Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/34

 But where is the evidence for Polyonymy, Synonymy and rapid oblivion, the three factors in secondary mythmaking? As far as we have been able to discover, we are offered no convincing evidence at all. Mr. Müller gives cases of polyonymy and synonymy from the Veda (Selected Essays, i. 377). But (1.) The Vedic age is, ex hypothesi, long subsequent to the mythopoeic age. (2.) The necessary and indispensable process of forgetfulness of the meaning of phrases does not occur in the age of the Veda. People in the Veda call the earth wide, broad, great (polyonymy). They also apply the term "broad" to a river, sky, and dawn. But did their grandchildren on this account mistake the Earth for the Dawn, or the Sky for the Earth? Thus Mr. Müller is apparently unable to give examples of his causes of myth from the age in which myths proceeded from these causes, and when he does produce examples of the causes, they result in no myths. Where he finds the effects he does not demonstrate the existence of the causes; when he has evidence for the existence of the causes, he shows no effects. (Selected Essays, i. 377, 378). When Mr. Müller does attempt to adduce a term which originally was a mere name, and later became a proper name, and so indicated a person, the process can be accounted for by another explanation. (Selected Essays, i. 378), Zeús being originally a name for the sky, like the Sanskrit Dyáus, became gradually a proper name." But if the sky was in the mind of the makers of primary myths, a person inevitably and from the first (as we think, in agreement with Sir George Cox), then the name of the sky was from the first a proper name. When all things were persons (as they are to the minds of savages and primary myth-makers) all names may be regarded as proper names.