subject-matter in the narrative itself, which it decides to be neither an idle tale of magic nor credible history, but a valuable repository of ideas, emotions, mental traits and national characteristics, the narrative form of which is to be explained by primitive exuberance of imagination, and to be paralleled by those naive stories of marvels and miracles which the early ages of all races, and all credulous and superstitious epochs exhibit. If we attend a moment to the true nature of history, considered as a progressive evolution of human nature, we shall see that the myth is really a kind of shadow or adumbration of actual history. For in historical development, incidents and ideas, as well as marked individual character, act and re-act on each other, and are all interfused in the progress of events; but, because history is all a development of human nature, it is all a manifestation or working-out-into-form of the thoughts and feelings which constitute the nature of man, and, though it trains the individual, it comes forth from the whole, the common nature, and is this nature in the form of fact or event. But ideas, traits and feelings may take on a form of fact or event which is fictitious as well as one which is actual; and when this happens unconsciously in a primitive or imaginative society, and the resulting narrative is accepted and believed with simplicity, and can be assigned to no author, but is rather the spontaneous outgrowth of the time and its natural mode of expression, the product is the myth. Thus as history is the clothing of mental and moral traits in actual events, so the myth is the clothing of the same traits in narrative, or fictitious events-the crystalization of the sentiments and ideas of an age or people into the form of poetical and highly-colored narrative. But just as the people do not say, “Go to, now, let us make history," but rather evolve it naturally and necessarily by their simple living and acting, so no primitive time consciously makes myths, but evolves the stories inevitably out of its mental traits in connection with its outward experience, and accepts them implicitly, without the least sense of incongruity or improbability. A myth (μvvos) originally signified a tale or story, either true or fictitious-a statement or current narrative; primarily it signifies anything spoken or delivered by word of mouth : this also is the primary meaning of λóyos, which, like μovoç, also signified, originally, a narrative, without implying either that it was true or that it was false. But in later times the two words diverged, and even became opposed, in meaning-uvdos became generally restricted to an uncertified, fictitious or fabulous story; while λóyoç carried with it in general the idea of fact, or historical foundation. The Latin fabula resembles μudoç in its primary signification of any narrative, true or false, or any spoken statement (fari, to speak), and in its more technical sense of a fictitious narrative ;* but the two senses appear to have been employed contemporaneously, and do not seem so definitely separated in time as in the Greek, in this resembling more the *See, for the literal sense, Hor. Ep. 1, 13, 9, "Asinaeque paternum cognomen vertas in risum et fabula fias," and make it town-talk; Epod. 11, 8, "fabula quanta fui:" the English fable has exclusively the fictitious sense of fabula. English story (historia, loropía), which is at present used indifferently in its derivative sense of a true or historical narrative, and in its acquired sense of an uncertified or fictitious tale. The etymological history of these words (μvdos, λóyoç, fabula) contains, as if in embryo or in miniature, the nature and history of the myth. They all agree in the primary sense of a statement, order, or account delivered verbally; and so also, in the society in which myths arise, we must to use the words of Grote (Hist. Greece, vol. i., p. 341; Am. ed.)—“ suppose a public not reading and writing, but seeing, hearing and telling." These words also agree in a double sense-a true narrative and a fictitious narrative; and the Greek words in process of time tended apart, and became each generally restricted in sense-λóyos to the true or historical, μvvoç to the untrue or fictitious. So also the myth, in its development and history, invariably and inevitably has its two stages of implicit belief and utter unbelief,—its time when it is simply and fondly believed and cherished by the primitive or imaginative people that produce it, and its period of decline in interest, when it is gradually distrusted and finally rejected as untrue. So also a myth may have, but does not always have, a kernel of fact; and all primitive records and early annals abound in mythical stories, which may contain some fact, or be entirely untrue. In process of time, through the increase of knowledge, the rise of a purer morality, and the formation of a critical sense, these two elements, which at first are received with equal credit, tend apart, the λóyoç and the pudos are separated, fact and fiction are discriminated with more or less success, and a historic doubt rests on all narratives which contain mythical traits, when criticism has no data by which to separate the accretions of legend and certify the residuum of history. Thus Pindar and Plato-among the earliest examples of a proper subjective criticism-were led to reject unconditionally many of the old Greek myths as being totally incompatible with the notion of deity, and needing no other refutation than the disgust of a moral being; and Origen allegorized the record in Genesis because of the absurdity of the idea, that God literally walked and talked with Adam in a garden. But what are the "mythical traits" the presence of which throws suspicion on a narrative, and may even outweigh by presumptive improbability any amount of evidence in its favor? They are several; a manifest aim or desire to shed renown on a country or a hero is suspicious; as myths are not only highly-colored exaggerations or amplifications of facts (more properly, perhaps, to be called legends), but often pure fictions expressive of ideas or feelings, the presence of a philosophical air in a narrative, or a plain adaptation to the teaching of some doctrine, is very suspicious; a narrative having a religious atmosphere or purpose is to be closely scrutinized; but most marked and most general of all is the trait of marvellous and miraculous character in the narrative. Into this last trait the others may be generally resolved, since marvellous and exceptional stories, in which the favoring power of heaven was most specially and strikingly displayed, would minister most effectually to the pride of race or country, and to religious fear or devotion, while it would be also the garb in which a primitive and imaginative people would array its ideas and feelings in a narrative form. Supernatural wonders, accordingly, form the great staple of all mythical lore, and are at once the most constant, the most characteristic, and the most natural trait of the myth. It is always enveloped with an atmosphere of miracle; the Deity is brought near to men in inexplicable, and often terrible, marvels. Did a pestilence fall on the Greeks :-Appollo was shooting arrows at them from the sky. Did a storm subside:-Neptune appears, and calms the waters with his trident. Did a fountain suddenly gush forth, or refresh a country from time immemorial, with its sweet waters :-it was a nymph changed into a brook to save her from the pursuit of her lover. Did a youth waste with grief at the loss of his beautiful sister-he was changed into a flower called, after him, Narcissus. Did the Athenians look with pride upon their great and powerful capital :—in the old days Minerva and Neptune contended for the honor of being the patron and tutelary deity of the country, and the great Athena prevailed and pointed to the olive which she had made and planted for both the proof and the memorial of her ownership. Did the Jews separate themselves with intense pride from the polluted Gentiles :-Jehovah filled the land of Egypt with noisome plagues, overwhelmed their enemies in the sea, caused the sun to stand still for their benefit, and rained food from heaven and poured water from the solid rock for their support, in proof and illustration of his favor. Did the early Christians remember with awe the greatness of their master, and tend of necessity to magnify him before an unbelieving world, but yet a world as credulous as themselves :-he was miraculously born, attested by articulate voices from heaven, transfigured on a mountain, raised bodily from the dead, and taken up visibly into the skies. And with such a catalogue we might go on through the Christian centuries down even to modern times, and with the utmost ease, and with abundance of varied illustration, down to the Reformation. The naive and simple character of primitive creative imagination we find it hard now to realize; it is not to be found in civilized experience, and it is only with great difficulty reproduced in mental conception as a historical fact. "We can follow perfectly the imagination and feeling which dictated these tales, and we can admire and sympathize with them as animated, sublime, and affecting poetry; but we are too much accustomed to matter of fact and philosophy of a positive kind to be able to conceive a time when these beautiful fancies were construed literally and accepted as serious reality" (Grote's Hist. of Greece, vol. i., p. 341; Am. ed.). Yet children. afford us instructive examples of that simplicity of belief and preponderating activity of imagination which are universally the characteristics of primitive times and people. To a certain extent every human being starts absolutely de novo, as if no other one had ever lived; i. e., there are certain traits which childhood always exhibits, and which are displayed with equal certainty and distinctness, no matter what its hereditary mental powers, or what the training and education of its ancestors. Among these is a special prominence of the imagination and the trait of implicit belief, while