Finally, in dealing with star-myths, we adhere to the hypothesis of Mr. Tylor: 'From savagery up to civilisation,' Akkadian, Greek, or English, 'there may be traced in the mythology of the stars a course of thought, changed, indeed, in application, yet never broken in its evident connection from first to last. The savage sees individual stars as animate beings, or combines star-groups into living celestial creatures, or limbs of them, or objects connected with them; while at the other extremity of the scale of civilisation the modern astronomer keeps up just such ancient fancies, turning them to account in useful survival, as a means of mapping out the celestial globe.'[156] FOOTNOTES: [142] The attempt is not to explain the origin of each separate name, but only of the general habit of giving animal or human names to stars. [143] Mr. Herbert Spencer believes that the Australians were once more civilised than at present. But there has never been found a trace of pottery on the Australian continent, which says little for their civilisation in the past. [144] See C. O. Müller (_Prolog. zur Mythol._, Engl. transl., p. 17): 'Callisto is just nothing else than Artemis and her sacred animal comprehended in one idea.' See also pp. 201-4. Müller (C. O.) very nearly made the discovery that the gods of Greece may in some cases have a bestial ancestry. [145] Brugsch, _History of Egypt_, i. 32. [146] Brough Smyth. [147] _Amazonian Tortoise Myths_, p. 39. [148] Sahagun, vii. 3. [149] Grimm, _D. M._, Engl. transl., p. 716. [150] Hartt, _op. cit._, p. 40. For a modern sun-man and his myth in the Cyclades, see J. T. Bent, in the _Athenæum_, Jan. 17, 1885. [151] Kaegi, _Der Rig Veda_, p. 217. [152] _Mainjo-i-Khard_, 49, 22, ed. West. [153] _Op. cit._, p. 98. [154] _Prim. Cult._, i. 357. [155] _Lectures on Language_, pp. 359, 362. [156] Ideler (_Untersuchungen ueber den Ursprung der Sternnamen_) may also be consulted. _MOLY AND MANDRAGORA._ 'I have found out a new cure for rheumatism,' said the lady beside whom it was my privilege to sit at dinner. 'You carry a potato about in your pocket!' Some one has written an amusing account of the behaviour of a man who is finishing a book. He takes his ideas everywhere with him and broods over them, even at dinner, in the pauses of conversation. But here was a lady who kindly contributed to my studies and offered me folklore and survivals in cultivated Kensington. My mind had strayed from the potato cure to the New Zealand habit of carrying a baked yam at night to frighten away ghosts, and to the old English belief that a bit of bread kept in the pocket was sovereign against evil spirits. Why should ghosts dread the food of mortals when it is the custom of most races of mortals to feed ancestral ghosts? The human mind works pretty rapidly, and all this had passed through my brain while I replied, in tones of curiosity: 'A potato!'