[387] See also L. Preller, Griechische Mythologie, 1, 19. Max Müller, Comparative Mythology, Oxford Essays, 1856, pp. 1-87; also Science of Religion, 1873, pp. 335-403; Philosophy of Mythology; and Science of Language, 7th ed., 2, 421-571. Hermann Paul, Grundriss der Germanischen Philologie, Bd. 1, Lfg. 5, 982-995, Mythologie (von E. Mogk). W. Y. Sellar, Augustan Poets. Louis Dyer, Studies of the Gods in Greece. Talfourd Ely, Olympus. A. H. Petiscus, The Gods of Olympus (translated by Katherine A. Raleigh). E. Rohde, Psyche. B. I. Wheeler, Dionysos and Immortality.
[CHAPTER XXXI]
THE DISTRIBUTION OF MYTHS
296. Theories of Resemblance. Several theories of the appearance of the same explanatory or æsthetic myth under various guises, in lands remote one from another, have been advanced; but none of them fully unveils the mystery. The difficulty lies not so much in accounting for the similarity of thought or material in different stories, as for the resemblance in isolated incidents and in the arrangement of incidents or plot. The principal theories of the distribution of myths are as follows:
(1) That the resemblances between the myths of different nations are purely accidental. This theory leaves us no wiser than we were.
(2) That the stories have been borrowed by one nation from another. This will account for exchange only between nations historically acquainted with each other. It will not account for the existence of the same arrangement of incidents in a Greek myth and in a Polynesian romance.
(3) That all myths, if traced chronologically backward and geographically from land to land, will be found to have originated in India.[388] This theory fails to account for numerous stories current among the modern nationalities of Europe, of Africa, and of India itself. It leaves also unexplained the existence of certain myths in Egypt many centuries before India had any known history: such as, in all probability, the Egyptian myth of Osiris. The theory, therefore, is open to the objection made to the theory of borrowing.
(4) That similar myths are based upon historical traditions similar in various countries or inherited from some mother country. But, although some historical myths may have descended from a mother race, it has already been demonstrated (§ 294, (1)) that the historical (euhemeristic) hypothesis is inadequate. It is, moreover, not likely that many historical incidents, like those related in the Iliad and the Odyssey, happened in the same order and as actual history in Asia Minor, Ithaca, Persia, and Norway. But we find myths containing such incidents in all these countries.[389]
(5) That the Aryan tribes (from which the Indians, Persians, Phrygians, Greeks, Romans, Germans, Norsemen, Russians, and Celts are descended) "started from a common center" in the highlands of Northern India, "and that from their ancient home they must have carried away, if not the developed myth, yet the quickening germ from which might spring leaves and fruits, varying in form and hue according to the soil to which it should be committed and the climate under which the plant might reach maturity."[390] Against this theory it may be urged that stories having only the undeveloped germ or idea in common would not, with any probability, after they had been developed independently of each other, possess the remarkable resemblance in details that many widely separated myths display. Moreover, the assumption of this common stock considers only Aryan tribes: it ignores Africans, Mongolians, American Indians, and other peoples whose myths resemble the Aryan, but are not traceable to the same original germ. The Aryan germ-theory has, however, the merit of explaining resemblances between many myths of different Aryan nations.
(6) That the existence of similar incidents or situations is to be explained as resulting from the common facts of human thought, experience, and sentiment. This may be called the psychological theory. It was entertained by Grimm, and goes hand in hand with the anthropological, or "survivalist," explanation of the elements of myth. "In the long history of mankind," says Mr. Andrew Lang, "it is impossible to deny that stories may conceivably have spread from a single center, and been handed on from races like the Indo-European and Semitic to races as far removed from them in every way as the Zulus, the Australians, the Eskimos, the natives of the South Sea Islands. But while the possibility of the diffusion of myths by borrowing and transmission must be allowed for, the hypothesis of the origin of myths in the savage state of the intellect supplies a ready explanation of their wide diffusion." Many products of early art—clay bowls and stone weapons—are peculiar to no one national taste or skill, they are what might have been expected of human conditions and intelligence. "Many myths may be called 'human' in this sense. They are the rough product of the early human mind, and are not yet characterized by the differentiations of race and culture. Such myths might spring up anywhere among untutored men, and anywhere might survive into civilized literature."[391]