CHAPTER VII. THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF MYTH AND SCIENCE
(CONTINUED...)
"On the other hand, Christianity was rapidly diffused among the Greek
and Latin peoples, and in all parts of Europe inhabited by our race:
even savages and barbarians accepted more or less frankly a doctrine
rejected by the Semites in whom it had its origin. Many and various
causes have been assigned for this rapid diffusion of the new doctrine,
and the old Greek and Latin fathers ascribed it to the fact that men's
minds had been naturally and providentially prepared for it. It was
attributed by others to the miseries and sufferings of the slave
population, and of the poor, who found a sweet illusion and comfort in
the Christian hope of a world beyond the grave. Some, again, suggest the
omnipotent will of a tyrant, or the extreme ignorance of the common and
barbarous people. Although all these causes had a partial effect, they
were secondary and accidental. The true and unique cause lay deeper, in
the intellectual constitution of the race to which Christianity was
preached; just as physiological characteristics are reproduced in the
species until they become permanent, so do intellectual inclinations
become engrained in the nature.
"We have said that our race is aesthetically more mythological than all
others. If we consider the religious teaching of various Aryan peoples,
from the most primitive Vedic idolatry to the successive religions of
Brahma and Zend, of the Celts, Greeks, Latins, Germans, and Slavs, we
shall see how widely they differ from the religious conceptions and
ideas of other races. The vein of fanciful creations is inexhaustible,
and there is a wealth of symbolic combinations and a profusion of
celestial and semi-celestial dramas. The intrinsic habit of forming
mythical representations of nature is due to a more vivid sense of her
power, to a rapid succession of images, and to a constant projection of
the observer's own personality into phenomena. This peculiar
characteristic of our race is never wholly overcome, and to it is added
a proud self-consciousness, an energy of thought and action, a constant
aspiration after grand achievements, and a haughty contempt for all
other nations.
"The very name of Aryan, transmitted in a modified form to all
successive generations, denotes dominion and valor; the Brahmanic
cosmogony, and the epithet of apes, given to all other races in the epic
of Valmiki, bear witness to the same fact; it is shown in the slavery
imposed on conquered peoples, in the hatred of foreigners felt by all
the Hellenic tribes; in the omnipotence of Rome, the haughtiness of the
Germanic orders; in the feudal system, in the Crusades; and finally, in
the modern sense of our superiority to all other existing races. The
quickness of perception, and the facile projection of human personality
into natural objects, led to the manifold creations of Olympus, and this
was an aesthetic obstacle to any nearer approach to the pure and absolute
conception of God, while the innate pride of race was a hindrance to our
humiliation in the dust before God. The Semites declared that man was
created in the image of God, and we created God in our own image; while
conscious of the power of the _numina_ we confronted them boldly, and
were ready to resist them. The Indian legends, and those of the
Hellenes, the Scandinavians, and the whole Aryan race, are full of
conflicts between gods and men. The demi-gods must be remembered,
showing that the Aryans believed themselves to be sufficiently noble and
great for the gods to love them, and to intermarry with them. Thus the
Aryan made himself into a God, and often took a glorious place in
Olympus, while he declared that God was made man.
"We might imagine that the doctrine of God incarnate would be as
repugnant to the ideas, feelings, and intellect of the Aryan as it was
to the Semitic race. But the anthropomorphic side of Christianity was
readily embraced by the former as a mythical and aesthetic conception,
and indeed it was they who made a metaphorical expression into an
essential dogma: the pride natural to the Aryan race made them eager to
accept a religion which placed man in a still higher Olympus: a belief
in Christ was rapidly diffused, not as God but as the Man-God. These are
the true reasons, not only for the rapid spread of Christianity in
Europe, but also for the philosophic systems of the Platonists and
Alexandrines which preceded it. Although Philo was a Hebrew, and
probably knew nothing of Christ, he attained by means of Hellenism to
the idea of the Man-God; the Platonic Word, which was merely the
projection of God into human reason, was accepted for the same reason
as the Christian dogma of the Word made man.
