him, the tone of the
worship is affected by the divine character thus ascribed to him. But in
general, as men, in worship proper, approach a deity to get some
advantage from him, the appeal is to him directly without regard to
ceremonies or minute dogmas. Savages, though in theory they may make a
god to be an animal or a plant, come to him devoutly as a superior being
who can grant their requests. In higher religions the deity addressed is
for the moment an omnipotent friend standing apart from the stories told
of him. Rival sects lose sight of their differences in the presence of
needs that drive them to God for help. Prayer is a religious
unifier--communion with the Deity is an individual experience in which
all men stand on common ground, where ritual and dogmatic accessories
tend to fade or to disappear.

+881+. Long after myths in their original forms have ceased to be
believed they persist in the form of "fairy tales," which retain
something of the old supernatural framework, but sink into mere stories
for amusement.[1534]

But fairy tales are not the only form in which ancient myths persist.
Myths have played their prominent part in the history of religion for
the reason that they embody the conception of the tangible supernatural
in a vivid and dramatic way. To this personalization and socialization
of the supernatural men have continued to cling up to the present time;
the mass of men demand not only the presence of the supernatural as
protection and guidance, but also the realization of it in objective
form. This objectiveness was useful and necessary in early times, and
the demand for it remains in periods of advanced civilization. In the
reigning religions of the world at the present day myths continue to
hold their place and to exercise their influence,[1535] the more that in
the course of time they become fused with the constantly advancing
ethical and spiritual thought of the communities in which they exist.
The tendency appears to be to minimize, under the influence of general
enlightenment, the crude supernatural parts of such combinations, to
exalt the moral and spiritual, and to allegorize or rationalize the
rest. But along with such process of rationalization the mythical form
is maintained and continues to be a powerful element in the general
structure of religious opinion and life.

CHAPTER VIII

MAGIC AND DIVINATION

+882+. The regulation of relations with the superhuman world has be