He attempts "the first natural history of the gods and the heroes, such as in its final form should include in its purview all divine beings." In so doing he is moved by a motive far deeper than classification.
Campbell has one or two coordinating lines of inquiry which lend coherence. Its knowledge of primitive cultures (whether Australian or Aztec, Greek or Indian, etc.) is almost overwhelming. It is a titanic effort to coordinate and bring up to date the new perspectives of the last twenty years in the "fields of comparative symbolism, religion, mythology and philosophy" as well as in archaeology and anthropology, ethnology and psychology. This work is one of enormous scholarship, undertaken by a mythologist who holds a teaching post at Sarah Lawrence and has previously transcribed Celtic and Indian folklore tales.
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