44 PROFESSOR BLACKIE ON INTERPRETATION OF POPULAR MYTHS, 



form the basis of what is properly termed a physical or a geological, rather than a 

 theological myth; and, as Hartung well remarks (Gr. Myth. i. p. 168), notable 

 recurrent events in nature, such as the heavy rains at the end of summer, are 

 peculiarly calculated to impress the popular imagination, and to produce 

 myths. 



XII. But as to man there is, after all, nothing more interesting and more 

 important than man, it is in the highest degree unreasonable, in the interpreta- 

 tion of myths, to proceed on the assumption that all myth is idea, and that no 

 myth contains any historical element. It may be true, no doubt, that in the case 

 of some particular nation, all action of the popular imagination on human per- 

 sonalities has been excluded ; but such a one-sided action is not to be presumed ; 

 it must be proved ; and that in such a rich and various mythology as the Greek 

 all reference to human characters and human exploits should be systematically 

 excluded is in the highest degree improbable. In a country where the gods 

 descended so easily into humanity, it were strange if men had not occasionally 

 ascended into godhood. 



XIII. In a theology so thoroughly anthropomorphic as the Greek, the 

 distinction between the divine and human element will sometimes be difficult 

 to trace ; for the same feelings, situations, and actions will necessarily belong to 

 human gods and to godlike men. But this state of the case, in the interpretation 

 of any particular myth, is a ground for doubt, not for dogmatism. It includes 

 the possibility or the probability of one or two explanations, but the certainty 

 of neither. 



XIV. The incredible exaggerations or embellishments with which the name 

 of any national hero may have been handed down in a popular myth afford no 

 presumption against the genuine historical character of its nucleus. On the 

 contrary, it is just because extraordinary characters have existed, that extraor- 

 dinary and incredible, miraculous and even impossible stories are invented about 

 them. A plain, sober, critical, matter-of-fact account of its early popular heroes 

 is not to be expected from any people. 



XV. The error of certain ancient rationalising interpreters of the Greek 

 myths did not consist in presuming historical fact as the nucleus of some 

 myths, but in the indiscriminate application of the historical interpretation to 

 all myths, and that often in a very prosaic and altogether tasteless way. 



XVI. The error of certain modern idealising interpreters of the Greek 

 mythology does not consist in endeavouring to recover the ideas which 



