CHAPTER VII. 



THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



IN the foregoing pages we have reached the primordial 

 fact of our psychical and physical nature, in which, 

 as it appears to us, both mjih and science have 

 their origin. After first considering the animal king- 

 dom as a whole, we have seen that the interaction 

 between external phenomena and the consciousness 

 of an organism results in the spontaneous vivification 

 of the phenomenon in question, so that the origin of 

 the mythical representation of nature is found in the 

 innate faculty of animal perception. 



Nor could it be otherwise. The internal activity 

 and intrinsic sense of conscious and deliberate life 

 which inspires animals and men, while the latter are 

 still ignorant of the rational order of things, is 

 necessarily reflected both in the external objects of 

 perception and in the internal emotions, as if they 

 were operating causes independent of the will of the 

 percipient. It is impossible for an animal, which 

 is unable by voluntary observation to make any 



