60 



The Solar Theory of Myths, 



famous.^ But by far their most remarkable treatment was 

 made by Court de Gebeliu, iu the latter part of the last 

 century. His scheme was no less than to bring together 

 into one whole the languages, religions and philosophy of 

 the world. Sanscrit was not yet known, yet this man 

 already maintained theories, into which the discoveries of 

 Sir William Jones led the later investigators ; philology 

 was scarcely in existence, yet we find in his pages the same 

 principles applied, and, in many cases, the same results 

 attained, that, when ofiered by Miiller, are hailed as won- 

 derful discoveries ; and his writings read like a production 

 of our centennial year, instead of what they really are, a 

 work one hundred years old. He recognized a unity in 

 systems apparently so diverse, and concluded that they were 

 but figurative statements of the principles of agriculture, 

 m which the central figures were the sun as he passed over 

 the signs of the zodiac and the farmer, for whom he 

 marked out the periods of seed time and harvest. So much 

 for the allegorical treatment of myths. 



The historical plan was first adopted by Euemeros who 

 lived more than three hundred years before the Christian 

 era. By the Indian sea, in a country which he called Pan- 

 chaia, he claimed to have seen a brazen column, which 

 Zens as an earthly monarch had set up as a memorial of 

 his victorious march. He soon broached the theory, 

 supported by facts manufactured at a wonderful rate, that 

 mythology was but history; that the gods were but human 

 conquerors, and the wonderful stories concerning them but 

 exaggerated accounts of events which really occurred. He 

 was rewarded for his pains by the universal detestation in 

 which he was held by his countrymen and the epithet of 

 atheist justly fastened upon him. More than a century 

 later, Ennius translated his writings into Latin, Polybius 

 adopted his views in loio, and in the early Christian cen- 

 turies, the fathers, led by St. Augustine, lauded him to the 



* Bacon — Essays on the Wisdom of the Ancients. 



