76 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



blow, to rage, and overwhelm us ? Nor do I know 

 bow the corn grows. Yesterday there was not a 

 blade of grass in my field, and to-day it is green ; 

 who gave to the earth the wisdom and power to bring 

 forth ? " Again, there is a passage in the Eig-Veda, 

 in which it is said, " Where do the fixed stars of 

 heaven which we see by night go by day ? " 



It is in this intellectual condition that ignorant 

 and savage man really begins the spontaneous yet re- 

 flective research into the causes of things, and it is in 

 this condition only that he hypothetically interprets 

 the order of phenomena through myths, which have 

 then become secondary, and are no longer primitive. 

 The true origin of the primitive myth which animates 

 and personifies the universe is not to be found in 

 this condition ; its origin is of much earlier date in 

 the history of man, and indeed it has its roots, as we 

 have shown, in animal life. 



Certainly when we compare the two intellectual 

 periods, there is a wide difference between the age in 

 which Sekesa could be perplexed by such inquiries, 

 and that of more primitive peoples, which still believe 

 without question in the soul and informing spirit or 

 shade of stones, sticks, weapons, food, water, springs 

 in short, of every object and phenomenon. This is 

 still the case with the Algonquins, the Fijians, the 

 Karens, the Caribbees, the negroes of Guinea, the New 

 Zealanders, the Tongusians, the Greenlanders, the 

 Esthonians, the Australians, the Peruvians, and a 



