Cormafier Bandolito Directory 05
Page 01

As in language, so in mythology, investigation has proceeded from, the known to the unknown--from the higher to the lower mythologies. In each step of the progress of opinion on this subject a particular phenomenon may be observed. As each lower status of mythology is discovered it is assumed to be the first in origin, the primordial mythology, and all lower but imperfectly understood mythologies are interpreted as degradations, from this assumed original belief; thus polytheism was interpreted as a degeneracy from monotheism; nature worship, from psychotheism; zooelotry, from ancestor worship; and, in order, monotheism has been held to be the original mythology, then polytheism, then physitheism or nature worship, then ancestor worship.

Then again there seem to me to be some simply coarse, obscene, unpleasant passages, not of relentless realism but of dull inquisitiveness. They do not attract or impress; they do not provide a contrast or an emphasis. They simply lie, like piles of filth, in rooms designed for human habitation. If it is argued that art may use any materials, I can only fall back upon my belief that such passages are as instinctively repulsive to the artistic sense as strong-smelling cheeses stacked in a library! There is no moral or ethical law against such a practice; but the aesthetic conscience of humanity instinctively condemns it. When I examine the literature which has inspired and attracted the minds of humanity, whether trained or untrained, I find that they avoid this hideous intrusion of nastiness; and I am inclined to infer that writers who introduce such episodes, and readers who like them, have some other impulse in view, which is neither the sense of beauty nor the perception of art. But if Whitman, or anyone else, can convert the world to call this art, and to enjoy it as art, then he will prove that he understands the law of preference better than I do.

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