faiths of the ancient civilised peoples, as in Greece, Rome, India
and Egypt, but also in the ideas of the lowest known savages.

It may, of course, be argued that the belief in Creator is itself
a myth. However that may be, the attitude of awe, and of moral
obedience, in face of such a supposed being, is religious in the
sense of the Christian religion, whereas the fabrication of
fanciful, humorous, and wildly irrational fables about that being,
or others, is essentially mythical in the ordinary significance of
that word, though not absent from popular Christianity.

Now, the whole crux and puzzle of mythology is, "Why, having
attained (in whatever way) to a belief in an undying guardian,
'Master of Life,' did mankind set to work to evolve a chronique
scandaleuse about HIM? And why is that chronique the elaborately
absurd set of legends which we find in all mythologies?"

In answering, or trying to answer, these questions, we cannot go
behind the beliefs of the races now most immersed in savage
ignorance. About the psychology of races yet more undeveloped we
can have no historical knowledge. Among the lowest known tribes we
usually find, just as in ancient Greece, the belief in a deathless
"Father," "Master," "Maker," and also the crowd of humorous,
obscene, fanciful myths which are in flagrant contradiction with
the religious character of that belief. That belief is what we
call rational, and even elevated. The myths, on the other hand,
are what we call irrational and debasing. We regard low savages as
very irrational and debased characters, consequently the nature of
their myths does not surprise us. Their religious conception,
however, of a "Father" or "Master of Life" seems out of keeping