830. In all these cases the creation is out of already existing material[1422] and the creator is really a culture-hero or transformer, a character that clings to deities in the most advanced religions, as the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Greek. The character of these early transformers and creators is that of the communities in which they originate. Morally they represent both the higher and the lower sides of life, and this is true in all periods—the Hindu Indra is as tricksy and unmoral as the North American Coyote, and the early form of Zeus resembles these and other savage figures.[1423] The conceptions of the creator grew more and more ethically good, but the lower representations continued to exist side by side with the higher.[1424]

831. It is not altogether strange that the two sorts of creative Powers should be early thought of as mutually antagonistic. The Maidu bad creator is constantly opposing and bringing to naught the work of his good rival, and their collision produces the actual state of things on the earth.[1425] It is probably by way of explanation of the evil in the world that in this myth the bad Coyote finally overcomes his rival. The resemblance of this scheme to the Mazdean dualism, except in the outcome, is obvious. For a full account of these systems we must await further information; but at present there is no ground for holding that the similarity is due to borrowing.

832. In various early cosmogonies the representation is found of an earlier race or an early world that had been destroyed, sometimes by a flood (Babylonia, India, Greece, Polynesia, North America, South America), sometimes in other ways.[1426] Flood stories probably arise from local inundations, and may therefore have been constructed independently in various regions. In some cases the general conditions favor the supposition of distribution from one point: it seems probable, for example, that the Babylonian flood story was adopted by the Canaanites and from them by the Hebrews (the supposition of common descent from an original Semitic myth is made improbable by the closeness of resemblance between the Babylonian and Hebrew forms); it may have passed to India, but the Hindu story may be accounted for from local conditions. But we know of no such intercourse between the Americas, Polynesia, and Western Asia, as would suggest a migration of the myth from the latter to the two former, though this is conceivable.

833. The origin of man is included in that of the world. He is made from clay or wooden figures or stones, or, as in Australia, out of a shapeless mass. The conception found in various parts of the world, that the present race of men was preceded by another, appears to be due sometimes to a real, though often confused, tradition of an earlier population, sometimes to a vague conception of the conflict and incompleteness in the world. Traditions of predecessors are found in various parts of the world. In North America—as, for example, among the Navahos—a part of the early history is the conflict with certain mighty and evil beings who made good life impossible—a semidualistic scheme.[1427] This view comes from the general disposition to conceive of the past as the time of mightier agencies, good and bad, than now exist.

834. A not uncommon representation is that man was originally not mortal, or that it was a question whether or not he should be mortal (death being generally regarded by early man as an abnormal event, produced by supernatural agency). In such cases mortality is brought about by an accident or an error: among the Maoris by a mistake of the hero Maui;[1428] among the Hebrews by the disobedience of the first man, or by his failure to eat of the tree of life; in South Africa by the accident that the messenger who was to announce immortality was outrun by one who announced mortality.[1429]

835. The belief that the earliest men were longer-lived and of larger stature than their successors is found among certain peoples.[1430] Of the origin of this belief in ancient times we have no accounts. It may have been suggested by various objects supposed to be remains of men, or it may have been due simply to a tendency to conceive of the beginners of human society as superior beings (dedivinized gods). The Hebrew tradition ascribed great age to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses, on a generally descending scale; the longevity of the antediluvians is perhaps a speculative continuation of the series back of Abraham on an ascending scale, though special mythical traits here come in.

Connected with the general belief in the superiority of early conditions of life is the belief in a primitive earthly paradise; the history of this conception is not clear, but in some cases the paradise appears to have been the delightful abode of a deity, into which human beings were for various reasons admitted, or the primeval fair and happy earth.[1431]

836. The belief that the world or the existing order is to be destroyed appears to be connected with the conception of history as involving a cycle of ages, and the theory of ages may have arisen from the tradition or the knowledge of social and political revolutions, the rise of each new phase of civilization involving the destruction of its predecessor. Traditions of past cataclysms may have helped toward the formulation of an expectation of coming destruction. This expectation, generalized under the influence of belief in a final judgment of men by God, would lead to the announcement of a final destruction of the present world. This destruction, which ushers in a new age, is accomplished in various ways, sometimes by water, wind, or fire,[1432] sometimes by supernatural enemies.[1433] The Hindu and the Persian schemes of successive ages are relatively late theological constructions, but they are based on the older idea that present things must have an end.[1434] The Navaho series of five worlds represents, apparently, nothing but traditions of social changes, interspersed with minor aetiologic myths.[1435]

837. Many other cosmogonic details, common to various peoples, might be added. Transformation from human to animal or mineral forms and the reverse are to be found, as we have seen, everywhere. The slaying of dragons by gods or heroes is often connected with creation, but belongs sometimes in the category of cultural or nature myths. Abnormal forms of birth and generation may be sometimes products of savage fancy, or they may be attempts to set forth the mysterious or the supernatural in certain beings, or they may be nature myths: in various mythologies a god or a hero is born from the side or the thigh or the head of the mother or the father; fecundation by other means than sexual union appears in North America, Egypt, Greece, and generally in savage tribes.[1436] The representation of the primeval parents, Heaven and Earth, as having been originally united in a close embrace and then separated, Heaven being lifted up and Earth remaining below, is so remarkable that it might be doubted whether it arose independently in different places; yet, as it is found in New Zealand,[1437] in Egypt,[1438] in India,[1439] among the Masai of Eastern Central Africa,[1440] and as the supposition of borrowing for these widely separated communities would be difficult (except, perhaps, as between Egypt and the Masai land), it is simpler to regard the myth as a natural effort of early science.[1441] It need hardly be added that with all the similarities in the various cosmogonic systems the diversities among different peoples are as numerous as the differences of surroundings and character.

838. Among most early communities the great figures of the past (creations of imagination) to whom are ascribed the introduction of the arts of life and the general betterment of society are regarded as demigods, descended from parents one of whom is divine and the other human; it is sometimes the father, sometimes the mother, that is divine.[1442] This conception is a simple and natural explanation of the supposed extraordinary powers of the personages in question. A more refined conception represents man as receiving life from the breath of God,[1443] whence easily comes the idea that man is the child of God and has in him a spark of divinity.

839. Ethnogonic myths. Early science has to account not only for the origin of the world and the human race, but also for the origin of particular tribes and their surroundings. The area involved is the known world, which among savage peoples is small in extent but increases with knowledge, the general method of accounting for social division remaining, however, the same. As a rule, the center of the distribution of mankind is the territory of the particular tribe in which the myth originates. There is always the conviction, expressed or implied, that the tribe in question is the center of the world and the favorite of the creative Power;[1444] it being established in its place, the rest of the world is divided among other tribes—a conception that survives among civilized peoples of antiquity.[1445]

840. The ethnogonic history generally takes the form of a genealogy—every tribe or other group is derived from a mythical ancestor, who among savages is frequently a beast, or half-beast half-human, or even in some cases a rock or a stone. Familiar examples are the genealogical systems of the Australians, the Maoris of New Zealand, the Samoans, the American Indians;[1446] but the conception appears to be universal. There was indeed no other natural way of accounting for the origin of a tribe: as an existing family would reckon its beginning from the grandfather, so the tribe would come from some remote person, and so at a later time the nation, and then finally the human race. As there were no historical records of such beginning, the scientific imagination of early peoples constructed the first parents in various ways, often by personifying the tribe and transferring its name to the mythical ancestor. It is in this way that the genealogical lists of the post-Mohammedan Arabians arose; it is certain that they had no records of the past extending further than a few generations, and in some cases the origins of the names in genealogical lists may be fixed. The Greek method of naming ancestors is simple and obvious: the sons of Hellen are Dorus, Xuthus, AEolus; the sons of Xuthus are Achaeus and Ion; and these are all descended from Deucalion. In like manner the Pelasgians are carried back to the ancestor Pelasgus, and the Peloponnesians to Pelops. The Roman Romulus, Remulus, Remus, are natural inventions based on the name of the city.

