Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/30

4 have had a variety of notions in his mind, but among his earliest original conceptions is the idea of a kind, creative, Supreme Being, whom men may worship.” I have referred to possible totemism, teraphim-worship, tree-worship, and stone-worship, even in early Israel. I never dreamed of denying to the Australians similar departures from the belief in “a kind, creative, Supreme Being” (not that I know them to worship stones and trees), or any quantity of myths in which their Supreme Beings appear in every conceivable undignified figure and action. Consequently, none of Mr. Hartland’s extracts from the chronique scandaleuse of Bunjil or Baiame disproves my contention that the notion of “a kind, creative Supreme Being” is among the ideas of the Australians. “The mythology of the god is a kind of joke with no sacredness about it,” I said. “No doubt this is a very convenient way of treating awkward statements,” says Mr. Hartland. But what is all the puzzling part of mythology but “a kind of joke,” a series of irreverences towards the central religious conception at its best? And what is the puzzle of mythology but this “silly, senseless, and savage element,” as Mr. Max Müller says, puzzling just because so closely associated with the belief in beings who, at lowest, are dreaded and powerful?

Our own sacred writings include the idea of a kind, creative Supreme Being; but surely it is needless to point out that, as in Australia, contradictory statements also occur, both as to the moral and creative aspects. (Genesis, i. 27, ii. 7, 21; Luke iii. 38 (this text, of course, is not meant literally); James i. 13; 1 Kings xxii. 20-23.) Mr. Hartland says “the sublime conception of the creative fiat as set forth in the book of Genesis, and interpreted by Christian dogma, is the product of ages of civilisation.” Yet, despite these ages of civilisation, our sacred books contain contradictions of the idea of sheer