ion in the great communities,
in which process, along with the varieties of local conditions, certain
fundamental resemblances remain throughout.[1517]

+872+. Besides these more prominent or more definitely formulated
theories there has been in some quarters a disposition to insist too
strongly on lines of mythical development connected with the plant
world, particularly with the death and revival of vegetation. All that
we know of the history of mythical material among existing savages and
in the earliest forms of belief of civilized nations forbids the
limitation of the origin of myths to any one department of nature or to
any one part of the world. Myths, like gods, may be composite: of this
nature, probably, are some cosmogonic histories,[1518] and the stories
of Gilgamesh, Heracles, Perseus, and many others. The lines of origin
mentioned above have, naturally, in some cases, coalesced, and their
combination into single coherent narratives has been spread over long
periods of time. For this reason there is always need of detailed
investigations of particular myths as a preparation for a general
history of mythology.[1519]

+873+. _Modern critical methods in the interpretation of myths._ The
treatment of myths has followed the general course of the development of
thought in the world. In the old national religions they were
incorporated in the substance of the religious beliefs. The reformers of
thought either ignored them (so, for example, Confucius and Buddha), or
denounced their absurdities (so Plato and others), or allegorized or
rationalized them (so many Greek philosophers); the early Christian
writers treated Old Testament myths as history, and ridiculed the myths
of Greece and Rome. During the long period when the European peoples
were assimilating the ideas of Christianity the study of myths remained
in abeyance. After the classical revival there was a return to the
allegorizing method, the fondness for which has not yet completely died
out.[1520]

+874+. The extension of knowledge in the eighteenth century gave an
impetus to the study of religion, the results of which for mythological
investigation appear in the works of Dupuis and others.[1521] These
authors were necessarily ignorant of many important facts, but they
have the merit of having collected much material, which they treated as
something that had to be explained in accordance with the laws of human
thought.

+875+. The turning-point in the