If the gods be described as personalities, each one of whom possesses

a more or less definite individuality, it is at once evident that

the conception of an animated natural phenomenon--the idea, for

example, that the setting sun is a being which a dark cloud-demon is

devouring--cannot in and of itself as yet be called a god-idea. Just as

the character of a man may be known only from the manner in which he

reacts towards the objects of his experience, so also is the nature

of a god revealed only in his life and activity, and in the motives

that determine his conduct. The character of the god is expressed, not

in any single mythological picture, but in the _myth_ or mythological

tale, in which the god figures as a personal agent. It is significant

to note, however, that the form of myth in which god-ideas come to

development is not the deity saga, in the proper sense of the term, but

the _hero saga_, which becomes a combined hero and deity saga as soon

as both gods and heroes are represented as participating in the action.

The deity saga proper, which deals exclusively with the deeds of gods

and demons, is, as we shall see below, only of secondary and of later

origin. It is not to such deity sagas, therefore, that we must turn if

we would learn the original nature of gods. This circumstance in itself

offers external evidence of the fact that gods did not precede heroes,

but, conversely, that heroes preceded gods. Or, at least, to be more

accurate, the idea of the divine personality was developed in constant

reciprocity with that of the hero personality, in such wise, however,

that with reference to details the hero paved the way for the god, and

not conversely.

But how did the idea of hero arise? Was it a free and completely

new creation of this age, based merely on actual observations of

individuals who were paragons of human ability? Or did it have

precursors in the totemic era? As a matter of fact, this second

question must be answered unqualifiedly in the affirmative. The hero

was not unknown in the preceding age. At that time, however, he was

not a hero in the specific sense which the word first acquired in

the heroic age; on the contrary, he was a _märchen_-hero, if we may

use the word 'hero' in connection with the concepts of this earlier

period. On the threshold of the heroic age, the märchen-hero changes

into the hero proper. The former represents the central theme of the

earlier form of myth narrative, the märchen-myth, as does the hero

that of the more developed form, the saga. The marks that distinguish

the märchen-hero, as he still survives in children's tales, from the

hero of saga, are important ones and are fraught with significance

for the development of myth as a whole. The märchen-hero is usually a

_child_. In the form in which he gradually approximates to the hero

proper, he is more especially, as a rule, a boy who goes forth into

the world and meets with adventures. In these adventures, he is aided

by various powers of magic, which he either himself possesses or which

are imparted to him by friendly magical beings. Opposed to him are

hostile, demoniacal beings, who seek his destruction. It is in their

overthrow that the action usually consists. Thus, fortune comes to this

hero, in great part, from without, and magic plays the decisive rôle

in his destiny; his own cunning and skill may be co-operating factors,

but they rarely determine the outcome. Not so the hero of the saga.

This hero is not a boy, but a _man_. The favourite theme of the saga is

particularly the young man in the bloom of life. In his acts, moreover,

this hero is dependent, for the most part, upon himself. True, he, as

well as the märchen-hero, is familiar with magic and miracle, but it is

primarily by his own power that he overcomes the hostile forces that

oppose him. A suggestive illustration of this is Hercules, that figure

of Greek saga who is pre-eminently the typical hero among the most

diverse peoples and in widely different ages. Hercules is an entirely

self-dependent hero. He indeed performs marvellous deeds, but these are

never more than extreme instances of what an ordinary man might do were

his strength multiplied a hundred or a thousand fold. Hercules is not

a magician, but a being of transcendent power and strength. As such,

he is able even to carry the weight of the sky on his shoulders; as

such, he can overcome monsters, such as the Nemean lion and the Lernæan

hydra, or bring Cerberus, the most terrible of these monsters, from

the nether world. These are deeds which surpass every measure of human

power, but which nevertheless still lie in the general plane of human

actions. Thus, just as the magic-working boy was superseded by the man

of might, so also does the true magical hero disappear from mythology.

The saga, then, differs from the märchen-myth in the character of its

hero. The Hercules saga itself, however, is an illustration of the

fact that the former may have no connection whatsoever with historical

events, any more than has the latter. Moreover, the earliest sagas,

particularly, not infrequently still remind one of the märchen in that

they are obviously a composite of several narratives. Of this fact

also, the saga of Hercules offers a conspicuous example. The deeds of

the hero appear to have but an accidental connection with one another.

True, later sagas represent these deeds as adventures which the hero

undertook at the command of King Eurystheus of Mycene. But even here

we obviously have only a loose sort of framework which was at some

later period imposed upon the original tales in order to bind the cycle

together as a whole. It is not improbable that these various sagas of a

hero who vanquished monsters, rendered lands habitable, and performed

other deeds, originated independently of one another. Not only may

their places of origin have been different, but their narratives may

have had their settings in different localities. Possibly, therefore,

it was not until later that the sagas were combined to portray the

character of a single individual, who thus became exalted into the

national hero. But, though the hero saga resembles the märchen in the

fact that it grows by the agglutination of diverse legendary materials,

it differs from it in the possession of a characteristic which is

typical of this stage of development. That which binds together the

separate elements of the hero saga is a unitary thought, generally

associated with great cultural changes or with historical events.

There is a further differentia of the saga as compared with the

märchen. Wherever magic enters into the saga to affect the course of

events, the chief vehicle of magical powers is not the hero himself--at

most, he has been equipped by others with magical powers and

implements. Such demoniacal powers as the saga may introduce into its

narrative are usually vested in accessory persons. This fact is closely

connected with the self-dependent character of the hero-personality,

who may, it is true, employ magic in so far as he has received such

power from external sources, but who himself possesses none but human

attributes. The saga of the Argonauts, for example, is so replete

with magic as not to be surpassed in this respect even by the magical

märchen. Moreover, the various elements incorporated in the saga are

all pure märchen motives--the golden fleece, the talking ship, the

closing cliffs, as well as the sorceress Medea and the whole wonderland

of Colchis. Those who man the Argo, however, are not magicians, but

heroes in the strictly human sense of the word. The same fact stands

out even more strikingly in the case of the saga of Odysseus, at any

rate in the form in which the Homeric epic presents it. We may here

discern an entire cycle of tales, whose separate elements are also to

be found elsewhere, some of them in wide distribution. But in the midst

of this märchen-world stands the absolutely human hero, contrasting

with whom the fabulous events of the narrative run their course as a

fantastic show. The hero overcomes all obstacles that block the course

of his journey by his own never-failing shrewdness and resourcefulness.

Herein again the märchen-myth gives evidence of being preparatory to

the hero saga. At the time when the hero ideal arose, the old märchen

ideas were as yet everywhere current. Together with the belief in

demons and magic, they, also, found their way into the heroic age.

For a long time they continued to be favourite secondary themes,

introduced in portraying the destiny of heroes. Nevertheless märchen

ideas became subordinate to the delineation of heroic figures, whose

surpassing strength was described, very largely, in terms of victory

over demoniacal powers. Thus, in the course of the development, the

heroic elements gradually increased; the märchen ideas, on the other

hand, disappeared, except when some poet intentionally selected them

for the enrichment of his tale, as was obviously done by the author of

the Odyssey.

The disappearance of the elements derived from the märchen-myth,

however, must in part be attributed to another factor. This factor,

which is closely bound up with the entire culture of the heroic age,

consists in the increasing influence of _historical recollections_.

Particularly illuminative, as regards this point, are the Greek and

Germanic sagas. The sagas of Hercules and the Argonauts, which, from

this point of view, belong to a relatively early stage, are purely

mythical creations. So far as one can see, no actual events are

referred to by them. The Trojan saga, on the other hand, clearly

exhibits the traces of historical recollections; its historical

setting, moreover, seems to cause the events that transpire within it

to approximate more nearly to the character of real life. Even here,

indeed, ancient magical motives still cast their fantastic shadows

over the narrative. Occasionally, however, the miracle appears in a

rationalized form. The magician of the märchen gives place to the seer

who predicts the future. What the miracle effected is now accomplished

by the overpowering might and the baffling cunning of the strong and

wily hero. In this change, the external accessories may sometimes

remain the same, so that it is only the inner motives that become

different. Thus, it is not impossible that the wooden horse which

was said to have been invented by Odysseus and to have brought into

Troy the secreted warriors of the besieging hosts, was at one time,

in märchen or in saga, an actual magical horse, or a help-bringing

deity who had assumed this form. In this case, the poet may possibly

be presenting a rationalistic reinterpretation of an older magical

motive, with the aim of exalting the craftiness of his hero. In the

account of Achilles' youth, on the other hand, and in the story of

Helen which the poet takes as his starting-point, the märchen-idea of

the saga obviously affects the action itself, though it is significant

to note that these purely mythical features do not belong to the plot

so much as to its antecedent history. In so far as the heroes directly

affect the course of action, they are portrayed as purely human. The

same is true of the German _Niebelungen_ saga. Just as Achilles, a

mythical hero not at all unlike the märchen-hero, was taken over into

the historical saga, so also was Siegfried. But here again the märchen

motives, such as the fight with the dragon, Siegfried's invulnerability

through bathing in its blood, the helmet of invisibility, and others,

belong to the past history of the hero, and are mentioned only

incidentally in the narrative itself. By referring these specifically

märchen miracles to the past, the saga seems to say, as it were, that

its heroes were at one time märchen-heroes.

In this course of development from the purely mythical to the

historical, the saga may approach no more closely to historical reality

than does the purely mythical tale. But while this may be the case, it

is nevertheless true that the saga more and more approximates to that

which is _historically possible_. Moreover, it is not those sagas which

centre about an historical hero that are particularly apt to be free

from elements of the original märchen. Very often the reverse is true.

