se to
adopt. Indeed, the explanations offered would not have been of a kind to
stir any strong feeling; for in most cases they would have been merely
different stories as to the circumstances under which the rite first
came to be established, by the command or by the direct example of the
god. The rite, in short, was connected not with a dogma but with a myth.

In all the antique religions, mythology takes the place of dogma; that
is, the sacred lore of priests and people, so far as it does not consist
of mere rules for the performance of religious acts, assumes the form of
stories about the gods; and these stories afford the only explanation
that is offered of the precepts of religion and the prescribed rules of
ritual. But, strictly speaking, this mythology was no essential part of
ancient religion, for it had no sacred sanction and no binding force on
the worshippers. The myths connected with individual sanctuaries and
ceremonies were merely part of the apparatus of the worship; they served
to excite the fancy and sustain the interest of the worshipper; but he
was often offered a choice of several accounts of the same thing, and,
provided that he fulfilled the ritual with accuracy, no one cared what
he believed about its origin. Belief in a certain series of myths was
neither obligatory as a part of true religion, nor was it supposed that,
by believing, a man acquired religious merit and conciliated the favour
of the gods. What was obligatory or meritorious was the exact
performance of certain sacred acts prescribed by religious tradition.
This being so, it follows that mythology ought not to take the prominent
place that is too often assigned to it in the scientific study of
ancient faiths. So far as myths consist of explanations of ritual, their
value is altogether secondary, and it may be affirmed with confidence
that in almost every case the myth was derived from the ritual, and not
the ritual from the myth; for the ritual was fixed and the myth was
variable, the ritual was obligatory and faith in the myth was at the
discretion of the worshipper. The conclusion is, that in the study of
ancient religions we must begin, not with myth, but with ritual and
traditional usage.

Nor can it be fairly set against this conclusion, that there are certain
myths which are not mere explanations of traditional practices, but
exhibit the beginnings of larger religious speculation, or of an
attempt to systematise and reduce to o