The Classical Review, Vol. 2

Excerpt from The Classical Review

A much more satisfactory explanation of the origin of myths is that of Max Miiller, who is undoubtedly right in referring myths to the necessity under which those who use language are laid of expressing themselves in similes. But although we have here the undoubted origin of myths, Max Muller fails to explain why the most different peoples should be compelled to use precisely the same similes. The idea at once suggests itself that if they do so, it must be because all peeples in a primitive stage of development are essentially like each other; and this is in fact the explanation put forward by the Demonologists. Now the arch-demonologist is Mr. Andrew Lang. But the supposed similarity, as a matter of fact, does not exist, except in the negative sense that all un civilised peoples are different from our civi lised selves. In all other respects savages differ amongst themselves most widely. We can, for instance, no more associate polygamy with a certain stage of development amongst savages than we can with a certain stage of development in the animal world. As for the problem of the immoralities of myth ology, it cannot be solved by the theory of survival, because, as is amply shown by the way in which the Greek tragedians treated myths, every generation modifies the myths it inherits to accord with its own views of morality; and when one part of a myth is thus modified, and another not so completely modified, we get the truly irrational element of myth.