the substance and the form. Nay, we go gious mythology. The religious mythola step beyond. We admit that language ogy consisted in speaking of the spirits of reacts on thought, and we see in this the departed as ghosts, as mere breath and reaction, in this refraction of the rays of air, as fluttering about the gates of Hades, language, the real solution of the old rid-or ferried across the Styx in the boat of dle of mythology. Charon. You will now see why these somewhat The philosophical mythology, however, abstruse disquisitions were necessary for our more immediate purpose, and I can promise those who have hitherto followed me on this rather barren and rugged track, that they will now be able to rest, and command, from the point of view which we have reached, the whole panorama of the mythology of the human mind. We saw just now that the names of numbers may most easily be replaced by signs. Numbers are simple analytical conceptions, and for that very reason they are not liable to mythology: name and conception being here commensurate, no misunderstanding is possible. But as soon as we leave this department of thought, mythology begins. I shall try by at least one example to show how mythology pervades, not only the sphere of religion or religious tradition, but infects more or less the whole realm of thought. When man wished for the first time to grasp and express a distinction between the body, and something else within him distinct from the body, an easy name that suggested itself was breath. The breath seemed something immaterial and almost invisible, and it was clearly connected with the life that pervaded the body, for as soon as the breath ceased, the life of the body became extinct. Hence the Greek name yuxŋ which originally meant breath, was chosen to express at fi:st the principle of life, as distinguished from the decaying body, afterwards the incorporeal, the immaterial, the undecaying, the immortal part of man- - his soul, his mind, his Self. All this was very natural. When a person dies, we too say that he has given up the ghost, and ghost, too, meant originally spirit, and spirit meant breath. The Greeks expressed the same idea by saying that the yuxý had left the body, had fled through the mouth, or even through a bleeding wound, and had gone into Hades, which meant literally no more than the place of the Invisible (Aidns). That the breath had become invisible, was matter of fact; that it had gone to the house of Hades, was mythology springing spontaneously from the fertile soil of language. The primitive mythology was by no means necessarily religious. In the very case which we have chosen, philosophical mythology sprang up by the side of reli that sprang from this name was much more important. We saw that Psyche, meaning originally the breathing of the body, was gradually used in the sense of vital breath, and as something independent of the body; and that at last, when it had assumed the meaning of the immortal part of man, it retained that character of something independent of the body, thus giving rise to the conception of a soul, not only as a being without a body, but in its very nature opposed to body. As soon as that opposition had been established in language and thought, philosophy began its work in order to explain how two such heterogeneous powers could act on each other-how the soul could influence the body, and how the body could determine the soul. Spiritualistic and materialistic systems of philosophy arose, and all this in order to remove a self-created difficulty, in order to join together again what language had severed, the living body and the living soul. The question whether there is a soul or spirit, whether there is in man something different from the mere body, is not at all affected by this mythological phraseology. We certainly can distinguish between body and soul, but as long as we keep within the limits of human knowledge, we have no right to speak of the living soul as of a breath, or to speak of spirits and ghosts as fluttering about like birds or fairies, The poet of the nineteenth century says; The spirit does but mean the breath, And the same thought was expressed by Cicero two thousand years ago: "Whether the soul is air or fire, I do not know." As men, we only know of embodied spirits, however ethereal their bodies may be conceived to be, but of spirits, separate from body, without form or frame, we know as little as we know of thought without language, or of the Eawn as a Goddess, or of the Night as the mother of the Day. Though breath, or spirit, or ghost are the most common names that were assigned through the metaphorical nature of language to, the vital, and afterwards to the intellectual, principle in man, they were by no means the only possible names. We speak, for instance, of the shades of the departed, which meant originally their wonder, the first beginning of all reflecshadows. Those who first introduced this tion, all thought, all philosophy? was it expression and we find it in the most not to him the first revelation, the first distant parts of the world — evidently | beginning of all trust, of all religion? To took the shadow as the nearest approach us that wonder of wonders has ceased to to what they wished to express; some-exist, and few men now would even venthing that should be incorporeal, yet close-ture to speak of the sun as Sir John Herly connected with the body. The Greek elduhov, too, is not much more than the shadow, while the Latin manes meant probably in the beginning no more than the Little Ones, the Small Folk.