supposed that such a vast and profound incarnation of
myth in social facts is peculiar to the primitive ages; it persists and
is maintained in all the historical phases of civilization, even of the
higher races, although sometimes in a dormant form. Even in our days,
any one who considers our modes of society, the organism, customs,
ceremonies, and manifold and complex institutions of modern life, will
readily see that religious influences and their rites initiate,
sanction, and accompany every individual and social fact, although civil
and religious societies are becoming ever more distinct.

Since, therefore, myth is a constant form of sociology, completely
invests it, and accompanies and animates its transmutations down to our
days, everyone must recognize the necessity of this study in order to
understand and explain the true history of thought and of sociology.

The energy, the power, the physical and intellectual worth of a people
are revealed as a whole in its mythical products, whether in the quality
and greatness of their beliefs, in the greater or less definiteness of
their system, or in their development into more rational notions; and
from the complex whole we can estimate the worth of their civilization.
So that, where other extrinsic testimony is wanting, the study of these
primitive creations will reveal to us their psychological worth. This is
the origin of the comparative psychology of peoples, a most fruitful
science, which not only teaches us to rank the various families of
peoples according to their relative value, but it is of great use in
making man acquainted with himself, and with psychology in general.

In fact, modern psychology can only advance by means of observation and
experiment, which constitute it one of the natural sciences; and this is
abundantly proved by the modern English schools, and the experimental
school in Germany. Yet observation of the states of consciousness taken
alone is defective, unless it is enlarged by the comparative examination
of a greater number of subjects; nor must ethnical peculiarities be
passed over, and it is precisely these which are included in the
comparative psychology of peoples. The large amount of results, their
infinite variety, and at the same time a certain uniformity in their
modes of beginning, of their development, and of their place in the
universe, give a splendid illustration of the innate exercise of human
thought; the likenesses as well as