important events, than any other?"

With respect to the first consideration, it is evident that these
fables, as consisting of plain and simple transactions, are particularly
easy to be understood; as conveyed in images, they please and seduce the
mind; and, as containing a _moral_, easily deducible on the side of
virtue; that they afford, at the same time, the most weighty precepts of
philosophy. Here then are the two grand points of composition, "a manner
of expression to be apprehended by the lowest capacities, and, (what is
considered as a victory in the art) an happy conjunction of utility and
pleasure."[024] Hence Quintilian recommends them, as singularly useful,
and as admirably adapted, to the puerile age; as a just gradation
between the language of the nurse and the preceptor, and as furnishing
maxims of prudence and virtue, at a time when the speculative principles
of philosophy are too difficult to be understood. Hence also having been
introduced by most civilized nations into their system of education,
they have produced that general benefit, to which we at first alluded.
Nor have they been of less consequence in maturity; but particularly to
those of inferiour capacities, or little erudition, whom they have
frequently served as a guide to conduct them in life, and as a medium,
through which an explanation might be made, on many and important
occasions.

With respect to the latter consideration, which is easily deducible from
hence, we shall only appeal to the wonderful effect, which the fable,
pronounced by Demosthenes against Philip of Macedon, produced among his
hearers; or to the fable, which was spoken by Menenius Agrippa to the
Roman populace; by which an illiterate multitude were brought back to
their duty as citizens, when no other species of oratory could prevail.