WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 43 



either created the characters or invented the legends about the Greek gods, 

 which form what the critics of the last century used to call the machinery of 

 his poems. In regard to theological myths, which are most deeply rooted in the 

 popular faith, such a poet as Homer could only turn to the best account the 

 materials already existing, with here and there a little embellishment or expan- 

 sion, where there was no danger of contradicting any article of the received 

 imaginative creed. 



IX. The two most powerful forces which act on the popular mind, when 

 engaged in the process of forming myths, are the physical forces of external 

 nature, and the more hidden, though fundamentally more awful powers of the 

 human will, intellect, and passions. It is to be presumed, therefore, that all 

 popular myths will contain imaginative representations of both these powers ; 

 and, in their original shape, they are in fact nothing more than the assertion of 

 the existence of these two great classes of forces in a form which speaks to the 

 imagination — that is, in the form of personality ; and there will be a natural pre- 

 sumption against the adopting of any system of mythological interpretation 

 which ignores entirely either the one or the other of these elements. If this 

 proposition be correct, the objections of Max Muller (Chips, ii. 156) to the 

 Greek derivation of 'E/hvu?, from the old Arcadian epiwveiv (Pausan. viii. 25, 6), 

 are unfounded. 



X. The most fertile soil for purely theological myths is polytheism ; and the 

 most obvious as well as the largest field for a religion of multiform person- 

 alities, is external nature. In the interpretation of such myths, therefore, we 

 shall be justified in searching primarily for the great forces and phenomena of 

 the physical world, as underlying the imaginative narrative and imparting to it 

 its true significance ; and in proportion to the prominence of these phenomena, 

 and the potency of these forces, will the probability be that we shall find them 

 fully represented in any body of polytheistic theology. 



XL As the essence of polytheism thus consists in the habitual elevation 

 of what we call physical facts and forces into divine personalities, the line 

 betwixt a purely physical myth and a theological myth will naturally be 

 extremely difficult to draw. Zeus, for instance, as the Thunderer, represents 

 a physical fact as well as a theological doctrine ; nevertheless, it would be 

 wrong to assume that there is no such element in tradition as a strictly physical 

 myth. Certain striking facts of volcanic action or geological change, strange 

 and grotesque shapes of rocks and other natural objects, unusual conforma- 

 tions of landscape, not to mention the occasional discovery of gigantic fossil 

 bones, and even entire skeletons of animals no longer existing, might well 



