Part 11 (1/2)

[150-1] In his treatise _De Veritate_, itself the subject, as its author thought, of a special revelation, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, gives as one of the earmarks of a real revelation: ”ut afflatum Divini numinis sentias, ita enim internae Facultatum circa veritatem operationes a revelationibus externis distinguuntur.” p. 226.

[151-1] Spinoza, _Espistolae et Responsionnes_, Ep. x.x.xiv.

THE MYTH AND THE MYTHICAL CYCLES.

SUMMARY.

Myths are inspirations concerning the Unknown. Science treats them as apperceptions of the relations of man and nature. Moments of their growth, as treated by mythological science. Their similar forms, explained variously, the topic of the philosophy of mythology. The ante-mythical period. Myths have centred chiefly around three subjects, each giving rise to a Mythical Cycle.

I. The Epochs of Nature.

The idea of Time led to the myth of a creation. This starting the question, What was going on before creation? recourse was had to the myth of recurrent epochs. The last epoch gave origin to the Flood Myths; the coming one to that of the Day of Judgment.

II. The Paradise lost and to be re-gained.

To man, the past and the future are ever better than the present.

He imagines a Golden Age in the past and believes it will return.

The material Paradise he dreams of in his ruder conditions, becomes a spiritual one with intellectual advancement. The basis of this belief.

III. The Hierarchy of the G.o.ds.

The earliest hierarchy is a dual cla.s.sification of the G.o.ds into those who help and those who hinder the fruition of desire. Light and darkness typify the contrast. Divinity thus conceived under numerical separateness. Monotheisms do not escape this. The triune nature of single G.o.ds. The truly religious and only philosophic notion of divinity is under logical, not mathematical unity. This discards mythical conceptions.

CHAPTER V.

THE MYTH AND THE MYTHICAL CYCLES.

Returning again to the definition of the elemental religious sentiment--”a Wish whose fruition depends upon unknown power”--it enables us to cla.s.s all those notions, opinions and narratives, which const.i.tute mythologies, creeds and dogmas, as theories respecting the nature and action of the unknown power. Of course they are not recognized as theories. They arise unconsciously or are received by tradition, oral or written, and always come with the stamp of divinity through inspiration and revelation. None but a G.o.d can tell the secrets of the G.o.ds.

Therefore they are the most sacred of all things, and they partake of the holiness and immutability which belong to the unknown power itself.

To misplace a vowel point in copying the sacred books was esteemed a sin by the Rabbis, and a pious Mussulman will not employ the same pen to copy a verse of the Koran and an ordinary letter. There are many Christians who suppose the saying: ”Heaven and earth shall pa.s.s away, but My Words shall not pa.s.s away,” has reference to the words of the Old and New Testament. ”What shall remain to us,” asked Ananda, the disciple of Buddha, ”when thou shalt have gone hence into Nirvana?” ”My Word (_dharma_),” replied the Master. Names thus came to be as holy as the objects to which they referred. So sacred was that of Jehovah to the Israelites that its original sound was finally lost. Such views are consistent enough to the Buddhist, who, a.s.suming all existence to be but imaginary, justly infers that the name is full as much as the object.

The science of mythology has made long strides in the last half century.

It has left far behind it the old euphemeristic view that the myth is a distorted historical tradition, as well as the theories not long since in vogue, that it was a system of natural philosophy, a device of shrewd rulers, or as Bacon thought, a series of ”instructive fables.” The primitive form of the myth is now recognized to be made up from the notions which man gains of the manifestations of force in external nature, in their supposed relations to himself. In technical language it may be defined as _the apperception of man and nature under synthetic conceptions_.[156-1]

This primitive form undergoes numerous changes, to trace and ill.u.s.trate which, has been the special task a.s.sumed by the many recent writers on mythology. In some instances these changes are owing to the blending of the myth with traditions of facts, forming a quasi-historical narrative, the _saga;_ in others, elaborated by a poetic fancy and enriched by the imagination, it becomes a fairy tale, the _marchen_. Again, the myth being a product of creative thought, existing in words only, as language changes, it alters through forgetfulness of the earlier meanings of words, through similarities in sounds deceiving the ear, or through a confusion of the literal with the metaphorical signification of the same word. The character of languages also favors or r.e.t.a.r.ds such changes, pliable and easily modified ones, such as those of the American Indians, and in a less degree those of the Aryan nations, favoring a developed mythology, while rigid and monosyllabic ones, as the Chinese and Semitic types, offer fewer facilities to such variations. Furthermore, tribal or national history, the peculiar difficulties which r.e.t.a.r.d the growth of a community, and the geographical and climatic character of its surroundings, give prominence to certain features in its mythology, and to the absence of others. Myths originally diverse are blended, either unconsciously, as that of the Roman Saturn with the Greek Cronus; or consciously, as when the medieval missionaries transferred the deeds of the German G.o.ds to Christian saints. Lastly, the prevailing temperament of a nation, its psychology, gives a strong color to its mythical conceptions, and imprints upon them the national peculiarities.

The judicious student of mythology must carefully weigh all these formative agents, and a.s.sign each its value. They are all present in every mythology, but in varying force. His object is accomplished when he can point out the causal relation between the various features of a myth and these governing agencies.

Such is the science of mythology. The philosophy of mythology undertakes to set forth the unities of form which exist in various myths, and putting aside whatever of this uniformity is explainable historically, proposes to ill.u.s.trate from what remains the intellectual need myths were unconsciously framed to gratify, to measure their success in this attempt, and if they have not been wholly successful, to point out why and in what respect they have failed. In a study preliminary to the present one, I have attempted to apply the rules of mythological science to the limited area of the native American race; in the present chapter I shall deal mainly with the philosophy of mythology.

The objection may be urged at starting that there is no such unity of form in myths as the philosophy of mythology a.s.sumes; that if it appears, it is always explainable historically.

A little investigation sets this objection aside. Certain features must be common to all myths. A divinity must appear in them and his doings with men must be recorded. A reasonable being can hardly think at all without asking himself, ”Whence come I, my fellows, and these things which I see? And what will become of us all?” So some myth is sure to be created at an early stage of thought which the parent can tell the child, the wise man his disciple, containing responses to such questions.

But this reasoning from probability is needless, for the similarity of mythical tales in very distant nations, where no hypothesis of ancient intercourse is justified, is one of the best ascertained and most striking discoveries of modern mythological investigation.[159-1] The general character of ”solar myths” is familiar to most readers, and the persistency with which they have been applied to the explanation of generally received historical facts, as well as to the familiar fairy tales of childhood, has been pushed so far as to become the subject of satire and caricature. The myths of the Dawn have been so frequently brought to public notice in the popular writings of Professor Max Muller, that their general distribution may be taken as well known. The same may be said of the storm myths. Wilhelm von Humboldt, who thought deeply on the religious nature of man, said early in this century: ”Wholly similar myths can very readily arise in different localities, each independent of the others.”[160-1]