Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/149

MYTHOLOGY 137 may therefore say that, while it is rather absurd to believe that Zeus and Tsui-Goab were once real men, yet their myths are such as would be developed by people accus tomed, among other forms of religion, to the worship of dead men. Very probably portions of the legends of real men have been attracted into the mythic accounts of gods of another character, and this is the element of truth at the bottom of Euemerism. This is not the place to deal fully with the modern form of the system as set forth by Mr Herbert Spencer. Later Explanations of Mythology. The ancient systems of explaining what needed explanation in myths were, then, physical, ethical, religious, and historical. One student, like Theagenes, would see a physical philosophy underlying Homeric legends. Another, like Porphyry, would imagine that the meaning was partly moral, partly of a dark theosophic and religious character. Another would detect moral allegory alone, and Aristotle expresses the opinion that the myths were the inventions of legis lators " to persuade the many, and to be used in support of law" (Met., xi. 8, 19). A fourth, like Euemerus, would get rid of the supernatural element altogether, and find only an imaginative rendering of actual history. When Christians approached the problem of heathen mythology, they sometimes held, with St Augustine, a form of the doctrine of Euemerus. 1 In other Avords, they re garded Zeus, Aphrodite, and the rest as real persons, dia bolical not divine. Some later philosophers, especially of the 17th century, misled by the resemblance between Biblical narratives and ancient myths, came to the conclusion that the Bible contains a pure, the myths a distorted, form of an original revelation. The abbe Banier published a mythological compilation in which he systematically re solved all the Greek myths into ordinary history. 2 Bryant published (1774) A Neiv System, or an Analysis of Ancient Mythology, ivherein an Attempt is made to divest Tradition of Fable, in which he talked very learnedly of " that won derful people, the descendants of Gush," and saw every where symbols of the ark and traces of the Noachian deluge. Thomas Taylor, at the end of the 18th century, indulged in much mystical allegorizing of myths, as in the notes to his translation of Pausanias (1794). At an earlier date (1760) De Brosses struck on the true line of interpretation in his little work Du Culte des Dieux Fetiches, ou Parallele de I ancienne Religion de I Egypte avec la Religion actuelle de Nigritie. In this tract De Brosses explained the animal-worship of the Egyptians as a survival among a civilized people of ideas and practices springing from the intellectual condition of savages, and actually existing among negroes. A vast symbolical explanation of myths and mysteries was attempted by Friedrich Creuzer. 3 The learning and sound sense of Lobeck, in his Aglaophamus, exploded the idea that the Eleusinian and other mysteries revealed or concealed matter of momentous religious importance. It ought not to be forgotten that Lafitau, a Jesuit missionary in North America, while inclined to take a mystical view of the secrets concealed by Iroquois myths, had also pointed out the savage element surviving in Greek mythology. 4 The Most Recent Mythological Systems. Up to a very recent date students of mythology were hampered by orthodox traditions, and still more by ignorance of the ancient languages and of the natural history of man. Only recently have Sanskrit and the Egyptian and Chal- 1 De Civ. Dei, vii. 18 ; viii. 26. 2 La Mythologie et les Fables expliquecs par I Histoire, Paris, 1738, 3 vols. 4to. 3 Symbolik und Mythologie der Alien Volker, Leipsic and Darm stadt, 1836-43. 4 Mceurs des &auxages, Paris, 1724. dsean languages become books not absolutely sealed. Again, the study of the evolution of human institutions from the lowest savagery to civilization is essentially a novel branch of research, though ideas derived from an unsystematic study of anthropology are at least as old as Aristotle. The new theories of mythology are based on the belief that "it is man, it is human thought and human language combined, which naturally and necessarily pro duced the strange conglomerate of ancient fable." 5 But, while there is now universal agreement so far, modern mythologists differ essentially on one point. There is a school (with internal divisions) which regards ancient fable as almost entirely "a disease of language," that is, as the result of confusions arising from misunderstood terms that have survived in speech after their original significance was lost. Another school (also somewhat divided against itself) believes that misunderstood language played but a very slight part in the evolution of mythology, and that the irrational element in myths is merely the survival from a condition of thought which was once common, if not universal, but is now only found among savages, and to a certain extent among children. The former school considers that the state of thought out of which myths were developed was produced by decaying language ; the latter maintains that the corresponding phenomena of language were the reflexion of thought. For the sake of brevity we might call the former the "philological" system, as it rests chiefly on the study of language, while the latter might be styled the "historical" or "anthropological" school, as it is based on the study of man in the sum of his manners, ideas, and institutions. The System of Mr Max Miiller. T^hQ most distinguished and popular advocate of the philological school is Mr Max Miiller, whose ideas must now be stated. Their exposition is chiefly to be found in Mr Miiller s Selected Essays and in his Lectures on Language. As the opposite system, the historical or anthropological system, is that which will be adopted in the remainder of this article, our criticism of Mr Miiller s ideas must be accepted as that of an opponent. The problem set himself by Mr Miiller is to explain what he calls "the silly, savage, and senseless" element in mythology (Sel. Ess., i. 578). (1.) Mr Miiller says (speaking of the Greeks), "their poets had an instinctive aversion to everything excessive or monstrous, yet they would relate of their gods what would make the most savage of Bed Indians creep and shudder," stories, that is, of the cannibalism of Demeter, of the mutilation of Uranus, the cannibalism of Cronus, who swallowed his own children, and the like. " Among the lowest tribes of Africa and America we hardly find anything more hideous and revolting." (2.) Mr Miiller refers the beginning of his system of mythology to the discovery of the connexion of the Indo- European or, as they are called, "Aryan" languages. Celts, Germans, speakers of Sanskrit and Zend, Latins and Greeks, all prove by their languages that their tongues may be traced to one family of speech. The comparison of the various words which, in different forms, are common to all Indo-European languages must inevitably throw much light on the original meaning of these words. Take, for example, the name of a god, Zeus, or Athene, or any other. The word may have no intelligible meaning in Greek, but its counterpart in the allied tongues, especially in Sanskrit or Zend, may reveal the original significance of the terms. " To understand the origin and meaning of the names of the Greek gods, and to enter into the original intention of the fables told of each, we must take into account the collateral evidence supplied by Latin, German, 5 Max Miiller, Lectures on Language, 2d series, p. 410, 1864. XVII. 1 8