152 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



form does not indeed appear in these conceptions, 

 but a substantial entity is involved in them which 

 sometimes, as we have seen, may even assume the 

 aspect of a complete myth. 



A careful analysis of the process of our intelli- 

 gence has shown that this habitual personification of 

 the phenomenon or abstract conception is due to the 

 innate faculty of perception, since the appearance of 

 any phenomenon necessarily produces the idea of a 

 subject actuated by deliberate purpose ; this law is 

 equally constant in the case of animals, in whom, 

 however, it does not issue in a rational conception. 

 The objection of ourselves into nature, the personifi- 

 cation of its phenomena and myths in general, are 

 common to all, while they take a more fanciful form 

 in the case of primitive man ; they are the constant 

 and necessary result of the perception of external 

 and internal phenomena. This personification in- 

 cludes moral and intellectual as well as physical 

 phenomena, and it always proceeds in the same way, 

 from special phenomena to specific types, and hence 

 to abstract perceptions. 



In this way we have established the important fact 



tail in general. Even an intelligent savage does not accurately 

 distinguish between the subjective and the objective, between the 

 imaginary and the real; this is the most important result of a 

 scientific education. Tylor, Primitive Culture ; Steinh:iuser, Jii-ligion 

 des Negres; Brinton, Myths of the World. The objective form of con- 

 ceptions and emotions, which are subsequently transformed into spirits, 

 are found among the superior races of our day, in the Christum 

 hierarchy of angels, in popular tradition, and in spiritualism. 



