INTRODUCTION 



on the whole, accepts.^ In consequence of Max 

 Miiller's influence, in the course of the " Myths 

 and Myth-Makers," Fiske freely uses what is 

 usually called the " solar " theory for the ex- 

 planation of many myths, and extends this ex- 

 planation over a decidedly wide range. While, 

 in one passage, Fiske refers to Spencer's already 

 published essay on " The Origin of Animal 

 Worship," ^ he does not give in his adherence 

 to the full Spencerian doctrine, according to 

 which ^//mythology can be traced back, through 

 ancestor-worship, to the belief in the survival 

 of the dead. In the " Cosmic Philosophy " 

 (Part I. chapter vii.) Fiske asserts that : " In 

 the primitive hypothesis, the forces of nature 

 must have been likened to human volition, be- 

 cause there was nothing else with which to com- 

 pare them. Man felt within himself a source of 

 power, and did not yet surmise that power could 

 have any other source than one like that which 

 he knew. Seeing activity everywhere, and know- 



^ Loc. cit. chap, vii., at the outset. "The analyses of 

 myths contained in this noble essay [Miiller's Essay on 

 Comparative Mythology~\ are in the main sound in princi- 

 ple and correct in detail." This introduces a sentence in 

 which Miiller's general theory is ** nevertheless " condemned. 



2 Now printed in the Essays^ Library Edition, vol. i. pp. 

 308—350 ; cited by Fiske in chapter vii. of the Myths and 

 Myth- Makers, 



cxli 



