CHAPTER II.

_MYTHOLOGY._

The Notion of a Systematic Pantheon.--Homer and Hesiod.--Mythology before Homer.--Supposed Conditions of the Mythopoeic Age.--Vico.--The Childhood of the World.--Goethe's Boyhood.--Mythology is a Body of Rudimentary Thought, Penetrated with the Spirit of the Nation.--Different Views of the Greek Myths.--Grote.--Relics of a Primitive Revelation.--The Symbolic Hypothesis.--Rationalism and Euhemerus.--Fetichism.--Poetic Theory.--The Linguistic Theory.--Comparative Philology.--Solar Theory.--The Myth of Herakles: its Solar Interpretation--its Ethical Significance.--Summary of the Points Suggested with Regard to Mythology.--Mediæval Myths.--The Action of the Greek Intelligence upon Mythology: in Art--in Philosophy.--Persistence of the National Polytheism.--Homer Allegorized at Alexandria.--Triumph of Christianity.--The Greek Pantheon in the Middle Ages.--Greek Mythology Recovers Poetic and Artistic Value in the Renaissance Page 51