Note 47 — Lecture VIII. Free Thought in England in the Present Century; Summary of the Course of Lectures; Inferences in Reference to Present Dangers and Duties.

In the last century the opinions on the nature of mythology were two. That which taught that myths are distortions of traditions derived from the early Hebrew literature, was put forward in the seventeenth century, as early as philosophy was applied to the subject, by Huet and Bossuet, and retained its hold throughout the last century, and is advocated in the present by Mr. Gladstone (Work on Homer, vol. ii. ch. ii). The opposite theory interpreted myths by an Euhemeristic process, or allegorized them by regarding them as originally descriptions of the physical processes of nature. In the present century Creuzer (Symbolik, 1810) applied the method of comparison, and, studying Greek mythology in correlation with that of other countries, taught in a Neo-Platonic sense that myths are a second language, the echo of nature in the consciousness. Creuzers system was opposed by Lobeck about 1824, Voss, and G. Hermann, who objected to the excess of symbolism and the sacerdotal ideas implied in it; and by Ottfried Müller, and Welcker, on the narrower ground of asserting the independence of Greek mythology from foreign influence. More recently the careful study of the Sanskrit language and early literature by Max Müller, Kuhn, &c. has thrown new light upon the subject; and the solution of the problem is now approached from the side of language, and not merely from that of tradition or monuments. The distinction of myth and legend is now clear; the family relationship between the myths of different nations is made apparent; the date in human history of their creation; and the cause of them is sought in the attempt to express abstract ideas by means of the extension of concrete terms. See the Essay on Comparative Mythology by Max Müller, in the Oxford Essays for 1856. See also the Journal for Comp. Phil. of Kuhn and Aufrecht. And for a criticism on Creuzer, see E. Renan's Etudes d'Histoire Religieuse (Ess. i).