CONTENTS
CHAPTER XII. GODS OF THE LOWEST RACES.
CHAPTER XIII. GODS OF THE LOWEST RACES.
CHAPTER XIV. AMERICAN DIVINE MYTHS
CHAPTER XV. MEXICAN DIVINE MYTHS
CHAPTER XVI. THE MYTHOLOGY OF EGYPT
CHAPTER XVII. GODS OF THE ARYANS OF INDIA.
CHAPTER XVIII. GREEK DIVINE MYTHS
CHAPTER XIX. HEROIC AND ROMANTIC MYTHS.
Savage religion mysterious—Why this is so—Australians in 1688—Sir John Lubbock—Roskoff—Evidence of religion—Mr. Manning—Mr. Howitt—Supreme beings—Mr. Tylor's theory of borrowing—Reply—Morality sanctioned—Its nature—Satirical rite—"Our Father"—Mr. Ridley on a creator—Mr. Langloh Parker—Dr. Roth—Conclusion—Australians' religious.
The Science of Anthropology can speak, with some confidence, on many questions of Mythology. Materials are abundant and practically undisputed, because, as to their myths, savage races have spoken out with freedom. Myth represents, now the early scientific, now the early imaginative and humorous faculty, playing freely round all objects of thought: even round the Superhuman beings of belief. But, as to his Religion, the savage by no means speaks out so freely. Religion represents his serious mood of trust, dependence or apprehension.
In certain cases the ideas about superhuman Makers and judges are veiled in mysteries, rude sketches of the mysteries of Greece, to which the white man is but seldom admitted. In other cases the highest religious conceptions of the people are in a state of obsolescence, are subordinated to the cult of accessible minor deities, and