58 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Lerited from generation to generation, until we have a cumulation of 

 effects. 



The propagation of opinions by affirmation, the cultivation of the 

 propensity to believe that which has been affirmed many times, let us 

 call affirmatization. If the world's opinions were governed only by 

 the principles of mythologic philosophy, affirmatization would become 

 so powerful that nothing would be believed but the anciently affirmed. 

 Men would come to know new knowledge. Society would stand still 

 listening to the wisdom of the fathers. But the power of affirmatiza- 

 tion is steadily undermined by science. 



And, still again, the institutions of society conform to its philosophy. 

 The explanation of things always includes the origin of human insti- 

 tutions. So the welfare of society is based on philosophy, and the 

 venerable sayings which constitute philosophy are thus held as sacred. 

 So ancientism is developed from accumulated life-experiences ; by the 

 growth of story in repeated narration ; by the steadily increasing 

 130wer of affirmatization, and by respect for the authority upon which 

 the institutions of society are based ; all accumulating as they come 

 down the generations. That we do thus inherit effects we know, for 

 has it not been affirmed in the Book that "the fathers have eaten 

 grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge " ? As men come to 

 believe that the "long ago" was better than the "now," and the dead 

 were better than the living, then philosophy must necessarily include 

 a theory of degeneracy, which is a part of ancientism. 



Theistic Society. — Again, the actors in mythologic philosophy are 

 personages, and we always find them organized in societies. The 

 social organization of mythology is always found to be essentially 

 identical with the social organization of the people who entertain the 

 philosophy. The gods are husbands and wives, and parents and chil- 

 dren, and the gods have an organized government. This gives us 

 theistic society, and we can not properly characterize a theism without 

 taking its mythic society into consideration. 



Spiritism. — In the earliest stages of society of which Ave have 

 practical knowledge by acquaintance with the people themselves, a 

 belief in the existence of spirits prevails — a shade, an immaterial ex- 

 istence, which is the duplicate of the material personage. The genesis 

 of this belief is complex. The workings of the human mind during 

 periods of unconsciousness lead to opinions that are enforced by many 

 physical phenomena. 



First, we have the activities of the mind during sleep, when the 

 man seems to go out from himself, to converse with his friends, to 

 witness strajage scenes, and to have many wonderful experiences. 

 Thus the man seems to have lived an eventful life, when his body was, 

 in fact, quiescent and unconscious. Memories of scenes and activities 

 in former days, and the inherited memories of scenes witnessed and 

 actions performed by ancestors, are blended in strange confusion by 



