consciousness; they portray a complete world in its deed and in
its thought, as well as in manners and institutions.

Here is, then, the highest point of view from which to look at these
poems: they are really one in two parts, written by one epoch, by one
consciousness, and probably by one man. The Iliad as a poem is a
complete cycle of individual experience, but as an epoch is only half a
cycle. In like manner the Odyssey as a poem is a complete cycle of
individual experience, but as an epoch is the second half of the cycle
of which the Iliad is essentially the first. Both together constitute
the one great movement usually called the Trojan War.

Much time has been spent in discussing the question whether the Trojan
War was historical or mythical. We make bold to affirm that it was
both--both historical and mythical. It began long before the dawn of
history and it exists to this day. For the Trojan War is the conflict
between Orient and Occident, starting in the twilight of time, and not
yet concluded by any means. The conflict between Orient and Occident
runs through all Greek Mythology, is indeed just the deepest,
tone-giving element thereof. It also runs through all Greek history
from the Persian War to the conquests of Alexander, and lurks still in
the present struggle between Greek and Turk. The true Mythus gives in
an image or event the events of all time; it is an ideal symbol which
is realized in history.

We have above said that the Trojan War was a complete cycle, of which
the two poems portray the two halves. Still further can the matter be
carried. The Trojan cycle, complete in itself as a phase of Greek
consciousness, is but a fragment, a half of a still larger cycle of
human development. The Iliad and the Odyssey give the Greek half of the
grand world-movement of the Trojan epoch; there is also an Oriental
half which these poems presuppose and from which they separate. Thus
the grand Homeric cycle, while a unit in itself, is really a separation
from the East, a separation which rendered the Occident possible; the
woes before Troy were the birth-pangs of the new-born child, Europe,
now also grown a little old.

The reader naturally asks, will there be any return to the Orient after
the grand Greek separation, first heralded on the plains of Ilium? It
may be answered that Europe has often returned to the East in the
course of history--Alexander, Rome, the Crusades; at present, western
Europe seems bent