Myth and Science Part 8

"This remarkable process could only go on in and through those peoples whose vigour and pride equalled their physical strength; to whom it is death to sit still, and life to be always busy, to transform all things to their own image, to dominate over all--over G.o.d by the intellect, over the world by science, over other races by force of arms. After the anthropomorphic form was given to natural phenomena, which is done to some extent by all races, the G.o.ds were made in the image of man; full of aesthetic imagination, of grand and vigorous conceptions, they modified and transformed the truth of the Semitic idea, to suit their own genius and imagination, and in this way they produced the wonderful fabric of Christian civilization and of Catholicism. They alone accepted a teaching which infused new spirit into social life and produced the rule of religion over the world, and the race still stands alone in the maintenance of its beliefs, to which science has added the powerful simplicity of the Semitic idea, and their vigorous influence has perpetuated and perfected human progress upon earth.[30] The Aryan race attained to the Semitic conception in its purity and cosmic reality by the process of reason, and only because it was endowed with all the civilizing and moral qualities which were acquired in so many ages of moral and intellectual energy, has the old conception been so vigorous and productive.

"The Semitic race, on the other hand, adhered to their old faith, rejected Christianity, as it had been formulated by the Aryans, and had little influence on the world. The Israelites, indeed, dispersed among other nations, retained the idea of the one spiritual G.o.d in all its purity, and civilization would have been much indebted to them for this rational idea of G.o.d if they had more clearly understood its scientific bearing and the nature of man; many of them are indeed justly ent.i.tled to fame in every department of science. But taken by themselves and as a people, they had little effect on civilization, since they lacked the energy of purpose, courage, mental superiority, and imagination, which create a durable and powerful civilization.

"The Arabs, aroused for a time by Mahometan fanaticism, overran great part of Europe, Asia, and Africa, but without influencing civilization.

While in possession of a great and productive idea, they remained a sterile and nomad people, or founded unproductive dynasties. For the Semitic race, the interval between G.o.d and man, and consequently between G.o.d and civilization, was and is infinite, impa.s.sable. The Arabs possessed nothing but the devastating force of proselytism to fertilize their minds and social relations; and, with the exception of architecture, geography, and cognate sciences, they were for the most part only the transmitters of the science of others. We, on the contrary, filled up the gulf by placing the Man-G.o.d between G.o.d and man, and civilization has a power and vigour which has never flagged, and which, now that dogma is transformed into reason, will not flag while the world lasts."[31]

This extract from a work published many years ago, seems to me to confirm the theory of myths which I have explained; it shows how they are ultimately fused into a simple form, in conformity with the ideas of civilized society, and it will also throw light on what is to follow.

If we consider the primitive genesis and evolution of myth, confirmed by all the facts of history and ethnography, it will appear that although the matter on which thought was exercised was mythical and fanciful, the form and organizing method were the same as those of science. It is, in fact, a scientific process to observe, spontaneously at first, and then deliberately, the points of likeness and unlikeness between special objects of perception; we must rise from the particular to the general, from the individual to the species, thus ever enlarging the circle of observation, in order to arrive at types, laws, and ultimate unity, or at least a unity supposed to be ultimate, to which everything is reduced. So that the mythical faculty of thought was scientific in its logical form, and was exercised in the same way as the scientific faculty.

But science does not merely consist in the systematic arrangement of facts in which it begins, nor in their combination into general and comprehensive laws; the sequence of causes and effects must also be understood, and it is not enough to cla.s.sify the fact without explaining its genesis and cause. We have seen that the innate faculty of perception involved the idea of a cause in the supposition that the phenomenon was actuated by a subject, and while thought cla.s.sified fetishes and idols in a mythical way, an inherent power for good or evil was ascribed to them, not only in their relation to man, but in their effects on nature. What Vico has called "the poetry of physics"

consisted in the explanation of natural phenomena by the efficacy of mythical and supernatural agents. From this point of view again, myth and science pursue identically the same method and the same general form of cognition.

Nor is this all. Science is, in fact, the _de-personification_ of myth, arriving at a rational idea of that which was originally a fantastic type by divesting it of its wrappings and symbols. In the natural evolution of myth, man pa.s.ses from the extrinsic mythical substance to the intrinsic ideal by the same intellectual process, and when the types have become ideas, he carries on intrinsically the _entifying_ process which he first applied to the material and external phenomena.

