Margaret added that the Greek knew better than that. He felt the necessity of developing the Infinite through action, and embodied this necessity in his art and poesy as well as in his myths.
Frank seemed still to think that in losing the adoring contemplation of the Hindu, and bringing their deities to the human level, the Greeks had taken one step down.
E. P. P. had always thought it had been a step up, and Ann Clarke thought that the Greeks forgot themselves, merged all remembrance of the Finite, in realizing the individual forces of the Infinite.
William White, who had not waded very far into the stream, thought the North American Indian’s worship of the Manitou purer than the Greek worship, for the very reason that the Indian ascribed to his Manitou no passion that had degraded humanity.
Margaret said that the Indian propitiated his God by vile deeds, by ignoble treacheries and revenge. So the Hindu throws her child into the Ganges, and an ecstatic crowd falls before the car of Juggernaut.
I thought a good deal, but did not speak. Did not William’s question grow out of the simple Unity of the Indian worship? But the Indian does not worship the Manitou because he recognizes a single First Cause, comprehending in itself all beauty, wisdom, purity, and truth, but because his heart is naturally lifted toward an unknown something, which he has hardly yet considered as a Cause. The Greek recognized the abstract forces of the Universe, but did not perceive their Unity, and so personified them separately.
E. P. P. suggested that the Indian had no literature, and had left no record of his Olympus!
Margaret added that, if we compare the Indian Elysium with the Greek, the difference in spirituality is perceived at once.
Henry Hedge said that Frank Shaw talked about Greek mythi, but nobody could show a purely Greek mythos.
Frank replied that he only meant that when the Greek mind had acted on a myth, it had not refined it.