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Tito Vignoli - Myth and Science

T >> Tito Vignoli >> Myth and Science




These are not the only results which follow from the exercise of this
faculty. By the spontaneous classifying action of our intelligence we
rise from the perception of special and individual objects and phenomena
to their various types, and hence to an inward and ideal world of
specific representations, as if these were causative powers, informing
the multitude of analogous and similar phenomena in which they are
manifested. These specific types, which are more strongly present to the
fancy in the primitive exercise of the intelligence, also become
personified, and they generate what is called polytheism in all its
forms, varying according to the races, times, places, and respective
conditions of morality and civilization in which they are found.

The same psychical faculty and the same elements are necessary for the
personification of such types or idols. The three elements appear in
their proper sequence even in the amorphous phantasms which these types
first shadow forth, and which are subsequently perfected and embodied in
human form. For the consciousness of the external form always exists in
the first vague and nebulous conception of the phantasm which gradually
appears and formulates itself in the vivid imagination; and hence
follows the phenomenal vest, which, as usual, generates the
corresponding subject, informed with a causative power. This process
clearly shows, and in fact constitutes, the essence of myth.

Since the types vary very much, and are indeed unstable from their very
nature, constantly becoming formed and again decomposed, the primitive
mythologies of all people are in like manner very various, indefinite,
and subject to constant change.

It appears in the Vedic mythology, and also in that of the ancient
Greeks and Latins, how often the typical myths of Agni, Varuna, Indra,
Asvini, and Maruti; and again, of Zeus, Here, Athene, and the rest, are
changed and reconstituted. This shows how the same human faculty, the
same elements which constitute the perception and primitive
personification of external phenomena, are those also of the specific
and intrinsic phenomena. Just as man, in the primitive conditions of his
existence, by the psychical and physiological law of his perception,
which he has in common with animals, transformed the world and its
phenomena into subjects endowed with conscious life; so by his psychical
faculty of reduplication he personified the mental images of these same
subjects as fetishes and myths; and subsequently invested them with more
distinctly human forms, and also with specific types of humanity. The
same faculty and conditions of animal perception afterwards become the
true and only causes of the superstitions, mythologies, and religions of
mankind. The law of continuity is unbroken, and this is a certain
confirmation of the truth.

This faculty, inward function, and process of mythical and symbolic
facts led in course of time to the evolution and beginning of knowledge,
which is first empirical and then rational. Therefore, we must repeat,
the extrinsic and intrinsic perception, the specification of types, and
their modification into a unity which was always becoming more
comprehensive, are the conditions and method of science itself, which is
only developed by means of this faculty. Hence the elements and
intrinsic logical form of science are identical with those through which
mythical representations and the inward life of the human intelligence
are developed.[25]

Besides, as we have before remarked, the empirical knowledge of things
begins and is perfected in the superstitions of fetishes and myths.
Ideas are modified and become purer as they converge into types, and the
principle and method at once become more rational. Either in the faculty
of perception and in its elements, or in the inward classification of
specific forms, or again in the more perfect empirical knowledge of
phenomena, the progress of myth and science go on together, and they are
not only developed in a parallel direction, but the form becomes the
covering, involucre, matrix, or, as I might say, the _cotyledons_, by
means of which the latter is developed and nourished. Even in more
rational science this faculty, and these elements, necessarily recur,
since in every human conception we find the material aspect, or its
mental image, the thing and its cause, and, as we shall see, some
mythical personality is insensibly identified with it.

The act which produces myth is therefore the same from which science
proceeds, so that their original source is identical. The same process
which constitutes the fetish and myth also constitutes science in its
conditions and form, and here we find the unique fact which generates
them both; science, like myth, would be impossible without apprehension,
without the individuation of ideas, and the classification and
specification of types.

Before going further I must briefly recapitulate the order of ideas and
facts which we have observed, so that the process may be as strictly
logical as it is practical. Since, in the elements of apprehension,
perception is absolutely identical in man and animals, its primitive
effects in animating natural phenomena are the same. But man, by means
of his reduplicative faculty, retains a mental image of the personified
subject which is only transitory in the case of animals, and it thus
becomes an inward fetish, by the same law, and consisting of the same
elements as that which is only extrinsic. These phantasms are, moreover,
personified by the classifying process of types, they are transformed
into human images, and arranged in a hierarchy, and to this the various
religions and mythologies of the world owe their origin. Since such a
process is also the condition and form of knowledge, the source of myth
and science is fundamentally the same, for they are generated by the
same psychical fact. It is in this way that the progress of human
intelligence was developed in the course of ages; its attitude varies in
various races, but the impulses, the faculty, and its elements are
identical. I do not think that this unique fact in which myth and
science have their source has been observed before; still less has any
one defined the limits of human intelligence, and recognized in the
simple acts of animals the formal and absolute conditions of human
science, and the origin of myth.

