12 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



of words, due to the poverty of primitive languages. 

 He calls this double meaning the infirmity of speech. 

 I do not deny that many conclusions to which 

 some or other of the great authorities just mentioned 

 have arrived may be as true as they are surprising. 

 I also admit that this may be a certain method of 

 distinguishing the various mythical representations in 

 their early beginnings from their subsequent and 

 complex forms. But in all the facts which have been 

 ascertained, or which may hereafter be ascertained, 

 from the comparative study of the languages of 

 different races, no explanation is afforded of the fact 

 that into the natural and primitive phenomena of 

 myth, or, as Miiller holds, into its various metaphors, 

 man has so far infused his own life, that they have, 

 like man himself, a subjective and deliberate con- 

 sciousness and force. It seems to me that this 

 problem has not yet been solved by scholars ; they 

 have stopped short after establishing the primary 

 fact, and are content to affirm that such is human 

 nature, which projects itself on external things.* 



* Vico writes : " The human mind is naturally inclined to project 

 itself on the object of its external senses." And again, " Common speech 

 ought to bear witness to ancient popular customs, celebrated in times 

 \\licn the language was formed." So again: "Men ignorant of the 

 natural causes of things assign to them their own nature. . . ." In 

 aiiot IHT place: " The physical science of ignorant men is a kind of 

 common metaphysics, by which they assign the causes of tilings which 

 they ilo not undcr.-taiid to the will of Hie gods." Again: "Ignorant 

 and primitive men transform all nature into a vast living body, sentient 

 f passions and affections." 



