rs in the form of an
animal[451]), Siberia, Mexico, and elsewhere. In other cases they are
revered as incarnations of deceased men.[452] Where a species of animal
is supposed to represent a god, this view is probably to be regarded not
as a generalization from an individualistic to a specific conception (a
process too refined for savages), but as an attempt to carry over to the
animal world the idea of descent from a common ancestor combined with
the idea of a special creator for every family of animals.[453]

+252+. In the course of religious growth the beast-god may be replaced
or succeeded by an anthropomorphic god, and then the former is regarded
as sacred to the latter--the recollection of the beast form still
remains after the more refined conception has been reached, and the two,
closely connected in popular feeling, can be brought into harmony only
by making one subordinate to the other.[454] A certain element or flavor
of divinity clings to the beast a long time, but finally vanishes under
the light of better knowledge.

+253+. While the cases, very numerous, in which animals are associated
in worship with gods--in composite forms (as in Egypt, Babylonia, and
Assyria) or as symbols of deities or sacred to them--point probably to
early beast-cults, Egypt alone of the ancient civilized nations
maintained the worship of the living animal.[455] For the better
thinkers of Egypt beasts doubtless were incarnations or symbols of
deities; but the mass of the people appear to have regarded them as gods
in their own persons.

+254+. Reverence for animals persists in attenuated form in civilized
nations in various superstitions connected with them. Their appearances
and their cries are believed to portend success or disaster. The great
number of "signs" recognized and relied on by uneducated and educated
persons at the present day bear witness to the strong hold that the cult
of animals had on early man.[456]

+255+. It is in keeping with early ideas that savages often, perhaps
generally, ascribe the creation or construction of the world (so far as
they know it) to animals. The creation (whether by beasts or by other
beings) is not conceived of as produced out of nothing; there is always
preexisting material, the origin of which is not explained; primitive
thought seems not to have considered the possibility of a situation in
which nothing existed. The "creation" conceived of is the arrangement of
existing material int