Myth and Science / An Essay

by Tito Vignoli

From these beliefs and facts, drawn from different peoples and different parts of the world, we can understand how a vague and inorganic fetishism gradually became classified into types which constitute the first phase of polytheism. The logical effort which transformed the manifold beliefs into types goes on, but from their vague and indefinite nature, not only the power, but also the extrinsic form of man is easily infused into them, so that they are invested with human faculties and sensations, and also with the anthropomorphic form and countenance of which we have spoken elsewhere. In fact, when the special fetishes which are naturally alike are united in a single type, the object, animal, or phenomenon which corresponds to it in this early stage of polytheism is no longer perceived, but a numen is evolved from this type, which has not only human power, but a human form; and hence follow the specific idols of serpents, birds, and all natural phenomena, in which the primitive fetish has been incarnated.[29]

In this second stage of polytheism, anthropomorphism appears in an external form, and the specific type is transformed into the idol which represents and dominates over it, inspiring the commission of beneficent or hurtful acts. Of this it is unnecessary to adduce examples, since all the mythologies which have reached this polytheistic stage are anthropomorphic, and in these the specific type, which serves as the first step to polytheism, subsequently becomes a completely human idol.

After this anthropomorphic classification has been reached by logical elaboration, a new field is opened for the reduction of special types into those which are more general, as had been previously the case in the early stages of myth. By continually concentrating, and at the same time by enlarging the value of the conception, it is united in a single form which constitutes the dawn and genesis of monotheism. This methodical process, which is characteristic of human thought, may be traced in all peoples which have really attained to the monotheistic idea, in the Aryan and Semitic races, in China, Japan, and Egypt, in Peru and Mexico; the belief may also be obscurely traced in an inchoate form among savage and inferior tribes, as, for example, among the Indians of Central and North America, and among some of the inhabitants of Africa and barbarous Asia.

While this conception took a more or less definite form among the more advanced peoples, the earlier and debased myths maintained their ground, and still continue to do so. Of this we have examples in Europe itself, and among its more civilized peoples which have been transplanted elsewhere; for while in one direction a capacity for classification leads to a purer monotheistic conception, and even to rational science, the great majority of the common people, and even of those of higher culture, still hold many ideas which are polytheistic and anthropomorphic, and some which really belong to the debased stage of fetishism and vulgar superstition.

Other causes contribute to produce the natural and intrinsic concurrence of the several stages of myth which are found existing together in the life of a people. Such, for example, is the conquest effected by a more civilized nation over another race, inferior by nature or retarded by other circumstances. The mythical ideas of the conquered people remain, and are even diffused through the lower classes of the conquering race; or they are ingrafted by a synthetic and assimilating process, so as to modify other mythical and religious beliefs. This compound of various stages and various beliefs also occurs through the moral and intellectual diffusion of dogma, without the acquisition of really new matter. Manifest proofs of these various stages of myth, co-existent together, may be traced in the development of the Vedic ideas among the earlier aboriginal nations, and conversely; as in the case of the Aztecs and Incas in Mexico and Peru, whose earlier beliefs were mixed with those of their conquerors. The same thing may be observed in the development of Judaism during the Babylonish captivity, in the biblical and messianic doctrines which were grafted on pagan beliefs, and in the teaching of Islam, as it was adopted in the East and among the black races of Africa.

We must make allowance for these extrinsic accidents if we are to describe correctly the natural course and logical evolution of myth. Even with respect to the special evolution of myth in a separate people, unmixed with others, while it is normal in what may be termed its general form and categorical phases, yet like all natural objects and phenomena, and much more in all which concerns the human mind, there are variations in its forms, and it attains its ends by many ways.

