If we trace back the memories of historic and civilized peoples into the twilight of their origin, at a time when they were still barbarous, and little removed from their primitive savage conditions, we shall find, the further we go back, the more vivid, general, and multiform will the mythological interpretation and conception of the world and its various phenomena appear to be; everything was personified by these primitive peoples in a way common to the animal and human consciousness alike.

Of this the testimony remaining in the most ancient verses of the first Veda is a sufficient proof. At the epoch of their composition the human race had made some relative progress in morals and civilization; yet we find that psychical human life was transfused and projected into everything: man personified each phenomenon and force of nature in accordance with his own image.

For example, fire in general was personified and identified with humanity in Agni; even the shape taken by the flames, all which was required to light the fire, the whole process of the sacrifice, even the doors of the altar-railing, the prayer and oblation to the god.[9]

We also learn from the solemn and ancient songs of the Rig-Veda that all terrestrial, meteorological, and celestial phenomena were more or less vaguely personified. These facts recur in all the earliest recollections of civilized peoples. If we turn from these to observe the savage races of modern times, and the most barbarous tribes still extant in continents and isles far removed from culture and science, we shall again find the same beliefs. The range of absurd personifications, degenerating into the most trivial and varied forms of fetish worship, becomes wider, and its influence deeper, in proportion to the rude and barbarous condition of the tribe or stock in which they appear.

Even among ourselves, in the midst of the most civilized European nations of modern times, how much mythology still lingers in the lower classes, both in cities and the country. It flourishes in proportion to the ignorance and want of culture of the people, as those know who have really studied the intellectual conditions of all classes in our time.[10]

In the child just beginning to walk, to move freely, and to talk, and even at a later age, in cases in which the reflective faculty is weak, and when it approximates more to the psychical and organic conditions of animals, such a projection of self and personification of surrounding objects is evident to all. For this reason a child transforms all which it seizes or plays with into a person or animal, and when alone with them it talks, shouts, and laughs, as if such objects could really feel, act, and obey; in short, as if they were real persons or animals. So strong is the childish instinct, or, as I might say, the law of its being to project and transfuse itself into objects, that it is apt to speak of itself in the third person. A child seldom says, "I will," or "I am hungry," but "Louis wants," "Louis is hungry," or whatever his name may be. This phenomenon reappears in the second childhood of old age, when the power of reflection is weakened, and there is a reversion to the primitive animal condition. The same phenomenon also occurs in idiots, in whom there is a morbid defect of reflective power.

This fact of the personification of the objects of perception is therefore evident and constant in the primitive man of civilized races, in the barbarous condition of modern savages, in the ignorant multitude, and in children—intellectual conditions which approach most closely to the condition of animals—and conversely it is plain that it belongs in the highest degree to the intellectual life of animals, and that myth, into which such a personification and animation of things must be resolved, has its original and innate necessity in animal life. We think that this is a new scientific fact, which throws much light on the history of human thought.

M'Lennan observes, "Some explanation of the phenomena of life a man must feign for himself; and to judge from the universality of it, the simplest hypothesis, and the first to occur to men, seems to have been that natural phenomena are ascribable to the presence in animals, plants, and things, and in the forces of nature, of such spirits prompting to action as men are conscious they themselves possess."[11] This fact, indicated by M'Lennan and by all who have devoted themselves to anthropological researches with respect to the origin of religions, and of myth in general, is now recognized as certain; but it seems to me that the interpretation and explanation of it are altogether implete. They suppose it to be simply the effect of psychological laws as far as man is concerned, whereas we have shown that it forms, in the ultimate causes by which it is produced, the very essence of animal perception. They ascribe it to man as a rational hypothesis to explain the primitive order of things, whereas it is a spontaneous and primary intuition of the animal intelligence.

Alger, although he is also mistaken as to the true causes of myth in general, expresses himself better when he asserts that the brain of a savage is always dominated by the idea that all objects whatsoever have a soul precisely similar to that of man. The custom of burning and burying various things with the dead body was, he thinks, in many cases prompted by the belief that every such object had its manes.[12]

In fact, the innate psychical and organic constitution of the intelligence, both animal and human, is such that it spontaneously and necessarily projects itself into every object of nature and perception, animating and personifying it by this special law, and not by a reflective hypothesis, such as would be the conscious and deliberate solution of a given problem. Such a solution cannot be made by animals, since as we have shown they are without the faculty of making a deliberate research into any subject; nor can it be effected by the primitive man, in whom the reasoning faculty with which he is endowed is still undeveloped.

The real origin of reflection is not to be found in what may be called the mythical creation of nature, which is the necessary result of the spontaneity of the intelligence, both in man and animals; it is developed after long duration of barbarism and ignorance. M'Lennan and others have shown how the era of reflection and hypothesis begins in the evolution of human intelligence. Sekesa, an intelligent Kaffir, said to Arbrousset,[13] "For twelve years I have shepherded my flock. It was dark, and I sat down upon a rock and asked myself such questions as these, sad questions, since I was unable to answer them. Who made the stars? What supports them? Do the waters never grow weary of flowing from morning to evening, from evening to morning, and where do they find rest? Whence come the clouds, which pass and re-pass, and dissolve in rain? Who sends them? Our diviners certainly do not send rain, since they have no means of making it, nor do I see them with my eyes going up to heaven to seek it. I cannot see the wind, and know not what it is. Who guides and causes it to blow, to rage, and overwhelm us? Nor do I know how the corn grows. Yesterday there was not a blade of grass in my field, and to-day it is green; who gave to the earth the wisdom and power to bring forth?" Again, there is a passage in the Rig-Veda, in which it is said, "Where do the fixed stars of heaven which we see by night go by day?"

It is in this intellectual condition that ignorant and savage man really begins the spontaneous yet reflective research into the causes of things, and it is in this condition only that he hypothetically interprets the order of phenomena through myths, which have then become secondary, and are no longer primitive. The true origin of the primitive myth which animates and personifies the universe is not to be found in this condition; its origin is of much earlier date in the history of man, and indeed it has its roots, as we have shown, in animal life.

Certainly when we compare the two intellectual periods, there is a wide difference between the age in which Sekesa could be perplexed by such inquiries, and that of more primitive peoples, which still believe without question in the soul and informing spirit or shade of stones, sticks, weapons, food, water, springs—in short, of every object and phenomenon. This is still the case with the Algonquins, the Fijians, the Karens, the Caribbees, the negroes of Guinea, the New Zealanders, the Tongusians, the Greenlanders, the Esthonians, the Australians, the Peruvians, and a host of other savage and barbarous peoples. They not only animate and personify material objects, but even diseases and their remedies.

The incubus, for example, termed Mara in Northern mythology, was the spirit which tormented sleepers. This is the Mar of the German proverb: Dich hat greitten der Mar. The word is derived from Mar, a horse, and becomes nightmare in English, Cauchemar in French, [Greek: Ephialtes] in Greek, meaning one which rides upon another. So with epilepsy, which signifies the act of being seized by any one; it was, like all nervous diseases, held to be a sacred evil, and those afflicted by it were supposed to be possessed. Insanity was regarded in the same way, as we see in the Bible where Saul's melancholy is said to be an evil spirit sent from God. A furious madman was supposed to have been carried off by a demon, and in Persia the insane were said to be God's fools. In Tahiti they were called Eatooa, that is, possessed by a divine spirit; and in the Sandwich Isles they were worshipped as men into whom a divinity had entered. In German the plica polonica is called Alpzopf, or hobgoblin's tail. All nations believed that the malign beings which animated diseases could, like men, be propitiated by ceremonies and incantations. The Redskins are always in fear of the assaults of evil spirits, and have recourse to incantations, and to the most absurd sacerdotal rites, or to the influence of their manitu, in order to be safe. Their devotions and sacrifices are prompted by fear rather than by gratitude.

Tanner mentions, in his "Narrative of a Captivity among the Indians," that he once heard a convalescent patient reproved for his imprudence in exposing himself to the air, since his shade had not altogether come back to abide within him. For this purpose, and in conformity with such ideas, when the sorcerer Malgaco wishes to cure a sick man, he makes a hole in a tomb to let out the spirit, which he then takes in his cap, and constrains it to enter the patient's head. The process of disease is supposed to be a struggle between the sick person and the evil spirit of sickness. The Greek-word, prophylake signifies the arrangements of outposts. Agonia is the hottest moment of conflict, and krisis the decisive day of battle, as we see in Polybius, liii., c. 89. Medicine was from the earliest times confounded with magic, which is only the primitive form of the conception of nature. The Aryan rulers in India in ancient times believed that the savage races were autochthonic workers of magic who were able to assume any form they pleased.[14] The negro priests of fetish worship believe that they can pronounce on the disease without seeing the patient, by the aid of his garments or of anything which belongs to him.[15] The superstition of the evil eye recurs in Vedic India, as well as among many other peoples. In the Rig-Veda the wife is exhorted not to look upon her husband with an evil eye. There was the same belief among the ancient Greeks, and it is also found in the oculus fascinus of the Romans, and the German boeses Auge. The early German Rito, or fever, was a spirit (Alb) which rode upon the sick man. A passage in the Rig-Veda states that demons assume the form of an owl, cock, wolf, etc.[16] Such was the primitive attitude of the transfusion of individual psychical life into things, and consequently of general metamorphosis. Kuhn identifies the Greek verb [Greek: iaomai] with the Sanscrit yavayami, to avert, and in the Rig-Veda this verb is used in connection with amivae, disease; so that it was necessary to drive away the demon, as the cause of sickness. A physician, according to the meaning of the old Sanscrit word, was the exorciser of disease, the man who fought with its demon. We find the practice of incantations as a remedy for disease in use among the ancient Greeks, the Romans, and all European nations, as well as among savages in other parts of the world.

The objects and phenomena obvious to perception are therefore supposed by primitive man, as well as by animals, to be conscious subjects in virtue of their constitution, and of the innate character of sensation and intelligence. So that the universal personification of the things and phenomena of nature, either vaguely, or in an animal form, is a fundamental and necessary fact, both in animals and in man; it is a spontaneous effect of the psychical faculty in its relations to the world. We think that this truth cannot be controverted, and it will be still more clearly proved in the course of this work.

Such a fact, considered in its first manifestation and in the laws which originally govern it in animals, and in man as far as his animal nature is concerned, assumes a fresh aspect, and is of two-fold force when it is studied in man after he has begun to reason, that is, when his original psychical faculty is doubled. The animation and personification of objects and phenomena by animals are always relative to those of the external world; that is, animals transfuse and project themselves into every form which really excites, affects, alarms, allures, or threatens them; and the spontaneous psychical faculty which such a vivifying process always produces necessarily remains within the sphere of their external perceptions and apprehensions. In a word, they live in the midst of the objective nature, which they animate with consciousness and will, and their internal power is altogether absorbed in this external transformation.

In man, in addition to this animation of the things and phenomena of the external world, another more profound and vivid animation takes place, the animation not merely of external forms, but of internal perceptions, ideas, sentiments, and all kinds of emotions. We know that man has not only the perception of external and internal things, but also the perception of this perception. Hence the external form, or the internal sentiment and emotion, may by the dominion of his will over all the attributes of his intelligence be once more subjected to his deliberate observation and intuition; by this process the external and internal world are doubled in their intrinsic ideal, and give birth to analysis and abstraction, that is, to the specification and generalization of the things observed.

When this spontaneous faculty of man has been developed within him, his observation of the similarities, analogies, differences, and identities which are to be found in all things and phenomena, in sentiments and emotions, necessarily induces him to collect and simplify them in special forms, to combine these various intuitions in a homologous type; this type corresponds with an external or internal congeries of similar, identical, or analogous images or ideas, out of which the species and genera of the intellect are formed. In this way, for instance, arose the mental classification of trees, plants, flowers, rivers, springs, animals, and the like, as well as that of love, hatred, sorrow, anger, birth, and death, strength, weakness, rule, and obedience; in short, the generic conceptions of all natural phenomena, as well as of psychical sentiments and emotions.

Animals, for example, perceive a given plant or tree, as a thing presented at the moment to their individual consciousness, and by infusing this consciousness into the object in question, they animate and personify it, especially if its fruits or leaves are attractive, or if it is moved by the wind. We have seen that all things are necessarily personified by animals, for if they meet with any material obstacle, they do not ascribe the sudden impediment to the impenetrability of matter, or to superior force, but rather to an intentional opposition to their aim or progress. We often see that animals not only exert mechanical force to break through or destroy the material barriers intended to keep them in confinement, but they act in such a way as to show rage and fury towards a hostile and malevolent subject.

To return to our example; if an animal vivifies and animates some special plant specially presented to him, he does not go beyond this vivifying act; when he goes on his way, and no longer perceives the concrete phenomenon, the animation at the same time disappears and ceases. Man, however, by means of the classifying faculty we have noticed, after repeatedly perceiving various plants similar or analogous to the first, is able by spontaneous reflection, and by the automatic exercise of his intelligence, to refer them to a single type, and in this way the specific idea of a tree is evolved in his mind and fixed in his memory. The same thing gradually takes place with respect to flowers, animals, springs, rivers, and the like. These ideal types are not wholly wanting even among the most barbarous peoples, in the most concrete and dissimilar languages, since without them any language would be impossible.

The same intrinsic and innate necessity which, both in man and animals, automatically effects the animation and personification of consciousness and will in the case of external objects and phenomena, also impels man to vivify and personify the specific types which he has gradually formed, and they take an objective place in his memory as the objects of nature do in the case of animals. In this way man does not, like animals, merely vivify the special oak or chestnut tree presented to him in a concrete form at a given moment, but he vivifies in the same way the psychical type of trees, of flowers, etc., which has been evolved in his mind, just as he vivifies the type of suffering, of disease, of death, of healing, or of any other force.

For this reason the process of necessary and spontaneous personification is at first two-fold; namely, the personification of individual and external objects and phenomena, and that of their specific inward types, whether of the objects themselves or of their sensations and emotions. It must be observed that at this early stage of man's history, specific types, or the classification of things, were not ordered and determined with scientific precision; they were undefined and confused, running more or less into each other, so as to be easily lost, or constantly diverging more widely. This internal movement of images and undefined conceptions was a stimulus to active and mobile life, and an abundant source of vivid or obscure myths, and of the sentiments corresponding to them.

These specific primordial types were openly referred to external phenomena, and were based upon the life of nature, since rational or scientific ideas had not yet made their appearance, or only very sparsely. In any case, the reality of these types and their animation are facts, as all the earliest records attest, whether among civilized or savage races.

The personification of specific types, which are in general the most obvious—those, namely, which refer to animals, vegetables, minerals, and meteors, things useful or injurious to man—is the origin of the subsequent belief in fetishes, genii, demons, and spirits, and these led to the vivification of the whole of nature, her laws, customs, and forces. Man's personification of himself, his projection of himself as a living being into external things, was the result of reflection. In fact, the impersonation of the winds took place in very early times, since they most frequently and universally excited the attention and anxiety of man and animals, whether beneficially or otherwise, and by their mechanical action, their whistling and other sounds, they readily struck the mobile fancy of primitive men, and also of savage and ignorant peoples in our day.

Just as the act of respiration is a faint wind which goes on whether in sleep or wakefulness, and only ceases with death, so it was with the phenomenon of nature which attracted their attention, and it was invested by them with life. Since the winds of nature had already been animated and personified by a spontaneous act, so our inmost being was certainly first considered as material, and impersonated as breath and air.

This appears from the roots and words of all languages; the Hebrew nephesh, nshamah, ruach—soul or spirit—are all derived from the idea of breathing. The Greek word [Greek: anemos], the Latin word animus, signify breathing, wind, soul, and spirit. In the Sanscrit atman we have the successive meanings which show the evolution of the myth: breathing, vital soul, intelligence, and then the individual, the ego. In Polynesia we find the same process of things. To think, which in the Aryan tongues comes from the root c'i, and originally meant to collect, to comprehend, in German, begreifen, becomes in the Polynesian language, to talk in the belly. It is, therefore, an evident historical fact that man first personified natural phenomena, and then made use of these personifications to personify his inward acts, his psychical ideas and conceptions. This was the necessary process, since animals were prior to man, temporally and logically, and external idols were formed before those which were internal and peculiar to himself.[17]

It is true that man unconsciously, that is, without deliberation, not only animates external things and their specific types, but he also, by an exercise of memory, animates the psychical image of these special perceptions. If, for example, the primitive man personifies a stream of water which he has seen to issue from a fissure of the rocks, and ascribes to it voluntary and intentional motion, he also animates the image which reappears in his sphere of thought, and conceives it to have a real existence. He does not merely believe it to be a psychical and what may be called a photographic repetition of the thing, but rather to have an actual, concrete existence. Thus, among all ancient peoples, and among many which are still in the condition of savages, the shadow of a man's body is held to be substantial with it, and, as it were, his inmost essence, and for this reason the spirits of the dead were in several languages called shades.

