372 



MYTHOLOGY 



endeavouring to see tin- myths in ' the light in 

 which they presented themselves to the Homeric 

 nr Ho-indic audience.' The convictiim of this 



n -MI\ manii'e-i - i ;-!!. a tier tin- time "I l.oi U. 



in tlrote. from whom the i|iu>tAtinii in the l:i-t 

 sentence is mode, Lehrs (Gott, Gutter, unit Dam- 

 nii'-ii ), ami Kenan ( fit ml?.* </( I'Histoirt Reiigietue). 

 Now, if try to sec myths as primitive man saw 

 them, we ran' Imnlly doubt that to the Greek of 

 Homer's time or lle-iml'g Aphrodite in nut have 

 presented herself as the ideal of female beauty, 

 Demeter as the perfect type of motherhood, and 

 so on. Thus far it was thought, liy (Irote and 

 others, possible to go in the way of interpretation : 

 the (Ireek was at all times characteristically given 



to antliropoiuorphisin. Hut to go further ana try 

 to explain not only the individual figures of the 

 gods, but the relations in which those figures are 



represented by myth as standing to each other, 

 was, by a natural traction against the exploded 

 system of allegorical interpretation, considered to 

 lie futile. Primitive man is hut a child ; he lives 

 in a world of dreams and fancies which are to him 

 as real as the waking world of facts. As for 

 coherence or meaning in what he chose to dream 

 about his gods, you may as well undertake to 

 decide what shapes the clouds have or what words 

 the liells say. '1 he imagination knows no law, or 

 at the most is subject only to the laws of poetical 

 and [esthetic consistency. It is vain to endeavour 

 to go lieyond the myth, or behind it. It is like 

 the curtain of Xeuxis, which was itself the picture. 

 There is nothing liohind it. This, as we have 

 said, was a natural reaction, but the pendulum 

 swung too far. No one at the present day would 

 think of denying that in many cases there is some- 

 thing behind the veil that most myths have a 

 meaning of some kind. Nor would any one now 

 admit that myths possess poetic or irsthetic con- 

 sisteney ; on t he contrary, one of the problems of 

 scientific mythology is to explain the inconsistency 

 oi feeling which is to I* found in myths relating 

 to the same subject, to explain, for instance, the 

 repulsive origin attributed by mythology to Aphro- 

 dite, the type of feminine beauty, or the amour 

 carried on by Demeter, the ideal of motherhood, 

 in the shape of a mare, with Poseidon. 



A partial solution of this problem was afforded 

 by the brothers (irimm (q.v.), whose labours mark 

 a new era in mythology. While collecting their 

 famous fairy tales from the mouths of the people, 

 they were forced to the conclusion that many a tale 

 which had hitherto only been known in a literary 

 form had existed orally long before it had been put 

 on pa|icr or shaped into verse, and the further 

 inference from this liccamc the wide-reaching con- 

 clusion that mythology was not, as the allegmy 

 theory had falsely taught, the work of the superior 

 few, hut the production of the |>eople. It was the 

 way in which the many expressed their religious 

 feeling. It was their only mode of expression, and 

 it was theirs exclusively. The current of myth- 

 ology, on this theory, Hows from the lower strata 

 M-ietv to the up|>ci. Here we have an explana- 

 tion of KM incongruity existing in the myths told 

 of Aphrodite or I Vmeter, for instance; for imths 

 could not lie perpetually retold in one generation 

 after another without lieing reshaped to suit the 

 changing modes of t bought of dillerent generations. 

 Km it will be also noticed that, granting that the 

 current of mythology is upwards from lielow, we 

 are no nearer an answer to the (inestion. Why do 

 men tell the extraordinary stones they do tell 

 about their gods? The quarter, however, in which 

 an answer to this ijuestion might be looked for 

 was indicated by Crimin. 



One and the same myth may be found, in differ- 

 ent forms, amongst different. Aryan peoples (see 



Vol. I. p. 471), and although some such myths 

 may have been borrowed by one |>ople from 

 another, just as one language may Uirrow words 

 from Another, still the resemblances l>cl\\ecii 

 the myths of different Aryan iwoples could, like 

 the resemblance lietween their languages, be only 

 properly accounted for on the nppnttbn that 

 they hail been handed down by each separate 

 people from a time when the forefathers of all 

 were united in one home, one tongue, one faith. 

 In fine, the solution of the problem was to be 

 sought in the application of the comparative 

 method to the study of mythology, and in the 

 creation of a comparative mythology of the Aryan 

 peoples. The verification of this hypothesis .is 

 supposed to have lieen effected when it was dis. 

 covered that the literature of Sanskrit threw the 

 same light on the structure of myths as the lan- 

 guage of Sanskrit had thrown on the structure of 

 the Aryan tongues. Comparative mythology may 

 fairly be said to ]>c the creation of two scholars in 

 ( lei-many . \dalliert Kuhn ( 1812-81 ), and in England 

 Max-Mailer (q.v.). The object of the school founded 

 by them U to trace myths Lack to Aryan times, to 

 determine their original forms, and, having done 

 this, to show what was their original meaning, and 

 any changes that may have subsequently come over 

 that meaning. Their guiding principle is that in 

 the Ved:us(q.v.) we see Aryan myths in their earliest 

 form indeed, that we see them in process of making. 

 The conclusion to which they come is that, owing 

 to the defects of language in its earliest stage, the 

 primitive Aryan could only s|>cak of natural objects 

 as living things, and that in coiiseipieiice he came 

 to lielieve that all nature was possessed of life. 

 Again, as in language we can only predicate of a 

 subject something which the subject is not, so in 

 myth, primitive man could only express a pheno- 

 menon of nature by comparing it with something 

 which it was not-in fact, could only express it by 

 a simile. When in course of time, and owing to 

 the 'disease of language,' the meaning of the simile 

 came to lie forgotten, what had originally been a 

 very innocent comparison might liecome a very 

 repulsive myth, l-'or instance, the sun's relation 

 to the dawn may lie likened to that of a husliand 

 to his wife, or of a son to his mother ; and a myth 

 of incest may be the result. 



The reaction against the allegory theory, which 

 was strongest in the time of (Irote, has, we observe, 

 ceased by the time of Max Mullei, and the pen- 

 dulum once more approach*-, mine nearly to the 

 true mean. According to the comparative iiiytholo- 

 gists, there is, after all. something behind myth ; 

 not, however, an intentionally veiled meaning, but 

 an unintentionally forgotten substratum, a simile 

 originally descriptive of some natural phenomenon. 

 I'.ui though this school is right in maintaining that 

 myths have a meaning, and that in some cases the 

 meaning is to lie found in a nictaphiiiii-a! descrip- 

 tion of the sun, the dawn, the wind, \c. , the 

 extremes to which, this mode of interpretation has 

 been pushed have caused a revolt amongst recent 

 mythologists. The eailiest insurgent, Mannhardt 

 (1831-88), was content to turn from the Vcdas to 



popular beliefs and folk talcs as tl arliest stratum 



accessible to the eompaiative mythologist ; but tin- 

 latest revolter, and we may say the greatest, that is 



Cruppo, rejects the < iparative method altogether, 



and undertakes to demonstrate in bis second and 

 following volumes that myths have )>ecn lion-owed 

 by one nation from another, not handed down ftom 

 the climmon ancestors of the separate peoples. It 

 seems indeed impossible to deny that, with regard 

 to the importance of Sanskrit, the same mistake 

 has lieen made by comparative mythulogists as was 

 at lii -t made by comparative philologists. The con- 

 viction i~ spieading that the myths of the Vedas 



