308 



KNOWLEDGE • 



[Dec. 19, 1884. 



Ivffaifhj^* 



CUSTOM AND MYTH.* 

 By Edward Clodd. 



[kisst notice.] 



^"^HIS is a book, or, to deficp it more accurately, collec- 

 tion of papers, of remarkable value and interest. 

 Mr-. Lang's numerous contrihuticns, both in vigorous 

 |)rose and "aeryligbt" verse, to current literature are 

 well-known, and the daintiest essay from his pen wears 

 easily that grace of scholarship of which his Homeric 

 t'anslations, as well as the original poem, "Helen of 

 Troy," are such solid, and withal delightful, credentials. 

 His articles on the Family and on Mythology in the 

 new edition of the " I^>ncyclop:edia Britannica," charged 

 as they are with the true historic spirit, led us to expect 

 that independent and masterly analysis of the generally- 

 accepted method of comparative mythology known as 

 the "solar," which the volume before us, and, in a 

 ■lesser degree, his introduction to the new version 

 of Grimm's stories (" Kinder und Hausniiirchen ") 

 supply. But although controversial matter, therefore, 

 enters largely, and of necessity, into the present work, 

 ■it obscures neither the constructive material in it, the 

 foundation of which is well and truly laid, nor the illustia- 

 tions thrown freely and felicitously on every page. Speci- 

 mens of the varied range and scope of these will be given 

 presently, meanwhile the prominence which Mr. Lang 

 aa^igns to adverse criticism of the solar theory requires that 

 the measure of success or failure attending that criticism be 

 first discussed. Remembering what a veil hung over our 

 knowledge of the movements of races in times geologically 

 recent, but historically remote, and especially concerning 

 the ancestors of the Eunpean rations, we cannot easily 

 over estimate the value of the results which Bopp, Grimm, 

 Schleicher, and later scholars (working on Schlegel's early 

 ^lypothesis), obtained by the comp:Hri.son of the languages 

 grouped under the general term I[}do-European or Aryan. 

 The descent of the languages spoken by cur composite 

 Kiglish race, and other leading European peoples, also by 

 Hindus, Persian?, and some smaller peoples in Asia, from 

 an ancestral tongue ; one key to the earlier form of which 

 i^ supplied in the Vedic Sanskrit, being demonstrated, 

 ^philologists were enabled to pass from words to the things 

 which they connoted, and to construct a vivid sketch of 

 old Aryan life at a time when the congeries of tribes were 

 scattered over the uplands of Central Asia, or the plains of 

 Central Europe, for the exact site remains undetermined. 



Although the vivid picture (f their mode of life thus 

 ■constructed out of the immaterial relics of speech is now 

 uenerally admitted to have been over-coloured, chiefly from 

 <he tendency to read modern meanings into the ancient 

 ■rt'ords, the importance of the discovery remains undi- 

 minished. It led to the extension of the method to the 

 c imparison of the leading mythologies of the Indo- 

 jKuropean family, whereby common elemen's were traceable 

 within them, and some semblance of order imported into 

 ■.vhat had been confused, disconnected, and misunderstood. 

 An additional motive for inquiry was furnished by the 

 incongruous, often coarse and disgusting features of these 

 mythologies, explanation of which appeared to be supplied 

 in the analysis of the proper names composing the dramatis 

 fiTsonce of the myth. The meaning of these names once 

 ''determined, the key t<) the meaning of the story was clear, 



, * "Custom and Myth." By Andrew Lani;, M. A. (Longmans. 

 aS81.) 



bfcause, it is contended, they were the germs, the oldest 

 surviving part of the story. Mr. Lang and other autho- 

 rities contend, on the other hand, that the meanings are not 

 determined, and that the names are much younger than the 

 stories; but upon this more presently. 



The analysis of the names, the solar mythologists say, 

 proves that they were originally " appellations," applied to 

 the powers of nature, chiefly and extensively to the sun, 

 the dawn, and the other ever-varying phases incident to 

 his daily path across the sky. In the early stages of 

 language the same object would be called by different 

 names, and the same name given to different objects, 

 according to the onlooker's mood or standpoint ; the most 

 strikingly descriptive names becoming the most permanent. 

 Although the primitive meaning in the course of time 

 faded away, the words remained with changed meaning, no 

 longer figurative, but literal ; no longer fluent, but crystal- 

 lised. The sun, the dawn, the cloud, carae to be regarded 

 as gods, " the nomina became nvmina, and out of the 

 inextricable confusion of thought which followed, the belief 

 in canniba', bestial, adulterous, and inces'uous gods was 

 evolved." This is due, Professor Max Miilier (ihe ablest 

 exponent of the theory in this country) says, to a disease 

 of language — i.e., to the confusion ari.sing from forgotten 

 meanings, and with that explanation most of us have long 

 remained content. 



But the mythologists who regard the comparison of 

 groups of allied languages as the only key to the intel- 

 lectual condition of men in the past, shut their eyes, and, as 

 with Professor Max Miilier, wilfully, to every other kind of 

 evidence. If the Aryans were a primitive race, there would 

 be good reasons for trusting the Vedas as the record of 

 men's earliest thought, for picturing them as passing each 

 day in shuddering anxiety as they watched the varying 

 fortunes of the sun — now strangling the cloud-serpent, 

 now running his c urse like a giant, now plunging into the 

 leaden sea ; and for refusing to compare the myths of 

 barbaric, and therefore degraded races, with such refined pro- 

 ducts of the human mind as Aryan myths. But the Aryans 

 were very far from being primitive men ; relatively to these 

 they are but of ytsterday, and their mjths are the more or 

 less polished survivals of a remote ancestral fancy spelling 

 out the mi aning of the ancient heavens, and working on 

 the crudest, most confused knowledge of the earth. More- 

 over, although the method of the comparative philologist is 

 uniform, the outcome varies much. Even where there is 

 agreement as to the etymology there is difiVrence as to the 

 meaning of the word. This would not matter greatly if 

 the general principle which makes the essential feature of 

 a myth depend on the appellation was surrendered. But 

 where this is retained the dissidence is fatal. 



Professor Max Miilier has contended that the irrational 

 element in mythology can be accounted for only in one of 

 two ways, either by taking it as a matter of fact, as an 

 actual occurrence, or by referring it to the influence of 

 language on thought, " so that many i f the hgends of gods 

 and heroes may be rendered intelligible if only we can 

 discover the original mfaning of their jtroper names." 



According to the ^first method, the mvth of Daphne 

 changed into a laurel tree by the gods when nearly over- 

 taken by Phcebus is a poetic version of the flight of a girl 

 from the wooer she dislikes, and her concealment behind a 

 lanrel-tree. 



This is the Euhemeristic method, so named after Euhe- 

 merus, who degraded the myths to commonplace history, 

 contending that the gods were originally men who had 

 distinguished themselves as warriors, culture-heroes, and 

 the like, or who were ignoble drovers or freebooters. Mr. 

 Spencer's theory of mythology, under ■which every form of 



J 



