Tito Vignoli - Myth and Science
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Tito Vignoli >> Myth and Science
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20 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 of old superstitions, to whatever people
and class 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 assertion, 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 superstitions, 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 superstitions, 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 superstitions 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 constitution 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 repetition 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 constitution, 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 assert 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 attitude 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.
As far as the origin of myth is concerned, the mode of considering its
evolution, and its organic connection with science, we differ from other
mythologists as to the sources to which they trace this immense
elaboration of the human intelligence. We may be mistaken, but we are in
any case entering on unexplored ways, and if we go astray, the boldness
of an enterprise which we undertake with diffidence pleads for
indulgence.
Omitting to notice the well-known opinions on the origin of myth which
were current in classic antiquity, in the Graeco-Latin world, or in
India,[2] we restrict our inquiry to modern times subsequent to
Creuzer's learned and extensive labours. In a more scientific method,
and divested of prejudice, we propose to trace the sources of myth in
general, and among various peoples in particular.
The science of languages, or comparative philology, is the chief
instrument required in such researches, and much light has been acquired
in our days, which has led to surprising results, at least within the
sphere of the special races to which it has been applied. The names of
Kuhn, Weber, Sonne, Benfey, Grimm, Schwartz, Hanusch, Maury, Breal,
Pictet, l'Ascoli, De Gubernatis, and many others, are well known for
their marvellous discoveries in this new and arduous field. They have
not only fused into one ancient and primitive image the various myths
scattered in different forms among the Aryan races, but they have
revealed the original conception, as it existed in the earliest meaning
of words before their dispersion. Hence came the multiplicity of myths,
developed in brilliant anthropomorphic groups in different theologies,
gradually becoming more simple as time went on, then uniting in the
vague primitive personification of the winds, the storms, the sun, the
dawn; in short, of astral and meteorological phenomena.
On the other hand, Max Mueller, whose theory of original myths is
peculiar to himself, has made use of this philological instrument to
prove that the Aryan myths may at any rate be referred to a single
source, namely to metaphor, or to the double meaning of words, due to
the poverty of primitive languages. He calls this double meaning the
infirmity of speech.
I do not deny that many conclusions to which some or other of the great
authorities just mentioned have arrived may be as true as they are
surprising. I also admit that this may be a certain method of
distinguishing the various mythical representations in their early
beginnings from their subsequent and complex forms. But in all the facts
which have been ascertained, or which may hereafter be ascertained, from
the comparative study of the languages of different races, no
explanation is afforded of the fact that into the natural and primitive
phenomena of myth, or, as Mueller holds, into its various metaphors, man
has so far infused his own life, that they have, like man himself, a
subjective and deliberate consciousness and force. It seems to me that
this problem has not yet been solved by scholars; they have stopped
short after establishing the primary fact, and are content to affirm
that such is human nature, which projects itself on external things.[3]
This explanation establishes a true and universal fact, but it is not
the explanation of the fact itself; yet it is not, as we shall see,
incapable of solution, and it appears to me that the ultimate source
whence myths really proceed has not been reached.
Again, if such an opinion and such a method can give us the key to the
polytheistic origin of the respective Olympuses of classic Greece and
Rome, it leaves unexplained the numerous and manifold superstitions
which philology itself proves to have existed prior to the origin of
cosmic myths. These superstitions can by no means be referred to a
common source, to the astral and meteorological myths, some of which
were prior, while others were subsequent to these superstitions.
Taking, therefore, the general and more important opinions which are now
current respecting the origin of myth, it may be said that in addition
to the systems already mentioned, two others are presented to us with
the weight of authority and knowledge; these, while they do not renounce
the appliances and linguistic analyses of the former, try to unite all
the mythical sources of mankind in general into a single head, whence
all myths, beliefs, superstitions, and religions have their origin.
While France and Germany and some other nations have achieved
distinction in this field, England has been especially remarkable for
the nature of her attempts, and the vastness of her achievements in
every direction. We pass over many great minds which were first in the
field in order to dwell on the two men who, as it seems to me, have
summed up the knowledge of others, and have formulated a theory in great
measure peculiar to themselves.
Tylor's well known name will at once suggest itself, and that of Herbert
Spencer; the former, in his great work on the "Early History of Mankind
and of Civilization," and other writings, the latter, in the first
volume of his "Sociology," and in his earlier works, have respectively
established the doctrine of the universal origin of myths on the basis
of ethnography, on the psychological examination of the primary facts of
the intelligence, and on the conception of the evolution of the general
phenomena of nature.