* But the curious part, as showing again the influence of language on thought, an influenee more powerful even than the evidence of the senses, is this, that people who speak of the life or soul as the shadow of the body, have brought themselves to believe that a dead body casts no shadow, because the shadow has departed from it; that it is, in fact, a kind of Peter Schlemihl. † schel has spoken, calling him "the Almoner of the Almighty, the delegated dispenser to us of light and warmth, as well as the centre of attraction, and as such, the immediate source of all our comforts, and, indeed, of the very possibility of our existence on earth."* Man is a creature of habit, and wherever we can watch him, we find that before a few generations have passed, he has lost the power of admiring what is regular, and that he can see signs and wonders only in what is irregular. Few nations only have preserved in their ancient poetry some remnants of the natLet us now return to mythology in the ural awe with which the earliest dwellers narrower sense of the word. One of the on the earth saw that brilliant being slowly earliest objects that would strike and stir rising from out the darkness of the night, the mind of man and for which a sign or a raising itself by its own might higher and name would soon be wanted, is surely the higher, till it stood triumphant on the arch Sun. It is very hard for us to realize the of heaven, and then descended and sank feelings with which the first dwellers on down in its fiery glory into the dark abyss the earth looked upon the sun, or fully to of the heaving and hissing sea. In the understand what they meant by a morning hymns of the Veda the poet still wonders prayer or a morning sacrifice. Perhaps whether the sun will rise again; he asks there are few people here present who how he can climb the vault of heaven? have watched a sunrise more than once or why he does not fall back? why there is twice in their life; few people who have no dust on his path? And when the rays ever known the true meaning of a morn- of the morning rouse him from sleep and ing prayer, or a morning sacrifice. But call him back to new life; when he sees think of man at the very dawn of time: the sun, as he says, stretching out his golforget for a moment, if you can, after hav- den arms to bless the world and rescue it ing read the fascinating pages of Mr. Dar- from the terrors of darkness, he exclaims, win, forget what man is supposed to have" Arise, our life, our spirit has come back! been before he was man; forget it, because it does not concern us here whether his For so prominent an object in the pribodily form and frame were developed meval picture-gallery of the human mind, once for all in the mind of his Creator, or a sign or a name must have been wanted gradually in the creation itself, which is, at a very early period. But how was this I suppose, from the first monad or proto- to be achieved? As a mere sign, a cirplasin to the last of the primates, or man, cle would have been sufficient, such as the work of his mind; think of him only we find in the hieroglyphics of Egypt, in as man (and man means the thinker), with the graphic system of China, or even in. his mind yet lying fallow, though full of our own astronomical tables. If such a germs-germs of which I hold as strongly sign was fixed upon, we have a beginning as ever no trace has ever, no trace will of language in the widest sense of the ever, be discovered anywhere but in man; word, for we have a sign for a conception think of the Sun awakening the eyes of made up of a large number of single senman from sleep, and his mind from slum-suous impressions. With such definiteber. Was not the Sunrise to him the first signs mythology has little chance; yet the mere fact that the sun was represented as favour the idea that the a circle would * Im-manis, originally not small, came to mean enormous or monstrous.