Myth and Science Part 4

Beginning with the mysterious conception of some particular spring as a malignant or beneficent fetish which, although personified, still retains its concrete form, the cla.s.sifying action of the intelligence gradually constructs, from its points of resemblance to other springs, a generic type which includes them all. This typical conception, personified in its turn, next represents a unique power, of which all the individual and accidental springs are only manifestations. Thus it is clear that man, in the personification of this type or specific conception, is no longer bound to the actual form of the special object which first represented it, but he may be said to mould a more indefinite and plastic substance into which he can with spontaneous or facile art incarnate his whole person. Hence this substance will a.s.sume an anthropomorphic form, and will issue, not in a mysterious being of extrinsic and indefinite form, but in a person with human features, obvious to human senses.

It was thus, when the fetish attained to a specific type, that mythical anthropomorphism was generated, and polytheism, properly so-called; a polytheism which represents in its figures and images the humanization and personification of specific types. These afterwards diverge into specifications which vary with the number of phenomena that are united in a single idea or conception. The first polytheistic Olympus consisted of natural types, and at a much later period they became moral or abstract, in accordance with the spontaneous evolution of the intelligence itself.

It was in fact in this way that all the specific myths of the general phenomena of nature had their origin, and in our Aryan race we can, starting from the Rig-Veda, follow their splendid development among Graeco-Latins, Celts, Germans, and Slavs; it may also be traced in the memory and historic evolution of other races, and with less distinctness among those which are barbarous and savage.[21]

To take some example which may throw light upon our theory of the evolution of myth, let us consider that of _Holda_ in the German Pantheon, since it is a generic type of the special primitive fetishes of sources, already in process of formation before the dispersion of the Aryan tribes. Mannhardt (_Deutsche Mythologie_) has shown what was the primitive form of the conception of _Holda_ and of the _Nornas_, that is, of the phenomenal appearances of water; Holda, the _lady of waters_, first watched over the heavenly sources, and then, by a subsequent interweaving of myths and duplication of images, she kept and guarded the souls of new-born infants. This early conception by progressive specification gave birth to those of the _Nornas_, of _Valkuria, Undine,_ and others. The primitive fetish, or fetishes of waters out of which the specific type, afterwards personified, was evolved and formed, were at first so bound to the concrete form of the phenomenon, that although animated, it could not a.s.sume a human aspect and form. But when the specific type which ideally represented the power manifested in all the various modes of special phenomena was evolved, then man was released from the concrete and individual forms of the fetish, and readily moulded it in his own corporeal as well as in his moral image.

So Holda, changed from a heavenly to an earthly deity, was transformed into the G.o.ddess of wells and lakes, and a.s.sumed a perfectly human and even artistic form. She loved to bathe at noon-day, and was often seen to issue from the water and then plunge anew into the waves, appearing as a very fair and lovely woman.

Again, we know that in the gradual mythical evolution which found its climax in Apollo, the animation of this type, so fruitful in special instances, extended even to the form of his arms, his bow and arrows, and to the place of his habitation at Delphos. He was armed, according to Schwartz, with the rainbow and with thunderbolts, and Delphos was esteemed to be the centre and navel of the world.

These mythical ideas have their special reproduction in the mythology of the Finns. (Castren.) The G.o.d _Ukko_ with his great bow of fire sends forth trees as darts against his enemies; while fighting, he stands erect upon a cloud, called the _umbilicus_ of heaven. Thus we see that the process of myth is similar, even in different races.

By the primitive personification of the special fetishes whence he was evolved, the _Indra_ of Vedic India is shepherd of the herd of heavenly kine. _Vritra_, a three-headed monster in the form of a serpent, steals away the herd and hides it in his cave. Indra pursues the robber, enters the cave with fury, overwhelms the monster with his thunderbolt, and leads back the kine to heaven, their milk sprinkling the earth. This myth gradually a.s.sumed in the Vedic hymns more splendid and artistic forms, and more amazing personifications. The original motive of the myth, as it has been interpreted even by Indian commentators, was the storm with all its alternations which bursts forth with more terrific violence in hot climates. The luminous clouds which bring rain are the purple kine whom a black-demon tries to steal; the fruitfulness of the earth depends on the issue of the contest, and the thunderbolt disperses the cloud, which falls on the earth in rain, while _Indra_, that is, the blue sky, appears in his splendour.[22]

