In their copious forms and facility of
reproduction they remind one of those anomalous animals, in whom, when a
limb is lopped, it rapidly grows again, or even if cut in pieces each
part will enter on a separate life quite unconcerned about his fellows.
But as the naturalist is far from regarding this superabundant vitality
as a characteristic of a higher type, so the philologist justly assigns
these tongues a low position in the linguistic scale. Fidelity to form,
here as everywhere, is the test of excellence. At the outset, we divine
there can be nothing very subtle in the mythologies of nations with such
languages. Much there must be that will be obscure, much that is vague,
an exhausting variety in repetition, and a strong tendency to lose the
idea in the symbol.
What definiteness of outline might be preserved must depend on the care
with which the old stories of the gods were passed from one person and
one generation to another. The fundamental myths of a race have a
surprising tenacity of life.
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