841. Genealogical elaboration was carried out more fully by the Hebrews than by any other ancient people. Not only were tribal names, Jacob, Israel, Judah, Joseph, Ephraim, and the rest, personified, but they were arranged in a well-shaped family system; and, the same method being applied to all the nations known to them, these were carried up to the three sons of Noah, and finally through Noah up to the first man, whose Hebrew name, Adam, means simply man.[1447] The table of nations in Genesis x is a remarkable example of ethnographic organization. As it is based on geographical relations, it does not in all particulars accord with modern ethnological schemes, but it is a noteworthy attempt to embrace the whole world in a family picture. The view that the division of the earth among the various peoples revolved around the Israelite territory is expressed in the poem cited above,[1448] which is of the seventh century B.C., and it may be inferred that this large genealogical unification was completed among the Israelites at a time when they felt the influence of the great Assyrian civilization, with which they seem to have come into somewhat intimate contact. Later examples are found in Vergil's AEneid and Milton's "History of Britain" (in which he adopts early attempts at genealogical construction).

842. Sociogonic myths. Most of the customs and institutions of early peoples go back to a time when there were no records, and their introduction was naturally referred, so soon as reflection thereon began, to gods and heroes of primeval time.

843. The arts of life are commonly explained in this mythical way. The beginnings of agriculture are referred in Melanesia to the Little One or to Qat, in Mexico to the god or culture-hero Quetzalcoatl, in Peru to Viracocha or Pachacamac, or to Manco Capac and his wife. For the Algonkins Michabo, the Great Hare, was the teacher of fishing and of other pursuits.[1449] The Babylonian god Ea was the instructor of his people in all the arts of civilization.[1450] In the Old Testament Cainite (Kenite) genealogy the originators of pastoral life, of metal-working, and of music, are the ancient ancestors.[1451] In the Book of Enoch the employment of metals, the use of writing, and in general all the early arts of civilization are ascribed to the fallen angels, whose children are represented in the Book of Genesis[1452] as the culture-heroes of the olden time. The introduction of writing into Greece is ascribed by the Greeks to the mythical hero or demigod Cadmus.[1453] Fire is in India the production of the god Agni[1454] (who is simply fire elevated to the rank of a personal divinity); in the Greek myth it is stolen and given to men by the demigod Prometheus[1455] against the will of the gods, who are jealous of human progress.[1456] Among various savage tribes there are similar histories of the derivation of the use of fire from superhuman beings.[1457]

844. Early ceremonies, as we have seen,[1458] are universally connected with religion, and their origin is ascribed to divine or semi-divine figures of the past. In Australia the initiation ceremonies, which take up a great part of the tribal life, are regarded as having been established by the mythical ancestors.[1459] Among the Hebrews when circumcision, an early initiation ceremony,[1460] became religiously important, its establishment was referred to the ancestor Abraham, who is said to have acted by direct command of God,[1461] but in earlier documents there are hints of other origins for the rite.[1462] The ritual dances of the North American Indians, which are very elaborate, are accompanied by explanations in which the origin of every detail is referred to some event or person in the supernatural past;[1463] and similar explanations are given of the dances of Mexico.[1464] In many cases the restrictions of food and other things are ascribed to the experiences of the ancestors or to the commands of deities: the Hebrew usage of not eating a certain sinew is connected with the story of the struggle between Jacob and a divine being.[1465]

845. Festivals also were treated in this manner as soon as men began to reflect on the origin of society. As one feature in the festival sacred to Mars (March 1) was the dancing of the priests who carried curious shields, it was narrated, to account for this, that the shield of Mars fell down from heaven;[1466] and the goddess Maia, according to one conjecture, was invented to explain the name of the month of May.[1467] A Greek explanation of the fact that children at a later period were not called by the mother's name was that in the contest between Poseidon and Athene for the control of the city of Athens the latter deity prevailed by the votes of the women, who were in the majority, and to appease the wrath of Poseidon this rule was then made by the men.[1468] The Gileadite festival in which maidens lamented the death of the daughter of Jephthah[1469] was doubtless an old rite in which the death of some divinity was bewailed. The Greek Boedromia was referred to the succor given by Theseus against the Amazons,[1470] and in the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries aetiological myths connected with Demeter, Kore, and Dionysos formed the central part of the proceedings.[1471] In the Old Testament the spring festival (Passover) is connected with the departure of the people from Egypt, and the autumn festival (Tabernacles) with the sojourn in the wilderness; and by the later Jews the midsummer festival (the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost) was similarly brought into connection with the giving of the law on Mount Sinai.

846. Relation between myth and ritual. The question whether myth comes from ritual or ritual from myth has been much discussed. Obviously universal precedence cannot be allowed to either of the two. There are cases in which primary mythical beliefs determine the form of religious procedure: the belief, for example, that a god, as anthropomorphic divine patron, must be placated and provided with all the accessories of a potentate, leads to the offering of food and other gifts and to the establishment of abodes and attendants; the sense of his aloofness and of his powerful and dangerous qualities induces cautionary rules for approach to his presence; because he has manlike intellectual and emotional limitations his favor must be secured by prayers and praises; if he has a son, this latter may act as mediator between his father and a suppliant, or one god may mediate with others in behalf of men.[1472] On the other hand, there are many examples of myths that arise as explanation of ritualistic details.[1473] It is sometimes hard to say on which side the precedence in time lies. In general, it seems, it is from broader and fundamental mythical conceptions that ritual arises, while mythical narratives spring from particular ritualistic observances.

847. Important religious changes which have come to pass through natural changes of thought, usually by the movement toward greater refinement, are explained as having been introduced by some great reformer. The abrogation of human sacrifice was a reform of great moment: in Mexico it is ascribed to the god Quetzalcoatl,[1474] and in the Old Testament to Abraham acting by command of God.[1475] One of the Incas of Peru is said to have reached monotheistic views by a process of reasoning, and the post-Biblical Jewish myths ascribed the same achievement to Abraham.[1476]

848. As a rule sacred places were connected with stories of the presence of divine personages or mythical ancestors. In Samoa, the Hawaian group, and other Pacific Islands many stones are connected with stories of heroes, spirits, or gods.[1477] In Central Australia every stone, rock, or tree has its myth of the half-bestial ancestors.[1478] In Greece, as Pausanias relates, there was hardly a place that did not have its story of the origin of some sacred spot or thing due to a god.[1479] In the earlier books of the Old Testament the sacred places, which were Arabian or Canaanite shrines adopted by the Hebrews, are generally connected with the presence of the patriarchs or other great men. The magical qualities of springs, pools, and other bodies of water are explained by stories in which a god or other divine person descends into them, or in some other way communicates power.[1480]

849. Myths of heavenly bodies, winds, and vegetation. As the sun, the moon, and other objects of nature were regarded as anthropomorphic persons and naturally came into relation with men, their imagined adventures have produced a great mass of stories in all parts of the world. These stories are partly attempts to account for phenomena and partly are simply products of fancy; the myth-maker is very often a mere story-teller. The sun, conceived of usually as an old man, is supposed to live in a house up in the sky, to have his wife and children, to receive visitors, and to interfere to some extent in human affairs. An eclipse was obviously to be regarded as the work of an enemy of the sun, usually a dragon (so in many low tribes, and in India). A great excess of heat on the earth might be explained by the supposition that the chariot of the sun had been driven too near the surface.[1481] The waning of the moon was supposed to be due to her sorrow at the loss of her children, the stars, which were devoured by the sun. The moon might be a fair woman who becomes enamored of a human being. At a later time in the progress of astronomical knowledge the planets and certain of the stars were individualized—they became actors in human history or, still later, the abode of supernatural beings.[1482]

850. The beginnings of astrological theory are probably to be recognized at a very early period. The height of the sky above the earth, the persistence with which the stars seem to look down on men, the invariability of their courses, the mysteriousness of their origin would naturally lead to the belief that they had some control over human affairs. Meteors, regarded as falling stars, have always been objects of dread. The development of astrology has been due to the increase of astronomical knowledge and to the tendency to organize religion in its aspect of dependence on the supernatural Powers.[1483]

851. Winds have played a less prominent part in theistic history than the heavenly bodies, but have given rise to not a few myths in religions of different grades of culture and in different parts of the world.[1484] In the Scandinavian myths the storm wind as a representative of the prevailing climatic condition has assumed special prominence. In the Iliad when a messenger is dispatched to the abode of the winds to secure their aid, these are found feasting like a human family.[1485] Later, winds are, of course, subordinated to the great gods.

852. From time to time theories have arisen explaining many deities and heroes as representatives of the heavenly bodies, and many stories of gods and heroes as reflecting the phenomena of the sky or the air. Such theories have been carried so far sometimes as to explain everything in mythology as a solar or lunar or astral myth. These constructions leave much to the fancy, and it is not difficult to find in mythical narratives references to the movements of the sun or the moon or the stars or the winds. It is possible that such reference really exists in certain stories. It is probable also that simple myths representing such phenomena have been in later times elaborated and brought into connection with a more detailed astronomical knowledge. The same principles of interpretation should guide us here as are referred to above.