"Let us see what new principles, what higher morality and civilization
were added by the diffusion of Christianity to those principles which
were the spontaneous product of the race. We must first consider what
part the pagan gods, as they were regarded by educated men, played in
the history of the European race, with respect to the individual and to
the commonwealth. The pagan Olympus, considered as a whole, and without
reference to the various forms which it assumed in different peoples,
was not essentially distinct from human society. Although the gods
formed a higher order of immortal beings, they were mixed up with men in
a thousand ways in practical life, and conformed to the ways of
humanity; they were constantly occupied in doing good or ill to mortals;
they were warmly interested in the disputes of men, taking part in the
conflicts of persons, cities, and peoples; special divinities watched
over men from the cradle to the grave, and they were loved or hated by
the gods by reason of their family and race. In short, the heavenly and
earthly communities were so intermixed that the gods were only superior
and immortal men.
"The people were accustomed to consider their deities as ever present,
distinct from, and yet inseparably joined with them; so that the
individual, the country, the tribes, were ever governed, guarded,
favored, or opposed by special and peculiar gods. Olympus had a
history, since the acts of the gods took place in time and were
coincident with the history of nations, so that every event in heaven
corresponded with one on earth; the idea of divine justice was
exemplified in that of men, and both were perfected together. Among
pagans of the Aryan race there was a perpetual and repeated alliance
between men and gods made in the image of man. This action of the gods
both for good and evil became in its turn the rule of life for the
ignorant multitude, and they acted in conformity with the supposed will
and actions of the gods; the divine will was, however, nothing but an _a
priori_ religious conception of an idol representing the forces of
nature or some moral or religious idea. The moral perfection of nations,
as time went on, also perfected the supreme justice of Olympus, and the
moral worth of the gods increased as men became better. So that it was
not the original theological idea, but man himself, who made heaven more
perfect, and the gods morally better and more just.
"The explicit power of mental reasoning and of science was added to this
spontaneous evolution of the religious idea, so far as the improved
morality of the race perfected the heavenly justice which was its own
creation. The pagan Olympus was gradually simplified by sages and
philosophers; the illicit passions of the gods were set aside, and it
was transformed into a providential government of individuals and of
society, much more remote from direct contact with men. The conception
of the immortal gods included one supreme power, formative, protecting
or avenging, and this conception bordered on the Semitic idea of the
absolute Being, although without quite attaining to it. God was
confounded with the order of things, his laws were those of the
universe, by which he was also bound, and the righteous man lived in
conformity with these laws. When Christianity began, pagan rationalism
had arrived at the idea of a spiritual and directing power, organically
identical with the universe. It was neither the Olympus of the common
people, nor the Semitic Jehovah, but rather the conscious and inevitable
order of nature. Although, either as an Olympus or as a dogma, the deity
was confounded with men or constrained them to follow a more rational
rule of life, yet paganism clearly distinguished the gods from men in
their concrete personality, and the action of humanity was therefore
distinct from that of the deity.
"When Christianity began, the peoples of the Aryan race in Europe, or at
least those of more advanced civilization, had constituted for
themselves a heavenly Pantheon, which contained nearly all the primitive
deities, but in a more human form and exercising a juster rule over the
world, while at the same time they were regarded as quite distinct from
the society of men. Although there was in this multiplicity of divine
forms an hierarchical order of different ranks, there was no general
conception to include the destinies of the whole human race, and to
manifest by its unity its providential and historical development. Each
people believed in their own special destiny, which should either raise
them to greater glory and power or bring them to a speedy and inevitable
end; but there was no common fate, no common prosperity nor disaster.
Rome had, as far as possible, united these various peoples by the idea
of her power, by the inforcement of her laws, and by the benefits of her
citizenship, yet the Roman unity was external, and did not spring from
the intimate sense of a common lineage. While the nations were so
closely united to Rome by brute force, the subject peoples were agitated
by a desire for their ancient independence and self-government. Some of
these pagan multitudes advanced in civilization through their education
in the learning of the Romans, and in morality through their spontaneous
activity, but they did not possess any deep sense of a general
providence, and heaven and earth continued to be under the sway of an
incomprehensible fate.
