The next condition is that there must be a stimulus. It is not ideas,
but feelings, which govern the world, and in the history of mythology
where feeling is absent we find either weak imitation or repetition
of the myths of other peoples (though this must not be confused
with certain elements which seem to be common to the myths of all
races), or concoction, contamination, or "genealogical tree-making,"
or myths originated by "leisurely, peaceful tradition" and lacking
the essential qualities which appeal to the human soul and make their
possessors very careful to preserve them among their most loved and
valued treasures. But, on the other hand, where feeling is stirred,
where the requisite stimulus exists, where the people are in great
danger, or allured by the prize of some breathless adventure, the
contact produces the spark of divine poetry, the myths are full of
artistic, philosophic, and religious suggestiveness, and have abiding
significance and charm. They are the children, the poetic fruit, of
great labour and serious struggles, revealing the most fundamental
forces, hopes, and cravings of the human soul. Nations highly strung,
undergoing strenuous emotion, intensely energized by constant conflict
with other nations, have their imagination stimulated to exceptional
poetic creativeness. The background of the Danaïds is Egyptian,
not Greek, but it was the danger in which the Greeks were placed in
their wars with the sons of the land of the Pharaohs that stimulated
the Greek imagination to the creation of that great myth.

This explains why so many of the greatest myths have their staging,
not in the country itself whose treasured possessions they are, but
where that country is 'playing the great game,' is carrying on wars
decisive of far-reaching national events, which arouse to the greatest
pitch of excitement the feelings both of the combatants and of those