Here comes that remarkable turning-point in the life of the Hebrew people—the abandonment of nomadic life and transition to the civilised life of towns. The passage of the Jordan marks this turning-point. That river is still the boundary-line of two stages of civilisation, nomad-life and town-life. Not the entire mass of the nation submitted to these changes; we know that a large portion of it, remaining at a half-nomadic stage, declared itself averse to the removal, and preferred to stay on the left bank of the Jordan, which is the Nomad’s paradise—a plain blessed with splendid pasture and fine woods, of which the Bedawî even now says ‘Thou wilt find no land like Belḳâ.’ The Biblical document gives the exact name of the portion of the people which resisted the transition to town-life; they are described as the sons of Reuben, the sons of Gad, and a part of the tribe of Manasseh. We have no right to decide how much historical truth there is in the contract between the two sections of the nation, by which the larger only gave its consent to the practice of cattle-breeding east of the Jordan by the smaller on condition that the latter would render all possible service to their martial brethren at the conquest (Num. XXXII). Enough that after many long-protracted struggles with the people of the land the advancing Hebrews got a large part of Canaan into their power. The details and the chronology of these wars lie outside my present scheme. The history of the civilisation of the Hebrews in Canaan has here to be considered only on one side—with reference to the history of Religion. In the previous chapter we left the nomadic people wandering in the desert, and worshipping those beneficent powers which provide the nomad with his conditions of life and protect him from the scorching heat so hostile to wanderers—the Rain, his mother the Cloud, and the luminous smile of the cloud, the Lightning. The commencement of religion does not kill off the whole myth at one blow. For the mental activity required for the creation and propagation of myths does not cease when polyonomy vanishes, but only has its full vivaciousness abridged by that process of language. But the process goes on very gradually; on domains not yet fully attacked by it, accordingly, the telling of myths continues for long. One part may remain when another has been converted into religion. Now the law described in Chapter IV. would require, that, after settlement in towns and adoption of agricultural life, the part of the Hebrew myth which was not yet turned into religion should be subject to a development corresponding to the transition from nomadic to agricultural life, by which the solar figures, the victors over Darkness and Storm, take up the position of honour and sympathy always accorded to them by the agriculturist. § 2. Here, however, we have to notice a peculiarity of Hebrew development resulting from the occupation of Canaan.