HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF MYTH AND SCIENCE. 239 



rational form. Within our own recollection the im- 

 ponderable was a tenet of physics, and this was indeed, 

 in spite of all the enlightenment of science, a mythical 

 entification of forces. The same mythical entifica- 

 tions were found in physiology, in chemistry, in 

 nearly all the sciences. Undoubtedly these scientific 

 myths had no anthropomorphic value, yet they are 

 notwithstanding truly mythical entifications, inas- 

 much as they virtually personify laws, or mere modes 

 of motion. 



Ether, according to our present conception of it, 

 differing in its laws and influences from the atoms 

 which constitute the world, and working among and 

 above them, is perhaps only a grand myth like 

 that of the imponderable, which has been exploded ; 

 that is, it is held to be a material entity, while it 

 may be only another modification of the ele- 

 mentary matter in a state differing from the three 

 already known to us ; some of Crooke's late experi- 

 ments on one condition of extremely gaseous matter 

 leads to this assumption. The divided forces of 

 matter, and the dualism which still survives, are also 

 mythical conceptions. Although so much progress 

 has been made in a rational direction, and truth 

 is widely diffused, yet the old mythical instinct 

 constantly reappears in some form or other. I must 

 be permitted to say that this is an evident proof of 

 the truth of my theory. Unless myth were due to 

 an intrinsic psychical and organic law, it would 