853. There are doubtless cases in which a hero or a god represents the sun or the moon, the correspondence between the adventures of the hero and the movements of the heavenly bodies being plain. The twelve labors of Heracles may represent the passage of the sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac; but if this be the case, it is certain that such construction was relatively late, and that the separate adventures must be referred to some more simple facts. If Heracles slays the Hydra, it is more natural to regard this as having represented originally some mundane phenomenon of nature or some simple conflict of the savage life. The same thing is probably true of the adventures of the Babylonian hero Gilgamesh, who is sometimes considered to be the original of Heracles. Nothing is easier than to expound the story of Samson in the Old Testament as a series of solar and other phenomena,[1486] but the probability is that he embodies the vague recollections of early tribal adventures, and, notwithstanding his name (which means 'solar,' that is, devoted to the sun), there is no good ground for supposing that his history has been astronomically worked over. A similar remark applies to many discussions respecting various deities, Hindu (as Indra), Egyptian (as Osiris), Semitic (as Nergai, Marduk, Nabu), and Greek (as Apollo). In all such cases it is necessary to inquire first whether the explanation of the myth may not be found naturally in some ordinary human experience or some very simple natural phenomenon, and a line of demarcation must be drawn between original forms of the myth and later learned constructions.

854. Another source of mythical narration is the history of vegetation, which at the present time has largely supplanted the solar theory. The amazing spectacle of the decay and revival of vegetation, naturally referred to superhuman power, and the importance of plants for human life, have led to the construction of stories (sometimes founded on ritual) in which the adventures of the spirit of vegetation are recounted. Obviously there is a sound basis for this view. The earth was necessarily regarded as the mother from whom came the corn and wine that supported human life. The study of the relatively modern European ceremonies[1487] has brought out the persistence of such an idea, and the similarity between the new ceremonies and the old may be said to have demonstrated the existence of an early cult of the divine Power controlling vegetation.

855. The Asian Magna Mater and the Greek Mother (Demeter) or Maiden (Kore, Persephone) are identical in function with the corn maiden of modern times, and the latter figure may be a degraded or socialized descendant of an early deity. When we add that ancient local deities all took account of the products of the soil, it will not seem improbable that a great mass of stories should have arisen describing the adventures of the Spirit of Vegetation.[1488] The descent of a hero or a god into Hades may be explained as the passage of the sun from its summer warmth to its winter feebleness, or as the annual death and revival of vegetation. Which of these views shall be adopted will depend in any case on the particular coloring of the story, on the signification of the names involved, or on the ceremonies accompanying the worship. It is not now possible to frame a theory that shall embrace all possible phenomena.

856. Certain great myths have in the course of time taken on elaborate literary form, and in this form show traces of advanced thought on some fundamental questions. Such myths occur among half-civilized peoples. There is, for example, the great mythical cosmogony of the Maoris of New Zealand—a scheme seemingly so philosophic in form that it excites wonder as to how it could have arisen in such a place.[1489] The story of the adventures of Maui, a general Polynesian figure, constitutes a Polynesian history of the rise of civilization. Among the North American Indians the mythological systems of the Algonkins, the Pawnees, and other tribes, include the origin of all forms of natural objects and all institutions of society. The histories of the Great Hare of the Lenape, the Thunder Bird of the West, and the various transformers or culture-heroes, are scarcely less elaborate than the New Zealand stories. The mythologies of the Finns also (given in the Kalevala) are noteworthy. Passing to higher forms, it is sufficient to note the suggestive story of Balder among the Scandinavians, and, in the ancient world, the Egyptian Osiris myth, the Great Dragon myth of the Babylonian cosmogony, the various forms of the story of a primeval paradise, and the ceremonies and ideas that have arisen in connection with the death of a god.

857. The motif of the antagonism between light and darkness appears to be attached to or involved in certain myths, especially the great cosmogonies and stories in which solar deities figure prominently. The original unformed mass of matter is often, perhaps generally, conceived of as being in darkness, and its transformation is attended with the appearance of light[1490]—light is an essential element in the conditions that make earthly human life possible; in contrast with the Upperworld the Underworld is dark. The diffusion of light is a main function of the sun, and the high gods dwell in continual brightness.[1491] Light is the symbol of right, security, and happiness. But it is doubtful whether the expression of the antithesis and conflict of light and darkness is the immediate object of the early portraitures of deities and the mythical narratives of creation and the future of the world. The Egyptian Ra has no conflict with darkness, and the struggle between Osiris (and Horus) and Set, while it may be and often is interpreted in this sense, is susceptible of other interpretations. The motif in the Babylonian cosmogony is the bringing of order out of disorder, in which work the creation of light is an incident. In ethically advanced religious systems, such as the Hindu and the Persian, the good Powers are connected with light and the wicked Powers with darkness, but a conflict between these adjuncts is not brought out clearly. No such conflict appears in Greek mythology. Where a supernatural being intervenes in defense of light (as when a god destroys a dragon-creature who attempts to swallow the sun), this is simply an explanation of a physical phenomenon, and not a conflict between light and darkness.

858. The theory, widely held, that a great body of early myths, including the conception of the characters and functions of many deities, represent the struggle between light and darkness, is, therefore, not sustained by the facts. Such a generalization is found in late philosophic systems, but it does not belong to early religious thought, which deals with concrete personal agents.[1492] A conflict between two gods is often to be explained as the rivalry of two districts or of two forms of culture. Attacks on luminous bodies, or defenses of them, are common as aetiological myths, and an antagonism between light and darkness then naturally appears, as is observed above, as an accessory or incident, but not as an immediate object of mythical portraiture. The closeness of the relation between the light-and-darkness theory and the solar theory of myths is obvious.

859. Myth and legend. In the course of the formulation of myths they have naturally become mingled with legend. As they narrate the achievements of the great supernatural figures of the past, these achievements have often become blended in the twilight of tradition with actual (though embellished) experiences of the clan or tribe and of the great men therewith connected.[1493] In such cases it is generally difficult to decide where legend ends and myth begins, and every story must be investigated separately, and its nature determined from what is known of the real history of the time and of the development of mythical ideas. Familiar examples of this combination of legend and myth appear in connection with the Homeric poems, certain Asian and Greek cults, and the early histories of Greece and Rome and Israel.[1494] The elucidation of such narratives must be left to the technical investigator in the various historical periods. In general, it may be said, there is enough historical material to enable us to trace the development of tribes and nations with a fair degree of certainty; and the caution already expressed against excessive mythological interpretation is especially in place in such researches.[1495]

The material published under the general title of "folk-lore" consists of various elements—purely religious usages and ideas, mythical and legendary narratives, and fanciful stories. As the term, defined precisely, refers only to popular survivals from defunct religious systems, its material shows a constant process of modification from generation to generation by newer ideas. The mythical element, extricated from the general mass, must be treated in accordance with the general principles of the criticism of myths.[1496]

860. Mythical biographies. As gods and heroes are the actors in mythical constructions of society, the stories in such constructions generally assume the form of anecdotal biographies of these personages. Such sketches gather fresh material from generation to generation, are gradually worked up into literary shape, and, being brought into connection with historical traditions, assume historical form, and are then sometimes accepted in their homes and elsewhere as historical.[1497] As they embody the ideas of the times in which they originate, they have, in so far, historical and psychological value. Charm of style has given some of these stories literary value, and they have been accepted as part of the literary treasure of the world. They are sometimes combinations or fusions of myth and legend, and these two elements are not always easily distinguishable the one from the other.[1498]

861. In questions that touch the original nature of a god the possible difference between earlier and later conceptions of him must, of course, be borne in mind. When a deity has been definitely shaped and has become a patron of a community, he may be identified by the people, or particularly by poets and priests, with any object or idea that is of special interest to the community. The baals of the agricultural Canaanites presided over irrigation, but were not specifically underground gods;[1499] they were rather general divine patrons interested in all that interested the people. A solar deity, becoming the favorite god of an agricultural community, may be regarded as connected with vegetation; or a god of vegetation may be associated, in astronomical circles, with the sun. A divine figure is often composite, the product of the coalescence of several orders of ideas. In general it may be said that the simplest and least socially refined function of a god is likely to indicate his original character. We must go behind the conceptions of cultivated times to the hints given in popular observances and poetry.

