Before introducing, as is proposed, condensed excerpta from our available sources of information on Greek Mythology, it may be important for a large class of readers to define the term, and also to show some of the advantages arising from well directed mythological studies.

Mythology is a compound Greek word, meaning the science of—or, more literally, discourse respecting—myths. What is a myth? No exact definition of the word can be given, because there are many varieties of myths, and the term has been used in several distinct senses. In the New Testament it occurs five times, and is in every instance used in an evil, or severely disparaging sense. In our English version it is translated “fables,” not such as have been invented to convey and illustrate the truth, but cunningly devised fictions, used to convey ethical notions in themselves false. No such condemnation can be pronounced against the Grecian myths in general, many of which, like those of Plato, are charming figurative representations of important ideas, the splendidly imaginative embodiment of subjective truths, and, like the inimitable parables of our Lord, claim no credence for themselves, only as media for conveying the lessons taught. Such myths are not only free from any just reproach, but are commended, as a proper and effective method of teaching, analogous to allegories, fables and parables, and often found in the writings of the wisest and best of mankind. If in this way falsehood has been embellished, we may repudiate their false doctrines, though we admire the mythological dress in which they are presented.

Conscious that the best verbal definitions that can be given fail to define or precisely indicate the generally accepted character of the Grecian myth, we unconsciously multiply words and amplify their meanings, till the attempt becomes rather descriptive than definitive. Others, however acute and discerning, have had the same difficulty. In his attempt to tell us just what a myth is, Dr. McClintock says: “It is best described as a spontaneous product of the youthful imagination of mankind—the natural form under which the infant race expressed its conceptions and convictions about supernatural relations, and prehistoric events. It is neither fiction, ordinary history, nor philosophy; it is a spoken poetry, an uncritical and child-like history, a sincere and self-believing romance. It does not invent, but simply imagines and repeats; it may err, but it never lies. It is a narration, generally marvelous, which no one consciously or scientifically invents, and which every one unintentionally falsifies.” “It is,” says Mr. Grote, “the natural effusion of the unlettered, imaginative, believing man.” “It belongs to an age in which the mind was credulous, or confiding, the imagination full of vigor and vivacity, the passions earnest and intense. Its very essence consists in the projection of thought into the sphere of facts; and it arises partly from the unconscious and gradual objectizing of the subjective, or the confusing of mental processes with external realities; that is, from imaginatively attributing to external nature the feelings and qualities which exist only in the percipient soul.”

Myths, then, belong to that period of human progress in which the untaught mind regards “history as all a fairy tale.” Before the dawn of science, and the increase of knowledge by the general dissemination of books, men’s fancies respecting the past, and the uncertain conjectures of their nascent philosophy could be preserved only by these traditional and semi-poetical tales of the mythologists. To borrow the fine expression of Tacitus—Fingunt simul creduntque—“They at once fabricate and believe.”

“The real and the ideal,” again says Mr. Grote, “were blended together in the primitive conceptions.… The myth passed unquestioned from the fact of its currency, and its harmony with existing sentiments and preconceptions.” So to the intensity of a fresh, undisciplined imagination, and the paucity of terms in the language yet in its extreme adolescence, the origin of a vast number of myths can easily be traced. “In those early days men looked at all things with the large open eyes of childish wonderment, and much of what they saw was incapable of any other than a metaphorical description at their hands. They had no words for the purpose, and if the language had been richer it would have responded less accurately to their thoughts, since they transferred their own feelings and sentiments to the world about them, and made themselves the measure of all things.” “Thus,” says one, “the hunter regarded the moon which glanced rapidly along the clouded heavens, as a beaming goddess with her nymphs,” and

Among a race of unlettered, but intellectually active, stalwart men, on whose path science shed but a dim, uncertain light, even natural phenomena so imperfectly understood, and many things in the realm of the spiritual and unseen being imaginatively conceived, and described in metaphors, myths must abound. Nor is it wonderful that those belonging to a remote prehistoric age are sometimes shrouded in a veil of impenetrable mystery.

We may not be able to reach their true meaning, since when personifications are so manifold, it is often impossible for us to tell just what was regarded as fancy and what was believed to be fact. It is worthy of remark that the same is as true of the grotesque incredible legends current among semi-barbarian tribes at the present day, as in the earliest Grecian myths. In many of them there is a substratum of facts, of which there was some rather shadowy knowledge; after some progress, and the introduction of letters among them, their guesses and imaginings that were uttered in metaphorical expressions not fully understood, are in a manner evaporated, or crystallize into dogmas that are accepted as parts of the tribal faith.

So the more ancient narratives, that are called mythological, as we will hereafter see, when collected, systematized and written by masters in the art, have a value not only as indicating the incipient, though imperfect development of the race, but in most cases, after the winnowing processes applied have driven away the chaff, some kernels of truth will remain, more than enough to repay those who mostly study them as interesting relics of a primitive society, the earnest, impassioned deliverances of nature’s children, yet unsophisticated by “philosophy falsely so called.”

