HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF MYTH AND SCIENCE. 217 



substantial essence which underlies all mythical repre- 

 sentations. Although the essential life of the world is 

 considered from a more abstract point of view, yet the 

 mythical analogy of animal life evidently finds a place 

 in the breath of the void and of time, assumed to be 

 independent entities. The subsequent train of beliefs 

 in spirits, of their incarnations and transmigrations, 

 are closely connected with the phantasmagoria of the 

 past, and display their mythical genesis ; yet by their 

 deeper and more explicit thought they may be said to 

 infuse intellectual life into the world and into science 

 which relates to it. In this first rational classification 

 of science by the Greeks, both on its physical and its 

 ideal side, thought sometimes issues in the simple 

 contemplation of manifold nature, while it still con- 

 tinues mythical in its fundamental conceptions and 

 spiritual corollaries ; myth, however, instead of being 

 altogether anthropomorphic, begins to become scien- 

 tific. 



I must here be allowed to quote a hymn in 

 the Eig-Veda, which was historically earlier than the 

 primitive philosophy of Greece, but which reveals 

 the same tendency, the same mythical and scientific 

 teaching in its interpretation of the world. In 

 this hymn, which has been translated and explained 

 by Max Miiller, we see how boldly the problem of the 

 origin of the world is stated (hymn 129, book x.) 



" Nor Aught nor Nought existed ; yon bright sky 

 Was not, nor heaven's broad woof outstretched above. 



