Proceedings for November, I908 lv

in composition, but employ the Indo-European order. No American language

has yet been found which follows the Malayo-Polynesian order. It follows that
analyses and translations of compound words in American languages cannot safely
be attempted until the rules governing noun-composition in any particular lan-
guage in question are known. It also follows that instead of American languages
showing a lack of sense of grammatical form through failing to differentiate
between noun and verb, as has at times been asserted, they usually differentiate
between these parts of speech to a degree which our own languages do not attain.

9. Aristotle, Poetics xxiv, 8-io (I46oa), by Professor Benjamin

P. Kurtz, of the University of California.

(a) In the Poetics xxiv, 8-io, Aristotle enunciates the first really critical
justification of the use of the marvellous in literature. His fragmentary remarks,
when carefully analyzed, suggest a triangular foundation of a criticism of the
function and development of the marvellous in literature. - (i) Two brief re-
marks (one, upon the universality of our delight in the wonderful and of its prac-
tice by story-tellers; another, concerning the reliance of the wonderful, for its chief
effect, upon the irrational) suggest a general psychology of the marvellous, evi-
dently a necessary preliminary to any systematic treatment of the marvellous in
literature. In spite of the commonplace character of the two remarks, their
impartial, secular recognition of wonder as a factor omnipresent in life and story,
and their frank admission of the factor to an impartial inquiry based upon the
naturalness of its appearance, form the beginning of a broad psychological atti-
tude, quite free from the moral or religious prejudices which both before and
after Aristotle have interfered repeatedly in the realm of criticism. - (2) A sec-
ond side of the triangular foundation gives the basis for a critical theory of the
function of the marvellous in literature. Two aspects of function are suggested:
(a) variation of function with variation of literary type; (b) technique of pres-
entation of the wonderful in relation to belief and to plot. The first aspect is
suggested by a remark upon the wonder-capacity of the epic in comparison with
other types: the second aspect is broached both by a caution against admitting
the irrational, which includes the wonderful, into the plot of a tragedy, and also
by the enunciation of three methods of obtaining belief in the marvellous. -
(3) The third foundation, suggested by the remark upon Homer as the master
and chief teacher of the successful use of the marvellous, is the historical criticism
of the wonderful. -These critical foundations are supplemented, in cap. ix, 2-5
( 4I 5 b), by an aesthetic - as distinguished from a moral, religious, or historical -
justification of the use of fiction and, therefore, of the marvellous. The justi-
fication lies in the higher reality, or poetic truth, of art. In cap. xxv, I7 (I46I b),
the impossible is again justified by an appeal to artistic requirements, higher
reality, and received opinion.

(b) The rise of Aristotle's criticism of the marvellous. Greek literary criticism
developed from the expression of moral objections to the irrational and marvellous
in Homer. Aristotle's aesthetic justification of the marvellous, therefore, tended
to produce the aesthetic liberation of literary criticism itself from religious and
philosophical prejudice. The steps leading to this liberation may be traced

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 lvi Association of thre Paczfic Coast

through the following: Early sceptical criticism of Homeric wonders (cf. Solon,
Egger, Hist. Crit. Graec. 2d. ed., 92; Alcmaeon, Diog. L. viii, 83, Diels, Frag.
Vorsokr. frg. i; Heracleitos, Diog. L. ix, I, Diels, frg. v, cf. cxxviii; Pindar, who
anticipates Aristotle's justification by appeal to artistic requirements, 0. I, 42 ff.,
9, 35 ff., N. 7, 20 ff.; Xenophanes, direct charges of anthropomorphism, with dis-
tinct mention of certain marvels, Karsten, Phil. Graec. Vet. i, frgs. I, 5, 6, 7, 21);
the character of Empedocles illustrates, by its contradictions of rationalism and
charlatanism, the opposing forces at work in his century, and forms a suggestive
introduction to the vacillating attitude of Plato; for Plato's contradictory utter-
ances, his extension, in The Republic, of the moral objection into economic
prohibition, and his tempered recommendation of the fabulous for pedagogical
purposes, see: Tim. 45-46, 7I-72; Laws, 909-9I0; Phoaed. 60; Laws, 738, 910;
Tim. 7I; Phaed. 8I; Rep. ii, 365 ff., iii, 386 ff.; Rep. ii, 377 C, 382 d; see also
Jowett's tr., vol. III, pp. 493-494; cf. 409; V, 322; cf. 28, 296; III, 76; II, I20-
I21; V, 96, 100, I08, I20, 122, I83, 23I, etc.

(c) The neglect, since Aristotle, of systematic criticism of the function and
development of the marvellous is striking. Among the Greeks, only Plutarch
(How a Young Mafn Ought to Read Poems) and Longinus (de Sub.; cf. Dem.
Phalereus, de Elocut. 52, 124-I27, I57, I58) continued the new work. On the
other hand, allegorical interpretation, Euhemerism, Neo-Platonism, and rhetorical
criticism retarded the aesthetic liberation so well begun. Furthermore, most of
modern criticism has been unsystematic - the mere expression of taste - as, for
instance, the renaissance criticism gathered about the epics of Ariosto and Tasso;
the English eighteenth century, represented by Dryden's essay upon the epic;
and the French compilers of more or less slavish Poetics, represented by Boileau.
The most encouraging work since Longinus is that of some of the German
aestheticians and of the ethnologists.

I0. On Cicero's Acquaintance with Lucretius' Poem, by Professor

WV. A. Merrill, of the University of California.

There is no internal evidence in the extant writings of Cicero that he had ever
read the poem, or that he was influenced in the slightest degree by Lucretius.
The coincidences may be referred to well-known Epicurean principles.

This paper will be printed in the University of California Publi-

cations.

iI. The Interpretation of Aeschylus' Agamemnon, by Professor

A. T. Murray, of the Leland Stanford Jr. University.

In this paper, a part of which only was read, the writer discussed the problem
of the Agamemnon with a view to determining the poet's essential meaning. It
was held that the play, which must be studied as a part of the larger whole, the
trilogy, treats of the fortunes and death of Agamemnon, not as an illustration of
the workings either of a divine justice, which by the king's death avenges the

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