well-known opinions on the origin of myth which
were current in classic antiquity, in the Graeco-Latin world, or in
India,[2] we 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, Breal,
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 Mueller, 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 Mueller holds, into its various metaphors, man
has so far infused his own life, that they have, like man himself, a
sub