Myth and Science

ed of the fact that into the natural and primitive phenomena of myth, or, as Müller holds, into its various metaphors, man has so far infused his own life, that they have, like man himself, a subjective and deliberate consciousness and force. It seems to me that this problem has not yet been solved by scholars; they have stopped short after establishing the primary fact, and are content to affirm that such is human nature, which projects itself on external things.[3]

This explanation establishes a true and universal fact, but it is not the explanation of the fact itself; yet it is not, as we shall see, incapable of solution, and it appears to me that the ultimate source whence myths really proceed has not been reached.

Again, if such an opinion and such a method can give us the key to the polytheistic origin of the respective Olympuses of classic Greece and Rome, it leaves unexplained the numerous and manifold superstitions which philology itself proves to have existed prior to the origin o