862. Interpretation of myths. For savage and half-civilized communities, and for the masses in civilized times, the stories of the achievements and adventures of gods, heroes, and ancestors, accepted as history, have been and are sources of enjoyment and of intellectual impulse. Narrated by fathers to their families, and recited or sung by professional orators and poets to groups and crowds throughout the land,[1500] they have been expanded and handed down from generation to generation, receiving from every generation the coloring of its experiences and ideas, and in the course of time have taken literary shape under the hands of men of genius, and have been committed to writing. For the early times they not only formed a body of historical literature, but also, since they described relations between men and gods, came to be somewhat vague yet real sacred scriptures of the people.[1501] As such, being regarded simply as statements of facts, they needed no outside interpretation; and being molded by human experience, they carried with them such moral and religious instruction as grew naturally out of the situations described. A more highly cultivated age, dissatisfied with bald facts, desired to find in the stories the wisdom of the fathers, and the imagination of poets and philosophers was long occupied with discovering and expounding their deeper meanings till further research set aside such attempts as useless. The treatment of mythical material thus shows three stadia: the acceptance of myths as genuine history; esoteric explanations of their assumed profound teachings; and finally, return to their original character as primitive science, having their origin in crude conceptions of life. A brief sketch may show how the interpretation of myths has come to be regarded as an historical and sociological science.

863. Ancient interpretations of myths. When the progress of thought, especially in Greece, made it impossible to accept the current beliefs concerning gods and their doings, it was felt necessary to put some higher meaning into them—they were rationalized and spiritualized by a process of allegorization. This process seems to have begun in Greece as early as the sixth century B.C.[1502] It was the philosophers who undertook to reinterpret the Homeric mythical material, and the extent to which this procedure had been carried in the time of Plato is indicated by the fact that he ridicules these modes of dealing with the poet.[1503] But Homer maintained his place in literature, and the demand for a spiritualizing of his works increased rather than diminished. A science of allegory was created, Pergamus became one of its chief centers,[1504] and the Alexandrian Jew Philo applied the method to the interpretation of the Pentateuch. It was speedily adopted in the Christian world, and has there maintained itself, though in diminishing extent, up to the present day.[1505] As a serious interpretation of ancient myths, outside of the Old Testament, it is no longer employed. Myths are, indeed, important as reflecting early opinions, religious and other—good doctrinal matter may be extracted from them, but this must not be ascribed to the intention of their authors and reporters. In the Old Testament itself the Jewish editors have socialized the mythical material (weaving it into the history, as in Genesis), or have brought it under the work of the national deity.

864. Recent interpretations. In recently proposed interpretations we may note first certain attempts at a unification of some body of myths or of all known mythical material. These attempts, almost without exception, take the sky and the heavenly bodies as their basis.

At the end of the eighteenth century, when the theory of human unity had taken hold of the French revolutionists, C. F. Dupuis[1506] undertook to explain all the cults of the world as having come from the worship of the universe—a conception broad enough to cover everything; but he practically reduces it to the worship of the heavenly bodies, particularly the sun, and derives all myths from stellar objects. His work is ingenious, learned, and suggestive, but in his day the facts of ancient mythology were insufficiently known.

865. In the next century the study of Sanskrit and Old Persian widened the field of knowledge, the science of Indo-European grammar was created, and on this followed attempts at the construction of an Indo-European mythology. The first definitely formulated unification was the theory of F. Max Mueller,[1507] which derived all Aryan (Indo-European) myths from phenomena of the sun and the dawn, largely, he held, through misunderstandings of the meaning of old descriptive terms (myths as a "disease of language"). It is conceivable that a word, originally used simply as descriptive of an actual fact, may have passed into a proper name and become personalized and the center of adventures; but the character of early man's thought, as we now know it, makes it impossible to regard such a view as a probable explanation of the mass of mythological material. Mueller's services to the science of the history of religions were great, but his theory of the origin of myths has now been generally abandoned.[1508]

866. The great discoveries of literary material made in Egypt and Babylonia since the middle of the nineteenth century have aroused special interest in the religions of these countries. Leadership in ancient civilization is claimed by Egyptologists and Assyriologists, each party for its own land. It is, however, Babylonia that has given rise to the largest theories of the unity of myths—a fact due in part to its development of astronomy, in part, perhaps, to the resemblance between the Babylonian mythical material and that of the Old Testament. Dupuis[1509] had observed that the ancient Chaldeans taught that the heavenly bodies controlled mundane destinies, and, according to Diodorus, that the planets were the interpreters of the will of the gods. This is substantially the point of view of E. Stucken,[1510] who, in common with Dupuis (though, apparently, independently), holds to the unity of ancient religions and the astral origin of all myths. From Babylonia, he thinks, myths passed to all parts of the world, Egypt, Asia, Europe, Polynesia, and America—in such migrations, however, it was the motif that passed; the personages might vary in different lands.[1511] Finally he traces all sagas of all peoples to the creation myth.[1512] This supreme unification is reached by arguments so far-fetched as to deprive them of force.

Stucken's position was adopted and elaborated by H. Winckler, who was followed by A. Jeremias and some others.[1513] Winckler attempts to show that a single religion existed in the ancient Oriental world (with a single system of myths), and that this was dominated by the conception that there was a correspondence between the heavenly world and the lower world in such wise that all earthly affairs were indicated by the movements of the heavenly bodies, whence arose the whole religious system of Western Asia and Greece.

867. What is true in this theory (to which the name of "Panbabylonianism" has been given) is that Semitic mythology is a unit, with Babylonia as its birthplace, and that certain elements are common to the Egyptian, Semitic, Greek, and other mythological systems. The substantial identity of Babylonian, Aramean (Syrian), and Canaanite myths is generally acknowledged:[1514] the Old Testament dragon-myth (which occurs also in the New Testament Apocalypse) is found in full shape only in Babylonian material;[1515] the Syrian Adonis myth is at bottom the Babylonian story of Tammuz and Ishtar. The probability is that all early Semitic schemes of creation and prehistoric life are essentially one. Further, such conceptions as the origin of the world from an unshaped mass of matter and the origin of man from the earth are widely distributed over the earth.

868. Babylonia, then, is the chief mythopoeic center for the Semitic region, but we are not warranted in extending its influence as myth-maker beyond this region. The myths of the Indo-European peoples have in general the stamp of independent creation. Loans there may be (as, for example, in the myths connected with Aphrodite and Heracles, and perhaps others), but these do not affect the character of the whole. The relation between the Semitic and the Egyptian mythologies is still under discussion.

869. The astral element of the theory, based on arbitrary parallelisms carried out without regard to historical conditions, is an unauthorized extension of the generally accepted fact that certain myths are astral. Winckler's assumption of an astral "system" that obtained throughout the Western world is supported only by unproved assertions of the sort just referred to.

870. Jensen's contention that all myths come from the Babylonian Gilgamesh story[1516] exhibits the same general method as the theories of Stucken and Winckler (giving assertion in place of proof), differing from them only in the material of comparisons.

871. The fundamental vice of these theories (apart from the arbitrary character of the assertions made by their authors) is the failure to take into account the historical development of mythical conceptions, their beginnings in the rudest periods of human thought, and their gradual elaboration and distinct formulation in the great communities, in which process, along with the varieties of local conditions, certain fundamental resemblances remain throughout.[1517]

872. Besides these more prominent or more definitely formulated theories there has been in some quarters a disposition to insist too strongly on lines of mythical development connected with the plant world, particularly with the death and revival of vegetation. All that we know of the history of mythical material among existing savages and in the earliest forms of belief of civilized nations forbids the limitation of the origin of myths to any one department of nature or to any one part of the world. Myths, like gods, may be composite: of this nature, probably, are some cosmogonic histories,[1518] and the stories of Gilgamesh, Heracles, Perseus, and many others. The lines of origin mentioned above have, naturally, in some cases, coalesced, and their combination into single coherent narratives has been spread over long periods of time. For this reason there is always need of detailed investigations of particular myths as a preparation for a general history of mythology.[1519]

873. Modern critical methods in the interpretation of myths. The treatment of myths has followed the general course of the development of thought in the world. In the old national religions they were incorporated in the substance of the religious beliefs. The reformers of thought either ignored them (so, for example, Confucius and Buddha), or denounced their absurdities (so Plato and others), or allegorized or rationalized them (so many Greek philosophers); the early Christian writers treated Old Testament myths as history, and ridiculed the myths of Greece and Rome. During the long period when the European peoples were assimilating the ideas of Christianity the study of myths remained in abeyance. After the classical revival there was a return to the allegorizing method, the fondness for which has not yet completely died out.[1520]

874. The extension of knowledge in the eighteenth century gave an impetus to the study of religion, the results of which for mythological investigation appear in the works of Dupuis and others.[1521] These authors were necessarily ignorant of many important facts, but they have the merit of having collected much material, which they treated as something that had to be explained in accordance with the laws of human thought.