-See Preller, "Romische Mythologie," p. 72 seq. "Unkulunkulu; or the Tradition of Creation as existing among the Amazulu and other Tribes of South Africa." By the Rev. J. Callaway, M.D. Natal, 1868. Part I., p. 91. the darkness is gone, the light approaches!" See J. Samuelson, "Views of the Deity, Tradi tional and Scientific," p. 144. Williams and Nor-gate, 1871. sun was round; or as ancient people, who | root svar or sval, which meant to beam, to had no adjective as yet for round or ro-glitter, to warm. It exists in Greek, oéλaç, tundus, would say, that the sun * was splendour; σɛλývŋ, moon; in Anglo-Saxon, a wheel, a rota. If, on the contrary, the as swélan, to burn, to sweal; in modern round sign reminded the people of an eye, German, schwül, oppressively hot. From then the sign of the sun would soon be- it we have in Sanskrit the noun svar, come the eye of heaven, and germs of my- meaning sometimes the sky, sometimes the thology would spring up even from the sun; and exactly the same word has been barren soil of such hieroglyphic language. preserved in Latin, as sol; in Gothic, as But now suppose that a real name was sauil; in Anglo-Saxon, as sol. A secondwanted for the sun, how could that beary form of scar is the Sanskrit sûrya for achieved? svarya, the sun, which is the same word as the Greek λos. We know that all words are derived from roots, that these roots express general predicates, and that with few exceptions every name conveys a general predicate peculiar to the object that has to be named. How these roots came to be, is a question into which we need not enter at present. Their origin and growth form a problem of psychology rather than of philology, and each science must keep within its proper bounds. If a name was wanted for snow, the early framers of language singled out one of the general predicates of snow, its whiteness, its coldness, or its liquidity, and called the snow the white, the cold, or the liquid, by means of roots conveying the general idea of whiteness, coldness, or liquidity. Not only Nix, nivis, but Niobe too, was a name of the snow, and meant the melting; the death of her beautiful children by the arrows of Apollon and Artemis represents the destruction of winter by the rays of the sun. If the sun itself was to be named, it might be called the brilliant, the awakener, the runner, the ruler, the father, the giver of warmth, of fertility, of life, the scorcher, the destroyer, the messenger of death, and many other names; but there was no possibility of naming it, except by laying hold of one of its characteristic features, and expressing that feature by means of one of the predictive roots. Let us trace the history of at least one of these Lames. Before the Aryan nations separated, before there was a Latin, a Greek. or a Sanskrit language, there existed a * "It has already been implied that the Aborigines of Tasmania had acquired very limited powers of abstraction or generalization. They possessed no words representing abstract ideas; for each variety of gum-tree and waffle-tree, &c., &c., they had a name, but they had no equivalent for the expres sion, a tree;' neither could they express abstract qualities, such as hard, soft, warm, cold, long, short, round, &c.; for hard' they would say like a stone;' for tall' they would say long legs,' &c.; for round' they said 'like a ball,' like the moon,' and so on, usually suiting the action to the word, and confirming, by some sign, the meaning to be understood "Milligan, "Vocabulary of the Dia: lects of some of the Aboriginal Tribes of Tasmania.” Hobart Town. 1866. p. 31. All these names were originally mere predicates; they meant bright, brilliant, warm. But as soon as the name svar or surya was formed, it became, through the irresistible influence of language, the name, not only of a living, but of a male being. Every noun in Sanskrit must be either a masculine or a feminine (for the neuter gender was originally confined to the nominative case), and as sûryas had been formed as a masculine, language stamped it once for all as the sign of a male being as much as if it had been the name of a warrior or a king. In other languages where the name for sun is a feminine, and the sun is accordingly conceived as a woman, as a queen, as the bride of the moon, the whole mythology of the lovemaking of the heavenly bodies is changed. You may say that all this shows, not so much the influence of language on thought, as of thought on language; and that the sexual character of all words reflects only the peculiarities of a child's mind, which can conceive of nothing except as living, as male or female. If a child hurts itself against a chair, it beats and scolds the chair. The chair is looked upon not as it, but as he; it is the naughty chair, quite as much as a boy is a naughty boy. There is some truth in this, but it only serves to confirm the right view of the influence of language on thought; for this tendency, though in its origin intentional, and therefore the result of thought, became soon a mere rule of tradition in language, and it then reacted on the mind with irresistible power. As soon, in fact, as sûryas or hos appears as a masculine, we are in the very thick of mythology. We have not yet arrived at Helios as a god - - that is a much later stage of thought, which we might describe almost in the words of Plato at the beginning of the seventh book of the Republic," "And after this, he will reason that the sun is he who gives the seasons and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomeding; and also poißos; the brilliant. This to behold." We have not yet advanced last ephithet poßos has grown into an inso far, but we have reached at least the dependent deity Phoebus, and it is parfirst germs of a myth. In the Homeric ticularly known as a name of Apollon, hymn to Helios, Helios is not yet called Phoibos Apollon; thus showing what is an immortal, but only mikehoç davúrooi, also known from other sources that in like unto immortals, yet he is called the Apollo, too, we have one of the many child of Euryphaessa, the son of Hyperion, mythic disguises of the sun. So far all is the grandson of Uranos and Gaea. All clear, because all the names which we have this is mythology; it is ancient language to deal with are intelligible, or, at all going beyond its first intention. Nor is events, yield to the softest etymological there much difficulty in interpreting this pressure. But now if we hear the story myth. Helios, the sun, is called the son of Phoibos Apollon falling in love with of Hyperion, sometimes Hyperion himself. Daphne, and Daphne praying to her mothThis name Hyperion is derived from the er, the Earth, to save her from Phoibos; preposition ép, the Latin super, which and if we read how either the Earth remeans above. It is derived by means of|ceived her in her lap, and then a laurel the suffix tv, which originally was not a tree sprang up where she had disappeared, patronymic, but simply expressed belong or how she herself was changed into a ing to. So if Helios was called Hyperion, laurel tree, what shall we think of this? this simply meant he who dwells on high. It is a mere story, it might be said, aud and corresponds to Latin Summanus or why should there be any meaning in it? Superior, or Excelsior. If, on the con- My answer is, because people do not tell trary, Helios is called Hyperionides, this, such stories of their gods and heroes, untoo, which meant originally no more than less there is some sense in them. Besides, he who comes from, or belongs to those if Phoibos means the sun, why should not who dwell on high, led to the myth that he Daphne have a meaning too? Before, was the descendant of Hyperion; so that therefore, we can decide whether the story in this case, as in the case of Zeus Kro- of Phoibu3 and Daphne is a mere invennion, the son really led to the conception of tion, we must try to find out what can his father. Zeus Krouion meant originally have been the meaning of the word no more than Zeus the eternal, the god of Daphne. In Greek it means a laurel, * ages, the ancient of days; but lov becom-and this would explain the purely Greek ing usual as a patronymic suffix, Kronion legend that Daphne was changed into a was supposed to mean the son of Kronos. laurel tree. But who was Daphne? In Kronos, the father, was created in order order to answer this question, we must to account for the existence of the name have recourse to etymology, or, in other Kronion. If Hyperion is called the son of words, we must examine the history of Euryphaessa, the wide-shining, this re- the word. Etymology, as you know, is no quires no con mentary; for even at pres- longer what it used to be; and though ent a poet might say that the sun is born there may still be a classical scholar here of the wide-shining dawn. You see the and there who crosses himself at the idea spontaneous generation of mythology with of a Greek word being explained by a refevery new name that is formed. As not erence to Sanskrit, we naturally look to only the sun, but also the moon and the Sanskrit as the master-key to many a lock dawn could be called dwellers on high, which no Greek key will open. Now they, too, took the name of Hyperionis or Daphne, as I have shown, can be traced Hyperionides; and hence Homer called back to Sanskrit Ahand, and Ahand in Selene, the Moon, and Eos, the Dawn, sis- Sanskrit means the dawn. As soon as we ters of Helios, and daughters of Hyperion know this, everything becomes clear. The and Luryphaessa, the Dawn doing service story of Phoibos and Daphne is no more twice, both as mother, Euryphaessa, and than a description of what every one may as daughter, Eos. Nay, according to Ho- see every day; first, the appearance of the mer, Euryphaessa, the Dawn, is not only Dawn in the eastern sky, then the rising the wife, but also the sister of Helios. All of the Sun as if hurrying after his bride, this is perfectly intelligible, if we watch the growth of language and mythology; but it leads, of course, to the most tragic catastrophes as soon as it is all taken in a literal sense. Helios is called úkúpas, the never-tiring; then the gradual fading away of the bright Dawn at the touch of the fiery rays of the sun, and at last her death or disappearance in the lap of her mother, the Earth. All * See M. M.'s "Chips from a German Workship" navdεрkis, the all-seeing; pać0wv, the shin-' (2nd ed.), vol. ii. p. 95, note 45. this seems to me as clear as daylight, and the only objection that could be raised against this reading of the ancient myth would be, if it could be proved that Ahand does not mean Dawn, and that Daphne cannot be traced back to Ahand, or that Helios does not mean the Sun. marik took it and extinguished it. Only during four weeks in summer they remain together at midnight; Koit hands the dying torch to Ammarik, but Ammarik does not let it die, but lights it again with her breath. Then their and the blush of the face of Ammarik colours hands are stretched out, and their lips meet, the midnight sky." I know there is another objection, but it seems to me so groundless as hardly to This myth requires hardly any commendeserve an answer. Why, it is asked, tary; yet, as long as it is impossible to should the ancient nations have told these explain the names, Wanna Issi, Koit, and endless stories about the Sun and the Ammarik, it might be said that the story Dawn, and why should they have preserved was but a love-story, invented by an idle them in their mythology? We might as Lapp, or Finn, or Esthonian. But what well ask why the ancient nations should if Wanna Issi means, in their own lanhave invented so many irregular verbs, guage, the Old Father, and if Koit means and why they should have preserved them the Dawn? Can we then doubt any in their grammar. A fact does not cease longer that Ammarik must be the Gloamto be a fact, because we cannot at once ex-ing, and that their meeting in the summer plain it. As far as our knowledge goes reflects those summer evenings when, parat present, we are justified in stating that ticularly in the North, the torch of the the Aryan nations preserved not only their sun seems never to die, and when the grammatical structure, and a large portion Gloaming is seen kissing the Dawn? of their dictionary, from the time which preceded their separation, but that they likewise retained the names of some of their deities, some legends about their gods, some popular sayings and proverbs, and in these, it may be, the seeds of parables, as part of their common Aryan heirloom. Their mythological lore fills in fact a period in the history of Aryan thought half-way between the period of language and the period of literature, and it is this discovery which gives to mythology its importance in the eyes of the student of the most ancient history and psychology of mankind. I wish I could tell you some more of these stories which have been gathered from all parts of the world, and which, though they may be pronounced childish and tedious by some critics, seem to me to glitter with the brightest dew of nature's own poetry, and to contain those very touches that make us feel akin, not only with Homer or Shakespeare, but even with Lapps, and Finns, and Kaffirs. But my time draws to an end. If people cannot bring themselves to believe in solar and celestial myths among the Hindus and Greeks, let them study the folk-lore of the Semitic and Turanian And do not suppose that the Greeks, or races. I know there is, on the part of the Hindús, or the Aryan nations in gen- some of our most distinguished scholars, the eral were the only people who possessed same objection against comparing Aryan to such tales. Wherever we look, in every Non-Aryan myths, as there is against any part of the world, among uncivilized as attempt to explain the features of Sanskrit well as a civilized people, we find the or Greek by a reference to Finnish or same kind of stories, the same traditions, Bask. In one sense that objection is well the same myths. The Finns, Lapps, and founded, for nothing would create greater Esthonians do not seem a very poetical confusion than to ignore the genealogical race, yet there is poetry even in their principle as the only safe one in a scientific smoky tents, poetry surrounded with all classification of languages and of myths. the splendour of an arctic night, and fra- We must first classify our myths and legrant with the perfume of moss and wild gends, as we classify our languages and flowers. Here is one of their legends:dialects. We must first of all endeavour "Wanna Issi had two servants, Koit and member of a family by a reference to other to explain what wants explanation in one Ammarik, and he gave them a torch which members of the same family, before we alKoit should light every morning, and Ammarik should extinguish in the evening. In order to ourselves to glance beyond. But there to reward their faithful services, Wanna Issi is in a comparative study of languages told them they might be man and wife, but they and myths not only a philological, but also asked Wanna Issi that he would allow them to a philosophical and more particularly, a remain for ever bri le and bridegroom Wanna psychological interest, and though even in Issi assented, and henceforth Koit handed the this more general study of mankind, the torch every evening to Ammarik, and Am-frontiers of language and race ought |