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CHAPTER IV.
THE DEVELOPEMENT OF MYTHOLOGY.
CHAP. IV.
Elasticity of mythical speech.When in the Vedic songs we read of Indra, the sun-god, as fighting with Vritra, the dark power who imprisons the rain in the storm-cloud, or with Ahi, the throtthng snake, or as pursuing the beautiful Dahanâ, of the dawn as the mother or the bride of the sun, or of the sun as slaying the dark parent from whom he has sprung,[1] we feel at once, that in such language we have an instrument of wonderful elasticity, that the form of thought which finds its natural utterance in such expressions must be capable of accommodating itself to every place and every climate, and that it would have as much room for its exercise among the frozen mountains of the North as under the most smiling sky and genial sun. But the time during which this mythical speech was the common language of mankind, would be a period of transition, in which the idea of existence would be sooner or later expanded into that of personality. Probably before this change had taken place, the yet unbroken Aryan family would be scattered to seek new homes in distant lands; and the gradual change of language, which that dispersion rendered inevitable, would involve a more momentous change in their belief. They would carry away with them the old words and expressions; but these would now be associated with new ideas, or else be imperfectly or wrongly understood. Henceforth, the words which had denoted the sun and moon would denote not merely living things but living persons. From personification to deification the steps would be but few; and the process of disintegration would at once furnish the materials for a vast fabric of mythology. All the expressions which had attached a living force to natural objects would remain as the description of personal and anthropomorphous gods. Every word would become an attribute, and all ideas once grouped round a single object would branch off into distinct personifications. The sun had been the lord of light, the driver of the chariot of the day; he had toiled and
- ↑ Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 404.
