TTTE  present  here  to  our  readers  the  controversy  which,  as  stated
VV  in  the  introductory  paii^es  of  this  vokime,  was  the  occasion  of
the  present  investigation  of  the  Samson  story.  It  appeared  partly
in  Tlie  Open  Court,  partly  in  Tlic  Moiiisf,  and  consists  of  two  com-
munications by  Mr.  George  W.  Shaw,  of  Geneseo,  Illinois,  and  one
editorial  reply  by  the  author  of  this  book.
MYTHOPGEIC  ERUDITION.
BY    GEO.    \V.    SHAW.
There  is  a  tendency  in  some  minds  to  resolve  history  into
myth.  Those  who  indulge  it  are  not  half  educated  visionaries,  but
generally  serious  thinkers  and  sometimes  profoundly  learned.  In
the  crucibles  of  their  analysis  strange  compounds  appear.  Homer
ceases  to  exist,  and  is  replaced  by  a  cycle  of  rhapsodists.  The  Tro-
jan war  becomes  a  solar  myth.  William  Tell  did  not  fight  at  Mor-
garten.  Stout  old  Judge  Samson  was  not  a  Jewish  Shophet,  but
the  sun — his  hair,  the  sunbeams.
"x\ll  is  illusion :  naught  is  truth."

A  small  etymological  peg  will  suspend  one  theory.*  Some  myth
of  a  former  age  or  remote  race  may  furnish  an  analogy  confirmatory
of  another.  Having  by  their  methods  resolved  the  facts  of  history
into  myths,  these  savants  are  at  one  confronted  with  the  question
how  such  myths  originated.  Having  no  direct  evidence  of  facts
which  probably  never  occurred,  but  are  confidently  assumed,  they
are  left  to  conjecture  their  causes.  Imaginations  vary,  and  each
inquirer  is  free  to  elaborate  his  own  hypothesis.
