river run, something makes this star shine, something paints
the blossom of that flower. They were all spirits. That was the first
religion of mankind--fetichism--and in everything that lived,
everything that produced an effect upon them, they said: "This is a
spirit that lives within." That is called the lowest phase of
religious thought, and yet it is quite the highest phase of religious
thought. One by one these little spirits died. One by one nonentities
took their places, and last of all we have one infinite fetich that
takes the place of all others. Now, what makes the river run? We say
the attraction of gravitation, and we know no more about that than we
do about this fetich. What makes the tree grow? The principle of
life--vital forces. These are simply phrases, simply names of
ignorance. Nobody knows what makes the river run, what makes the trees
grow, why the flowers burst and bloom--nobody knows why the stars
shine, and probably nobody ever will know.

There are two horizons that have never been passed by man--origin and
destiny. All human knowledge is confined to the diameter of that
circle. All religions rest on supposed facts beyond the circumference
of the absolutely known. What next? The next thing that came in the
world--the next man--was the mythmaker. He gave to these little spirits
human passions; he clothed ghosts in flesh; he warmed that flesh with
blood, and in that blood he put desire--motive. And the myths were
born, and were only produced through the fact of the impressions that
nature makes upon the brain of man. They were every one a natural
production, and let me say here, tonight, that what men call
monstrosities are only natural productions. Every religion has grown
just as naturally as the grass; every one, as I said before, and it
cannot be said too often, has been naturally produced. All the
Christs, all the gods and goddesses, all the furies and fairies, all
the mingling of the beastly and human, were all produced by the
impressions of nature upon the brain of man--by the rise of the sun,
the silver dawn, the golden sunset, the birth and death of day, the
change of seasons, the lightning, the storm, the beautiful bow--all
these produced within the brain of man all myths, and they are all
natural productions.

There have been certain myths universal among men. Gardens of Eden
have been absolutely universal--the golden age, which is absolutely the
same thing. And w