INTRINSIC LAW OF APPREHENSION. 153 



that the primitive personification of every external or 

 internal phenomenon, the origin of all myths, religions, 

 and superstitions, is accomplished by the same 

 necessary psychical and physical law as that which 

 produces sensation. That is, men, as well as animals, 

 begin by thinking and feeling in a mythical way, 

 owing to the intrinsic constitution of their intellec- 

 tual life ; and while animals never emerge from these 

 psychical conditions, men are gradually emancipated 

 from them, as they become able to think more 

 rationally, thus finding redemption, truth, and liberty 

 by means of science. 



We now propose to unite in a single conception 

 this necessity of our intellect, at once the product and 

 the cause of perception, and of the spontaneous vivifi- 

 cation of phenomena ; since the law may be expressed 

 in a compendious_form. 



Both in physical, moral, and intellectual myths, 

 and in the substantial entity infused into abstract 

 conceptions, the external or internal phenomenon 

 immediately generates the idea of a subject, since it 

 is a fundamental law of our mind to entify (entificare) ^ 

 every object of our perception, emotion, or conscious- 

 ness. If any one should object to this neologism, in '- 

 spite of its adequate expression of the original function 

 of the intelligence, we reply that the use and necessity 

 of the verb identify have been accepted in the neo-Latin 

 tongues, and therefore entify, which has the same root 

 and form, can hardly be rejected, since it, like the 



