Note 156.1 — Chapter XXI · THE STORY AS A WHOLE. THE PROBLEM OF ITS PLACE OF ORIGIN. CONCLUSION.

The next question to consider is that of the relation between the ancient and modern variants of the story. If it were confined to that between the ancient variants and the variants current to-day in Italy and Greece, it would be comparatively simple. The problem is, in fact, much larger; for we have to take into account variants found all over the area, already described, within which the place of origin is to be sought. We cannot conclude, I need hardly say, that the first-recorded version of a tale is the parent of all the rest, or of any of them. Our scepticism must go much further. It often happens that the first-recorded version is one current in a higher grade of civilisation, and therefore more refined and artistic, than a version subsequently gathered from oral tradition. Emphatically is this the case with classical stories and Buddhist parables, as writers on folklore have often observed. But what has not been equally insisted on is, that the reason why these classic stories and Buddhist parables have found their way into literature is because they are the more refined and artistic versions. It is quite certain that if Ovid had had to choose between the picturesque narrative of the shower of gold, with the parentage of the highest god of Olympus, on the one hand, and a totemistic tale about a fish or a rock-lobster on the other hand, he could not have hesitated to which of these sources he should, for literary purposes, assign the begetting of Perseus. So, to take an instance outside the range of the present study, if the compilers of the Jātaka could have chosen between the Tar-baby of Negro story-tellers and the Demon with the matted hair, they would have preserved in their collection the story in the form which actually appears.156.1 Probably neither alternative was actually offered, the causes which would have operated in the mind of the poet or the parable-writer having already wrought, less consciously indeed, but not less effectively, in the popular mind, so as to render, by a process, analogous with that of natural selection, which we may call traditional selection, the version that has reached us predominant over all others. For æsthetic and ethical development speedily outstripped that of abstract thought and criticism. Savages often attain a high degree of taste and skill in the production and ornamentation of their utensils and weapons. The beauty of mediæval architecture has rarely been approached and never been surpassed, though the generations which built the great cathedrals of Europe were under bondage to one of the most cruel and extravagant systems of superstition that the wit of man has elaborated. At the same time in many directions, and at all events theoretically, they had attained a comparatively advanced moral elevation. The arts of poetry and story-telling come to maturity later than the material arts, because they are dependent upon the critical sense; but even they are quite compatible with very gross credulity. No people has displayed a finer critical sense than the ancient Greeks; yet no people has told more absurd stories about its divinities or practised sillier customs; and that, even in the age which produced their most finished sculptures and their most exquisite poems. The unbelief of the philosophers was confined to a small class; and the populace that applauded the verses and appreciated the art of Euripides pinned its faith to omens, found presages in the flight of birds, and gave implicit credence to the magical effect of incantations, to say nothing of the ridiculous and impossible tales about the gods which were part of its religious faith, and as such were literally and devoutly accepted. Yet even among these a process of selection was going forward, tending to eliminate the ruder and coarser, preserving and refining, not necessarily the more credible, but the more artistic. From the more cultured cities of Greece a literary and æsthetic influence was diffused throughout all Greek-speaking communities. To this aggressive influence local beliefs and local customs gradually yielded. They were either identified and amalgamated with the beliefs and customs to which it gave a continually wider and wider currency, gaining in the process a less barbarous exterior; or, if too stubborn for identification and amalgamation, they were thrust aside bit by bit and left to rustics and to slaves. The same process, repeated in the modern world, has caused the powers and distinguishing marks of the ancient superseded deities to be attributed to the Madonna and the saints, and many of the heathen shrines and superstitions to be baptized into the Christian Church. The rest have been relegated to the peasantry, and driven into more and more remote districts by the continual pressure, direct and indirect, of the triumphant religion and the increasing civilisation. So it has been everywhere, not only in Europe, but wherever in the whole world a higher has been carried, either by arms, commerce or persuasion, across the frontiers of a lower culture. We may conclude, therefore, that the story of Danae made its way throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, to the disadvantage of the stories told in various places of the birth of a hero similar in the rest of his life to Perseus, because of its own æsthetic qualities, and because it was accepted by the most intellectual peoples of Greece. These two causes, it will be seen, are at bottom one. For it was precisely the intellectual characteristics of the polished peninsular Greeks which had given the tale its artistic form, and thus fitted it for prevailing over its competitors. Traditional selection, first in the inhabitants of Argos and the neighbourhood, and afterwards in all those with whom they and their allies and fellow-countrymen came into contact, determined its shape and secured its victory.