An Introduction to Mythology

It is a short step, however, from the grouping of myths by parallelisms or recurrences to the explanation of these parallelisms by the formulation of some underlying principle; for these comparisons show "a regularity of development not to be accounted for by motiveless fancy, but by laws of formation." One finds, for instance, the continual recurrence of the Deluge in the myths of peoples scattered over the entire earth; and if the Hebrew myth is explained as a borrowing from the Babylonia...