In this case also the process is gradual; by attempting a more rational explanation of physical phenomena, man attains to ultimate conceptions which express direct cosmic laws, and he regards these laws as substantial ent.i.ties, which in their originally polytheistic form were the G.o.ds who directed all things. Here the scientific myth really begins, since natural forces and phenomena are no longer personified in anthropomorphic beings; but the laws or general principles of physics are transformed into material subjects, which are still a.n.a.logous to human consciousness and tendencies, although the idolatrous anthropomorphism has disappeared.

The combination of myth and science in the human mind does not stop here, since, as I have said, it goes on to form ideal representations.

When thought penetrates more deeply into the physical laws of the universe, and is also more rationally engaged in the psychical examination of man's own nature, ideas are cla.s.sified in more general types, as in the primitive construction of fetishes, anthropomorphic idols, and physical principles; and in this way an explicit and purely ideal system is formed, in which the images correspond with the fanciful and physical types which were previously created.

It usually happens that thought, by the innate faculty of which we have so often spoken, regards the ideas produced by this complex mental labour as material ent.i.ties endowed with eternal and independent existence; and this produced the Platonic teaching, the schools in Greece and Italy, and other brilliant ill.u.s.trations of this phase of thought. Such teaching, the result of explicit reflection, is a rival of the critical science which followed from it. It is always active, while constantly varying and a.s.suming fresh forms; and it not only flourishes in our time in the religions in which it finds a suitable soil, but also, as we shall see, in science itself.

In addition to this complex evolution of myth as a whole, special myths follow similar laws; since they are generated from the same facts, and pa.s.s through the same phases, they culminate in a partial ideality, and this involves a simple and comprehensive law of the phenomena in question, and even a moral or providential order. For example, we may trace the Promethean myth to the end of the h.e.l.lenic era, and the different phases and final extinction of this particular myth are quite apparent.

The origin of the myth, which was directly connected with the perception of the natural phenomena of light and heat, was due to the same causes as all others, but we will consider it in its Vedic phase, as it may be gathered from tradition, and from the discoveries of comparative philology, and we have a sure guide in this research in the great linguist Kuhn, whose remarks have been enlarged and ill.u.s.trated by Baudry.

The Sanscrit word for the act of producing fire by friction is _manthami_, to rub or agitate, and this appears from its derivative _mandala_, a circle; that is, circular friction. The pieces of wood used for the production of fire were called _pramantha_, that which revolves, and _arani_ was the disc on which the friction was made. In this phase, the fetishes are, according to our theory, in the second stage. The Greeks and Romans, and indeed almost all other peoples, knew no other way of kindling a fire, and in the sacred rites of the Peruvians the task was a.s.signed to the Incas at the annual festival of fire. The wood of the oak was used in Germany, on account of the red colour of its bark, which led to the supposition that the G.o.d of fire was concealed in it. Tan is called _lohe_, or flame, in Germany. This primitive mode of kindling a fire was known to the Aryans before their dispersion, and friction with this object was equivalent to the birth of the fire-G.o.d, constraining him to come down to earth from the air, from thunder, etc.; indeed fire was also called _duta_, the messenger between heaven and earth. The question arose who had drawn fire from heaven, and developed it in the _arani_. A resemblance was also traced between the instruments for kindling fire and the organs of generation, a reciprocal interchange of various myths, as we have before observed. _Agni_ is concealed in _arani_, like the embryo in the womb (Rig-Veda). Thus _pramantha_ is the masculine instrument, _arani_ the feminine, and the act of uniting them is copulation.

_Agni_ had disappeared from earth and was concealed in a cavern, whence it was drawn by a divine person; that is, fire had disappeared and was concealed within the _arani_, whence it was extracted by the _pramantha_ and bestowed upon man. _Mataricvan_, the divine deliverer, is therefore only the personification of the male organ.

In virtue of the idea that the soul is a spark, and that the production of fire resembles generation, _Bhrigu_, lightning, is a creator. The son of _Bhrigu_ marries the daughter of _Manu_, and they have a son who at his birth breaks his mother's thigh, and therefore takes the name of _Aurva_ (from _uru_ a thigh). This is only the lightning which rends the clouds asunder.

