Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/188

 166 omnipotence. The concept of a great Maker is, of course, awe-inspiring, because of the power it implies and of the mystery surrounding the operations of such a being. Some degree of interest and benevolence towards that which he has made is also, it seems, unavoidably associated with even the simplest idea of a Maker. Such a being must thus have been relatively exalted.

What modifications would this idea undergo when it passed beyond the gifted individuals who had conceived it and became the property of every tribesman, however brutish and ignoble? Undoubtedly there would occur the kind of modifications that history records in the case of more recent gods: they are transformed into beings more nearly like the worshippers themselves. But this process does not necessarily imply the deterioration of the people. The gods have been debased, but the people themselves have been raised to a higher level by these lofty notions, even though somewhat corrupted. This degrading process is the natural unavoidable method by which the masses gradually rise towards the level of those who have set for them unattainable ideals. Thus it is that the return to origins is frequently a progress.

In the case before us, special factors probably made the degrading process speedier and more irresistible. The exalted Maker found himself, in the mind of the people, in company with other superhuman beings of much humbler extraction. Even though one disregards the possibility of the personification of natural events, one must in any case reckon with the belief in the beings suggested by visions, temporary loss of consciousness, and other similar occurrences. Since these beings are human doubles, they may possess all the meanness and cruelty of the lowest of men. Their power, though not definitely known, is sufficient to excite fear, but not in most cases great enough to inspire awe. When associated with the ever-present, troublesome doubles, and the many petty spirits conceived in the same