Out of
these judgments there grew the great ideals which from first to last
have commanded the spirit of man.
In this connection it is interesting to remember that in Homer the men
were regarded as the means of revealing ideas and characters, and not as
mere natural objects in themselves. The things among which they lived
are described and known by their appearances; the men are known by their
words and deeds. "There is no inventory of the features of men, or of
fair women, as there is in the Greek poets of the decline or in modern
novels. Man is something different from a curious bit of workmanship
that delights the eye. He is a 'speaker of words and a doer of deeds,'
and his true delineation is in speech and action, in thought and
emotion." Thus, from the first, ideas are the central and important
element. They spring from and cling to stories of individual human
lives, and the finest of them become ideals handed down for the guidance
of the future race. The myths, with their stories of gods and men, and
their implied or declared religious doctrines, are but the forms in
which these ideals find expression.
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