Many Graeco-Latin myths, beginning with that of Prometheus must be referred to _Mataricvan_ and to the _Bhrigu_, and we can trace in the name of Prometheus the equivalent of a Sanscrit form _pramathyus_, one who obtains fire by friction. Prometheus is, in fact, the ravisher of celestial fire (a phase of the polytheistic myth in a perfectly human form); he is a divine _pramantha_. It is Prometheus who in one version of the myth cleaves open the head of Zeus, and causes Athene, the G.o.ddess who uses the lightning as her spear, to issue from it. The Greeks afterwards carried on the evolution of myth in its transition from the physical to the moral phenomenon, and, forgetful of his origin, they made Prometheus into a seer. As _Bhrigu_, he created man of earth and water, and breathed into him the spark of life. Villemarque tells us that in Celtic antiquity there was an a.n.a.logous myth, as we might naturally expect, since the Celts belong to the Aryan stock; Gwenn-Aran (albus superus) was a supernatural being which issued like lightning from a cloud.

The more thoughtful Greeks did not limit the Promethean myth to the idol and to anthropomorphic fancies, but it pa.s.sed into a moral conception, and we have a proof of this transition in aeschylus.

In fact, as Silvestro Centofonti observes in a lecture on the characteristics of Greek literature, the grand figure of the aeschylean Prometheus is a poetic personification of Thought, and of its mysterious fates in the sphere of life as a whole. First, in its eternal existence, as a primitive and organic force in the system of the world; then in the order of human things, fettered by the bonds of civilization, and subject to the necessities, l.u.s.ts, and evils which constantly, arise from the union of soul and matter in unsatisfied mortals. Thought is itself the source of tormenting cares in this earthly slavery, yet the sense of power makes it invincible, firm in its purpose to endure all sufferings, to be superior to all events; a.s.sured of future freedom, and always on the way to achieve it by reverting to the grandeur of its innate perfection; finally attaining to this happy state, by shaking off all the enslaving bonds and anxious cares of the kingdom of Zeus, and by obtaining a perfect life through the inspirations of wisdom, when the revolutions of the heavens should fill the earth with divine power, and restore the happiness of primeval times. It is evident that in this stupendous tragedy aeschylus is leading us to the truth in a threefold sense: aesthetic, morally political, and cosmic. The supreme idea which sums up the whole value of the composition is perhaps that of an inevitable reciprocity of action and reaction between mind and effective force, between the primitive providence of nature and the subsequent laws of art, both in the civilization of mankind and in the order and life of the universe.

In this way the evolution of the special myth was transformed into poetry by the interweaving, collection, and fusion with other myths, and in the minds of a higher order it was resolved into an allegory or symbol of the forces of nature, into providential laws or a moral conception.

This law of progressive transformation also occurs in the successive modifications of the special meaning of words, so far as they indicate not only the thing itself, but the image which gave rise to the primitive roots. For a long while, those who heard the word were not only conscious of the object which it represented, but of its image, which thus became a source of aesthetic enjoyment to them. As time went on, this image was no longer reproduced, and the bare indication remained, until the word gradually lost all material representation, and became an algebraical sign, which merely recalled the object in question to the mind.

When, for example, we now use the word (_coltello_), _coulter_, the instrument indicated by this phonetic sign immediately recurs to the mind and nothing else; the intelligence would see no impropriety in the use of some other sign if it were generally intelligible. But in the times of primitive speech, the inventors of this rude instrument were conscious of the material image which gave rise to it, and they were likewise conscious of all the cognate images which diverged from the same root, and in this way a brief but vivid drama was presented to the imagination.

If we examine this word with Pictet and others, we shall find that the name of the plough comes from the Sanscrit _krt, krnt, kart_, to cleave or divide. Hence _krntatra_, a plough or dividing instrument. The root _krt_ subsequently became _kut_ or _kutt_, to which we must refer _kuta, kutaka_, the body of the plough. This root _krt, kart_, is found in many European languages in the general sense of cutting or breaking, as in the old Slav word _krat.i.ti_, to cut off. It is also applied to labour and its instruments: _kartoti_, to plough over again, _karta_, a line or furrow, and in the Vedic Sanscrit, _karta_, a ditch or hole. Hence the Latin _culter_ a saw, _cultellus_, a coulter, and the Sanscrit _kartari_, a coulter. The Slav words for the mole which burrows in the earth are connected with the root _krt_, or the Slav _krat_. In very remote times, men not only understood the object indicated in the word for a coulter, but they were sensible of the image of the primitive _krt_ and its affixes, which were likewise derived from the primitive images, and with these they included the cognate images of the several derivatives from the root. In these days the word coulter and the Sanscrit _kartari_ are simply signs or phonetic notations, insignificant in themselves, and everything else has disappeared. But in primitive times an image animated the word, which by the necessary faculty of perception so often described was transformed into a kind of subject which effected the action indicated by the root. As this personality gradually faded away, the actual representation of the image was lost, and even its remote echo finally vanished, while the phonetic notation remained, devoid of life and memory, and without the recurrence of cognate images which strengthened the original idea by a.s.sociation. All words undergo the like evolution, and this may be called the mythical evolution of speech.

