y have hardly affected men's natural sentiment in the
face of death, a sentiment which those doctrines, if taken seriously,
ought wholly to reverse. Men almost universally have acknowledged a
Providence, but that fact has had no force to destroy natural aversions
and fears in the presence of events; and yet, if Providence had ever
been really trusted, those preferences would all have lapsed, being seen
to be blind, rebellious, and blasphemous. Prayer, among sane people, has
never superseded practical efforts to secure the desired end; a proof
that the sphere of expression was never really confused with that of
reality. Indeed, such a confusion, if it had passed from theory to
practice, would have changed mythology into madness. With rare
exceptions this declension has not occurred and myths have been taken
with a grain of salt which not only made them digestible, but heightened
their savour.

It is always by its applicability to things known, not by its
revelation of things unknown and irrelevant, that a myth at its birth
appeals to mankind. When it has lost its symbolic value and sunk to the
level of merely false information, only an inert and stupid tradition
can keep it above water. Parables justify themselves but dogmas call for
an apologist. The genial offspring of prophets and poets then has to be
kept alive artificially by professional doctors. A thing born of fancy,
moulded to express universal experience and its veritable issues, has to
be hedged about by misrepresentation, sophistry, and party spirit. The
very apologies and unintelligent proofs offered in its defence in a way
confess its unreality, since they all strain to paint in more plausible
colours what is felt to be in itself extravagant and incredible.

[Sidenote: Its interpretative essence.]

Yet if the myth was originally accepted it could not be for this falsity
plainly written on its face; it was accepted because it was understood,
because it was seen to express reality in an eloquent metaphor. Its
function was to show up some phase of experience in its totality and
moral issue, as in a map we reduce everything geographically in order to
overlook it better in its true relations. Had those symbols for a moment
descended to the plane of reality they would have lost their meaning and
dignity; they would tell us merely that they themselves existed bodily,
which would be false, while about the real configuration of life they
would no longer tell us