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The Iliad of Homer - Get a Free Blog

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[pg<br />

for our belief. This system—which has<br />

<strong>of</strong>ten comforted the religious sceptic, and<br />

substituted the consolations <strong>of</strong> Strauss<br />

for those <strong>of</strong> the New Testament—has<br />

been <strong>of</strong> incalculable value to the historical<br />

theorists <strong>of</strong> the last and present centuries.<br />

To question the existence <strong>of</strong> Alexander<br />

the Great, would be a more excusable<br />

act, than to believe in that <strong>of</strong> Romulus.<br />

To deny a fact related in Herodotus,<br />

because it is inconsistent with a theory<br />

developed from an Assyrian inscription<br />

which no two scholars read in the same<br />

way, is more pardonable, than to believe<br />

in the good-natured old king whom the<br />

elegant pen <strong>of</strong> Florian has idealized—Numa<br />

Pompilius.<br />

Scepticism has attained its culminating<br />

point with respect to <strong>Homer</strong>, and the state<br />

<strong>of</strong> our <strong>Homer</strong>ic knowledge may be described<br />

as a free permission to believe<br />

any theory, provided we throw overboard

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