If I am not deluded by a prejudice in favour of my own researches, this
theory is a contribution to truth. It is confirmed by the solidarity
which it establishes between the acts and laws of the psychical human
faculty, and that of animals which necessarily preceded it. No science
can be constituted without such solidarity; this great truth was felt
and, after their manner, demonstrated by scholastic philosophers, or, as
it was afterwards scientifically expressed by the genius of Leibnitz:
_Natura non facit saltum!_




CHAPTER VI.

THE INTRINSIC LAW OF THE FACULTY OF APPREHENSION.


We have now carefully considered the acts and dynamic activity of human
thought. We have seen in what animal and human perception consists, and
how it acts; how the subjects developed in our imagination are gradually
united in specific forms or types, and are arranged in a system, whence
follow the first symbolic representations of science. But our task is
not yet accomplished, since much more is needed to display all that this
fact involves, so that we may fully understand the inward evolution of
myth and science in history and in our race, and not merely in the
individual man.

The faculty and its effects, which could primarily be reduced to this
unique and indivisible fact, do not exclusively belong to primordial
ages, but go on through all time, our own included, while assuming
divers forms and fresh aspects as the faculty of the intellect becomes
more developed. It is an indisputable truth that the influence of myth
on thought and fancy, a survival from prehistoric ages, still prevails
among the common people both in town and country, among those who are
uncultivated, and even in the higher classes conventionally called good
society.

It is more difficult to trace the occasional existence of the same
influence among those who think rationally and investigate the laws of
the universe while acquainted with the earlier mythical process; and
yet, as we shall show, the greatest and most able men are not unfettered
by it. Myth has hitherto been regarded as a secondary and fanciful
product of the psychical human faculty, due to extrinsic impulses,
rather than as the primitive and intrinsic necessity of the
intelligence--a necessity which has its roots in animal intelligence
itself; and the unique fact which generates both myth and science has
not been ascertained. If this fact and law had been discovered before,
we should have more readily understood religions, philosophic systems,
and the successive forms of science, and pure reason would have made
more rapid progress. Our theory, besides giving a rational explanation
of the different forms assumed by thought in the course of its historic
evolution, will, I hope, also account for many psychological phenomena
which have hitherto been imperfectly understood, such as dreams,
hallucinations, the aberrations of insanity, and the like. The primitive
fact and its effects reappear in these conditions, and this influence is
persistent and enters into all our acts, conscious or unconscious,
voluntary or involuntary.

It follows from the innate necessity of the perception that objects and
their extrinsic and intrinsic causes are resolved into living subjects,
and are classified in a hierarchy of specific types, which are accepted
by the primitive and ignorant mind as the universal mythical forms.[26]
But the necessities of human speech, which is however involved in
mythical representations, from the very beginning essentially reflex,
require other terms than those of individual and specific animations. It
is clear that the simple personifying faculty of the intellect sufficed
in its earliest emotions, but that after the slow development of
psychical reduplication, and the enlargement of languages and ideas, it
no longer satisfied the logical requirements of the mind.

Consequently, explicit,--that is, rational--singular, and specific ideas
gradually arose and assumed a definite form; they were interwoven and
fused into these individual and specific types, and thus obtained a
place in the thoughts and language of primitive man. The gradual
intrusion of specific rational ideas is natural to the human mind, since
it is logically progressive, and the fact may be observed by those who
watch the mental growth of children, and of ignorant and untaught
adults.

While the mythical intelligence continues as before to give its habitual
mythical interpretation of many natural phenomena, the use is gradually
acquired of special and generic symbols which express special and
specific ideas, and these no longer include a personification of the
individual thing or idea. Without this intrusion of rational ideas any
progress would be impossible, as well as the power of expressing all
which time and education present to the mind, and gradually enable it to
comprehend; the fanciful image is fused in a rational conception, which
is, however, not yet definite and explicit.

What are commonly termed abstract ideas arise from this necessity, as
the result of the perfection and development of speech, but these were
not at first abstract, although they made use of the abstract idea.
Unconscious abstraction is certainly one of the primary acts of the
intelligence, since abstraction follows from the consideration of a part
or of some parts of a whole, which are themselves presented as a whole
to the perception. But this primitive abstraction was so far a concrete
fact for the perception, in that each act of the apprehension
constituted a phenomenon of which the apparent character was abstracted
from the other parts which formed a whole, and was transformed into a
living subject, as we have already shown at length. The really explicit
abstraction, to which man only attained after many ages, consisting in
the simple representation of a quality or part of a thing, could not at
that time be effected, although special and specific ideas gradually
found their way into thought and speech. All the terms for form and
relation in primitive speech, and also among modern savages, confirm
this assertion, as linguists are aware; the form and relation now
expressing an abstract reference to actions and passions in the verbs,
nouns, and adverbs, originally referred to a concrete object.

Three modes or degrees of abstract representations occur in the
progressive exercise of the intellectual faculty; these, combined with
the special apprehensions of the individual memory, and with imaginative
types, constitute the life of human thought, and are the conditions by
which we attain to rational knowledge. While the specific mythical type
may take the place of the general type in the logical exercise of
thought, and may suffice for an imaginative comprehension of the system
of the world, the abstract conception intervenes in the daily necessity
for communication between these general mythical types, and serves to
cement them together, thus rendering the commerce of ideas among men and
in the human mind more easy.

The abstract conceptions which are formed in this way may be divided
into three classes--physical, moral, and intellectual. To begin with the
first; it is impossible for human speech to point out and define a
subject or phenomenon in the series to which it belongs by resemblance,
identity, or analogy, unless there is already in the mind a conception
which includes the general qualities, or quality proper to the series of
similar phenomena; this is essentially an abstract type, but it
primarily assumes a concrete form. I cannot say that anything is white
or heavy, until by repetitions of the same sensation I have been able to
combine in a single conception the sensations diffused over an infinite
number of objects. The genesis of these conceptions is found in the
comparative explicit judgment which depends on the memory for the
necessary conditions of its formation.

The typical and abstract idea of white has not merely a nominal value,
as it is asserted in some schools of thought, for an empty term could
express no idea, whereas this idea is perfectly clear. Neither is it a
real thing, but rather an ideal reality, not a pure abstraction of the
spirit, extracted, so to speak, from the material substance. The
conception of whiteness formed by the comparative judgment is limited by
the perception of the concrete, external fact perceived as one special
quality among all other qualities in nature, and it is therefore a
physiological fact of inward consciousness.

In the abstract idea of white or whiteness we do not only picture to
ourselves a quality common to many things, but by this term, and by the
idea which corresponds to it, the same sensation is actually present to
our inward intuition, or the same quality of the sensation which was
previously generated by our external senses in a concrete form.
Although, therefore, the idea is generic, the sensation itself is
represented to the mind in the form of a concrete perception. It is not
concrete in the sense of belonging to a special object or definite form,
as it is presented to the outward perception, but only so far as there
is actually an inward and physiological sensation of whiteness, which
the word recalls to the memory. There can be no mental confusion with
the quality of red, or of any colour, when I speak or think of what is
white.

When I speak or think of any object as white, I and others perfectly
understand what is meant, and a representation of this quality is
instantly formed in our minds, in the generic type which was gradually
constituted by primitive man by the combination of numerous special
sensations, obvious to the sight, and subsequently expressed in speech.

In order that the word which corresponds to the quality may have a given
sense, it is necessary to perceive the form of the concrete sensation
which gave rise to it; for although the representation is indefinite or
generic, that is, not obvious to the external senses, yet it is not
physiologically distinct from the sensation of the quality described;
the perception of that quality is present by the aid of memory to the
inner consciousness.

It is therefore evident that the physiological elements of consciousness
are actually contained in so-called abstract ideas, although it is
sometimes asserted that they are purely spiritual and intellectual acts,
remote from every physiological process of fact and sense. An actual
physiological fact (colour in this instance) corresponds to the idea in
the nervous centres, and reproduces the sensation due to the perception
of special objects, whose physical quality of whiteness we have
perceived, and this sensation makes part of the abstract, or rather
indefinite conception.

In fact, all which is not actually present to the mind--and the present
is an infinitesimal fraction of knowledge--is reproduced by the memory,
and this is effected by the molecular movements of the human brain, and
by what may be called the ethereal modifications which took place when
the sensations, perceptions, and acts first occurred. If the cells
vibrate, and the organs of the brain are affected by the recollection of
past ideas and acts, just as when they actually occurred (and this
appears from Schiff's experiences as to the increase of the brain in
heat and volume during dreams), this vibration will be still more marked
when any quality which affects our senses is reproduced in the mind.

The particular _form_ of the quality as it appears in a definite object
is certainly wanting in the abstract conception; it remains in the first
stage of pure sensation, like a spontaneous act of observation, and it
is transformed into apprehension by the mental faculty. But the inward
consciousness of the quality is actual, psychical, and physical. The
abstract conception is a psychical symbol composed of idea and
consciousness, or rather of act and consciousness; both are fused into a
logical conception of indefinite form, yet consisting of real elements,
that is, of cerebral motions and of sensations.

Estimated according to its genuine value, therefore, an abstract
conception may be divided into three classes--physical, moral, and
intellectual. Whiteness and colours in general, levity and weight,
hardness, sound, and the like qualities, are all abstract types which
belong to the physical class. Goodness, virtue, love, hatred, and anger
must be assigned to the moral class; and equality, identity, number, and
quantity, etc., to the intellectual class. Such abstract conceptions,
without which human speech would be impossible, did not in the case of
primitive man take the explicit and reflex form in which they are
presented by mature science, and it is expedient to inquire what
character they really assumed in the spontaneous exercise of thought and
speech.

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.

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