HUMAN SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 73 



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 mul- 

 titude, 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." * This fact, indicated by M'Lennan and 

 by all who have devoted themselves to authropo- 



* The Worship of Animals and Plants, Part I. Fortnightly Eevieiv, 

 1869. The same argument is generally used ; see Tylor, Early History 

 of Mankind, 1865; Lubbock, Origin of Civilization, IS70 ; Herbert 

 Spencer, Fortnightly Review, May, 1870; Waitz, Anthropologie der 

 NaturviilJcer ; Bastian, Men&cli in der Geschichte. 



