Who created those legends and tales of adventure constituting the subject-matter of mythology? Probably inspired individuals, priests or prophets. They came perhaps from dreams, hallucinations, insane attacks—they are derived from several sources. Whatever their origin, they are the work of imaginative minds par excellence (we shall study them later) who, confronted with any event whatever, must, because of their nature, construct a romance.
Besides analogy, this imaginative creation has as its principal source the associational form already described under the name "constellation." We know that it is based on the fact that, in certain cases, the arousing of an image-group is the result of a tendency prevailing at a given instant over several that are possible. This operation has already been expounded theoretically with individual examples in support.[55] But in order to gauge its importance, we must see it act in large masses. Myths allow us to do this. Ordinarily they have been studied in their historical development according to their geographical distribution or ethnic character. If we proceed otherwise, if we consider only their content—i.e., the very few themes upon which the human imagination has labored, such as celestial phenomena, terrestrial disturbances, floods, the origin of the universe, of man, etc.—we are surprised at the wonderful richness of variety. What diversity in the solar myths, or those of creation, of fire, of water! These variations are due to multiple causes, which have orientated the imagination now in one direction, now in another. Let us mention the principal ones: Racial characteristics—whether the imagination is clear or mobile, poor or exuberant; the manner of living—totally savage, or on a level of civilization; the physical environment—external nature cannot be reflected in the brain of a Hindoo in the same way as in that of a Scandinavian; and lastly, that assemblage of considerable and unexpected causes grouped under the term "chance."
The variable combinations of these different factors, with the predominance of one or the other, explain the multiplicity of the imaginative conceptions of the world, in contrast to the unity and simplicity of scientific conceptions.
II
The form of imagination now occupying our attention by reason of its non-individual, anonymous, collective character, attains a long development that we may follow in its successive phases of ascent, climax, and decline. To begin with, is it necessarily inherent in the human mind? Are there races or groups of men totally devoid of myths? which is a slightly different question from that usually asked, "Are there tribes totally devoid of religious thoughts?" Although it is very doubtful that there are such now, it is probable that there were in the beginning, when man had scarcely left the brute level—at least if we agree with Vignoli[56] that we already find in the higher animals embryonic forms of animism.
In any event, mythic creation appears early. We can infer this from the signs of puerility of certain legends. Savages who could not know themselves—the Iroquois, the Australian aborigines, the natives of the Andaman Islands—believed that the earth was at first sterile and dry, all the water having been swallowed by a gigantic frog or toad which was compelled, by queer stratagems, to regurgitate it. These are little children's imaginings. Among the Hindoos the same myth takes the form of an alluring epic—the dragon watching over the celestial waters, of which he has taken possession, is wounded by Indra after a heroic battle, and restores them to the earth.
Cosmogonies, Lang remarks, furnish a good example of the development of myths; it is possible to mark out stages and rounds according to the degree of culture and intelligence. The natives of Oceania believe that the world was created and organized by spiders, grasshoppers, and various birds. More advanced peoples regard powerful animals as gods in disguise (such are certain Mexican divinities). Later, all trace of animal worship disappears, and the character of the myth is purely anthropomorphic.[57] Kühn, in a special work, has shown how the successive stages of social evolution express themselves in the successive stages of mythology—myths of cannibals, of hunters, of herders, land-tillers, sailors. Speaking of pure savagery, Max Müller[58] admits at least two periods—pan-Aryan and Indo-Iranian—prior to the Vedic period. In the course of this slow evolution the work of the imagination passes little by little from infancy, becomes more and more complex, subtle and refined.
In the Aryan race, the Vedic epoch, despite its sacerdotal ritualism, is considered as the period par excellence of mythic efflorescence. "The myth," says Taine, "is not here (in the Vedas) a disguise, but an expression; no language is more true and more supple: it permits a glimpse of, or rather causes us to discern, the forms of mist, the movements of the air, change of seasons, all the accidents of sky, fire, storm: external nature has never found a mode of thought so graceful and flexible for reflecting itself thereby in all the inexhaustible variety of her appearances. However changeable nature may be, the imagination is equally so."[59] It animates everything—not only fire in general, Agni, but also the seven forms of flame, the wood that lights it, the ten fingers of the sacrificing priest, the prayer itself, and even the railing surrounding the altar. This is one example among many others. The partisans of the linguistic theory have been able to maintain that at this moment every word is a myth, because every word is a name designating a quality or an act, transformed by the imagination into substance. Max Müller has translated a page of Hesiod, substituting the analytic, abstract, rational language of our time for the image-making names. Immediately, all the mythical material vanishes. Thus, "Selene kisses the sleeping Endymion" becomes the dry formula, "It is night." The most skilled linguists often declare themselves unable to change the pliant tongue of the imaginative age into our algebraic idioms.[60] Thought by imagery cannot remain itself and at the same time take on a rational dress.
The mental state that marks the zenith of the free development of the imagination, is at present met with only in mystics and in some poets. Language has, however, preserved numerous vestiges of it in current expressions, the mythic signification of which has been lost—the sun rises, the sea is treacherous, the wind is mad, the earth is thirsty, etc.
To this triumphant period there succeeds among the races that have made progress in evolution, i.e., that have been able to rise above the age of (pure) imagination, the period of waning, of regression, of decline. In order to understand it and perceive the how and why of it, let us first note that myths are reducible to two great categories: