684 nuililA, ITS PEOPLE AND PRODLX'TIOXS. 



electric wires to flash it from heart to heart, and awaken a response in the credulous 

 world, while tlie ponderous dialectics of an entire army of rationalists will not there- 

 after suffice to dislodjj;e it." 



Space will not permit any more lengthened quotation, but one interesting example 

 may be given of how imagination and simplicity unite to people the sky witli material 

 beings instinct with life, the dramatis persona, so to speak, of the great celestial epic, 

 in which all Mythology has its ultimate root. 



" The children of to-day will repeat the experiences of the ancient ones, that is, 

 our ancestors in the youth of Humanity ; and will enable us to understand certain 

 illusions which may appear impossible to the perception or even imagination of the 

 erudite and sceptical modern. I myself, to realize more thoroughly the simplicity of 

 our ancestors, am obliged to remember that one of the most vivid impressions ever 

 made on me was received when, a child of scarcely four years of age, I was looking 

 up into the sky. My family was li\'ing in a remote part of Piedmont ; one autumn, 

 evening, towards night, one of my elder brothers pointed out to me, over a distant 

 mountain, a dark cloud of a rather strange shape, saying, ' Look down there, that is 

 a hungry wolf running after the sheep.' I do not know whether my brother was 

 then repeating what he had heard the villagers say, or whether that heavenly scene 

 had pi'escinted itself to his own imagination ; but I well recollect that he convinced 

 me so entirely of that cloud being really a hungry wolf nmning down the mountains, 

 that fearing it might in default of sheep overtake me, I instantly took to my heels 

 and escaped precipitately into the house. The reader will kindly pardon this personal 

 allusion. I recall and refer to it now, to explain how the credulity which we always 

 find in children may give us an idea of the credulity of infant nations. When Faitli 

 was pure, when Science did not exist, such illusions must have been continually 

 awakening entliusiasm or fear in the breasts of our ingenuous forefathers, who lived in 

 the open air with their herds of cattle, and stood with earth and sky in constant 

 relation, and in continual communion. We busy dwellers in gi'eat cities, held back 

 by a thousand social ties, oppressed by a thousand public or private cares, never 

 happen to raise our eyes towards the sky, except it be to consult it on the probability 

 of fine or wet weather ; but evidently this is not sufficient to enable us to compre- 

 hend the vast and complicated epic poem transacted in the heavens." — Zoological 

 Mijtholngii, p. xxiv. 



As no one passage which space allows me to introduce here can give a full idea 

 of the mode in which the subject-matter of myths originated in the childhood of our 

 race, so no attempt can be here made to follow the process of development whereby 

 the elemental changes furnished matter for the countless mythical creations which the 

 mind of primeval man so prodigally evolved. A few words, however, may be here 

 quoted from that interesting and valuable work, " Mythology of the Aryan Nations," 

 by the Rev. G. W, Cox, which illustrates two prominent points wliich may not be 

 known to every reader, i.e. the polymoi-j)hie adaptations, of one and the same idea, and 

 the disguises and variations it is capable of assuming ; and, secondly, how a pure and 

 spiritualized fancy or conceit comes in time (as a matter of course it may almost be 

 said) to degenerate into a gross and sensual symbolism. Speaking of the Yedas, Cox 

 remarks {Mi/tholog;/ of the Aryan Nations, vol. i. p. .52) : 



" In these poems the names of many, perhaps of most, of the Greek gods indicate 

 natural objects which, if endued with life, have not been reduced to human personality. 

 In them Daphne is still simply the morning twilight ushering in the splendour of the 

 new-born sun : the cattle of Helios there, are still the light-coloured clouds, which 

 the dawn leads out into the fields of the sky. There, the idea of Heracles had not 

 been separated from the image of the toiling sun, and the glory of the life-giving 

 Helios had not been transferred to the God of Delos and Pytho. In the Yedas, the 

 myths of Endymion, of Keplialos, and Prokris, Orpheus and Eurydike are exhibited 

 in the form of detached mythical phrases, which furnished for eacli their genu. The 

 analysis may be extended indefinitely, but the conclusion can only be that in the 

 Vedic language we have the foundation, not only of the glowing legends of Hellas, but 

 of the dark and sombre mythology of tlie Scandinavian and the Teuton. Both alike 

 have grown up chiefly from names which have been grouped around the sun ; but the 



