The origin and history of religion and mythology is (as we might expect) a matter of keen controversy; and I cannot anticipate that the reader would rise from the perusal of all the books given in the above list with his mind not confused upon many points on which they touch. To explain the position taken up in Chapters VIII.-XI., I will add the following notes, which may help the reader over some difficult and disputed questions.
1. In the first place, we have confined our attention altogether to the essential framework of the religious system or the myth-system with which we were concerned. The _irrational element_ is omitted, and the mere process of omitting this relieves us from entering upon many points which are strongly controverted at this moment. For instance, the work of Mr. A. Lang cited above (and which I specially mention here, as it is a good deal upon the _tapis_ at the present moment) is altogether occupied in combating a certain theory of Mr. Max Müller’s, that the irrational element in Aryan mythologies (Greek and Sanskrit especially) could be shown to have arisen in most instances from _an abuse of language_, or, more exactly, from an oblivion of the true meaning of some essential word or name contained in the myth, whereby a wholly mistaken and wholly irrational element has been incorporated into the history of the god or hero.
This theory Mr. A. Lang combats by adducing the evidence that these irrational parts in mythology may be _survivals_ of thought from an earlier age in the history of the people, when what seemed irrational (and often disgusting) to their literary successors, and seems irrational and disgusting to us, seemed neither one nor the other.
Into this controversy we are not required to enter. But it is important to point out to the reader how completely this lies outside the sphere of study which we have chosen; the more so because, through some criticisms of Mr. Lang’s book, a notion has gained currency (among those presumably who have not read the book in question) that Mr. Lang has revolutionized the whole study of religion and mythology, whereas he only proposes to deal with one section, and that a small one, of it.
Nor can it fairly be said that we are bound in these chapters to pay much attention to the _irrational element_ in belief. If we were writing a complete treatise upon flint implements, we should be bound to include not only those flints which had been clearly chipped with a definite design, and which followed well-established forms, but with pieces of abnormal shape, and even with flakes and cores, the _detritus_, so to say, which had been left aside when the more available flints had been chosen. If, again, we were dealing completely with the history of village communities or systems of land tenure, we should be bound in like fashion to treat of abnormal as well as normal forms. But obviously that is not what is expected in the chapters of this book. We only profess to treat of early civilization under its more usual aspects and in its completest form. So with early beliefs; we only profess to concern ourselves with what is rational and normal in the creeds with which we are dealing.