"If we now turn to consider the mental conditions of educated men at
that time, we shall see that they transformed the Olympus of personal
and concrete gods into symbols of the forces of nature, and that they
had risen to a purer conception of the deity by making it agree with the
progress of reason; but this deity was so remote from earth as to have
scarcely anything to do with the government of the world. According to
the teaching of the Stoics, which was very generally diffused, man was
supposed to be so far left to himself that he was the creator of his own
virtue, and had to struggle, not only against nature and his fellow-man,
but against fate, the underlying essence of every cosmic form and
motion. If this pagan rationalism gave rise to great theoretic morality,
and produced amazing examples of private and public virtue, it had
little effect on the multitudes, nor did it contain any guiding
principle for the historical life of humanity as a whole.
"Christianity proclaimed the spiritual unity of God, the unity of the
race, the brotherhood of all peoples, the redemption of the world, and
consequently a providential influence on mankind. Christianity taught
that God himself was made man, and lived among men. Such teaching was
offered to the people as a truth of consciousness rather than of dogma,
although it was afterwards preserved in a theological form by the
preaching of Paul, and the pagan mind was more affected by sentiment
than by reason. The unity of God was associated in their aesthetic
imagination with the earlier conception of the supreme Zeus, which now
took a more Semitic form, and Olympus was gloriously transformed into a
company of elect Christians and holy fathers of the new faith. A
confused sentiment as to the mystic union of peoples, who became
brothers in Christ, had a powerful effect on the imagination and the
heart, since they had already learned to regard the world as the
creation of one eternal Being. In the ardor of proselytism and of the
diffusion of the new creed, they hailed the historical transformation of
the earthly endeavor after temporal acquisitions and pleasures into a
providential preparation for the heavenly kingdom.
"In Christ, the incarnation of the supreme God, they beheld the
apotheosis of man, so acceptable to the Aryan race, since he thus became
the absolute ruler of the world and its fates. Ideas and sentiments, of
which the Semitic mind was incapable, and which were opposed to their
historical and intellectual development, moved and satisfied the Aryan
mind, and became associated as far as possible with the dogma and belief
to which the race had attained in their pagan civilization. Thus heaven,
dogma, and Christian rites assumed from the first a pagan form; and
while the original idols were repudiated in the zeal for new principles,
their common likeness was maintained by the imaginative power of the
race.
"In this way Christianity became popular, and the Semitic idea was
invested with pagan forms, in order to carry on the gradual and more
intimate spiritual transformation which is not yet terminated. Its
teaching was at first decidedly rejected and opposed by cultivated
minds, accustomed as the Greeks were with few exceptions to use their
reason. Among philosophers, the popular belief in a personal Olympus had
disappeared, and a more rational study of mankind did not allow them to
understand or comprehend a dogma which re-established anthropomorphism
under another aspect, so that this new and impious superstition became
the object of persecution. These were, however, mere exceptions, an
anticipation of the opposition of reason to mythical ideas, which became
more vigorous in every successive age, until the time arrived when
reason, educated by a long course of exercise, was able to renew the
effort with greater authority and success. The common people gradually
became Christian, and so also did educated men, who thus added the
authority of the schools to a teaching accepted by the feelings and
innate inclination of the race, and hence followed the theological
development of Christian dogma.
