22 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



by setting forth the essential elements as they are 

 lei-ally displayed. I think I was not i'ar from the 

 truth in establishing a law which seems indubitable ; 

 although, while some men whose opinion is worthy 

 of esteem have accepted it, other very competent 

 judges have objected to some parts of niy theory, 

 but without convincing me of error. I repeat my 

 conclusions here, since they are necessary to the 

 theory of the genesis of myth, which I propose to 

 explain in this work. I hold the complete identity 

 between man and animals to be established by the 

 adequate consideration of the faculties, the psychical 

 elements of consciousness and intelligence, and the 

 mode of their spontaneous exercise ; and I believe the 

 superiority of man to consist not so much in new 

 faculties as in the reflex effect upon themselves of 

 those he possesses in common with the animals. The 

 old adage confirms this theory : Homo duplex. 



No one now doubts that animals feel, hear, re- 

 member, and the like, while man is able to exercise 

 his will, to feel, to remember, deliberately to con- 

 sider all his actions and functions, because he not 

 only possesses the direct and spontaneous intuition 

 with respect to himself and things in general which he 

 has in common with animals, but he has an intuitive 

 knowledge of that intuition itself, and in this way he 

 multiplies within himself the exercise of his whole 

 psychical life. We find the ultimate cause of this 

 return upon himself, and his intuition of things, in 



