130 



• KNOWLEDGE 



[Makch 2, 1883. 



food in oarttily pasturos. Tlicrc woiilil bo other cxprcsnions which 

 wtmlil atill irninin a« floating phrases, not attached to any ilofinite 

 doitiea. Thi-so would gradually ho converted into incidents in the 

 lifoof horoe^^, and bo woven at length into systematic variations. 

 Finally, these gods and heroes, and the incidents of their mythical 

 career, would receive each ' a local habitation and a name.' These 

 would remain as gonnino history when the oripn and meaning of 

 the Avords had been either wholly or in part forgoticn " (p. 51). 



Such is the " solar myth " theory, the general principles 

 of which are sound enough, but the unqualified application 

 of which has caused recoil in many minds inclined to its 

 acceptanoi'. " We can hardly," as Mr. Matthew Arnold 

 says, "now look up at the sun without having the sensations 

 of a myth," and if occasion lias not been given to the 

 adversary to blaspheme, he has been supplied with 

 •■imple material for banter and ridicule. Some of the 

 happiest illustrations of this are made by Mr. Foster in 

 his amusing and really informing essay on " Nature Myths 

 in Nursery Rhymes," reprinted in " Leisure Studies," an 

 essay which it seems the immaculate critics took aii 

 f,vriei(x ! With a little exercise of one's invention, given 

 also ability to parody, it will be found that many noted 

 events, as well as the lives of the chief actors in them, 

 yield results comforting to the solar mythologists. Not 

 only the Volsungs and the Iliad, but the story of 

 the Crusades and of the conquest of Mexico ; not 

 only Arthur and Baldr, but Cfesar and Bonaparte, 

 may be readily resolved, as Professor Tyndall says we all 

 shall be, " like streaks of morning cloud, into the infinite 

 azure of the past." Dnpuis, in his researches into the con- 

 nection between astronomy and mythology, had suggested 

 that Jesus was the sun, and the twelve apostles the 

 zodiacal signs ; and Goldziher, analysing the records of a 

 remote period, maintains the same concerning Jacob and 

 his twelve sons. M. Senart has satisfied himself that 

 Gautama the Buddha, is a sun-myth. Archbishop 

 Whately, to confound the sceptics, ingeniously disproved 

 the existence of Bonaparte ; and a French ecclesiastic 

 has by witty etymological analogies shown that Napoleon 

 is cognate with Apollo, the sun, and his mother Letitia 

 identical with Leto, the mother of Apollo ; that his p«r- 

 ixtrm^l of twelve Marshals were the signs of the zodiac, 

 his retreat from Moscow a fiery setting, and his emergence 

 from Elba, to rule for twelve years, and then be banished 

 to St Helena, the sun rising out of the eastern waters, to 

 set in the western ocean after twelve hours' reign in the 

 sky. But upon this solar theory, let us cite what Dr. 

 Tylor, whose soberness of judgment renders him a valuable 

 guide along the zigzag ]>ath of human progress, says : — 

 " The close and deep analogies between the life of nature 

 and the life of man have been for ages dwelt upon by 

 poets and philosophers, who, in simile or in argument, have 

 told of light and darkness, of calm and tempest, of birth, 

 growth, change, decay, dissolution, renewal. But no one- 

 sided interpretation can be permitted to absorb into a 

 single theory such endless many-sided correspondences as 

 these. Rash inferences which, on the strength of mere 

 resemblance, derive episodes of myth from episodes of 

 nature, must be regarded with utter mistrust, for the 

 student who has no more stringent criterion than this for 

 his myths of sun and sky and davm, will find them 

 wherever it pleases him to seek them." 



The investigations of comparative mythologists, more par- 

 ticularly in this country and Germany, have thrown such 

 valuable light oa the history of civilisation that it will be 

 instructive to learn what excited the inquiry, on what 

 facts the solar theory rests, and what other facts its 

 supporters overlook. 



The researches of Niebuhr and his school into the 

 credibility of early history made manifest that the only 



authority on which the chroniclers relied was tradition. 

 To them — children of an uncritical age — that tradition 

 was venerable with the lapse of time, and binding as a 

 rev('lation from the gods. To us the charm and inte- 

 rest of it lie in detecting within it the ancient deposit of a 

 mythoprric period, and in deciphering from it what manner 

 of men they must have been among whom such explanation 

 of the beginnings had credence. And in such an inquiry 

 nothing can be "common or unclean," nothing too trivial 

 or puerile for analysis ; for wliere the most grotesque and 

 impossible are found, there we are nearer to the conditions 

 of which we would know more. 



The serious endeavour to get at the fact underlying the 

 fabulous was extended to the great body of mythology 

 which had not been incorporated into history, and the 

 interpretations of which satisfied only those who suggested 

 them. As hinted already, the Greeks had sought out the 

 meaning of their myths, with here and there a glimpse 

 of the truth gained ; but this was confined to the 

 philosophers and poets. Euhemeros degraded them into 

 dull chronicle, making Herakles a thief who carried off 

 a crop of oranges ; Jove a king crushing rebellion ; Atlas 

 an astronomer ; Python a freebooter ; yEolus a weather- 

 wise seaman, and so on. Plutarch tried to "restore" 

 them, but only defaced them, and after centuries of 

 neglect they were discovered by Lord Bacon to be 

 allegories with a moral. Then Banier and Lempriere 

 emptied out of them what little life Euhemeros had left, 

 and the believers in Hebrew as the original speech of 

 mankind saw in them the fragments of a universal 

 primitive revelation ! Even the distinguished scholar, 

 Professor Max Miiller, is so upset by the many loathsome 

 and revolting stories in a mythology current in the land of 

 Lykurgos and Solon, that he can account for them only liy 

 assuming "a period of temporary insanity through which 

 the human mind had to pass," and a degradation from 

 lovely metaphor to coarse fact which only a " disease of 

 language " explains. There is, however, no need for 

 assumptions of this or of any other kind, for language itself 

 reveals the origin of myth, and shows it to be in keeping 

 with all that is elsewhere established concerning primitive 

 modes of thinking. 



BICYCLES AND TRICYCLES IN 1883. 



By John Browsing, 



Chairman and Treasurer of the Loniinn Tricncle Chih. 



"f ItTHEN referring to bicycles in my previous articles, I 

 * * intended to mention the " Facile," and I now gladly 

 repair the omission. 



The machine may be considered fairly safe ; it is a good 

 hill-climber, and the wonderful records made in the late 

 Bath-road ride, when Mr. W^alter Snook rode 21.5 miles in 

 twenty-four hours, prove the " Facile" to be one of the best 

 long-distance roadsters made. 



A scientific friend, who has for a long time ridden a 

 tricycle, consulted me some months ago respecting a bicycle. 

 I recommended the " Facile," and a few days since he told 

 me that he was so pleased with the machine that he con- 

 templated giving up his tricycle altogether, in favour of 

 the "Facile." The " Special Facile " has ball-bearings to all 

 motions ; both this and the ordinary machine might easily 

 be made to weigh a few pounds less with advantage. 



Ha%nng, in my previous article, said so much about a 

 rear-steering tricycle, the " Sterling," I must devote the 

 rest of my space in this paper to front-steering machines. 



