explained by the same resemblances in human nature, when we touched on
the identity of magical practices and of superstitious beliefs. This
method is fairly well established and orthodox when we deal with usages
and superstitious beliefs; but may we apply the same method when we deal
with myths?

Here a difficulty occurs. Mythologists, as a rule, are averse to the
method of folklore. They think it scientific to compare only the myths
of races which speak languages of the same family, and of races which
have, in historic times, been actually in proved contact with each other.
Thus, most mythologists hold it correct to compare Greek, Slavonic,
Celtic, and Indian stories, because Greeks, Slavs, Celts, and Hindoos all
speak languages of the same family. Again, they hold it correct to
compare Chaldaean and Greek myths, because the Greeks and the Chaldaeans
were brought into contact through the Phoenicians, and by other
intermediaries, such as the Hittites. But the same mythologists will vow
that it is unscientific to compare a Maori or a Hottentot or an Eskimo
myth with an Aryan story, because Maoris and Eskimo and Hottentots do not
speak languages akin to that of Greece, nor can we show that the
ancestors of Greeks, Maoris, Hottentots, and Eskimo were ever in contact
with each other in historical times.

Now the peculiarity of the method of folklore is that it will venture to
compare (with due caution and due examination of evidence) the myths of
the most widely severed races. Holding that myth is a product of the
early human fancy, working on the most rudimentary knowledge of the outer
world, the student of folklore thinks that differences of race do not
much affect the early mythopoeic faculty. He will not be surprised if
Greeks and Australian blacks are in the same tale.