The question has been often asked, what can be the origin of the fables which are identical in character and form, whether we find them on Indian, Greek, Italian, Persian, Slavonic, Celtic, or Teutonic soil. Was there a period of temporary insanity, through which the human mind had to pass, and was it a madness identically the same in the south of India and in the north of Ireland? The necessity of solving this problem became more imperative when collections of these ancient traditions were brought from countries which formerly were almost unknown to us; incredible tales came from all parts, from amongst the Hottentots, the Patagonians, Zulus, Esquimaux, and Mongols; in all cases we were able to recognise the fables with which we were already so well acquainted, from having seen them in Aryan literature. When Max Müller first published his essays on the Greek myths, the mythologists acknowledged generally that it was very natural he should devote so much time to the explanation of the Greek legends, since these same stories had been universally found in all parts of the globe, from the one pole to the other; stories of men and women turned into trees, trees transformed into men, men behaving as animals, animals talking as if they were men, men swallowed by gods and brought up again whole, as were the children of Kronos; in all places the same adventures were told of the sun and moon, also swallowed, but the swallower not known. The Greek myths--so it was asserted by the learned who did not care to abandon the old paths--form only one page of that vast mythology created by the disordered imagination of nations in their infancy; the epidemic was general, and it is useless to seek for a definite or peculiar meaning in such and such a local myth. Nevertheless, in presence of these striking likenesses, impartial and clear-sighted science recognised that there must be something in the human mind that of necessity tended to mythology, nay, that there must be some reason in all the unreason that goes by the name of myth. That “something” Max Müller discovered to be language, in its natural progress from roots to words, up to definite and special names. Mythology has now been acknowledged to be an inevitable phase in the growth of language and thought; a form of expression which changes non-personal beings into personal, and all relationships into actions; it is a mental phenomenon so peculiar that it would be difficult to avoid the admission that it emanated from a distinct stratum, it is metaphoric language and thought; and it is the duty of the geologist of language to establish the authenticity of this epoch of organic life in humanity, which is contemporaneous with the most ancient forms of language.