gin of this whole
group of superstitions? And since mythology has been shown to be the
result of primeval attempts to explain the phenomena of nature, what
natural phenomenon could ever have given rise to so many seemingly
wanton conceptions? Hopeless as the problem may at first sight seem, it
has nevertheless been solved. In his great treatise on "The Descent
of Fire," Dr. Kuhn has shown that all these legends and traditions are
descended from primitive myths explanatory of the lightning and the
storm-cloud. [32]

To us, who are nourished from childhood on the truths revealed by
science, the sky is known to be merely an optical appearance due to the
partial absorption of the solar rays in passing through a thick stratum
of atmospheric air; the clouds are known to be large masses of watery
vapour, which descend in rain-drops when sufficiently condensed; and
the lightning is known to be a flash of light accompanying an electric
discharge. But these conceptions are extremely recondite, and have been
attained only through centuries of philosophizing and after careful
observation and laborious experiment. To the untaught mind of a child or
of an uncivilized man, it seems far more natural and plausible to regard
the sky as a solid dome of blue crystal, the clouds as snowy mountains,
or perhaps even as giants or angels, the lightning as a flashing dart or
a fiery serpent. In point of fact, we find that the conceptions actually
entertained are often far more grotesque than these. I can recollect
once framing the hypothesis that the flaming clouds of sunset were
transient apparitions, vouchsafed us by way of warning, of that burning
Calvinistic hell with which my childish imagination had been unwisely
terrified; [33] and I have known of a four-year-old boy who thought that
the snowy clouds of noonday were the white robes of the angels hung out
to dry in the sun. [34] My little daughter is anxious to know whether
it is necessary to take a balloon in order to get to the place where
God lives, or whether the same end can be accomplished by going to the
horizon and crawling up the sky; [35] the Mohammedan of old was working
at the same problem when he called the rainbow the bridge Es-Sirat, over
which souls must pass on their way to heaven. According to the ancient
Jew, the sky was a solid plate, hammered out by the gods, and spread
over the earth in order to keep up the ocean overhead; [36] but the
plate was full of little windows