the reason is only partially active and the critical judgment dormant. Young children relate and hear with the utmost simplicity stories of talking plants, birds, and animals, men having wings, and ears and eyes of wonderful hearing and seeing, etc., etc.; and that these stories are implicitly believed and realized in the minds of children seems to be proved by the evils which sometimes result from the abominable practice of ruling them through their fears by means of frightful and terrifying tales. Now these traits, which every child exhibits, are universal in the childhood of races, and make them in like manner creative and receptive of those marvellous, miraculous, poetic and engaging products of the imagination called myths. Primitive peoples, like children, are quick and active in fancy, prone to excitement and fear, unreasoning, unlearned, unhistorical, uncritical; their minds, like their first attempts at writing, are picturemaking, and their whole mental and physical experience is thrown into the picturesque form of mythical narrative. Hence we see the interest and value that the characteristic myths of a people or an epoch must possess for us. They are not to be passed by as mere extravaganzas of fancy; they are the manners, thoughts, hopes, religion of a people daguerreotyped; they are instinct with popular life and feeling; they breathe forth a people's inner being; they draw their life from the popular heart, and faithfully respond to its varying states during the time of its most simple and untutored development. If professed works of fiction by some one author are valuable as reflecting the manners, morals, and habits of a time and people, how much more valuable are the myths, which can be assigned to no author, which arise spontaneously out of the life of the timewhich are, so to speak, composed by the whole society, and faithfully reflect it, as any composition reflects the author's character, and which are created and believed with equal ardor and simplicity! It is not strange that comparative mythology has engaged the attention of many of the best minds, and still attracts the sympathetic labor of some of the most eminent scholars of the day. In the next article we shall endeavor to show that the mythical interpretation, as above described, ought to be applied to the New Testament. I' THE SOURCE OF RELIGION. (From SCHENKEL.) T is the misery of most men, that in their search for truth, they have lost themselves. Tossed hither and thither by the buffetings of circumstances, in a tempest of passions, and in stress of sorrows, anxious about the future and remorseful for the past; they have parted with their own thought and will, and therefore with their personality. Hence the many blownabout men that signify nothing; of whom one looks just like another. If a man deals only with the outer world and glides on the surface, then he puts on its form. He is worn and smooth; he lacks every defining personal characteristic. That man only will form himself into a complete and sharp-cut personal unity, compel the respect of the world and influence society, who gladly abides in himself; always seeking himself within; who always thinks earnestly upon his own true life, and is not distracted by the noise of sects and the clamor of partisans. If we often return to ourselves and draw from the pure and eternal source of our life and soul, then we cannot but see that we are not solitary in our inmost self, that it is not alone our own being that we meet there. We seek a limit in ourselves, but do not find it. We cast anchor in our souls, but it strikes no terrestrial ground. The door of immortality opens; the pure life of spirit is revealed, and the breath of eternity is borne to us. Our mortal beginning we well know; but far down in our souls we get knowledge of something that never had beginning. ***** It is the language of Eternity; voices out of the celestial home, the utterances of religion, that we perceive in our inner selves. Surely you have often heard it, this voice of the eternal spirit in your own soul. You have religion, but perhaps are not conscious of it, or would not acknowledge it. If you have it not, still it has possession of you, for it is inseparably connected with the life of man; nay it is its most central point, the concealed source from which true life originates. It is the mysterious magnet by which man, in himself isolated and alone, is intimately bound with the essence common to all things. By it he exists; with its help alone can he maintain his personality and independence against the restraints and attrition of the outer world. By it you are citizens of an eternal commonwealth and may become free from all earthly illusion, forever delivered from the p plexing and wearing unrest of this life. It is the bond that holds you eternally constant, to the absolutely unconditioned and all-condition it in the midst of the death-pangs that close this life, is immortal li knock at the doors It is not an obscure feeling; it is so only while the ashes of sensuou confidently you |