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and matter-of-fact century, mythology has not ceased to compel attention, and to furnish endless matter of conjecture. Learned writers have sought in physical sciences, history, and metaphysics, an explanation of this phenomenon; but in spite of this vast labour inspired by a love of science, and carried on for more than two thousand years, the secret of the sphinx of mythology remains undisclosed, and we still ask, "what is mythology?" Is it an invention of Homer and Hesiod? Or is it a phase in the development of the human mind, a deviation in the growth of reason?

The school of philology has a solution of its own to offer; will it be as futile as the others? After hearing it shall we still say the Sphinx is mute? This school takes upon itself to assert that the explanation of the mystery can only be found in the Science of Language. It is a fact that the history of language-which is the history of the human mind-enables us to answer the preceding questions categorically. Yes. Mythology was inevitable, an inherent part of language itself, to be considered, not as a simple external symbol, but as the only incorporation of thought possible. Mythology, in the widest acceptation of the term, is the shadow which language casts on thought; and the whole history of philosophy from Thales to Hegel has been one uninterrupted struggle with mythology, a constant protest between thought and language.

CHAPTER VII

MYTHS

In order to appreciate truly our neighbour's impressions and points of view, we must constantly detach ourselves from our own special way of seeing and feeling; this habit of abstraction-which is most difficult to every one-is indispensable when we are endeavouring to understand the natures of persons who lived many thousands of years ago, and who thought and spoke in a totally different manner from ourselves.

In seeking to grasp the phraseology of myths we perceive that its chief elements consist in a repetition of phrases in which the acts of nature are used as embodiments of the idea, under the figures of day and night, dawn and twilight, the sun and the moon, the heavens and the earth, as they stand in relation to man.

When we in the present century speak of the last hours of the day, we use precise and exact terms; we say, "It is late; the sun is setting; the moon rises; it is night." Our ancestors also had occasion to mention these same hours, but as they did not speak of the facts of nature without investing them with some of their own personality, they preferred to say, "Dawn flies before the sun." "The sun loves-pursues-embraces the dawn." "She dies in the arms of the sun." They spoke of the sun growing old-decaying-dying. Besides these general terms our ancestors used special designations, which the nature of their language suggested; the hymns of the Rig-Veda supply instances. One of these modes of speech it would be difficult for me to render in French, but the English

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language has the impersonal verb which will illustrate my meaning, for all such atmospheric phenomena such as rain, thunder, the light of day; instead of it rains, it thunders, it shines, our ancestors said, he rains, he thunders, he shines, without knowing who was this he, who for us is the third person masculine; but, naturally for them, he meant the rainer, the thunderer, the lightener, or, in other words the agent.

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. This Greek term means simply word as opposed to deed, and hardly differed at first from Logos. Afterwards, however, a distinction was made between myth,—a fable, a story, and logos, a historical account. Thus a myth was at first a word. Almost all terms used in the first spontaneous stage of language had for their basis striking metaphors, whose signification may have been forgotten, and these terms having lost their original as well as poetical meaning, remained words only, current in familiar conversation,

I give the following myths as they have come down

to us.

Endymion is the son of Zeus and Kalyke, but he is also the son of Athlios, a king of Elis, who is himself called a son of Zeus; for, according to Greek customs, the reigning race of Elis derived its origin from the king of the gods. Endymion is one of the many names of the sun, but with special reference to the setting or dying sun; it is derived from a verb which originally meant to dive into; an expression such as "the sun dived" presupposes an earlier conception, that it dived into the sea. But the verb enduo is never used in classical Greek for setting, because the simple verb duo had become the technical term for sunset.

Thus this myth of Endymion owes its origin to the use probably of enduo in some Greek dialect, though not the commonly received term for sunset. The original meaning of Endymion being once forgotten, what was told originally of the setting sun was now told of a name, which in order to have any meaning, had to be changed into a god or hero.

This handsome prince or shepherd, according to the different versions of the tale, went to Karia, where on Mount Latmos he had strange adventures; he slept in a cave to which the rays of the moon, Selene, penetrated, and in the ancient poetical and proverbial language of Elis it was said, "Selene loves and watches Endymion; Selene embraces Endymion and kisses him into sleep." The name Selene is so transparent that the word moon pierces through it; we should have guessed that the moon was intended, even if tradition had only preserved her other name, Asterodia-" wanderer amongst the stars"; the names Hecate or Lucina do not force us to acknowledge their fitness, they present to our imagination a totally different figure (as they suggest opaqueness) from Selene. Learned writers at times still put forward the explanation with regard to mythology that it "was a past which was never a present," but this myth of Endymion was present" with the people of Elis at the period of its narration.

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These and similar expressions were repeated long after their meaning had ceased to be understood; and as the human mind is generally as anxious for a reason as ready to invent one, the poets added to this story several details, and reasons why Endymion sank into eternal sleep after a life of but one day; and if allusions were made to these by a popular poet, it became a mythological fact, repeated and embellished by later poets.

The construction of such a name as Eos does not differ materially from that of any other name, but as all roots

expressed at the first denote action, it follows that for all an agent must be found; the name of Eos in Sanscrit is Ushas, dawn, or "the bright one" from the root Vas, to shine; thus Eos meant originally "he or she shines." But who was "he" or "she"? Thus the inevitable myth is evolved. For us the dawn is only the natural illumination of the sky, the brightness of the morning; our ancestors received a different impression by the break of day. After having coined a word meaning “he or she shines," that is the light, or Eos, the Greeks continued to portray each step of Eos as she preceded the appearance of the sun on the celestial vault; "Eos is followed by the sun-is loved by the sun "; she is conceived as a bright and beautiful woman; if she appeared veiled in clouds, she would be considered as a veiled bride; thus the epithets and relationships showered on Eos become intelligible, she is the daughter of Hyperion, thus her father would be the high heaven, since hyper corresponds to the Latin super; she is the sister of Helios and Selene, the sun and the moon. As soon as a name such as Eos was first enunciated and used in daily conversation, it grew and gathered new materials round itself; all the names surrounding Eos in Greek and Aurora in Latin show us how inevitably what we call mythology springs up from the soil of language. Even such simple sentences as "Eos appears, disappears, or dies" are changed at once into myth, fable, and legend, and it soon becomes. impossible to draw a line between what is simple language and what is myth.

We do not unfortunately always possess the original form of each legend as it first passed from mouth to mouth in the towns and country; thus our chief sources are the ancient chroniclers, who took mythology for history, and used only so much of it as answered their purpose, and these accounts do not reach us at first hand.

We find a legend in Greek mythology which has much

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