It may be clearly seen from these examples how the specific myth was gradually developed. We have said that in addition to the myth which referred to types constructed from special and manifold suggestions, alike or a.n.a.logous in extrinsic circ.u.mstances, others were formed from definite natural objects, in their relations to men and to their acquaintance with cosmic facts in those very early times. These, however, although definite, a.s.sumed anthropomorphic forms, like those which were specific. The cause of this ident.i.ty of construction is to be found in the influence exerted upon them by the earlier myths. By a necessary equilibrium and spontaneous symmetry of mental creations, these were also modified by the gradual formation of contemporary images. In this way the solar myths were elaborated and developed among the Aryan peoples and other races; their aspects became much more anthropomorphic and anthropopathic in proportion as the typical myths a.s.sumed a human form.

The primitive myths of the secondary form were at first grouped round physical and external phenomena, because these were originally the most obvious to man. But the specific moral types had their origin by reaction, and by a more strictly intellectual process, and these were personified in the same way, although in this second stage they were not so numerous. Yet their appearance and creation were inevitable, since the same faculty and cla.s.sifying process had to be carried out in the intellectual and moral order as in that which was extrinsic and cosmic; since the mind and consciousness and intrinsic faculty of the intelligence are identical. And when once these ultimate types were formed, the same necessity impelled their animation and personification in anthropomorphic images. Of this we have abundant instances in all the traditions of nearly all the peoples of the world.

CHAPTER IV.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM.

In the preceding chapters we have considered and, as we hope, demonstrated the origin and genesis of myth in general, an origin and genesis which had their first impulses and causes in the animal kingdom as a whole, since these beginnings were the necessary result of the psychical exercise of the perception and intelligence. We next discovered in man, as he issued from a simply animal condition and attained the power of reflection, the origin of the special myth or fetish, which was a higher evolution of that which is proper to animals; hence the origin of the specific myth was altogether anthropomorphic, whether physical or moral; and hence came also the development and ramification of all mythologies, and of universal polytheism.

It may be seen from the reality and truth of this theory how much mistaken those men are who hold, owing to their religious prejudices or to their systems of logic and history, that monotheism was the first intuition of man, or at any rate of the privileged races. This is altogether impossible, since such an opinion is opposed to the genuine development of the intelligence, to its primitive const.i.tution and progress, and to the essential _solidarity_ of human and animal nature.

In the case of animals as well as of man the implicit act and psychical process of communication between the world and themselves consist in the individual and concrete animation of the thing or phenomenon perceived; whence they are resolved into conscious subjects, acting with a given purpose; the difference in man's case, due to his power of reflection, consists in the fact that he ascribes to the fetish distinct mental characteristics, regarding it as a subject, actuated by will, and invested with an external form. Hence it is impossible that man should have had any primitive intuition of a perfectly rational and universal _Idea_, since his intelligence is so const.i.tuted that it is slowly developed from the animal condition into a humanity which is mythically reflex, and he rises from the single to the specific, from phenomena to the type which more or less exactly corresponds to them.

We are convinced that by these researches, we have eradicated the previous misconception, which cannot be revived or maintained except with the weapons of sophism, and by defying evidence and the very nature of things.

While man has risen from the individual myth to that which is specific, infusing anthropomorphic life into the whole of nature, and into his own sensations, emotions, and conceptions, he has pursued an art virtually the same as that whence science is generated. The instrument, both with respect to the formation of myths and to the formulation of science, is in fact identical, and the process also is the same. Science, like myth, observes, a.n.a.lyzes, and cla.s.sifies observations, and gradually rises to a conception of the specific type, and hence to a unity which becomes ever more complete and universal.

In the composition and mythical animation of the world, whether by special personifications or by those which are typical, and by the sensations corresponding to them, man makes a fanciful cla.s.sification of phenomena, he observes and studies their beneficial or injurious effects on himself, and in this empirical way is able to estimate their value.

On the other hand, he rises in the social scale by means of his superst.i.tious and religious feelings, which act as a stimulus and symbol, so far as he subjects his animal and perverse instincts to the deliberate precepts which he imagines to be expressed by these myths.