Doubtless it is difficult for us to picture to ourselves the psychical conditions of primitive men, at a time when the objects of perception and the apprehension of things were presented by an effort of memory to the mind as if they were actual and living things, yet such conditions are not hypothetical but really existed, as any one may ascertain for himself who is able to realize that primitive state of the mind, and we have said enough to show that such was its necessary condition.

The fact becomes more intelligible when we consider man, and especially the uneducated man, under the exciting influence of any passion, and how at such times he will, even when alone, gesticulate, speak aloud, and reply to internal questions which he imagines to be put to him by absent persons, against whom he is at the moment infuriated. The images of these persons and things are as it were present and in agitation within him; and these images, in the fervour of emotion and under the stimulus of excitement, appear to be actually alive, although only presented to the inward psychical consciousness.

In the natural man, in whom the intellectual powers were very slowly developed, the animation and personification effected by his mind and consciousness were threefold: first, of the objects themselves as they really existed, then of the idea or image corresponding to them in the memory, and lastly of the specific types of these objects and images. There was within him a vast and continuous drama, of which we are no longer conscious, or only retain a faint and distant echo, but which is partly revealed by a consideration of the primitive value of words and of their roots in all languages. The meaning of these, which is now for the most part lost and unintelligible, always expressed a material and concrete fact, or some gesture. This is true of classic tongues, as is well known to all educated people, and it recurs in the speech of all savage and barbarous races.

Ia rau is used to express all in the Marquesas Isles. Rau signifies leaves, so that the term implies something as numerous as the leaves of a tree. Rau is also now used for sound, an expression which includes in itself the conception of all, but which originally signified a fact, a real and concrete phenomenon, and it was felt as such in the ancient speech in which it was used in this sense. So again in Tahiti huru, ten, originally signified hairs; rima, five, was at first used for hand; riri, anger, literally means, he shouts. Uku in the Marquesas Isles means, to lower the head, and is now used for to enter a house. Ruku, which had the same original meaning in New Zealand, now expresses the act of diving. The Polynesian word toro at first indicated anything in the position of a hand with extended fingers, whence comes the Tahitian term for an ox, puaatoro, stretching pig, in allusion to the way in which an ox carries his head. Too (Marquesas), to put forward the hand, is now used for to take. Tongo (Marquesas), to grope with extended arms, leads to potongo tongo, darkness. In New Zealand, wairua, in Tahiti varua, signifies soul or spirit, from vai, to remain in a recumbent position, and rua, two; that is, to be in two places, since they believed that in sickness or in dreams the soul left the body.[18] Throughout Polynesia moe also signifies a recumbent position or to sleep, and in Tahiti moe pipiti signifies a double sleep or dream, from moe, to sleep, and piti, two. In New Zealand, moenaku means, to try to grasp something during sleep; from naku, to take in the fingers.

We can understand something of the mysterious exercise of human intelligence in its earliest development from this habit of symbolizing and presenting in an outward form an abstract conception, thus giving a concrete meaning and material expression to the external fact. We see how everything assumed a concrete, living form, and can better understand the conditions we have established as necessary in the early days of the development of human life. This attitude of the intelligence has been often stated before, but in an incomplete way; the primitive and the subsequent myths have been confounded together, and it has been supposed that myth was of exclusively human origin, whereas it has its roots lower down in the vast animal kingdom. We hope, therefore, that it will be granted that we have given the true and full exposition of myth.

Anthropomorphism, and the personification of the things and phenomena of nature, of their images and specific types, were the great source whence issued superstitions, mythologies, and religions, and also, as we shall presently see, the scientific errors to be found among all the families of the human race.

For the development of myth, which is in itself always a human personification of natural objects and phenomena in some form or other, the first and necessary foundation consists, as we have abundantly shown, in the conscious and deliberate vivification of objects by the perception and apprehension of animals. And since this is a condition of animal perception, it is also the foundation of all human life, and of the spontaneous and innate exercise of the intelligence. In fact, man, by a two-fold process, raises above his animal nature a world of images, ideas, and conceptions from the types he has formed of various phenomena, and his attitude towards this internal world does not differ from his attitude towards that which is external. He personifies the images, ideas, and conceptions by transforming them into living subjects, just as he had originally personified cosmic objects and phenomena.

In myths, since they owe their origin to the reflex power which is gradually organized and developed, man carries on this faculty of personification which had already been exerted in him as an animal. But the object of myth became two-fold just as the animal nature became duplex in man, whether as a special image of special conception, or as an intellectual definition of the specific type already formed. The myths are, therefore, from their very nature, either special, that is, derived from the psychical duplication of a personified image; or they are specific, and are derived, as we are about to explain, from the personification of a type.

The deliberate intention to be beneficent or malign, useful or injurious, which is ascribed to any external object, thus transforming it into an intelligent subject, is the first and simplest stage of myth, and the innate form of its genesis. In this case, it is always special, extrinsic, and concrete, and belongs implicitly to the animal kingdom, although more or less vividly in proportion to the mental and physical evolution of the species. It is for the same reason also proper to man, in whose case it first appears in the indefinite multiplication of fetishes, whatever may be the object venerated, and whatever the form, aspect, and character ascribed to it. This constitutes the primordial impulses, both of religious consciousness and of the spontaneous solution of the problems of the world among all peoples.

While the animation of special objects by animals generates actual myths, yet it only occurs in the acts of momentary and transient perception; they are born and die, they arise and are dissolved in the very act of production, and they neither have nor can have retrospective or future influence on the animal. The world, its laws and phenomena, form for him one universal and persistent myth, so far as he feels himself constrained to vivify and transform them into subjects actuated by will. This consequently is the constant and normal condition of his conscious life with relation to things, and it leads to nothing further; his mental attitude with respect to myth does not vary from his physical attitude towards the atmosphere, the food and water which nourish and sustain him, and the exercise of his functions are in conformity with it, as though it were his natural and necessary element.

Man, on the contrary, since he has acquired the power of reflection, which enables him to reconsider past intuitions by an effort of memory, as well as the psychical image which corresponds to them, is not content with this normal and fugitive effect of apprehending the personified object presented to him. The psychical image of his actual perception, which he has ascertained from experience to be beneficent or malignant, or which has been interpreted as such by his fancy, recurs to the mind even when it is absent and remote, and it recurs in the vivid and personified form in which it was first perceived.

Hence come the following psychical facts. On the one side the actual object which he has assumed to be invested with the faculty of will still remains to exert the same external influence; on the other, its personified image is also present to his mind, so that he can regard it with the vivid quickness of the fancy, and invest it, by its manifold relations to other and various phenomena, with efficacy, force, and mysterious purposes. It follows from this inward action and emotion that while in the case of animals the beneficent or malignant object is only invested with life at the moment of perception, and has no more efficacy after its disappearance, man on the contrary retains the same personified object in his memory, and recalls it at pleasure, so that its special efficacy persists, and it continues to be the object of hopes and fears either in the past or in the future. In a word, the natural myth of animals is transformed by man into a fetish, whether this object or its corresponding image in his mind be superstitiously regarded as good or evil, pleasing or terrible.

This was the source of primitive, confused, and inorganic fetishism among all peoples; namely, that they ascribed intentional and conscious life to a host of natural objects and phenomena. Hence came the fears, the adoration, the guardianship of, or abhorrence for some given species of stones, plants, animals, some strange forms or unusual natural object. The subsequent adoration of idols and images, all sorts of talismans, the virtue of relics, dreams, incantations, and exorcisms, had the same origin and were all due to this primitive genesis of the fetish, the internal duplication of the external animation and personification of objects.

