(Guthrie, 2)

"Besides appreciating what is of permanent value in Greek thought, we may also learn from observing how much latent mythology it continued to shelter within what appears to be a roof and walls of solid reason.
...

...This is not a condemnation of myth as false in itself. Its stories
and images may be, at an early stage of civilization, the only
available means (and an effective one) of expressing profound and
universal truths. Later, a mature religious thinker like Plato may
choose it deliberately, and as the culmination of a reasoned argument,
to communicate experiences and beliefs, the reality and cogency of
which is a matter of conviction outrunning logical proof. This is
genuine myth and its validity and importance are undoubted.










The danger begins when men believe they have left all that behind and are relying on a scientific method based solely on a combination of observation and logical inference. The unconscious retention of inherited and irrational modes of thought, cloaked in the vocabulary of reason, then becomes an obstacle rather than an aid, to the pursuit of truth.

The reason for making this point at the outset is that the implicit
acceptance of mythical concepts is a habit that never completely
relaxes its hold. Today it is even more heavily overlaid than in
ancient Greece with the terminology of rational disciplines. This
makes it more difficult to detect and therefore more dangerous."

-W.K.C. Guthrie
A History of Greek Philosophy
Volume I
The Earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans