200 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



restore the happiness of primeval times. It is evident 

 that in this stupendous tragedy jEschylus is leading 

 us to the truth in a threefold sense : aesthetic, morally 

 political, and cosmic. The supreme idea which sums 

 up the whole value of the composition is perhaps that 

 of an inevitable reciprocity of action and reaction 

 between mind and effective force, between the primi- 

 tive providence of nature and the subsequent laws of 

 art, both in the civilization of mankind and in the 

 order and life of the universe. 



In this way the evolution of the special myth was 

 transformed into poetry by the interweaving, collection, 

 and fusion with other myths, and in the minds of 

 a higher order it was resolved into an allegory or 

 symbol of the forces of nature, into providential laws 

 or a moral conception. 



This law of progressive transformation also occurs 

 in the successive modifications of the special meaning 

 of words, so far as they indicate not only the thing 

 itself, but the image which gave rise to the primitive 

 roots. For a long while, those who heard the word 

 were not only conscious of the object which it repre- 

 sented, but of its image, which thus became a source of 

 aesthetic enjoyment to them. As time went on, this 

 image was no longer reproduced, and the bare indica- 

 tion remained, until the word gradually lost all 

 material representation, and became an algebraical 

 sign, which merely recalled the object in question to 

 the mind. 