It is evident that fetishism in its earliest and most primitive form was always inspired by special objects, since the external perception of animals and of man is special and concrete. But we have seen how our intelligence, by a spontaneous and innate process, was led to form types from the immense variety of special things and phenomena, and these types are the specific forms of such things as are alike, analogous, or identical. We have also seen that by the same necessity of the psychical faculty, which is not inconsistent with the fundamental process of animal intelligence, man animates and personifies these specific types, just as he had animated the special perceptions whence they were generated in his mind.[19]

The second form of myth next occurs, if considered as it exists in man, but the third form of myth, if regarded in his solidarity with the animal kingdom. Instead of investing the special fetish of a given object with superstitious fear, he now adores or fears all objects of the same species, or which, in the imperfect classification of primitive times, he believes to be of the same species. Thus, to give a common example, if some particular viper or other form of snake is the first form of fetish, in the second stage the whole species of vipers, and of the snakes which resemble them, is regarded with the same dread. He next supposes all the snakes which he comes across to emanate from a single power, manifesting itself in this shape in various times and places. In the same way, according to the natural evolution of this law, the individual, concrete plant will no longer be the fetish or object of myth, but all those of the same species, or which nearly resemble it. It will no longer be a given spring, but all springs, no longer one particular grove, cave, or mountain, but all groves, caves, and mountains; in a word, the species will be substituted for the individual, the type for the fact.[20]

In this second stage to which myth spontaneously attained, it must be observed that all fetishes could not be reduced to a specific or typical image, since in nature, and in ages and conditions when the intelligence was still rude and uncultured, all phenomena or objects could not assume a specific form, but were still regarded as individuals. In this class are the sun, the moon, certain stars and constellations, as well as some other natural phenomena, volcanoes, hot springs, and the like; since these were unique within the range of country inhabited by the savage hordes, they could not become specific. Hence, while all other objects and their respective fetishes followed the natural evolution into a specific type, and through these into the simplest form of polytheism, the special fetish which referred to unique things or phenomena remained special, although it was modified, as we shall see, so as to harmonize with the aspect commonly assumed by other typical images.

It must be observed that we have gradually ascended from the special to the specific fetish, and to types which are resolved by the intelligence into more ideal and less concrete images; precisely because they are ideal and less bound to the form they had before, they are incarnated in an anthropomorphic and anthropopathic form. Released from the necessity of regarding them in a vague form, or one different from that of man, the image becomes more human, and that not only as before in consciousness and purpose, but also in aspect and structure.

In fact, in this stage man does not merely infuse his spiritual essence into these types, but likewise his corporeal form, whence we have the true, human image of myth. This may be seen in the various primitive Olympuses of all historic races as well as among savage peoples, only varying in the splendour of their imagery. They consist in the transformation of the earlier fetish into an intelligent, corporeal person, and result from the formation and personification of types.

Beginning with the mysterious conception of some particular spring as a malignant or beneficent fetish which, although personified, still retains its concrete form, the classifying action of the intelligence gradually constructs, from its points of resemblance to other springs, a generic type which includes them all. This typical conception, personified in its turn, next represents a unique power, of which all the individual and accidental springs are only manifestations. Thus it is clear that man, in the personification of this type or specific conception, is no longer bound to the actual form of the special object which first represented it, but he may be said to mould a more indefinite and plastic substance into which he can with spontaneous or facile art incarnate his whole person. Hence this substance will assume an anthropomorphic form, and will issue, not in a mysterious being of extrinsic and indefinite form, but in a person with human features, obvious to human senses.

It was thus, when the fetish attained to a specific type, that mythical anthropomorphism was generated, and polytheism, properly so-called; a polytheism which represents in its figures and images the humanization and personification of specific types. These afterwards diverge into specifications which vary with the number of phenomena that are united in a single idea or conception. The first polytheistic Olympus consisted of natural types, and at a much later period they became moral or abstract, in accordance with the spontaneous evolution of the intelligence itself.

It was in fact in this way that all the specific myths of the general phenomena of nature had their origin, and in our Aryan race we can, starting from the Rig-Veda, follow their splendid development among Graeco-Latins, Celts, Germans, and Slavs; it may also be traced in the memory and historic evolution of other races, and with less distinctness among those which are barbarous and savage.[21]

To take some example which may throw light upon our theory of the evolution of myth, let us consider that of Holda in the German Pantheon, since it is a generic type of the special primitive fetishes of sources, already in process of formation before the dispersion of the Aryan tribes. Mannhardt (Deutsche Mythologie) has shown what was the primitive form of the conception of Holda and of the Nornas, that is, of the phenomenal appearances of water; Holda, the lady of waters, first watched over the heavenly sources, and then, by a subsequent interweaving of myths and duplication of images, she kept and guarded the souls of new-born infants. This early conception by progressive specification gave birth to those of the Nornas, of Valkuria, Undine, and others. The primitive fetish, or fetishes of waters out of which the specific type, afterwards personified, was evolved and formed, were at first so bound to the concrete form of the phenomenon, that although animated, it could not assume a human aspect and form. But when the specific type which ideally represented the power manifested in all the various modes of special phenomena was evolved, then man was released from the concrete and individual forms of the fetish, and readily moulded it in his own corporeal as well as in his moral image. So Holda, changed from a heavenly to an earthly deity, was transformed into the goddess of wells and lakes, and assumed a perfectly human and even artistic form. She loved to bathe at noon-day, and was often seen to issue from the water and then plunge anew into the waves, appearing as a very fair and lovely woman.

Again, we know that in the gradual mythical evolution which found its climax in Apollo, the animation of this type, so fruitful in special instances, extended even to the form of his arms, his bow and arrows, and to the place of his habitation at Delphos. He was armed, according to Schwartz, with the rainbow and with thunderbolts, and Delphos was esteemed to be the centre and navel of the world.

These mythical ideas have their special reproduction in the mythology of the Finns. (Castren.) The god Ukko with his great bow of fire sends forth trees as darts against his enemies; while fighting, he stands erect upon a cloud, called the umbilicus of heaven. Thus we see that the process of myth is similar, even in different races.

By the primitive personification of the special fetishes whence he was evolved, the Indra of Vedic India is shepherd of the herd of heavenly kine. Vritra, a three-headed monster in the form of a serpent, steals away the herd and hides it in his cave. Indra pursues the robber, enters the cave with fury, overwhelms the monster with his thunderbolt, and leads back the kine to heaven, their milk sprinkling the earth. This myth gradually assumed in the Vedic hymns more splendid and artistic forms, and more amazing personifications. The original motive of the myth, as it has been interpreted even by Indian commentators, was the storm with all its alternations which bursts forth with more terrific violence in hot climates. The luminous clouds which bring rain are the purple kine whom a black-demon tries to steal; the fruitfulness of the earth depends on the issue of the contest, and the thunderbolt disperses the cloud, which falls on the earth in rain, while Indra, that is, the blue sky, appears in his splendour.[22]

It may be clearly seen from these examples how the specific myth was gradually developed. We have said that in addition to the myth which referred to types constructed from special and manifold suggestions, alike or analogous in extrinsic circumstances, others were formed from definite natural objects, in their relations to men and to their acquaintance with cosmic facts in those very early times. These, however, although definite, assumed anthropomorphic forms, like those which were specific. The cause of this identity of construction is to be found in the influence exerted upon them by the earlier myths. By a necessary equilibrium and spontaneous symmetry of mental creations, these were also modified by the gradual formation of contemporary images. In this way the solar myths were elaborated and developed among the Aryan peoples and other races; their aspects became much more anthropomorphic and anthropopathic in proportion as the typical myths assumed a human form.

The primitive myths of the secondary form were at first grouped round physical and external phenomena, because these were originally the most obvious to man. But the specific moral types had their origin by reaction, and by a more strictly intellectual process, and these were personified in the same way, although in this second stage they were not so numerous. Yet their appearance and creation were inevitable, since the same faculty and classifying process had to be carried out in the intellectual and moral order as in that which was extrinsic and cosmic; since the mind and consciousness and intrinsic faculty of the intelligence are identical. And when once these ultimate types were formed, the same necessity impelled their animation and personification in anthropomorphic images. Of this we have abundant instances in all the traditions of nearly all the peoples of the world.



CHAPTER IV.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM.

In the preceding chapters we have considered and, as we hope, demonstrated the origin and genesis of myth in general, an origin and genesis which had their first impulses and causes in the animal kingdom as a whole, since these beginnings were the necessary result of the psychical exercise of the perception and intelligence. We next discovered in man, as he issued from a simply animal condition and attained the power of reflection, the origin of the special myth or fetish, which was a higher evolution of that which is proper to animals; hence the origin of the specific myth was altogether anthropomorphic, whether physical or moral; and hence came also the development and ramification of all mythologies, and of universal polytheism.