It would, indeed, be difficult to excel the great mind, the acute
genius, and the universal learning of Herbert Spencer, who has been
termed the modern Aristotle by a learned writer; and this is high praise
when we remember how much knowledge is necessary in our times, and in
the present conditions of science, before any one can be deemed worthy
of such a comparison. But with due respect to so great a man, and with
the diffidence of one who is only his disciple, I venture to think that
Herbert Spencer's attempt to revive, at any rate in part, Evemero's
theory of the origin of myths will not be successful, and it may prove
injurious to science. First, because all myths cannot be reduced, to
personal or historical facts; and next, because the primitive value of
many of them is so clear and distinct in their mode of expression that
it is not possible to derive them from any source but the direct
personification of natural phenomena. Nor does it appear to me to be
always and altogether certain that the origin of myths, also caused by
the double personality discerned in the shadow of the body itself, in
the images reflected by liquid substances, in echoes and visions of the
night, can be all ascribed to the worship of the dead.
The worship of the dead is undoubtedly universal. There is no people,
ancient or modern, civilized or savage, by whom it has not been
practised; the fact is proved by history, philology and ethnography. But
if the worship of the dead is a constant form, manifested everywhere, it
flourishes and is interwoven with a multitude of other mythical forms
and superstitious beliefs which cannot in any way be reduced to this
single form of worship, nor be derived from it. This worship is
undoubtedly one of the most abundant sources of myth, and Spencer, with
his profound knowledge and keen discernment, was able to discuss the
hypothesis as it deserves; whence his book, even from this point of
view, is a masterpiece of analysis, like all those which issue from his
powerful mind.
Yet even if the truth of this doctrine should be in great measure
proved, the question must still be asked how it happens that man
vivifies and personifies his own image in duplicate, or else the
apparitions of dreams or their reflections, and the echoes of nature,
and ultimately the spirits of the dead.
Tylor developed his theory more distinctly and at greater length, and he
brought to bear upon it great genius, extraordinary knowledge, and a
sound critical faculty, so that his work must be regarded as one of the
most remarkable in the history of human thought. He belongs to the
school of evolution, and his book strongly confirms the truths of that
theory; since from the primitive germs of myth, from the various and
most simple forms of fetishes among all races, he gradually evolves
these rude images into more, complex and anthropomorphic forms, until he
attains the limits of natural and positive science. He admits that there
are in mankind various normal and abnormal sources of myth, but he comes
to the ultimate conclusion that they all depend on man's peculiar and
spontaneous tendency to _animate_ all things, whence his general
principle has taken the name of _animism_. It is unnecessary to say much
in praise of this learned work, since it is known to all, and cannot be
too much studied by those who wish for instruction on such subjects.
But while assenting to his general principle, which remains as the sole
ultimate source of all mythical representation, I repeat the usual
inquiry; what causes man to animate all the objects which surround him,
and what is the cause of this established and universal fact? The
marvellous ethnographic learning of the author, and his profound
analysis, do not answer this question, and the problem still remains
unsolved.
It is evident from what we have said, that the theory of the origin of
myth has of late made real and important progress in different
directions; it has been constituted by fitting methods, and with
dispassionate research, laying aside fanciful hypotheses and systems
more or less prompted by a desire to support or confute principles which
have no connection with science. We have now in great measure arrived at
the fundamental facts whence myth is derived, although, if I do not
deceive myself, the ultimate fact, and the cause of this fact, have not
yet been ascertained; namely, for what reason man personifies all
phenomena, first vaguely projecting himself into them, and then
exercising a distinct purpose of anthropomorphism, until in this way he
has gradually modified the world according to his own image.
If we are able to solve this difficult problem, a fact most important to
science and to the advancement of these special studies must result from
it: the assimilation and concentration of all the sources of myth into a
single act, whether normal or abnormal to humanity. To say that animism
is the general principle of myth does not reduce the different sources
whence it proceeds to a single psychical and organic act, since they
remain distinct and separate in their respective orbits. To attain our
object, it is necessary that the direct personification of natural
phenomena, as well as the indirect personification of metaphor; the
infusion of life into a man's own shadow, into reflex images and dreams;
the belief in the reality of normal illusions, as well as of the
abnormal hallucinations of delirium, of madness, and of all forms of
nervous affections; all these things must be resolved into a single
generating act which explains and includes them. It must be shown how
and why there is found in man the possibility of modifying all these
mythical forms into an image supposed to be external to himself, living
and personal. For if we are enabled to reply scientifically to such
inquiries, we shall not only have concentrated in a single fact all the
most diverse normal and abnormal forms of myth peculiar to man, but we
shall also have given an ulterior and analytic explanation of this fact.
I certainly do not presume to declare myself competent to effect so
much, and I am more conscious than my critics how far I fall short of my
high aim; but the modest attempt, made with the resolution to accept all
criticism offered with courtesy and good faith, does not imply culpable
presumption nor excessive vanity.
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