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 passions, and carried their personages back to a period of peaceful and innocent chaos, when there was no motive as yet in existence. After awhile the shock came. The motive appeared in the form of revenge for acts done through cupidity or ignorance; strife began, and never left the world of the gods till one quota of them was turned into animals, plants, heavenly bodies, everything in the universe, and the other went away unchanged to a place of happy enjoyment.

All myths have the same origin, and all run parallel up to a certain point, which may be taken as the point to which the least-developed people have risen. After this the number in the company decreases till the Aryan mythology in its highest development stands alone, containing myths and myth-conceptions of the loftiest and purest character connected with religions of Europe and Asia.

It is to the explanation of the Aryan mythology that we are to turn our efforts, and in explaining it, create a science. In this work there is no mythology that will not bear its part, for the highest forms of Aryan myth-thought have beginnings as simple as those of the lowliest race on earth. These Aryan beginnings are partly preserved,