thical lines.
A myth, by turning phenomena into expressions of thought and passion,
teaches man to look for models and goals of action in that external
world where reason can find nothing but instruments and materials.

CHAPTER X

PIETY

[Sidenote: The core of religion not theoretical.]

Hebraism is a striking example of a religion tending to discard
mythology and magic. It was a Hebraising apostle who said that true
religion and undefiled was to visit the fatherless and the widow, and do
other works of mercy. Although a complete religion can hardly remain
without theoretic and ritual expression, we must remember that after all
religion has other aspects less conspicuous, perhaps, than its
mythology, but often more worthy of respect. If religion be, as we have
assumed, an imaginative symbol for the Life of Reason, it should contain
not only symbolic ideas and rites, but also symbolic sentiments and
duties. And so it everywhere does in a notable fashion. Piety and
spirituality are phases of religion no less important than mythology, or
than those metaphysical spectres with which mythology terminates. It is
therefore time we should quite explicitly turn from religious ideas to
religious emotions, from imaginative history and science to imaginative
morals.

Piety, in its nobler and Roman sense, may be said to mean man's
reverent attachment to the sources of his being and the steadying of his
life by that attachment. A soul is but the last bubble of a long
fermentation in the world. If we wish to live associated with permanent
racial interests we must plant ourselves on a broad historic and human
foundation, we must absorb and interpret the past which has made us, so
that we may hand down its heritage reinforced, if possible, and in no
way undermined or denaturalised. This consciousness that the human
spirit is derived and responsible, that all its functions are heritages
and trusts, involves a sentiment of gratitude and duty which we may call
piety.

[Sidenote: Loyalty to the sources of our being.]

The true objects of piety are, of course, those on which life and its
interests really depend: parents first, then family, ancestors, and
country; finally, humanity at large and the whole natural cosmos. But
had a lay sentiment toward these forces been fostered by clear knowledge
of their nature and relation to ourselves, the dutifulness or cosmic
emotion thereby aroused would have remained purely moral and his