"These new principles and beliefs, eventually accepted by all the
nations of Europe, both barbarous and civilized, not only brought to
perfection the religious intuition characteristic of the morality and
civilization of the race, but they produced a new and renovating power
in historical and social life. This fresh virtue consisted in the belief
in a power consubstantially divine and human. Although the pagan gods
were human in their extrinsic and intrinsic form, only differing from
mortals by their mighty privileges, yet they were personally distinct
from men, and while the acts of Olympus mingled with those of earth,
they had an habitation and destinies apart. But by the new dogma, the
one God who was a Spirit took on him the substance of man and was united
with humanity as a whole, according to the Pauline interpretation, which
was generally accepted by our race. The divine nature was continually
imparted to man, the body and members in which the divine spirit was
incarnated, since the Church or mystical community of Christians was the
temple of God. Through this lively sense of the divine incarnation, the
Christian avatar with which the race had been acquainted under other
forms, God was no longer essentially distinguished from mankind in the
form of a number of concrete beings, but was spiritually infused into
men and acted through them. The Christian as man felt himself to be a
participator with God himself by a mystic intercourse. Since, therefore,
the human faculty was historically identical with the divine, and shared
in the spiritual work which was to effect the redemption of society,
this new and Christian civilization added daring, confidence, and virtue
to the natural energy of the race.
"Not many years elapsed before men ceased to contemplate the immediate
end of the world predicted by the first apostles and the Apocalypse;
they looked forward to a more distant future, and except in the case of
some particular sects, they applied the prophecies which referred to the
first generation of Christians to the future history of the race. It
was therefore Christianity which introduced into the consciousness of
our Aryan peoples the principles of a divine historic power acting on
the social economy of mankind, and in this way the natural dignity and
enterprising pride of the race was increased. Through this fresh
religious intuition and spiritual exaltation, the purity and moral
sweetness of the Semitic Nazarene became the law of society, and the
church organization gradually assimilated everything to itself, and
received divine worship in the person of the supreme Pontiff, who
continued for many ages to be the temporal ruler of consciences, of
public institutions, and of civilization. Strange daring in a race which
from its early beginnings down to our own days has been always true to
its own character, and in one form or other has displayed vigor,
energy, ambition, transforming power, and great designs.
"This remarkable process could only go on in and through those peoples
whose vigour and pride equaled their physical strength; to whom it is
death to sit still, and life to be always busy, to transform all things
to their own image, to dominate over all--over God by the intellect,
over the world by science, over other races by force of arms. After the
anthropomorphic form was given to natural phenomena, which is done to
some extent by all races, the gods were made in the image of man; full
of aesthetic imagination, of grand and vigorous conceptions, they
modified and transformed the truth of the Semitic idea, to suit their
own genius and imagination, and in this way they produced the wonderful
fabric of Christian civilization and of Catholicism. They alone accepted
a teaching which infused new spirit into social life and produced the
rule of religion over the world, and the race still stands alone in the
maintenance of its beliefs, to which science has added the powerful
simplicity of the Semitic idea, and their vigorous influence has
perpetuated and perfected human progress upon earth.[30] The Aryan race
attained to the Semitic conception in its purity and cosmic reality by
the process of reason, and only because it was endowed with all the
civilizing and moral qualities which were acquired in so many ages of
moral and intellectual energy, has the old conception been so vigorous
and productive.
"The Semitic race, on the other hand, adhered to their old faith,
rejected Christianity, as it had been formulated by the Aryans, and had
little influence on the world. The Israelites, indeed, dispersed among
other nations, retained the idea of the one spiritual God in all its
purity, and civilization would have been much indebted to them for this
rational idea of God if they had more clearly understood its scientific
bearing and the nature of man; many of them are indeed justly entitled
to fame in every department of science. But taken by themselves and as a
people, they had little effect on civilization, since they lacked the
energy of purpose, courage, mental superiority, and imagination, which
create a durable and powerful civilization.
"The Arabs, aroused for a time by Mahometan fanaticism, overran great
part of Europe, Asia, and Africa, but without influencing civilization.
While in possession of a great and productive idea, they remained a
sterile and nomad people, or founded unproductive dynasties. For the
Semitic race, the interval between God and man, and consequently between
God and civilization, was and is infinite, impassable. The Arabs
possessed nothing but the devastating force of proselytism to fertilize
their minds and social relations; and, with the exception of
architecture, geography, and cognate sciences, they were for the most
part only the transmitters of the science of others. We, on the
contrary, filled up the gulf by placing the Man-God between God and man,
and civilization has a power and vigor which has never flagged, and
which, now that dogma is transformed into reason, will not flag while
the world lasts."[31]
This extract from a work published many years ago, seems to me to
confirm the theory of myths which I have explained; it shows how they
are ultimately fused into a simple form, in conformity with the ideas of
civilized society, and it will also throw light on what is to follow.
