FROM MYTH TO SCIENCE 315 



and impartial belief. The growth of the critical faculty, the division within 

 belief into fact and interpretation, proceeded with the increasing sense of 

 inadequacy as story-telling gradually failed to satisfy mental demands. It 

 is probable that the dispossessed myth assisted greatly in the recognition 

 of the AS IF which pervades human thinking, and in the estimation of its 

 significance. The as if element in all thought connects into one continuity 

 the minds of present and past ages. The reaUsation of the as if and, finally, 

 of its implications and importance, is connected with a separation, during 

 development, which may be compared with biological separation into species. 



Lord Haldane remarks of Aristotle that " it was the fashion of his age 

 to resort to myths and to speak in what were in those days the popular modes 

 of expression." ^ Plato employed the myth with a full sense of the as if 

 which it contained. In the dialogue known by his name Protagoras explained 

 to Socrates why the Athenians, like aU mankind, allowed only a favoured 

 few to share in deUberations on carpentering or other mechanical arts and 

 allowed every man to deliberate about political virtue, which proceeds by 

 way of justice or wisdom. Epimetheus had equipped the mortal creatures 

 fashioned by the gods with their faculties. When Prometheus inspected the 

 distribution, he saw that men were poorly provided, so, for their salvation, 

 he stole the mechanical arts of Hephaestus and Athene, and fire with them. 

 Now the arts were distributed irregularly among men : a favoured few having, 

 for example, the medicinal art, and so also with the rest. When men gathered 

 themselves into cities to preserve themselves against the beasts, they began 

 to destroy one another because they had no political wisdom and could not 

 live together in justice and friendship. Hermes, commissioned by Zeus, then 

 imparted a share of political virtue to all men that they might be able to 

 live together. 



Protagoras told liis auditors, before his discourse, that he chose to speak 

 in myih instead of arguing the question. The speciahsation in human arts 

 and common participation in the fundamental virtues which permit political 

 life occurred as if the former had been first distributed and the latter then 

 bestowed upon all. A myth which would formerly have been credible is 

 used to describe certain facts by showing that they happened as if certain 

 mythical incidents were true.* 



When the credible myth became an incredible story, the prevalence of 

 hypothesis in thought became clear. The Greeks perceived that inter- 

 pretation was connecting observed facts by an as if with the supposed 

 occurrence of other facts or events. Descartes said of Aristotle, referring 

 to a passage in the seventh chapter of the first book of his Meteorologies, 

 " with regard to things not manifest to the senses, he considers that he supplies 

 sufficient explanations and demonstrations of them, if he merely shows 

 that THEY MAY BE SUCH as he explains them to be." Descartes adds, on his 

 own behalf, " I beheve that I have done all that is required of me if the causes 

 I have assigned are such that they correspond to all the phenomena mani- 

 fested by nature . . . and it will be sufficient for the usages of life to know 

 such causes." ^ Interpretation is thus definitely assigned the relatively 

 humble role of connecting known events by an as if with the suppositious 

 occurrence of others. Interpretation is recognised as hypothetical, and 

 certainty perishes with the primitive myth which originally bestowed it. 



As the human mind was reluctantly weaned from mythological explana- 

 tions, so it has only slowly admitted the hypothetical element in its inter- 

 pretations. In interpretation, A and B, which are known, are shown to 

 happen as if C and D were true : chemical combination to happen, for 



1 The Reign of Relativity, p. 250. 



* Protagoras. 



3 The Philosophical Works of Descartes. Trans. Haldane and Ross, p. 300. 



