[135] Mr Cox ("Mythology," p. xiv.) says--"Mythology, as we call it now, is simply a collection of the sayings by which men, once upon a time, described whatever they saw or heard in the countries where they lived. This key, which has unlocked almost all the secrets of mythology, was placed in our hands by Professor Max Müller, who has done more than all other writers to bring out the exquisite and touching poetry which underlies those ancient legends. He has shown us that in this, their first shape, these sayings were all perfectly natural, and marvellously beautiful and true. We see the lovely evening twilight die out, &c.... They said that the beautiful Eurydice," &c. (_vide infra_, p. 173). It would appear, however, from Mr Cox's more extended work, "The Mythology of the Aryan Nations," that the sayings of mankind in the mythic period did not extend to speculations as to their origin and destiny, or embrace the facts of their history, or the deeds of their ancestors, but that their whole converse was upon the sun and moon, and the phenomena of the outward world. [136] Mr Max Müller makes the distinction between "primitive or organic legends" (and it is to these I wish to limit the discussion) "and the second, those which were imported in later times from one literature to another.... The former _represents one common ancient stratum of language and thought_ reaching from India to Europe; the latter consist of boulders of various strata carried along by natural and artificial means from one country to another" (ii. 245). It is clear that Mr Max Müller looks for _harmony_ in his system--"We naturally look back to the scenes on which the curtain of the past has fallen, _for we believe that there ought to be one thought pervading the whole drama of mankind_. And here history steps in, and gives us the thread which connects the present with the past" (p. 7). Why it was that harmony was not attained seems to be disclosed, if we read the passage in our sense and with a certain transposition of parts, at p. 3--"There were at Athens then, as there have been at all times and in all countries, men who had no sense for the miraculous and supernatural, and who, without having the moral courage to deny altogether what they could not bring themselves to believe, endeavoured to find some plausible explanation _by which the sacred legends_ which _tradition_ had _handed down to them_, and which had been _hallowed_ by _religious observances_, and sanctioned by the authority of the law, might be brought _into harmony with_ the dictates of reason and the _laws_ of _nature_." (Compare with _infra_, p. 351, Maine.)