cts and powers, celestial and
terrestrial, which force themselves most on men's attention, have some
of them several proper names, identified with those of different
individuals, born at different places, and having different sets of
adventures. Thus we have the sun variously known as Apollo, Endymion,
Helios, Tithonos, etc.--personages having irreconcilable genealogies.
Such anomalies Prof. Max Mueller apparently ascribes to the
untrustworthiness of traditions, which are "careless about
contradictions, or ready to solve them sometimes by the most atrocious
expedients." (_Chips_, vol. ii., p. 84.) But if the evolution of the
myth has been that above indicated, there exists no anomalies to be got
rid of: these diverse genealogies become parts of the evidence. For we
have abundant proof that the same objects furnish metaphorical names of
men in different tribes. There are Duck tribes in Australia, in South
America, in North America. The eagle is still a totem among the North
Americans, as Mr. McLennan shows reason to conclude that it was among
the Egyptians, among the Jews, and among the Romans. Obviously, for
reasons already assigned, it naturally happened in the early stages of
the ancient races, that complimentary comparisons of their heroes to the
Sun were frequently made. What resulted? The Sun having furnished names
for sundry chiefs and early founders of tribes, and local traditions
having severally identified them with the Sun, these tribes, when they
grew, spread, conquered, or came otherwise into partial union,
originated a combined mythology, which necessarily contained conflicting
stories about the Sun-god, as about its other leading personages. If the
North-American tribes, among several of which there are traditions of a
Sun-god, had developed a combined civilization, there would similarly
have arisen among them a mythology which ascribed to the Sun several
different proper names and genealogies.

* * * * *

Let me briefly set down the leading characters of this hypothesis which
give it probability.

True interpretations of all the natural processes, organic and
inorganic, that have gone on in past times, habitually trace them to
causes still in action. It is thus in Geology; it is thus in Biology; it
is thus in Philology. Here we find this characteristic repeated.
Nicknaming, the inheritance of nicknames, and to some extent, the
misinterpretation of nicknames, go on among u