In so far as the empirical observation of things is irrational, and obedience is paid to the fanciful precepts of oracles, it is not the result of an explicit moral law, yet there is on the one side some knowledge of the qualities, habits, and periods of things, and on the other a civil and human order which is gradually formed and developed.

In fact, in the case of the higher historical races it is important to make a more explicit and accurate study of the fetish religion, that is, of the mythical animation of any special phenomenon or thing. Although the scope of such religion is superst.i.tious veneration, or abject fear, yet it is impossible that it should not induce a more precise and less confused notion of the relative condition of things. In this way observation becomes more accurate, and the intrinsic use of the thing is often recognized. By the gradual exercise of such a.n.a.lysis in the case of all or most phenomena, man obtains a clearer knowledge of his environment.

While a juster estimate of the empiric value of special objects is obtained in this manner, the subsequent, though sometimes mistaken cla.s.sification of their specific types enables the mind to arrange his knowledge of natural things in a more synthetic and orderly way, and by such cla.s.sification man is always tending towards a more universal unity: he places the general forms of phenomena in an ideal harmony, which fancifully symbolizes their laws.

In the succeeding chapters we shall see how this process is accomplished, and how it leads up to the explicit exercise of the reason. A more definite empiric knowledge, and the harmonious cla.s.sification of specific types with a view to unity, are a proof of a relatively greater improvement, both in civilization and morality. This is abundantly shown in all those peoples who have attained to an altogether anthropomorphic polytheism, either among the Aryans, prior to their dispersion, in the Vedic period in India, among the Celts, Graeco-Latins, Germans, Slavs, or in the Finnish races, Mongols, Chinese, a.s.syrians, Egyptians, Mexicans, and Peruvians, as well as among the barbarous peoples of modern times.

The imagination, the faculty which creates and excites phantasms in man, is not, as is erroneously supposed, the primary source of myths, but only that which in a secondary degree elaborates and perfects their spontaneous forms; and precisely because it is near akin to this primordial mythical faculty, it goes on to organize and cla.s.sify these polytheistic myths. By a moral and necessary development an approximation is made, if not to truth itself, at any rate to its symbols; whence reason is afterwards more easily infused into myth on the one side, and on the other it is resolved into rational ideas and cosmic laws. It was in this way that poets perfected myth in its influence on virtue and civilization, and by them it was directed into the paths of science and of truth.

As Dr. Zeller has well said in his lecture on the development of monotheism in Greece herself, the great Greek poets were her first thinkers, her sages, as they were afterwards called. They sang of Zeus, and exalted him as the defender of righteousness, the representative of moral order. Archilocus says that Zeus weighs and measures all the actions of good and evil men, as well as those of animals. He is, said Terpandros somewhat later, the source and ruler of all things. According to Simonides of Amorgos, the principle of all created things rests with him, and he rules the universe by his will. Thus, as time went on, Zeus became, in the general conception, the personification of the world's government, which was delivered from the fatality of destiny and from the promptings of caprice. Destiny which, according to the early mythical representation, it was impossible to escape, is resolved into the will of Zeus, and the other G.o.ds which were at first supposed to be able to oppose him, become his faithful ministers. Such is the teaching of Solon and of Epicharmos. "Be a.s.sured that nothing escapes the eyes of the divinity; G.o.d watches over us, and to him nothing is impossible."

This impulse of the imaginative faculty combined with the process of reason is most plainly seen in the conceptions of the three great poets of the fifth century, Pindar, aeschylus, and Sophocles. In the words of Pindar: "All things depend on G.o.d alone; all which befalls mortals, whether it be good or evil fortune, is due to Zeus: he can draw light from darkness, and can veil the sweet light of day in obscurity. No human action escapes him: happiness is found only in the way which leads to him; virtue and wisdom flow from him alone."

