The simile, less happily appropriated to Hector, is repeated in a subsequent part of the poem;[134] and it was by Virgil transferred bodily to the Eleventh Æneid, where it serves to adorn Turnus, the wearer of many borrowed Iliadic plumes. They, however, it must be admitted, make a splendid show in their new setting. Footnote 133: _Iliad_, vi. 506-11 (Lord Derby’s trans.). Footnote 134: _Ib._ xv. 263. The makers of the Iliad, whether few or many, were at least unanimous in their fervid admiration for the horse. The verses glow with a kind of rapture of enjoyment that describe his strength, beauty, and swiftness, his eager spirit and fine nervous organisation, his docility to trusted guidance, his intelligent participation in human contentions and pursuits. No animal has elsewhere achieved true epic personality;[135] no animal has been raised to so high a dignity in art. The whole Iliad might be called an ‘Aristeia’ or eulogistic celebration of the species. Footnote 135: Cf. Milchhöfer, _Die Anfänge der Kunst_, p. 57. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER V. HOMERIC ZOOLOGY. THE establishment of a clear distinction between men and beasts might seem a slight effort of defining intellect, yet it has not been quite easily made. In children the instinct of assimilation long survives the experience of difference. A little boy of six, asked by the present writer what profession he thought of adopting, replied with alacrity that he ‘would like to be a bird,’ and it was only on being reminded of the diet of grubs associated with that state of life, that he began to waver as to its desirability. The same incapacity for drawing a boundary-line between the realm of their own imperfect consciousness and the mysterious encompassing region of animal life, is visible in the grown-up children of the wilds. Hence the zoological speculations of primitive man inevitably take the form of a sort of projection of human faculties into animal natures. Now human faculties, released from the control of actuality, spontaneously expand. In a vague and vaporous way, they transcend the low level of hard fact, and become pleasantly diffused in the ‘ampler ether’ of the unknown. Beasts thus transfigured are incapable, it may be said, of simple rationality. The powers transferred to them grow like Jack’s Beanstalk, beyond the range of sight.