tion of the things and phenomena of
nature, of their images and specific types, were the great source whence
issued superstitions, mythologies, and religions, and also, as we shall
presently see, the scientific errors to be found among all the families
of the human race.

For the development of myth, which is in itself always a human
personification of natural objects and phenomena in some form or other,
the first and necessary foundation consists, as we have abundantly
shown, in the conscious and deliberate vivification of objects by the
perception and apprehension of animals. And since this is a condition of
animal perception, it is also the foundation of all human life, and of
the spontaneous and innate exercise of the intelligence. In fact, man,
by a two-fold process, raises above his animal nature a world of images,
ideas, and conceptions from the types he has formed of various
phenomena, and his attitude towards this internal world does not differ
from his attitude towards that which is external. He personifies the
images, ideas, and conceptions by transforming them into living
subjects, just as he had originally personified cosmic objects and
phenomena.

In myths, since they owe their origin to the reflex power which is
gradually organized and developed, man carries on this faculty of
personification which had already been exerted in him as an animal. But
the object of myth became two-fold just as the animal nature became
duplex in man, whether as a special image of special conception, or as
an intellectual definition of the specific type already formed. The
myths are, therefore, from their very nature, either special, that is,
derived from the psychical duplication of a personified image; or they
are specific, and are derived, as we are about to explain, from the
personification of a type.

The deliberate intention to be beneficent or malign, useful or
injurious, which is ascribed to any external object, thus transforming
it into an intelligent subject, is the first and simplest stage of myth,
and the innate form of its genesis. In this case, it is always special,
extrinsic, and concrete, and belongs implicitly to the animal kingdom,
although more or less vividly in proportion to the mental and physical
evolution of the species. It is for the same reason also proper to man,
in whose case it first appears in the indefinite multiplication of
fetishes, whatever may be the object venerated, and whatever the form,