conception which obtained acceptance from religious animosity, still continues to insist on the ‘National God of the Hebrews,’ it commits a decided error, at least in reference to the age of which we are now speaking, and especially with regard to the Elôhîm. The consciousness of national peculiarity could not, at this stage of religion among the Hebrews, find any expression on the domain of religion. Yet it must perforce gain expression somewhere, and could not do so anywhere except on a domain on which the most original impress of their own mind was still visible—in the myths, insofar as they were not yet swept away by foreign influence. The awaking of National Consciousness plays a very prominent part in the history of the development of the Myth. From the moment when in ancient times this idea began to fill the soul of a great national community, it seized on and transformed the whole material of which its mythology was made. The fact that this noble consciousness gives a distinct direction of its own to everything that fills the human soul, is another proof of its power to transform the spiritual life. In modern times the kindling of national self-consciousness, advanced by the arousing of spiritual opposition to foreign influences which had previously repressed national individuality, causes the production of documents to prove the awakening of this national opposition, documents which belong to the best part of literature and intellectual labour. Similarly, in ancient times before literature, this consciousness of opposition impressed its image especially on the myth, and made that subservient to its purpose. And on considering the relation of the myth to the idea of nationality, we see on many sides, how closely and inseparably the two are connected together, how the idea operates to transform the myth, and how it needs the myth as a support; for the myth, going back to the earliest times, confers on the new idea something like an historical title, and gives a broad basis to the intenseness of its force by furnishing a justification of it. Hence it comes to pass that nations which have preserved no great stock of original myths on which the awakened national consciousness could fall back, instinctively create similar stories, and this even in relatively modern times, in which a system of religion hardened into crystal on every side, combined with the corresponding stage of intellectual development, would leave no room for the revival of mythical activity. Of this there are two noteworthy instances, one in the middle ages (the twelfth or thirteenth century), the other in this century. The Cymry of Wales, becoming alive to the opposition in nationality between themselves and the English, felt the need of finding a justification of this opposition in the oldest prehistoric times. It was then first suggested to them that they were descendants of the ancient renowned Celtic nation; and to keep alive