We find the same order and manner of thought in aeschylus, although he remained faithful to the polytheistic creed, which indeed confirms the truth of our theory. The moral law was gradually developed and purified by this long succession of poets, and it clearly appears from aeschylus and his successors how man reaps that which he has sown: he whose heart and hands are pure lives his life unmolested, while guilt sooner or later brings its own punishment with it. The Erynnyes rule the fates of men, and may be said to sap the vital forces of the guilty; they cleave to them, excite and stimulate them to madness until death comes. The ancient and mysterious mythical tradition of the strife between the old G.o.ds and the new was astutely used by aeschylus to teach us how the terrible vengeance of the Eumenides gradually gave place to a gentler and more humane law; just as the primitive despotism of Zeus was gradually transformed into a providential and moral rule of the universe.

Sophocles attained to a higher degree of perfection in the paths of gentleness. No ancient poet has spoken more n.o.bly of the Deity, although his language is altogether polytheistic. He shows the highest reverence to the G.o.ds, whose power and laws rule all human life. On them all things depend, both good and evil, nor could any one violate with impunity the eternal order of things. No act or thought escapes the G.o.ds; they are the source of wisdom and happiness. Man must meekly comply with their precepts, and must offer up his pains and sorrows to Zeus.

These utterances of the ancient poets never go beyond the range of polytheism, yet they show how far intrinsic morality and truth were developed, even by the imaginative and mythical faculty of the human mind, during the gradual historical evolution of the race. The plurality of G.o.ds appears to be the manifestation of the divine principle; their action on the world lost almost all trace of arbitrary power and of their former versatility and caprice. The superst.i.tion of polytheism remained, but it had an inward tendency to more rational conceptions and principles.

From this brief notice, as well as from the remarks which preceded it, it appears how the evolution of myth, from its beginning and in its historic course, led to a more perfect, although empiric acquaintance with the world, and with the moral principles and civilization of peoples. The logical faculty by which the development is gradually effected is the same by which from another point of view science becomes possible.

We have clearly demonstrated the indisputable fact that the absolute condition of intrinsic animal perception, and consequently of the primary perception of man, was the animation and vivification of the things and phenomena perceived. This primary acquaintance with things depended on their spontaneous resolution into active and personal subjects. Nor could it be otherwise. Although the scientific idea or notion of objective reality in itself could not be grasped by simple animal intelligence, the impression of the thing perceived was necessarily that of a subjectivity resembling that of the observer, not indeed in outward form and figure but in intrinsic power, whatever might be the extrinsic form and figure of the object or phenomenon.

The original condition of animals, and of man himself in his primordial life and consciousness, is and was the intrinsic personification of the things perceived: from this source the human intellect slowly and with difficulty attained to science, by virtue of that psychical reduplication which has been so often mentioned.

The motive or subject of myth may be external, cosmic, or it may be internal, intellectual, and moral, but in each case the cause and faculty at work are the same. Just as the primary condition of observation, and consequently the motive principle of science, consists in the primitive exercise of the intelligence, which leads to empirical and rational knowledge, so myth and science have a common origin in the immediate transformation of natural objects and phenomena into living subjects, and they flow from the same deep source. The object in view is different, but their constructive faculty is the same, and they are, up to a certain point in their long historic course, evolved in the same way. Science, therefore, from one point of view, is the gradual exhaustion and dissolution of myth into the objects which are scientifically investigated, and this will appear more clearly in the sequel.

The series of various phenomena, whether of light, of meteors, of water, of vegetable and animal forms, which were the first subjects of myths, became so interwoven as finally to be represented in an anthropomorphic personality, and were thus gradually lost and evaporated in the ideal symbol. As time went on, by the exercise of the intelligence, and by the aid of the observations and collateral experiments naturally connected with them, man ended where he had begun; released from myth, he only recognized the facts and laws of the world. This clearly shows, not only the formation of myths, but the process of evolution by which they pa.s.s into science, in which they find their termination.

If, however, myth and science have the same origin, and start from a common fact, a fundamental principle is necessary, and an internal human act, which is at once the cause and genesis both of myth and science.

And although the source is one, myth and science vary in their aspects and effects, and have different fields of historic activity, so that it is necessary to trace the cause of this diversity in their progress and results, to enable us to make a scientific definition of the nature of myth and science, their respective sources and objects.

