th,
rejected Christianity, as it had been formulated by the Aryans, and had
little influence on the world. The Israelites, indeed, dispersed among
other nations, retained the idea of the one spiritual God in all its
purity, and civilization would have been much indebted to them for this
rational idea of God if they had more clearly understood its scientific
bearing and the nature of man; many of them are indeed justly entitled
to fame in every department of science. But taken by themselves and as a
people, they had little effect on civilization, since they lacked the
energy of purpose, courage, mental superiority, and imagination, which
create a durable and powerful civilization.

"The Arabs, aroused for a time by Mahometan fanaticism, overran great
part of Europe, Asia, and Africa, but without influencing civilization.
While in possession of a great and productive idea, they remained a
sterile and nomad people, or founded unproductive dynasties. For the
Semitic race, the interval between God and man, and consequently between
God and civilization, was and is infinite, impassable. The Arabs
possessed nothing but the devastating force of proselytism to fertilize
their minds and social relations; and, with the exception of
architecture, geography, and cognate sciences, they were for the most
part only the transmitters of the science of others. We, on the
contrary, filled up the gulf by placing the Man-God between God and man,
and civilization has a power and vigour which has never flagged, and
which, now that dogma is transformed into reason, will not flag while
the world lasts."[31]

This extract from a work published many years ago, seems to me to
confirm the theory of myths which I have explained; it shows how they
are ultimately fused into a simple form, in conformity with the ideas of
civilized society, and it will also throw light on what is to follow.

If we consider the primitive genesis and evolution of myth, confirmed by
all the facts of history and ethnography, it will appear that although
the matter on which thought was exercised was mythical and fanciful, the
form and organizing method were the same as those of science. It is, in
fact, a scientific process to observe, spontaneously at first, and then
deliberately, the points of likeness and unlikeness between special
objects of perception; we must rise from the particular to the general,
from the individual to the species, thus ever enlarging the circle of