PREFACE.

...report their sentiment in general, and those of their proofs which appeared to me most conclusive. When they have written specific Dissertations Formal academic treatises or essays popular in the 18th century. on these same subjects, I take the substance of them, and I refer to the Dissertations themselves those who might have the curiosity to read them.

Furthermore, I do not believe I have anything to reproach myself for regarding the use of others' discoveries without at least doing them the justice of naming them. The crime of Plagiarism The act of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own. has always seemed an odious crime to me; and who would be a greater plagiarist than I, if I had not carefully indicated the sources from which I have drawn, and from which any Author who produces a Work similar to mine must necessarily draw? A Work which, in truth, brings less honor than a new system: but which at the same time is almost always more useful to the Public. Those who take the trouble to read the first Chapter of this Mythology, which is a continuation of this Preface, will see how many baseless suppositions those who wanted to reduce the Fables Ancient myths or stories. to a general system have exposed themselves to. For after all, if every People has had its fictions, they are rather the fruit of the human spirit—always inclined toward the marvelous—than the result of a concerted project.

My design in this Work is to prove that despite all the ornaments that accompany the Fables, it is not difficult to see that they contain a portion of the History of the earliest times, and that Allegory and Morality were not the primary objective of those who invented them; and far from having changed my mind, I have been further confirmed in it by new studies. It is not that there are no...