lity, identity, number, and
quantity, etc., to the intellectual class. Such abstract conceptions,
without which human speech would be impossible, did not in the case of
primitive man take the explicit and reflex form in which they are
presented by mature science, and it is expedient to inquire what
character they really assumed in the spontaneous exercise of thought and
speech.

There is certainly a difference between the mythical and specific types
and the intrinsic value of these abstract conceptions. The former served
for the causative interpretation of the living system of the world, and
had a superstitious influence on the moral and social progress of
mankind; the latter were merely the instrument of thought and speech,
and were in spontaneous and daily use. But in spite of this difference,
there was no radical and substantial diversity in the genesis of such
conceptions, and the fundamental elements of perception were common to
both. While the form varied, the primitive law and genesis remained the
same.

We have shown that the perception of the phenomenon, as it affects the
inner and external consciousness, necessarily involves the form of the
subject, and the causative power which animates that form, and this
becomes the intellectual source of special and specific myths. These
myths, whether they are derived from physical or moral phenomena, are
subsequently so completely impersonated as to be resolved into a
perfectly human form. In the case of the abstract conceptions necessary
in speech, such anthropomorphism does not generally occur; yet we see
that sensation and a physiological genesis are inseparable from an
abstract conception. Without such sensation of the phenomenon these
conceptions would be unintelligible to the percipient himself and to
others. In direct sensation, the phenomenon is external, and when it is
reproduced in the mind the same cerebral motions to which that sensation
was due are repeated.

It is an absolute law, not only of the human mind but of animal
intelligence, that the phenomenon should generate the implicit idea of a
thing and cause, and the necessity of this psychical law is also
apparent in the abstract conception of some given quality. If the effect
is not identical, it is at any rate analogous. Primitive man did not
take whiteness, for example, considered in itself, to be an active
subject, like the specific natural myths which we have mentioned, but he
regarded it as somet