objects (which become "homonyms") he calls Synonymy. It is Mr. Müller's opinion that, in the mythopoeic age, people might call the sun (let us say) by some fifty names expressive of different qualities (this is polyonymy), while some of these names would be applicable to other objects also. These other objects would then be homonyms of the sun, would be called by the same names as the sun was called by. (This is synonymy). The meaning of all these names would be lost in perhaps three generations, but the names and the phrases in which the names occurred would survive after their significance was lost. It is clear that if ever such a state of language prevailed, the endless consequent misunderstandings might well blossom into myths. For example, the grandfather (in the mythopoeic age) observes the rush of the ascending sun, and calls him "the lion." The father, being accustomed to the old man’s poetic way, understands his meaning perfectly well, and the family style the sun "the lion," as they also, ex hypothesi, call him by forty-nine other names, most of which they moreover apply to other objects, say to the tide, the wind, the clouds. But the grandson finds this kind of talk hopelessly puzzling (and no wonder), and he, forgetting the original meanings, comes to believe that the sun is a lion, and the night (perhaps) a wolf, and so he tells stories about the night-wolf, the sun—lion, and so on. (Here the examples are our own, but the theory is Mr. Müller's. Selected Essays, i. 376-378.)
No marvel if myths arose in an age when people spoke in this fashion, and when the grandson retained the grandsire’s phrase, though he had helplessly forgotten the grandsire’s meaning. Mr. Müller protests against degrading our ancestors into "mere idiots," but if they escaped becoming hopeless imbeciles during this “mythopoeic age" it is highly to their credit.
