82 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



Animals, for example, perceive a given plant or 

 tree, as a thing presented at the moment to their 

 individual consciousness, and by infusi.ig this con- 

 sciousness into the object in question, they animate 

 and personify it, especially if its fruits or leaves are 

 attractive, or if it is moved by the wind. We have seen 

 that all things are necessarily personified by animals, 

 for if they meet with any material obstacle, they do 

 not ascribe the sudden impediment to the impenetra- 

 bility of matter, or to superior force, but rather to an 

 intentional opposition to their aim or progress. We 

 often see that animals not only exert mechanical 

 force to break through or destroy the material barriers 

 intended to keep them in confinement, but they act in 

 such a way as to show rage and fury towi. rds a hostile 

 and malevolent subject. 



To return to our example ; if an animal vivifies 

 and animates some special plant specially presented 

 to him, he does not go beyond this vivifying act ; 

 when he goes on his way, and no longer perceives the 

 concrete phenomenon, the animation at the same time 

 disappears and ceases. Man, however, by means of 

 the classifying faculty we have noticed, after repeatedly 

 perceiving various plants similar or analogous to the 

 first, is able by spontaneous reflection, and by the 

 automatic exercise of his intelligence, to refer them 

 to a single type, and in this way the specific idea of a 

 tree is evolved in his mind and fixed in his memory. 

 The same thing gradually takes place with respect to 



