Myth and Science

Myth and Science

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Title: Myth and Science An Essay
Author: Tito Vignoli
Release Date: February 19, 2006 [EBook #17802]
Language: English
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THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES.
VOL. XXXVIII.

MYTH AND SCIENCE
AN ESSAY
BY
TITO VIGNOLI

THIRD EDITION
LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER
SQU. 1885

CONTENTS.
ON IDEAS AND SOURCES OF MYTH 1
ANIMAL SENSATION AND PERCEPTION 48
HUMAN SENSATION AND PERCEPTION 68
THE STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 104
THE ANIMAL AND HUMAN EXERCISE OF THE INTELLECT ON
THE PERCEPTION OF THINGS 116
INTRINSIC LAW OF THE FACULTY OF APPREHENSION 135
THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF MYTH AND SCIENCE 155
ON DREAMS, ILLUSIONS, NORMAL AND ABNORMAL
HALLUCINATIONS, DELIRIUM, AND
MADNESS--CONCLUSION 241

MYTH AND SCIENCE.

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 passed.
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 constituted 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 assigned 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 passed, or have nearly passed; 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 constitute it.
Nor, let it be observed, do I say that such a mythical faculty persists as
such only among the ignorant masses in town or country, in the form of
those very ancient superstitions 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