HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF MYTH AND SCIENCE. 2'29 



ence on all the earlier civilized peoples, of his own 

 and subsequent times, and which was also involved 

 in the mythical representations of later savages, 

 assumed an aspect which varied with the special 

 history, the ethnic temperament, the geographical 

 and extrinsic conditions of different peoples ; but 

 considered in itself, it is always the same, and is the 

 necessary result of the evolution of myth and of 

 thought. Since the evolution of myth leads to the 

 gradual genesis of science, which becomes more 

 rational as myth is transformed from the material 

 to the ideal, ideas are substituted for myths, and 

 laws, as Vico well observes, for the canons of poetry. 

 This noble and more rational theory of eternal 

 and causative Ideas resembles anthropomorphic poly- 

 theism in concentrating into one supreme Idea the 

 intellectual Zeus, the Being of beings, according to 

 another mythical and scientific representation by 

 Aristotle, and it was afterwards combined with the 

 Semitic idea of the Absolute. This was fused with 

 the Logos, the Platonic demiurgos of Messianic ideas, 

 and afterwards produced the universal philosophy and 

 religion of Catholicism, which dominated and still 

 dominates over thought with vigorous tenacity, and 

 extends into all the civilized world inhabited by 

 European races. We do not only trace the same 

 thought, modified, classified, and perfected in the 

 Fourth Gospel, in the Councils, the Fathers, and the 

 schoolmen, but also in independent philosophies. In 



