ANIMAL AND HUMAN PERCEPTION. 123 



when the reflex power of man subsequently enabled 

 him to regard objects, as we do now, as inanimate, 

 and subject to the universal laws of nature. 



Even now, after all our scientific attainments, we 

 are not wholly free from the former innate illusion ; 

 we often act towards things as if we lived in the early 

 days of our race, and continue that primitive process 

 of personification in the case of certain objects. 



We have shown what was the origin of the fetish 

 and of myth, and how it arose from the imperso- 

 nation of all natural objects and phenomena, which 

 are transformed into living subjects. This shows 

 that the faculty, elements, and results of the appre- 

 hension are identical in man and animals. If man 

 created the fetish which in process of differentia- 

 tion generated all kinds of myths, he, like animals, 

 was directly and implicitly conscious of the living 

 subject, and in it of an active cause. Although in 

 man the fetish retains its personality in his memory, 

 and becomes the cause of hopes and fears throughout 

 his life, while its effect on the animal is only transitory, 

 and at the actual moment of perception ; yet this does 

 not invalidate the truth of the principle, nor prove 

 that their impulses and genesis are not identical. 

 Thus the analysis of the faculty of apprehension 

 confirms and explains the proof before given of the 

 origin of myths, and explains their causes. 



We have all, however unaccustomed to give account 

 of our acts and functions, found ourselves in circum- 



