The formulated beliefs, the theology, and the mythology which all races possess to some degree or other have grown up from that primitive philosophy of man which seeks to explain all that he saw about him. The old question: {107} 'What mean ye by this service?' (Exod. xii. 26) is typical of the inquiry which ritual (and indeed all other) acts invariably demand; the danger lies in our assuming that the proffered explanations necessarily describe their origin, and in confusing the essential elements with those which are accidental and secondary. The excavations at Gezer suggest an illustration. What rites were practised in its caves or in the great tunnel which leads to the subterranean spring cannot be asserted, but there is a living tradition that the waters of the flood burst forth in the neighbourhood. Similar flood-stories can be localised elsewhere. In Hierapolis water was poured into a chasm below the sanctuary twice a year, and according to the Pseudo-Lucian it was here that the waters of Deucalion's flood were absorbed--hence the rite! But Melito reports that water was emptied into a well in the city in order to subdue a subterranean demon--evidently some earlier chthonic deity. Similar water-rites were known in Palestine and Syria as a 'descent' or _Yerīd_, and it may be presumed that an echo of the term survives in _'Ain Yerdeh_ at the foot of Gezer. We do not reach the root of the matter, but we can notice the diverse explanations of the same rite (which probably originated in a charm {108} to procure rain), the ubiquity of certain traditions, their persistence, and the ease with which they adjust themselves. Further, it is instructive to observe how the rite has been shaped in the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles and has been dressed in accordance with specific religious beliefs (cp. Zech. xiv. 16 _sq._).