258 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



that we have shown that a phenomenon involves the 

 intuitive idea of an active subject, so that the image 

 also, in accordance with the innate faculty of per- 

 ception, must normally appear to the mind as such. 

 When this is not the case, it is because the normal 

 effect of natural phenomena, to which our attention 

 is constantly directed, and our mental education and 

 hereditary influence, have accustomed us to dis- 

 tinguish at once between the mere idea and the real 

 object, and thus we discern the difference between 

 the normal action of thought and sense, and illusions, 

 hallucinations, and dreams. But since these psy- 

 chical and physiological conditions lose their force 

 when the habit and actions of our waking state are 

 dormant, the primitive and innate entification of the 

 image quickly recurs, as we can plainly see from the 

 previous analysis. 



This is so much the case, that some savage 

 peoples even now find it hard to distinguish real 

 events from those of dreams, and this is owing to 

 a defect in their memory or to the imperfection of 

 their language. In fact, all civilized and barbarous 

 peoples in the world have without exception believed, 

 and still believe, in the reality of images seen in 

 dreams, and their personification has been the source 

 of an immense number of myths. Even noAv, 

 with all our civilization and advanced science, not 

 only the common people, but many of those in 

 fashionable and tolerably cultivated society, believe 



