Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 1 (Greek and Roman).djvu/17



HE theme of mythology is of perennial interest, and, more than this, it possesses a value that is very real. It is a document and a record—existing not merely in the dim past, but in the living present—of man's thought, of his ceaseless endeavour to attain that very real happiness which, as Vergil tells us, arises from "knowledge of the causes of things." Even in his most primitive stages of development man finds himself dwelling in a world filled with phenomena that to him are strange, sometimes friendly, often hostile. Why are these things so? Rightly mankind perceives that a phenomenon is not a Thing in Itself, an Absolute, but that it is an effect, the result of a cause. Now, the immediate cause may often be found; but then it will be seen that this cause is itself only a result of an anterior cause; and so, step by step, the search for ultimate Cause proceeds. Thus mythology is a very real phase—perhaps the most important primitive phase—of that eternal quest of Truth which ever drives us on, though we know that in its full beauty it may never be revealed to mortal eye nor heard by ear of man—that quest more precious than meat or raiment—that quest which we may not abandon if we will still be men.

Mythology is not, then, a thing of mere academic interest; its value is real—real to you and to me. It is the history of the thought of early man, and of primitive man today. In it we may find much to tell us how he lived, and how he had lived in the ages of which his myths recount. As affording us materials for a history of civilization mythology is of inestimable value. We know now that history is something more than