MCGEEj PHILOSOPHIES AND BELIEFS 181 



the rumbling of (luoits pitched by the shades of oUItiine giants, as 

 among ditfereut Aniericau tribes. Eventually all the leading agencies 

 • if nature are personified in antbropic form, and retain the human attri- 

 butes of caprice, love, and hate which are found in the minds of the 

 believers. 



Psychotheism is born of physitheism as the anthropomorphic element 

 in the concept of natural agency gradually fades; but since none of 

 tlie aborigines of the United States had passed into the higher stage, 

 the mode of transition does not require consideration. 



It is to be borne in mind that throughout the course of development 

 of belief, from the beginning of hecastotheism into the borderland of 

 psychotheism, the dominant characteristic is the vague notion of mys-- 

 tery. At first the mystery pervades all things and extends in all direc- 

 tions, representing an indefinite ideal world, which is the counterpart 

 of the real world with the addition of human qualities. Gradually the 

 mystery segregates, deepening with respect to animals and disappearing 

 with respect to inanimate things; and at length the slowly changing 

 mysteries shape themselves into semiabstractions having a strong 

 anthropic cast, while the remainder of the earth and the things thereof 

 gradually become real, though they remain under the spell and domin- 

 ion of the mysterious. Tlius at every stage the primitive believer is a 

 mystic — a latalist in one stage, a beast worshiper in another, a thau- 

 maturgist in a third, yet ever and first of all a mystic. It is also to be 

 borne in mind (and the more firmly because of a widespread misappre- 

 hension) that the jn-imitive believer, up to the highest stage attained 

 by the North American Indian, is not a psychotheist, much less a mou- 

 otheist. His " Great Spirit" is simply a great mystery, perhaps vaguely 

 anthropomorphic, ofteuer zoomorphic, yet not a spirit, wliich he is 

 unable to conceive save by retiection of the white man's concept and 

 inquiry; and his departed spirit is but a shade, much like that of the 

 ancient Gieeks, the associate and often the inferior of animal shades. 



While the four stages in development of belief are fundamentally 

 distinct, they nevertheless overlap in such manner as apparently, and 

 in a measure really, to coexist and blend. Culture progress is slow. 

 In biotic development the eftect of beneficial modification is felt imme- 

 diately, and the modified organs or organisms are stimulated and 

 strengthened cumulatively, while the unmodified are enfeebled and 

 paralyzed cunuilatively through inactivity and quickly jiass toward 

 atrophy and extinction. Conversely in demotic development, which 

 is characterized by the j^ersistence of the organisms and by the elimi- 

 nation of the bad and the preservation of the good among qualities 

 only, there is a constant tendency toward retardation of progress; for 

 in savagery and barbarism as in civilization, age commonly produces 

 conservatism, and at the same time brings responsibility for the con- 

 duct of old and young, so that modification, howsoever beneficial, is 



