HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF MYTH AND SCIENCE. 161 



objects, which can be retained in the mind as opera- 

 tive under all circumstances ; they are indefinite, and 

 diffused through all the phenomena which are succes- 

 sively perceived and vivified. The unseen wind which 

 rises and falls, the moving cloud, the flash of lightning 

 and roar of thunder, the dawn, the rushing torrent 

 when any of these things are perceived by animals 

 and primitive men, they are endowed with subjective 

 life and are supposed to act with deliberate purpose ; 

 and this is the first form of myth. But when they 

 are not present (I here speak of the animal nature of 

 man) they do not remain in the mind as persistent 

 beings to which the tribute of worship inspired by 

 hope or fear must be paid ; these and other pheno- 

 mena only inspire such sentiments when they are 

 actually present. 



It is no vain distinction which I make between 

 the first vague and intermittent form of myth sug- 

 gested by phenomena actually present, and that of 

 the first stage of fetish : this distinction marks the 

 difference between the mythical representation of 

 animals and the classifying and reflective process 

 peculiar to man. 



Comte was the first, to remark, quite incidentally, 

 that animals might sometimes attain to the idea of 

 a fetish ; Darwin gave the instance of a dog which 

 was scared by the movement of an open umbrella in 

 a meadow, although he remained quiet when it was 

 unshaken by the wind ; and Herbert Spencer, partly 



