into them--they were rationalized and spiritualized by a
process of allegorization. This process seems to have begun in Greece as
early as the sixth century B.C.[1502] It was the philosophers who
undertook to reinterpret the Homeric mythical material, and the extent
to which this procedure had been carried in the time of Plato is
indicated by the fact that he ridicules these modes of dealing with the
poet.[1503] But Homer maintained his place in literature, and the demand
for a spiritualizing of his works increased rather than diminished. A
science of allegory was created, Pergamus became one of its chief
centers,[1504] and the Alexandrian Jew Philo applied the method to the
interpretation of the Pentateuch. It was speedily adopted in the
Christian world, and has there maintained itself, though in diminishing
extent, up to the present day.[1505] As a serious interpretation of
ancient myths, outside of the Old Testament, it is no longer employed.
Myths are, indeed, important as reflecting early opinions, religious and
other--good doctrinal matter may be extracted from them, but this must
not be ascribed to the intention of their authors and reporters. In the
Old Testament itself the Jewish editors have socialized the mythical
material (weaving it into the history, as in Genesis), or have brought
it under the work of the national deity.

+864+. _Recent interpretations._ In recently proposed interpretations we
may note first certain attempts at a _unification_ of some body of myths
or of all known mythical material. These attempts, almost without
exception, take the sky and the heavenly bodies as their basis.

At the end of the eighteenth century, when the theory of human unity
had taken hold of the French revolutionists, C. F. Dupuis[1506]
undertook to explain all the cults of the world as having come from the
worship of the universe--a conception broad enough to cover everything;
but he practically reduces it to the worship of the heavenly bodies,
particularly the sun, and derives all myths from stellar objects. His
work is ingenious, learned, and suggestive, but in his day the facts of
ancient mythology were insufficiently known.

+865+. In the next century the study of Sanskrit and Old Persian widened
the field of knowledge, the science of Indo-European grammar was
created, and on this followed attempts at the construction of an
Indo-European mythology. The first definitely formulated unification was
the theory of F.