442 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of Comparative Mythology a science sure to be of vast value, be- 

 cause, despite many stumblings and vagaries, it shows ever more 

 and more how our religion and morality have been gradually 

 evolved, and gives a firm basis to faith that higher planes may yet 

 be reached. 



Such a science makes the sacred books of the world more and 

 more precious, in that it shows how they have been the necessary 

 envelopes of our highest spiritual sustenance; how even myths 

 and legends apparently the most puerile have been the natural 

 husks and rinds and shells of our best ideas ; and how the atmos- 

 phere is created in which these husks and rinds and shells in due 

 time wither, shrivel, and fall away, so that the fruit itself may 

 be gathered to sustain a nobler religion and a purer morality. 



The coming in of Christianity contributed elements of inestima- 

 ble value in this evolution, and, at the center of all, the thoughts, 

 words, and life of the Master. But when, in the darkness that 

 followed the downfall of the Roman Empire, there was developed 

 a theology and a vast ecclesiastical power to enforce it, the most 

 interesting chapters in this evolution of religion and morality 

 were unfortunately removed from the domain of science. 



So it came that for over eighteen hundred years it has been 

 thought natural and right to study and compare the myths and 

 legends arising east and west and south and north of Palestine 

 with each other, but never with those of Palestine itself ; so it 

 came that one of the regions most fruitful in materials for rever- 

 ent thought and healthful comparison was held exempt from the 

 unbiased search for truth ; so it came that, in the name of truth, 

 truth was crippled for ages. While observation, and thought upon 

 observation, and the organized knowledge or science which results 

 from these, progressed as regarded the myths and legends of other 

 countries, and an atmosphere was thus produced giving purer con- 

 ceptions of the world and its government ; myths of that little 

 geographical region at the eastern end of the Mediterranean re- 

 tained possession of the civilized world in their original crude 

 form, and have at times done much to thwart the noblest efforts 

 of religion, morality, and civilization. 



The history of myths of their growth under the earlier 

 phases of human thought and of their decline under modern 

 thinking is one of the most interesting and suggestive of human 

 studies ; but, since to treat it as a whole would require volumes, 

 I shall select only one small group, and out of this mainly a single 

 myth one about which there can no longer be any dispute the 

 group of myths and legends which grew upon the shore of the 

 Dead Sea, and especially that one which grew up to account for 

 the successive salt columns at its southwestern extremity. 



The Dead Sea is about thirty-nine geographical miles in 