If we consider the primitive genesis and evolution of myth, confirmed by
all the facts of history and ethnography, it will appear that although
the matter on which thought was exercised was mythical and fanciful, the
form and organizing method were the same as those of science. It is, in
fact, a scientific process to observe, spontaneously at first, and then
deliberately, the points of likeness and unlikeness between special
objects of perception; we must rise from the particular to the general,
from the individual to the species, thus ever enlarging the circle of
observation, in order to arrive at types, laws, and ultimate unity, or
at least a unity supposed to be ultimate, to which everything is
reduced. So that the mythical faculty of thought was scientific in its
logical form, and was exercised in the same way as the scientific
faculty.
But science does not merely consist in the systematic arrangement of
facts in which it begins, nor in their combination into general and
comprehensive laws; the sequence of causes and effects must also be
understood, and it is not enough to classify the fact without explaining
its genesis and cause. We have seen that the innate faculty of
perception involved the idea of a cause in the supposition that the
phenomenon was actuated by a subject, and while thought classified
fetishes and idols in a mythical way, an inherent power for good or evil
was ascribed to them, not only in their relation to man, but in their
effects on nature. What Vico has called "the poetry of physics"
consisted in the explanation of natural phenomena by the efficacy of
mythical and supernatural agents. From this point of view again, myth
and science pursue identically the same method and the same general form
of cognition.
Nor is this all. Science is, in fact, the _de-personification_ of myth,
arriving at a rational idea of that which was originally a fantastic
type by divesting it of its wrappings and symbols. In the natural
evolution of myth, man passes from the extrinsic mythical substance to
the intrinsic ideal by the same intellectual process, and when the types
have become ideas, he carries on intrinsically the _entifying_ process
which he first applied to the material and external phenomena.
In this case also the process is gradual; by attempting a more rational
explanation of physical phenomena, man attains to ultimate conceptions
which express direct cosmic laws, and he regards these laws as
substantial entities, which in their originally polytheistic form were
the gods who directed all things. Here the scientific myth really
begins, since natural forces and phenomena are no longer personified in
anthropomorphic beings; but the laws or general principles of physics
are transformed into material subjects, which are still analogous to
human consciousness and tendencies, although the idolatrous
anthropomorphism has disappeared.
The combination of myth and science in the human mind does not stop
here, since, as I have said, it goes on to form ideal representations.
When thought penetrates more deeply into the physical laws of the
universe, and is also more rationally engaged in the psychical
examination of man's own nature, ideas are classified in more general
types, as in the primitive construction of fetishes, anthropomorphic
idols, and physical principles; and in this way an explicit and purely
ideal system is formed, in which the images correspond with the fanciful
and physical types which were previously created.
It usually happens that thought, by the innate faculty of which we have
so often spoken, regards the ideas produced by this complex mental
labor as material entities endowed with eternal and independent
existence; and this produced the Platonic teaching, the schools in
Greece and Italy, and other brilliant illustrations of this phase of
thought. Such teaching, the result of explicit reflection, is a rival of
the critical science which followed from it. It is always active, while
constantly varying and assuming fresh forms; and it not only flourishes
in our time in the religions in which it finds a suitable soil, but
also, as we shall see, in science itself.
In addition to this complex evolution of myth as a whole, special myths
follow similar laws; since they are generated from the same facts, and
pass through the same phases, they culminate in a partial ideality, and
this involves a simple and comprehensive law of the phenomena in
question, and even a moral or providential order. For example, we may
trace the Promethean myth to the end of the Hellenic era, and the
different phases and final extinction of this particular myth are quite
apparent.
