ods and goddesses had actually once been men and women,
historical characters round whom a halo of romance and remoteness
had gathered. Later still, a school has arisen which thinks little of
sungods, and pays more attention to Earth and Nature spirits, to gnomes
and demons and vegetation-sprites, and to the processes of Magic by
which these (so it was supposed) could be enlisted in man's service if
friendly, or exorcised if hostile.

(1) This extraordinary book, though carelessly composed and
containing many unproven statements, was on the whole on the right
lines. But it raised a storm of opposition--the more so because its
author was a clergyman! He was ejected from the ministry, of course, and
was sent to prison twice.

It is easy to see of course that there is some truth in ALL these
explanations; but naturally each school for the time being makes the
most of its own contention. Mr. J. M. Robertson (Pagan Christs and
Christianity and Mythology), who has done such fine work in this field,
(1) relies chiefly on the solar and astronomical origins, though he does
not altogether deny the others; Dr. Frazer, on the other hand--whose
great work, The Golden Bough, is a monumental collection of primitive
customs, and will be an inexhaustible quarry for all future students--is
apparently very little concerned with theories about the Sun and the
stars, but concentrates his attention on the collection of innumerable
details (2) of rites, chiefly magical, connected with food and
vegetation. Still later writers, like S. Reinach, Jane Harrison and
E. A. Crowley, being mainly occupied with customs of very primitive
peoples, like the Pelasgian Greeks or the Australian aborigines, have
confined themselves (necessarily) even more to Magic and Witchcraft.

(1) If only he did not waste so much time, and so needlessly, in
slaughtering opponents!

(2) To such a degree, indeed, that sometimes the connecting clue
of the argument seems to be lost.

Meanwhile the Christian Church from these speculations has kept itself
severely apart--as of course representing a unique and divine revelation
little concerned or interested in such heathenisms; and moreover (in
this country at any rate) has managed to persuade the general public
of its own divine uniqueness to such a degree that few people, even
nowadays, realize that it has sprung from just the same root as
Paganism, and that it shares by far the most part of its doctrines and
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