Mythology

“ Men's attention would never have been surprised into the perpetual study and questioning of mythology if it had been intelligible and dignified, and if its report had been in accordance with the reason of civilised and cultivated races. What mythologists wish to discover is the origin of the countless disgusting, amazing, and incongruous legends which occur in the myths of all known peoples. ”

“ Here is not only metaphor, but personification so strong and vivid that it is only kept from passing into mythology by the conscious and reflective character of the age in which it was created.
Mythology.—The other great primitive creation wrought by the action of the human imagination, in its attempts to name and explain the appearances of visible Nature, was ancient mythology. That huge unintelligible mass of fable which we find imbedded in the poets of Greece and Rome has long been a riddle which no learning could read. ”

“ If we accept the definition that mythology is the idea of God expressed in symbol, figure, and narrative, and always struggling toward a clearer utterance, it is well not only to trace this idea in its very earliest embodiment in language, but also, for the sake of comparison, to ask what is its latest and most approved expression. ”

“ And mythology is a link between them, connecting the visible and invisible, until at length the sensuous exterior falls away, and the severance of the inner and outer world, of the idea and the object of sense, becomes complete. ”

“ IT is instructive to compare superstition with science. Mythology is the term used to designate the superstitions of the ancients. Folk-lore is the term used to designate the superstitions of the ignorant of today. Ancient mythology has been carefully studied by modern thinkers for purposes of trope and simile in the embellishment of literature, and especially of poetry; then it has been investigated for the purpose of discovering its meaning in the hope that some occult significance might be found, on the theory that the wisdom of the ancients was far superior to that of modern men. ”

“ It is precisely in this ever recurring elevation of an adjective or a verb to a noun, of a predicate to a subject, that this disease of language, as I have called mythology, has its deepest roots. Here lies the genesis of the majority of gods, not by any means, as it is generally believed I have taught, merely in later quibbles and misunderstandings, which are interesting and popular, but have little reference to the deepest nature of the myth. ”

“ This is called the heroic age, and is known to us only by legends and traditions, called myths. They pertain both to gods and men, and are connected with what we call mythology, which possesses no historical importance, although it is full of interest for its poetic life. And as mythology is interwoven with the literature and the art of the ancients, furnishing inexhaustible subjects for poets, painters, and sculptors, it can not be omitted wholly in the history of that classic people, whose songs and arts have been the admiration of the world. ”

“ It is essential that the teacher of mythology, no matter what textbook or system he uses or what classic epic he proposes to present, should first make himself acquainted with the meaning of myth, its origin and elements; the difference between myth and fable, between myths explanatory and myths æsthetic, myths reasonable and myths unreasonable, the theories of myth-making as a process of deterioration or as a process of development. ”

“ Know, then, that the birth-time of mythology and romance was in the primeval ages of man. The ancient heathens believed in the legends of their deities, as we have credence in modern history and biography; indeed, the romance of the moderns was with the ancients truth. They had implicit faith in the presence of their gods, and that they might perchance meet them in the groves and hills, which were consecrated to their worship, and adorned with sculpture and idols in honour of the deities. ”

“ In a word, civilized mankind, having outgrown the earlier nature-worship, and having found the philosophic reason inadequate to provide a satisfying way of life, accepted a new mythology, because it was inspired by ideas which were powerful to guide, to inspire, and to console. For many centuries we shall look in vain for any serious study of human life except in conformity to the Christian mythology. ”

“ The anthropological method in mythology is the same. In civilised religion and myth we find rudimentary survivals, fossils of rite and creed, ideas absolutely incongruous with the environing morality, philosophy, and science of Greece and India. ”

“ The close connection between religion and mythology, under-estimated by many, has been fully appreciated by the great British anthropologist, Sir James Frazer, and by classical scholars like Miss Jane Harrison. The myth is the Bible of the primitive, and just as our Sacred Story lives in our ritual and in our morality, as it governs our faith and controls our conduct, even so does the savage live by his mythology. ”

“ The one accepts mythology as a collection of stories of purely external significance, which as such could not fail to be unworthy presentations of the Divine nature, though able, when regarded apart from such associations, to reveal to us much that is finely conceived, delightful, interesting, nay, even of great beauty. ”

“ In constructing the records of their history they did not work backwards from the light of the present into an ever darkening past, but they began from the beginning in the full light of the gods from whom all things sprang, and mythology passed into history by imperceptible gradations. They knew more about the beginning when all things were completely in the hands of the gods than they did about their immediate past. ”

“ To some extent, mythology is only the most ancient history and biography. So far from being false or fabulous in the common sense, it contains only enduring and essential truth, the I and you, the here and there, the now and then, being omitted. Either time or rare wisdom writes it. Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years. The poet is he who can write some pure mythology to-day without the aid of posterity. ”

“ While mythology is thus no more to us than an affair of historical or antiquarian study, we must remember that the interpretation of myths was once a thing full of vital interest to men whose moral and religious beliefs were deeply concerned. To every civilised race there has come the moment when people have anxiously asked, "Are the old legends of the gods literally true, and, if not literally true, in what sense are they to be believed?" ”

“ Mythology, taken in its entirety, is the outcome of myths which preceded it. If the original meaning of the Greek word Logos—as both word and thought—has revealed to us a forgotten truth; the original meaning of mythos is also indispensable for the study of mythology. ”

