52 THE ORIGIN OF ANIMAL WORSHIP. 



lias reached a stage of development such that it can con 

 vey the notion of naming, and is able, therefore, to pre 

 serve traditions of human ancestry : the preservation of 

 such traditions being furthered by those corruptions of 

 tribal names which render them no longer suggestive of 

 the things they were derived from. It will result that the 

 individual will be known both as the son of such and 

 such a man by a mother whose name was so-and-so, and 

 also as the Crab, or the Bear, or the Whirlwind suppos 

 ing one of these to be his nickname. Such joint use of 

 nicknames and proper names occurs in every school. Now, 

 clearly, in advancing from the early state in which ances 

 tors become identified with the objects they are nick 

 named after, to the state in which there are proper names 

 that have lost their metaphorical meanings, there must be 

 passed through a state in which proper names, partially 

 settled only, may or may not be preserved, and in which 

 the new nicknames are still liable to be mistaken for act 

 ual names. Under such conditions there will arise (es 

 pecially in the case of a distinguished man) this seeming 

 ly-impossible combination of human parentage with the 

 possession of the non-human, or superhuman, attributes 

 of the thing which gave the nickname. Another anomaly 

 simultaneously disappears. The warrior may have, and 

 often will have, a variety of complimentary nicknames 

 &quot; the powerful one,&quot; &quot; the destroyer,&quot; etc. Supposing 

 his leading nickname has been the Sun, then when he 

 comes to be identified by tradition with the sun, it will 

 happen that the sun will acquire his alternative descrip 

 tive titles the swift one, the lion, the wolf titles not 

 obviously appropriate to the sun, but quite appropriate to 

 the warrior. Then there comes, too, an explanation of 

 the remaining trait of such myths. When this identifica 

 tion of conspicuous persons, male and female, with con- 



