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II. — On Scientific Method in the Interpretation of Popular Myths, with special 

 reference to Greek Mythology. By Professor Blackie. 



(Read 17th January 1870.) 



Of all the branches of interesting and curious learning, there is none 

 which has been so systematically neglected in this country as mythology — 

 a subject closely connected both with theology and philosophy, and on 

 which those grand intellectual pioneers and architects, the Germans, have 

 expended such a vast amount of profitable and unprofitable labour. The 

 consequence of this neglect has been, that of the few British books we have 

 on the subject, the most noticeable are not free from the dear seduction of 

 favourite ideas, which possess the minds of the writers as by a juggling witch- 

 craft, and prevent them from looking on a rich and various subject with that 

 many-sided sympathy and catholic receptiveness which it requires. In fact, 

 some of our most recent writers on this subject have not advanced a single 

 step, in respect of scientific method, beyond Jacob Bryant, unquestionably the 

 most learned and original speculator on mythology of the last century ; but 

 whose great work, nevertheless, can only be compared to a grand chase in the 

 dark, with a few bright flashes of discovery, and happy gleams of suggestion by 

 the way. For these reasons, and to make a necessary protest against some 

 ingenious aberrations of Max Muller, Gladstone, Inman, and Cox in the 

 method of mythological interpretation, I have undertaken to read the present 

 paper ; which, if it possess only the negative virtue of warning people to be 

 sober-minded and cautious when entering on a path of so slippery inquiry, 

 cannot be deemed impertinent at the present moment. 



For the sake of distinctness and compactness, I will state what I have to 

 say in a series of articulate propositions. 



I. By the mythology of a people, I understand the general body of their 

 traditions, handing down from the earliest times the favourite national ideas and 

 memories, in a narrative form, calculated to delight the imagination and stimu- 

 late the affections of love and reverence. 



II. The dress of all mythology, as appealing to the imagination, is neces- 

 sarily poetical ; the contents of it are generally four fold — (1.) Theological ; 

 (2.) Physical ; (3.) Historical ; and (4.) Philosophical and Moral. 



VOL. XXVI. PART I. L 