“ The great minds of the early mythologic and hitherto Unknown Age had this advantage in shaping that stupendous Lehre or lore which embraced under the same laws, mythology, language, science, poetry, and art—they modified nothing and avoided nothing for fear of shocking conventional and artificial feelings. Nature was to them what she was to herself—literal. ”

“ Much confusion of thought, as it appears to me, exists as to the mythological motive which is claimed for many of these folk-tales; and men have confounded the mythological explanation of a tale with its mythological origin and motive. We shall, however, have done but little in the way of clearing up this question when we have adjusted the various incidents of a folk-tale to the teaching of ancient mythology. ”

“ A myth is, properly speaking, an allegory or fable invented to convey some important moral or religious truth, or illustrate some operation of nature. Mythology includes also the historical myths, or the narratives of gods, demigods, and heroes, which were current among the heathen in ancient times. ”

“ It is an instance of the truth and beauty of the ancient mythology, that the various transmutations it recounts are never voluntary, or of favourable omen, but are interposed as a timely release to those who, driven on by fate, and urged to the last extremity of fear or anguish, are turned into a flower, a plant, an animal, a star, a precious stone, or into some object that may inspire pity or mitigate our regret for their misfortunes. ”

“ Although many of the myths deal with such subjects as the creation of the world, of man, of animals and plants, the discovery of fire and agriculture, subjects of which the mythology has been incorporated in the religious teachings of the classical and Christian worlds, the mythology of these peoples has little relation to their religion. ”

“ Early mythology is the simple result of the working of the human mind, in a spirit of belief or of credulity, upon the material offered to it by prior tradition, by the physical universe, by the operations of the mind, and by the experience of life. ”

“ An unpretentious exposition of the myths has been given 5 together with their popular interpretations. The poets, ever the best commentators on mythology and sculpture, are freely quoted. These metrical lines, relating either to the statues or the stories, may serve to stamp indelibly on the mind facts otherwise effaceable.
A table of Greek and Roman synonymous deities and a list of suggestive readings in modern literature are appended.
—L. M. B.
10
The Gods and Their Makers. ”

“ The myths are told as graphically and accurately as possible, great care being taken, however, to avoid the more repulsive features of heathen mythology; and when two or more versions of the same myth occur, the preference has invariably been given to the most popular, that is to say, to the one which has inspired the greatest works. ”

“ To trace the ancestral sources of a people’s thought and character, a careful and critical study of the myths, and later of the mythology of that people, first exclusively and then comparatively, is required. ”

“ Mythology is a system of myths; a collection of popular legends, fables, tales, or stories, relating to the gods, heroes, demons or other beings whose names have been preserved in popular belief. Such tales are not found in the traditions of the ancient Greeks, Hindoos 24and Egyptians, only, but every nation has had its system of mythology ”

“ If this view of mythology can be proved, much will have been done to explain a problem which we have not yet touched, namely, the distribution of myths. The science of mythology has to account, if it can, not only for the existence of certain stories in the legends of certain races, but also for the presence of stories practically the same among almost all races. ”

“ This illustration might be extended so as to apply to any substratum, linguistic, solar, symbolical, or other, that may be supposed to underlie the fancy-fabric of mythology. The truth to be looked for in myths is psychological, not historical, æsthetic rather than positive. ”

“ But he is a deity representing the highest perfection of humanity, and therefore the [pg 446] model and aim of human imitation; and the summit of heroic energy was seen where the human passed into the divine nature. His life and actions on earth are in ancient mythology perfectly human; and those fables, which raise him above humanity, for instance, those alluding to the combat with the giants,1865 betray a later origin.
10. How little the ancient mythology was desirous of divesting Hercules of any feelings of humanity may be collected from various features in his character. ”

“ Then we are met by the so-called ethical interpretation of mythology, seeking its origin in man’s peculiar nature, especially in a moral point of view. The advocates of this theory claim that mythology is a mere fiction created to satisfy man’s spiritual, moral, and emotional nature. The gods according to this interpretation represent man’s virtues and vices, emotions, faculties of mind and muscle, etc., personified. ”

“ The Historical theory; according to which all the persons mentioned in mythology were once real human beings, and the legends and fabulous traditions relating to them are merely the additions and embellishments of later times. ”

“ The rational and irrational aspects of mythology and religion may be of coeval antiquity for all that is certainly known, or either of them, in the dark backward of mortal experience, may have preceded the other. There is probably no religion nor mythology which does not offer both aspects to the student. ”

“ The development of mythology through all its gradations of fullness and fineness can be traced in the religious systems of the world.1734 Where there is no recognizable worship there is, of course, no mythology. ”

“ Mythology is a compound Greek word, meaning the science of—or, more literally, discourse respecting—myths. What is a myth? No exact definition of the word can be given, because there are many varieties of myths, and the term has been used in several distinct senses. In the New Testament it occurs five times, and is in every instance used in an evil, or severely disparaging sense. In our English version it is translated “fables,” not such as have been invented to convey and illustrate the truth, but cunningly devised fictions, used to convey ethical notions in themselves false. ”

“ But however true it may be that the reflections of the ancient world over its mythology were entirely different from those of the modern, we are by no means therefore entitled to conclude that the conceptions of its mythology are not essentially symbolical, and as such must be fully accepted ”