Myth and Science / An Essay

by Tito Vignoli

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 something which had a real existence, and he might under certain circumstances invest it with deliberate power.

If we have fully grasped this deep faculty of the mind, and the spontaneous animation of all phenomena, both external and internal, it will not be difficult to understand the reappearance of the same law in abstract conceptions. The sensation of the quality, and consequently of the phenomenon, is reproduced, and the phenomenon generates the implicit idea of a subject, and therefore of a possible cause in given circumstances. If such a law did not produce upon man the mythical personification of his primitive abstract conceptions, at any rate it involved a belief in the objective reality of these conceptions, which were implicitly held to possess an independent existence.

Among prehistoric and savage races, who were ignorant of the laws and nature of cosmic forces, the greater or less weight of a thing did not involve any examination of the mass of a phenomenon, its distance, and the general laws of gravity; this differential weight was itself believed to be a thing which acted, and sometimes deliberately, acted in different ways on the different objects which they were comparing at the moment. In other words, gravity was regarded as something which existed independently of the bodies in which its properties were manifested.

This estimate of gravity, as an abstract quality or property, might be repeated of all other physical properties, as well as of those abstract conceptions which are moral and intellectual. Goodness came to be considered as a type, varying indeed in different peoples, according to their race, and their local, moral, and civil conditions, but as a type which corresponded to the mutual relations of men, and to their superstitions and religious beliefs as to the nature of things.

In this case also the abstract conception of the good, the fitting, the useful, which constantly recur in popular speech are regarded, not as mythical powers personified in a human form, but as having a real existence in nature, as something extrinsic to the person or thing in which they are manifested, and as acting upon them as a living and causative power. The same may be said of all other abstract conceptions. Hence, in addition to the formation of cosmic, moral, and intellectual myths, fashioned after the pattern of humanity, logical conceptions arose in the mind, necessary for the exercise of human speech and for 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 the mythical names of gods; from Genius, a multiform and universal power in ancient Latin mythology, we have genialis and hence the expressions genialis lectus, genialis homo, genialis hiems, and poets and philosophers apply the same epithet even to the elements and the stars. On the other hand, Virtue, Faith, Piety, and other like moral conceptions, first regarded as real, yet impersonal entities, were transformed into a perfect myth, and into human forms worthy of divine worship.

Even in our own time, and not only among the uneducated people but among men of high culture—when they do not pause to consider the real value of words in the familiarity of daily conversation—any one who seeks for the direct meaning of the terms he uses will admit the truth of what I say. We constantly ascribe a real existence to abstract conceptions and qualities, treating them as subjects which have a substantial being, and which act for the most part with deliberate purpose, although they are not transformed as in the case of myths into human shapes.