[170] Undoubtedly outside the real myths there were always fables which were not believed, or at least were not believed in the same way and to the same degree, and hence had no religious character. The line of demarcation between fables and myths is certainly floating and hard to determine. But this is no reason for making all myths stories, any more than we should dream of making all stories myths. There is at least one characteristic which in a number of cases suffices to differentiate the religious myth: that is its relation to the cult.
[171] See above, p. 28.
[172] More than that, in the language of Max Müller, there is a veritable abuse of words. Sensuous experience, he says, implies, at least in certain cases, "beyond the known, something unknown, something which I claim the liberty to call infinite" (Natural Rel., p. 195; cf. p. 218). The unknown is not necessarily the infinite, any more than the infinite is necessarily the unknown if it is in all points the same, and consequently like the part which we know. It would be necessary to prove that the part of it which we perceive differs in nature from that which we do not perceive.
[173] Max Müller involuntarily recognizes this in certain passages. He confesses that he sees little difference between Agni, the god of fire, and the notion of ether, by which the modern physicist explains light and heat (Phys. Rel., pp. 126 f.). Also, he connects the notion of divinity to that of agency (p. 138) or of a causality which is not natural and profane. The fact that religion represents the causes thus imagined, under the form of personal agents, is not enough to explain how they got a sacred character. A personal agent can be profane, and also, many religious forces are essentially impersonal.
[174] We shall see below, in speaking of the efficacy of rites and faith, how these illusions are to be explained (Bk. III, ch. ii).
[175] Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter.
[176] This idea was so common that even M. Réville continued to make America the classic land of totemism (Religions des peuples non civilisés, I, p. 242).
[177] Journals of Two Expeditions in North-West and Western Australia, II, p. 228.
[178] The Worship of Animals and Plants. Totems and Totemism (1869, 1870).
[179] This idea is found already very clearly expressed in a study by Gallatin entitled Synopsis of the Indian Tribes (Archæologia Americana, II, pp. 109 ff.), and in a notice by Morgan in the Cambrian Journal, 1860, p. 149.