NATURE MYTHS AND ALLEGORIES 309 



genus ? Catholic Christianity has remained monotheistic. 

 Yet it allows a hierarchy of angels, a hierarchy of devils, and 

 a whole multitude of saints, each one of whom personifies and 

 symbolises some specific form of moral excellence. I am not 

 contending, as I have already intimated, for the restitution of 

 polytheism in its cruder forms, for the belief in angels, saints, 

 and devils. I wish only to remind the present generation 

 that, just as the makers of nature myths had a clearer intui- 

 tion into the spirituality of the universe than we have now, 

 so the makers of allegorical myths had a more vivid sense 

 than we have of the spiritual potencies which surround us in 

 the collective moral atmosphere of humanity at large. 



The chief defects of allegory in mediaeval and modern times 

 are due to the want of real belief in it by those who make it. 

 Neither Christianity nor science will suffer us to accept the 

 pagan point of view here any more than in the case of nature 

 myths. Instead, therefore, of forming an essential part of 

 religion, allegory is confined to poetry and plastic art, where 

 it has hitherto lacked substantiality and conviction. The 

 modern poet and the artist, though they treat of temperance 

 or sloth as personalities, imagine that they are but using 

 figures. They do not therefore put either their heart or their 

 faith into their creation. Yet if we could but come to think 

 of lust and anger, chastity and temperance, remorse and 

 revenge, forgiveness and repentance, not as mere abstractions 

 from ourselves, but as powers external to our soul, endowed 

 with penetrative force to influence our lives, this would 

 render the inner drama of the moral consciousness more 

 real and poignant. To do so with absolute belief in these 

 ideas as agencies independent of ourselves is perhaps im- 

 possible ; just as it is impossible to believe again in nymphs 

 and fauns. Polytheism cannot be resuscitated, and a recur- 

 rence to demonolatry would imply the abdication of the 

 reason. Still, in those points where art and poetry touch 

 ethics, it would be of benefit to humane culture if we could 

 resume the habit of contemplating the broader species of our 

 spiritual qualities in forms of personality adapted to their 

 several essences. Possibly the sculpture and the painting 



