DARWIN MEMORIAL. 61 



Among all tribes and nations of the globe, and in all times, men 

 have sought to discover the whence, the how, and the why, of all 

 things — the phenomena of the universe. 



The explanation of the universe is philosophy. 



The philosophies of the world may be classified as — 



I. Mythologic. 

 II. Metaphysic. 

 III. Scientific. 



Mythology and science constitute the two grand systems of 

 philosophy, but between them stands metaphysic philosophy as a 

 stepping-stone from the former to the latter. 



In the lower stages of society philosophy is purely mythologic. 

 All savage and barbaric peoples explain the phenomena of the uni- 

 verse by a system of myths. A mythology is always a growth, and 

 among every people there grows up by the employment of diverse 

 and superficial analogies — curious suggestions — a body of mythic 

 explanations which constitute its philosophy. 



Among the Wintuns of California the world is three-storied. 

 There is a world — a great chamber — above, and there is this world, 

 and a world below. The waters fall from the world above because 

 the sky, the floor of that upper world, leaks ; and the waters come 

 from the world below through the springs that issue from the flanks 

 of the dead volcanoes of that land ; so the waters from above and 

 the waters from below meet and flow down the great Sacramento to 

 the sea, where again they divide ; the waters from above taking their 

 way to their upper home, and the waters from below taking their 

 way to the lower world. 



The mountains were formed by the great mole-god, who crawled 

 under the land and upheaved the mountain ranges that stand on 

 either side of the Sacramento Valley. And so they explain all of 

 the phenomena of the universe, with which they are acquainted, 

 in a system of myths which constitutes the philosophy of the Win- 

 tuns. 



