This original form of the fable leaves upon it, and this is the _third_ point to which we direct attention, the impress of most _naïveté_, because in it the didactic aim and the deduction of general significances of utilitarian colour do not appear to be that which was the original intention of the narrator, but rather something which turned up afterwards. For this reason the most attractive among the so-called fables of Aesop will be those which correspond most emphatically with this naïve tone and narrate actions, if such an expression may here be used, or at least relations and events, which in part are founded upon animal instinct, partly are the expression of some other natural relation and partly are generally put together for their own sake rather than exclusively composed as the fancy of the moment happened to dictate. For this reason it is further sufficiently obvious that the motto _fabula docet_, which has attached itself to these fables as we now have them presented us, either takes the true spirit out of them, or frequently is something like a fist in our eyes[83], so that quite as often as not we are inclined to deduce the intended maxim's opposite, or one or two as good if not better. In further elucidation of this conception of these Greek fables we propose now to offer a few illustrations. The oak and the reed stand in the teeth of the storm-wind. The slender reed merely bows before it, the stubborn oak snaps. This is a frequent enough occurrence in a great storm. In its ethical suggestion what we have here is some man of high position and inflexible temper as opposed to one of more modest station who, through his natural pliancy, is able in misfortune to keep himself secure on such ordinary levels, while the great man goes to ground through his pride and obstinacy. An analogous case is the fable of the swallows which we find in the Phaedrus. The swallows and other birds with them see a rustic sowing the flax seed, from the growth of which the bird-snare is to be made. The provident swallows fly away, the other birds think nothing of the morrow; they abide at home and are caught. A real phenomenon of Nature is also at the bottom of this fable. It is a notorious fact that in autumn swallows are off to southerly climes, and consequently are absent when birds are snared. The same thing may be said of the fable about the bat, which is despised by day and night, because it belongs to neither the one nor the other. A more general human significance is attributed to real prosaic incidents of this class, much as pious people are only too ready nowadays to interpret everything that occurs in a sense that is edifying or useful. It is, however, not essential to such a purpose that in every case the true fact of Nature should appear at once as obvious. In the fable, for instance, of the fox and the raven we are unable at first blush to recognize the natural fact, although it is not wholly absent. It is, in truth, a genuine characteristic