The distribution of myth, like its origin, is inexplicable by any one theory. The discovery of racial families and of family traditions narrows the problem, but does not solve it. The existence of the same story in unrelated nationalities remains a perplexing fact, towards the explanation of which the theories of "borrowing" and of "similar historic tradition," while plausible, are but unsubstantiated contributions. And until we possess the earliest records of those unrelated nationalities that have similar myths, or until we discover monuments and log books of some commercial nation that in prehistoric times circumnavigated the globe and deposited on remote shores and islands the seeds of the parent mythic plant, we must accept as our only scientific explanation the psychological, or so-called human, theory:—Given similar mental condition with similar surroundings, similar imaginative products, called myths, will result.[392]
FOOTNOTES:
[388] Benfey and Cosquin. See Lang's Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 2, 299.
[389] Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 2, 300; Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, 1, 100.
[390] The Rev. Sir G. W. Cox, Mythology of Aryan Nations, 1, 99; also, same theory, Max Müller's Chips from a German Workshop; Andrew Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 2, 297.
[391] Encyc. Brit., 9th ed. Article, Mythology. Cf. Tylor's Primitive Culture, 1, 369; Tylor's Anthropology, p. 397.
[392] See T. C. Johnston's Did the Phœnicians Discover America? 1892.