324 HISTORICAL TRADITIONS AND MYTHS OF OBSERVATION. 



re-peopled the earth, does not flow so immediately from the 

 observation of natural phenomena that we can easily suppose 

 it to have originated several times independently in such a way, 

 yet this is a feature common to the great mass of flood traditions. 

 Still more strongly does this argument apply to the occurrence 

 f some form of raft, ark, or canoe, in which the survivors are 

 usually saved, unless, as in some cases, they take refuge di- 

 rectly on the top of some mountain which the waters never 

 cover. The idea is indeed conceivable, if somewhat far-fetched, 

 that from the sight of a boat found high on a mountain there 

 mio-ht grow a story of the flood which carried it there, while 

 the people in it escaped to found a new race. But it lies out- 

 side all reasonable probability to suppose such circumstances 

 to have produced the same story in several different places, nor 

 is it very likely that the dim remembrances of a number of local 

 floods should accord in this with the amount of consistency that 

 is found among the flood-traditions of remote regions of the 

 world. The occurrence of an ark in the traditions of a deluge, 

 found in so many distant times and places, seems to entitle 

 them to be received as derived from a single source, and thus 

 forming part of the mass of evidence from art, custom, and be- 

 lief, which supports the theory of a deep-lying historical con- 

 nexion of the mental development of the whole human race. 



As to Myths of Observation in general, the line of demar- 

 cation which separates them on the one hand from traditions of 

 real events, and on the other from more purely mythic tales, 

 is equally hard to draw. Even the stories which have their 

 origin in a mere realized metaphor, or a personification of the 

 phenomena of nature, will attach themselves to real persons, 

 places, or objects, as strongly as though they actually belonged 

 to them. To the subjective mind of the myth. maker, every 

 hill and valley, every stone and tree, that strikes his attention, 

 becomes the place where some mythic occurrence happened 

 to gods, or heroes, or fair women, or monsters, or ethereal 

 beings. When once the tale is made, the rock or tree becomes 

 evidence of its truth to future generations : " the bricks are 

 alive at this day to testify it ; therefore, deny it not." 



