means the real sky, mentioned either alone (VI. 17, 9), or together with the earth (I. 22, 3, 57, 5; V. 54, 9; VIII. 40, 4); or together with earth and sky (X. 60, 7 1). Wherever Dyaus occurs, not as the visible sky, but as a power, as active or personal, he is always masculine, he is pitâ, the father, by the side of the earth, as mother; he is the father of the Dawn, of Agni, of the two Asvin (day and night), he is in fact Zeus and Jupiter. The sky was conceived as active and as masculine before it sank down to a mere name of the sky, which then, by the analogy of the names for earth, dwindled down to a feminine. The facts therefore are the very opposite of what Prof. Gruppe supposes or wishes them to be. The mere naming of the sky as an active power, or even as a masculine, might be called a matter of language only, not yet of mythology. But you will see how facile the descensus is from such a word to an incipient myth, nay even to religious ideas. We have watched the origin of Zeus in the Veda, where Dyaus, the same word, is clearly the bright, the warming, the cheering, the enlivening sky, and where Dyaush pitâ, Heaven-father, shows us one of the first steps in Aryan mythology. Remember that this Dyaush pitar is the same as the Greek Ζεὺς πατήρ, and the Latin Jupiter, and you will see how this one word shows us the easy, the natural, the almost inevitable transition from the conception of the active sky as a purely physical fact, to the Father Sky with all his mythological accidents, and lastly to that Father in heaven whom Aeschylus meant when he burst out in his majestic prayer to 'Zeus, whosoever he is.' 1 On the passage X. 63, 3, see M. M., Rig-veda Sanhitâ, vol. i. p. 249. LECTURE XVI. NE MYTHOLOGY. Myths. EXT to language as such, it is myth or mythology which supplies us with materials for the study of Natural Religion. The outline of the genealogy of languages which I gave you in some of my former lectures will be equally useful for the genealogy of mythology. It will in fact be the chief object of this and the next following lectures to show that what we call myth is a natural and inevitable phase in the development of language; that in its initial stages that phase showed itself before the different languages belonging to the same family had become finally separated, and that therefore, besides much that is peculiar to each, we find in all a common fund of mythology which we may look upon as the earliest stratum likely to contain the germs of religious thoughts. If we use myth and mythology synonymously, we have the authority of Greek writers for doing so, for mythology (μvoλoyía) with them does not mean, as it often does with us, a study of myths, but it is used in the sense of a telling of mythic legends, and afterwards of these legends and tales themselves. Meaning of Mythology. Few words, however, have of late changed their meaning so completely as myth and mythology. Not very long ago Greek mythology meant Greek religion, Roman mythology meant Roman religion, and each was supposed to consist of a body of traditions and doctrines which a Greek or Roman had to believe, just as Christians believe in the New, or the Jews in the Old Testament. As mythology was taught at school chiefly from manuals, a very general impression prevailed that the legends collected in them existed in this collective form in Greece and Italy, that they formed in fact a complete system, and were known as such by every Greek and Roman, man, woman, and child; the fact being that hardly a single Greek or Roman could have passed an examination in our manuals of mythology, nay that the very names of many of the gods and heroes therein mentioned would have been utterly unknown to the majority of the inhabitants of Greece and Italy. Etymology of μῦθος. Before we discuss the meaning which mythology has assumed, chiefly owing to the discovery that myth is a phase of language, inevitable in the early development of speech and thought, it may be well to ask in what sense μôlos was used by the Greeks themselves. The etymology of μôlos is unknown, or at all events doubtful. It is well to be reminded from time to time how many words there are still in Greek and Latin, to say nothing of Sanskrit, of which we cannot render any etymological account. Of course, we can guess that poos is derived from μów, to shut, to close. This is used of shutting the eyes, as in μύωψ, μύωπος, literally closing the eyes, then shortsighted; and it is likewise used of shutting the lips. From this a secondary base might be derived, μváw, which means to compress the lips, to express contempt. In Sanskrit we have a root mû, to bind, from which mû-ka, dumb, lit. tongue-bound, and likewise Latin mú-tus, dumb, and Greek μú-ris, which Hesychius mentions in the sense of ἄφωνος, as well as μύτης and μυττός. Possibly μvéw, to initiate, to teach secrets, may likewise come from that root, while μύστης and μυστήριον might owe their s to analogy. Still it would be strange if μôéos, word, had meant originally a muttering with closed lips, even though we can appeal to Latin muttum, a muttering, muttire, or mutîre, to mumble. The Gothic rúna, secret counsel, has likewise been mentioned as a parallel case, because it is derived from a root RU, to whisper1. All we can say is that a derivation of μôlos from the root mû, to bind, to close, is phonetically possible, and this is more than can be said for another etymology which connects uolos with uúcw, to murmur, for in μúw the final of the root is guttural, not dental, as is shown by μvyμós, muttering. Though the etymology of μulos is somewhat doubtful, its meaning in Greek is clear enough. It means word as opposed to deeds, and hardly differs originally from πos and λóyos. Afterwards2, however, a dis ἔπος 1 Connected with Gothic rûna we find the Old Norse rún, secret, then the Runic letters. In A. S. we have rûn, secret, rûnian, to whisper, Med. English to roun, which has been changed into to round; German raunen. The Latin rumor too has been traced back to the same cluster of words. 2 Pind. O. 1, 47; N. 7, 34. tinction is made between polos in the sense of a story, a fable, and λóyos, an historical account, and this distinction has been preserved in modern times. Myth, a word. If the original meaning of the Greek λóyos, as both word and thought, has revealed to us a forgotten truth which must become the foundation of all true philosophy, namely the identity of thought and language, the original meaning of μeos, word, will teach us an equally useful lesson for the study of mythology, and indirectly, of religion. Let us take myth in its original sense, and we shall see that here too the Greeks saw rightly. A myth was at first a word. The formation of such a word as Eos, dawn, seems at first sight not very different from the formation of any other word. But if you remember that all roots expressed originally an action, you will see that we require for every word an agent. Now so long as we deal with verbs, we always have our agent; namely, I, thou, or he-I strike, thou strikest, he strikes. But when we have to deal with a word like Eos-who is the agent there? Eos. We know that Eos is the Sanskrit Ushas, and we know that ushas is derived from a root VAS, which means to shine. So Eos meant originally 'shining-it,' or 'shining-he,' or 'shining-she.' But who was it, or he, or she? Here you have at once the inevitable birth of what we call a myth. What our senses perceive and what we are able to name is only an effect, it is the illumination of the sky, the brightness of the morning, or, as we now should say, the reflection of the |