Omitting to notice the well-known opinions on the origin of myth which were current in classic antiquity, in the Graeco-Latin world, or in India,[2] we restrict our inquiry to modern times subsequent to Creuzer’s learned and extensive labours.  In a more scientific method, and divested of prejudice, we propose to trace the sources of myth in general, and among various peoples in particular.

The science of languages, or comparative philology, is the chief instrument required in such researches, and much light has been acquired in our days, which has led to surprising results, at least within the sphere of the special races to which it has been applied.  The names of Kuhn, Weber, Sonne, Benfey, Grimm, Schwartz, Hanusch, Maury, Breal, Pictet, l’Ascoli, De Gubernatis, and many others, are well known for their marvellous discoveries in this new and arduous field.  They have not only fused into one ancient and primitive image the various myths scattered in different forms among the Aryan races, but they have revealed the original conception, as it existed in the earliest meaning of words before their dispersion.  Hence came the multiplicity of myths, developed in brilliant anthropomorphic groups in different theologies, gradually becoming more simple as time went on, then uniting in the vague primitive personification of the winds, the storms, the sun, the dawn; in short, of astral and meteorological phenomena.

On the other hand, Max Mueller, whose theory of original myths is peculiar to himself, has made use of this philological instrument to prove that the Aryan myths may at any rate be referred to a single source, namely to metaphor, or to the double meaning of words, due to the poverty of primitive languages.  He calls this double meaning the infirmity of speech.

I do not deny that many conclusions to which some or other of the great authorities just mentioned have arrived may be as true as they are surprising.  I also admit that this may be a certain method of distinguishing the various mythical representations in their early beginnings from their subsequent and complex forms.  But in all the facts which have been ascertained, or which may hereafter be ascertained, from the comparative study of the languages of different races, no explanation is afforded of the fact that into the natural and primitive phenomena of myth, or, as Mueller holds, into its various metaphors, man has so far infused his own life, that they have, like man himself, a subjective and deliberate consciousness and force.  It seems to me that this problem has not yet been solved by scholars; they have stopped short after establishing the primary fact, and are content to affirm that such is human nature, which projects itself on external things.[3]

This explanation establishes a true and universal fact, but it is not the explanation of the fact itself; yet it is not, as we shall see, incapable of solution, and it appears to me that the ultimate source whence myths really proceed has not been reached.