158 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



mythical entification the tendency to impersonation 

 was always increasing and becoming more distinctly 

 zoomorphic and anthropomorphic, and in this form it 

 was crystallized or mummified, while science on the 

 other hand was always enlarging its sphere and 

 dissipating the first mythical form of its conception, 

 until nothing was left but a purely rational idea. 



When this evolution takes place in peoples and 

 races which are incapable of improvement, or have a 

 limited capacity for advanced civilization, the faculty 

 of myth remains in the ascendant ; and as past and 

 present history shows, mythical stagnation and in- 

 tellectual barrenness may follow, until intellectual 

 development is arrested and even destroyed. If on 

 the other hand the evolution takes place in peoples 

 and races capable of indefinite civilization, myth 

 gradually disappears and science shines forth vic- 

 toriously. 



Even in historical and civilized races the two 

 cycles go on together, since while robust intellects 

 throw off as they advance the mythical shell in which 

 they were first inclosed, the ignorant masses continue 

 their devotions to fetishes and myths, which they 

 can infuse even into the grandest religious teaching. 

 They perhaps might also perish, crystallized in their 

 miserable superstitions, unless, in virtue of the race 

 to which they belong, the nobler minds were gradu- 

 ally to succeed in illuminating and raising them 

 into a purer atmosphere. In our Aryan race and 



