It is undoubtedly easier to feel than to describe the impressive influence of Homeric narrative: but the time and circumstances under which that influence was first, and most powerfully felt, preclude the possibility of explaining it by comprehensive and elaborate comparisons, such as are implied in Aristotle’s remarks upon the structure of the poems. The critic who seeks the explanation in the right place will not depart widely from the point of view of those rude auditors to whom the poems were originally addressed, or from the susceptibilities and capacities common to the human bosom in every stage of progressive culture. And though the refinements and delicacies of the poems, as well as their general structure, are a subject of highly interesting criticism,—yet it is not to these that Homer owes his wide-spread and imperishable popularity. Still less is it true, as the well-known observations of Horace would lead us to believe, that Homer is a teacher of ethical wisdom akin and superior to Chrysippus or Crantor.[319] No didactic purpose is to be found in the Iliad and Odyssey; a philosopher may doubtless extract, from the incidents and strongly marked characters which it contains, much illustrative matter for his exhortations,—but the ethical doctrine which he applies must emanate from his own reflection. The Homeric hero manifests virtues or infirmities, fierceness or compassion, with the same straightforward and simple-minded vivacity, unconscious of any ideal standard by which his conduct is to be tried;[320] nor can we trace in the poet any ulterior function beyond that of the inspired organ of the Muse, and the nameless, but eloquent, herald of lost adventures out of the darkness of the past. [319] Horat. Epist. i. 2, v. 1-26:— “Sirenum voces, et Circes pocula nosti: Quæ si cum sociis stultus cupidusque bibisset, Vixisset canis immundus, vel amica luto sus.” Horace contrasts the folly and greediness of the companions of Ulysses, in accepting the refreshments tendered to them by Circe, with the self-command of Ulysses himself in refusing them. But in the incident as described in the original poem, neither the praise nor the blame, here implied, finds any countenance. The companions of Ulysses follow the universal practice in accepting hospitality tendered to strangers, the fatal consequences of which, in their particular case, they could have no ground for suspecting; while Ulysses is preserved from a similar fate, not by any self-command of his own, but by a previous divine warning and a special antidote, which had not been vouchsafed to the rest (see Odyss. x. 285). And the incident of the Sirens, if it is to be taken as evidence of anything, indicates rather the absence, than the presence, of self-command on the part of Ulysses.