object, or the Zeus who was afraid of Attes, or the Zeus who made
love to women in the shape of an ant or a cuckoo, is a being whose
myth is felt to be unnatural and bewildering.[3] It is this
IRRATIONAL and unnatural element, as Mr. Max Muller says, "the
silly, senseless, and savage element," that makes mythology the
puzzle which men have so long found it. For, observe, Greek myth
does not represent merely a humorous play of fancy, dealing with
things religiously sacred as if by way of relief from the strained
reverential contemplation of the majesty of Zeus. Many stories of
Greek mythology are such as could not cross, for the first time,
the mind of a civilised Xenophanes or Theagenes, even in a dream.
THIS was the real puzzle.


[1] Odyssey, vi. 102.

[2] [Greek word omitted]; compare Harpokration on this word.

[3] These are the features in myth which provoke, for example, the
wonder of Emeric-David. "The lizard, the wolf, the dog, the ass,
the frog, and all the other brutes so common on religious monuments
everywhere, do they not all imply a THOUGHT which we must divine?"
He concludes that these animals, plants, and monsters of myths are
so many "enigmas" and "symbols" veiling some deep, sacred idea,
allegories of some esoteric religious creed. Jupiter, Paris, 1832,
p. lxxvii.


We have offered examples--Savage, Indian, and Greek--of that
element in mythology which, as all civilised races have felt,