Note (return) — Chapter IV

The principal theories offered may be classed as the ethical, the physical, and the historical, according to the different objects the framers of the myths are supposed to have had in view. Some have regarded the myths as invented by the priests and wise men of old for the improvement and government of society, as designed to give authority to laws, and maintain social order. 155 Others have regarded them as intended to be allegorical interpretations of physical phenomena--the poetic embodiment of the natural philosophy of the primitive races of men; 156 whilst others have looked upon them as historical legends, having a substratum of fact, and, when stripped of the supernatural and miraculous drapery which accompanies fable, as containing the history of primitive times. 157 Some of the latter class have imagined they could recognize in Grecian mythology traces of sacred personages, as well as profane; in fact, a dimmed image of the patriarchal traditions which are preserved in the Old Testament scriptures. 158