in various times and places. In
the same way, according to the natural evolution of this law, the
individual, concrete plant will no longer be the fetish or object of
myth, but all those of the same species, or which nearly resemble it. It
will no longer be a given spring, but all springs, no longer one
particular grove, cave, or mountain, but all groves, caves, and
mountains; in a word, the species will be substituted for the
individual, the type for the fact.[20]

In this second stage to which myth spontaneously attained, it must be
observed that all fetishes could not be reduced to a specific or typical
image, since in nature, and in ages and conditions when the intelligence
was still rude and uncultured, all phenomena or objects could not assume
a specific form, but were still regarded as individuals. In this class
are the sun, the moon, certain stars and constellations, as well as some
other natural phenomena, volcanoes, hot springs, and the like; since
these were unique within the range of country inhabited by the savage
hordes, they could not become specific. Hence, while all other objects
and their respective fetishes followed the natural evolution into a
specific type, and through these into the simplest form of polytheism,
the special fetish which referred to unique things or phenomena remained
special, although it was modified, as we shall see, so as to harmonize
with the aspect commonly assumed by other typical images.

It must be observed that we have gradually ascended from the special to
the specific fetish, and to types which are resolved by the intelligence
into more ideal and less concrete images; precisely because they are
ideal and less bound to the form they had before, they are incarnated in
an anthropomorphic and anthropopathic form. Released from the necessity
of regarding them in a vague form, or one different from that of man,
the image becomes more human, and that not only as before in
consciousness and purpose, but also in aspect and structure.

In fact, in this stage man does not merely infuse his spiritual essence
into these types, but likewise his corporeal form, whence we have the
true, human image of myth. This may be seen in the various primitive
Olympuses of all historic races as well as among savage peoples, only
varying in the splendour of their imagery. They consist in the
transformation of the earlier fetish into an intelligent, corporeal
person, and result from the formation and