CLXXIV ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT ieth. ann. 20 



Let US HOW see if these two propositions can be made plain. 

 The savage hears the thunder and infers tliat it is tlie voice of 

 a bird. This is imputing a sound to a wrong body. Birds 

 have voices, and not knowing- the cause of the thunder, the 

 savage imputes it to a bird; but as he knows of no Iiird witli 

 such a voice, he imagines a new and unknown bird. Thus an 

 imaginary bird is ci-eated as the exphiuation of thunder. The 

 creation of imaginary things to exphiin unknown phenomena 

 is mythology. Thunder may be interpreted as the voice of a 

 bird in such manner by many people until it falls into common 

 speech. Thus an imaginary thunder-bird may become the 

 theme of much thought and much talk, and at last a number 

 of stories may grow up about it. The barbarian who drives 

 a span of horses to a war chariot becomes accustomed to its 

 rattle and compares it to thunder. Then the thunder itself is 

 symbolized as the rattle of the chariot of the storm. In this 

 case a new imaginative being is created — a storm god with his 

 chariot in the clouds So the reference of an effect to an 

 erroneous cause results in a myth. 



There may be many analogies called up by the noise of 

 thunder, and there may be many m^^ths established in such 

 manner; but it is manifest that none of them can be verified. 

 In the course of the history of verification, which is the history 

 of science, an hypothesis as to the cause of thunder may be veri- 

 fied; when such verification is reached, all myths relating to 

 thunder die as notions, and the scientific concept is established. 

 All false philosophy — that is, all erroneous explanation — must 

 necessarily lack verification. It may be believed and become 

 current in the philosophv of a people or of a time, and this 

 current belief may be held as science ; but sooner or later an 

 erroneous notion, however widely believed, will present some 

 incongruity to the developing concepts of mankind and will 

 challenge such attention that new hypotheses will be made to 

 be examined until one is verified. When the A^erification comes, 

 science is born, and the old notion is x'elegated to mythology. 

 Philosophy is the explanation of causes; whatever else may 

 be involved in the term, this must be involved. It is the cen- 

 tral point in philosophy, though not the whole of philosophy. 



