The Mexican Nagualist, or priest, for instance, after he has performed his magical rites and spoken the words of power, does not hesitate to shout: “Lo! I myself am here! I am most furious! I make the loudest noise! I respect no one! Even sticks and stones tremble before me! What god or mighty demon dares face me?”[214] Here, through the power of the rite, the celebrant has become as one of the gods themselves. These examples further serve to illustrate a fundamental distinction in rites themselves. It has been well expressed by a German writer, Dr. Freihold, who has said that their tendencies point toward one of two aims, either to bring down the god to men, to have “God with us”; or, to elevate the man to God, to clothe him with supernatural powers. The one culminates in the epiphany, the other in the apotheosis. The writer quoted believes that this special culmination of one or the other of these tendencies is largely a matter of race, that it is an ethnic trait, and explains much otherwise obscure in the historical development of religions.[215] Without entering into this interesting but too extensive inquiry, I will remark that these two tendencies run closely parallel to the division of rites which I shall adopt, a division based on a comparison of the large numbers which I have classified in the study of primitive religions. This division is also twofold. It embraces, first, all those rites which are primarily intended for the benefit of the community; and, second, all those primarily intended for the benefit of the individual. The former I shall call _communal_, the latter, _personal_ rites. It is the more necessary that I shall insist on this distinction because it has been overlooked and even denied by some eminent scholars. Dr. Robertson Smith, for example, with whom I have been before compelled to disagree, refused to recognise personal worship in primitive conditions. He wrote thus: “It was the community and not the individual who was sure of the help of its deity.” The individual, he adds, was obliged to have recourse to merely magical measures for his own protection.[216] This statement is contradicted by nearly every primitive religion known to me; and it can be explained only by the concentration of the writer’s mind on a faith so peculiar as that of the ancient Hebrews.[217] I. THE COMMUNAL RITES, those for the benefit of the community, be it large or small, may be classed under four forms: 1, the assemblage; 2, the festal function; 3, the sacrifice; and 4, the communion with the Divine.