Thus the Sanscrit word for daughter is _duhitar_; in Persian it is _dochtar_, in Greek [Greek: Thugater], in Gothic _dauhtar_, in German _Tochter_. The word is derived from the root _duh_, to milk, since this was the girl's business in a pastoral family. The sign still remains, but it has lost its meaning, since the image and the drama have vanished. This a.n.a.lysis applies to all languages, and it may also be traced in the words for numbers. The number _five_, for example, among the Aryans and in many other tongues, signifies _hand_. This is the case in Thibet, in Siam, and cognate languages, in the Indian Archipelago and in the whole of Oceania, in Africa, and in many of the American peoples and tribes, where it is the origin of the decimal system. In Homer we find the verb [Greek: pempazein], to count in fives, and then for counting in general; in Lapland _lokket_, and in Finland _lukea_, to count, is derived from _lokke_, ten; and the Bambarese _adang_, to count, is the origin of _tank_, ten.

When the numerical idea of five was first grasped, the conception was altogether material, and was expressed by the image of the five-fingered hand. In the mind of the earliest rude calculators, the number five was presented to them as a material hand, and the word involved a real image, of which they became conscious in uttering it. The number and the hand were consequently fused together in their respective images, and signified something actually combined together, which effected in a material form the genesis of this numerical representation. But the material ent.i.ty gradually disappeared, the image faded and was divested of its personality, and only the phonetic notation five remained, which no longer recalls a hand, the origin of the several numerals, nor words connected with it. It is now a mere sign, apart from any rational idea.

The same may be said of the other numerals.

We give these few examples, which apply to all words, since they all follow the same course, beginning with the real and primitive image, subjectively effecting their peculiar meaning. Hence we see how the intrinsic law of myth is evolved in every human act in diverse ways, but always with the same results.

In fact, before articulate speech, for which man was adapted by his organs and physiological conditions, was formulated into words for things and words for shape, man like animals thought in images; he a.s.sociated and dissociated, he composed and decomposed, he moved and removed images, which sufficed for all individual and immediate operations of his mind. The relations of things were felt, or rather seen through his inward representation of them as in a picture, expressing in a material form the respective positions of figures and objects which, since they are remote from him, can only be expressed by such words as _nearer, lower_ or _higher, faint_ or _clear_, by more vivid or paler tints, such as we see in a running stream, in the forms of clouds, in the reciprocal relations of all objects represented in painting.

In order to understand the primeval process of thought by means of images, it is necessary to conceive such a picture as living and mobile, and constantly forming a fresh combination of parts. Animals have not, and primeval man had not, the phonetic signs or words which give an individual character to the images, and so represent them that by combining these images in an articulate form, thought may be represented by signs; and in and through these a universal and objective mode of exercising the intellectual faculty of reasoning has been created.

Speech can, by means of reflex memory, produce at will the particular images already cla.s.sified in the mind, and this makes the process of reasoning possible; since such a process becomes more easy by the use of signs to which the attention can revert. The relative size of objects, and the like qualities, which are at first regarded as so many different intuitions in s.p.a.ce, are defined by words or gestures, and are thus subjected to comparative a.n.a.logy; but in the early stages of language these relations were presented in an extrinsic form by phonetic signs, and became images which in some sort represented one particular state of consciousness with respect to the two things compared. Galton, speaking of the Damaras, tells us that they find great difficulty in counting more than five, since they have not another hand with which to grasp the fingers which represent the units. When they lose any of their cattle, they do not discover the loss by the diminution of the number, but by missing a familiar object. If two packets of tobacco are given to them as the regulation price of a sheep, they will be altogether at a loss to understand the receipt of four packets in exchange for two sheep. Such examples might be multiplied to any extent.