It may be seen from the reality and truth of this theory how much mistaken those men are who hold, owing to their religious prejudices or to their systems of logic and history, that monotheism was the first intuition of man, or at any rate of the privileged races. This is altogether impossible, since such an opinion is opposed to the genuine development of the intelligence, to its primitive constitution and progress, and to the essential solidarity of human and animal nature.

In the case of animals as well as of man the implicit act and psychical process of communication between the world and themselves consist in the individual and concrete animation of the thing or phenomenon perceived; whence they are resolved into conscious subjects, acting with a given purpose; the difference in man's case, due to his power of reflection, consists in the fact that he ascribes to the fetish distinct mental characteristics, regarding it as a subject, actuated by will, and invested with an external form. Hence it is impossible that man should have had any primitive intuition of a perfectly rational and universal Idea, since his intelligence is so constituted that it is slowly developed from the animal condition into a humanity which is mythically reflex, and he rises from the single to the specific, from phenomena to the type which more or less exactly corresponds to them.

We are convinced that by these researches, we have eradicated the previous misconception, which cannot be revived or maintained except with the weapons of sophism, and by defying evidence and the very nature of things.

While man has risen from the individual myth to that which is specific, infusing anthropomorphic life into the whole of nature, and into his own sensations, emotions, and conceptions, he has pursued an art virtually the same as that whence science is generated. The instrument, both with respect to the formation of myths and to the formulation of science, is in fact identical, and the process also is the same. Science, like myth, observes, analyzes, and classifies observations, and gradually rises to a conception of the specific type, and hence to a unity which becomes ever more complete and universal.

In the composition and mythical animation of the world, whether by special personifications or by those which are typical, and by the sensations corresponding to them, man makes a fanciful classification of phenomena, he observes and studies their beneficial or injurious effects on himself, and in this empirical way is able to estimate their value. On the other hand, he rises in the social scale by means of his superstitious and religious feelings, which act as a stimulus and symbol, so far as he subjects his animal and perverse instincts to the deliberate precepts which he imagines to be expressed by these myths.

In so far as the empirical observation of things is irrational, and obedience is paid to the fanciful precepts of oracles, it is not the result of an explicit moral law, yet there is on the one side some knowledge of the qualities, habits, and periods of things, and on the other a civil and human order which is gradually formed and developed. In fact, in the case of the higher historical races it is important to make a more explicit and accurate study of the fetish religion, that is, of the mythical animation of any special phenomenon or thing. Although the scope of such religion is superstitious veneration, or abject fear, yet it is impossible that it should not induce a more precise and less confused notion of the relative condition of things. In this way observation becomes more accurate, and the intrinsic use of the thing is often recognized. By the gradual exercise of such analysis in the case of all or most phenomena, man obtains a clearer knowledge of his environment.

While a juster estimate of the empiric value of special objects is obtained in this manner, the subsequent, though sometimes mistaken classification of their specific types enables the mind to arrange his knowledge of natural things in a more synthetic and orderly way, and by such classification man is always tending towards a more universal unity: he places the general forms of phenomena in an ideal harmony, which fancifully symbolizes their laws.

In the succeeding chapters we shall see how this process is accomplished, and how it leads up to the explicit exercise of the reason. A more definite empiric knowledge, and the harmonious classification of specific types with a view to unity, are a proof of a relatively greater improvement, both in civilization and morality. This is abundantly shown in all those peoples who have attained to an altogether anthropomorphic polytheism, either among the Aryans, prior to their dispersion, in the Vedic period in India, among the Celts, Graeco-Latins, Germans, Slavs, or in the Finnish races, Mongols, Chinese, Assyrians, Egyptians, Mexicans, and Peruvians, as well as among the barbarous peoples of modern times.

The imagination, the faculty which creates and excites phantasms in man, is not, as is erroneously supposed, the primary source of myths, but only that which in a secondary degree elaborates and perfects their spontaneous forms; and precisely because it is near akin to this primordial mythical faculty, it goes on to organize and classify these polytheistic myths. By a moral and necessary development an approximation is made, if not to truth itself, at any rate to its symbols; whence reason is afterwards more easily infused into myth on the one side, and on the other it is resolved into rational ideas and cosmic laws. It was in this way that poets perfected myth in its influence on virtue and civilization, and by them it was directed into the paths of science and of truth.

As Dr. Zeller has well said in his lecture on the development of monotheism in Greece herself, the great Greek poets were her first thinkers, her sages, as they were afterwards called. They sang of Zeus, and exalted him as the defender of righteousness, the representative of moral order. Archilocus says that Zeus weighs and measures all the actions of good and evil men, as well as those of animals. He is, said Terpandros somewhat later, the source and ruler of all things. According to Simonides of Amorgos, the principle of all created things rests with him, and he rules the universe by his will. Thus, as time went on, Zeus became, in the general conception, the personification of the world's government, which was delivered from the fatality of destiny and from the promptings of caprice. Destiny which, according to the early mythical representation, it was impossible to escape, is resolved into the will of Zeus, and the other gods which were at first supposed to be able to oppose him, become his faithful ministers. Such is the teaching of Solon and of Epicharmos. "Be assured that nothing escapes the eyes of the divinity; God watches over us, and to him nothing is impossible."

This impulse of the imaginative faculty combined with the process of reason is most plainly seen in the conceptions of the three great poets of the fifth century, Pindar, AEschylus, and Sophocles. In the words of Pindar: "All things depend on God alone; all which befalls mortals, whether it be good or evil fortune, is due to Zeus: he can draw light from darkness, and can veil the sweet light of day in obscurity. No human action escapes him: happiness is found only in the way which leads to him; virtue and wisdom flow from him alone."

We find the same order and manner of thought in AEschylus, although he remained faithful to the polytheistic creed, which indeed confirms the truth of our theory. The moral law was gradually developed and purified by this long succession of poets, and it clearly appears from AEschylus and his successors how man reaps that which he has sown: he whose heart and hands are pure lives his life unmolested, while guilt sooner or later brings its own punishment with it. The Erynnyes rule the fates of men, and may be said to sap the vital forces of the guilty; they cleave to them, excite and stimulate them to madness until death comes. The ancient and mysterious mythical tradition of the strife between the old gods and the new was astutely used by AEschylus to teach us how the terrible vengeance of the Eumenides gradually gave place to a gentler and more humane law; just as the primitive despotism of Zeus was gradually transformed into a providential and moral rule of the universe.

Sophocles attained to a higher degree of perfection in the paths of gentleness. No ancient poet has spoken more nobly of the Deity, although his language is altogether polytheistic. He shows the highest reverence to the gods, whose power and laws rule all human life. On them all things depend, both good and evil, nor could any one violate with impunity the eternal order of things. No act or thought escapes the gods; they are the source of wisdom and happiness. Man must meekly comply with their precepts, and must offer up his pains and sorrows to Zeus.

These utterances of the ancient poets never go beyond the range of polytheism, yet they show how far intrinsic morality and truth were developed, even by the imaginative and mythical faculty of the human mind, during the gradual historical evolution of the race. The plurality of gods appears to be the manifestation of the divine principle; their action on the world lost almost all trace of arbitrary power and of their former versatility and caprice. The superstition of polytheism remained, but it had an inward tendency to more rational conceptions and principles.

From this brief notice, as well as from the remarks which preceded it, it appears how the evolution of myth, from its beginning and in its historic course, led to a more perfect, although empiric acquaintance with the world, and with the moral principles and civilization of peoples. The logical faculty by which the development is gradually effected is the same by which from another point of view science becomes possible.

We have clearly demonstrated the indisputable fact that the absolute condition of intrinsic animal perception, and consequently of the primary perception of man, was the animation and vivification of the things and phenomena perceived. This primary acquaintance with things depended on their spontaneous resolution into active and personal subjects. Nor could it be otherwise. Although the scientific idea or notion of objective reality in itself could not be grasped by simple animal intelligence, the impression of the thing perceived was necessarily that of a subjectivity resembling that of the observer, not indeed in outward form and figure but in intrinsic power, whatever might be the extrinsic form and figure of the object or phenomenon.

The original condition of animals, and of man himself in his primordial life and consciousness, is and was the intrinsic personification of the things perceived: from this source the human intellect slowly and with difficulty attained to science, by virtue of that psychical reduplication which has been so often mentioned.