The origin of the myth, which was directly connected with the perception
of the natural phenomena of light and heat, was due to the same causes
as all others, but we will consider it in its Vedic phase, as it may be
gathered from tradition, and from the discoveries of comparative
philology, and we have a sure guide in this research in the great
linguist Kuhn, whose remarks have been enlarged and illustrated by
Baudry.
The Sanscrit word for the act of producing fire by friction is
_manthami_, to rub or agitate, and this appears from its derivative
_mandala_, a circle; that is, circular friction. The pieces of wood
used for the production of fire were called _pramantha_, that which
revolves, and _arani_ was the disc on which the friction was made. In
this phase, the fetishes are, according to our theory, in the second
stage. The Greeks and Romans, and indeed almost all other peoples, knew
no other way of kindling a fire, and in the sacred rites of the
Peruvians the task was assigned to the Incas at the annual festival of
fire. The wood of the oak was used in Germany, on account of the red
colour of its bark, which led to the supposition that the god of fire
was concealed in it. Tan is called _lohe_, or flame, in Germany. This
primitive mode of kindling a fire was known to the Aryans before their
dispersion, and friction with this object was equivalent to the birth of
the fire-god, constraining him to come down to earth from the air, from
thunder, etc.; indeed fire was also called _dueta_, the messenger between
heaven and earth. The question arose who had drawn fire from heaven, and
developed it in the _arani_. A resemblance was also traced between the
instruments for kindling fire and the organs of generation, a reciprocal
interchange of various myths, as we have before observed. _Agni_ is
concealed in _arani_, like the embryo in the womb (Rig-Veda). Thus
_pramantha_ is the masculine instrument, _arani_ the feminine, and the
act of uniting them is copulation.
_Agni_ had disappeared from earth and was concealed in a cavern, whence
it was drawn by a divine person; that is, fire had disappeared and was
concealed within the _arani_, whence it was extracted by the _pramantha_
and bestowed upon man. _Mataricvan_, the divine deliverer, is therefore
only the personification of the male organ.
In virtue of the idea that the soul is a spark, and that the production
of fire resembles generation, _Bhrigu_, lightning, is a creator. The son
of _Bhrigu_ marries the daughter of _Manu_, and they have a son who at
his birth breaks his mother's thigh, and therefore takes the name of
_Aurva_ (from _uru_ a thigh). This is only the lightning which rends the
clouds asunder.
Many Graeco-Latin myths, beginning with that of Prometheus must be
referred to _Mataricvan_ and to the _Bhrigu_, and we can trace in the
name of Prometheus the equivalent of a Sanscrit form _pramathyus_, one
who obtains fire by friction. Prometheus is, in fact, the ravisher of
celestial fire (a phase of the polytheistic myth in a perfectly human
form); he is a divine _pramantha_. It is Prometheus who in one version
of the myth cleaves open the head of Zeus, and causes Athene, the
goddess who uses the lightning as her spear, to issue from it. The
Greeks afterwards carried on the evolution of myth in its transition
from the physical to the moral phenomenon, and, forgetful of his origin,
they made Prometheus into a seer. As _Bhrigu_, he created man of earth
and water, and breathed into him the spark of life. Villemarque tells us
that in Celtic antiquity there was an analogous myth, as we might
naturally expect, since the Celts belong to the Aryan stock; Gwenn-Aran
(albus superus) was a supernatural being which issued like lightning
from a cloud.
The more thoughtful Greeks did not limit the Promethean myth to the idol
and to anthropomorphic fancies, but it passed into a moral conception,
and we have a proof of this transition in AEschylus.
