MYTHS AND DREAMS
MYTHS AND DREAMS
BY
EDWARD CLODD
AUTHOR OF
‘THE CHILDHOOD OF THE WORLD,’ ‘THE STORY OF CREATION,’ ETC.
SECOND EDITION, REVISED
London
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1891
TO
RICHARD A. PROCTOR, B.A.,
AUTHOR OF ‘THE SUN,’ ‘OTHER WORLDS,’ ETC.,
EDITOR OF ‘KNOWLEDGE.’
My dear Proctor—The best gifts of life are its friendships, and to you,with whom friendship has ripened into fellowship, and under whoseeditorial wing some of the chapters of this book had temporary shelter, Iinscribe them in their enlarged and independent form.
Yours sincerely,
EDWARD CLODD.
PREFACE.
The object of this book is to present in compendious form the evidencewhich myths and dreams supply as to primitive man’s interpretation of hisown nature and of the external world, and more especially to indicate howsuch evidence carries within itself the history of the origin and growthof beliefs in the supernatural.
The examples are selected chiefly from barbaric races, as furnishing thenearest correspondences to the working of the mind in what may be calledits “eocene” stage, but examples are also cited from civilised races, aswitnessing to that continuity of ideas which is obscured by familiarity orignored by prejudice.
Had more illustrations been drawn from sources alike prolific, theevidence would have been swollen to undue dimensions without increasingits significance; as it is, repetition has been found needful here andthere, under the difficulty of entirely[Pg viii] detaching the arguments advancedin the two parts of this work.
Man’s development, physical and psychical, has been fully treated by Mr.Herbert Spencer, Dr. Tylor, and other authorities, to whom students of thesubject are permanent debtors, but that subject is so many-sided, sofar-reaching, whether in retrospect or prospect, that its subdivision isof advantage so long as we do not permit our sense of inter-relation to bedulled thereby.
My own line of argument will be found to run for the most part parallelwith that of the above-named writers; there are divergences along theroute, but we reach a common terminus.
The footnotes indicate the principal works which have been consulted inpreparing this book, but I desire to express my special thanks to Mr.Andrew Lang for his kindness in reading the proofs, and for suggestionswhich, in the main, I have been glad to adopt.
E. C.
Rosemont, Tufnell Park,
London, March 1885.
CONTENTS.
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