But the wider knowledge due to exploration changed this narrow approach. The discoveries of travelers in the Americas, Africa, and Oceania gave pause to this too { 15} civilized and superficial theory of myth. Gradually, a more realistic view arose. The idea of evolution gave a genetic way of approach and made investigators aware of the slowness of human advance. The next steps followed quickly. Social psychology replaced the individualistic and overly rationalistic psychology of the early nineteenth century. All the phenomena of primitive society were seen to be the products of relatively non-reflective groups who felt and stumbled their way into rituals and beliefs. As the material accumulated, comparative methods were applied in the field. The result has been astounding. In place of the romantic conception of primitive life, which made the savage essentially a civilized child, a grimmer picture unfolded itself. Fetichism, shamanism, magic, human sacrifice, totemism, ritualism, all were found combined and interactive in a scheme of life alien to our own enlightened outlook. In such an atmosphere it was that mythology arose. It arose as an account of acts and beliefs, and, as these were purified and deepened, it, also, advanced in purity and depth. Yet, always, there remained the trace of the savagery from which it had sprung.
While primitive religion and mythology are not identical, they are closely bound up with one another. Both rest upon animism, totemism and magic as these are brought into relation with man's needs and fears. Religion is chiefly an affair of sentiment and cult, actively guided by belief in superhuman powers capable of helping and hurting man. Mythology, on the other hand, consists of the stories told about these dynamic powers as they are more and more personified and given a history and a name. And such stories are naturally { 16} built up around acts whose significance has been forgotten, or around dramatized interpretations of processes in nature. Myths are explanations of acts and events and names which aroused curiosity and therefore demanded some explanation. It was only after modern anthropology had unearthed the characteristic beliefs of primitive man that many myths became intelligible. A few examples will make this relationship clearer.