OF THE COSMOS. INTRODUCTION. 7 



phenomena influences in a variety of ways the mysterious 

 process of the formation of language, ( 4 ) a process in which 

 original physical temperament, and the impressions received 

 from surrounding nature, both act as powerful concurrent 

 elements. Man elaborates within himself the rough mate- 

 rials supplied through the senses ; and the results or pro- 

 ducts of such mental processes belong as essentially to the 

 domain of the Cosmos, as do the external phenomena which 

 are reflected in the internal mirror of the mind. 



As the image of nature reflected under the influence of 

 excited creative imagination cannot be preserved pure and 

 true, there arises, by the side of what we call the actual 

 or external world, an ideal or internal world, tilled with 

 fantastic and partly symbolical myths, and animated 

 by creatures of fabulous shape, whose different parts are 

 borrowed either from various animals of the present crea- 

 tion, or even from the remains of extinct species. ( 5 ) Mar- 

 vellous and fabulous flowers and trees spring from the 

 mythical soil, as in the songs of the Edda, the giant ash, 

 the world-tree, Ygdrasil, whose branches rise above the 

 heavens, while one of its triple roots reaches down to the 

 raging fountains of the lower world. ( 6 ) Thus the cloud-land 

 of physical myths is filled, according to the particular cha- 

 racter of the race and climate, either with pleasing images 

 or shapes of terror, and these enter into the circles of ideas 

 of later generations, to whom they are bequeathed. 



If my published work does not correspond sufficiently to 

 the title, of which I have often acknowledged the imprudent 

 boldness, the reproach of incompleteness must especially 

 attach to that portion which touches on the spiritual life in 

 the Cosmos, or the reflex image of external nature in the 



