this research was not
regarded with favour, and put the final touch on the discomfiture of
Aymar. So far as we know, the hunchback of Lyons was the only victim
of the 'twig' who ever suffered in civilised society. It is true that,
in rural England, the movements of a Bible, suspended like a pendulum,
have been thought to point out the guilty. But even that evidence is
not held good enough to go to a jury.

FOOTNOTES:

[182] Preller, _Ausgewaehlte Aufsaetze_, p. 154.

[183] Tylor, _Prim. Cult._, ii. 156. Pinkerton, vii. 357.

[184] _Universities Mission to Central Africa_, p. 217. _Prim. Cult._,
ii. 156, 157.

[185] Quoted in _Jacob's Rod_: London, n.d., a translation of _La
Verge de Jacob_, Lyon, 1693.

[186] _Lettres sur la Baguette_, pp. 106-112.

_HOTTENTOT MYTHOLOGY._

'What makes mythology mythological, in the true sense of the word, is
what is utterly unintelligible, absurd, strange, or miraculous.' So
says Mr. Max Mueller in the January number of the _Nineteenth Century_
for 1882. Men's attention would never have been surprised into the
perpetual study and questioning of mythology if it had been
intelligible and dignified, and if its report had been in accordance
with the reason of civilised and cultivated races. What mythologists
wish to discover is the origin of the countless disgusting, amazing,
and incongruous legends which occur in the myths of all known peoples.
According to Mr. Mueller--

There are only two systems possible in which the irrational
element in mythology can be accounted for. One school takes
the irrational as a matter of fact; and if we read that
Daphne fled from Phoebus, and was changed into a laurel tree,
that school would say that there probably was a young lady
called Aurora, like, for instance, Aurora Koenigsmark; that a
young man called Robin, or possibly a man with red hair,
pursued her, and that she hid behind a laurel tree that
happened to be there. This was the theory of Euhemeros,
re-established by the famous Abbe Bernier [Mr. Mueller
doubtless means Banier], and not quite extinct even now.
According to another school, the irrational element in
mythology is inevitable, and due to the influence of language
on thought, so that many of the legends of gods and heroes
may be rendered intelligible if only we can discover the
original meaning of their proper names. The followers of this
school try