84 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



and confused, running more or less into each other, so 

 as to be easily lost, or constantly diverging more 

 widely. This internal movement of images and un- 

 defined conceptions was a stimulus to active and 

 mobile life, and an abundant source of vivid or 

 obscure myths, and of the sentiments corresponding 

 to them. 



These specific primordial types were openly re- 

 ferred to external phenomena, and were based upon 

 the life of nature, since rational or scientific ideas had 

 not yet made their appearance, or only very sparsely. 

 In any case, the reality of these types and their 

 animation are facts, as all the earliest records attest, 

 whether among civilized or savage races. 



The personification of specific types, which are 

 in general the most obvious those, namely, which 

 refer to animals, vegetables, minerals, and meteors, 

 tilings useful or injurious to man is the origin of 

 the subsequent belief in fetishes, genii, demons, and 

 spirits, and these led to the vivification of the whole 

 of nature, her laws, customs, and forces. Man's 

 personification of himself, his projection of himself 

 as a living being into external things, was the result 

 of reflection. In fact, the impersonation of the winds 

 took place in very early times, since they most fre- 

 quently and universally excited the attention and 

 anxiety of man and animals, whether beneficially 

 or otherwise, and by their mechanical action, their 

 whistling and other sounds, they readily struck the 



