the power of will, for we find that they can think their
arrows to the hearts of their enemies; mountains are overthrown by
thought, and thoughts are projected into other minds. Such are the
thaumaturgics of mythologic philosophy.

_Mythic tales._--Early man having created through the development of his
philosophy a host of personages, these gods must have a history. A part
of that history, and the most important part to us as students of
philosophy, is created in the very act of creating the gods themselves.
I mean that portion of their history which relates to the operations of
nature, for the gods were created to account for those things. But to
this is added much else of adventure. The gods love as men love, and go
in quest of mates. The gods hate as men hate, and fight in single combat
or engage in mythic battles; and the history of these adventures
impelled by love and hate, and all other passions and purposes with
which men are endowed, all woven into a complex tissue with their doings
in carrying out the operations of nature, constitutes the web and woof
of mythology.

_Religion._--Again, as human welfare is deeply involved in the
operations of nature, man's chief interest is in the gods. In this
interest religion originates. Man, impelled by his own volition, guided
by his own purposes, aspires to a greater happiness, and endeavor
follows endeavor, but at every step his progress is impeded; his own
powers fail before the greater powers of nature; his powers are pygmies,
nature's powers are giants, and to him these giants are gods with wills
and purposes of their own, and he sees that man in his weakness can
succeed only by allying himself with the gods. Hence, impelled by this
philosophy, man must have communion with the gods, and in this communion
he must influence them to work for himself. Hence, religion, which has
to do with the relations which exist between the gods and man, is the
legitimate offspring of mythologic philosophy.

Thus we see that out of mythologic philosophy, as branches of the great
tree itself, there grow ancientism, theistic society, spiritism,
thaumaturgics, mythic tales, and religion.

_THE COURSE OF EVOLUTION IN MYTHOLOGIC PHILOSOPHY._

I shall now give a summary characterization of zooetheism, then call
attention to some of the relics of hecastotheism found therein, and
proceed with a brief statement of the higher stages of theism. The
apparent and easily accessible i