levelling up" prevails
even in their view of the vegetable world, and has left traces (as we
have seen) in their myths.

(1) Gill, Myths and Songs, p. 79.

(2) Myths of the Beginning of Things.

Turning now to the mythology of Greece, we see that the same rule holds
good. Metamorphosis into plants and flowers is extremely common; the
instances of Daphne, Myrrha, Hyacinth, Narcissus and the sisters of
Phaethon at once occur to the memory.

Most of those myths in which everything in Nature becomes personal and
human, while all persons may become anything in Nature, we explain,
then, as survivals or imitations of tales conceived when men were in
the savage intellectual condition. In that stage, as we demonstrated, no
line is drawn between things animate and inanimate, dumb or "articulate
speaking," organic or inorganic, personal or impersonal. Such a mental
stage, again, is reflected in the nature-myths, many of which are merely
"aetiological,"--assign a cause, that is, for phenomena, and satisfy an
indolent and credulous curiosity.

We may be asked again, "But how did this intellectual condition come to
exist?" To answer that is no part of our business; for us it is enough
to trace myth, or a certain element in myth, to a demonstrable and
actual stage of thought. But this stage, which is constantly found to
survive in the minds of children, is thus explained or described by Hume
in his Essay on Natural Religion: "There is an universal tendency in
mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every
object those qualities... of which they are intimately conscious".(1)
Now they believe themselves to be conscious of magical and supernatural
powers, which they do not, of course, possess. These powers of effecting
metamorphosis, of "shape-shifting," of flying, of becoming invisible
at will, of conversing with the dead, of miraculously healing the sick,
savages pass on to their gods (as will be shown in a later chapter),
and the gods of myth survive and retain the miraculous gifts after their
worshippers (become more reasonable) have quite forgotten that they
themselves once claimed similar endowments. So far, then, it has
been shown that savage fancy, wherever studied, is wild; that savage
curiosity is keen; that savage credulity is practically boundless. These
considerations explain the existence of savage myths of sun, stars,
beasts, plants and stones; similar myths fill Greek legend and the
San