Custom and Myth

The essence of this volume is published in various essays. Most of them were written specifically for these purposes, and now they are compiled in a certain order.

Studying Greek, Indian, and other mythologies increasingly convinces one of the inadequacy of the dominant method of comparative mythology. This method is based on the belief that myths are the result of human language. It is claimed that men at some period or periods spoke in a special style of a particular language and that their children retain phrases from that language after they have lost their original meaning.

A consequence of this has been the growth of myths about many figures whose names were originally just designations. According to this hypothesis, the method of comparative mythology examines proper names found in myths. The idea is that these names contain the key to the meaning of the story and that, in fact, names are embryos. It is difficult to articulate objections to this method.