Religion itself contributes to giving him this security, for he believes that it arms him with extended powers over nature. His rites are, in part, means destined to aid him in imposing his will upon the world. Thus, far from being due to the sentiment which men should have of their littleness before the universe, religions are rather inspired by the contrary sentiment. Even the most elevated and idealistic have the effect of reassuring men in their struggle with things: they teach that faith is, of itself, able "to move mountains," that is to say, to dominate the forces of nature. How could they give rise to this confidence if they had had their origin in a sensation of feebleness and impotency?
Finally, if the objects of nature really became sacred because of their imposing forms or the forces which they manifest, then the sun, the moon, the sky, the mountains, the sea, the winds, in a word, the great cosmic powers, should have been the first to be raised to this dignity; for there are no others more fitted to appeal to the senses and the imagination. But as a matter of fact, they were divinized but slowly. The first beings to which the cult is addressed — the proof will be found in the chapters which follow — are humble vegetables and animals, in relation to which men could at least claim an equality: they are ducks, rabbits, kangaroos, lizards, worms, frogs, etc. Their objective qualities surely were not the origin of the religious sentiments which they inspired.
135 This is undoubtedly what explains the sympathy which folk-lorists like Mannhardt have felt for animistic ideas. In popular religions as in inferior religions, these spiritual beings of a second order hold the first place.
136 In the essay entitled Comparative Mythology (pp. 47 ff).
137 Herabkunft des Feuers und Gōttertranks, Berlin, 1859 (a new edition was given by Ernst Kuhn in 1886). Cf. Der Schuss des Wilden Jägers auf den Sonnen-hirsch, Zeitschrift f. d. Phil., I, 1869, pp. 89-169. Entwickelungsstufen des Mythus, Abhandl. d. Berl. Akad., 1873.
138 Der Ursprung der Mythologie, Berlin, 1860.
139 In his book Hercule et Cacus. Étude de mythologie comparée. Max Müller's Comparative Mythology is there signalized as a work "which marks a new epoch in the history of Mythology" (p. 12).
140 Die Griechischen Kulte und Mythen, I, p. 78.
141 Among others who have adopted this conception may be cited Renan. See his Nouvelles études d'histoire religieuse, 1884, p. 31.
142 Aside from the Comparative Mythology, the works where Max Müller has exposed his general theories on religion are: Hibbert Lectures (1878) under the title The Origin and Development of Religion; Natural Religion (1889); Physical Religion (1890); Anthropological Religion (1892); Theosophy, or Psychological Religion (1893); Contributions to the Science of Mythology (1897). Since his mythological theories are closely related to his philosophy of language, these works should be consulted in connection with the ones consecrated to language or logic, especially Lectures on the Science of Language, and The Science of Thought.
143 Natural Religion, p. 114.
144 Physical Religion, pp. 119-120.
145 Ibid., p. 121; cf. p. 304.
146 Natural Religion, pp. 121 ff., and 149-155.
147 "The overwhelming pressure of the infinite" (ibid., p. 138).
148 Ibid., pp. 195-196.
149 Max Müller even goes so far as to say that until thought has passed this first stage, it has very few of the characteristics which we now attribute to religion (Physic. Rel., p. 120).
150 Physic. Rel., p. 128.
151 The Science of Thought, p. 30.
152 Natural Religion, pp. 393 ff.
153 Physic. Rel., p. 133; The Science of Thought, p. 219; Lectures on the Science of Language, II, pp. 1 ff.
154 The Science of Thought, p. 272.
155 The Science of Thought, I, p. 327; Physic. Rel., pp. 125 ff.
156 Mélanges de mythologie et de linguistique, p. 8.
157 Anthropological Religion, pp. 128-130.
158 This explanation is not as good as that of Tylor. According to Max Müller, men could not admit that life stopped with death; therefore they concluded that there were two beings within them, one of which survived the body. But it is hard to see what made them think that life continued after the body was decomposed.
159 For the details, see Anthrop. Rel., pp. 351 ff.
160 Anthrop. Rel., p. 130. — This is what keeps Max Müller from considering Christianity the climax of all this development. The religion of ancestors, he says, supposes that there is something divine in man. Now is that idea not the one at the basis of the teaching of Christ? (ibid., pp. 378 ff.). It is useless to insist upon the strangeness of the conception which makes Christianity the latest of the cults of the dead.
161 See the discussion of the hypothesis in Gruppe, Griechishen Kulte und Mythen, pp. 79-184.
162 See Meillet, Introduction à l'étude comparative des langues indo-européennes, p. 119.
163 Oldenberg, Die Religion des Vedas, pp. 59 ff.; Meillet, Le dieu Iranien Mythra, in Journal Asiatique, X, No. 1, July-August, 1907, pp. 143 ff.
