It is by such great events, not by the romance-writer in his peaceful study, that mythology, like literature,…
- Date of account
- Traditional material presented in a work published 1922
- Source
- Myths and Legends of China
- Reference
- Myths and Legends of China · selected passage 13
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English synthesis of Chinese traditions
- Translation
- E. T. C. Werner
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
It is by such great events, not by the romance-writer in his peaceful study, that mythology, like literature, is "incisively determined." Imagination, we saw, goes pari passu with intellectual progress, and intellectual progress, in early times, is furthered not so much by the mere contact as by the actual conflict of …
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyIt is by such great events, not by the romance-writer in his peaceful study, that mythology, like literature, is "incisively determined." Imagination, we saw, goes _pari passu_ with intellectual progress, and intellectual progress, in early times, is furthered not so much by the mere contact as by the actual conflict of nations. And we see also that myths may, and very frequently do, have a character quite different from that of the nation to which they appertain, for environment plays a most important part both in their inception and subsequent growth--a truth too obvious to need detailed elaboration.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis is a passage from a historical religious or interpretive text. Its genre, manuscript history, translation and place within its own tradition are part of the evidence and must remain visible.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice can compare the passage's descriptive features with later reports, but resemblance does not turn a vision, angel, mythic creature or sacred narrative into a modern incident report.
Investigate related details with Anomaly Graph’s account-based search, or read how matching and provenance work.