Myths and Myth-Makers [95]
as when reading Mr. Cox's volumes. That Mr. Tylor, while defending the same fundamental theory, awakens no such rebellious feelings, is due to his clear perception and realization of the fact that it is impossible to generalize in a single formula such many-sided correspondences as those which primitive poetry end philosophy have discerned between the life of man and the life of outward nature. Whoso goes roaming up and down the elf-land of popular fancies, with sole intent to resolve each episode of myth into some answering physical event, his only criterion being outward resemblance, cannot be trusted in his conclusions, since wherever he turns for evidence he is sure to find something that can be made to serve as such. As Mr. Tylor observes, no household legend or nursery rhyme is safe from his hermeneutics. "Should he, for instance, demand as his property the nursery 'Song of Sixpence,' his claim would be easily established,--obviously the four-and-twenty blackbirds are the four-and-twenty hours, and the pie that holds them is the underlying earth covered with the overarching sky,--how true a touch of nature it is that when the pie is opened, that is, when day breaks, the birds begin to sing; the King is the Sun, and his counting out his money is pouring out the sunshine, the golden shower of Danae; the Queen is the Moon, and her transparent honey the moonlight; the Maid is the 'rosy-fingered' Dawn, who rises before the Sun, her master, and hangs out the clouds, his clothes, across the sky; the particular blackbird, who so tragically ends the tale by snipping off her nose, is the hour of sunrise." In all this interpretation there is no a priori improbability, save, perhaps, in its unbroken symmetry and completeness. That some points, at least, of the story are thus derived from antique interpretations of physical events, is in harmony with all that we know concerning nursery rhymes. In short, "the time-honoured rhyme really wants but one thing to prove it a sun-myth, that one thing being a proof by some argument more valid than analogy." The character of the argument which is lacking may be illustrated by a reference to the rhyme about Jack and Jill, explained some time since in the paper on "The Origins of FolkLore." If the argument be thought valid which shows these ill-fated children to be the spots on the moon, it is because the proof consists, not in the analogy, which is in this case not especially obvious, but in the fact that in the Edda, and among ignorant Swedish peasants of our own day, the story of Jack and Jill is actually given as an explanation of the moon-spots. To the neglect of this distinction between what is plausible and what is supported by direct evidence, is due much of the crude speculation which encumbers the study of myths.
[156] Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom By Edward B. Tylor. 2 vols. 8vo. London. 1871.
It is when Mr. Tylor merges the study of mythology into the wider inquiry into the characteristic features of the mode of thinking in which myths originated, that we can best appreciate the practical value of that union of speculative boldness and critical sobriety which everywhere distinguishes him. It is pleasant to meet with a writer who can treat of primitive religious ideas without losing his head over allegory and symbolism, and who duly realizes the fact that a savage is not a rabbinical commentator, or a cabalist, or a Rosicrucian, but a plain man who draws conclusions like ourselves, though with feeble intelligence and scanty knowledge. The mystic allegory with which such modern writers as Lord Bacon have invested the myths of antiquity is no part of their original clothing, but is rather the late product of a style of reasoning from analogy quite similar to that which we shall perceive to have guided the myth-makers in their primitive constructions. The myths and customs and beliefs which, in an advanced stage of culture, seem meaningless save when characterized by some quaintly wrought device of symbolic
[156] Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom By Edward B. Tylor. 2 vols. 8vo. London. 1871.
It is when Mr. Tylor merges the study of mythology into the wider inquiry into the characteristic features of the mode of thinking in which myths originated, that we can best appreciate the practical value of that union of speculative boldness and critical sobriety which everywhere distinguishes him. It is pleasant to meet with a writer who can treat of primitive religious ideas without losing his head over allegory and symbolism, and who duly realizes the fact that a savage is not a rabbinical commentator, or a cabalist, or a Rosicrucian, but a plain man who draws conclusions like ourselves, though with feeble intelligence and scanty knowledge. The mystic allegory with which such modern writers as Lord Bacon have invested the myths of antiquity is no part of their original clothing, but is rather the late product of a style of reasoning from analogy quite similar to that which we shall perceive to have guided the myth-makers in their primitive constructions. The myths and customs and beliefs which, in an advanced stage of culture, seem meaningless save when characterized by some quaintly wrought device of symbolic