Part 1 (1/2)
Myth and Science.
by t.i.to Vignoli.
CHAPTER I.
THE IDEAS AND SOURCES OF MYTH.
Myth, as it is understood by us, and as It will be developed and explained in this work, cannot be defined in summary terms, since its multiform and comprehensive nature embraces and includes all primitive action, as well as much which is consecutive and historical in the intelligence and feelings of man, with respect to the immediate and the reflex interpretation of the world, of the Individual, and of the society in which our common life is pa.s.sed.
We hold that myth is, in its most general and comprehensive nature, the spontaneous and imaginative form in which the human intelligence and human emotions conceive and represent themselves and things in general; it is the psychical and physical mode in which man projects himself into all those phenomena which he is able to apprehend and perceive.[1]
We do not propose to consider in this treatise the myths peculiar to one people, nor to one race; we do not seek to estimate the intrinsic value of myths at the time when they were already developed among various peoples, and const.i.tuted into an Olympus, or special religion; we do not wish to determine the special and historical cause of their manifestations in the life of any one people, since we now refrain from entering on the field of comparative mythology. It is the scope and object of our modest researches to trace the strictly primitive origin of the human myths as a whole; to reach the ultimate fact, and the causes of this fact, whence myth, in its necessary and universal form, is evolved and has its origin.
We must therefore seek to discover whether, in addition to the various causes a.s.signed for myth in earlier ages, and still more in modern times by our great philologists, ethnologists, and philosophers of every school--causes which are for the most part extrinsic--there be not a reason more deeply seated in our nature, which is first manifested as a necessary and spontaneous function of the intelligence, and which is therefore intrinsic and inevitable.
In this case myth will appear to us, not as an accident in the life of primitive peoples varying in intensity and extent, not as a vague conception of things due to the erroneous interpretation of words and phrases, nor again as the fanciful creation of ignorant minds; but it will appear to be a special faculty of the human mind, inspired by emotions which accompany and animate its products. Since this innate faculty of myth is indigenous and common to all men, it will not only be the portion of all peoples, but of each individual in every age, in every race, whatever may be their respective conditions.
Myth, therefore, will not be resolved by us into a manifestation of an obsolete age, or of peoples still in a barbarous and savage state, nor as part of the cycle through which nations and individuals have, respectively pa.s.sed, or have nearly pa.s.sed; but it remains to this day, in spite of the prevailing civilisation which has greatly increased and is still increasing, it still persists as a mode of physical and intellectual force in the organic elements which const.i.tute it.
Nor, let it be observed, do I say that such a mythical faculty persists as such only among the ignorant ma.s.ses in town or country, in the form of those very ancient superst.i.tions which have been collected with immense labour by learned mythologists and ethnologists; on the contrary, I maintain that the mythical faculty still exists in all men, independently of this survival of old superst.i.tions, to whatever people and cla.s.s they may belong; and it will continue to exist as an innate function of the intelligence, if not with respect to the substance, which may alter, at any rate in the mode of its acts and proceedings.
I fear that this opinion will appear at first sight to be paradoxical and chimerical, since it is well known that the mythical conception of the world and its origin is gradually disappearing among civilized nations, and it is supposed to be altogether extinct among men of culture and intelligence. Yet I flatter myself, perhaps too rashly, that by the time he reaches the end of this work, the reader will be convinced of the truth of my a.s.sertion, since it is proved by so many facts, and the psychical law from, which it results is so clear.
It must not, however, be forgotten that, in addition to the mythical faculty of our minds, there exists the scientific faculty, the other factor of a perfect intellectual life; the latter is most powerful in certain races, and must in time prevail over the former, which in its objective form precedes it; yet they are subjectively combined in practice and are indissolubly united through life.
Undoubtedly neither the mythical nor the scientific faculty is equal and identical in all peoples, any more than they are equal and identical in individuals; but they subsist together, while varying in intensity and degree, since they are both necessary functions of the intelligence.
Whether we content ourselves with studying the mental and social conditions in the lower types of modern peoples, or go back to the earliest times, we find men everywhere and always possessed of the power of speech, and holding mythical superst.i.tions, it may be of the rudest and most elementary kind; so also do we find men possessed of rational ideas, although they may be very simple and empirical. They have some knowledge of the causes of things, of periods in the phenomena of nature, which they know how to apply to the habits and necessities of their social and individual lives.
No one, for example, would deny that many mythical superst.i.tions, and fanciful beliefs in invisible powers, existed among the now extinct Tasmanians, and are now found among the Andaman islanders, the Fuegians, the Australians, the Cingalese Veddahs, and other rude and uncultured savages. On the other hand, those who are acquainted with their mode of life find that savages are not absolutely devoid of intellectual activity of an empirical kind, since they partly understand the natural causes of some phenomena, and are able, in a rational, not an arbitrary manner, to ascribe to laws and the necessities of things many facts relating to the individual and to society. They are, therefore, not without the scientific as well as the mythical faculty making due allowance for their intellectual condition; and these primitive and natural instincts are due to the physical and intellectual organism of human nature.
