in abstruse and as yet imperfectly developed physiological theories; to them, a ram is — a beast of certain shape. They see his form, but not the pulsating force which constitutes his life; and, of all that the enthusiast has told them, they remember nothing, except that when they say their prayers they are to look at a ram. From that to the worship of a ram-god is an easy step for the unthinking multitude.
When the sacred beast dies, Superstition makes of him a mummy, so as to preserve as much of him as can be preserved. The Seer orders him to be burned in honour of The Unseen Giver of Life. The masses attach superstitious ideas to the very fire that consumes the offering. The Seer orders that part of the flesh shall be consumed, not by the fire, but by the very worshippers; the masses make the meal a superstitious observance. Some Seer tries to show that the important thing in the beast is not his death, but the lessons drawn from the palpitating entrails which reveal the secret of life; the next generation declares that the Prophet drew auguries from the entrails.
Another Seer tells how mere tension on the lessons of the past is idolatrous and barren, and mere following of one's personal inspirations is dangerous and misleading; that he alone is a true Prophet by whose head converge the two streams of instruction, inspiration and tradition, as two birds may fly from distant points of the horizon.[1] Posterity says that the great man of old taught how to gather knowledge from the flight of birds. And so on, ever round and round the same weary circle, the Seers rolling up the Sisyphus-stone towards
- ↑ Odin's birds were "Thought" and "Tradition."
