Note 20 — Introduction

Stucken [Mose, p. 432] says in this sense. The myth transmitted by the ancestors was transferred to natural processes and interpreted in a naturalistic way, not vice versa. “Interpretation of nature is a motive in itself” [p. 633, annotation]. In a very similar way, we read in Meyer’s History of Antiquity, Vol. V, p. 48: In many cases, the natural symbolism, sought in the myths, is only apparently present or has been secondarily introduced, as often in the Vedda and in the Egyptian myths; it is a primary attempt at interpretation, like the myth-interpretations which arose among the Greeks since the fifth century.