No satisfactory definition of the word " myth" has ever been given, partly because of the manifold varieties of myths, and partly because the word has been used in several distinct senses. In Homer it is equivalent to Xoyoc (II. xviii, 253), and Eustathius remarks that in later times it came to mean xfyivSi'ig Xoyoc (J^- "? 29), to which definition Suidas adds that it was Xoyoc 4'tvor]c, t'lKovi^iiiv Tt)v dXijBiiav. Plutarch, less ac- curately, confounds it with j)lausible fiction (Xoyof iptv- ^»)c toitCMC aXj]Biv(})'), and in the Etymologicum Mag- num it is made, in its technical sense, to mean a veiled or enigmatical narration {fiv^oQ arj/xaivii Svo . . . tov re dKOTHVov Xoyov . . . (cat tov anXoJQ Xuyov). Nei- ther the etymology nor the history of the word help us much. It is derived from /xuiw, to initiate, or /two;, to shut, and archbishop Trench thinks that it must there- fore have originally meant the word shut up in the mind, or muttered with the lips (Si/iion. of the N. T. [2d ser.] p. 174), though he admits that there is no trace of this in actual use ; and as, at first, fiv^og merely means " word," we may even derive it from an onoma- topoeia of the simplest consonantal utterance (tn^. It is not until Pindar's time (01. i, 47; Xe?n. vii, 34; vi, 1) that it is used of that which is "mentally conceived, rather than historically true ;" and in Attic prose it as- sumes its normal later sense of any legend or tradition of the prehistoric times. If, liowever, we analyze the modern use of tlie word, we shall find that these his- torical myths, or amplified legends of the remote past, generally mingled with the marvellous, do not properly represent our notion of myths any more than the well- imderstood philosophemes to which we previously al- luded. We must learn, too, to distinguish between the myths and tlie rationalistic explanations thrust into them b}^ the critical knowledge of a later age. If we would understand the true nature, for instance, of the Greek myths, we must discard from them the timidly rationalistic suggestions of Hecataaus, the severely com- mon-sense views of Paloephatus, and the unsympathiz- ingly sceptical rashness of Euemerus, no less than the profound moral intentions which have so often been transferred to them by the speculative genius of a Bacon or a Coleridge.
A myth proper, then, is neither a philosopheme nor a legend. It is best described as a spontaneous product of the youthful imagination of mankind — the natural form under which an infant race expresses its concep- tions and convictions about supernatural relations and prehistoric events. It is neither fiction, history, nor philosophy; it is a spoken poetry, an uncritical and childlike historj', a sincere and self-believing romance. It does not invent, but simply imagines and repeats; it may err, but it never lies. It is a narration, generalh' marvellous, which no one consciously or scientifically invents, and which every one unintentionally falsifies. " It is," says Mr. Grote, " the natural effusion of the un- lettered, imaginative, and believing man." It belongs to an age in which the understanding was credulous and confiding, the imagination full of vigor and vivac- ity, and the passions earnest and intense. Its very es-
sence consists in the projection of thoughts into the sphere of facts ("der Grund-Trieb des My then das Gedachte in ein Geschehenes umzusetzen" [Creuzer, Symholik, p. 99]). It arises partly from the uncon- scious and gradual objectizing of the subjective, or con- fusing mental processes with external realities; and partly from investing the object with the feelings of the subject — that is, from imaginatively attributing to external nature those feelings and qualities which only exist in the percipient soul.
The myth, then, belongs to that period of human progress in which the mind regards " history as all a fairy tale." Before the increase of knowledge, the dawn of science, and the general dissemination of books, men's fancies respecting the past, and the dim conjectures of nascent philosophy, could only be preserved by these traditional semi-poetic tales ; to borrow the fine expres- sion of Tacitus, "Fingunt simul creduntque." So far from being startled by the marvellous and the incred- ible, they expected and looked for it; while discrep- ancies and contradictions were accepted side by side, because the critical faculty was wholly undeveloped. " The real and the ideal," says Mr. Grote, " were blend- ed together in the primitive conception ; . . . the myth passed unquestioned, from the fact of its currency, and from its harmony with existing sentiments and precon- ceptions" (Hist, of Greece, i, 610). To the intensity of a fresh imagination, and the necessary weakness of the youth of language, we can trace the origin of a vast number of myths. In those early days men looked at all things with the large, open eyes of childish wonder- ment. The majority of phenomena which they saw and enjoyed were incapable of other than a metaphor- ical or poetical description ; and even if language had been more developed it would have responded less ac- curately to their thoughts, because they seriously trans- ferred their own feelings and emotions to the world around them, and made themselves the measure of all things. Thus the hunter regarded the moon and stars which " glanced rapidly along the clouded heaven"' as a " beaming goddess with her nymphs ;" and