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Rh APPENDIX.

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APPENDIX A.

FONTENELLE'S FORGOTTEN COMMON-SENSE.

In the opinion of Aristotle, most discoveries and inventions have been made time after time and forgotten again. Aristotle may not have been quite correct in this view; and his remarks, perhaps, chiefly applied to politics, in which every conceivable and inconceivable experiment has doubtless been attempted. In a field of less general interest—namely, the explanation of the absurdities of mythology—the true cause was discovered more than a hundred years ago by a man of great reputation, and then was quietly forgotten. Why did the ancient peoples—above all, the Greeks—tell such extremely gross and irrational stories about their gods and heroes? That is the riddle of the mythological Sphinx. It was answered briefly, wittily, and correctly by Fontenelle; and the answer was neglected, and half-a-dozen learned but impossible theories have since come in and out of fashion. Only within the last ten years has Fontenelle's idea been, not resuscitated, but rediscovered. The followers of Mr. E. B. Taylor, Mannhardt, Gaidoz, and the rest, do not seem to be aware that they are only repeating the notions of the nephew of Corneille.

The Academician's theory is stated in a short essay, De l'Origine des Fables (Œuvres: Paris, 1758, vol. iii. p. 270).