Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/10

vi In other respects the course of mythological inquiry, although it has been greatly widened, has not made any serious modifications necessary in the principles by which I have been guided, or in the details of the evidence which have determined the conclusions reached. On the whole, the result has been to strengthen in every way the foundations of the science, and to lay bare more and more clearly the origin and growth of the vast body of Aryan tradition and belief. The examination of the religious systems of Assyria, Phenicia, and Egypt bears out abundantly and precisely just those assertions of Comparative Mythologists which have been most pertinaciously called into question, and has removed beyond the reach of doubt the fact that the mighty mass of popular tradition in every Aryan land has been shaped by words and phrases describing all the varied and complex phenomena of day and night, of summer and winter, of earth and heaven.

April 14, 1882.