Page:Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland (Curtin).djvu/28

 Mythology, according to his theory, is an outgrowth of error founded on mistaken identity of names; and the explanation of mythology follows on the discovery of the real meaning of those names by the aid of kindred languages in which their meanings are preserved.

Some stories connected with mythology have arisen in the way mentioned, and such stories cannot be explained, if explained at all, without the aid of kindred languages; but these stories no more constitute mythology than the bayous and creeks of the Amazon constitute the main body of that great river. Even if all that Professor Max Müller advances regarding Greek and Sanscrit names were demonstrated beyond a doubt, it would explain, not the origin of myths, but the origin of the particular stories with which he connects these names; for he has put in the place of mythology as a whole, the outcroppings of a part of mythology at a comparatively late period of its history, and has not touched the real origin of mythology, which, at the time he fixes for its birth, had already attained a most vigorous growth.

Herbert Spencer's theory of confusion is founded on the hypothesis that myths owe their origin to a confusion in the minds of primitive people, who