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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
conceptions of truth, thus obtained, in the richest raiment of charming allegory from Fancy's flowery stores, creating, at the same time, the most picturesque scenery and realistic atmosphere for the progeny of their exuberant thought.
No doubt, the modern man, conscious of his incalculable 'book-loads of learning, smiles in a superior way when confronted with ancient myth and legend ; and certainly modern learning can never hope to find a less resentful object as a butt for its contemptuous ridicule than the 'crude' religion of the B. C. days, and especially heathen Pantheism.' But we shall see that the man who is the first to laugh is not always the one to laugh the longest. For us mythology does not mean the record of humanity's childhood's thought when man may be said to be still groping his way in the dark, soon after his emergence from the monkey race, but the expression, in poetry’s garb, of some of the most sober and valuable pronouncements of the only science which can raise a human being to the status and dignity of Gods. Here and there one might possibly encounter a legend or two which fall short of this estimate ; but they might be due to modification through incompetent hands. The thing to be especially guarded against is the stuff of the type of nursery tales which can be picked out almost always at a glance, on account of its not having the true ring of the genuine Aryan coinage. As regards the confusion which is likely to be caused in modern bistorical notions in certain respects, from our thesis, well, they must be altered if found to be incorrect. Our notions of the origin
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