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JOURNAL OF CANADIAN STUDIES REVUE D'ETUDES CANADIENNES Editor Associate Editors RALPH HEINTZMAN DAVID CAMERON JOHN WADLAND Directeur Directeurs adjoints Editorial Assistants ARLENE DAVIS MARGARET PEARCE Assistantes Editorial Board JEAN-PIERRE LAPOINTE MARGARET LAURENCE HARVEY McCUE Comite de redaction JACQUES MONET, S.J. W.L. MORTON W.F.W. NEVILLE GORDON ROPER DONALD V. SMILEY DENIS SMITH PHILIP STRATFORD T.H.B. SYMONS W.E. TAYLOR CLARA THOMAS MELVILLE H. WATKINS ALAN WILSON The sympathy ofthe whole The rediscovery of myth has been one of the striking features of cultural life in the twentieth century. Under the influence of such writers as Frazer, Freud, Jung, Cassirer, Frye, Eliade and Campbell, to name only a few, the contemporary mind has learned to recognize that, in general, myths are not most usefully understood as legends lacking any basis in fact, and therefore untrue, but rather as expressive of a special - and particularly profound - kind of truth. It is now commonplace to distinguish between the popular notion of myths as "fables" and the more sophisticated conception of them as poetic revelations of the enduring features of the human spirit. Yet even "sophisticated" people still speak of myths in both senses and are justified in doing so by their common element. Whether one thinks of myths Journal ofCanadian Studies as ultimately true or false, both kinds of myth must be regarded as facts of the mind and merit study for that reason. Even myths which are authentic reflections of individual psychic experience are also elements of civilization and serve a social function. Indeed, the third of four functions of a "living" mythology identified by Joseph Campbell is ''to validate, support, and imprint the norms of a given, specific moral order, that, namely, of the society in which the individual is to live." It goes without saying that, in the case of myth understood as something opposed to reality, this function is even more prominent, if it is not indeed the only one. Whether they are reflections or negations of reality, myths serve to structure the mental and affective life of the community in such a way as to facilitate social cohesion and cooperation at the most instinctive level, and to permit the individual to participate with a minimum of strain or self-conscious adjustment in the wider life of society. The mythical structure of a healthy society is as much a reality as its political or economic one, and the understanding of a society will be gravely incomplete without an understanding of its mythology. Both kinds of myths are examined in this issue of the Journal. It is perhaps not surprising that the historical essays tend to concentrate on myths in the popular sense while the literary ones take a greater interest in the other form; but the division is not a strict one, and when attention is given to religion, the degree of overlap becomes extreme. Religious expression assumes a mythical form; yet the faithful assert that what the myth tries to convey is (as John Buell says) essentially true, and even aetheists who have taken the trouble to acquaint themselves with psychical experience will admit that, to a large extent, they are right. However , religious experience may itself become the subject of "myths" - in the other sense - and a number of such myths about religion in Canadian literature and criticism are discussed in Mr. Dooley's contribution to this issue. While scholars have learned to recognize the function of myth in many areas of life, they have been slower to do so in their own domain. Social scientists, like their purer brethren, are particularly loathe to admit that something as "unscientific" as myth has any role to play in their own work though it might do so in that of misguided colleagues . Yet, as Hugh G.J. Aitken points out in an essay to be published later this year in the Journal's special issue on Harold Innis, myths are almost as essential to creative work in the social sciences as they are to any other activity. The reluctance on the part of social scientists to acknowledge the function of myth in their work springs from an erroneous assumption that thought is...

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