We repeat that when not endowed with speech, or some a.n.a.logous means, animals and man think in images, and the relations between these images are observed in the simultaneousness and succession of their real differences; these images are combined, a.s.sociated, and compared by the development of reflex power, and hence arises the estimate of their concrete relations. Of this we have another proof, observed by Romanes in a lecture on the intelligence of animals, and confirmed by myself, in the condition of deaf-mutes before they are educated, in whose case the extrinsic sign and figure takes the place of the phonetic and articulate sign. Where speech is wanting, it is still possible to follow a conscious and imaginative process of reasoning, but not to rise to the higher abstract ideas which may be generated by such reasoning. The thought of deaf-mutes always a.s.sumes the most concrete form, and one who was educated late in life informed Romanes that he had always before thought in images. I know no instance of a deaf-mute who has independently attained to an advanced intellectual stage, or who has been able without education to form any conception of a supernatural world. R.S. Smith a.s.serts that one of his deaf-mute pupils believed, before his education, that the Bible had been printed in the heavens by a printing press of enormous power; and Graham Bell speaks of a deaf-mute who supposed that people went to church to do honour to the clergyman. In short, the intellectual condition of uneducated deaf-mutes is on a level with that of animals, as far as the possibility of forming abstract ideas is concerned, and they think in images. There is a well-known instance in the deplorable condition of Laura Bridgman, who from the time she was two years old, was deaf and dumb, blind, and even without the sense of taste, so that the sense of touch was all that remained. By persevering and tender instruction, she attained to an intellectual condition which was relatively high. A careful study of her case showed that she had been altogether without intuitive knowledge of causes, of the absolute, and of G.o.d. Howe doubts whether she had any idea of s.p.a.ce and time, but this was not absolutely proved, since as far as distance was concerned, she seemed to estimate it, by muscular sensation. Everything showed that she thought in images. Although without any sensation of light or sound, she made certain noises in her throat to indicate different people when she was conscious of their presence or when she thought of them, so that she was naturally impelled to express every thought or sensation, not externally perceived, by a sign; and this shows the tendency of every idea and image towards an extrinsic form. She often conversed with herself, generally making signs with one hand and replying with the other. It was evident that a muscular sign or the motion of the fingers was subst.i.tuted for the phonetic signs of speech, and in this way ideas and images received their necessarily extrinsic form. The image was embodied in a muscular act and motion, and in this way thought had its concrete representation.

The same results would, as far as we know, be obtained from others in the same unhappy conditions as Laura Bridgman.

It is therefore clear that primitive language was only a vocal and individual sign of material images, and it was for a long while restricted to these concrete limits. Since the vocal signs of the relations of things are less easily expressed, these relations were at first set forth by gestures, by a movement of the whole person, and especially of the hands and face. This preliminary action is helped by the imitative faculty with which children and uncultured peoples are more especially endowed, of which we have also instances in the higher animals nearest to man. The negroes imitate the gestures, clothing, and customs of white men in the most extraordinary and grotesque manner, and so do the natives of New Zealand. The Kamschatkans have a great power of imitating other men and animals, and this is also the case with the inhabitants of Vancouver. Herndon was astonished by the mimic arts of the Brazilian Indians, and Wilkes made the same observation on the Patagonians. This faculty is still more apparent in the lower races.

Many travellers have spoken of the extraordinary tendency to imitation among the Fuegians; and, according to Monat, the Andaman islanders are not less disposed to mimicry and imitation. Mitch.e.l.l states that the Australians possess the same power.

This fact also applies to the languages of extremely rude and savage peoples. Some American Indians, for instance, help out their sentences and make them intelligible by contortion of their features and other gesticulations, and the same observation was made by Schweinwurth of an African tribe. The language of the Bosjesmanns requires so many signs to make the meaning of their words intelligible that it cannot be understood in the dark. These facts partly explain the natural genesis of human languages.

We have learned from our earlier observations that phenomena appear to the perceptive faculty of primitive man as subjects endowed with power.

The subjectivity of these phenomena, their intrinsic conditions and actions are fused into speech, which is their living and conscious symbol; and it is clear that the evolution of language from the concrete to the symbolical, and hence to the simple sign of the object, divested of its original power, is a.n.a.logous to that of myth.