The motive or subject of myth may be external, cosmic, or it may be internal, intellectual, and moral, but in each case the cause and faculty at work are the same. Just as the primary condition of observation, and consequently the motive principle of science, consists in the primitive exercise of the intelligence, which leads to empirical and rational knowledge, so myth and science have a common origin in the immediate transformation of natural objects and phenomena into living subjects, and they flow from the same deep source. The object in view is different, but their constructive faculty is the same, and they are, up to a certain point in their long historic course, evolved in the same way. Science, therefore, from one point of view, is the gradual exhaustion and dissolution of myth into the objects which are scientifically investigated, and this will appear more clearly in the sequel.

The series of various phenomena, whether of light, of meteors, of water, of vegetable and animal forms, which were the first subjects of myths, became so interwoven as finally to be represented in an anthropomorphic personality, and were thus gradually lost and evaporated in the ideal symbol. As time went on, by the exercise of the intelligence, and by the aid of the observations and collateral experiments naturally connected with them, man ended where he had begun; released from myth, he only recognized the facts and laws of the world. This clearly shows, not only the formation of myths, but the process of evolution by which they pass into science, in which they find their termination.

If, however, myth and science have the same origin, and start from a common fact, a fundamental principle is necessary, and an internal human act, which is at once the cause and genesis both of myth and science. And although the source is one, myth and science vary in their aspects and effects, and have different fields of historic activity, so that it is necessary to trace the cause of this diversity in their progress and results, to enable us to make a scientific definition of the nature of myth and science, their respective sources and objects.

If on the one side we continually see the birth of fresh myths, which ramify into many fertile sources of superstitions, of religions, of poetry and aestheticism; on the other side we see almost simultaneously a more or less distinct and lively manifestation of the scientific faculty, although still in an empirical form. They are like two streams which issue from the same source and take a parallel course, sometimes mingling their waters, only to separate anew, and then again to become united as they fall by a wide mouth into the sea.

In this manner we have ascertained the actual origin of science and of myth, and have entered on a field perhaps never before attempted nor contemplated; we have established a firm basis for such researches, and, which is perhaps still more important, have shown the continuity of the mythical faculty between man and the animal kingdom. We have ascertained this fact, in its cosmic necessities, both physiological and psychical, but without considering the faculty on which it depends; we have still to decompose the elements of which it consists, and to consider their nature and number.

This inquiry forms the chief problem we have to solve, and it is precisely what we have endeavoured to state in this chapter. In the necessary order of things the fact has its physiological and cosmic conditions in man; it is therefore necessarily internal and psychical, and it is accomplished by the special and intrinsic exercise of the intelligence. We shall be convinced of this truth if we only consider that science and myth have a common origin.

It is evident that there are great difficulties in such an inquiry; for, putting aside other extrinsic difficulties, we have to reduce to a single act or fact the origin of the two vast worlds of myth and science; it is needful to gauge the inmost psychical faculty of the intelligence, and to discover the continuous yet rapid and delicate process of its exercise.

If we are able to attain our object and to tear away the veil which conceals this mysterious act, we shall have a noble recompense in the laborious path on which we have entered, inasmuch as we shall reveal one of the most important laws of life, of the exercise of reflex intelligence and of the genesis of science. Yet we are very sensible how far we are from being equal to the enormous difficulties of this inquiry.



CHAPTER V.

THE ANIMAL AND HUMAN EXERCISE OF THE INTELLECT IN THE PERCEPTION OF THINGS.

Apprehension is the act, both in animals and in man, by which the spontaneous and immediate animation of things and of phenomena is accomplished. It is therefore necessary to pause and consider this act, since it is, even in man, the source and foundation of the origin of myth, and in it we shall find the causes, elements, and action by which such a genesis is effected. This fact is so evident that the necessity of making such an inquiry might almost be taken for granted, since the truth can be ascertained in no other way.

In the case of animal perception, which we have already considered, the external perception of an object is composed of three elements: the phenomenon perceived, the living subject with which this phenomenon is animated, and the vague yet real power involved in the life thus infused into it by the animal. Supposing any other animal to be the object perceived, these three elements are self-evident; since the phenomenon perceived in a given form causes the immediate assumption that it is a subject, actuated by a purpose of offence or defence, and hence follows the apprehension of a power capable of affecting him, which has in this case a real existence. Phenomenon, subject, effective power, follow in a rapid and inevitable sequence, and are instantly combined in the integral image formed of the object apprehended by the senses.

In fact, an animal which fights with another, which seizes on his food as a prey, or which is in dread of some enemy or unfamiliar object, recognizes either the species or the individual from its external form, and constitutes it into an animated subject, and ultimately into an actively offensive or defensive power, or into one which satisfies his appetites. Such a fact, and such elements of the fact, recur in the whole animal kingdom, even among those which only apprehend external things by the sense of touch. As we ascend higher in the scale of animals to those who possess other senses and a more elaborate organism, we find the same fact in a more perfect and distinct form.

Those animals which, since they are without the sense of sight, have no perception of distance, wait until their prey touches their antennae, mouths, or claws, and yet the same distinct act is accomplished in these three specified elements. They would not lie in wait for their prey, unless they had already formed a conception of its possible image, consisting of a form, subject, and effective force, combined in a single intuition. When this external prey is presented to the senses, the phenomenon, subject, and effective power arise in rapid succession, and are united in one unique consciousness. This truth appears from the animal's efforts not to let his prey escape destruction.

From the reciprocal apprehension of animals, these three elements which constitute it may be clearly seen. Although such a truth, precisely because it is evident, may appear simple to those who seek truth from the clouds, or by means of logical or tortuous artifice, yet such are the characteristics of true science. For the new facts which she interprets and classifies appear old as soon as they are understood, although they have never before been explained.

Although such a fact is manifest in the case of reciprocal animal perceptions, it may appear more difficult to verify it with respect to perceptions which do not refer to other animals, but to natural phenomena, or to inanimate, unconscious things. We have shown that all animal perception is possible only so far as they are able to infuse their own consciousness and psychical power into every object of nature, since they are unable to comprehend the thing or phenomenon except as an objective reality, without reference to its real cosmic importance. Since this is necessarily the case, the object perceived, even when it is not an animal, is always transformed into a living subject, acting deliberately. And although this is sometimes done in a vague way, when the object in question has not the external form and movements of an animal, yet it is always regarded as a real power.

When a well broken horse, for example, goes on his way quietly, perceiving nothing which strongly attracts nor alarms him, the sudden flutter of a cloth, the flaring of a lamp, the rush of water, or some violent noise will cause him to stop, to plunge and kick, or to bolt away. We have already shown, by experiment, the exciting cause of his alarm and suspicion. The sudden fluttering of the cloth in the wind was a phenomenon perceived by the horse, and since he regarded this phenomenon as an animated subject, and consequently as a real power, it is evident that his fear was caused by the sudden appearance of a living form, and the direct apprehension of a subject which might possibly be hurtful or dangerous. In this way, the circle is completed and combined in one unique phantasm; a phenomenon, a living subject, and a real power.

In this instance, the psychical law is so clear that it can hardly be disputed. But if we consider any other animal perceptions, we find that the law still holds good, as we have already shown in various instances. In all cases the apprehension takes place in the same way, and consists of the same elements, namely, of a phenomenon, a living subject, and a real power. The exercise of animal apprehension is the rapid, necessary, and perpetual concentration into a single image of the phenomenon, subject, and cause; that is, given the perception of a phenomenon, the animal endows it, with respect to himself, with consciousness, and consequently with real power.

In fact, the faculty of perception cannot be exercised in any other way, nor can it consist of any other elements. In nature, the sensible qualities of things are all resolved into general and special phenomena, appearances, and extrinsic forms, as far as animal and human intuition, and the character of the subject which perceives and feels them, are concerned; and they are perceived just so far as we and as animals are able to communicate by means of our senses with the world and with ourselves. A phenomenon and an intrinsic form signify, at the moment of perception, the thing, the object which the conditions of our senses enable us to perceive, and the intrinsic power of this phenomenon implies a cause. Natural phenomena and beings are thus reciprocally linked together as causes and effects, an effect becoming in its turn the cause of a subsequent fact; that is, when we consider things in themselves, and not relatively to the animal or man who apprehends them.

