MYTHOLOGIC PHILOSOPHY. 807 



may be left a " doubting Thomas " who believes that the highest stage 

 of psychotheism that is, monotheism was the original basis for the 

 philosophy of the world, and that all other forms are degeneracies 

 from that primitive and perfect state. If there be such a man left, to 

 him what I have to say about philosophy is blasphemy. 



Again, all students of comparative philosophy, or comparative my- 

 thology, or comparative religion, as you may please to approach this 

 subject from different points of view, recognize that there is something 

 else ; that there are philosophies, or mythologies, or religions, not in- 

 cluded in the two great groups. All that something else has been 

 vaguely called fetichisrn. I have divided it into two parts, hecasto- 

 theism and zootheism. The verity of zootheism as a stage of philos- 

 ophy rests on abundant evidence. In psychotheism it appears as 

 devilism in obedience to a well-known law of comparative theology, 

 viz., that the gods of a lower and superseded stage of culture often- 

 times become the devils of a higher stage. So in the very highest 

 stages of psychotheism we find beast-devils. In Norse mythology, we 

 have Fenris the wolf, and Jormungandur the serpent. Dragons ap- 

 pear in Greek mythology, the bull is an Egyptian god, a serpent is 

 found in the Zendavesta ; and was there not a scaly fellow in the 

 garden of Eden ? So common are these beast-demons in the higher 

 mythologies that they are used in every literature as rhetorical figures. 

 So we find, as a figure of speech, the great red dragon with seven heads 

 and ten horns, with tail that with one brush sweeps away a third of 

 the stars of heaven. And wherever we find nature-worship we find it 

 accompanied with beast-worship. In the study of higher philosophies, 

 having learned that lower philosophies often exist side by side with 

 them, we might legitimately conclude that a philosophy based upon 

 animal gods had existed previous to the development of physitheism ; 

 and philologic research leads to the same conclusion. But we are not 

 left to base this conclusion upon an induction only, for in the examina- 

 tion of savage philosophies we actually discover zootheism in all its 

 proportions. Many of the Indians of North America, and many of 

 South America, and many of the tribes of Africa, are found to be 

 zootheists. Their supreme gods are animals tigers, bears, wolves, 

 serpents, birds. Having discovered this, with a vast accumulation of 

 evidence, we are enabled to carry philosophy back one stage beyond 

 physitheism, and we can confidently assert that all of the philosophies 

 of civilization have come up through these three stages. 



And yet, there are fragments of philosojDhy discovered which are 

 not zootheistic, physitheistic, nor psychotheistic. "What are they? 

 We find running through all three stages of higher philosophy that 

 phenomena are sometimes explained by regarding them as the acts of 

 persons who do not belong to any of the classes of gods found in the 

 higher stages. We find fragments of philosophy everywhere which 

 seem to assume that all inanimate nature is animate : that 'mountains 



