210 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



Hence it is apparent that the evolution of myth 

 conforms to the general law of the evolution of human 

 thought, of all its products and arts in their manifold 

 ramifications. From the image, the informing subject, 

 from the conception and the myth, the necessary 

 cycle is accomplished in regular phases, wherever the 

 ethnic temperament and capacity and extrinsic circum- 

 stances permit it, until the rational idea is reached, 

 the sign or cipher which becomes the powerful instru- 

 ment of the exercise and generalization of thought. 



In order to show the efficacy of the mythical and 

 scientific faculty of thought comprised in the systems 

 of ancient and modern philosophy, and its slow 

 progress towards positive and rational science, we will 

 adduce an instance from the people in whom such 

 an evolution was accomplished, aided by all the 

 civilized peoples in reciprocal communication with 

 them. Let us see how this faculty was manifested 

 in the Greeks at a time when they first attempted 

 to reduce the earlier and scanty knowledge of nature 

 to a system. 



In Greece the historical course of this faculty 

 ramified into two classes of research, which were at 

 that time objective, the Ionic and the Pythagorean 

 schools. In the former, the phenomenon and nature 

 were assumed to be the direct object of knowledge, 

 while in the latter the object in view was the idea 

 and harmony of things. Influenced by earlier and 

 popular traditions, a mythical and philosophic system 



