The Solar Theory of Myths. 



61 



skies as the one clear-sighted man in a blind nation. From 

 the ground which the church took, and also from the fact 

 that the explanation had at least the merit of simplicity, 

 this theory, though never adopted by the more advanced 

 thinkers, has been the one generally held. But the Abbe 

 Banier, who died in 1741, not only supported this view, 

 but laboriously compiled all that could be found concerning 

 the pagan gods and heroes, arranged his material so well 

 and explained it so cleverly, that the reader can scarcely 

 avoid hoping that it may all be true. He did the work too 

 well to need successors, and from the translations of Banier 

 has been derived the lore which cumbers the notes upon 

 classic authors, and the pre-historic genealogies which 

 torture the schoolboy. Even now, as an example of pure, 

 parrot-like conservatism, we tind the Encyclopedici Bri- 

 taimica repeating the time-worn stories for which Eue- 

 meros was indebted to an unlimited imagination. 



But meanwhile geology and astronomy, not imbued 

 witb lespect for classical learning and awe for hoary tra- 

 dition, passed unheeded the procul, procul este profani," 

 set up in their path, and, far beyond the old boundary, 

 found the records of a measureless past, literally graven 

 upon tablets of stone. As long as the veil had never been 

 lifted it might seem plausible that nothing lay beyond ; 

 but when behind it the path was still discerned, obscure 

 yet real, theory yielded to fact, and the chroniclers began 

 to write the story of a past so long forgotten. A new 

 ally was called in. Language, hitherto but the herald of 

 sovereign man, was made to tell its own marvelous history ; 

 individuals no longer stood forth as the objects of specula- 

 tion, but the story of races was written, and back of the 

 so-called historical stretched a philological past. Individuals 

 gave place to nations, nations gathered themselves into 

 races, races were grouped into stocks, and it seemed that 

 we must meet with humanity as one whole from which all 

 races have diverged; when, just before the longed-for 



