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INTRODUCTION TO MYTHOLOGY

important element of primitive religion ; for whereas ritual
often impresses an alien people as magical and therefore
inimical, and is not so readily borrowed, the wide transmission
of myth proves that it not only impresses the imagination of
the races among whom it has origin, but that it is able to
take hold of neighbouring and even distant peoples as well.
Akin to the first error is Robertson Smith's further fallacy
that ritual is prior in origin to myth in primitive religion. " It
may be affirmed with confidence," he says, "that the myth
was derived from the ritual, not the ritual from the myth."
Therefore the savage sacrifices with much involved ceremonial
to something concerning which he knows and has invented
nothing !

The CoNSERVATiSiM OF Childhood

That myth is sacred may be seen, if our conclusions are
correct, in a fact already employed to explain the fixed and
unchangeable character of the folk-tale. Children, it is
observed, listening to a traditional story do not approve of
any alteration in its plot or circumstances. Is this dislike —
one might almost say horror — of alteration in folk-tale a legacy
of the religious dread of any attempt to tamper with the tales
of the gods? If so, such a sentiment would only be likely
to arise in an environment where the idea of the sacred had
already made considerable headway.
