r a
man's converse with himself, and these were regarded as having a real
existence, manifested in things and persons and in the system of nature.
These entities have their origin in the same faculty as the others; in
every conception presented to the mind and reproducing the primitive
sensation or emotion, the external or internal phenomenon implicitly
generates the subject, and with this the cause. These abstract
conceptions did not and do not result in the anthropomorphism of
phenomena or ideas, but are transformed into entities which have a real
existence.

We must also observe the mobility and interchangeableness of these
fetishes, myths, and imaginary entities in the primitive times of the
human race, and even in later ages; at one time the fetish acts as a
myth, at another the myth has a logical existence. Of this there are
many proofs in the traditions of ancient peoples, in the intellectual
life of modern savages, and in that of the civilized nations to which we
ourselves belong. The historic development does not always follow the
regular course we have just described, although these are, in a strictly
logical sense, the necessary stages of intellectual evolution.
Historically they are often jostled and confounded together by the
lively susceptibility and alacrity of the imagination of primitive man,
and it is precisely this characteristic which makes these marvellous
ages so fertile in fanciful creations, and also in scientific
intuitions.

Any one who is sufficiently acquainted with the ancient literature of
civilized peoples, and with the legends of those which are rude and
savage; any one who has reflected on the spontaneous value of words and
conceptions in modern speech, must often have observed how myth assumed
the form of a logical conception as time went on; and conversely how
the logical entity assumed the form of a myth, and how interchangeable
they are. It is well known that the myths have been so far adapted to
the necessities of speech as to be transmuted into verbs; _libare_ from
_liber_, which perhaps came in its turn from _liba_, a propitiatory
cake, while _Libra_ was the genius who in mythological ages presided
over fruitfulness and plenty. So again _juvare_, from the root _jov_,
after it had already been used for the anthropomorphic _Jove_. We find
in Plautus the verb _summanare_, from the god _Summanus_, the nocturnal
sky. Not only verbs but adjectives were derived in common speech from
t