THE IDEAS AND SOURCES OF MYTH. 9 



It must not be supposed that in this primary fact, 

 and in these a priori psychical and organic conditions, 

 we shall find the ulterior cause of the various and 

 manifold forms, or of the successive evolution of 

 myths. This would be a grave mistake, equal to that 

 of transcendentalists, who imagine that the laws which 

 actually exist, and the order of cosmic and historic 

 phenomena may be determined from, the independent 

 exercise of their own thoughts, although such laws and 

 order can only be traced and discovered by experience 

 and the observation of facts. In the a priori conditions 

 of the psychical and organic nature, and in the element- 

 ary acts which outwardly result from them, we shall 

 only trace the origin and necessary source of myth, 

 not the variable forms of its successive evolution. 



The ulterior form, so far as the substance of the 

 myth and its various modifications are concerned, is 

 in great part the reflex work of man; its aspect 

 changes in accordance with the attitude and force of 

 the faculties of individuals, peoples and races, and it 

 depends on an energy to which the a priori conditions, 

 as we have just defined them, do not strictly apply so 

 far as the determinate form is concerned. 



It is precisely in this ulterior work of the evolution 

 of myth, which in the elementary fact of its primitive 

 essence had its origin in the predisposition of mind and 

 body, that we may discern the interchangeable germ 

 and origin both of myth and science. If, therefore, 

 the rationale of science cannot be found in the general 



