races, such myths as these are in contradiction with the ethical
elements of the faith.

If we look at Greek religious tradition, we observe the coexistence of
the RATIONAL and the apparently IRRATIONAL elements. The RATIONAL myths
are those which represent the gods as beautiful and wise beings. The
Artemis of the Odyssey "taking her pastime in the chase of boars and
swift deer, while with her the wild wood-nymphs disport them, and high
over them all she rears her brow, and is easily to be known where all
are fair,"(1) is a perfectly RATIONAL mythic representation of a divine
being. We feel, even now, that the conception of a "queen and goddess,
chaste and fair," the abbess, as Paul de Saint-Victor calls her, of
the woodlands, is a beautiful and natural fancy, which requires no
explanation. On the other hand, the Artemis of Arcadia, who is confused
with the nymph Callisto, who, again, is said to have become a she-bear,
and later a star; and the Brauronian Artemis, whose maiden ministers
danced a bear-dance,(2) are goddesses whose legend seems unnatural,
and needs to be made intelligible. Or, again, there is nothing not
explicable and natural in the conception of the Olympian Zeus as
represented by the great chryselephantine statue of Zeus at Olympia,
or in the Homeric conception of Zeus as a god who "turns everywhere his
shining eyes, and beholds all things, and protects the righteous, and
deals good or evil fortune to men." But the Zeus whose grave was shown in
Crete, or the Zeus who played Demeter an obscene trick by the aid of
a ram, or the Zeus who, in the shape of a swan, became the father of
Castor and Pollux, or the Zeus who deceived Hera by means of a feigned
marriage with an inanimate object, or the Zeus who was afraid of Attes,
or the Zeus who made love to women in the shape of an ant or a cuckoo,
is a being whose myth is felt to be unnatural and bewildering.(3) It
is this IRRATIONAL and unnatural element, as Mr. Max Muller says, "the
silly, senseless, and savage element," that makes mythology the puzzle
which men have so long found it. For, observe, Greek myth does
not represent merely a humorous play of fancy, dealing with things
religiously sacred as if by way of relief from the strained reverential
contemplation of the majesty of Zeus. Many stories of Greek mythology
are such as could not cross, for the first time, the mind of a civilised
Xenophanes or Theagenes, even in a dream. THIS was the real puzzle.