"And I saw the heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and he that sat thereon, called Faithful and True; and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. And his eyes are a flame of fire, and upon his head are many diadems; and he hath a name written, which no one knoweth but he himself. And he is arrayed in a garment sprinkled with blood: and his name is called The Word of God."[106:14] Is this all rhapsody, or is it in part true report? There is evidently no answer to the question so conceived. But if it were to express my own religious feeling it would have some specific proportion of literal and metaphorical significance, according to the degree to which its detail contributes different practical values to me. It might then be my guide-book to the heavens, or only my testimony to the dignity and mystery of the function of Christ. The development of religion bears in a very important way upon this last problem. The factor of imagination has undoubtedly come to have a more clearly recognized role in religion. There can be no doubt that what we now call myths were once beliefs, and that what we now call poetry was once history. If we go back sufficiently far we come to a time when the literal and the metaphorical were scarcely distinguishable, and this because science had not emerged from the early animistic extension of social relations. Men _meant_ to address their gods as they addressed their fellows, and expected them to hear and respond, as they looked for such reactions within the narrower circle of ordinary intercourse. The advance of science has brought into vogue a description of nature that inhibits such expectations. The result has been that men, continuing to use the same terms, essentially expressive as they are of a practical relationship, have come to regard them as only a general expression of their attitude. The differences of content that are in excess of factors of expectation remain as poetry and myth. On the other hand, it is equally possible, if not equally common, for that which was once imagined to come to be believed. Such a transformation is, perhaps, normally the case when the inspired utterance passes from its author to the cult. The prophets and sweet singers are likely to possess an exuberance of imagination not appreciated by their followers; and for this reason almost certainly misunderstood. For these reasons it is manifestly absurd to fasten the name of myth or the name of creed upon any religious utterance whatsoever, unless it be so regarded from the stand-point of the personal religion which it originally expressed, or unless one means by so doing to define it as an expression of his own religion. He who defines "the myth of creation," or "the poetical story of Samson," as parts of the pre-Christian Judaic religion, exhibits a total loss of historical sense. The distinction between cognition and fancy does not exist among objects, but only in the _intending_