Chapter 1

SYSTEMS OF MYTHOLOGY.

Contents:

Definitions of religion--Contradictory evidence--"Belief in spiritual beings"--Objection to Mr. Tylor's definition--Definition as regards this argument--Problem: the contradiction between religion and myth--Two human moods--Examples--Case of Greece-- Ancient mythologists--Criticism by Eusebius--Modern mythological systems--Mr. Max Muller--Mannhardt.

The word "Religion" may be, and has been, employed in many different senses, and with a perplexing width of significance. No attempt to define the word is likely to be quite satisfactory, but almost any definition may serve the purpose of an argument, if the writer who employs it states his meaning frankly and adheres to it steadily. An example of the confusions which may arise from the use of the term "religion" is familiar to students. Dr. J. D. Lang wrote concerning the native races of Australia: "They have nothing whatever of the character of religion, or of religious observances, to distinguish them from the beasts that perish". Yet in the same book Dr. Lang published evidence assigning to the natives belief in "Turramullun, the chief of demons, who is the author of disease, mischief and wisdom".[1] The belief in a superhuman author of "disease, mischief and wisdom" is certainly a religious belief not conspicuously held by "the beasts"; yet all religion was denied to the Australians by the very author who prints (in however erroneous a style) an account of part of their creed. This writer merely inherited the old missionary habit of speaking about the god of a non-Christian people as a "demon" or an "evil spirit".

[1] See Primitive Culture, second edition, i. 419.

Dr. Lang's negative opinion was contradicted in testimony published by himself, an appendix by the Rev. Mr. Ridley, containing evidence of the belief in Baiame. "Those who have learned that 'God' is the name by which we speak of the Creator, say that Baiame is God."[1]

[1] Lang's Queensland, p. 445, 1861.

* * * * * * *

As "a minimum definition of religion," Mr. Tylor has suggested "the belief in spiritual beings". Against this it may be urged that, while we have no definite certainty that any race of men is destitute of belief in spiritual beings, yet certain moral and creative deities of low races do not seem to be envisaged as "spiritual" at all. They are regarded as EXISTENCES, as BEINGS, unconditioned by Time, Space, or Death, and nobody appears to have put the purely metaphysical question, "Are these beings spiritual or material?"[1] Now, if a race were discovered which believed in such beings, yet had no faith in spirits, that race could not be called irreligious, as it would have to be called in Mr. Tylor's "minimum definition". Almost certainly, no race in this