t, as if they were real persons or animals. So
strong is the childish instinct, or, as I might say, the law of its
being to project and transfuse itself into objects, that it is apt to
speak of itself in the third person. A child seldom says, "I will," or
"I am hungry," but "Louis wants," "Louis is hungry," or whatever his
name may be. This phenomenon reappears in the second childhood of old
age, when the power of reflection is weakened, and there is a reversion
to the primitive animal condition. The same phenomenon also occurs in
idiots, in whom there is a morbid defect of reflective power.

This fact of the personification of the objects of perception is
therefore evident and constant in the primitive man of civilized races,
in the barbarous condition of modern savages, in the ignorant multitude,
and in children--intellectual conditions which approach most closely to
the condition of animals--and conversely it is plain that it belongs in
the highest degree to the intellectual life of animals, and that myth,
into which such a personification and animation of things must be
resolved, has its original and innate necessity in animal life. We think
that this is a new scientific fact, which throws much light on the
history of human thought.

M'Lennan observes, "Some explanation of the phenomena of life a man
_must_ feign for himself; and to judge from the universality of it, the
simplest hypothesis, and the first to occur to men, seems to have been
that natural phenomena are ascribable to the presence in animals,
plants, and things, and in the forces of nature, of such spirits
prompting to action as men are conscious they themselves possess."[11]
This fact, indicated by M'Lennan and by all who have devoted themselves
to anthropological researches with respect to the origin of religions,
and of myth in general, is now recognized as certain; but it seems to me
that the interpretation and explanation of it are altogether implete.
They suppose it to be simply the effect of psychological laws as far as
man is concerned, whereas we have shown that it forms, in the ultimate
causes by which it is produced, the very essence of animal perception.
They ascribe it to man as a rational hypothesis to explain the primitive
order of things, whereas it is a spontaneous and primary intuition of
the animal intelligence.

Alger, although he is also mistaken as to the true causes of myth in
general, expresses himself better when he asserts th