Perhaps only an imaginative child, or an adult with something of the poet's gift, can appreciate vividly the type of world in which these early men found themselves. The city-dweller of to-day lives in a subdued {14} and mechanically controlled region whose every clank and rattle speaks of routine and order. The myth-making faculty of the street-urchin has little to feed upon--all is so obvious and open to inspection. The ordinary lad, again, is so soon filled with the conventionalized views of his elders that the hand of fancy soon ceases to write upon his soul or give a touch of wonder to familiar things. There can be no doubt, therefore, that a conscious effort is required before a man of to-day can give even a fleeting glimpse at the capricious, magical, animated, and intensely personal world of his distant ancestors. And yet the guesses and surmises of these earlier men were the source of more of his beliefs than he would care to admit. In these pages we shall see how much of mythology still lingers with us. Mythology is a product of the social group, of clans and tribes and peoples, and is of slow growth. Story added itself to story, this feature to that. Hence it was often a work of art, though of unconscious art. It was an expression of the life of groups who had gods and totems. It was inextricably bound up with the whole savage outlook upon nature; and yet only recently has this setting been adequately appreciated. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, knowledge of mythology was practically limited to the poetized mythology of the Greeks and Romans. And so, because it was found in the poets, it was thought of as an artificial product, as a series of stories invented and embroidered by the fancy of bards and narrators.