30 MYTHOLOGY OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
this system, whatever may be the phenomenon observed, the philoso- 
pher asks, ‘‘ Whodoes it?” and ‘* Why?” andthe answer comes, “A god 
with his design.” The winds blow, and the interrogatory is answered, 
“« Bolus frees them from the cave to speed the ship of a friend, or destroy 
the vessel of a foe.” The actors in mythologic philosophy are gods. 
In the character of these gods four stages of philosophy may be dis- 
covered. In the lowest and earliest stage everything has life; every- 
thing is endowed with personality, will, and design; animals are en- 
dowed with all the wonderful attributes of mankind; all inanimate objects 
are believed to be animate ; trees think and speak; stones have loves and 
hates; hills and mountains, springs and rivers, and all the bright stars, 
have life—everything discovered objectively by the senses is looked 
upon subjectively by the philosopher and endowed with all the attributes 
supposed to be inherent in himself. In this stage of philosophy every- 
thing is a god. Let us call it hecastotheism. 
In the second stage men no longer attribute life indiscriminately to 
inanimate things; but the same powers and attributes recognized by 
subjective vision in man are attributed to the animals by which he is 
surrounded. No line of demarkation is drawn between man and beast; 
all are great beings endowed with wonderful attributes. Let us call this 
stage codtheism, when men worship beasts. All the phenomena of nature 
are the doings of these animal gods; all the facts of nature, all the phe- 
nomena of the known universe, all the institutions of humanity known 
to the philosophers of this stage, are accounted for in the mythologie 
history of these zodmorphic gods. 
In the third stage a wide gulf is placed between man and the lower 
animals. The animal gods are dethroned, and the powers and phenomena 
of nature are personified and deified. Let us call this stage physitheism. 
The gods are strictly anthropomorphic, having the form as well as the 
mental, moral, and social attributes of men. Thus we have a god of the 
sun, a god of the moon, a god of the air, a god of dawn, and a deity of 
the night. 
In the fourth stage, mental, moral, and social characteristics are per- 
sonified and deified. Thus we have a god of war, a god of love, a god 
of revelry, a god of plenty, and like personages who preside over the in- 
stitutions and occupations of mankind. Let us call this psychotheism. 
With the mental, moral, and social characteristics in these gods are asso- 
ciated the powers of nature; and they differ from nature-gods chiefly in 
that they have more distinct psychic characteristics. 
Psychotheism, by the processes of mental integration, developes in one 
direction into monotheism, and in the other into pantheism. When the 
powers of nature are held predominant in the minds of the philosophers 
through whose cogitations this evolution of theism is carried on, pan- 
theism, as the highest form of psychotheism, is the final result; but 
when the moral qualities are held in highest regard in the minds of the 
men in whom this process of evolution is carried on, monotheism, or a god 
