2. On the Principles of Scientific Interpretation in Myths, with Special Reference to Greek Mythology

Extract

Professor Blackie commenced by saying that, of all the branches of interesting and curious learning, there was none which had been so systematically neglected in this country by English scholars as mythology—a subject closely connected both with theology and philosophy, and on which those grand intellectual pioneers and architects, the Germans, had expended a vast amount of profitable and unprofitable labour. The consequence of this neglect was that of the few British books we had on the subject, the most noticeable were not free from the dear seduction of favourite ideas which possessed the minds of the writers as by a juggling witchcraft, and prevented them from looking on a rich and various subject with that many-sided sympathy and catholic receptiveness which it required.