If on the one side we continually see the birth of fresh myths, which ramify into many fertile sources of superst.i.tions, of religions, of poetry and aestheticism; on the other side we see almost simultaneously a more or less distinct and lively manifestation of the scientific faculty, although still in an empirical form. They are like two streams which issue from the same source and take a parallel course, sometimes mingling their waters, only to separate anew, and then again to become united as they fall by a wide mouth into the sea.

In this manner we have ascertained the actual origin of science and of myth, and have entered on a field perhaps never before attempted nor contemplated; we have established a firm basis for such researches, and, which is perhaps still more important, have shown the continuity of the mythical faculty between man and the animal kingdom. We have ascertained this fact, in its cosmic necessities, both physiological and psychical, but without considering the faculty on which it depends; we have still to decompose the elements of which it consists, and to consider their nature and number.

This inquiry forms the chief problem we have to solve, and it is precisely what we have endeavoured to state in this chapter. In the necessary order of things the fact has its physiological and cosmic conditions in man; it is therefore necessarily internal and psychical, and it is accomplished by the special and intrinsic exercise of the intelligence. We shall be convinced of this truth if we only consider that science and myth have a common origin.

It is evident that there are great difficulties in such an inquiry; for, putting aside other extrinsic difficulties, we have to reduce to a single act or fact the origin of the two vast worlds of myth and science; it is needful to gauge the inmost psychical faculty of the intelligence, and to discover the continuous yet rapid and delicate process of its exercise.

If we are able to attain our object and to tear away the veil which conceals this mysterious act, we shall have a n.o.ble recompense in the laborious path on which we have entered, inasmuch as we shall reveal one of the most important laws of life, of the exercise of reflex intelligence and of the genesis of science. Yet we are very sensible how far we are from being equal to the enormous difficulties of this inquiry.

CHAPTER V.

THE ANIMAL AND HUMAN EXERCISE OF THE INTELLECT IN THE PERCEPTION OF THINGS.

Apprehension is the act, both in animals and in man, by which the spontaneous and immediate animation of things and of phenomena is accomplished. It is therefore necessary to pause and consider this act, since it is, even in man, the source and foundation of the origin of myth, and in it we shall find the causes, elements, and action by which such a genesis is effected. This fact is so evident that the necessity of making such an inquiry might almost be taken for granted, since the truth can be ascertained in no other way.

In the case of animal perception, which we have already considered, the external perception of an object is composed of three elements: the phenomenon perceived, the living subject with which this phenomenon is animated, and the vague yet real power involved in the life thus infused into it by the animal. Supposing any other animal to be the object perceived, these three elements are self-evident; since the phenomenon perceived in a given form causes the immediate a.s.sumption that it is a subject, actuated by a purpose of offence or defence, and hence follows the apprehension of a power capable of affecting him, which has in this case a real existence. Phenomenon, subject, effective power, follow in a rapid and inevitable sequence, and are instantly combined in the integral image formed of the object apprehended by the senses.

In fact, an animal which fights with another, which seizes on his food as a prey, or which is in dread of some enemy or unfamiliar object, recognizes either the species or the individual from its external form, and const.i.tutes it into an animated subject, and ultimately into an actively offensive or defensive power, or into one which satisfies his appet.i.tes. Such a fact, and such elements of the fact, recur in the whole animal kingdom, even among those which only apprehend external things by the sense of touch. As we ascend higher in the scale of animals to those who possess other senses and a more elaborate organism, we find the same fact in a more perfect and distinct form.

Those animals which, since they are without the sense of sight, have no perception of distance, wait until their prey touches their antennae, mouths, or claws, and yet the same distinct act is accomplished in these three specified elements. They would not lie in wait for their prey, unless they had already formed a conception of its possible image, consisting of a form, subject, and effective force, combined in a single intuition. When this external prey is presented to the senses, the phenomenon, subject, and effective power arise in rapid succession, and are united in one unique consciousness. This truth appears from the animal's efforts not to let his prey escape destruction.

From the reciprocal apprehension of animals, these three elements which const.i.tute it may be clearly seen. Although such a truth, precisely because it is evident, may appear simple to those who seek truth from the clouds, or by means of logical or tortuous artifice, yet such are the characteristics of true science. For the new facts which she interprets and cla.s.sifies appear old as soon as they are understood, although they have never before been explained.