It sometimes feels like Eliade works under the premise that earlier human cultures were making sense of "new" phenomena. It may be important to realize that for no person in history were these feelings or emotions ever "new." I am not certain that this actually undercuts any of Eliade's points, it is just something interesting to consider. The automobile was once new, and culture and society had to be changed to incorporate it into our daily lives. Anger was never new.
