M. A. , London, 1894. Partial translations of 'Hermotimus' and
"The Halcyon' occur in Walter Pater's Marius the Epicurean,' pages
245-248 and 291-310. An English commentary on Lucian's life and
works is to be found in the volume entitled 'Lucian' of the 'Ancient
Classics for English Readers' Series, by the Rev. W. L. Collins.
'Selections from Lucian,' in the original Greek, have been edited
with English notes by Evelyn Abbott, London, 1872. Several other
editions of one or more works of Lucian are included in the 'Pitt
Press' and 'Clarendon Press' series.
E. J. S.


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LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA
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―――
----
APHRODITE AND SELENE
PHRODITE
A
What is this story about you, Selene? They say
that whenever you come to Curia you stop your car to
gaze down upon Endymion, sleeping under the open sky as
becomes a huntsman. And sometimes, they say, you leave your
course altogether and descend to him.
Selene - Ask that son of yours, Aphrodite. He is to blame
for all this.
Aphrodite-Ah, he respects no one. What things he has
done to me, his mother! now dragging me to Ida for Anchi-
ses's sake, now to Libanus to meet that Assyrian boy. And the
Assyrian he brought into Persephone's good graces too, and so
robbed me of half my lover. I have often threatened to break
his arrows and quiver and tie his wings unless he abandoned
these games. And I have taken him across my knee before
this and smacked him with my sandal. But somehow or other,
though he is frightened at the moment and prays for mercy, he
presently forgets all about it. But tell me, is Endymion hand-
some ?
Selene To my mind he is very handsome indeed, Aphrodite;
especially when he lies wrapped in his blanket asleep on the
rocks, his left hand loosely closed upon his darts, his right arm
bent above his head and making a charming frame for his face,
his whole body relaxed in sleep and stirred by his sweet breath-
ing. Then I came down noiselessly, on tiptoe, lest he wake
annoyed. Still, you know all this: why should I tell you any
But I am sick with love.
more?
Translated by Emily James Smith.
THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS
Persons: Zeus, Hermes, Paris, Hera, Athena, Aphrodite
Z FU
EUS-Hermes, take this apple and go to Phrygia, to Priam's
son, the cowherd,- he is pasturing his drove on Ida,- and
say to him that since he is handsome himself, and a connois-
seur in matters of love, he has been appointed by Zeus to judge
which is the fairest of the three goddesses. The apple is to be
the victor's prize. [To the goddesses. ] It is time now that you
ladies were off to the judge. I have delegated the office of


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LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA
9292
umpire because I am equally attached to you all, and if it were
possible I should gladly see you all win. Moreover, the man who
gives the prize of beauty to one must in the nature of things be
detested by the others. These reasons disqualify me as umpire;
but the young man in Phrygia to whom you are going is of a
royal house, being in fact a cousin of Ganymede, whom you
know,- and he has the simple manner of the mountains.
Aphrodite - For my part, Zeus, you might make Momus him-
self the umpire and I should still go confidently to trial; for what
could he find to criticize in me? And the others must needs put
up with the man.
――――――
Hera-We are not afraid either, Aphrodite, even if your
Ares were to settle the question. We are satisfied with this
man, whoever he is, this Paris.
Zeus [to Athena]-Well, daughter, are you of the same mind?
What do you say? You turn away blushing? It is natural for
you virgins to be coy in such matters. But you might at least
nod. [Athena nods. ] Off with you, then; and the defeated,
mind you, are not to be angry with the judge nor to do any
harm to the young man. It is impossible for all to be equal in
beauty. [They start. ]
Hermes-Let us make straight for Phrygia.
and do you follow smartly. And don't be uneasy.
he is a handsome young fellow, a lover by temperament, and a
most competent judge in such cases as this. His decision will
certainly be correct.
you.
―――――――
I will go first,
I know Paris;
Aphrodite-That is good news, and all in my favor. [Ta
Hermes, apart. ] Is this person a bachelor, or has he a wife?
Hermes-Not exactly a bachelor.
Aphrodite - What do you mean?
Hermes-Apparently a woman of Ida is his mate: a good
enough creature, but crude and extremely rustic. He does not
seem to care much about her. But why do you ask?
Aphrodite-Oh, I just asked.
Athena [to Hermes]- This is a breach of trust, sirrah. You
are having a private understanding with Aphrodite.
Hermes-It's nothing terrible, and has nothing to do with
She was asking me whether Paris is a bachelor.
Athena - Why is that any business of hers?
Hermes I don't know; she says she asked casually, without
any object.


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9293
Athena-Well, is he a bachelor?
Hermes - Apparently not.
Athena Has he any leaning towards war? Is he an ambi-
tious person, or a cowherd merely?
Hermes I can't say certainly; but it is safe to guess that a
man of his age will hanker after fighting and long to distinguish
himself in the field.
-
――
-
Aphrodite See now, I don't find any fault with you for talk-
ing apart with her. Fault-finding is not natural to Aphrodite.
Hermes-She was asking me almost exactly what you did, so
don't take it amiss or think you are badly treated. I answered
her just as simply as I did you.
But while we are talking we have come a long way.
We
have left the stars behind and almost reached Phrygia. I see Ida
and the whole range of Gargarus clearly; and unless I am mis-
taken, I can even make out Paris, your judge.
Hera-Where is he? I don't see him.
Hermes-Look off to the left, not at the summit of the
mountain, but along the flank where the cave is.
There you see
the herd.
-
Hera- - But not the herdsman.
Hermes-What? Look along my finger, so.