The long story of religious effort is not from fetichism to monotheism, as Comte read it; nor is its only possible goal inside the limits of the ego, as Feuerbach and the other Neo-Hegelians assert; but it is on its theoretical side to develope with greater and greater distinctness the immeasurable reality of pure thought, to dispense more and more with the quantification of the absolute, and to avoid in the representation of that Being the use of the technic of concrete existence.
Little by little we learn that the really true is never true in fact, that the really good is never good in act.[194-1] Carefully cherishing this distinction taught by mathematics and ethics, the religious mind learns to recognize in that only reality darkly seen through the glass of material things, that which should fix and fill its meditations. Passing beyond the domain of physical law, it occupies itself with that which defines the conditions of law. It contemplates an eternal activity, before which its own self-consciousness seems a flickering shadow, yet in that contemplation is not lost but gains an evergrowing personality.
This is the goal of religious striving, the hidden aim of the wars and persecutions, the polemics and martyrdoms, which have so busied and bloodied the world. This satisfies the rational postulates of religion. Does some one say that it does not stimulate its emotional elements, that it does not supply the impulses of action which must ever be the criteria of the true faith? Is it not a religion at all, but a philosophy, a search, or if you prefer, a love for the truth?
Let such doubter ponder well the signification of truth, its relation to life, its identity with the good, and the paramount might of wisdom and a clear understanding, and he will be ready to exclaim with the passionate piety of St. Augustine: “Ubi inveni veritatem, ibi inveni Deum meum, ipsam veritatem, quam, ex quo didici, non sum oblitus.”
From this brief review of its character, the Myth will be seen to be one of the transitory expressions of the religious sentiment, which in enlightened lands it has already outgrown and should lay aside. So far as it relates to events, real or alleged, historic or geologic, it deals with that which is indifferent to pure religion; and so far as it assumes to reveal the character, plans and temper of divinity, it is too evidently a reflex of man’s personality to be worthy of serious refutation where it conflicts with the better guide he has within him.
[156-1] In this definition the word apperception is used in the sense assigned it by Professor Lazarus—the perception modified by imagination and memory. “Mythologie ist eine Apperceptionsform der Natur und des Menschen.” (Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie, Bd. i., s. 44). Most recent mythologists omit the latter branch of the definition; for instance, “A myth is in its origin an explanation by the uncivilized mind of some natural phenomenon.” (John Fiske, Myths and Myth Makers, p. 21). This is to omit that which gives the myth its only claim to be a product of the religious sentiment. Schopenhauer, in calling dogmas and myths “the metaphysics of the people,” fell into the same error. Religion, as such, is always concrete.
[159-1] Half a century ago the learned Mr. Faber, in his Origin of Pagan Idolatry, expressed his astonishment at “the singular, minute and regular accordance” between the classical myths. That accordance has now been discovered to be world-wide.
[160-1] “Ganz gleiche Mythen können sehr füglich, jede selbstständig, an verschiedenen Oerter emporkommen.” Briefe an Woelcker.
[161-1] The last two are the modern orthodox theories, supported by Bryant, Faber, Trench, De Maistre and Sepp. Medieval Christianity preferred the direct agency of the Devil. Primitive Christianity leaned to the opinion that the Grecian and Roman myth makers had stolen from the sacred writings of the Jews.
[165-1] Sir Wm. Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics. Appendix, p. 691.