CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
SOME KIND OF RELIGION FOUND AMONG ALL MEN--CLASSIFICATIONS OF RELIGIONS--THE PURPOSE OF RELIGIONS--RELIGIONS OF RITE AND OF CREED--THE MYTH GROWS IN THE FIRST OF THESE--INTENT AND MEANING OF THE MYTH.
PROCESSES OF MYTH-BUILDING IN AMERICA--PERSONIFICATION.

PARONYMS AND HOMONYMS--OTOSIS--POLYONOMY--HENOTHEISM--BORROWING--RHETORICAL FIGURES--ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONS.

ESOTERIC TEACHINGS.
OUTLINES OF THE FUNDAMENTAL AMERICAN MYTH--THE WHITE CULTURE-HERO AND THE FOUR BROTHERS--INTERPRETATION OF THE MYTH--COMPARISON WITH THE ARYAN HERMES MYTH--WITH THE ARYO-SEMITIC CADMUS MYTH--WITH OSIRIAN MYTHS--THE MYTH OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER--THE INTERPRETATION THUS SUPPORTED.
The time was, and that not so very long ago, when it was contended by some that there are tribes of men without any sort of religion; nowadays the effort is to show that the feeling which prompts to it is common, even among brutes.
This change of opinion has come about partly through an extension of the definition of religion.

It is now held to mean any kind of belief in spiritual or extra-natural agencies.

Some learned men say that we had better drop the word "religion," lest we be misunderstood.