Page:Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland (Curtin).djvu/27

 merely an incident in the history of mythology, not the great central and germinal principle which he makes it. Neither from Max Müller's theory of oblivion nor Herbert Spencer's theory of confusion can a definition be obtained which would apply to the myths of America, nor to the great body of myths of India and Persia, nor, for that matter, to any body of myths on earth.

If we examine closely these two theories, we shall find that they owe their origin to the overpowering influence of the previous pursuits of the two men, and the scant and faulty materials at their command. Max Müller, when he published his essays on mythology, was fresh from the occupation of comparing portions of the Aryan languages with each other, especially Sanscrit and Greek. When he found, or fancied he found, certain names of Greek mythology in Sanscrit, some of which were meaningless names in Greek, but significant in Sanscrit, he thought he had discovered the origin of myths, which he found in the misinterpretation of names whose meanings were really forgotten, but whose forms misled men into identifying them with names whose meanings were known, but altogether different from the forgotten meanings for which they were now substituted.