If, therefore, there are in animal consciousness and intelligence three elements of apprehension, afterwards fused into a single fact, it follows that the extrinsic relations of beings and forces are subjectively reciprocal; there is the given form of a phenomenon, and, intrinsically, it consists of an active power, eternally at work, since there is no being nor form which stands still and is not reproduced in the infinite evolution of the universe.

Since, to the percipient, the extrinsic form, whatever it may be, remains the same as that which was first presented to him, the phenomenon is bounded by his faculty of perception, followed by the immediate and implicit assumption of a subject, and consequently of a possible and indefinite causality. This internal and psychical process of the animal corresponds with the actual condition of things, as they appear and really are; a correspondence which is in itself a powerful confirmation of the truth.

Since an animal is devoid of the explicit and reflex process of the intellect, it has not and cannot have any conception of the thing in itself, the intrinsic essence of the phenomenon, nor yet of the objective and cosmic cause; because it animates the phenomenon with its own personality, which has assumed the external form of this phenomenon, it is conscious of a cause, like itself, transfused into the object in question. We have shown that phenomena affect animals in this way, and that they are conscious of being in a world of living subjects, constantly actuated by the deliberate purpose of influencing them.

The faculty and elements of apprehension are precisely similar in man and animals, since extrinsic things present the same appearance to both alike, and the perceptive power acts in the same way. We cannot, indeed, go back to our first beginnings, and it is difficult for those who are not accustomed to such researches to discover the primitive facts of their own being, which have been so much modified by exercise and the intrinsic use of reflection for many ages; yet some certain signs remain, nor would it be now impossible to reproduce them. No one can doubt that man also began to communicate with the world and with himself by his perception of a phenomenon, of some extrinsic quality or form. From this he directly apprehended the thing and its cause. No intelligent person can believe that man had any direct intuition of the thing in itself, independently of the extrinsic phenomenon by which it was presented to his perceptions: he could not by the sudden apprehension of all natural objects intuitively grasp the Idea. This will be more fully shown in the following chapter.

In accordance with this statement, man, who still retains his animal nature, has exercised the same faculty of apprehension by the synthetic process of the three elements which compose it in the case of animals; he attains therefore to the same results, that is, he animates the object of perception, and considers it as an efficient cause. This identical faculty of perception in man and animals was only differentiated when the reflex power of man subsequently enabled him to regard objects, as we do now, as inanimate, and subject to the universal laws of nature.

Even now, after all our scientific attainments, we are not wholly free from the former innate illusion; we often act towards things as if we lived in the early days of our race, and continue that primitive process of personification in the case of certain objects.

We have shown what was the origin of the fetish and of myth, and how it arose from the impersonation of all natural objects and phenomena, which are transformed into living subjects. This shows that the faculty, elements, and results of the apprehension are identical in man and animals. If man created the fetish which in process of differentiation generated all kinds of myths, he, like animals, was directly and implicitly conscious of the living subject, and in it of an active cause. Although in man the fetish retains its personality in his memory, and becomes the cause of hopes and fears throughout his life, while its effect on the animal is only transitory, and at the actual moment of perception; yet this does not invalidate the truth of the principle, nor prove that their impulses and genesis are not identical. Thus the analysis of the faculty of apprehension confirms and explains the proof before given of the origin of myths, and explains their causes.

We have all, however unaccustomed to give account of our acts and functions, found ourselves in circumstances which produced the momentary personification of natural objects. The sight of some extraordinary phenomenon produces a vague sense of some one acting with a given purpose, and hence of an actual fetish. A man will sometimes address the things which surround him, and act towards them as if they possessed consciousness and will. Children, who are still without experience and reflection, will often invest external objects with solidity.

A child, as soon as it can guide its own motions, will grasp anything which is pliant and yielding as firmly as if it were solid, thus implicitly judging the thing from its appearance. In the same way, a child confidently relies on any support, however weak and insufficient it may be, arguing as usual from the appearance to the thing itself. Nor must it be said that experience is necessary to correct these errors. The implicit faculty of apprehension is prior to experience, which only becomes possible by means of this faculty. The elements of this faculty unconsciously fulfil and pursue their office in the child, aided by the reflex motions which are cerebro-spinal and peripheral, as they have been produced and organized in the species by evolution; but they, as well as these reflex physiological motions, are prior to the same temporary experience.[23]

Thus the new-born infant sucks the milk which serves for its nourishment from its mother's breast; it is impossible in this case that such a class of elements should not be spontaneously developed; the child feels the nipple and adapts its mouth and mode of breathing to it, while pressing the breast with its hands to express the milk. If much in this operation might be ascribed to reflex movements, yet in association with them, supplementing and rendering them possible, there is an implicit perception of the external phenomenon through the sense of touch, and he becomes conscious of the object, and of its causative power; such power consisting in this case of its capacity to satisfy his wants. In short, all animals, man included, in every act of communication with the world, exercise this faculty by means of the three elements which constitute it. If we consider the actions of infants, and still more of all young animals, this truth will be vividly displayed.

In common speech, even to this day, all men, both learned and unlearned, speak of inanimate things as if they had consciousness and intelligence. While this mode of expression bears witness to the extremely early origin of the general personification of natural objects, it also shows that even now our intelligence is not emancipated from such a habit, and our speech unconsciously retains the old custom. Thus we call weather good and bad, the wind mad (pazzo) or furious, the sea treacherous, the waters insidious; a stone is obstinate, if we cannot easily move it, and we inveigh against all kinds of material obstacles as if they could hear us. We call the season inconstant or deceitful, the sun melancholy and unwilling to shine, and we say that the sky threatens snow. We say that some plants are consumed by heat, that some soils are indomitable, that well cultivated ground is no longer wild, that in a good season the whole landscape smiles and leaps for joy. A river is called malevolent, and a lake swallows up men; the earth is thirsty and sucks up moisture, and plants fear the cold. The people of Pistoja say that some olive trees will not feel a thrashing, that they are afraid of many things, and that they live on, despising the course of years. Again, they say that olive trees are not afraid of the pruning knife, and that they rejoice in its use by a skilled hand. Thousands of such expressions might be adduced, and we refer our readers to Giuliani's work, "Linguaggio vivente toscano."

Nor do we only ascribe our own feelings to inanimate things, but we also invest them with the forms and members of the human body. We speak of the head, shoulder, back, or foot of a mountain, of an arm of the sea, a tongue of land, the mouth of a sea-port, of a cave, or crater. So again we ascribe teeth to mountains, a front (fronte, forehead) to a house; there is the eye-brow (ciglio) of a ditch, the eye of heaven, a vein of metal, the entrails of a mountain. The Alps are bald or bare, the soil is wrinkled, objects are sinister or the reverse (sinistra, destra),[24] and a mountain is gigantic ox dwarfish.

In like manner we ascribe our own functions to nature. The river eats into the land; the whirlpool swallows all which is thrown into it, and the wind whistles, howls and moans; the torrent murmurs, the sun is born and dies, the heavens frown, the fields smile. This habit is also transferred to moral questions; and we speak of the heart of the question, the leading idea, the body of doctrines, the members of a philosophic system; we infuse new blood into thought. Truth becomes palpable, a theme is eviscerated, thought is lame, science is childish. History speaks clearly; there is an embryo of knowledge, a vacillating science; the infancy, youth, maturity, and death of a theory; morality is crass, the spirit meagre or acute; the mind adapts itself, logic is maimed; there is a conflict of ideas, the inspiration of science, truncated thoughts. Again we talk of the head of the mob, of the foot of the altar or the throne, of the heart of the riot, of the body of an army, of a phalanx, of trampling under foot, duty, decency, and justice.

From these examples, and indeed we might say from the whole of speech, especially if we go back to the primitive value of words and to their roots, it appears to what a vast extent man originally projected himself, his consciousness, emotions, and purposes into inanimate things; and how, even under the historical conditions of civilization, he still personifies the world, and ascribes to it the forms of his own body and limbs.

Again, we have plainly shown that man, by the intrinsic reduplication of his psychical faculty, spontaneously retains and personifies the inward phantasm generated by such a projection of special natural objects on his perception. In the genesis of such fetishes, and also when, by an effort of will, he recalls them to his mind, this faculty with its constituent elements is brought into action. In fact, when the image is recalled to the mind, it is represented like the external phenomenon; and consequently it involves and generates the thing of which the phenomenon is the external vest, that is, its causative power; and in this way the objective process of its formation is inwardly reproduced. Since the cosmic reality is thus ideally reproduced, the inward substance of the fetish assumes a really efficacious power, whether in its extrinsic form, or in its intrinsic image, and in this way primitive superstitions had their source.

