INTRODUCTION. 7 



tinental masses in a horizontal and vertical direction. On 

 these relations depend the thermal conditions of oceanic cur- 

 rents, the meteorological processes in the aerial investment 

 of our planet, and the typical and geographical distribution 

 of organic forms. Such a reference to the arrangement of 

 telluric phenomena presented in the picture of nature, will, 

 I think, suffice to show that the juxtaposition of great, and 

 apparently complicated, results of observation, facilitates our 

 insight into their causal connection. Our impressions of na- 

 ture will, however, be essentially weakened, if the picture 

 fail in warmth of color by the too great accumulation of 

 minor details. 



In a carefully-sketched representation of the phenomena 

 of the material world, completeness in the enumeration of 

 individual features has not been deemed essential, neither 

 does it seem desirable in the delineation of the reflex of ex- 

 ternal nature on the inner man. Here it was necessary to 

 observe even stricter limits. The boundless domain of the 

 world of thought, enriched for thousands of years by the vig- 

 orous force of intellectual activity, exhibits, among different 

 races of men, and in different stages of civilization, sometimes 

 a joyous, sometimes a melancholy tone of mind ;* sometimes 

 a delicate appreciation of the beautiful, sometimes an apa- 

 thetic insensibility. The mind of man is first led to adore 

 the forces of nature and certain objects of the material world ; 

 at a later period it yields to religious impulses of a higher 

 and purely spiritual character. f The inner reflex of the 

 outer world exerts the most varied influence on the myste- 

 rious process of the formation of language, J in which the 

 original corporeal tendencies, as well as the impressions of 

 surrounding nature, act as powerful concurring elements. 

 Man elaborates within himself the materials presented to 

 him by the senses, and the products of this spiritual labo • 

 belong as essentially to the domain of the Cosmos as do the 

 phenomena of the external world. 



As a reflected image of Nature, influenced by the crea- 

 tions of excited imagination, can not retain its truthful purity, 

 there has arisen, besides the actual and external world, an 

 ideal and internal world, full of fantastic and partly sym- 

 bolical myths, heightened by the introduction of fabulous ani- 

 mal forms, whose several parts are derived from the orgao 



# Cosmos, vol. i., p. 23-25 ; vol. ii., p. 25 and 97. 



t Ibid., vol. ii., p. 38-43, and 56-60. 



t Ibid. vol. i., p. 35"-359; vol. ii., p. 112-117. 



