INTRINSIC LAW OF APPREHENSION. 137 



enters into all our acts, conscious or unconscious,, 

 voluntary or involuntary. 



It follows from the innate necessity of the per 

 ception that objects and their extrinsic and intrinsic 

 causes are resolved into living subjects, and are 

 classified in a hierarchy of specific types, which 

 are accepted by the primitive and ignorant mind as 

 the universal mythical forms.* But the necessities of 

 human speech, which is however involved in mythical 

 representations, from the very beginning essentially 

 reflex, require other terms than those of individual 

 and specific animations. It is clear that the simple 

 personifying faculty of the intellect sufficed in its 

 earliest emotions, but that after the slow development 

 of psychical reduplication, and the enlargement of 

 languages and ideas, it no longer satisfied the logical 

 requirements of the mind. 



Consequently, explicit, that is, rational singular, 

 and specific ideas gradually arose and assumed a 

 definite form; they were interwoven and fused into 

 these individual and specific types, and thus obtained 

 a place in the thoughts and language of primitive 

 man. The gradual intrusion of specific rational 

 ideas is natural to the human mind, since it is logi- 

 cally progressive, and the fact may be observed by 

 those who watch the mental growth of children, and 

 of ignorant and untaught adults. 



* This great truth was observed by Vico, the most advanced oj 

 modern psychologists, in his views of primitive psychology. 