875. The turning-point in the development of mythological science was the rise of the modern critical study of history, begun by Voltaire and Gibbon and carried on by Niebuhr and others. A vigorous group of writers arose in Germany. Creuzer,[1522] indeed, holding that the myths of the ancients must embody their best thought, and falling back on symbolism, cannot be said to have advanced his subject except by his collection of materials; there is some basis for his position if the ancient myths are taken in the sense given them by the later poets and philosophers, but the supposition of a primary symbolism in myths is set aside by an examination of the ideas of undeveloped races. Creuzer's theory was effectively combated by Voss.[1523] Other writers of the time adopted exacter methods of inquiry,[1524] and K. O. Mueller,[1525] particularly, laid the foundation for a scientific treatment of myths by distinguishing between their real and their ideal elements, between the actual phenomenon and the imaginative (the true mythical) explanation of it.

876. The next generation witnessed two retrograde movements in the interpretation of myths. F. Max Mueller, dazzled by the wealth of Sanskrit mythological material, revived the solar theory, with a peculiar appendage;[1526] the defects of his theory must not blind us to the great service he performed in arousing interest in the comparative study of myths and leading the way to a formulation of the conception of the general history of religion. On another side the vast accumulation of the religious ideas and usages of lower tribes led Herbert Spencer to his euhemeristic view.[1527] Neither of these theories has seriously affected the growth of the science of mythology.

877. A saner direction was given to investigation by the great biological and sociological studies made in the second half of the nineteenth century.[1528] E. B. Tylor definitely stated the view that the origin of myths is to be found in all the ideas of early man. By a very large collection of facts[1529] he showed that the same representations that are familiar in Egyptian, Semitic, Hindu, Greek, Roman, and other ancient myths occur also in the systems of half-civilized and savage communities; and he pointed out how such representations had their basis in the simple ideas of undeveloped men and how their survival is to be traced through all periods of history. This fruitful view has been illustrated and developed by later writers,[1530] and much light has been thrown on the genesis and growth of myths by studies of existing popular customs in civilized communities.[1531]

878. Interest in the subject has now become general, and collections of material are being made all over the world.[1532] At the same time it is recognized that every local mass of myths must be studied first by itself and then in connection with all other known material, and that great caution must be exercised in dealing with questions of origin, transmission, and survival. Archaeological and geographical discoveries have widened the known area of human life on earth; it is seen that the history of man's development is more complicated than was formerly supposed.

879. We are still without a general survey of myths arranged in some orderly fashion.[1533] The material for such a collection is scattered through a great number of publications, in which the mythical stories are not always treated critically. The most useful principle of tabulation, perhaps, would be an arrangement according to motifs, under which geographical or ethnological and geographical relations might be noted. At the present time it would be possible only to make a beginning in such a work, since the obtainable material is not all recorded, and the complicated character of many myths makes an arrangement by place and motif difficult. Still, even an incomplete digest would be of service to students of mythology and would pave the way for a more comprehensive work. The importance of the study of mythology for the general history of religions is becoming more and more manifest. This study, in its full form, includes, of course, psychological investigation as well as collections of statistics; but the psychology finds its material in the facts—we must first know what men believe, and then explain why they believe.

880. It must, however, be added that myths have influenced mainly the dogmas and ceremonies of religion—their part in more intimate or spiritual worship, the converse of the worshiper with the deity, has been comparatively slight. Religious ceremonies are ordinary social customs and forms transferred to dealings with supernatural Powers. Dogmas are quasi-philosophical expressions of conceptions concerning the nature of these Powers and their relations with men, and sometimes contain mythical material which is then introduced into worship; if, for example, a man is divinized and worship is paid him, the tone of the worship is affected by the divine character thus ascribed to him. But in general, as men, in worship proper, approach a deity to get some advantage from him, the appeal is to him directly without regard to ceremonies or minute dogmas. Savages, though in theory they may make a god to be an animal or a plant, come to him devoutly as a superior being who can grant their requests. In higher religions the deity addressed is for the moment an omnipotent friend standing apart from the stories told of him. Rival sects lose sight of their differences in the presence of needs that drive them to God for help. Prayer is a religious unifier—communion with the Deity is an individual experience in which all men stand on common ground, where ritual and dogmatic accessories tend to fade or to disappear.

881. Long after myths in their original forms have ceased to be believed they persist in the form of "fairy tales," which retain something of the old supernatural framework, but sink into mere stories for amusement.[1534]

But fairy tales are not the only form in which ancient myths persist. Myths have played their prominent part in the history of religion for the reason that they embody the conception of the tangible supernatural in a vivid and dramatic way. To this personalization and socialization of the supernatural men have continued to cling up to the present time; the mass of men demand not only the presence of the supernatural as protection and guidance, but also the realization of it in objective form. This objectiveness was useful and necessary in early times, and the demand for it remains in periods of advanced civilization. In the reigning religions of the world at the present day myths continue to hold their place and to exercise their influence,[1535] the more that in the course of time they become fused with the constantly advancing ethical and spiritual thought of the communities in which they exist. The tendency appears to be to minimize, under the influence of general enlightenment, the crude supernatural parts of such combinations, to exalt the moral and spiritual, and to allegorize or rationalize the rest. But along with such process of rationalization the mythical form is maintained and continues to be a powerful element in the general structure of religious opinion and life.



CHAPTER VIII

MAGIC AND DIVINATION

882. The regulation of relations with the superhuman world has been attempted by means of friendly social intercourse with supernatural Powers, and by studying their methods of procedure with a view to applying these methods and thereby gaining beneficial results. Friendly social intercourse is practical religion in the higher sense of that term. The application and use of superhuman procedures takes two lines of action: the powers of superhuman agents may be appropriated and used independently of them, or the object may be simply to discover their will in order to be guided by it. The first of these lines is magic, the second is divination. While the two have in common the frank and independent employment of the supernatural for the bettering of human life, their conceptions and modes of procedure differ in certain respects, and they may be considered separately.

MAGIC[1536]

883. The perils and problems of savage life, more acute in certain directions than those that confront the civilized man, demand constant vigilance, careful investigation, and prompt action. So far as familiar and tangible enemies (beasts and men) are concerned, common sense has devised methods of defense, and ordinary prudence has suggested means of providing against excessive heat or cold and of procuring food. But there are dangers and ills that in the savage view cannot be referred to such sources, but must be held to be caused by intangible, invisible forces in the world, against which it is man's business to guard himself. He must learn what they are and how to thwart or use them as circumstances may require. They could be studied only in their deeds, and this study involves man in the investigation of the law of cause and effect. The only visible bond between phenomena is that of sequence, and on sequence the savage bases his science of causes—that which precedes is cause, that which follows is effect. The agencies he recognizes are spirits, gods, the force resident in things (mana), and human beings who are able to use this force.

884. But belief in such agencies would be useless to man unless he also believed that he could somehow determine their actions, and belief in the possibility of determining these appears to have come to him through his theory of natural law. The reasoning of savages on this point has not been recorded by them, but the character of their known procedures leads us to suppose that they have a sense of a law governing the actions of superhuman Powers. Being conscious that they themselves are governed by law, they may naturally in imagination transfer this order of things to the whole invisible world; spirits, gods, and the mana-power, it is assumed, work on lines similar to those followed by man, only with superhuman breadth and force. The task before the originators of society was to discover these modes of procedure in order to act in accordance with them. The discovery was made gradually by observation, and there grew up thus in process of time a science of supernatural procedure which is the basis of the practice of magic.

This science does not necessarily regard the superhuman power as purposely antagonistic to man. Rather its native attitude appears to have been conceived of as one of indifference (as nature is now regarded as careless of man); it was and is thought of as a force to be guarded against and utilized by available means, which, of course, were and are such as are proper to an undeveloped stage of social growth.

885. Magic is a science of sequences, but only of sequences supposed not to be explicable from ordinary experience. When the savage puts his hand into the fire or receives a spear-thrust in his body he recognizes visible and familiar causes of pain, and accepts the situation as a fact of life, calling for no further explanation. But when the pain comes from no familiar tangible source he is driven to seek a different sort of source. A cause there must be, and this cause, though superhuman, must follow definite methods—it must have the will to act, and it must have knowledge and skill to carry out its designs. To discover its methods man must observe the processes of nature and imitate them, and must at the same time have in mind familiar human modes of action. The savage scientific explanation of mysterious facts is that superhuman Powers are intellectually akin to human beings; the question of motive in such Powers (except in the case of developed gods) seems not to be considered. The basis of magical procedure is imitation of nature and of man. This principle is supplemented by the conception of the unity of the world, a feeling at first vague, that all things have the same nature and are bound together in a cosmos; animals and men, trees, stones and waters, and fragments of all these are parts of one great whole, and each feels, so to speak, what is done to or by one of the others. This feeling, derived from observation and reflection, is not formulated, but is influential in the construction of the unconscious philosophy of the savage.

886. The methods of man's magical procedure follow these principles; they are as various as the sequences that savage man thinks he observes.[1537] Many of them are suggested by natural phenomena. Since rain was observed to fall from the sky, it was held that in time of drought it might be obtained by casting water into the air and letting it fall, or by dipping a stone in water and letting it drip; in general, by any process in which water falls on the ground. The wind might be raised by ejecting air from the mouth (as by whistling). Or ordinary human actions might be imitated: a stick thrown or pointed toward an enemy, it was believed, would cause a spear to enter his body;[1538] a hostile glance of the eye, indicating desire to inflict injury, might carry ill luck.[1539] In such cases the fundamental conceptions are the sympathy that comes from unity and the activity of the pervasive mana. These conceptions are visible in procedures in which action on a part of the human body, or on an image or picture of it, was supposed to reach the body itself. The possession of a piece of the bone, skin, hair, or nail of a man might enable one who had knowledge of superhuman laws and processes to affect the man with sickness or even to cause his death. Contact of objects naturally suggests their unity, but the sympathy between them was not held to be dependent on contact; a man's bone remained a part of him, however far it might be separated from him. A dead body did not lose its virtues; the qualities of a dead warrior might be acquired by eating his flesh. The mysterious unity of things seems to have resided, in savage thought, in the omnipresent mana, a force independent of human limitations. Not that there was a definite theory on the subject, but something of this sort seems to be assumed in the ideas and usages of many low tribes.[1540]

On the other hand, a magical effect may be set aside by magic. A sick man, believing his sickness to be the work of a magician (the usual savage theory of the cause of bodily ills), sends for another magician to counteract the evil work; and a magician, failing to cure his patient, ascribes his failure to the machinations of a powerful rival. In all such cases the theory and the methods are the same; the magic that cures is not different in principle (though it may differ in details) from the magic that kills.

887. The facts observed by practicers of magic probably contributed to the collections of material that furnished the starting-point for the scientific study of physical phenomena. The interest in the facts arose at first simply from their relation to magical procedure—it was from them that certain laws of supernatural action were learned, and men thus got control of this action. Magic is essentially a directive or coercive procedure and differs in this respect from fully formed religion, which is essentially submissive and obedient.

888. It is true that coercion of divine beings appears in well-developed religions. A Babylonian goddess (Nana) was carried off by the Elamites to their land that she might there do duty as divine protector; restored to her proper home 1635 years later, she resumed her old functions.[1541] The Egyptians are said by Plutarch to have slain their divine animals if these failed to avert or remove calamity.[1542] Prometheus and certain Homeric heroes are victorious over gods. In some savage tribes divine kings are put to death if they fail to do what is expected of them. A god was sometimes chained or confined in his temple to prevent his voluntary or constrained departure. A recusant deity was sometimes taunted or insulted by his disappointed worshipers.[1543] There is, however, a difference between the two sets of coercive acts. The force used by developed religion is physical, that employed in magic is psychological and logical. When a god is chained or carried off, it is only his body that is controlled—he is left to his own thoughts, or it is assumed that he will be friendly to his enforced locus. Magic brings the supernatural Power under the dominion of law against which his nature is powerless. Religion, even when it employs force, recognizes the protective function of the deity; magic is without such acknowledgment, without emotion or worship. While it has, on one side, a profounder conception of cosmic force than appears in early religion, it is, on the social side, vastly inferior to the latter, to which it has necessarily yielded in the course of human progress. Nevertheless, if religion in the broadest sense includes all means of bringing man into helpful relations with the supernatural world, then magic is a form of religion.

889. The much-discussed question whether magic was the earliest form of religion is not susceptible of a definite answer for the reason that we have no account of man's earliest conceptions of his relations with the world of invisible forces. There is some reason to hold, as is remarked above,[1544] that in the lowest stage of life known to us men were logically indifferent spectators of the world, but in general stood in awe of phenomena, so that fear was their prevailing feeling. It may be surmised that this feeling would engender a sense of antagonism to such superhuman Powers as came to be conceived of, on which would naturally follow a desire to get control of them. Yet it is impossible to say at what stage of social development the necessity would be felt of establishing friendly relations with the Powers. The two lines of effort may have begun and gone on side by side, the two springing from the same utilitarian impulse, but each independent of the other—a coexistence that actually appears in many tribes; finally the coercive effort tends to yield to the kindly influences of organized society. There is no ground for calling magic a "disease of religion." The presumption, from the general law of progress, is that, when there is a chronological difference, the socially lower precedes the socially higher. Religion and magic come to be mutually antagonistic, except in cases where religious authorities adopt magical procedures, giving them a theistic and socially useful coloring. Magic has been a natural, if not a necessary, step in the religious organization of society.[1545]

890. Since religion and magic have in common the purpose to establish relations with extrahuman Powers the dividing line between the two is in some cases not easily fixed—the same procedure may be held to belong in the one category or the other, according as it invokes or does not invoke the aid of a god in friendly and submissive fashion. We may thus be carried back to a time when a sharp distinction between the two did not exist, as there was a time when such a distinction is not visible between "gods" (friendly divine members of the human community) and "demons" (unfriendly outside beings), both classes being regarded simply as agents affecting human life. Even when some fairly good form of organization has been reached it is often hard to say to which class a particular figure belongs. The Hawaiian Pele (the "goddess" of the great and dangerous volcano) is often vindictive, and then differs little or not at all from a demon that sends sickness and death.[1546] The Babylonians gave the same name (shedu) to a class of demons proper and to the divine or half-divine winged beings (to which, apparently, the Hebrew cherubs are allied) that guarded the entrances to temples, sacred gardens, and palaces.[1547] The Navaho beings called yei and anaye seem to hover on the border line between the divine and the demonic classes.[1548] The difference between the two seems to be merely that the one class (the gods) has been adopted (for reasons not originally ethical) into the human community, while the other has not received such adoption.[1549] In such a case a given figure may easily pass from one class into the other. According to the Thompson River folk-lore the sun was once a cannibal but became beneficent.[1550] The early Christians converted the Graeco-Roman gods (daimonia) into "demons."[1551] There being this fluid relation between supernatural beings, it is not strange that such a relation should exist between procedures intended to act on them.[1552]

891. Magic, as we have seen, is based on the observation of sequences, and before the development of reflection and the acquisition of a knowledge of natural law the disposition of human beings is to regard all sequences as exhibiting the relation of cause and effect. A typical example is that of the anchor driven ashore, a piece of which was broken off by a man who died soon after; the conclusion was that the anchor caused his death and therefore was divine, and accordingly it received religious worship.[1553] In the course of ages thousands of such sequences must have been observed, and these, handed down from one generation to another, would shape themselves into a handbook of magic. They would, however, be constantly reexamined and sifted under the guidance of wider experience and a better acquaintance with natural causes, and this process, carried on by experts, would give rise to the science of magic as we find it among lower tribes.

Magic, like religion, is a social product. The two, as is remarked above, may coexist in the same community. But when a State religion is established to which all citizens are expected to conform, the pursuit of magic assumes the aspect of departure from, and hostility to, the tribal or national cult. It is then under the ban, and can be carried on only in secret[1554] (as is the case with prohibited religions also). Secrecy of practice is not of the essence of magic; among the Australian Arunta, for example, magical ceremonies constitute the publicly recognized business of the community acting through its accredited representatives; the partial exclusion of women and uninitiated boys from these ceremonies (and from political councils) is due mainly to the desire of the elders to keep the power in their own hands. The State religion may sometimes be forced by public opinion to adopt particular magical procedures.