If we take a wider view of the general and reciprocal influences of ethnic myths; as respects the historic results of mythologies, we shall see that if every race evolved its sphere of myth in accordance with the canons laid down by us, their effect upon each other would work together for a common result more quickly than when each is taken apart. The reader must allow me to make my meaning clear by the following passage from my work on the "Dottrina razionale del Progresso," which I published in 1863, in the "Politecnico," Milan, on the fusion of the monotheistic conception of the Semitic race with the beliefs of Greece and Rome at the dawn of Christianity:—

"Christianity was originally based on the absolute idea of the divine first Principle, to which one portion of the Semitic race had attained by intellectual evolution, and by the acumen of the great men who brought this idea to perfection. Either because of their clearer consciousness, or from their environment and the physical circumstances of the race, the Semitic people passed from the primitive ideas of mythology to the conception of the absolute and infinite Being, while other races still adhered to altogether fanciful and anthropomorphic ideas of this Being. Our race had an Olympus, like the others, and throughout its history this Olympus was always assuming new forms, although a human conception was the basis of its religious ideas. The Chinese and Semitic races were the first to rise to the conception of an absolute first principle, but in both cases the conception was more or less unfruitful.

"The gradual transition from consciousness to conception, from the fact to the idea, from the idol to the law, from the symbol to the thought, from the finite to the infinite, is the characteristic and essential course taken by the human mind. But, practically, this process is more gradual or more rapid, is retarded or advanced, attains its aim or stops short in its first rudiments, according to the race in which it occurs. So it was that, as we have just said, the Chinese and Semitic races were the first to reach the final goal of this psychological progress; other peoples, such as the Aryans and their offshoots, savages and partially civilized races, remained in the early stages of this dialectic scale. Undoubtedly, in our own race, the early religious conceptions which constituted a simple worship of nature in various forms were constantly becoming of purer character, and they were not only exalted in their spiritual quality, but in the Greek and Roman religions they attained to something like scientific precision. Yet even in these higher aspirations the race did not surrender its mythical faculty, to which it was impelled by its physical and psychological constitution, and the pure conception was unconsciously overshadowed by symbolic ideas. We can plainly see how far this symbolism, peculiar to the race, obscured the minds of Plato and Aristotle, and of almost all the subsequent philosophers. In the Semitic and Chinese races this inner symbolism of the mind, with reference to the interpretation of nature, was less tenacious, intense, and productive, and they soon freed themselves from their mental bonds in order to rise to the conception of the absolute Being, distinct from the world. When this idea had been grasped by rude and popular intuition, men of the highest intellectual power perfected the still confused conception, and founded upon it science, civil and political institutions, and national customs.

"The idea of Christianity arose in the midst of the Semitic people through him whose name it bears, and who perfected the religious idea of his nation. This idea, in its Semitic simplicity, consisted in a belief in the existence of one, eternal, infinite God, the immediate creator of all things; it included the tradition of man's loss of his original felicity, and the promise of a restoration of all peoples, and of the Israelites in particular, to their former condition of earthly happiness. Christ appeared, and while he upheld the Mosaic law and its original idea, he declared himself to be the promised deliverer, sent of God; the Son of God, which among the Semitic people was the term applied to their prophets. His moral teaching gave a more perfect form to the old law, and by his example he afforded a model of human virtue worthy of all veneration; the germs of a marvellous civilization were to be found in his moral and partially new teaching. The same doctrine had been, to some extent, inculcated by the Jewish teachers, and the schools of Hillel and Gamaliel were certainly not morally inferior to his own, as we learn from the tradition of the Talmud, and from some passages in the Acts of the Apostles. The origin, development, and teaching of primitive Christianity were therefore essentially Semitic, since it had its origin in a people of that race, and in a man of that people. Yet the Semitic race did not become Christian; and, after so many ages have elapsed, it still rejects Christianity. It was the Aryan race, to which we Europeans belong, which adopted this teaching and became essentially Christian, although this race is psychologically the most idolatrous of the world, as far as the æsthetic idol—not the common fetish—is concerned. Let us inquire into the cause of this remarkable fact.