pass from their initial state of simplicity to their ultimate state of
complexity.

Originally one who was believed by himself and others to have power
over demons--the mystery-man or medicine-man--using coercive methods
to expel disease-producing spirits, stood in the place of doctor; and
when his appliances, at first supposed to act supernaturally, came to
be understood as acting naturally, his office eventually lost its
priestly character altogether: the resulting physician class,
originally uniform, eventually dividing into distinguishable
subclasses while acquiring a definite embodiment.

Less early, because implying more developed groups, arose those who as
exhibitors of joy, now in the presence of the living ruler and now in
the supposed presence of the deceased ruler, were at first
simultaneously singers and dancers, and, becoming specialized from the
people at large, presently became distinct from one another; whence,
in course of time, two groups of professionals, whose official
laudations, political or religious, extended in their range and
multiplied in their kinds. And then by like steps were separated from
one another vocal and instrumental musicians, and eventually
composers; within which classes also there arose subdivisions.

Ovations, now to the living king and now to the dead king, while
taking saltatory and musical forms, took also verbal forms, originally
spontaneous and irregular, but presently studied and measured;
whence, first, the unrhythmical speech of the orator, which under
higher emotional excitement grew into the rhythmical speech of the
priest poet, chanting verses--verses that finally became established
hymns of praise. Meanwhile from accompanying rude imitations of the
hero's acts, performed now by one and now by several, grew dramatic
representations, which, little by little elaborated, fell under the
regulation of a chief actor, who prefigured the playwright. And out of
these germs, all pertaining to worship, came eventually the various
professions of poets, actors, dramatists, and the subdivisions of
these.

The great deeds of the hero god, recited, chanted, or sung, and
mimetically rendered, naturally came to be supplemented by details, so
growing into accounts of his life; and thus the priest poet gave
origin to the biographer, whose narratives, being extended to less
sacred personages, became secularized. Stories of the apotheosized
chief or king, joined with stories of his