In order to pursue this important inquiry into the first and final cause of the origin of myth, it is evidently not enough to make a laborious and varied collection of myths, and of the primitive superst.i.tions of all peoples, so as to exhaust the immense field of modern ethnography.
Nor is it enough to consider the various normal and abnormal conditions of psychical phenomena, nor to undertake the comparative study of languages, to ascertain how far their speech will reveal the primitive beliefs of various races, and the obscure metaphorical sayings which gave birth to many myths. It is also necessary to subject to careful examination the simplest elementary acts of the mind, in their physical and psychical complexity, in order to discover in their spontaneous action the transcendental fact which inevitably involves the genesis of the same myth, the primary source whence it is diffused by subsequent reflex efforts in various times and varying forms.
In speaking of the transcendental fact, it must not be supposed that I allude to certain well-known _a priori_ speculations, which are opposed to my temper of mind and to my mode of teaching. I only use the term transcendental because this is actually the primitive condition of the fact in its inevitable beginning, whatever form the mythical representation may subsequently take. This fact is not peculiar to any individual, people, or race, but it is manifested as an essential organism of the human character, which is in all cases universal, permanent, and uniform.
In order to give a clear explanation of my estimate of the _a priori_ idea, which also takes its place as the factor of experimental and positive teaching, I must observe that for those who belong to the historical and evolutionary school, _a priori_, so far as respects any organism, habit, and psychological const.i.tution in the whole animal kingdom, in which man is also included, signifies whatever in them is fixed and permanently organized; whatever is perpetuated by the indefinite repet.i.tion of habits, organs, and functions, by means of the heredity of ages. The whole history of organisms abounds with positive and repeated proofs of this fact, which no one can doubt who is not absolutely ignorant of elementary science. Every day adds to the number of these proofs, demonstrating one of those truths which become the common property of nations.
_A priori_ is therefore reduced by us to the modification of organs in their physical and psychical const.i.tution, as it has ultimately taken place in the organism by the successive evolutions of forms which have gradually become permanent, and are perpetuated by embryogenic reproduction. This reproduction is in its turn the absolute condition of psychical and organic facts, which are thus manifested as primitive facts in the new life of the individual. By this law, the psychical facts, whether elementary or complex, as they occur in the individual up to the point of their evolution, have the necessary conditions of possibility, and may therefore be termed a _priori_ with respect to the laws of evolution, and to the hereditary permanence of acts performed in the former environment of the organism at the time when they appeared.
This conception of a _priori_ is, it must be admitted, very different from that of transcendental philosophers, who seek to prove either that an independent artificer has not only produced the various organic forms in their present complexity, and has specially provided the spiritual subject with its category of thought, independently of all experience; or else they a.s.sert the intrinsic existence of such forms in the spirit, from the beginning of time.
In this way, as we have already said, we must not only collect the facts which abound in history and ethnology respecting the general teaching of myths, but we must also observe introspectively, and by pursuing the experimental method, the primitive and fundamental psychical facts, so as to discover the a priori conditions of the myth itself. We must ascertain, from a careful psychological examination, the absolutely primitive origin of all mythical representations, and how these are in their turn the actual historical result of the same conditions, as they existed prior to their manifestations.
It must not be supposed that in this primary fact, and in these _a priori_ psychical and organic conditions, we shall find the ulterior cause of the various and manifold forms, or of the successive evolution of myths. This would be a grave mistake, equal to that of transcendentalists, who imagine that the laws which actually exist, and the order of cosmic and historic phenomena may be determined from the independent exercise of their own thoughts, although such laws and order can only be traced and discovered by experience and the observation of facts. In the _a priori_ conditions of the psychical and organic nature, and in the elementary acts which outwardly result from them, we shall only trace the origin and necessary source of myth, not the variable forms of its successive evolution.
The ulterior form, so far as the substance of the myth and its various modifications are concerned, is in great part the reflex work of man; its aspect changes in accordance with the att.i.tude and force of the faculties of individuals, peoples and races, and it depends on an energy to which the _a priori_ conditions, as we have just defined them, do not strictly apply so far as the determinate form is concerned.
It is precisely in this ulterior work of the evolution of myth, which in the elementary fact of its primitive essence had its origin in the predisposition of mind and body, that we may discern the interchangeable germ and origin both of myth and science. If, therefore; the rationale of science cannot be found in the general form of mythical representations, the matter which serves to exercise the mind; yet the mode of its exercise, and of the logical and psychical faculty, and the spontaneous method pursued, are identical: the two mythical and scientific faculties are, in fact, considered in themselves, fused into one.