HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF MYTH AND SCIENCE. 179 



doctrine rejected by the Semites in whom it had its 

 origin. Many and various causes have been assigned 

 for this rapid diffusion of the new doctrine, and the 

 old Greek and Latin fathers ascribed it to the 

 fact that men's minds had been naturally and provi- 

 dentially prepared for it. It was attributed by others 

 to the miseries and sufferings of the slave popula- 

 tion, and of the poor, who found a sweet illusion and 

 comfort in the Christian hope of a world beyond the 

 grave. Some, again, suggest the omnipotent will of 

 a tyrant, or the extreme ignorance of the common 

 and barbarous people. Although all these causes had 

 a partial effect, they were secondary and accidental. 

 The true and unique cause lay deeper, in the intel- 

 lectual constitution of the race to which Christianity 

 was preached; just as physiological characteristics 

 are reproduced in the species until they become 

 permanent, so do intellectual inclinations become 

 engrained in the nature. 



"We have said that our race is aesthetically more 

 mythological than all others. If we consider the 

 religious teaching of various Aryan peoples, from the 

 most primitive Vedic idolatry- to the successive re- 

 ligions of Brahma and Zend, of the Celts, Greeks, 

 Latins, Germans, and Slavs, we shall see how widely 

 they differ from the religious conceptions and ideas of 

 other races. The vein of fanciful creations is inex- 

 haustible, and there is a wealth of symbolic combi- 

 nations and a profusion of celestial and semi-celestial 