This law of evolution also applies to the art of writing, which is at first only the precise copy of the image; it is next transformed into an a.n.a.logous symbol, and then into an alphabetical sign, which serves as the simple expression of the conception, divested of its originally representative faculty. Hence it is apparent that the evolution of myth conforms to the general law of the evolution of human thought, of all its products and arts in their manifold ramifications. From the image, the informing subject, from the conception and the myth, the necessary cycle is accomplished in regular phases, wherever the ethnic temperament and capacity and extrinsic circ.u.mstances permit it, until the rational idea is reached, the sign or cipher which becomes the powerful instrument of the exercise and generalization of thought. In order to show the efficacy of the mythical and scientific faculty of thought comprised in the systems of ancient and modern philosophy, and its slow progress towards positive and rational science, we will adduce an instance from the people in whom such an evolution was accomplished, aided by all the civilized peoples in reciprocal communication with them. Let us see how this faculty was manifested in the Greeks at a time when they first attempted to reduce the earlier and scanty knowledge of nature to a system.

In Greece the historical course of this faculty ramified into two cla.s.ses of research, which were at that time objective, the Ionic and the Pythagorean schools. In the former, the phenomenon and nature were a.s.sumed to be the direct object of knowledge, while in the latter the object in view was the idea and harmony of things. Influenced by earlier and popular traditions, a mythical and philosophic system arose in the Ionic school, which was exclusively devoted to physical speculations. In Lower Italy, on the contrary, and in colonies which were for the most part Doric, a science was const.i.tuted which, although it included physics and natural phenomena, did not only consider their material value, but sought to extract from their laws and harmony a criterion of good and evil. Ritter observes that the intimate connection between the Pythagorean philosophy and lyrical music--of which the origin was sought as a clue to explain the world--shows how far this philosophy was consonant with Doric thought. This historic process is quite natural, since the speculations of philosophy are first directed to physical phenomena, as they are displayed in inward and in external life, and then rise to the consideration of specific types, in a word, to the general and the universal.

Throughout this philosophical evolution the consideration is mainly from the objective point of view, and this is in conformity with the intellectual evolution of reason, since the mind is first occupied with the knowledge of things. In accordance with tradition and the logic of things, Ionic speculation was developed before the Doric. The Eleatic school followed from the two former, although its development was contemporary with the more perfect stage of these, and its influence upon them was to some extent reactionary.

Thales taught that everything was derived from one unique principle, namely water. The ancients believed that the land was separated from the water by a primitive and mythical process, a belief which had its source in the appearance of aqueous and meteorological phenomena; so that the teaching of Thales followed the earliest popular traditions, of which we find traces in the Indies, in Egypt, in the book of Genesis, and in many legends diffused through the world even in modern times. He said that everything was nourished by moisture, from which heat itself was derived, and that moisture was the seed of all things; that water is the origin of this moisture, and since all things are derived from it it is the primitive principle of the world. We see how much this theory is concerned with natural phenomena in their life, nutrition, and birth by means of seed. He regarded the world as a living being, which had been evolved from an imperfect germ of moisture. This mode of animating the world, which consists in tracing the development of a germ already in existence, reappears in other parts of his philosophy. He saw life in the appearance of death, and held the loadstone and yellow amber to be animate bodies, declaring generally that the world is alive, and filled with demons and genii.[32]

We trace the basis of these ideas in traditions prior to Thales, declaring the world to be a living being, and that everything was derived from a primitive condition of germs. The same opinion was held by Hippo, by Diogenes of Apollonia, by Herac.l.i.tus, and by Anaxagoras.

Aristotle states that the theory of development by germs was extremely ancient in his time. The other philosophers of the Ionic and successive schools mingled these fanciful ideas with the systematic arrangement of their theories as to the origin and const.i.tution of the world, so that it is unnecessary to refer to them, since the method and conceptions are identical.

It is evident from this sketch that while thought gradually evolved a more rational system of general knowledge, the earlier idols and primitive mythical interpretations were not abandoned, although they a.s.sumed a larger and more scientific form. Thales and others a.s.signed a mechanical origin to things, such as water, fire, or the like, which was contrary to anthropomorphic ideas; yet they still regarded the world as a living being, developed and perfected by the same laws and functions as all plants and animals, and they peopled it with genii and demons, thus handing on the earliest and rudest traditions of the race.

While the scientific faculty was gathering strength and leading the way to a more rational consideration of the world and natural phenomena, really advancing beyond the earlier ideas which had been almost wholly mythical, myth was still the matrix of thought, although its envelopment was partly rent asunder and was becoming transparent. From this brief notice of the Ionic philosophy, sufficient for our purpose, let us return to the Pythagorean school, in which, although the faculty at work is essentially objective, there is a closer consideration of the a.n.a.logies between thought and the world, and the ground is more often retraced, so that theory a.s.sumes a more intellectual form.

