58 PROFESSOR BLACKIE ON INTERPRETATION OF POPULAR MYTHS. 



leading principles on which a sound and safe interpretation of early popular 

 myths must proceed. I have kept myself purposely within the bounds of what 

 appears to me sober statement, not being eager for the glory of adventure in 

 this nebulous field; and if I shall seem to have achieved a very small thing when 

 I keep myself within these bounds, I have at least kept myself clear of non- 

 sense, which in mythological science is as common as sunk rocks in the Shetland 

 seas. To Max Muller, and other Sanscrit scholars, I hope I shall always be 

 grateful for any happy illustrations which they may supply of the general 

 character of Aryan myths, and of occasional coincidences of the Hellenic mode 

 of imagining with the Indian ; and I think the somewhat cold and unimaginative 

 race of English scholars are under no small obligations to him for having taught 

 them to recognise poetical significance and religious value in some legends, 

 which passed in their nomenclature for silly fables or worthless facts ; but I 

 profess to have been unable to derive any sure clue from the far East to the 

 most difficult questions of Greek mythology ; nor do I expect that, when every 

 obsolete word in the Rigveda shall have been thoroughly sifted and shaken, 

 a single ray of intelligible light will thence flow on the Athena of the Parthenon, 

 or the Hermes of the Cyllenian slopes. I believe that in the region of mytho- 

 logy they will ultimately be found to be the wisest, who are at present content 

 to know the least; that while some mythological fables are too trifling to 

 deserve interpretation, others are too tangled to admit of it ; and that the man 

 who, at the present day, shall attempt to interpret the Greek gods from the 

 transliteration of Sanscrit or Hebrew words, will be found, like Ixion, to have 

 embraced a cloud for a goddess, and to have fathered a magnificent lie from 

 the fruitful womb of his own conceit. There is no more dangerous passion than 

 that which an ingenious mind conceives for the fine fancies which it begets. 



