On Myth
Belloc, Hilaire
ON MYTH By HILAIRE BELLOC ONE of the advantages of growing old is that one has assisted in person at two processes which are of the first importance in understanding history and the character of...
...The enthusiasm which supported it and gave it the atmosphere in which to grow was no-Goddism...
...Two parties were formed...
...But I can at least conclude with this: I have seen one very monstrous myth reach maturity in my own lifetime, and before my own eyes explode...
...At long last the myth is exploded...
...I state that the observation of the world over, say, forty active years, from early manhood to the approach of sixty, gives one a fine panorama of myth...
...the opposition dwindles...
...After a certain number of years one has the plan of it in one's mind, as one might have the plan of development in a vegetable from seed to fruit...
...Well, it has burst...
...It was believed to get rid of the necessity for a Creator...
...And all three are discovered by experience to follow the same lines of development...
...It conquers...
...all the vast revolutionary tide and its enthusiasts favored the myth, the battle hung even for a matter of seventy years or more, but at the end of a hundred the myth had been destroyed, and the truth had taken its place in history...
...But fairly often the opposite happens...
...But if there enter into the controversy side issues which have logically nothing to do with it, if the controversy arouses passions on matters which the reason should see to be quite distinct from the original statement, then at once the breeding soil for myth, the atmosphere favorable for its growth, has appeared...
...But there is a certain consolation in the comedy of the affair...
...There is the myth about people, the myth of theory, and the myth of event...
...and, though many who accepted it were innocent of such a motive, that was the driving power...
...It was quite certain by the last third of the nineteenth century that the queen was innocent and all serious history accepted the fact...
...The Donation of Constantine is a very good instance of this...
...If a myth were started that in the eighties of the last century there had been a unicorn at the zoo, and if all my children's contemporaries believed it, it would sadden me to see so monstrous though innocuous a lie lording it over the modern mind...
...So that the next stage is the prodigious advance in strength and wide dispersion of the false statement...
...When the first generation of combatants dies out it is usually only one of the two opposing sides which retains enough conviction or interest to maintain its position...
...it is, so to speak, mobilized and armed, and does battle on a large scale...
...For another two hundred years it was treated as merely ridiculous...
...Amid the wreck of the myth are to be found surviving unexpected fragments of truth...
...Very often what turns the tide in favor of the falsehood is the decay of those interests or of that philosophy which was fighting for the truth, and the universal acceptation of that philosophy which was opposing it...
...I have given no example of a true myth in our time still existant, because if I had it would have involved discussion, for which this is no place...
...And when it is exploded, a very interesting discovery appears...
...That was the myth of natural selection...
...For instance, patriotism will create a myth, which the international temper would destroy...
...ON MYTH By HILAIRE BELLOC ONE of the advantages of growing old is that one has assisted in person at two processes which are of the first importance in understanding history and the character of the state: the two are, the growth of myth and its opposite, the establishment of truth...
...For a longer or a shorter period, usually a shorter one, the statement appeals to a small body of people...
...First of all comes a statement about a person, or an event, or a theory...
...The myth is at its maturity, and may so endure firmly established for centuries...
...I say I have myself had the time to observe the growth of quite a number of myths, and I admit that the process saddens me...
...In the increase of patriotism the myth becomes universal...
...Although the statement is false, they believe it to be true...
...as, for instance, the theory that a glorious (but imaginary) "nordic race" composed of people oddly like ourselves solves the problem "How did things get done...
...It was stated by the opponents of the queen of France that she was guilty of theft and falsehood, and that those ultimately condemned were innocent scapegoats, the victims of her malice...
...But I confess I should have a good deal of fun out of the hints they would drop that I had lost my memory, or that I belonged to a rank of society too humble even to go to the zoo, or that I was plainly lying through some religious bias...
...It is not a happy thing to see the firm establishment of untruths, most of which are directly connected with the modern attacks upon religion...
...about, for instance, the innocence or guilt of an accused person, the reality or falsehood of a particular event, and its character (such as the outbreak of a war or a diplomatic triumph or reverse) ; or a statement that such and such a theory truly solves a particular problem...
...It was accepted from about a thousand years ago to about four hundred years ago, and was still vigorously defended until three hundred years ago...
...The false statement, then, is believed by its affirmers, and the second stage begins with the attack upon it when it becomes more widely known...
...Even at this state it may be killed by defeat as like as not...
...They are fervent, and they propagate it with all their power...
...Then historical learning destroyed it...
...It shocks the common sense or the experience of average people, and is actively combated...
...I will begin here with myth...
...sometimes not till many hundred years have passed...
...It never takes root, and if it survives at all, it only survives in the despised fanaticism of a few...
...Usually the nascent myth is killed in infancy by this process...
...The enthusiasm supporting the untruth is too strong for its opponents...
...and at last these few who remain firm in their attachment to the truth remain unheard or, when they are heard, are treated as cranks...
...That is what happened, for instance, to the myth of the diamond necklace just before the Revolution...
...and it may be noted that the length of human life has a good deal to do with this...
...at last, in our own time, patient research has shown that though it is a myth and false, it was founded on very valuable historical truths...
...It is hardly in human nature for the deliberate falsehood to be propagated with deliberate cunning and audacity by a great number of people in conspiracy, or for the evidence against it to be suppressed similarly...
...For the diabolical is rare, as holiness is...
...Of truth I will write another time...
...how a myth arises, how it is formed, hardens, becomes accepted, and passes at last into a sort of public dogma...
...And a great relief it is to be rid of its presence...
Vol. 11 • February 1930 • No. 16
