book,[19] ‘The early poems and stories of almost every nation are by some writers resolved into elaborate descriptions of natural phenomena; and in some cases, if that were true, the myth would have taken to create it a genius as great as that of the philosophers who explain it.’ So that the so-called ‘Solar theory’ is far from being generally adopted even on the domain where it was first brought out and has been most firmly established. But the adherents of the school of Max Müller may take comfort from the consideration that the accusations made against them hit only those who have ridden the theory too hard, since, as Tylor says, no allegory, no nursery-rhyme, is safe from the speculations of some fanatical mythological theoriser. ‘Much abused’ is a correct epithet used of the Solar theory by a learned English Assyriologist, himself a friend of it.[20] If, then, on Aryan ground the legitimacy of the new method is not undisputed, how will it be on Semitic, and especially on Hebrew ground, which a prejudice prevalent far and wide has decided to be occupied by a race and a nation with no mythology at all? Nevertheless, I hope I have kept myself free from abuse and extravagance in these essays. I have endeavoured sedulously to avoid whatever, on the Aryan domain, aroused the distrust of the hesitating, by showing no anxiety to gain immediate command of the whole extent of the mythological field. The essential point at the commencement of these matters is not the elucidation of all the minute details, but rather the solution of the general questions that arise, and the accurate laying down of a sound method of investigation. What I have brought forward I wish to be regarded as a collection of examples of the application of the method.