220 MYTH AND SCIF.NCE. 



to these earlier representations and personifications of 

 the elements ; representations which in another form 

 endure throughout the course of human thought. 



It is now necessary to consider the other period of 

 the mythical and scientific evolution which had its 

 definitive conclusion in Plato and Aristotle, teachers 

 who even now to some extent influence the two great 

 currents of speculative science. For us, however, it 

 is more important to consider the Platonic teaching 

 as that in which the mythical evolution of the earlier 

 representations has full and clear expression ; while 

 in the Aristotelian philosophy an element of dissolu- 

 tion is already at work which throws some light on the 

 illusions of the Platonic school. 



We must bear in mind that the spontaneous and 

 even the reflective intellectual faculty gradually 

 assimilated special and independent myths into 

 comprehensive types, which referred to all natural 

 objects. Next, the incarnation of spirits produced the 

 earliest forms of polytheism, and these were slowly 

 classified into more concentric circles, and finally into 

 a single hierarchical system. Owing to the attitude 

 and ethnic temperament of the Greeks, the glorious 

 anthropomorphism of their Olympus arose in a more 

 vivid form than elsewhere, and it was impersonated 

 in the all-powerful and all-seeing Zeus, ruler of the 

 world, of gods and men. This process, modified in 

 a thousand ways, was carried on in all races. Hence 

 it resulted that every object had a type, its god ; 



