ancient ruins; now that we can compel a buried world to reveal its
secret and to tell us its story, we do not have to go on making myths
about the ancients. Myths die when history is born.

It will be seen from these examples that there is no harm in myth-
making if the myth is called a myth. It is when we use our fanciful
knowledge to deny or to shut out real and scientific knowledge that
the myth becomes a stumbling block. And this is precisely the use to
which myths have been put. The king with his sword and the priest with
his curses, have supported the myth against science. When a man
_pretends_ to believe that the _Santa Claus_ of his childhood is real,
and tries to compel also others to play a part, he becomes positively
immoral. There is no harm in believing in _Santa Claus_ as a myth, but
there is in pretending that he is real, because such an attitude of
mind makes a mere trifle of truth.

Is Jesus a myth? There is in man a faculty for fiction. Before history
was born, there was myth; before men could think, they dreamed. It was
with the human race in its infancy as it is with the child. The
child's imagination is more active than its reason. It is easier for
it to fancy even than to see. It thinks less than it guesses. This
wild flight of fancy is checked only by experience. It is reflection
which introduces a bit into the mouth of imagination, curbing its pace
and subduing its restless spirit. It is, then, as we grow older, and,
if I may use the word, riper, that we learn to distinguish between
fact and fiction, between history and myth.

In childhood we need playthings, and the more fantastic and _bizarre_
they are, the better we are pleased with them. We dream, for instance,
of castles in the air--gorgeous and clothed with the azure hue of the