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Often appears with: seven sleepers legend · myth and the gods of the nations · history and the writing of history · fate, destiny, and necessity · ephesus · decius persecution
Usually: argument (1) · curiosity (1) · skepticism (1)
“This easy and universal belief, observes the philosophical historian of the Decline and Fall, "so expressive of the sense of mankind, may be ascribed to the genuine merit of the fable itself.” Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology · observation
Lyell argues that geologists can become as inconsistent as dreamers, illustrating this with the Seven Sleepers legend and its later spread from Christianity into Islam.
if a geologist form theories under a similar delusion, we cannot expect him to preserve more consistency in his speculations than in the train of ideas in an ordinary dream. It may afford, perhaps, a lively illustration of the principle here insisted upon, if I recall to the reader's recollection the legend of the Seven Sleepers. The scene of that popular fable was placed in the two centuries which elapsed between t…