We will a little further extend, and corroborate these views by another quotation from a high authority on the subject.

“Myths,” he says, “are figurative representations of events or ideas in the garb of history; they develop themselves spontaneously, and unartificially in the consciousness of a primitive people; instead of being products of design and invention, they symbolize the forces of nature under whose influence they are formed, and have an essentially religious character.”

The same authority further says: “The myth proceeds from an idea, either true or false; the legend proceeds from facts, more or less clearly apprehended, in which the idea was discovered. The one transforms poetry, religion or philosophy into history; the other modifies history with reference to conceptions of poetry, religion and philosophy.”

All persons interested in classical studies, and having given much attention to comparative philology, find in the early history of mankind an age in which words were very few—mostly names of things, and not used to express abstract ideas, or any other than those things necessary to the simplest modes of life. As words increased in number, some were introduced expressive of qualities, relations and acts. They are found variously related, phrases and brief sentences appear, the language becomes organic, and the first elements of its grammar are discovered.

In a second period, as in the Aryan and Semitic tongues, language is found advanced to a more systematic, grammatical development, and invites us to a more critical study and analysis of its forms. As yet there were neither abstract nor collective nouns, and every name designated a definite individual object. All these names of things had terminations suggestive of sex. Neuter nouns were yet unknown. Of course it was impossible for them to speak of any object, though inanimate, without ascribing to it something of an active, individual, sexual, personal character; and for this reason, if for no other, personification is a special characteristic of all languages in their earlier stages of development, and it is found to have a close correspondence with the mythical conceptions in the development of thought in those remote ages. There was then nothing prosaic in men’s thinking or speaking. Their language was a kind of unconscious poetry, every word a poem, every phrase embracing the germs of something metaphorical, or sparkling with the scintillations of some bright conceptions. Verbs, too, were strongly expressive of the mind’s various moods and emotions, and needed few auxiliaries that are employed in more abstract prose. Thus sunset was described as the sun growing old, decaying, dying; the sunrise as night giving birth to a brilliant, beautiful child. Spring was Sol greeting the happy earth with a warm embrace, and showering his treasures into the lap of nature. Rivers, fountains, grottoes, forests, mountains, rain, storm, the ocean, fire, thunder clouds and the heavenly bodies were all clothed with the attributes of living beings, and all descriptions of them were myths.

Volumes have been written, and much more might here be said explanatory of the general subject, and to remove prejudice against mythological studies as useless or misleading in their tendency.

Some well meaning persons ask how Christians who know the truth and rejoice in it can be either pleased or profited by communing with the thoughts or fancies of those on whom the sun did not shine, and who had none to lead them.

It is important for all such to distinguish the point of view in which mythological narratives were contemplated by the ancients, by mythologists themselves, and that in which we are to regard them. To them they were in many respects realities closely connected with their national history and their religious faith. To us they are unreal, but affording evidence of the little nature taught them or that was acquired by merely intellectual processes, and their evident, but often vaguely felt, need of supernatural manifestations.

Classical study and literature are regarded as so important in education, and a knowledge of Greek mythology is so obviously necessary to a full understanding of the best Greek authors, that many works have been published on the subject. The writers have either merely stated the fables as reported among the ancients, or in addition have sought to trace them to their origin, either by making conjectures of allegorical, historical and physical meanings in the stories, or deriving them from the events of the early ages, recorded in the Bible. But as these traditions themselves arose in various ways, and often accidentally, there of course must be error in every system which attempts to refer them to a common cause and purpose.

The foundation of very many of the fictions of mythology is laid in ideas that arose from the simplicity and inexperience of persons conversant only with objects of sense. Wherever an unusual fact or appearance was observed it was ascribed to a distinct being or existence, operating directly or immediately. This creation by them of personal existences out of natural phenomena, this ever ready personification of physical objects and events, was, in all probability, one of the most fruitful sources of fable and of idolatry, for which the stars and the elements seem to have furnished the most common occasion.

“One source of fable,” says an able writer, “is the perversion or alteration of facts in sacred history; and indeed this is its earliest and principal source. The family of Noah, perfectly instructed by him in religious matters, preserved for a considerable time the worship of the true God in all its purity. But when the members of this family were separated and scattered over different countries, diversity of language and abode was soon followed by a change of worship. Truth, which had hitherto been intrusted to the single channel of oral communication, subject to a thousand variations, and which had not yet become fixed by the use of writing, that surer guardian of facts, became obscured by an infinite number of fables which greatly increased the darkness that had enveloped it.”

The advantages of an acquaintance with mythology are many. They have been admirably shown by Rollin, from whom we quote: