tions thence to be traced onward in the course of civilization, then it is reasonable for students to begin, so far as may be, at the beginning. Savage mythology may be taken as a basis, and then the myths of more civilized races may be displayed as compositions sprung from like origin, though more advanced in art. This mode of treatment proves satisfactory through almost all the branches of the inquiry, and eminently so in investigating those most beautiful of poetical fictions, to which may be given the title of nature-myths.

"First and foremost among the causes which transfigure into myths the facts of daily experience is the belief in the animation of all nature, rising at its highest pitch to personification. This, no occasional or hypothetical action of the mind, is inextricably bound in with that primitive mental state where man recognizes in every detail of his world the operation of personal life and will. . . To the lower tribes of man, sun and stars, trees and rivers, winds and clouds, become personal animate creatures, leading lives conformed to human or animal analogies, and performing their special functions in the universe with the aid of limbs like beasts, or of artificial instruments like men; or what men's eyes behold is but the instrument to be used or the material to be shaped, while behind it there stands some prodigious but yet halfhuman creature, who grasps it with his hands or blows it with his breath. The basis on which such ideas as these are built is not to be narrowed down to poetic fancy and transformed metaphor. They rest upon a broad philosophy of nature, early and crude indeed, but thoughtful, consistent, and quite really and seriously meant.

"Let us put this doctrine of universal vitality to a test of direct evidence, lest readers new to the subject should suppose it a modern philosophical fiction, or think if the lower races really express such a notion, they may do so only as a poetical way of talking. Even in civilized countries, it makes its appearance in the child's early theory of the outer world, nor can we fail to see how this comes to pass. The first beings learn to understand something of all human beings, and especially their own selves; and the first explanation of all events will be the human explanation, as though

chairs and sticks and horses were actuated by the same sort of personal will as nurses and children and kittens. Thus infants take their first step in mythology by contriving, like Cosette with her doll, 'se figurer que quelque chose est quelqu'un;' and the way in which this childlike theory has to be unlearnt in the course of education shows how primitive it is. Even among full-grown civilized Europeans, as Mr. Grote appositely remarks, the force of momentary passion will often suffice to supercede the acquired habit, and even an intelligent man may be impelled in a moment of agonizing pain to kick or beat the lifeless object from which he has suffered.' In such matters the savage mind well represents the childish stage. The wild native of Brazil would bite the stone he stumbled over, or the arrow that had wounded him. Such a mental condition may be traced along the course of history, not merely in impulsive habit, but in formally enacted law" (vol. i, pp. 283–286).

Man in his early conditions embraces sundry beliefs in harmony with the personification of the natural elements; without an effort they give consistent individual life to phenomena that the utmost stretch of fancy of more civilized races could only adapt in conscious metaphor. In early conditions man had an idea of pervading life in nature far outside of modern limits, a belief in personal souls animating what we call inanimate bodies, a theory of transmigration of souls, both in life and after death, a belief in crowds of spiritual beings, now flitting through the air and dwelling in trees and rocks and waterfalls, thus giving their personality to such material objects-these and many similar vagaries, perfectly in keeping with the childish and barbarian mind, work in mythology with such marked coincidence, as to make almost any amount of myth and creatures of the imagination quite possible. Such crude origin of nature-myths is indicated very clearly in the great cosnic group of sun, moon, and stars. In primitive philosophy in all time the sun and moon were alive and endowed more or less with human attributes. Usually contrasted as male and female, yet they often differed in the sex assigned to each, as well as in their relations to each other. Thus the Mbocobis in South America regard

THE SUN AND MOON.

