6. Now, therefore, in nearly every myth of importance, and certainly in
every one of those which I shall speak to-night, you have to discern
these three structural parts,--the root and the two branches: the root,
in physical existence, sun, or sky, or cloud, or sea; then the personal
incarnation of that, becoming a trusted and companionable deity, with
whom you may walk hand in hand, as a child with its brother or its
sister; and, lastly, the moral significance of the image, which is in all
the great myths eternally and beneficently true.
7. The great myths; that is to say, myths made by great people. For the
first plain fact about myth-making is one which has been most strangely
lost sight of,--that you cannot make a myth unless you have something to
make it of. You cannot tell a secret which you don't know. If the myth
is about the sky, it must have been made by somebody who has looked at
the sky. If the myth is about justice and fortitude, it must have been
made by someone who knew what it was to be just or patient. According to
the quantity of understanding in the person will be the quantity of
significance in his fable; and the myth of a simple and ignorant race
must necessarily mean little, because a simple and ignorant race have
little to mean.
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