38 MYTHOLOGY OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
to do with the relations. which exist between the gods and ae is the 
legitimate oftspring of mythologic philosophy. 
Thus we see that out of mythologic philosophy, as Sranenee of the 
great tree itself, there grow ancientism, theistic society, spiritism, thau- 
maturgics, mythic tales, and religion. 
THE COURSE OF EVOLUTION IN MYTHOLOGIC PHILOSO- 
PHY. 
I shall now give a summary characterization of zodtheism, then call 
attention to some of the relics of hecastotheism found therein, and pro- 
ceed with a brief statement of the higher stages of theism. The appar- 
ent and easily accessible is studied first. In botany, the trees and the 
conspicuous flowering plants of garden, field, and plain were first known, 
and then all other plants were vaguely epi as weeds; but, since 
the most conspicuous phenogamous plants were first studied, ma vast 
numbers of new orders, new genera, and new species have been discoy- 
ered, in the progress of research, to the lowest cryptogams ! 
In the study of ethnology we first recognized the more civilized races. 
The Aryan, Hamites, Shemites, and Chinese, and the rest were the 
weeds of humanity—the barbarian and savage, sometimes called Tura- 
nians. But, when we come carefully to study these lower people, what 
numbers of races are discovered! In North America alone we have 
more than seventy-five—seventy-five stocks of people speaking seventy- 
five stocks of language, and some single stocks embracing many distinct 
languages and dialects. The languages of the Algonkian family are as 
diverse as the Indo-European tongues. So are the languages of the 
Dakotans, the Shoshonians, the Tinnéans, and others; so that in North 
America we have more than five hundred nenness spoken to-day. 
Each linguistic stock is found to have a philosophy of its own, and each 
stock as many branches of philosophy as it has languages and dialects. 
North America presents a magnificent field for the study of savage and 
barbaric philosophies. ; 
This vast region of thought has been explored only by a few adven- 
turous travelers in the world of science. No thoreugh survey of any part 
has been made. Yet the general outlines of North American philosophy 
are known, but the exact positions, the details, are all yet to be filled 
in—as the geography of the general outline of North America is known 
by exploration, but the exact positions and details’ of topography are 
yet to be filled in as the result of careful survey. Myths of the Algon- 
kian stock are found in many a volume of Americana, the best of which 
were recorded by the early missionaries who came from Europe, though 
we find some of them, mixed with turbid speculations, in the writings of 
Schooleraft. Many of the myths of the Indians of the south, in that 
