ter, we will follow them in that enquiry.
But in this chapter we have to ask what light mythology throws upon
the idea man has had of his gods.

Before doing so, however, we cannot but notice that mythology and
polytheism go together. Fetishism does not produce any mythology.
Doubtless, the owner of a fetish which acts knows and can tell of the
wonderful things it has done. But those anecdotes do not get taken up
into the common stock of knowledge; nor are they handed down by the
common consciousness to all succeeding generations of the community.
Mythology, like language, is the work, and is a possession, of the
common consciousness.

Polydaemonism, like fetishism, does not produce mythology; but, for a
different reason. The beings worshipped in the period of polydaemonism
are beings who have not yet come to possess personal names, and
consequently cannot well have a personal history attached to them. The
difficulty is not indeed an absolute impossibility. Tales can be told,
and at a certain stage in the history of fiction, especially in the
pre-historic stage, tales are told, in which the hero has no proper
name: the period is 'once upon a time,' and the hero is 'a man'
_simpliciter_. But myths are not told about 'a god' _simpliciter_. In
mythology the hero of the myth is not 'a god,' in the sense of any god
you like, but this particular, specified god. And the reason is clear.
In fiction the artist creates the hero as well as the tale; and the
primitive teller of tales did not find it always necessary to invent a
name for the hero he created. The hero could, and did, get along for
some time without any proper name. But with mythology the case is
different. The personal being, superior to man, of whom the myth is
told, is not the creation of the teller of the tale: he is a being
known by the community to exist. He cannot therefore, when he is the
hero of a myth, be described as 'a god--any god you like.' Nor is the
myth a tale which could be told of any god whatever: if a myth is a
tale, at any rate it is a tale which can be told of none other god but
this. Indeed, a myth is not a tale: it is an incident--or string of
incidents--in the personal history of a particular person, or being,
superior to man.

It is then as polydaemonism passes into polytheism, as the beings of
the one come to acquire personal names and personal history, and so to
become the gods of the other, that mythology arises. It is under
polytheis