"Thus speak the doctors of “ Comparative Mythology,” and plain people are silenced but not convinced under the rain of proofs; they cannot deny the likenesses, but they dimly feel: Are all man’s dearest hopes and loftiest imaginings really nothing more than the outcome of savage fancies and of groping ignorance? have the great leaders of the race, the martyrs and heroes of humanity, lived, wrought, suffered, and died deluded, for the mere personifications of astronomical facts and for the draped obscenities of barbarians?(Introduction p. 4)"