892. It was natural that the specific study of sequences and laws should fall into the hands of special persons and classes of men. The human agent in the discovery of laws is the magician (sorcerer, shaman), who, since he was generally a physician also, sometimes received the name of "medicine man." As the office of chief arose for the direction of social culture and political affairs, so the office of magician arose naturally for the direction of supernatural relations. He may have been the earliest religious teacher and guide.[1555] He knows the will and nature of the supernatural Powers and is therefore a necessity to men. He is specifically in charge of all that relates to the control of these Powers.

893. In the course of time there arises a differentiation of functions, and, when religion becomes friendly, the office of priest is created. The priest, like the magician, understands the will of the gods, but his procedure is intended simply to propitiate them or to discover their will in particular cases.[1556] He is a development out of the magician in so far as friendly religion is a development out of magical religion.[1557] The prophet also, in the role in which he appears among the Greeks, is a development out of the old magician; he knows the will of the gods and is thus able to predict events. This is the character of the old Hebrew seer; the Hebrew prophet, originally a seer, assumed in the course of time a quite different character—he became a preacher of ethical religion.

894. The office of magician, once established, became subject to all the rules that govern official persons in barbarous, half-civilized, and civilized societies. Of the way in which the position was attained in the earliest times we have no information, but in relatively low tribes it appears that it is attained in various ways. There is sometimes a suggestion of vocation in a dream or a vision.[1558] Among some tribes a candidate for the office has to undergo a process of education, that is, of training in the signs by which the presence of superhuman Powers is recognizable and of the way of dealing with disease and other evils.[1559] It is not unusual that the candidate is required to submit to a test, sometimes of physical endurance (as is required also in the case of the young warrior), but chiefly of susceptibility to supernatural influences and capacity of insight, and of the conduct of magical operations.[1560] Generally in the lower tribes the office comes by free choice of the individual, or by choice of the body of magicians, without regard to the social position of the man. In West Africa, says Miss Kingsley, everybody keeps a familiar spirit or two for magical purposes; this is unlawful only when the spirit is harmful.[1561]

895. In somewhat more advanced societies the office falls into the hands of families and descends from father to son, in which case the younger man is instructed by the older in the secrets of the profession.[1562] In some higher religions magical performances are in the hands of certain clans or tribes. In most of these cases women as well as men may be masters of the art. In the more advanced systems it is often the case that it is especially women who are considered adepts; so it was in Babylonia;[1563] in the Old Testament Saul seeks the woman of Endor;[1564] Thessalian witches were famous;[1565] women who tie magical knots are provided against in the Koran by a special form of prayer;[1566] in Europe, medieval and later, the practicers of magic have generally been women.

896. The grounds for the ascription of magical superiority to women—whether from their supposed greater susceptibility to demoniac influence, or for some other reason—are not clear. In the lowest tribes sorcerers are commonly men[1567]—the profession is an influential and honored one, and naturally falls into the hands of leading men; the magician is often the most powerful man in the community.

897. Reputation for magical power appears sometimes to attach to a tribe or other body of persons as the representatives of a religion which is adopted by a lower community. Possibly this is the explanation of the role ascribed at an early period to the Mazdean Magi.[1568] The Magi (apparently Median of origin) formed the priestly tribe of the Mazdean religion, and we do not know that they played originally any part as sorcerers. But it seems that they were so considered in Greece as early as the fifth century B.C.,[1569] and after the Moslem conquest of Persia and the suppression of Zoroastrianism a fire-worshiper or Magian is especially a representative of magic.[1570] On the other hand, it sometimes happens among adjoining tribes that the lower become the special practitioners of magic,[1571] which is then considered to be a mysterious art, alien to the official religion, and therefore proper to the ministers of the old mysterious cults.

898. The power exercised by the magician extends over the whole world of men and things, and is generally considered to be practically without limit. He guards men against diseases, noxious beasts, and all other forms of injury; he destroys one's enemies and guards one against plots of enemies, including other magicians; he is able to induce or destroy love, to give physical strength, to inflict disease, to kill, and to restore to life; he ascends to heaven or descends into the world below; he is able to coerce the gods themselves; in fact, he does everything that a god is commonly supposed to do—the tendency was to identify the magician and the god.[1572] Such identification is natural or necessary in early faiths, inasmuch as it was held that there was no difference of nature between men and gods. A god was as a rule the stronger. But how gods arose and how they gained their superior strength was not clear, and it might thus easily happen that a man should acquire powers equal to those of divine beings.[1573]

899. The methods employed by the magician to effect his purpose are various. In early times it is usual for him to fall into an ecstatic state; by drinking intoxicating liquors, by violent movements, or by contemplation he gets out of himself and comes into relations with the mysterious potencies. In such a condition he acts as his imagination suggests.[1574] But in the organized forms of magic long experience has devised various means of producing results beyond the power of ordinary men. Certain objects are magically charged with supernatural power (charms), and these worn on the person guard the possessor against malign influences. Various formulas are employed which are supposed to coerce the Powers; these are sometimes names of ordinary objects regarded as sacred, the name of some plant or animal.[1575] Names of divine persons have special potency. The name of a god was supposed to carry with it his power, and the utterance of his name secured all that he could secure; thus, in the early Christian times the tetragrammaton YHWH (Yahweh) had absolute power against demons.

900. Similar efficacy attached to sacred compositions, prayers,[1576] and the like. The Mazdean petition, Honover (Ahuna-Vairya), was so employed, and in Christian circles even the Lord's Prayer. Charms or incantations often took rhythmical form—verses, couplets, or quatrains were widely used. All such methods were the product of ages of experience.[1577] They were handed down from generation to generation, often in families or classes of magicians, were modified or enlarged from time to time, and thus came at last to form a literature.

901. In the great civilized religions magical practice gradually assumed a tone somewhat different from that of the earliest times. It continued to be coercive toward evil Powers, but in regard to the good Powers it assumed rather to discover their modes of action. It was not anti-religious; it remained alongside of the official religious systems in friendly relations. It relied on the assistance of the good gods and not on that of the demons. There was good magic and bad magic, white magic and black magic, as these came to be called. A procedure of white magic can thus, from the point of view of religion, hardly be distinguished from prayer to a deity. The difference between the two appears to be that the magic produces abnormal or violent effects, which experience taught could not reasonably be expected from the deity. It is the old crude science brought (as the lesser divine Powers were brought) into a relation of subordination to the chief god of the community.

902. Elaborate magical systems are found in some of the ancient national religions. In India the Atharva-Veda, though it contains a mass of crude old material, is nevertheless recognized as one of the sacred books, standing by the side of the Rig-Veda, though of less authority and significance than that. The Atharvan was originally a priest of fire, but in this work he becomes simply a magician; the immense number of magical procedures in the book provided for all emergencies of life.[1578] The Babylonian magical formulas also go back to an early time, but they were preserved by the priests and recognized as a legitimate element in the religious practice.[1579] The old Egyptian stories introduce a number of magical proceedings, and the formulas have been preserved in treatises.[1580] Of the earliest periods of the Mazdean religion we have unfortunately no records; in the time of the decadence of the national religion, especially in the Thousand and One Nights, the fire-worshiper or Magian is commonly a wicked magician, as was natural since he belonged to a faith hostile to Islam, and the practicer of good magic is generally a Moslem.[1581] The early Greeks and Romans appear not to have been greatly interested in magical practices, though these existed.[1582] But a great outburst of magic occurred in the Graeco-Roman world in the first and second centuries of our era, the magician being, however, generally not Greek or Roman, but of an inferior alien race.[1583] Among the old Hebrews we have no details of magical procedure except in the invocation of the dead;[1584] this procedure was denounced by the prophets as hostile to the worship of the national god, but it continued among the people a long time.[1585] The practice of magic existed abundantly among the early peoples of Europe, the Teutons, and others. The primacy, however, in magic belongs to the Finns and Lapps, alien races regarded as inferior in civilization.