In the case of savage and primitive man the inward image of the fetish without its bodily presence is, owing to the process already described, not merely valid as a real entity, but it becomes a mysterious apparition in the sphere of fancy, in a way analogous to our belief in the reality of things seen in a dream or in moments of hallucination. This appears in the history of all peoples past and present, whence it is certain that primitive man not only formed personifications of external objects and of his own emotions, but also of their images, as they were retained in his memory. In both cases the sequence of the three elements of apprehension, the phenomenon, subject, and cause, is due to the same unique faculty; in a word, the inward perception is identical in its genesis and laws with that which is external.

These are not the only results which follow from the exercise of this faculty. By the spontaneous classifying action of our intelligence we rise from the perception of special and individual objects and phenomena to their various types, and hence to an inward and ideal world of specific representations, as if these were causative powers, informing the multitude of analogous and similar phenomena in which they are manifested. These specific types, which are more strongly present to the fancy in the primitive exercise of the intelligence, also become personified, and they generate what is called polytheism in all its forms, varying according to the races, times, places, and respective conditions of morality and civilization in which they are found.

The same psychical faculty and the same elements are necessary for the personification of such types or idols. The three elements appear in their proper sequence even in the amorphous phantasms which these types first shadow forth, and which are subsequently perfected and embodied in human form. For the consciousness of the external form always exists in the first vague and nebulous conception of the phantasm which gradually appears and formulates itself in the vivid imagination; and hence follows the phenomenal vest, which, as usual, generates the corresponding subject, informed with a causative power. This process clearly shows, and in fact constitutes, the essence of myth.

Since the types vary very much, and are indeed unstable from their very nature, constantly becoming formed and again decomposed, the primitive mythologies of all people are in like manner very various, indefinite, and subject to constant change.

It appears in the Vedic mythology, and also in that of the ancient Greeks and Latins, how often the typical myths of Agni, Varuna, Indra, Asvini, and Maruti; and again, of Zeus, Here, Athene, and the rest, are changed and reconstituted. This shows how the same human faculty, the same elements which constitute the perception and primitive personification of external phenomena, are those also of the specific and intrinsic phenomena. Just as man, in the primitive conditions of his existence, by the psychical and physiological law of his perception, which he has in common with animals, transformed the world and its phenomena into subjects endowed with conscious life; so by his psychical faculty of reduplication he personified the mental images of these same subjects as fetishes and myths; and subsequently invested them with more distinctly human forms, and also with specific types of humanity. The same faculty and conditions of animal perception afterwards become the true and only causes of the superstitions, mythologies, and religions of mankind. The law of continuity is unbroken, and this is a certain confirmation of the truth.

This faculty, inward function, and process of mythical and symbolic facts led in course of time to the evolution and beginning of knowledge, which is first empirical and then rational. Therefore, we must repeat, the extrinsic and intrinsic perception, the specification of types, and their modification into a unity which was always becoming more comprehensive, are the conditions and method of science itself, which is only developed by means of this faculty. Hence the elements and intrinsic logical form of science are identical with those through which mythical representations and the inward life of the human intelligence are developed.[25]

Besides, as we have before remarked, the empirical knowledge of things begins and is perfected in the superstitions of fetishes and myths. Ideas are modified and become purer as they converge into types, and the principle and method at once become more rational. Either in the faculty of perception and in its elements, or in the inward classification of specific forms, or again in the more perfect empirical knowledge of phenomena, the progress of myth and science go on together, and they are not only developed in a parallel direction, but the form becomes the covering, involucre, matrix, or, as I might say, the cotyledons, by means of which the latter is developed and nourished. Even in more rational science this faculty, and these elements, necessarily recur, since in every human conception we find the material aspect, or its mental image, the thing and its cause, and, as we shall see, some mythical personality is insensibly identified with it.

The act which produces myth is therefore the same from which science proceeds, so that their original source is identical. The same process which constitutes the fetish and myth also constitutes science in its conditions and form, and here we find the unique fact which generates them both; science, like myth, would be impossible without apprehension, without the individuation of ideas, and the classification and specification of types.

Before going further I must briefly recapitulate the order of ideas and facts which we have observed, so that the process may be as strictly logical as it is practical. Since, in the elements of apprehension, perception is absolutely identical in man and animals, its primitive effects in animating natural phenomena are the same. But man, by means of his reduplicative faculty, retains a mental image of the personified subject which is only transitory in the case of animals, and it thus becomes an inward fetish, by the same law, and consisting of the same elements as that which is only extrinsic. These phantasms are, moreover, personified by the classifying process of types, they are transformed into human images, and arranged in a hierarchy, and to this the various religions and mythologies of the world owe their origin. Since such a process is also the condition and form of knowledge, the source of myth and science is fundamentally the same, for they are generated by the same psychical fact. It is in this way that the progress of human intelligence was developed in the course of ages; its attitude varies in various races, but the impulses, the faculty, and its elements are identical. I do not think that this unique fact in which myth and science have their source has been observed before; still less has any one defined the limits of human intelligence, and recognized in the simple acts of animals the formal and absolute conditions of human science, and the origin of myth.

If I am not deluded by a prejudice in favour of my own researches, this theory is a contribution to truth. It is confirmed by the solidarity which it establishes between the acts and laws of the psychical human faculty, and that of animals which necessarily preceded it. No science can be constituted without such solidarity; this great truth was felt and, after their manner, demonstrated by scholastic philosophers, or, as it was afterwards scientifically expressed by the genius of Leibnitz: Natura non facit saltum!



CHAPTER VI.

THE INTRINSIC LAW OF THE FACULTY OF APPREHENSION.

We have now carefully considered the acts and dynamic activity of human thought. We have seen in what animal and human perception consists, and how it acts; how the subjects developed in our imagination are gradually united in specific forms or types, and are arranged in a system, whence follow the first symbolic representations of science. But our task is not yet accomplished, since much more is needed to display all that this fact involves, so that we may fully understand the inward evolution of myth and science in history and in our race, and not merely in the individual man.

The faculty and its effects, which could primarily be reduced to this unique and indivisible fact, do not exclusively belong to primordial ages, but go on through all time, our own included, while assuming divers forms and fresh aspects as the faculty of the intellect becomes more developed. It is an indisputable truth that the influence of myth on thought and fancy, a survival from prehistoric ages, still prevails among the common people both in town and country, among those who are uncultivated, and even in the higher classes conventionally called good society.

It is more difficult to trace the occasional existence of the same influence among those who think rationally and investigate the laws of the universe while acquainted with the earlier mythical process; and yet, as we shall show, the greatest and most able men are not unfettered by it. Myth has hitherto been regarded as a secondary and fanciful product of the psychical human faculty, due to extrinsic impulses, rather than as the primitive and intrinsic necessity of the intelligence—a necessity which has its roots in animal intelligence itself; and the unique fact which generates both myth and science has not been ascertained. If this fact and law had been discovered before, we should have more readily understood religions, philosophic systems, and the successive forms of science, and pure reason would have made more rapid progress. Our theory, besides giving a rational explanation of the different forms assumed by thought in the course of its historic evolution, will, I hope, also account for many psychological phenomena which have hitherto been imperfectly understood, such as dreams, hallucinations, the aberrations of insanity, and the like. The primitive fact and its effects reappear in these conditions, and this influence is persistent and enters into all our acts, conscious or unconscious, voluntary or involuntary.

It follows from the innate necessity of the perception that objects and their extrinsic and intrinsic causes are resolved into living subjects, and are classified in a hierarchy of specific types, which are accepted by the primitive and ignorant mind as the universal mythical forms.[26] But the necessities of human speech, which is however involved in mythical representations, from the very beginning essentially reflex, require other terms than those of individual and specific animations. It is clear that the simple personifying faculty of the intellect sufficed in its earliest emotions, but that after the slow development of psychical reduplication, and the enlargement of languages and ideas, it no longer satisfied the logical requirements of the mind.

Consequently, explicit,—that is, rational—singular, and specific ideas gradually arose and assumed a definite form; they were interwoven and fused into these individual and specific types, and thus obtained a place in the thoughts and language of primitive man. The gradual intrusion of specific rational ideas is natural to the human mind, since it is logically progressive, and the fact may be observed by those who watch the mental growth of children, and of ignorant and untaught adults.