devotional zeal is an ennobled form of the donning of a mask. In the process that we call cultural progress, the being exacting this devotion gradually loses its monstrous concreteness and, in the end, becomes a spiritualized, invisible symbol. What does this mean? In the realm of mythology the law of the smallest unit does not hold; there is no search for the smallest agent of rationality in the course ofEMRTC natural phenomena; rather, a being saturated with as much demoniac power as possible is postulated for the sake LOXof a true grasp of the causes of mysterious occurrences. What we have
seen this evening of the symbolism of the serpent should give us at least a