The Pythagoreans represented the origin of the world as the union of the two opposite principles of the illimitable and the limited, of the equal and the unequal. Yet they conceive this to be a primitive union, since they formulated the supreme principle as equal--unequal (Arist. _Met_.

xii. 7.) They held the infinite to be _the place of the one_. There was an attraction between the two principles, which was termed the _act of breathing_; hence the void entered into the world and separated things from each other. Thus their conception of the world was that of a concourse of opposite principles. They represented its limits as a unity and as the true beginning of multiplicity. They regarded the development of the world as a process of life regulated by the primitive principles contained in the world; its breath or life depended on the breaking forth of the infinite void in Ura.n.u.s, and the time which is termed the _interval_ of all nature penetrates at once and with the breath into the world. All therefore emanates from one, and all is at the same time governed by one supreme power. Number is everything, and is the essence of things, but the _triad_ includes all number, since it contains the beginning, middle, and end. Everything is derived from the primitive _one_ and from the princ.i.p.al number; and since this number in breathing its vital evolution into the void is divided into many units, everything is derived from the multiplicity of these units or numbers.

Since, by his idea of the source of universal order, Pythagoras partly accepted the theocosmic monad as the final and necessary root of all life, and of all that is knowable, he could not fail to see the convertibility of the unit into the Being. But if the unit must always precede the manifold, there is a first unit from which all the others proceed; if this first and eternal unit is at the same time the absolute being, it follows that number and the world have a common origin and a common essence, and that the intrinsic causes and possible combinations of number are virtually accomplished in the development of the world, and these causes and combinations are ideal forms of this development.

The monad is developed by these laws through all the generative processes of nature, while at the same time it remains eternal in the system of the universe; so that things not only have their origin and essence, their place and time according to numerical causes, but each is in effect a number as far as its individual properties and the universal process of cosmic life are concerned. The reason of the number must depend upon the substance, by the configurations of which it is defined, divided, added, and multiplied, and to this geometry is added, which measures all things in relation to themselves and others. This eternal cause makes it intelligible that if immaterial principles precede and govern the whole material world, it is also by means of these that the cla.s.sification of science is in intrinsic agreement with that of nature. Numbers have their value in music, in gymnastics, in medicine, in morals, in politics, in all branches of science. The Pythagorean arithmetic is the bond and universal logic of the knowable.

But at the same time Pythagoras and his school peopled the world with demons and genii, which were the causes of disease; they did not abandon the old mythical ideas of the incarnation of spirits and the transmigration of souls--theories and beliefs which recur in nearly all primitive and savage peoples.

In this vast Pythagorean scheme, which contrasts with that of the Ionic school of physics, thought is more explicitly freed from the ruder mythical ideas, and rises to a more intelligent and rational conception of the world, but the ancient popular traditions still persist, and there is an evident _entification_ of number. The primitive monad, numbers, their genesis and relations, are not regarded as abstract conceptions, necessary for understanding the order of nature, and a merely logical function of the mind; they are the substantial essence which underlies all mythical representations. Although the essential life of the world is considered from a more abstract point of view, yet the mythical a.n.a.logy of animal life evidently finds a place in the breath of the void and of time, a.s.sumed to be independent ent.i.ties. The subsequent train of beliefs in spirits, of their incarnations and transmigrations, are closely connected with the phantasmagoria of the past, and display their mythical genesis; yet by their deeper and more explicit thought they may be said to infuse intellectual life into the world and into science which relates to it. In this first rational cla.s.sification of science by the Greeks, both on its physical and its ideal side, thought sometimes issues in the simple contemplation of manifold nature, while it still continues mythical in its fundamental conceptions and spiritual corollaries; myth, however, instead of being altogether anthropomorphic, begins to become scientific.

I must here be allowed to quote a hymn in the Rig-Veda, which was historically earlier than the primitive philosophy of Greece, but which reveals the same tendency, the same mythical and scientific teaching in its interpretation of the world. In this hymn, which has been translated and explained by Max Muller, we see how boldly the problem of the origin of the world is stated (hymn 129, book x.)--

"Nor Aught nor Nought existed; yon bright sky Was not, nor heaven's broad woof outstretched above.

What covered all? what sheltered? what concealed?

Was it the water's fathomless abyss?