903. The hold of magic on the minds of men is shown by the fact that it has persisted up to the present day. Its basis is a belief in occult powers and the conviction that man may attain to mastery over them. Certain forms of this belief, called theosophical, are held by many at the present day; it is supposed that men are capable of transcending the ordinary limitations of humanity. In general, however, the whole system of magic yielded gradually to the organized religions, the essence of which was a friendly and rational relation with the deity. Religion has organized itself in accord with the general organization of human social systems. It has seen the necessity of getting rid of force, of depending on humane feeling, cultivating simply friendly relations, attempting a unity of work, a cooeperation of divine and human forces. All this has worked against magic. In addition to these tendencies the constantly growing belief in the domination of natural forces has made it impossible in civilized societies to accept the powers called magical.[1586]

904. To sum up: magic is a means of securing superhuman results by adopting the methods of the superhuman Powers.[1587] It may be coeval with religion proper or may have preceded it in human religious organization. In any case it has been, up to the present day, the rival of religion, though more and more driven to take a secondary place. It has collected physical facts which have served as a basis for the study of physical science and have indirectly furthered the cause of religion by leading men to recognize natural law and also by necessitating a distinction between theistic and other superhuman results.[1588] In the absence of distinct religious systems it has been a bond of social union, and to that extent has been a civilizing influence. On the other hand, it has fostered belief in a false science of sequences and thus helped to introduce confusion into thought and the conduct of life. The aim of religion has been, and is, to banish magic from the world.[1589]

DIVINATION

905. Divination is the science that seeks to discover the will of the supernatural Powers by means of the observation of phenomena. Men desire to learn the causes of present and past misfortunes and the story of the future, that they may know at any moment what is the best course to pursue. The underlying supposition is that these things are indicated by the appearances and movements of the various objects of the world. It is in these phenomena that the purposes of superhuman forces become visible to man; the gods, it is held, cannot but so reveal themselves (for they produce all phenomena), and man's task is to discover the laws of phenomenal revelation. The question of the motive in this revelation is not distinctly raised, but it is taken for granted that the Powers are willing to help man by guiding his uncertain footsteps; their attitude is so far friendly—they belong in feeling to the human community.[1590]

Divination has in common with magic the assumption of the unity of the world and its control by law, and the search for divine activity in the facts of life. But the two differ essentially in their aims. Divination seeks to learn the divine will in order to be guided; magic studies divine action in order to imitate it and accomplish divine results. Divination is an inquirer, and its virtue is obedience; magic is an investigator, and its virtue is achievement. Both are self-seeking, but divination is the more reverent and allies itself more easily with religion. But both tend to become corrupt and decadent, and their roles are determined from time to time by the conditions of the communities in which they are found.[1591]

906. The organization of divination resembles that of magic in several respects. It comes to have its special functionaries, into whose hands all its authority falls. The divinatory power (like the magical) comes to a man sometimes as a gift of nature (that is, of a god) or in some mysterious external way, sometimes as a result of a course of training in which the significance of the various signs is learned. It is sometimes a property of a clan or a family and descends from father to son, always, however, under the condition of instruction of the young by the old. The diviner, like the magician, sometimes performs various ceremonies for the purpose of bringing himself into relation with the gods, and his utterances are frequently given in an ecstatic condition. In this condition he is said in some instances (as among the Todas[1592]) to speak a language not his own, with which in his ordinary state of mind he is unacquainted, or to utter words that are not understood either by himself or by others. Ecstasy means possession by the deity; the interpretation of the diviner's words, which, in the ecstatic condition, are the words of a spirit or a god, is sometimes left to the bystanders, or, if unintelligible to them, must be recovered by the seer himself when he returns to his normal condition.

907. The highest development of ecstasy is found in the prophet proper. Originally the prophet was a foreteller and acted under the inspiration of a god, a divine seizure that was allied to madness. The ravings of the savage shaman[1593] are repeated in the ravings of Cassandra and in the excited utterances and bodily exhaustion of the early Hebrew prophets.[1594] A nobler use of ecstasy is exhibited in the youth of Byblos, who rescued an unfortunate Egyptian envoy from insult and secured him honorable treatment.[1595] The more advanced thought tended to abandon the abnormal state of the diviner and make him simply a recipient of divine knowledge by the favor of a god—the gods came to choose thoughtful men instead of beasts as their intermediaries.[1596] The Hebrew prophets whose utterances have been preserved, from Amos onward, are men of insight, essentially critics of the national life, and moral watchmen; but features of the old conception of divinatory power continue for some time to attach to them.[1597]

908. The differentiation of functions between magician, diviner, and priest appears to have taken place at a comparatively early period, though it is probable that in the earliest times all these characters might be united in a single person. As soon as an organized religion is established the priest acquires his specific function as intermediator between men and gods, often, however, retaining the power of discovering the will of the deity.[1598] Magic, as we have seen, tends to become an unsocial and hostile thing, and the magician is in later times punished or discountenanced by public opinion. The diviner, on the other hand, has generally retained possession of his public for the reason that he is in sympathy with the gods of the community and his work is held to be wholly friendly. In all stages of religious development, except the very highest, he has been recognized by public opinion and by law as a part of the religious constitution of society and has often attained great civil and political power.[1599] Among civilized peoples he comes to be a man of learning, acquainted with many things besides the mere signs of the will of the gods.

909. Divinatory signs may be grouped in various classes according as they belong to the outer world or to men's inward experiences, and according as they present themselves without or with preparation by man. Outward signs in ordinary occurrences which, so far as human initiative is concerned, are accidental may be called, for convenience, "omens." Uncommon occurrences may be called, if they appear in the forms of men and animals, "prodigies," and if they are seen in the physical world, "portents." These designations are arbitrary, and sometimes two or more of them may be appropriate for the same event. Inward signs are dreams, revelations in the ecstatic state, and prophetic inspirations.[1600] We may begin with divination from the observation of external objects, and consider first such as are accidental (omens, prodigies, portents).

910. Omens, prodigies, and portents are to be regarded as the product of ages of experience. The observations of early men seem to them to show that certain appearances are followed by certain events, and the details of experience, handed down and interpreted by successive generations, are in the course of time sifted, systematized, and formulated. In savage and half-civilized communities divinatory signs are usually simple, drawn from appearances of familiar objects and occurrences. They become more complicated in civilized times—they are mingled with elaborate astrological ideas. Divination becomes a science for the practice of which a technical education is required. Belief in omens and other signs survives among the highest civilized peoples long after the conceptions on which they rest have been abandoned. The origin of signs among savage peoples may often be traced with more or less probability; in the case of such as survive in periods of high culture the origin is necessarily obscured by the lapse of time and can be surmised only by comparison with earlier conceptions.

The belief in such signs may be traced over a great part of the world. It is found among the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Hindus, Chinese, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, Arabians, and at a later time among the Celtic, Slavic, and Teutonic peoples.[1601] At the present day it occurs most highly developed in Polynesia, Northern Africa, Southern India, and Central Asia; it is relatively unimportant in Western and Central Africa, North America, South America, and Australia. One difference between divination and magic thus appears to be that the latter is vigorous in savage communities that pay little attention to the former. Further collections of facts may require a modification of this statement; but, in general, it would seem that an organization of signs, demanding, as it does, orderly reflection on phenomena, is proper to communities that have advanced beyond the hunting and nomadic stages. For the rest, there are few objects or occurrences that have not been regarded at some time by some people as indications of divine will in respect to present, past, or future events.

911. A fair illustration of the early belief in omens is afforded by the divinatory system that prevails in Samoa and the neighboring group of islands.[1602] It appears that all omens are derived either from the movements of animals that are regarded as incarnations of deities,[1603] or from phenomena that are held to be produced immediately by deities. The flight of owls, bats, or rails, according to its direction, indicates the result of a battle or a war; the howling of a dog is a sign of coming misfortune; if a centipede crawls on the top of a mat it is a good omen, if on the bottom of a mat it is bad; it is unfortunate when a lizard crosses one's path; if a basket be found turned upside down in a road, this is a sign of evil; the way in which sacred stones fall to the ground is an indication of the future. The animals mentioned above (and there are many other such) are all regarded as incarnations of deities. So as to portents: loud thunder, taken to be the voice of the great god Tangaloa, is a good sign; the significance of lightning (which also is sent by the god) depends upon the direction taken by the flash. An eclipse is regarded as a presage of death. A similar system of interpretation of signs is found elsewhere. The Masai and the Nandi draw omens from the movements of birds.[1604] In Ashantiland the cry of the owl means death.[1605] When in Australia the track of an insect is believed to point toward the abode of the sorcerer by whom a man has been done to death, the conception is probably the same. The modern Afghans hold that a high wind that continues three days is a sign that a murder has been committed.[1606] Examples from Brazil, Borneo, New Zealand, Old Calabar and Tatarland are given by Tylor.[1607] In the early Hebrew history it appears that a rustling in trees was looked on as a sign of divine intervention.[1608]