with the nature of the savage mind as we understand it. Still,
there the religious conception actually is, and it seems to follow
that we do not wholly understand the savage mind, or its unknown
antecedents. In any case, there the facts are, as shall be
demonstrated. However the ancestors of Australians, or Andamanese,
or Hurons arrived at their highest religious conception, they
decidedly possess it.[1] The development of their mythical
conceptions is accounted for by those qualities of their minds
which we do understand, and shall illustrate at length. For the
present, we can only say that the religious conception uprises from
the human intellect in one mood, that of earnest contemplation and
submission: while the mythical ideas uprise from another mood, that
of playful and erratic fancy. These two moods are conspicuous even
in Christianity. The former, that of earnest and submissive
contemplation, declares itself in prayers, hymns, and "the dim
religious light" of cathedrals. The second mood, that of playful
and erratic fancy, is conspicuous in the buffoonery of Miracle
Plays, in Marchen, these burlesque popular tales about our Lord and
the Apostles, and in the hideous and grotesque sculptures on sacred
edifices. The two moods are present, and in conflict, through the
whole religious history of the human race. They stand as near each
other, and as far apart, as Love and Lust.


[1] The hypothesis that the conception was borrowed from European
creeds will be discussed later. See, too, "Are Savage Gods
borrowed from Missionaries?" Nineteenth Century, January, 1899.


It will later be shown that even some of the most backward savages