"If no other knowledge deserves to be called useful but that which helps to enlarge our possessions or to raise our station in society, then Mythology has no claim to the appellation"
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Bulfinch is picking a fight with the idea that “useful” knowledge is only whatever cashes out as money, status, or résumé sheen. It’s a neat bit of rhetorical jiu-jitsu: he grants the premise for a moment (fine, let’s define usefulness as social climbing), then calmly shows how that definition would exile mythology by design. The point isn’t that mythology fails the marketplace test; it’s that the marketplace test is a bad judge of what an educated person is for.
The subtext is defensive but not apologetic. Bulfinch wrote in a 19th-century America busy professionalizing everything - schooling tilting toward the practical, literacy toward the instrumental, culture toward self-improvement as social mobility. “Possessions” and “station” are not random nouns; they’re the era’s twin engines of respectability. By naming them bluntly, he exposes the anxiety behind them: the fear that time spent on stories, gods, and symbols is time stolen from climbing.
What makes the sentence work is its conditional trap. “If ... then ...” forces readers to own their priorities. Accept the premise and you’ve also accepted a thinner life, one where imagination is a hobby at best and a moral education is suspicious. Bulfinch’s larger context (The Age of Fable and its sequels) treats mythology as cultural infrastructure: a key to art, literature, and shared reference. He argues, slyly, that mythology is “useless” only if you’ve already decided that being human is a cost center.
The subtext is defensive but not apologetic. Bulfinch wrote in a 19th-century America busy professionalizing everything - schooling tilting toward the practical, literacy toward the instrumental, culture toward self-improvement as social mobility. “Possessions” and “station” are not random nouns; they’re the era’s twin engines of respectability. By naming them bluntly, he exposes the anxiety behind them: the fear that time spent on stories, gods, and symbols is time stolen from climbing.
What makes the sentence work is its conditional trap. “If ... then ...” forces readers to own their priorities. Accept the premise and you’ve also accepted a thinner life, one where imagination is a hobby at best and a moral education is suspicious. Bulfinch’s larger context (The Age of Fable and its sequels) treats mythology as cultural infrastructure: a key to art, literature, and shared reference. He argues, slyly, that mythology is “useless” only if you’ve already decided that being human is a cost center.
Quote Details
| Topic | Knowledge |
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