2 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



the Universe which are the philosophies of past, and 

 the legends of present, times. 



Fontenelle, a writer of the last century, shrewdly- 

 remarked that " all nations made the astounding part 

 of their myths while they were savage, and retained 

 them from custom and religious conservatism." For, 

 as Walter Bagehot argues in his brilliant little book 

 on Physics and Politics, and as all anthropological 

 research goes to prove, the lower races are non- 

 progressive both through fear and instinct. And the 

 majority of the members of higher races have not 

 escaped from the operation of the same causes. 

 Hence the persistence of coarse and grotesque ele- 

 ments in speculations wherein man has made grad- 

 ual approach to the truth of things; hence, too — • 

 the like phenomena having to be interpreted — the 

 similarity of the explanation of them. And as primi- 

 tive myth embodies primitive theology, primitive 

 morals, and primitive science, the history of beliefs 

 shows how few there be who have escaped from the 

 tyranny of that authority and sanctity with which 

 the lapse of time invests old ideas. 



Dissatisfaction is a necessary condition of pro- 

 gress; and dissatisfaction involves opposition. As 

 Grant Allen puts it, in one of his most felicitous 

 poems: 



If systems that be are the order of God, 

 Revolt is a part of the order. 



Hence a stage in the history of certain peoples when, 

 in questioning what is commonly accepted, intellec- 



