The Project Gutenberg EBook of Myth and Science, by Tito Vignoli

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Title: Myth and Science
An Essay

Author: Tito Vignoli

Release Date: February 19, 2006 [EBook #17802]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES.

VOL. XXXVIII.

MYTH AND SCIENCE

AN ESSAY

BY

TITO VIGNOLI

THIRD EDITION

LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQU.
1885

CONTENTS.

ON IDEAS AND SOURCES OF MYTH 1

ANIMAL SENSATION AND PERCEPTION 48

HUMAN SENSATION AND PERCEPTION 68

THE STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 104

THE ANIMAL AND HUMAN EXERCISE OF THE INTELLECT
ON THE PERCEPTION OF THINGS 116

INTRINSIC LAW OF THE FACULTY OF APPREHENSION 135

THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF MYTH AND SCIENCE 155

ON DREAMS, ILLUSIONS, NORMAL AND ABNORMAL HALLUCINATIONS, DELIRIUM,
AND MADNESS--CONCLUSION 241

MYTH AND SCIENCE.

CHAPTER I.

THE IDEAS AND SOURCES OF MYTH.

Myth, as it is understood by us, and as It will be developed and
explained in this work, cannot be defined in summary terms, since its
multiform and comprehensive nature embraces and includes all primitive
action, as well as much which is consecutive and historical in the
intelligence and feelings of man, with respect to the immediate and the
reflex interpretation of the world, of the Individual, and of the
society in which our common life is passed.

We hold that myth is, in its most general and comprehensive nature, the
spontaneous and imaginative form in which the human intelligence and
human emotions conceive and represent themselves and things in general;
it is the psychical and physical mode in which man projects himself into
all th