MYTHOLOGY. 211 MYTHOLOGY. gods,' or goJs who had originally been men, are a recognized class, the most cunsijicuous mem- ber of the chisH being the local Croesus called Kubera, who is usually regarded as king of the under-world wealth, a Pluto; but in this inter- pretation he is a god divinized out of a rich man named Kubera. Exi'LANATiox OF Myths. The example just cited (and analogous cases) led to the notion that all myths were to be interpreted in this way, a view held by some rationalists in India, and favored in Greece by many thinkers, but first reduced to an 'atheistic' philosophy of mythologj- by Euhemerus in the fourth century B.C. In op- position to the older view that myths were to be interpreted allegorically, Euhemerus taught — whether seriously or nut is now questioned by some scholars — that tlie gods were originally men, and that stories about men were transferred to gods, a method here and there countenanced by Plato. Uei-- bert Spencer, who also believes that gods were at first the ghosts of men, has adopted the Euhemeristic explanation in its crudest form. He believes, for example, that there was once a girl called Dawn, and that when she died the Vedie Aryans sang to her ghost the Vedie "hymns to Dawn' — a view consonant neither with the content of the hymns nor with the practices of the poets. At present, if we pass by Spencer's theory with the brief criticism it deserves, there are two accepted schools of interpretation. The older view is that of Jlax Jliiller. In its whole form it is quite as unhistorical as Spencer's, but it contains a truth ignored by the opposing school. Miiller held that myths were nature-poetry, and that many of them in an advanced stage of evolution could be explained by what he called 'disease of language,' that is, mythology is the result of the misunder- standing, ou the part of a whole people, of their inherited phraseologv'. Where an old poet re- ferred to sunrise as 'the shining one' (feminine) being followed bj' 'the bright one' (masculine), his descendants interpreted the grammatical .sex as imphing sex in person and his phrase meant to them 'the (male god) Bright (sun) courts Miss Dawn,' and so, on the strength of countless errors of this sort, arose mythology, which can be analyzed into its component parts by com- paring the names of gods in one language with cognate words in related languages, jliiller's error lies in a too sweeping application of this theory, in his lack of appreciation of other causes leading to mythologj*, and in the- weakness of his etjmologies. But there is truth in the dic- tum that a misapprehension makes gods. A Vedie poet sings, ■'Who is the god whom we should revere ?" and his sublime word is inter- preted by a later generation as meaning "there is a god called Who. and we should make sacri- fice to Who." Then later writers go still further and enjoin upon the priests to make two sets of oflferings, one to Who and one to Whom, as dis- tinct deities. The folk-lore explanation, which has obtained since llannhardt and Tylor and is steadily gaining ground, rejects both Euhemerisni and language-disease as factors of mythology, and seeks the explanation of the higher myfh in the original conr-e|ition of the lower. Kronos's brutality and I.itllr Rrrl Ridinfi Hood are both stories popular in their day and paralleled by many like stories among savage nations to-day. Such tales are retained, toned .down, symbolically explained, but in origin they belong to the tales . that please savages. There is no doubt that such is the state of the case, and that Red Riding Hood is not a sun-myth (exposed to disease of lan- guage), but a tale that pleasantly atleeted peas- ants. The folk-lore explanation runs to accumu- lation of tales, however, without a radical ex- planation, and it ignores too much what is true in Spencer's mythologv-, that many talcs are simply ghost-stories. Xor can it be said that the folk-lore method is successful in explaining all myths. It is an error to suppose that all myths are psjchical reflections of phj-sical or of meteorological phenomena, for much must be at- tributed, even among savages, to poetical fancy. But what Mannhardt has himself called 'nature- poetry' and illustrated by modern examples among the Slavs shows that personalities origi- nally solar are sometimes transferred to poetical representatives explicable only in a solar light. The true explanation of mythology will combine the hitherto antagonistic explanations of Lang and Jliiller, and will also admit that Spencer's theory of ghost-mythology is at times applicable. No stereotyped formula can include all the phe- nomena. In the last analysis will be found folk- lore, language-change, and ghost-stories. All three principles are active to-day in India, and probably have always been active among all peo- ])les in proportion to their imaginative powers. The fourth element of p(jetic fancy affects all the other three. >Iuch that is looked upon as elaborated mythology is nothing but a naive statement of what appears to the savage as every- day facts, such as the birth of men from beasts or from the elements, the birth of animals from women, metempsychosis, the intimate relations between man and all natural objects. Bibliography. For the folk-lore theory, con- sult Tylor, Primitive Culture (London, 1871); E. H. Jleyer, Indorjcnnnnische Mijthen (Berlin. 1883) ; Mannhardt, ili/tholoriische Forschungen (Strassburg, 1884); Lang, Custom and Myth (London, 1884) ; id.. Myth, Ritual, and Religion (2d. ed., ib., 1899); id.. The Making of Re- ligion (ib., 1898) ; Frazer, The Golden Bough (New York, 1900) ; for the comparative school, Kuhn, Herahkunft des Feuers nnd des Gotter- I ranks (Berlin. 1859); Cox, Mythology of .the Aryan Nations (2d ed.. London, 1882) ; Schrader, )<prachvergleichuiuj uiid Urgcschichte (2d ed., .Tena, 1890) ; Max Miiller, Contributions to the ficience of Mythology (London. 1897), which con- tains the fullest and final statement of Jliiller's views. The ghost theory is given in Herbert Spencer's Principles of Sociology (London. 1876- 96). Special mythologies are treated by Dowson, .•I Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology (London, 1878) ; Hiliebrandt. Vedische My- thologie (Breslau. 1891); Oldenberg. Die Re- ligion des Veda (Berlin, !8!U); Hopkins. Re- ligions of India (Boston. 1895) : Renouf. Religion of Ancient Egypt (London, 1880) ; Jastrow. Re- ligion of Babylonia and Assyria (Boston, 1898) ; Barton, Setnitie Origins (New York, 1902) ; Preller, Qriechische Mythologie (Berlin, 1894); (iruppe, Qriechische M ythologie nnd Religions- acschiehte (Munich, 1898) ; Wissowa, Reliqion 'and Ciilfus dcr Rrimer (ib.. 1898) ; De la Saus- saye. Reliiiionsgeschichte (Freiburg, 1897): id.. Religion 'of the Teutons (Boston, 190.3); (!ill. Myths and Songs from the South Pacifio (London, 1876) ; Brinton, Religion of Primitive Peoples (New York, 1897).
