Dorians, whose antiquities and whole life have been faithfully set forth to modern times by Karl Otfried Müller, but which has not yet been considered sufficiently with reference to general edification in social science.
In order to be intelligible, and because all persons have not access to Müller's books, it is necessary to begin with some historical sketches, which are derived from several sources, and which pertain to other Grecian tribes, as well as to the Dorians.
Greece, in the earliest times of which we have tradition, was a congeries of little nations, independent of each other, but which as a whole were remarkable for one thing; viz. the peculiar relations to each other of their religious and civil institutions. These relations were very loose.
It would seem, from the tradition which appears under the form of the fabulous war of the Titans and Olympic Gods, that at first a sacerdotal government obtained over this region, but that, through the ambition of some talented younger son,—who led that rebellion which always must be smouldering among the subjects of absolute sway, when there is still any human life left to dream of freedom,—this sacerdotal government was overthrown, and a reign of talent and political power began.
The Jupiter of the Olympic dynasty was some Napoleon Bonaparte, who began a new regime made brilliant with the spoils of a past which had been cultivated, and carried the arts of life to great perfection, but which had no elasticity to receive the new floods of life poured forth from the prodigality of a Creator who, in every generation of man, goes forth anew. One does not desire to be altogether pragmatical in the analysis of these old myths. Doubtless, we can interpret the relations of the Titanic and Olympic dynasties as an allegory of the relations of ideas to each other, without the intervention of their historic manifestation; and it is unquestionable that Æschylus, and some other Greeks, so used them. But it is nevertheless not impossible that they are, at the same time, the magnificent drapery of historic facts.
All the stationary nations of antiquity, when we first know of them, are under sacerdotal governments. These govern-
