290 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



down to those of our times, and above all in India, 

 China, Central Asia, in Africa, and particularly in 

 Egypt, in America, in Europe, beginning with the 

 Greeks and passing through the Latins down to 

 the Christianity of our day ; nor need we exclude 

 the Oceanic races, and those of the two frigid zones. 



Doubtless the purest aesthetic sentiment was grati- 

 fied in the productions of the plastic arts and of design 

 in general when civilization was at its highest perfec- 

 tion, among people peculiarly alive to this sentiment. 

 At the same time, for the great majority of peoples 

 in early and subsequent ages down to our own time, 

 there was and is the consciousness of a numcn, in the 

 proper meaning of the word, within the statue or effigy, 

 and these were unconsciously entified by the same law 

 which leads to the entification of natural phenomena ; 

 the august presence of the gods and an artificial 

 symbol of the living organism of the world were 

 contained in the material form. While this sentiment 

 took a higher development in art, and was gradually 

 emancipated from its mythical bonds, it never alto- 

 gether disappeared in artistic creations ; and there 

 are still many who would, like some uncultured 

 peoples of early and modern times, cover up their 

 images when they are about to commit some action 

 which might be displeasing to these idols of the gods 

 or saints. If we were to gauge the sentiments which 

 really animate a man of the people, even when he 

 looks at the statue of a great man, we should find 



