d for
deer only meant the many-coloured lines of clouds.(2) In the armoury of
apologetics etymology has been the most serviceable weapon. It is
easy to see that by aid of etymology the most repulsive legend may be
compelled to yield a pure or harmless sense, and may be explained as
an innocent blunder, caused by mere verbal misunderstanding. Brahmans,
Greeks, and Germans have equally found comfort in this hypothesis. In
the Cratylus of Plato, Socrates speaks of the notion of explaining myths
by etymological guesses at the meaning of divine names as "a philosophy
which came to him all in an instant". Thus we find Socrates shocked by
the irreverence which styled Zeus the son of Cronus, "who is a proverb
for stupidity". But on examining philologically the name Kronos,
Socrates decides that it must really mean Koros, "not in the sense of
a youth, but signifying the pure and garnished mind". Therefore,
when people first called Zeus the son of Cronus, they meant nothing
irreverent, but only that Zeus is the child of the pure mind or pure
reason. Not only is this etymological system most pious and consolatory,
but it is, as Socrates adds, of universal application. "For now I
bethink me of a very new and ingenious notion,... that we may put in and
pull out letters at pleasure, and alter the accents."(3)

(1) Rig-Veda Sanhita. Max Muller, p. 59.

(2) Postea, "Indian Divine Myths".

(3) Jowett's Plato, vol. i. pp. 632, 670.

Socrates, of course, speaks more than half in irony, but there is a
certain truth in his account of etymological analysis and its dependence
on individual tastes and preconceived theory.

The ancient classical schools of mythological interpretation, though
unscientific and unsuccessful, are not without interest. We find
philosophers and grammarians looking, just as we ourselves are looking,
for some condition of the human intellect out of which the absurd
element in myths might conceivably have sprung. Very naturally the
philosophers supposed that the human beings in whose brain and
speech myths had their origin must have been philosophers like
themselves--intelligent, educated persons. But such persons, they
argued, could never have meant to tell stories about the gods so full of
nonsense and blasphemy.

Therefore the nonsense and blasphemy must originally have had some
harmless, or even praiseworthy, sense. What could that sense have been?
This question each ancient mythologist answered in accord