Secondly, religious rites are living
commentaries on religious beliefs. At first they are rude
representations of the supposed doings of the gods. The Indian
rain-maker mounts to the roof of his hut, and rattling vigorously a dry
gourd containing pebbles, to represent the thunder, scatters water
through a reed on the ground beneath, as he imagines up above in the
clouds do the spirits of the storm. Every spring in ancient Delphi was
repeated in scenic ceremony the combat of Apollo and the Dragon, the
victory of the lord of bright summer over the demon of chilling winter.
Thus do forms and ceremonies reveal the meaning of mythology, and the
origin of its fables.
Let it not be objected that this proposed method of analysis assumes
that religions begin and develop under the operation of inflexible laws.
The soul is shackled by no fatalism. Formative influences there are,
deep seated, far reaching, escaped by few, but like those which of yore
astrologers imputed to the stars, they potently incline, they do not
coerce.
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