Ebook Origin of Language and Myths

Some fourteen years ago I published a work entitled Myths traced to their Primary Source through Language; and though I was then, as it were, only feeling my way, I was not the less convinced that the discovery to which I laid claim was real; and, however strange it may now appear, I cannot help still entertaining the same Opinion. In that work I showed, as well as I could, how man must have first acquired the use of speech; and by the knowledge thence derived I was enabled to account for the ancient belief in the Divine origin of language, to trace letters to their birth, to discover the primary forms and meanings — hitherto unknown — of many words; and finally, to prove that the fables of the heathen mythology, as well as those of religion and ancient history, were first suggested by the several meanings that a name had at different times obtained. And I may here, perhaps, without stating too much in advance, give the reader some idea of this latter proof of the truth of my discovery. At the time the sun became a great object of worship over all the world, if one of the countless appellations by which it was then known hap pened also to designate some celebrated character of the past, the latter was at once revered as a divinity, even as the sun itself. And if his name, besides signifying the sun.