An original märchen-hero may become the central figure of an historical

saga, and, conversely, the account of an historical personality may

become so thoroughly interwoven with märchen-like tales of all sorts

that history entirely disappears. A striking antithesis of this sort

occurs in Germanic mythology. Compare the _Dietrich_ saga with the

later development of the _Niebelungen_ saga in the form rendered

familiar by the _Niebelungenlied_. Siegfried of the _Niebelungen_ saga

originates purely as a märchen-hero; Dietrich of Bern is an historical

personage. But, while the _Niebelungenlied_ incorporates a considerable

number of historical elements--though, of course, in an unhistorical

combination--the Dietrich of the saga retains little more than the name

of the actual king of the Goths. There are two different conditions

that give rise to sagas. In the first place, historical events that

live in folk-memory assimilate materials of ancient märchen and sagas,

and thus lead to a connected hero saga. Secondly, an impressive

historical personality stimulates the transference of older myths as

well as the creation of others, though these, when woven into a whole,

resemble a märchen-cycle rather than a hero saga proper.

An important intermediate phenomenon of the sort just mentioned,

is not infrequently to be found in a specific form of myth whose

general nature is that of the hero saga, even though it is usually

distinguished from the latter because of the character of its heroes.

I refer to the _religious legend_. Some of these legends, such as the

Buddha, the Mithra, and the Osiris legends, border upon the deity

saga. Nevertheless, the religious legend, as exemplified also in the

mythological versions of the life of Jesus, represents an offshoot of

the hero saga, springing up at those times when the religious impulses

are dominant. That it is a hero saga is evidenced particularly by

the fact that it recounts the life and deeds of a personality who is

throughout exalted above human stature, but who, nevertheless, attains

to divinity only through his striving, his suffering, and his final

victory. In so far, the religious hero very closely resembles the

older class of heroes. Nevertheless, instead of the hero of the heroic

period, pre-eminent for his external qualities, we have the religious

hero, who is exalted by his inner worth into a redeeming god. But it

is only because these divine redeemers fought and conquered as men--a

thing that would be impossible to gods proper who are exalted from the

beginning in supermundane glory--that they constitute heroes of saga,

in spite of the fact that they fought with other weapons and in other

ways than the heroes of the heroic age. And, therefore, none of these

redeemer personalities, whether they have an historical background,

as have Jesus and Buddha, or originate entirely in the realm of the

mythological imagination, as in the case of Osiris and Mithra, belong

to the realm of the saga once they are finally elevated into deities.

Even Buddha's return in the endless sequence of ages is not to be

regarded as an exception to this rule, for the hope of salvation here

merely keeps projecting into the future the traditional Buddha legend.

The redeeming activity of the one who is exalted into a god is to be

repeated in essentially the same manner as the saga reports it to have

occurred in the past.

Contrasting with the redemption legend is the _saint legend_. The

former portrays the fortunes and final victory of a god in the making;

the latter tells of the awakening of a human being to a pure religious

life, of his temptations and sufferings, and his final triumph. Thus,

it has a resemblance to the redeemer legend, and yet it differs from

it in that its hero remains human even when he ascends into heaven to

receive the victor's crown; the lot that thus befalls him is identical

with that of all the devout, except that he is more favoured. This

leads to further differences. The hero of the redemption legend is

conscious of his mission from the very beginning; in the case of

the saint, conversion to a new faith not infrequently forms the

starting-point of the legend. Common to the two forms, however, is

the fact that suffering precedes the final triumph. The traits that

we have mentioned constitute the essential difference between these

forms of the legend and the hero saga proper. The latter, also, is not

without the element of suffering; the Greek saga has developed the

specific type of a suffering hero in the figure of Hercules, as has

the German saga in that of Balder. In the case of religious legends,

however, the strife-motives of the saga are transferred to the inner

life; similarly, the suffering of the saint, and especially that of

the redeemer, is not merely physical but also mental. Indeed, the

original form of the Buddha legend, which is freest from mythological

accretions, is an illustration of the fact that this suffering may

be caused exclusively by the evils of the world to be redeemed. The

suffering due to a most intense sympathy is so intimate a part of the

very nature of the redeeming god-man, that it is precisely this which

constitutes the most essential difference between the religious legend

and the ordinary hero saga, whose interest is centred upon the actions

and motives of external life. And yet the external martyrdom of the

redeemer intensifies this difference in a twofold way. In the first

place, it directly enhances the impression of the inner suffering;

secondly, it gives heightened expression both to the evil which evokes

the sympathy of the redeemer, and to the nobility of this sympathy

itself. In all of these characteristics, however, the redemption

legend belongs to the following era rather than to hero saga and the

heroic age.

The saint legend exhibits a number of essential differences. It is

frequently only through a miracle of conversion, due to external

powers, that the saint _becomes_ holy; moreover, it is not, as a rule,

through miracles of his own performance that he manifests himself as

a saint in the course of his later life and sufferings. The miracles

that transpire come as divine dispensations from without, whether

they effect his conversion or surround him, particularly at the close

of his life's journey, with the halo of sanctity. Thus, to whatever

extent the saint may come, in later cult, to supersede the protective

undergods and demons of early times, he nevertheless remains human. It

is for this very reason, however, that magic and miracle gain a large

place in his life. The latter is all the more possible by virtue of

the fact that the mythological imagination is not bound by any fixed

tradition, and need, therefore, set itself no limits whatsoever either

in the number of saints or in the nature of their deeds. Moreover,

the legend is almost totally lacking in those factual elements which

the hero saga acquires, in its later development, as a result of the

historical events that are woven into it. This is not the case with

the legend. Here it is at most the name of an historical personality

that is retained, while everything else clearly bears the marks of

imagination and of myth creation. Hence the saint legend is not to

be counted among the factors that underlie the development from the

purely mythical tale to the saga, whose content, though not real, is at

any rate possible. On the contrary, the tendency of the saint legend

is retrogressive, namely, toward a return to the märchen stage of

myth. This is all the more true, not merely because elements that are

generally characteristic of märchen are disseminated from legend to

legend, but also because the saint legend appropriates widely current

märchen conceptions. Märchen of very diverse origins found their way

into the Christian, as well as the Buddhistic, legends; moreover,

occasional Buddhistic legends, with the clear marks of an Oriental

origin upon them, were changed into Christian legends. Thus, the saint

legend combines two characteristics. As compared with the hero saga,

its motives are internalized; moreover, it represents a decided relapse

into the pure märchen form of myth. Though apparently contradictory,

these characteristics are really closely related, inasmuch as the

internalization of motives itself removes any barriers imposed by

historical recollection upon the free play of the mythological

imagination.

13. COSMOGONIC AND THEOGONIC MYTHS.

In view of the relationship of heroes and gods, not only with respect

to origin but also as regards the fact that they both embody personal

ideals, it would appear but natural, having treated of the hero saga,

that we inquire at this time concerning the corresponding deity saga. A

search for the latter, however, will at once reveal a surprising fact.

There is no deity saga at all, in the sense in which we have a hero

saga that has become a favourite field of epic and dramatic poetry.

The reason for this lack is not difficult to see. There can be no real

deity saga because, in so far as gods possess characteristics which

differentiate them from men, and therefore also from heroes, they have

no history. Immortal, unchangeable, unassailable by death or sickness,

how could experiences such as befall the hero also be the lot of gods?

If we examine the narratives that approach somewhat to the deity saga,

we will find that they consist, not of a connected account of the

experiences of the gods, but of isolated incidents that again centre

about human life, and particularly about the beneficent or pernicious

intervention of the gods in the destinies of heroes. We may recall the

participation of the Greek gods in the Trojan war, or the interest of

Jahve, in Israelitic saga, in the fortunes of Abraham, Jacob, etc.

These are isolated occurrences, and not history; or, rather, we are

given the history of heroes, in which the gods are at times moved to

intervene. In so far, therefore, as there are approximations to deity

saga, these, in their entirety, are woven into hero saga; apart from

the latter, the former but report particular actions, which may,

doubtless, throw light on the personal character of the god, but which

of themselves do not constitute a connected history. Greek mythology

offers a clear illustration of this in the so-called Homeric hymns.

These hymns must not be ascribed to Homer or merely to singers of

Homeric times. They are of later composition, and are designed for

use in cult. Their value consists precisely in the fact that they

portray the god by reference to the various directions of his activity,

thus throwing light partly on the nature of the god and partly, and

especially, on his beneficent rulership of the human world. It is this

last fact that gives these poems the character of religious hymns.

Nevertheless, there is _one_ class of myths in which the gods

themselves actually appear to undergo experiences. I refer to those

sagas and poems which are concerned with the birth of the gods,

and with the origin of their rulership over the world and over the

world-order which they have created, namely, to the _cosmogonic_ and

_theogonic_ myths. These myths relate solely to a world of demons and

gods, and they deal, as a rule, with an age prior to the existence of

man, or with one in which the creation of man is but a single episode.

Again, however, one might almost say that the exception proves the

rule. For upon close examination it will be found that the gods who

figure in these cosmogonies are not those with whose traits the hero

saga, and the hymnology connected with it, have made us familiar.

The gods whom the cosmogonic myths portray differ from those who

protect and direct human life. They are not real gods, even though

they bear this name, but are powerful demons. Except in name, the

Zeus of Hesiodic theogony has scarcely anything in common with the

Zeus of the Homeric hierarchy of gods. This fact does not reflect any

peculiarity of the poet, as it were, but is due to the nature of the

subject-matter itself. Even though theogonic myths were not elaborated

into poetic form until a relatively late period, they are nevertheless

of a primitive nature. Analogues to them had existed among primitive

peoples long before the rise of the hero saga, hence at an age when

the preconditions of god-ideas proper were still entirely lacking.

The cosmogonic gods of the Greeks and Germans, as well as those of

the ancient Babylonians, are of the nature of purely demoniacal

beings. They lack the chief attribute of a god, namely, personality.

Moreover, the myths themselves--if we disregard their form, which was

the product of later literary composition--are not at all superior to

the cosmogonies of the Polynesians and of many of the native tribes

of North America. Obviously, therefore, it betokens a confusion of

god-ideas proper with these cosmogonic beings, when it is maintained,

as sometimes occurs, that the mythology of these primitive peoples,

especially that of the Polynesians, is of a particularly advanced

character. This should not be claimed for it, but neither may this be

said of the Hesiodic theogony or the Babylonian creation myths. It

is true that these myths are superior to the earlier forms of demon

belief, for they at least develop a connected view of the origin of

things. Primitive myth accepts the world as given. The origin of the

world-order as a whole still lies beyond its field of inquiry. Though

it occasionally relates how animals came into being, its imagination is

essentially concerned with the origin of man, whom it regards as having

sprung from stones or plants, or as having crept up out of caves. Even

when this stage is transcended and an actual cosmogony arises, the

latter nevertheless remains limited to the circle of demon conceptions,

which are essentially the same in the myths of civilized peoples as in

those of so-called peoples of nature. According to a cosmogonic myth of

the Polynesians, for example, heaven and earth were originally a pair

of mighty gods united in embrace. The sons who were born to these gods

strove to free themselves and their parents from this embrace. Placing

himself on the floor of mother earth, therefore, and extending his feet

toward the heavens, one of these sons pushed father heaven upward, so

that ever since that time heaven and earth have been separated. This

mistreatment aroused another of the divine sons, the god of the winds.

Thus a strife arose, whose outcome was a peaceful condition of things.

This is a cosmogonic myth whose essential elements belong to the same

circle of ideas as the cosmogony of the Greeks. In the latter also,

Uranus and Gæa are said to have held each other in an embrace, as the

result of which there came the race of the Titans. One might regard

this as a case of transference were the idea not obviously a grotesque

development of a märchen-motive found even at a more primitive period.

According to the latter, heaven and earth were originally in contact,

and were first separated by a human being of prehistoric times--an idea

undoubtedly suggested by the roofing-over of the hut. The Babylonian

myth gives a different version of the same conception. It ascribes the

separation of heaven and earth to the powerful god Marduk, who cleaves

in two the original mother Thiamat. From one part, came the sea; from

the other, the celestial ocean. As in many other nature myths, heaven

is here conceived as a great sea which forms the continuation, at the

borders of the earth, of the terrestrial sea. This then suggests the

further idea that the crescent moon is a boat moving over the celestial

ocean.

In all of these myths the gods are given the characteristics of mighty

demons. They appear as the direct descendants of the ancient cloud,

water, and weather demons, merely magnified into giant stature in

correspondence with their enormous theatre of action. Thus, as regards

content, these cosmogonic myths are märchen of a very primitive type,

far inferior to the developed märchen-myths, whose heroes have already

acquired traits of a more personal sort. In form, however, cosmogonic

myths strive towards the gigantic, and thus lie far above the level of

the märchen-myth. Though the complete lack of ethical traits renders

the gods of cosmogonic myths inferior in sublimity to gods proper,

they nevertheless rival the latter in powerful achievement. Indeed,

however much cosmogony may fail to give its gods the characteristics

requisite for true gods, it does inevitably serve to enhance the divine

attribute of power. A further similarity of cosmogonic and theogonic

myths to the most primitive märchen-myths appears in the fact that

they seem directly to borrow certain elements from widely disseminated

märchen-motives. I mention only the story of Kronos. Kronos, according

to the myth, devours his children. But his wife, Rhea, withholds

the last of these--namely, Zeus--giving him instead a stone wrapped

in linen; hereupon Kronos gives forth, together with the stone, all

the children that he had previously devoured. This is a märchen of

devourment, similar or derivative forms of which are common. For

example, Sikulume, a South African märchen-hero, delays pursuing giants

by throwing behind him a large stone which he has besmeared with fat;

the giants devour the stone and thus lose trace of the fugitive.

But there is also other evidence that cosmogonic myths are of the

nature of märchen, magnified into the immense and superhuman. In

almost all such myths, particularly in the more advanced forms, as

found among cultural peoples, an important place is occupied by _two_

conceptions. The first of these conceptions is that the creation of

the world was preceded by _chaos_. This chaos is conceived either as a

terrifying abyss, as in Germanic and particularly in Greek mythology,

or as a world-sea encompassing the earth, as in the Babylonian history

of creation. In both cases we find ideas of terrible demons. Sometimes

these demons are said to remain on the earth, as beings of a very

ancient time anteceding the creation--examples are Night and Darkness,

described in Greek mythology as the children of Chaos. Other myths

represent the demons as having been overcome by the world-creating god.

Thus there is a Babylonian saga that tells of an original being which

enveloped the earth in the form of a snake, but whose body was used

by the god in forming the heavens. As a second essential element of

cosmogonies we find accounts of _battles of the gods_, in which hostile

demons are vanquished and a kingdom of order and peace is established.

These demons are thought of as powerful monsters. They induce a live

consciousness of the terrors of chaos, not only by their size and

strength but often also by their grotesque, half-animal, half-human

forms, by their many heads or hundreds of arms. Obviously these

Titans, giants, Cyclopes, and other terrible beings of cosmogony are

the direct descendants of the weather demons who anteceded the gods.

Does not the idea of a world-catastrophe that prepares the way for the

rulership of the gods at once bring to mind the image of a terrible

thunderstorm? As the storm is followed by the calm of nature, so chaos

is succeeded by the peaceful rulership of the gods. Inasmuch, however,

as the gods are the conquerors of the storm demons, they themselves

inevitably revert into demoniacal beings. It is only after the victory

has been won that they are again regarded as inhabiting a divine world

conceived in analogy with the human State, and that they are vested

with control over the order and security of the world.

All this goes to show that cosmogonic myths, in the poetic forms

in which cosmogonies have come down to us, are relatively late

mythological products. True, they represent the gods themselves as

demoniacal beings. Nevertheless, this does not imply that god-ideas

did not exist at the time of their composition; it indicates merely

that the enormous diversity of factors involved in the creation

of the world inevitably caused the gods to lose the attributes of

personal beings. The cosmogonies of cultural peoples, however, differ

from the otherwise similar stories of those semi-cultural peoples

whose mythology consists exclusively of such cosmogonic märchen. In

the latter case, real god-ideas are lacking. The gods have remained

essentially demons. In the higher forms of this semi-culture, where

political development has had an influence on the world of gods, as

was once the case among the peoples of Mexico and Peru, divine beings

may approximate to real gods. In cosmogonic myths themselves, however,

this never occurs. Thus, these myths invariably constitute a stage

intermediate between the mythology of demons and that of gods; they may

originate, however--and this is what probably happens in the majority

of cases--through a relapse of gods into demons. An illustration of

the latter is the Hesiodic cosmogony. The weather-myth which the poet

has elaborated obviously incorporated ancient märchen-myths that do

not differ essentially from the original märchen as to content, but

only as respects their grotesque and gigantic outlines. Compared with

the gods of the hero saga, therefore, the cosmogonic myths of cultural

peoples are of relatively late origin; to discuss the latter first, as

is still done in our accounts of the mythology of the Greeks, Germans,

etc., may easily lead to misconceptions. Of course, the creation of

the world came first, but it is not at all true that the myth of the

world's creation anteceded all others. On the contrary, the latter is

a late and sometimes, perhaps, the last product of the mythological

imagination. This is particularly apt to be the case where, as so

clearly appears in the Biblical account of the creation, there is

involved a specific _religious_ impulse that is seeking to glorify

the world-creating god. This religious impulse imposes upon the older

mythical material a new character. Hence we find that, of the two

elements universally characteristic of the cosmogonic myth, it is only

the idea of chaos that is retained, while the account of struggles with

the monsters of earliest times disappears. Nevertheless, though the

creating god has lost his demoniacal character, he has not yet attained

a fully developed personality;--this is precluded by the enormity of

the world, which transcends all human measure. He himself is in every

respect an unlimited personal will, and is, therefore, really just as

much a _superpersonal_ being as the battling gods of other cosmogonies

are subpersonal. That such a cosmogony, unique in this respect, may be

original, is, of course, impossible. Indeed, the dominant conviction

of Oriental antiquarians to-day is that the Biblical account of the

creation rests on older and more primitive ideas derived from the

Babylonian cosmogony, whose main outlines we have described above. This

may doubtless be true, and yet no compelling proof of the contention

can be adduced, for it is precisely those features in which both

accounts are identical--namely, chaos, the original darkness, and the

separating and ordering activity of the god--that are common property

to almost all cosmogonies. The Biblical account of the creation,

however, may not be classed with myths. It is a religious production

of priests who were dominated by the thought that the national god

rules over the people of Israel and over the world. Hence alone could

it substitute a creation out of _nothing_ for the ordering of a chaos,

though the latter feature also persists in the Biblical account. The

substitution, of course, dates from a later time than the myth, and

represents a glorification of divine omnipotence which is entirely

impossible to the latter.

A sort of offshoot of cosmogonic myths, though in striking antithesis

to them, is the _flood saga_. This still retains, in their entirety,

the characteristics of the original märchen-myth. It belongs to a

variety of widely prevalent myths which, like the creation myths,

appear to some extent to have originated independently in various

parts of the earth, but also to have spread widely from one region

to another. Evidence indicative of the independent origin of many of

these sagas is to be found in the fact that, in many tropical regions,

accounts of a flood, or so-called deluge sagas (_Sintflutsagen_), are

represented by sagas of conflagration (_Sintbrandsagen_), according to

which the world was destroyed, not by a general deluge, but by fire. In

neither word has the prefix _Sint_ any connection with _Sünde_ (sin),

with which popular etymology commonly connects it. _Sint_ (old high

German _sin_) is a word that has disappeared from modern German and

means 'universal.' A _Sintflut_, thus, is a _universal_, in distinction

from a merely local, flood. In so far, the sagas of universal flood

and conflagration already approximate to the myths relating to the

destruction of the world. Now, the Biblical story of the flood has

so many elements in common with that of the Babylonians that we

are compelled to assume a borrowing, and hence a transference, of

material. The rescue of a single man and his household, the taking of

animals into the ship, its landing upon the summit of a mountain, the

dispatching of birds in quest of land--of these elements, some might

possibly have originated independently in different parts of the earth.

The rescue of individuals, for example, is included in almost all

flood and conflagration legends, the direct source of the idea being

the connection between the antediluvian and postdiluvian worlds. Of the

combination of all of these elements into a whole, however, we may say

without hesitation that it could not have arisen twice independently.

The universal motive of the flood saga and that which led to its origin

in numerous localities, without any influence on the part of foreign

ideas, is obviously the rain as it pours down from the heavens. For

this reason flood sagas are particularly common wherever rain causes

devastating and catastrophic floods, whereas they are lacking in such

regions as the Egyptian delta, where there are periodic inundations

by the sea, as well as in the Arabian peninsula and in the rainless

portions of Africa. As a rule, therefore, they are both rain sagas and

flood sagas. They naturally suggest, further, the idea of a boatman

who rescues himself in a boat and lands upon a mountain. According to

an American flood myth which has preserved more faithfully than that

of western Asia the character of the märchen, the mountain upon which

the boatman lands rises with the flood and settles again as the flood

subsides.

The flood sagas of cultural peoples, however, combine these very

ancient märchen elements with a projection of the cosmogonic myth

into a later event of human history. The flood deluging the earth is

a return to chaos; indeed, often, as in the sagas of western Asia,

chaos itself is represented as a mighty abyss of water. This is then

connected with the idea of a punishment in which the god destroys

what he has created, preserving from the universal destruction only

the righteous man who has proved worthy of such salvation. Thus,

the universal flood (_Sintflut_) actually develops into a sin flood

(_Sündflut_). This change, of course, represents an elaboration on

the part of priests, who projected the religious-ethical feature

of a divine judgment into what was doubtless originally a purely

mythological saga, just as they transformed the creation myth into a

hymn to the omnipotence of the deity. But this prepares the way for

a further step. The counterpart of these cosmological conceptions

is projected not merely into a past which marks the beginning of

the present race of men, but also into the future. Over against the

transitory world-catastrophe of the universal flood, there looms the

final catastrophe of the actual destruction of the world, and over

against a preliminary judgment of the past, the final judgment, at

which this life ends and that of the yonder world begins.

Thus, we come to the _myths of world destruction_, as they are

transmitted in the apocalyptic writings of later Israelitic literature

and in the Apocalypse of John, who betrays the influence of the earlier

writers. At this point we leave the realm of myth proper. The latter

is always concerned with events of the past or, in extreme cases, with

those of the immediate present. No doubt, the desires of men may reach

out indefinitely into the future. Myth narrative, however, in the

narrower sense of the term, takes no account of that which lies beyond

the present. In general, moreover, its scene of action is the existing

world, however much this may be embellished by the imagination. Myth

reaches its remotest limit in cosmogonies. Even here, however, no

absolute limit is attained, for the world-creation is represented as

having been preceded by chaos. The idea of a creation out of nothing,

which dislodges the idea of an original chaos, arises from religious

needs and is not mythological in character. Similarly, the apocalyptic

myth of world-destruction has passed beyond the stage of the myth

proper. It is a mythological conception, which, though combining

elements of the cosmogonic myth with fragments of märchen and sagas,

is, in the main, the expression of a religious need for a world beyond.

These myths, therefore, are not original myth creations, as are the

cosmogonic myths, at least in part. They are the product of religious

reflection, and, as such, they are dominated primarily by the desire

to strengthen the righteous in his hopes and to terrify his adversary.

Thus, the history of the cosmogonic myth here repeats itself in a

peculiarly inverted form. With the exception of occasional survivals,

the religious hymn, which is the ripest development of the cosmogonic

myth, excludes the struggles of demons and wild monsters of the deep;

the myth of the destruction of the world, on the other hand, constantly

seeks, by its fantastic imagery, to magnify fears and punishments, as

well as blessed hopes. As a result, all these accounts clearly bear

the traces of a laborious invention seeking to surpass itself and thus

to atone for the lack of original mythological imagination. We may

call to mind the monster which the Book of Daniel describes as coming

forth from the sea, provided with enormous iron teeth, and bearing

on its head ten horns, among which an eleventh horn appears, which

possesses eyes, and a mouth that speaks blasphemous words. Such things

may be invented by the intellect, but they are impossible as natural

creations of the mythological imagination. The motives underlying

such exaggerations beyond the mythologically possible are to be found

in factors which, though extending far back into the beginnings of

mythology, nevertheless attain their development primarily in this age

of gods and heroes. These factors are the _ideas of the beyond_.

14. THE BELIEF IN SOULS AND IN A WORLD BEYOND.

Closely connected with the cosmogonic myth are the ideas of a world

beyond into which man may enter at the close of the present life.

Before such ideas could arise, there must have been some general

world-conception into which they could be fitted. The ideas of

a beyond, therefore, are but constituent elements of cosmogonic

conceptions; indeed, they are confined to relatively advanced forms of

the latter. This is indicated by the fact that the earlier mythological

creations contain no clearly defined notions of a beyond. Where there

is no definite world-view, such conceptions, of course, are impossible.

Thus, the two ideas mutually reinforce each other. The cosmogonic myth

gives a large setting to the ideas of a beyond; the latter, in turn,

contribute to the details of the world picture which the cosmogonic

myth has created. At any rate, when poetry and philosophy, in their

endeavour to construct a coherent cosmogony, began to appropriate

celestial myths, ideas of a life after death and of a world beyond were

already in existence. Some of these ideas, indeed, date back to an

early period.

It is an extremely, significant fact that, wherever we can trade their

development at all, these ideas of a beyond follow the same definite

and orderly course. The direction of this development is determined not

only by the cosmogonic myth but also by the ideas regarding the soul.

The formation of ideas of a beyond is impossible without a world-view

transcending the limits of earthly existence; the latter, however,

results from the need of ascribing to the soul a continuance after

death. This need, of course, is not an original one, but is essentially

conditioned by the age of gods. Among primitive peoples, the beginnings

of a belief in a life after death are to be found chiefly in connection

with the fear of the demon of the dead, who may bring sickness and

death to the living. But just as the fear is of short duration, so

also is the survival after death limited to a brief period. On a

somewhat more advanced stage, as perhaps among the Soudan peoples, most

of the Melanesian tribes, and the forest-dwelling Indians of South

America, it is especially the prominent men, the tribal chiefs, who,

just as they survive longest in memory, are also supposed to enjoy a

longer after-life. This conception, however, remains indefinite and

of a demoniacal character, just as does that of the soul. In all of

these conceptions, therefore, the disembodied soul is represented

as remaining within this world. It continues its existence in the

environment; as yet there is no yonder-world in the strict sense of

the word. It is important, moreover, to distinguish the early ideas

of a beyond from the above-mentioned celestial märchen which narrate

how certain human beings ascended into heaven. The latter are purely

märchen of adventure, in which sun, moon, stars, and clouds, as well

as the terrestrial monsters, dwarfs, gnomes, etc., are conceived of

as belonging to the visible world. Indeed, these celestial travellers

are not infrequently represented as returning unharmed to their

terrestrial home. Thus, these tales generally lack the idea which,

from the outset, is essential to the conception of a yonder-world--the

idea, namely, of _the sojourn of the soul at definite places_, whether

these be thought of as on, under, or above the earth. Here again, it

is characteristic that at first this region is located approximately

midway between this world and the one beyond. The belief takes the

form of a _spirit-village_, a conception prevalent especially among

the tribes of American Indians. Inaccessible to living beings and in

some secret part of the earth, there is supposed to be a village. In

this village the spirits of the dead are thought to assemble, and

to continue their existence in precisely the same manner as before

death, hunting and fighting just as they did in their earthly life.

The spirit-village itself is described as exactly like an ordinary

village. Characteristic of the totemic setting which all of these

ideas still possess, is the fact that among many of the Indians of the

prairies there is thought to be not only a spirit-village but also a

buffalo-village, where the dead buffaloes congregate, and into which,

according to the märchen, an adventurous youth may occasionally stray.

Sometimes, moreover, these tales give more specific accounts of the way

in which such villages are rendered inaccessible. A river spanned by an

almost impassable bridge, or a dense, impenetrable forest, separates

the spirit-village from the habitations of the living. Ravines and

mountain caves may either themselves serve as the dwelling-places

of the spirits or form the approaches to them. In addition to these

conceptions, there are also others, which have, in part, found a place,

even in later mythology. The dead are, represented as dwelling, not in

some accessible part of the earth, but on remote islands. Such ideas

are common in Polynesia, and also in other island and coast regions.

Even in Homer we come upon the picture of a distant island. It is

here that Menelaus found rescue on his return from Troy. The island

is described as a place of happiness, where only the privileged among

mortals are granted a blessed future.

A second and, on the whole, an obviously later form of ideas of a

beyond, are the _myths of the nether world_. These for the first time

tell of a beyond which is by its very nature inaccessible to human

beings, or which is visited by only a few divinely privileged heroes,

such as Hercules, Odysseus, and Æneas. As a third and last form of

ideas of a beyond, we may mention those of a _heaven_, where dwell the

dead, in the presence of the gods. As a rule, however, this heavenly

beyond does not lead to the disappearance of the nether world. Rather

are the two worlds set over against each other, as the result of the

enhancement of an antithesis which arose even in connection with

the realms of the nether world. The heaven becomes the abode of the

blessed, of the devout and righteous, the favoured of the gods; the

underworld continues, at the outset, to be the lot of the majority

of human beings. The growing desire to participate in the joys of

blessedness, then causes the privilege which was at first enjoyed

only by a minority to become more universal, and the underworld is

transformed into the abode of the guilty and the condemned. Finally,

heaven becomes possible even for the latter, through the agency, more

particularly, of magical purification and religious ecstasy.

Of the various ideas of the beyond that successively arise in this

development, those regarding the underworld are the most common and the

most permanent. This is probably due in no small measure to the custom

of _burying the corpse_. Here the entrance into the underworld is, to

a certain extent, directly acted out before the eyes of the observers,

even though the mythological imagination may later create quite a

different picture of the event. The custom of burial, however, cannot

have been the exclusive source of these ideas, nor perhaps even the

most important one. In the Homeric world, the corpse was not buried,

but burned. And yet it is to Homer that we owe one of the clearest

of the older descriptions of the underworld, and it can scarcely be

doubted that the main outlines of this picture were derived from

popular conceptions. As a matter of fact, there is another factor,

purely psychological in character, which is here obviously of greater

force than are tribal customs. This is the fear of death, and the

terror of that which awaits man after death. This fear creates the idea

of a ghostly and terrible region of the dead, cold as the corpse itself

and dark as the world must appear to its closed eyes. But that which

is thought of as dark and cold is the interior of the earth, for such

are the characteristics of mountain caves that harbour uncanny animals.

The underworld, also, is stocked with creations of fear, particularly

with subterranean animals, such as toads, salamanders, and snakes of

monstrous and fantastic forms. Many of the terrible beings which later

myths represent as living on the earth probably originated as monsters

of the underworld. Examples of this are the Furies, the Keres, and the

Harpies of the Greeks. It was only as the result of a later influence,

not operative at the time of the original conceptions of Hades, that

myth permitted these beings to wander about the upper world. This

change was due to the pangs of conscience, which transforms the ghosts

of the underworld into frightful, avenging beings, and then, as a

result of the misery visited even upon the living because of the crimes

which they have committed, transfers them to the mundane world. Here

they pursue particularly the one who has committed sacrilege against

the gods, and also him whose sin is regarded as especially grievous,

such as the parricide or matricide. Thus, with the internalization of

the fear impulse, the demoniacal forms which the latter creates are

brought forth from the subterranean darkness and are made to mingle

with the living. Similarly, the joyous and hope-inspiring ideas of a

beyond are projected still farther upward, and are elevated beyond

the regions of this earth into heavenly spaces that seem even more

inaccessible than the underworld. Prior to the age, however, which

regards the heaven as the abode of the blessed, many peoples--possibly

all who advanced to this notion of two worlds--entertained a different

conception. This conception represents, perhaps, the surviving

influence of the earlier ideas of spirit-islands. For the underworld

was itself regarded as including, besides places of horror, brighter

regions, into which, either through the direct favour of the gods or in

accordance with a judgment pronounced upon the dead, the souls of the

pure and righteous are received. As a result of the division which thus

occurred, and of the antithesis in which these images of the beyond

came to stand, pain and torment were added to the impressions of horror

and hopelessness which the original conceptions of the underworld

aroused. The contrasts that developed, however, did not prevent the

underworld from being regarded as including both the region of pain

and that of bliss. This seems to have been the prevalent notion among

Semitic as well as Indo-Germanic peoples. The Walhalla of the Germans

was also originally thought to be located in the underworld, and it is

possible that it was not transferred to the heavens until the advent of

Christianity. For, indeed, we are not familiar with Germanic mythology

except as it took form within the period in which Christianity had

already become widespread among the German tribes.

An important change in the ideas of the beyond now took place. The

separation of the abodes of spirits gradually led to a distinction

between the deities who were regarded as the rulers of the two regions.

Originally, so long as only the fear of death found expression in the

unvarying gloom of the underworld, these deities were but vaguely

defined. The conceptions formed of them seem to have reflected the

ideas of rulership derived from real life, just as was true in the

case of the supermundane gods. Indeed, the origin of the more definite

conception that the underworld is a separate region ruled by its

own gods, must probably be traced to the influence of the ideas of

celestial gods. But there is a still more primitive feature of myths

of the beyond, one that goes back to their very beginnings, and that

long survives in saga and märchen. This is the preference shown by

myths of the nether world for _female_ beings, whether as subordinate

personifications of fear or as deities. Not only is the ideal of beauty

and grace thought of as a female deity, an Aphrodite perhaps, but

the psychological law of the intensification of contrasts causes also

the fearful and terrifying sorts of deities to assume the feminine

form. Such a gruesome and terrible goddess is exemplified by the Norse

Hel, or, widely remote from her in time and space, by the Babylonian

Ereksigal. In the Greek underworld also, it is Persephone who rules,

and not Pluto, her consort. The latter seems to have been introduced

merely in order that the underworld might have a counterpart to

the celestial pair of rulers, Zeus and Hera. If the fear-inspiring

attributes are not so pronounced in the Greek Persephone, this is due

to the fact that in this case agricultural myths have combined with the

underworld myths. To this combination we must later recur, inasmuch

as it is of great significance for cult. The dominant place given

to the female deity in the underworld myth, again brings the nether

world into a noteworthy contrast with the supermundane realm of gods.

In the latter, male gods, as the direct embodiments of a superhuman

hero-ideal, are always predominant.

It is not alone the inner forces of fear and horror that cause the

realm of the dead to be thought of as located in the interior of the

earth. There is operative also an external influence imparted by

Nature herself, namely, the perception of the setting sun. Wherever

particular attention is called to some one entrance to the underworld,

or where a distant region of the earth is regarded as the abode of the

dead, this is located in the west, in the direction of the setting

sun. We have here a striking example of that form of mythological

association and assimilation in which the phenomena of external nature,

and particularly those of the heavens, exert an influence upon myth

development. It would, of course, be incorrect to assert that the

setting sun alone suggested the idea of an underworld. We must rather

say that this phenomenon was obviously a subordinate and secondary

factor. Its influence was not clearly and consciously apprehended even

as affecting the location of the underworld, though this location was

determined solely by it. Because of its connection with approaching

night, the setting sun came to be associated with all those feelings

that caused the underworld to be regarded as a realm of shadows and of

terrifying darkness. It was the combination of all these factors, and

not any single one of them--least of all, a relatively secondary one,

such as the sunset--that created and so long maintained the potency of

this most permanent of all the ideas of a beyond.

Mention should also be made of the influence exerted, even at an early

time, by soul-ideas. At the beginning of the heroic age, it was almost

universally believed that after death _all_ human beings lead a dull,

monotonous life under the earth, or, as Homer portrayed it, heightening

the uniformity, that all lapse into an unconscious existence. Obviously

these ideas were determined, in part, by the phenomena of sleep and

dreams. Just as death seemed a protracted sleep, so did the dream

come to foreshadow the life after death. The characteristics of

dream images, therefore, came to be attributed to the souls of the

underworld. The latter, it was thought, are visible, but, like shadows,

they elude the hand that grasps them and move about fleetly from place

to place. This shadow-existence is a fate that is common to all. It

is only exceptionally flagrant transgressions against the gods that

call forth punishments which not merely overtake the guilty in this

world but may also continue in the next. Such figures, therefore, as

are described in connection with Odysseus' journey to Hades--Sisyphus,

who must unceasingly roll uphill a stone that is constantly rolling

back, and Tantalus, who languishes with hopeless desire for the fruits

suspended above his head--are not as yet to be regarded as expressing

ideas of retribution, even though they may be anticipatory of them.

Perhaps, also, it is not without significance that these accounts

are probably later accretions, of which the Homeric poems contain a

considerable number, particularly the Odyssey, which is so rich in

märchen elements.

Gradually, however, that which at first occurs only in occasional

instances becomes more universal; the distinction in destinies comes to

be regarded as applying generally. The earlier and exceptional cases of

entrance into a world of the blessed or of particular punishments in

Hades were connected with the favour or anger of the gods. Similarly,

that which finally makes the distinction a universal one is religious

cult. The object of cult is to propitiate the gods; their favour is to

be won through petitions and magical acts. The gods are to grant not

merely a happy lot in this world but also the assurance of permanent

happiness in the next. Before this striving the shadows of the

underworld give way. Though the underworld continues, on the whole, to

remain a place of sorrow, it nevertheless comes to include a number of

brighter regions in which the righteous may enjoy such happiness as

they experienced in this world, without suffering its distresses and

evil. It was this that early led to the formation of cult associations.

Even during the transition of totemic tribal organization into States

and deity cults, such religious associations sprang up out of the

older totemic groups. During this period, the conditions of descent

and of tribal segregation still imposed limitations upon the religious

associations. These limitations, however, were transcended on the stage

of deity cults, as appears primarily in the case of the Greek mysteries

and of other secret cults of the Græco-Roman period, such as the

mysteries of Mithra, Attis, Osiris, and Serapis. No doubt, the extreme

forms of the cults prevalent in an age thoroughly conscious of a deep

need for salvation were bound up with the specific cultural conditions

of that age. And yet these cults but bring out in particularly sharp

relief certain traits which, though they are not clearly apparent until

later, are quite universally characteristic of the deity-worship of

the heroic era. These cults arise only when the early heroic ideal,

embodying certain external characteristics, has disappeared, having

given way more and more to inner ideals, connected with religion

and morality. This, however, occurs at the very time when minds are

beginning to be more deeply troubled by the terrors of the underworld,

and when, in contrast with this, the imagination creates glowing

pictures of the future, for whose realization it turns to the gods.

Thus arises the idea of a special region of the underworld, allotted

to those cult-associates who have been particularly meritorious in

the performance of religious duties. These will enter into Elysium, a

vale of joy and splendour which, though a part of the underworld, is

nevertheless remote from the regions of sorrow. Here the blessed will

abide after death. This Elysium is no longer a distant island intended

as a refuge for occasional individuals, but belongs to the established

order of the underworld itself. In the sixth book of the Æneid,

Virgil has sketched, with poetic embellishments, a graphic picture of

this abode of the blessed as it was conceived, in his day, under the

confluence of ancient mythical traditions and new religious impulses--a

portrayal which forms perhaps the most valuable part of the whole poem.

For, in it, the poet presents a living picture of what was believed and

was striven for by many of his contemporaries.

In closest connection with this separation of realms in the underworld,

is the introduction of judgeship. It devolves upon the judge of the

underworld to determine whether the soul is to be admitted to the vale

of joy or is to be banished into Orcus. It is significant that, in

his picture of the underworld, Virgil entrusts this judgeship to the

same Rhadamanthus with whom we are familiar from the Odyssey as the

ruler of the distant island of the blessed. Obviously the poet himself

recognized that these later conceptions developed from the earlier idea

that salvation comes as a result of divine favour. After the separation

of the region of the blessed from that of the outcasts, a further

division is made; the two regions of the underworld are partitioned

into subregions according to degrees of terror and torment, on the one

hand, and of joy and blessedness, on the other. Gradations of terror

are first instituted, those of blessedness following only later and in

an incomplete form. The subjective factor, which precludes differences

in degree when joy is at the maximum, is in constant rivalry with the

objective consideration that the merits of the righteous may differ,

and, therefore, also their worthiness to enjoy the presence of the

deity. In contrast with this, is the much stronger influence exerted

by the factor of punishment. The shadowy existence of souls in Homer's

Hades is not regarded as a penalty, but merely as the inevitable

result of departure from the circle of the living. Only when the hope

of Elysium has become just as universal as the fear of Hades, does

the latter become a place of punishment, and the former a region of

rewards. Just as language itself is very much richer in words denoting

forms of suffering than in those for joy, so also does the mythological

imagination exhibit much greater fertility in the portrayal of the

pains of the underworld than in the glorification of the Elysian

fields. All the horrors that human cruelty can invent are carried

over from the judicial administration of this world into that of the

beyond. Gradations in the magnitude of punishments are reflected in the

location of the regions appointed for them. The deepest region of the

underworld is the most terrible. Above this, is the place where those

sojourn who may enter Elysium at some future time, after successfully

completing a period of probation.

The contrast which first appears in the form of a separation of the

realms of torment and blessedness, of punishment and reward, is then

carried to a further stage, again by the aid of ideas of a spacial

gradation. No longer are all mortals compelled to enter the underworld;

this not only loses its terrors for the blessed, but the righteous and

beloved of the gods are not required to descend into it at all. Their

souls ascend to heaven--a lot reserved in olden times exclusively for

heroes who were exalted into gods. With this, the separation becomes

complete: the souls of the righteous rise to the bright realms of

heaven, those of the godless are cast into the depths. Among both the

Semitic and the Indo-Germanic peoples, the antithesis of heaven and

hell was established at a relatively late period. Its first clear

development is probably to be found among the ancient Iranians, in

connection with the early cosmogonic myths. Here the battle which the

creation-myths of other cultural peoples represent as being fought

between gods and demons is portrayed as the struggle of _two_ divine

beings. One of these is thought to rule over the regions of light above

the earth and the other over the subterranean darkness. True, this

contrast is also brought out in the battles described by other peoples

as between gods and demons, and this surely has been a factor leading

to the incorporation of the Iranian myth into the ideas of the beyond

elsewhere entertained. The distinctive feature of Iranian cosmogony

and that which gave its dualism an unusual influence upon religion

and cult is the fact that the original cosmic war was restricted

to a single hostile pair of gods, Ormuzd (Ahuramazda) and Ahriman

(Angramainju). Here also, however, Ahriman is the leader of a host of

demons--a clear indication that the myth is based on the universal

conception of a battle with demons. This similarity was doubtless

all the more favourable to the influence of the Iranian dualism upon

other religions, inasmuch as the separation of ideas of the beyond

had obviously already quite generally taken place independently of

such influence, having resulted from universal motives of cult. The

fact, however, that the battle was not waged, as in other mythologies,

between gods and demons, but between two divine personalities, led to

a further essential change. The battle no longer takes place on the

earth, as did that of Zeus and the Titans, but between a god of light,

enthroned on high, and a dark god of the underworld. This spacial

antithesis was probably connected by the ancient Iranians with that of

the two ideas of the soul, the corporeal soul, fettered to earth, and

the spiritual soul, the psyche, soaring on high. Herein may possibly

lie the explanation of a curious custom which markedly distinguished

the Iranians from other Indo-Germanic peoples. The former neither

buried nor burned their dead, but exposed them on high scaffolds, as

food for the birds. It almost seems as though the 'platform-disposal,'

commonly practised in totemic times and mentioned above (p. 216),

had here been taken over into later culture; the only change would

appear to be that, in place of the low mound of earth upon which the

corpse was left to decompose, there is substituted a high scaffolding,

doubtless designed to facilitate the ascent of the soul to heaven.

Furthermore, many passages in the older Avesta point out that the

exposure of the corpse destroys the corporeal soul, rendering the

spiritual soul all the freer to ascend to heaven. This is the same

antithesis between corporeal soul and psyche that long continues to

assert itself in later conceptions. Indeed, it also occurs, interwoven

with specifically Christian conceptions, in many passages of the

Epistles of the Apostle Paul, where the corporeal soul survives in the

idea of the sinfulness of the flesh, and where, in the mortification of

the flesh, we still have a faint echo of the Iranian customs connected

with the dead.

Thus, the ideas of a twofold beyond and of a twofold soul mutually

reinforce each other. Henceforth the heavenly realm is the abode of

the pure and blessed spirits; the underworld, that of the wicked,

who retain their sensuous natures even in the beyond, and who must,

therefore, suffer physical pain and torment in a heightened degree. The

thought of a spacial gradation corresponding with degrees of merit,

though first developed in connection with the pains and punishments

of the underworld, then comes to be applied also to the heavenly

world. In this case, however, the power of the imagination seems

scarcely adequate to the task of sufficiently magnifying the degrees of

blessedness. Hence the imagination is forced; it becomes subservient

to reflection, which engenders an accumulation of apocalyptic imagery

that completely defies envisagement. In Jewish literature, one of the

earliest examples of such apocalyptic accounts of the beyond is to be

found in the Book of Enoch. The idea of a journey to the underworld,

developed in ancient history, here apparently suggested a journey to

heaven; as a result, the celestial realm was divided into various

regions, graded according to height, as were those of the underworld

according to depth, and leading to places of greater blessedness, as

did those of the latter to increasing torment. We here have one of

those dream-journeys to which dream association readily gives rise in

the expectant and excited consciousness of the sleeper. Indeed, it is

not improbable that the narrative is based on actual dream images. Had

not the appearance of the dead in dreams already led to the belief in a

shadow-soul, which now journeys to this distant world? The division of

the celestial realms, in these mythical works, fluctuates between the

numbers three and seven--the two numbers held sacred _par excellence_.

In the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul tells of a

dream-vision in which, years before, he was caught up to the 'third

heaven' of paradise.

Under the influence of expiatory rites, which were zealously

practised even by the ancient mystery cults, these two worlds, the

subterranean hell and the celestial paradise, were supplemented by

a _third_ region. This development was also apparently of Iranian

origin. The region was held to be a place of purification, where the

soul of the sinner might be prepared, through transitory punishments

and primarily through lustrations, for entrance into the heavenly

realm. Purgatorial lustration, after the pattern of terrestrial cult

ceremonies, was believed to be effected by means of fire, this being

regarded as the most potent lustrical agency, and as combining the

function of punishment with that of purification. Dante's "Divine

Comedy" presents a faithful portrayal of these conceptions as they were

finally developed by the religious imagination of mediæval Christianity

out of a mass of ideas which go back, in their beginnings, to a very

ancient past, but which continually grew through immanent psychological

necessity. Dante's account of the world beyond incorporates a further

element. It tells of a _guide_, by whom those exceptional individuals

who are privileged to visit these realms are led, and by whom the

various souls are assigned to their future dwelling-places. The first

of the visitors to Hades, Hercules, was accompanied by deities, by

Athena and Hermes. Later it was one of the departed who served as

guide. Thus, Virgil was conducted by his father, and Dante, in turn,

was led by Virgil, though into the realms of blessedness, closed

to the heathen poet, he was guided by the transfigured spirit of

Beatrice. The rôle of general conductor of souls to the realms of

the underworld, however, came to be given to Hermes, the psychopomp.

Such is the capacity in which this deity appears in the Odyssey,

in an exceedingly charming combination of later with very ancient

soul-conceptions. After Odysseus has slain the suitors, Hermes, with

staff in hand, leads the way to the underworld, followed by the souls

of the suitors in the form of twittering birds.

These external changes in the ideas of the beyond, leading to the

separation of the two realms, heaven and hell, and finally to the

conception of purgatory, an intermediate realm, are dependent also

on the gradual development of the _idea of retribution_. This is not

a primitive idea. It arises only in the course of the heroic age, as

supplementary to the very ancient experiences associated with the fear

of death and to the notions concerning the breath and shadow souls.

Moreover, it is especially important to notice that at the outset

the idea was not ethical in character, but _purely religious_--a

striking proof that morality and religion were originally distinct.

The transference of the idea from religion to morals represents the

final stage of the development, and occurred long after other-world

mythology had reached its zenith. The first traces of the retributive

idea are to be found in connection with those unusual dispensations of

favour by which a hero who has won the favour of the gods is either

taken up into their midst or is granted admittance to some other region

of blessedness; the conception may, however, also take the form of

punishments attached to certain particular offences directed against

the gods. These latter exceptions already form a prelude to the more

general application of the retributive idea in later times. But, even

at this stage, the idea did not at once include _all_ men within its

scope, but found expression only in the desire to gain some exceptional

escape from future suffering or some peculiar claim to eternal joy

in the future. True, the natural impulse toward association, and the

hope that united conjurations would force their way to the ears of

the gods more surely than individual prayers could do, early led to

cult alliances, whose object it was to minister to these other-worldly

hopes. None of these alliances, however, was concerned with obtaining

salvation for all; on the contrary, all of them sought to limit this

salvation to a few, in the belief that by such limitation their aim

would be more certain of realization. These cults, therefore, were

shrouded in secrecy. This had a twofold purpose. On the one hand, it

increased the assurance of the members in the success of their magical

incantations--a natural result of the fact that these rites were

unavailable to the masses; on the other hand, it augmented the magical

power of the incantations, inasmuch as, according to an associative

reaction widely prevalent in the field of magical ideas, the mysterious

potency of magic led to a belief in the magical effect of secrecy.

The influence of these ideas had manifested itself in much earlier

times, giving rise, on the transitional stage between totemism and the

deity cults, to the very numerous secret societies of cultural and

semi-cultural peoples. At this period, these societies were probably

always the outgrowth of the associations of medicine-men, but later

they sometimes included larger circles of tribal members. As is

evident particularly in the case of the North American Indians, such

societies frequently constituted restricted religious groups within

the clans--groups which appear to have taken the place of the earlier

totemic associations. In harmony with this, and, perhaps, under the

influence of the age-groups in the men's clubs, there was originally a

gradation of the members, based on the degree of their sanctification

and on the extent of their participation in the mystic ceremonies. In

peculiar contradiction to the secrecy of such associations, membership

in one of its classes was betrayed, during the festivals of the cult

groups, by the most striking external signs possible, such as by the

painting of the body or by other forms of decoration. Moreover, on the

earlier stages of culture, the interest of all these secret societies

was still centred mainly on things connected with this world, such as

prosperity of crops, protection from sickness, and success in the

chase. Nevertheless, there was also manifest a concern regarding a

future life, especially wherever a pronounced ancestor worship or an

incipient deity cult had been developed.

It is the idea of the beyond, however, that gradually crowds out all

secondary motives and that gives to the mystery cults proper their

characteristic stamp, bringing them into sharp contrast with the

dominant ideas of the early heroic age. In the earlier period, the

idea of the beyond had been enveloped in hopeless gloom; now, it fills

the mystic with premonitions of eternal happiness. In striving for

this experience, the mystic wishes for a bliss that is not granted to

the majority of mortals. Once more all the magic arts of the past are

called into play in order that the initiate may secure entrance into

the portals of the yonder world; it is thither that he is transported

in the ecstasy induced by these magical means. No longer is admiration

bestowed upon the heroes of the mythical past, upon a Hercules and a

Theseus, as it was in ancient times. The change came about slowly,

and yet at the great turning-point of human history, marked by the

Hellenistic age, it spread throughout the entire cultural world.

Radiating far beyond the Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries, which

these hopes of a yonder-world raised to new life, the same idea was

appropriated by the cults of Osiris, Serapis, Attis, and Mithra. The

_idea of redemption_, born of the longing to exchange this world, with

its sufferings and wants, for a world of happiness in the beyond, took

possession of the age. It is the negation of the heroic age, of the

heroes which it prized, and of the gods which it revered. Along with

this world, these cults of the beyond repudiate also the previously

existent values of this world. The ideals of power and of property

fade. Succeeding the hero ideal, as its abrogation and at the same time

its consummation, is the ideal of humanity.

At first it is only _religious_ ideals that manifest this shift in

values. The enjoyment of the present gives way to hopes for the

future, the portrayal of which welds religious feelings into a

power that proves supreme over all other impulses. It is for this

very reason that the future, which the mystic already enjoys in

anticipation, comes to be exclusively the reward of the _devout_. It

is not vouchsafed to the moral man who stands outside the pale of

these religious associations, for his activity centres about this

world. At a much earlier period, however, these ideas became combined

with ethical motives of retribution. If, accordingly, the two motives

again become entirely distinct at this decisive turning-point of

religious development, this only signifies that, in themselves, they

are of different origin, and not that from early times forward there

were no forces making for their union. These forces, however, were

not so much internal as external in character. They did not spring

from the religious experiences themselves, nor, least of all, from

the ideas of the beyond. Their source is to be found primarily in

a transference of the relations of the earthly State to the divine

State, as a result of which the ruler of the latter was exalted to

the position of lawgiver in the kingdom of men no less than in that

of the gods. Proofs of this transference are to be found in the most

ancient customs and legal enactments of all regions. Either the ethical

and religious commandments are, both alike, supposed to be the very

utterances of the deity, as in the case of the Mosaic decalogue, or, as

is illustrated by the Babylonian code of Hammurabi, an earthly ruler

expressly promulgates his law in the name of the deity, even though

this law is essentially restricted to legal and ethical norms. Thus it

came about that every ethical transgression acquired also a religious

significance. The ethical norm was not, at the outset, religious

in sanction, as is usually believed; it acquired this character

only through the medium of the world-ruling divine personality.

Nevertheless, the union of the ethical and the religious gradually

caused the idea of retribution, which originally had no ethical

significance whatsoever, to force its way into the conceptions of the

beyond. It was essentially in this way that ethical transgressions came

to be also religious offences, whereas, on the other hand, the rewards

of the other-world continued to be restricted to the devout, or were

granted to the moral man only on condition that he be devout as well as

moral.

In conclusion, we must consider an offshoot of other-world ideas--the

belief in the _transmigration of souls_. This belief is ultimately

grounded in the more general ideas of soul-belief, even though its

developed form appears only as a product of philosophical speculation,

and has, therefore, found only a limited acceptance. In its motives,

the belief most closely resembles the conception of purgatory, in so

far as the latter involves the notion that the occupation of animal

bodies is a means, partly of transitory punishment, and partly of

purification. The idea of lustration, however, is not involved in that

of metempsychosis. In its place, there is a new and unique element.

It consists in the thought, expressed in Plato's "Republic," that it

is proper that man should retain after death the character manifested

during life, and that he should therefore assume the form of the animal

which exhibits this character. There is thus manifested the idea of

a relationship between man and the animal. In the distant past this

idea gave rise to the animal totem; in this last form of the animal

myth, it leads to the conception of the transmigration of souls. Thus,

a complete inversion of values has here taken place. The significance

of the totem as an ancestral animal and as an object of cult caused

it to be regarded as superior to man. The animal myth, on the other

hand, represents transformation into an animal as degrading, even as

a severe punishment. It is precisely this difference which makes it

probable that the idea of transmigration was not a free creation of

Hindoo philosophers--for it was they who apparently first developed it,

and from whom it passed over to the Pythagorean school and thence to

Plato--but that it, also, was connected with the general development of

totemic conceptions. Of course, it is not possible to trace a direct

transition of the totem animal into the animal which receives the soul

of a human being who is expiating sins that he has committed. It is

not probable, moreover, that such a transition occurred. Doubtless,

however, the idea of transmigration is connected with the fact that,

beginning with the totemic age and extending far down into the period

of deity beliefs, the value placed on animals underwent a change. For

the Australian, the animal is an object of cult, and the totem animal

is frequently also regarded as the incarnation of an ancestor or of

some magical being of antiquity; the American Indian calls the animals

his elder brothers; Hercules, the hero of the heroic age, is honoured

because, among other things, he was instrumental in exterminating wild

animals. This change, moreover, is reflected in animal myths even more

than in these general evaluations. Indeed, transformation into animals

is a dominant characteristic of these myths. Tracing the conception of

this magical process, however, we find, step by step, a progressive

degradation of the animal. In Australian legends, animal and man are

either absolute equals or the animal is the superior, being endowed

with special magical powers. In American märchen-myths also, we still

frequently find the same conception, although transformation into an

animal is here sometimes regarded as a disgrace. Finally, in many

African myths, and, particularly, in those of the cultural peoples

of the ancient world, such a transformation is regarded either as a

serious injury resulting from evil magic or as a punishment for some

crime. We may well suppose, therefore, that the Brahmans, who first

incorporated this idea into the religious conceptions of retribution,

were influenced by the ideas current in popular belief, which, on their

part, represented the last development of earlier totem conceptions.

These ideas may also have been reinforced by the belief (not even yet

entirely extinct) in soul animals, into which the psyche disappears

at the moment of death. Whether the Brahmans had as yet come to the

notion that transformation into an animal is a simpler and more natural

way of conceiving the future of the soul than ideas of a supermundane

and a subterranean beyond, need not concern us. In any event, it is

noteworthy that, after science had closed the path to heaven as well as

that to Hades, Lessing and, in a broader sense, taking into account

nature as a whole, Goethe himself, regarded metempsychosis as the most

probable hypothesis concerning the way in which the desire for an

endless survival of the soul will be satisfied.

15. THE ORIGIN OF DEITY CULTS.

Psychologically, myth and cult are closely interrelated. The _myth_

is a species of _idea_. It consists of ideas of an imaginary and an

essentially supersensuous world that constitutes a background for the

phenomena of sensuous reality. This supersensuous world is created

by the imagination exclusively from sensuous materials. It finds

portrayal throughout the various stages of myth development, first

in the märchen-myth, then in the heroic saga, and finally in the

deity saga. In the latter, there are interwoven ideas of the origin

and destruction of things, and of the life of the soul after death.

_Cult_, on the other hand, comprises only _actions_. These relate to

the demons or the gods whose lives and deeds are depicted by mythology,

at first only in fragmentary sketches, but later, especially in the

deity saga, after the pattern of human life. Now, inasmuch as action

is always the result of feeling and emotion, it is these subjective

elements of consciousness that are dominant in cult, whereas cognition

plays its rôle in connection with myth. This contrast is important

because of its close bearing on the development of myth as well as

on that of religion, and on the essential differentiæ of the two.

Not every myth has a religious content. In fact, the majority of the

myths prevalent, or once prevalent, in the world, have absolutely no

connection with religion, if we give to the latter any sharply defined

meaning at all. At the setting of the sun, a flaming hero is swallowed

by a dusky demon--this conception of nature mythology may possibly be

incorporated in religious conceptions, but, in itself, it possesses no

religious significance whatsoever, any more than does the idea that the

clouds are demons who send rain to the fields, or that a cord wound

about a tree may magically transfer a sickness to it. These are all

mythological ideas, yet to call them religious would obviously leave

one with a most vague conception of religion. Similarly, moreover, not

every cult relating to things beyond immediate reality is a religious

cult. Winding a cord about a tree, for example, might constitute

part of a magic cult which aims at certain beneficent or pernicious

results through the aid of demons of some sort. There is no ground,

however, for identifying these cult activities with deity cult. From

the very beginning, of course, every cult is magical. But there are

important differences with respect to the objects upon which the

magic is exercised. The same is true with respect to the significance

of the cult action within the circle of possible magic actions and

of the derivatives which gradually displace the latter. In view of

this, it is undeniable that, in _deity cult_, the cult activity,

in part, assumes new forms, and, in part, and primarily, gains a

new content. Prior to the belief in gods, there were numerous demon

cults, as well, particularly, as single, fragmentary cult practices

presupposing demoniacal powers. Moreover, these demon cults and the

various activities to which they gave rise, passed down into the very

heart of deity cult. The question therefore arises, What marks shall

determine whether a deity cult is _religious_ in character? These

marks, of course, may be ascertained only by reference to that which

the general consensus of opinion unites in calling religious from

the standpoint of the forms of religious belief prevalent to-day.

From this point of view, a religious significance may be conceded to

a deity conception if, in the first place, it possesses by its very

nature--that is, objectively--an _ideal_ worth, and, since the ideal

transcends reality, a _supersensuous_ character; in the second place,

it must satisfy the subjective need of man for an ideal purpose of

life. To one outside of the particular cult community, the value of

this ideal may be but slight; to the community, however, at the time

when it is engaged in the cult practices, the ideal is of highest

worth. As the embodiments of the ideals just mentioned, the gods are

always pictured by the mythological imagination in human form, since it

is only his own characteristics that man can conceive as magnified into

the highest values in so absolute a sense. Where the deity does not

reach this stage, or where, at the very least, he does not possess this

ideal value during the progress of the cult activities, the cult is not

religious in nature, but prereligious or subreligious. Thus, while myth

and cult date back to the beginnings of human development, they acquire

a religious character only at a specific time, which comes earlier in

the case of cult than in that of the myth. The gods are created by the

religious emotion which finds expression in cult, and myth gives them

the character of ideal personalities, after the pattern of the heroic

figures of actual life. The entire life of man, with all its changes of

destiny, is placed in their hands. Their cult, therefore, is no longer

associated merely with special circumstances or various recurrent

events, as were primitive magic and the conjuration of demons, but

is concerned with the whole of life, which is now subordinated to a

divine legal order fashioned after the political government. Thus, the

god is soon succeeded by the _divine State_, and by the cult festivals

dedicated to the latter. As an idealized counterpart of the human

institution peculiarly characteristic of the heroic era, religious cult

appears, from this point of view also, as the most distinctive creation

of the age of heroes and gods.

If a conception proves to be too narrow to cover all the phenomena

which fall within its sphere, it is legitimate, of course, to broaden

it, to a certain extent, to suit our needs. Nevertheless, once we

admit that not every mythological conception or magical practice is

religious in character, we can no longer doubt that there was never

a more significant change in the development of these phenomena than

occurred in the case of the myths and cults directly connected with the

heroic age. Primarily, therefore, it was the cults of the Babylonians,

Egyptians, Israelites, and also those of the Greeks, Romans, Aryans,

and Germans, that were religious in the full sense of the word. In the

Old World, the Semitic and Indo-Germanic peoples must be regarded,

to say the least, as the most important representatives of religious

ideals; in the New World, prior to the coming of the Europeans, this

distinction belongs to the cultural peoples of the Andes, the Mexicans

and the Peruvians. Though the religion of these latter races, no less

than the other phases of their culture, was of a cruder sort than that

of the former peoples, it frequently throws a remarkable light upon

the initial stages of many forms of cult. Of course, there is never

a sharp separation of periods; intermediate stages are always to be

found. The latter result, particularly, from two conditions. On the one

hand, a deity cult may be inaugurated by the introduction of elements

of a celestial mythology into the still dominant magical cults. In this

case, it is important to note, deity myth is usually far in advance

of deity cult. This is exemplified in Polynesia, where we find a rich

theogony alongside of cults that have not advanced essentially beyond

the stage of totemic magic beliefs. On the other hand, however, a

people whose civilization is still, on the whole, totemic, may be

influenced by the deity cults of neighbouring cultural peoples, and, as

a result, fusions of various sorts may occur. Of this, also, the New

World affords instructive examples, namely, the Pueblo peoples of New

Mexico and Arizona, who were influenced by Mexican culture.

In the soul-life of the individual, _action_, together with the

feelings and emotions fundamental to it, have the primacy over

ideation. The same psychological fact universally accounts for the

superior importance of deity cult over deity myth. It is action that

constantly influences ideas, changing and strengthening them, and

thus arousing new emotions which stimulate to further activities.

Thus, the elevation of the gods into ideal beings must be ascribed,

in great part, to religious cult, for it came about as a result of

the influence which the emotions associated with cult exercised upon

the ideas of the gods. Even less than the mythological thought from

which it develops does religious reflection consist simply of ideas.

The mythical tales and legends into which ideas are woven excite

primarily the feelings and emotions. These it is that cause the

exaltation of the religious consciousness, giving rise to action,

which, in turn, enhances the emotions. If anywhere, therefore, it is in

the psychology of religion that intellectualism is doomed to failure.

The intellectualist is unable to explain even the fact of cult, to say

nothing of those effects upon religion by virtue of which cult becomes

religion's creative force. While, therefore, there are cults--namely,

those of magic and demons--which, for specific reasons, we may call

prereligious, there is no religion without some form of cult, even

though, in the course of religious development, the external phases of

cult may diminish in significance. In so far, cult is to be regarded as

_moulding_, rather than as permanently expressing religious emotions;

and it is not merely an effect, but also a source of religious ideas.

It is in cult that deity ideas first attain their full significance. By

giving expression to his desires in prayer and sacrifice, man enjoys a

foretaste of their satisfaction, and this, in reaction, enhances not

only the desires but also the mythological conceptions fundamental to

them. It is precisely this relationship of myth to cult that extends

far back into the totemic age and that causes the dominant magic cults

of this period to be displaced by deity cults as soon as gods have

arisen through a synthesis of heroes and demons. This accounts for the

fact that, in the beginnings of religion, the worship of gods always

contained elements that derived from the age of demons. But even

the demon cults frequently exhibit one feature, particularly, that

remains characteristic also of religion: in the cult the individual

feels himself one with the object of worship. This is clearly shown

in the case of primitive vegetation festivals. Those who execute the

orgiastic cult dances regard themselves as one with the spirits of

vegetation, whom they wish to assist, by their actions, in increasing

the productive forces of nature. Such vegetation festivals have already

been described in our account of totemic cults. Inasmuch, however, as

they represent not only the highest of the totemic cults but even

partake, in part, of the character of deity cults, it was necessary to

refer to them again at this point. Vegetation festivals still prevail

in richly developed forms among some of the tribes of North and Central

America. It is clear that they represent primarily a transitional

stage, for, in addition to totemic ideas, demon and ancestor beliefs

are everywhere mingled with elements of a celestial mythology. Spirits

of ancestors are thought to be seated behind the clouds, urging the

rain demons to activity. Above them, however, are celestial deities,

whose abode is in the heavens, and to whom is attributed the supreme

control over destiny.

Even these relatively primitive vegetation cults manifest still

another trait, which later comes more and more to characterize all

cult, namely, the _union of many cult motives_. The great vegetation

festivals of Central America attract not only those in health but also

the sick. The latter are in search of healing. Hence there come to

be special cults alongside of those that serve more universal needs.

Moreover, the initiation of youths into manhood is also celebrated

during these great festivals. Finally, the individual seeks to

expiate some sin which he has committed in the past. Thus, numerous

supplementary and subsidiary cults cluster about the great cult

festivals. This was true even of the cults that reach far back into

the age of magic and demon beliefs, when gods still played a secondary

rôle, and conditions remained the same up to the time of the highest

forms of deity cult. Furthermore, the incentive, or impelling motive,

which originally brought cult members together for these comprehensive

festivals seems everywhere to have been the same. The aim in view

was to secure the prosperity of the crops, for, on the threshold of

this higher civilization, these formed man's chief food-supply. The

prominence of this motive in the earliest deity cults, moreover,

indicates that the latter were genuine products of the general culture

of this period. The roving hunter and nomad were giving place to the

settled tiller of the soil, who utilized the animal for the services of

man, and thus engaged more systematically in the breeding of domestic

animals, though also perfecting, in addition to the arts of peace,

the agencies of war. The motives that gradually elevated vegetation

cults to a higher plane consisted in every case of those that at the

outset found expression in the subsidiary cults. The concern for

the _spiritual welfare_ of mankind finally supplanted materialistic

purposes. This is clearly shown by the history of the Greek mystery

cults. These, however, were obviously influenced, particularly at a

later time, by the similar cults of the Egyptians, as well as by the

Babylonians and other peoples of western Asia. Among all these peoples,

the chief cults were vegetation cults, and, as such, they occurred

at stated seasons. In the Orient, particularly, the festivals were

held at the solstices. Surviving remnants of seedtime and harvest

festivals--which were solstice festivals and were prevalent throughout

the entire Oriental world--allow us to conclude, even with respect

to many regions in which a complete historical tradition is lacking,

that agricultural festivals probably represent the earliest deity

cults. Hence it is that these remnants still contain so many elements

characteristic of demon beliefs.