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the moon as a man and the sun as his wife. They tell a story how on a certain time she fell down from her place, when a kind-hearted man restored her to it; but unfortunately upon her falling a second time the forests were set on fire and burned with great fury. Differing from this vagary, the Algonquins of North America had a legend to the effect that the sun and moon were brother and sister, with the sex reversed. It was narrated by them that two Indians sprang through an opening in the sky, and found themselves in a beautiful country lighted by the moon, which they saw approaching as from behind a hill. They recognized her at once as an old woman with white face and pleasing air. She spoke kindly to them and led them to her brother the sun, who carried them with him on his course, after which he sent them home with promises of his future friendship and blessings. It was only a variation from these fancies that the Egyptian Osiris and Isis, the personified sun and moon, were at once brother and sister and husband and wife; while Manco Capac and Mama Ocollo of the Peruvians were still another variation of the same sun and moon myth. No two countries were precisely alike in their imaginations and personifications, either in sexuality or other particulars, but a similarity pervading all is easily discerned in the narration. of the ever-reiterated but never tiresome story of day and night. To the Mexicans it was an ancient hero who, when the old sun burnt out, and had left the world in darkness, sprang into a huge fire, descended into the shades of the nether world, after which he arose deified and glorious in the east as Tonatiuh, the sun. Another hero succeeded him, but the fire having become exhausted and dim, he arose in much milder radiance as Metztli, the moon. The Aleutians thought if any one gave offense to the moon he would send down heavy stones upon the offender and crush him to death, or when the moon came down to a squaw, appearing in the form of a beautiful woman with a child in her arms, and demanding an offering of tobacco and fur robes. These conceptions show very clear ideas of personal life. The Apache Indian pointed to the sky and inquired of the white man, 'Do you not believe that God-this sun-sees what we do and pun

ishes us when it is evil?' He evidently believed the sun had eyes with which to see, and a will like a human being to carry out certain purposes. There was something in the Homeric contemplation of the living personal Helios grander and deeper than metaphor; and long since Homer wrote and sung, an outcry arose in Greece against the astronomers-those blasphemous materialists who denied, not the divinity only, but the very personality of the sun, and declared him a huge hot ball, which still later astronomers tell us is merely a vast mass of burning metals. It is easy to conceive that the ancient myth-makers and worshipers should think the simple truth about their great personal god with eyes, organs, thoughts, and will, a most sacrilegious profanation; much the same as the worshipers of another personification borrowed from the Jews, whom they believed to be the creator and ruler of all things, when declared to be the universe with its entire material and inherent laws, having no personality, no passions, no vengeance, no listening to supplications, and not changed by oblations and sacrifices, is also the hight of blasphemy and wickedness. Every believer in and adorer of a myth feels greatly hurt when his pet myth is spoken slightly of, and even when the simple truth is made known in regard to it.

Much as with the sun-myth, so also with the stars. Primitive or savage mythology contains many a story respecting them, differing of course in many details, but agreeing in the one great feature of giving them personal and animate life. They were not talked of merely in fancied personality, but personal attributes and action were accorded them, and it was declared that they once lived upon the earth, and having distinguished themselves by great deeds were transferred to a proud position in the vault of heaven. The natives of Australia, of modern times, not only say the stars in Orion's belt and scabbard were young men dancing a corroboree, but they also insist that Jupiter, whom they call Ginabong-Bearp-"Foot of Day"—was a chief among the "Old Spirits," an ancient race who were translated to heaven before man came upon the earth. The Esquimaux stopped not short of calling the stars of Orion's belt the "Lost Ones," and they have a

legend about their having been seal hunters who missed their way home. They distinctly held that in the long ago the stars were men and animals before they took their present position in the sky. Some of the tribes of North American. Indians in like manner had more than a mere superficial meaning in calling the Pleiades the "Dancers," and the morning star the "Day bringer." The Iowas related a legend of a star that an Indian had for a long time gazed upon in childhood, and which came down and talked with him when he was out hunting, weary and luckless, and led him to a place where there was much game. Similarly the Kasia of Bengal assert that the stars were once men; that they climbed to the top of a tall tree (the great heaven-tree, of course, which has a place in the mythology of many lands), but some of their followers. cut away the trunk and left them there among the branches. However crude such conceptions may appear to our minds, we easily see that the original meaning was that the stars were persons possessed of animal life and attributes. This belief in the personification of the stars is thus traced down through all the past centuries even to our own time. Origen, even, declared that the stars were animate and rational, and moved with such order and reason as it would be absurd tò say inanimate bodies would fulfil. Pamphilus, in his apology for the position taken by Origen, laid it down as a rule that whereas some have held the luminaries of heaven to be animate and rational creatures, while others have believed them merely spiritless and senseless bodies, no one may call another a heretic for holding either view, for there is no open tradition on the subject, and even ecclesiastics have held diverse opinions upon the theme. In medieval times it is well known that the doctrines of star-souls and star-angels were intimately mixed up with the claims of astrology. Even at the present day there still remain advocates of a similar belief. "De Maistre, prince and leader of reactionary philosophers, maintains against modern astronomers the ancient doctrine of personal will in astronomic motion, and even the theory of animated planets." When men of learning in modern times hold to such absurdities, the ancients cannot be justly blamed for holding similar wild vagaries.