That the whole story was invented by Plato as a literary ornament or allegorical argument, or that he thus utilized a story which he had really received from Egypt, but which was none the less a myth, was maintained even among the early Platonists, and was the view of Longinus. Even after the discovery of America many writers recognized the fabulous touch in it, as Acosta,[438] who thought, “being well considered, they are rediculous things, resembling rather to Ovid’s tales then a Historie of Philosophie worthy of accompt,” and “cannot be held for true but among children and old folkes”—an opinion adopted by the judicious Cellarius.[439]
Among more recent writers, D’Anville, Bartoli,[440] Gosselin,[441] Ukert,[442] approved this view.
Humboldt threw the weight of his great influence in favor of the mythical interpretation, though he found the germ of the story in the older geographic myth of the destruction of Lyctonia in the Mediterranean (Orph. Argonaut., 1274, etc.);[443] while Martin, in his work on the Timaeus, with great learning and good sense, reduced the story to its elements, concluding that such an island had never existed, the tale was not invented by Plato, but had really descended to him from Solon, who had heard it in Egypt.
Prof. Jowett regards the entire narrative as “due to the imagination of Plato, who could easily invent ‘Egyptians or anything else,’ and who has used the name of Solon ... and the tradition of the Egyptian priest to give verisimilitude to his story;”[444] and Bunbury is of the same opinion, regarding the story as “a mere fiction,” and “no more intended to be taken seriously ... than the tale of Er the Pamphylian.”[445] Mr. Archer-Hind, the editor of the only separate edition of the Timaeus which has appeared in England, thinks it impossible to determine “whether Plato has invented the story from beginning to end, or whether it really more or less represents some Egyptian legend brought home by Solon,” which seems to be a fitting conclusion to the whole matter.
The literature of the subject is widely scattered, but a good deal has been done bibliographically in some works which have been reserved for special mention here. The earliest is the Dissertation sur l’Atlantide, by Th. Henri Martin,[446] wherein, beside a carefully reasoned examination of the story itself and similar geographic myths, the opposing views of previous writers are set forth in the second section, Histoire des Systèmes sur l’Atlantide, pp. 258-280. Gaffarel has in like manner given a résumé of the literature, which comes down later than that of Martin, in the two excellent treatises which he has devoted to the subject; he is convinced of the existence of such an island, but his work is marked by such care, orderliness, and fulness of citations that it is of the greatest value.[447] The references in these treatises are made with intelligence, and are, in general, accurate and useful. That this is not the case with the work of Mr. Donnelly deprives the volume of much of the value which it might have had.[448]
[E.] Fabulous Islands of the Atlantic in the Middle Ages.—Fabulous islands belong quite as much to the domain of folk-lore as to that of geography. The legends about them form a part of the great mass of superstitions connected with the sea. What has been written about these island myths is for the most part scattered in innumerable collections of folk-tales and in out-of-the-way sources, and it does not lie within the scope of the present sketch to track in these directions all that has been said. It will not be out of place, however, to refer to a few recent works where much information and many references can be found. One of the fullest collections, though not over-well sorted, is by Lieut. F. S. Bassett,[449] consisting of brief notes made in the course of wide reading, well provided with references, which are, however, often so abbreviated as to inflict much trouble on those who would consult them,—an all too common fault. Of interest is a chapter on Les îles, in a similar work by M. Paul Sebillot.[450] An island home has often been assigned to the soul after death, and many legends, some mediæval, some of great antiquity, deal with such islands, or with voyages to them. Some account of these will be found in Bassett, and particularly in an article by E. Beauvois in the Revue de l’histoire de Religion,[451] where further references are to be found. Wm. F. Warren has also collected many references to the literature of this subject in the course of his endeavor to show that Paradise was at the North Pole.[452] The long articles on Eden and Paradise in McClintock and Strong’s Biblical Encyclopedia should also be consulted.
In what way the fabulous islands of the Atlantic originated is not known, nor has the subject been exhaustively investigated. The islands of classical times, in part actual discoveries, in part born of confused reports of actual discoveries, and in part probably purely mythical, were very generally forgotten as ancient civilization declined.[453] The other islands which succeeded them were in part reminiscences of the islands known to the ancients or invented by them, and in part products of a popular mythology, as old perhaps as that of the Greeks, but until now unknown to letters. The writers who have dealt with these islands have treated them generally from the purely geographic point of view. The islands are known principally from maps, beginning with the fourteenth century, and are not often met with in descriptive works. Formaleoni, in his attempt to show that the Venetians had discovered the West Indies prior to Columbus, made studies of the older maps which naturally led him to devote considerable attention to these islands.[454]
They are also considered by Zurla.[455] The first general account of them was given by Humboldt in the Examen Critique,[456] and to what he did little if anything has since been added. D’Avezac[457] treated the subject, giving a brief sketch of the islands known to the Arab geographers,—a curious matter which deserves more attention.
Still more recently Paul Gaffarel has treated the matter briefly, but carefully.[458] A study of old maps by H. Wuttke, in the Jahresbericht des Vereins für Erdkunde zu Dresden,[459] gives considerable attention to the islands; and Theobald Fischer, in his commentary on the collection of maps reproduced by Ongania, has briefly touched on the subject,[460] as has Cornelio Desimoni in various papers in the Atti della Società Ligure di Storia patria, xiv., and other years, in the Atti dell’ Acad. dei Nuova Lincei, in the Gionale ligustico, etc. R. H. Major’s Henry the Navigator should also be consulted.[461]