On the other hand, Max Mueller, whose theory of original myths is peculiar to himself, has made use of this philological instrument to prove that the Aryan myths may at any rate be referred to a single source, namely to metaphor, or to the double meaning of words, due to the poverty of primitive languages. He calls this double meaning the infirmity of speech. I do not deny that many conclusions to which some or other of the great authorities just mentioned have arrived may be as true as they are surprising. I also admit that this may be a certain method of distinguishing the various mythical representations in their early beginnings from their subsequent and complex forms. But in all the facts which have been ascertained, or which may hereafter be ascertained, from the comparative study of the languages of different races, no explanation is afforded of the fact that into the natural and primitive phenomena of myth, or, as Mueller holds, into its various metaphors, man has so far infused his own life, that they have, like man himself, a subjective and deliberate consciousness and force. It seems to me that this problem has not yet been solved by scholars; they have stopped short after establishing the primary fact, and are content to affirm that such is human nature, which projects itself on external things.[3] This explanation establishes a true and universal fact, but it is not the explanation of the fact itself; yet it is not, as we shall see, incapable of solution, and it appears to me that the ultimate source whence myths really proceed has not been reached. Again, if such an opinion and such a method can give us the key to the polytheistic origin of the respective Olympuses of classic Greece and Rome, it leaves unexplained the numerous and manifold superstitions which philology itself proves to have existed prior to the origin of cosmic myths. These superstitions can by no means be referred to a common source, to the astral and meteorological myths, some of which were prior, while others were subsequent to these superstitions.