There was, in short, so much that the early race did not understand, that they were perpetually in awe. Every convulsion of nature was a subject of worship to them. They thought it was alive, or produced by some living monster, and they feared its wrath and tried to appease it. Earth-quakes soon got a name, and were placed among the divinities. Thunder, Lightning, Rain, Hail, and subsequently Snow were canonized as heavenly spirits. The wind was the breath of Shoozoo, or of his great Alligator. Sunshine came to be the smile of the Great Serpent, when he was in good humor. The air came soon to be as full of monsters as the earth, and men’s imagination saw more than their eyes. A spirit world had dawned upon them, and the supernatural began to rule the race. All the unknown was fashioned into gods, and the realm of ignorance became one of terror and devotion. “It all comes,” persisted Gimbo, “from looking up. If people only walked on their four feet they would not see the sky and its fires. I never see anything that is high, and so am not made afraid. The cure for all these evils is to return to all fours, when you won’t see anything that is so far off that it does not concern you.” “But you see more snakes, and are more frightened by them than we,” retorted one. “Snakes must be seen before you have to do with them,” replied Gimbo; “if they see you first you don’t come off so well. By keeping my eyes on the ground, I see them before they harm me, and soon they are out of the way, or I am. When your first acquaintance with a snake is made by tramping on him, there is a disagreeable surprise and a dangerous controversy. But it is not so with the Sun-serpent or the Alligator of Shoozoo, which you are always seeing and which never comes near; so that you are always frightened when there is no danger.” A long religious controversy then ensued, which turned mainly on whether men should keep to the ways and traditions of their fathers, and walk, like them, on all fours, or whether they should stand up and look ahead. The latter course was thought to unsettle their faith and make them introduce new gods, if not to abandon entirely their religion. Gimbo thought there were swamp snakes enough to engage men’s attention, without troubling themselves about snakes in the air. “Shoozoo’s Alligator,” he said, “is a literal swamp reptile, and that is enough to worship. By introducing new snakes into our theology, you will confuse all our religion.” Others, however, were not as conservative as Gimbo, but believed in acknowledging snakes wherever they found them. Religion is naturally progressive, they thought, and advancement in religion at this time was believed to consist in adding more snakes to theology.