The author of the ' Book of Wisdom' imagines that the heathen deities were originally human beings, and accounts for their becoming objects of religious adoration in the following manner : "For a father afflicted with untimely mourning, when he had made an image of his child soon taken away, now knoweth him as a god, which was then a dead man, and delivered to those that were under him ceremonies and sacrifices.—Whom man could not know in presence, because they dwelt far off, they took the counterfeit of his visage from far, and made an express image of a king, whom they honoured, to the end that by this their forwardness they might flatter him that was absent, as if he were present" (xiv., 15, 17).
Among the Greeks this theory was adopted by Ephorus, and was carried to • great length by Euhemerus, in his' Sacred History' (IT& Arrypact4), fragments of which have been preserved by Diodorus Siculus and Eursebius. Some of the Christian fathers also adopted this view of mytholotry, and employed it with considerable success in their controversies with the supporters of the Pagan religion. Among the moderns this theory has been maintained by Bather, in his 'Mythology and Fables explained by History.' 3. The Allegorical theory, according to which all the myths of the ancients were allegorical and symbolical, and contained some moral, religious, or .philosophical truth, which was originally represented under the form of an allegory, but became, in process of time, to be understood literally. This view of mythology was first introduced into Greece by the Sophists, and an example of it is given by Protago ma in his explanation of the myth of Prometheus. (Plato, Protayor.) In later times this view of mythology was adopted by the New Platonists in their controversies with the Christians ; and their object was to show that the ancient mythology, under the garb of allegory, taught all the important duties and doctrines of morality and religion. Thus the view of mythology given by Homer and Hesiod, which was considered by Plato, in his dialogues on the Republic, as mischievous and dangerous, because it attributed human passions and feelings to the gods, occasioned no difficulty with the later Platoniste. There is a work of Proclue, of which the curious in such matters may find a translation in the first volume of Taylor's translation of Plato, written for the express purpose of proving, in opposition to Plato, that the mythology of Homer and Healed contained nothing contrary to sound principles of morality and religion, since the myths of these poets ought to be understood allegorically.
This method of interpreting the ancient mythology has found much favour among modern writers. It has been adopted by Bacon, in his ' Wisdom of the Ancients ;' and has been adopted and carried out to a great extent by Creuzer, in his Symbolik and Mythologic der triton beeonders der Griechen; as well as by Herinann and other recent writers.
4. The Physical Theory, according to which the elements, air, fire, water, Ac., were originally the objects of religious adoration, and the principal deities were personificatious of the powers of nature. Thus the ancient mythology of the Hindus, as developed in the Vedas, personifies the elements and the planets, and differs essentially front the hero worship of later times. The transition from a personification
of the elements to the notion of a supernatural being presiding over and governing the different objects of nature was easy and natural ; and thus we find in the Greek and Italian mythology that the deities presiding over the sun, the moon, the sert, fie., and not the objects themselves, .are the subjects of religious adoration. The Greeks, whose imagination was lively, peopled all naturo with invisible beings, and supposed that every object in nature, from the sun and sea to the smallest fountain and rivulet, was under the care of some particular divinity. Wordsworth, in the fourth book of his 'Excursion,' hoe beautifully developed this view of Grecian mythology.
Almost all the theories that have been brought forward, either in ancient or modern times, to account for the origin of mythology, may be classed under one of these four divisions ; but though all of them are true to a certain extent, not one of them taken by itself is sufficient to account for all the mythological traditions of a nation. But among recent authorities a system has been in a great measure developed which, while borrowing something from each of the systems above noticed, goes deeper than any. It is that which has received the name of Comparative Mythology, and which is correlative with and indeed an integral portion of comparative philology. Like that, finding a close similarity between the myths of widely-dispersed civilised races, it traces the original forma back to an Asiatic, or, as it is termed, Arian source ; from whence the Sanskrit on the one hand, and on the other the Creek, Italian, Teutonic, and Slavonic languages and traditions, have alike been derived : the myths, like the dialects, varying more and more as they advanced farther from their parent home, and taking in every instance their actual and characteristic shape and colour from their respective nationalities. The virtual identity or common origin of Creek, Sanskrit, and Teutonic mythology, for instance, has been shown by Grimm and others. The myths themselves are in this system regarded as having arisen primarily from either the simple poetical conception and expression of natural phenomena, from animal symbolism, or from the aggregation of subsequent events and circumstances about historical facts, or the deeds of national heroes—these events being often borrowed from neighbouriug tribes or people, as well as those of the nation with which the particular tradition or hero may be identified. But myths, to whatever class they belong, were in fact in constant course of growth and embellishment; and as the additions were made without any very nice regard to probability or aptitude, and merely with a view to this aggrandisement of the national deity or hero, they almost inevitably came in course of time to present a congeries of incongruities, contradictions, and absurdities. The separation of these from the primal myth, and their localisation, are among the essential points to be sought after in order to arrive at the original meaning and purpose of the myth itself, as well as the country in which it originated.