30 LANDSCAPE AND IMAGINATION 



more prominent features of landscape or of climate. 

 And as we trace the variations of these legends from 

 country to country, we learn how much their changes 

 of dress have arisen from local peculiarities of environ- 

 ment. 



Of the earlier interpretations of nature, some may 

 be partially restored from a comparison of ancient 

 myth and superstition with the physical characters of 

 the regions wherein these legends took their rise, or 

 where, at least, they assumed the forms in which they 

 have been transmitted to later ages. Others have 

 survived in place-names which, still in common use, 

 connect our own generation with the days of our 

 ancestors. 



In pursuing the investigation of this subject we soon 

 perceive that the supernatural interpretations, and the 

 tendency to personification which led to them, began 

 eventually to be supplanted by natural explanations 

 founded on actual observation of the outer world, and 

 that this change of view, commencing first with the 

 few observant men or philosophers, made considerable 

 way among even the ordinary populace, long before 

 the decay of the mythological systems or superstitions 

 of which these primeval supernatural interpretations 

 formed a characteristic part. The growth of the 

 naturalistic spirit was exceedingly slow, and for many 

 centuries was coeval with the continued vigorous life 

 of religious beliefs which accounted for many natural 

 events as evidence of the operations of supernatural 

 beings. 



Those features of the outer world which most attract 

 attention were the first that appealed to the observing 



