Fontenelle’s forgotten common sense

In the opinion of Aristotle, most discoveries and inventions have been made time after time and forgotten again. Aristotle may not have been quite correct in this view; and his remarks, perhaps, chiefly applied to politics, in which every conceivable and inconceivable experiment has doubtless been attempted. In a field of less general interest — namely, the explanation of the absurdities of mythology — the true cause was discovered more than a hundred years ago by a man of great reputation, and then was quietly forgotten. Why did the ancient peoples — above all, the Greeks — tell such extremely gross and irrational stories about their Gods and heroes? That is the riddle of the mythological Sphinx. It was answered briefly, wittily and correctly by Fontenelle; and the answer was neglected, and half a dozen learned but impossible theories have since come in and out of fashion. Only within the last ten years has Fontenelle’s idea been, not resuscitated, but rediscovered. The followers of Mr. E. B. Taylor, Mannhardt, Gaidoz, and the rest, do not seem to be aware that they are only repeating the notions of the nephew of Corneille.

The Academician’s theory is stated in a short essay, De l’Origine des Fables (OEuvres: Paris, 1758, vol. iii. p.270). We have been so accustomed from childhood, he says, to the absurdities of Greek myth, that we have ceased to be aware that they are absurd. Why are the legends of men and beasts and Gods so incredible and revolting? Why have we ceased to tell such tales? The answer is, that early men were in “a state of almost inconceivable savagery and ignorance,” and that the Greek myths are inherited from people in that condition. “Look at the Kaffirs and Iroquois,” says Fontenelle, “if you wish to know what early men were like; and remember that even the Iroquois and Kaffirs are people with a long past, with knowledge and culture (politesse) which the first men did not enjoy.” Now the more ignorant a man is, the more prodigies he supposes himself to behold. Thus the first narratives of the earliest men were full of monstrous things, “parce qu’ils etoient faits par des gens sujets a voir bien des choses qui n’etaient pas”. This condition answers, in Mr. Tylor’s system, to the confusion the savage makes between dreams and facts, and to the hallucinations which beset him when he does not get his regular meals. Here, then, we have a groundwork of irresponsible fancy.

The next step is this: even the rudest men are curious, and ask “the reason why” of phenomena. “II y a eu de la philosophie meme dans ces siecles grossiers;” and this rude philosophy “greatly contributed to the origin of myths “. Men looked for causes of things. “‘Whence comes this river?’ asked the reflective man of those ages — a queer philosopher, yet one who might have been a Descartes did he live to-day. After long meditation, he concluded that some one had always to keep filling the source whence the stream springs. And whence came the water? Our philosopher did not consider so curiously. He had evolved the myth of a water-nymph or naiad, and there he stopped. The characteristic of these mythical explanations — as of all philosophies, past, present and to come — was that they were limited by human experience. Early man’s experience showed him that effects were produced by conscious, sentient, personal causes like himself. He sprang to the conclusion that all hidden causes were also persons. These persons are the dramatis person? of myth. It was a person who caused thunder, with a hammer or a mace; or it was a bird whose wings produced the din.

“From this rough philosophy which prevailed ............