Myth and Science | Page 4

restrict our inquiry to modern times subsequent to
Creuzer's learned and extensive labours. In a more scientific method,
and divested of prejudice, we propose to trace the sources of myth in

general, and among various peoples in particular.
The science of languages, or comparative philology, is the chief
instrument required in such researches, and much light has been
acquired in our days, which has led to surprising results, at least within
the sphere of the special races to which it has been applied. The names
of Kuhn, Weber, Sonne, Benfey, Grimm, Schwartz, Hanusch, Maury,
Bréal, Pictet, l'Ascoli, De Gubernatis, and many others, are well known
for their marvellous discoveries in this new and arduous field. They
have not only fused into one ancient and primitive image the various
myths scattered in different forms among the Aryan races, but they
have revealed the original conception, as it existed in the earliest
meaning of words before their dispersion. Hence came the multiplicity
of myths, developed in brilliant anthropomorphic groups in different
theologies, gradually becoming more simple as time went on, then
uniting in the vague primitive personification of the winds, the storms,
the sun, the dawn; in short, of astral and meteorological phenomena.
On the other hand, Max Müller, whose theory of original myths is
peculiar to himself, has made use of this philological instrument to
prove that the Aryan myths may at any rate be referred to a single
source, namely to metaphor, or to the double meaning of words, due to
the poverty of primitive languages. He calls this double meaning the
infirmity of speech.
I do not deny that many conclusions to which some or other of the great
authorities just mentioned have arrived may be as true as they are
surprising. I also admit that this may be a certain method of
distinguishing the various mythical representations in their early
beginnings from their subsequent and complex forms. But in all the
facts which have been ascertained, or which may hereafter be
ascertained, from the comparative study of the languages of different
races, no explanation is afforded of the fact that into the natural and
primitive phenomena of myth, or, as Müller holds, into its various
metaphors, man has so far infused his own life, that they have, like man
himself, a subjective and deliberate consciousness and force. It seems
to me that this problem has not yet been solved by scholars; they have

stopped short after establishing the primary fact, and are content to
affirm that such is human nature, which projects itself on external
things.[3]
This explanation establishes a true and universal fact, but it is not the
explanation of the fact itself; yet it is not, as we shall see, incapable of
solution, and it appears to me that the ultimate source whence myths
really proceed has not been reached.
Again, if such an opinion and such a method can give us the key to the
polytheistic origin of the respective Olympuses of classic Greece and
Rome, it leaves unexplained the numerous and manifold superstitions
which philology itself proves to have existed prior to the origin of
cosmic myths. These superstitions can by no means be referred to a
common source, to the astral and meteorological myths, some of which
were prior, while others were subsequent to these superstitions.
Taking, therefore, the general and more important opinions which are
now current respecting the origin of myth, it may be said that in
addition to the systems already mentioned, two others are presented to
us with the weight of authority and knowledge; these, while they do not
renounce the appliances and linguistic analyses of the former, try to
unite all the mythical sources of mankind in general into a single head,
whence all myths, beliefs, superstitions, and religions have their origin.
While France and Germany and some other nations have achieved
distinction in this field, England has been especially remarkable for the
nature of her attempts, and the vastness of her achievements in every
direction. We pass over many great minds which were first in the field
in order to dwell on the two men who, as it seems to me, have summed
up the knowledge of others, and have formulated a theory in great
measure peculiar to themselves.
Tylor's well known name will at once suggest itself, and that of Herbert
Spencer; the former, in his great work on the "Early History of
Mankind and of Civilization," and other writings, the latter, in the first
volume of his "Sociology," and in his earlier works, have respectively
established the doctrine of the universal origin of myths on the basis of
ethnography, on the psychological examination of the primary facts of

the intelligence, and on the conception of the evolution of the general
phenomena of nature.
It would, indeed, be difficult