In fact, as Silvestro Centofonti observes in a lecture on the
characteristics of Greek literature, the grand figure of the AEschylean
Prometheus is a poetic personification of Thought, and of its mysterious
fates in the sphere of life as a whole. First, in its eternal existence,
as a primitive and organic force in the system of the world; then in the
order of human things, fettered by the bonds of civilization, and
subject to the necessities, lusts, and evils which constantly, arise
from the union of soul and matter in unsatisfied mortals. Thought is
itself the source of tormenting cares in this earthly slavery, yet the
sense of power makes it invincible, firm in its purpose to endure all
sufferings, to be superior to all events; assured of future freedom, and
always on the way to achieve it by reverting to the grandeur of its
innate perfection; finally attaining to this happy state, by shaking off
all the enslaving bonds and anxious cares of the kingdom of Zeus, and by
obtaining a perfect life through the inspirations of wisdom, when the
revolutions of the heavens should fill the earth with divine power, and
restore the happiness of primeval times. It is evident that in this
stupendous tragedy AEschylus is leading us to the truth in a threefold
sense: aesthetic, morally political, and cosmic. The supreme idea which
sums up the whole value of the composition is perhaps that of an
inevitable reciprocity of action and reaction between mind and effective
force, between the primitive providence of nature and the subsequent
laws of art, both in the civilization of mankind and in the order and
life of the universe.
In this way the evolution of the special myth was transformed into
poetry by the interweaving, collection, and fusion with other myths, and
in the minds of a higher order it was resolved into an allegory or
symbol of the forces of nature, into providential laws or a moral
conception.
This law of progressive transformation also occurs in the successive
modifications of the special meaning of words, so far as they indicate
not only the thing itself, but the image which gave rise to the
primitive roots. For a long while, those who heard the word were not
only conscious of the object which it represented, but of its image,
which thus became a source of aesthetic enjoyment to them. As time went
on, this image was no longer reproduced, and the bare indication
remained, until the word gradually lost all material representation, and
became an algebraical sign, which merely recalled the object in question
to the mind.
When, for example, we now use the word (_coltello_), _coulter_, the
instrument indicated by this phonetic sign immediately recurs to the
mind and nothing else; the intelligence would see no impropriety in the
use of some other sign if it were generally intelligible. But in the
times of primitive speech, the inventors of this rude instrument were
conscious of the material image which gave rise to it, and they were
likewise conscious of all the cognate images which diverged from the
same root, and in this way a brief but vivid drama was presented to the
imagination.
If we examine this word with Pictet and others, we shall find that the
name of the plough comes from the Sanscrit _krt, krnt, kart_, to cleave
or divide. Hence _krntatra_, a plough or dividing instrument. The root
_krt_ subsequently became _kut_ or _kutt_, to which we must refer _kuta,
kutaka_, the body of the plough. This root _krt, kart_, is found in many
European languages in the general sense of cutting or breaking, as in
the old Slav word _kratiti_, to cut off. It is also applied to labour
and its instruments: _kartoti_, to plough over again, _karta_, a line or
furrow, and in the Vedic Sanscrit, _karta_, a ditch or hole. Hence the
Latin _culter_ a saw, _cultellus_, a coulter, and the Sanscrit
_kartari_, a coulter. The Slav words for the mole which burrows in the
earth are connected with the root _krt_, or the Slav _krat_. In very
remote times, men not only understood the object indicated in the word
for a coulter, but they were sensible of the image of the primitive
_krt_ and its affixes, which were likewise derived from the primitive
images, and with these they included the cognate images of the several
derivatives from the root. In these days the word coulter and the
Sanscrit _kartari_ are simply signs or phonetic notations, insignificant
in themselves, and everything else has disappeared. But in primitive
times an image animated the word, which by the necessary faculty of
perception so often described was transformed into a kind of subject
which effected the action indicated by the root. As this personality
gradually faded away, the actual representation of the image was lost,
and even its remote echo finally vanished, while the phonetic notation
remained, devoid of life and memory, and without the recurrence of
cognate images which strengthened the original idea by association. All
words undergo the like evolution, and this may be called the mythical
evolution of speech.
Thus the Sanscrit word for daughter is _duhitar_; in Persian it is
_dochtar_, in Greek [Greek: Thugater], in Gothic _dauhtar_, in German
_Tochter_. The word is derived from the root _duh_, to milk, since this
was the girl's business in a pastoral family. The sign still remains,
but it has lost its meaning, since the image and the drama have
vanished. This analysis applies to all languages, and it may also be
traced in the words for numbers. The number _five_, for example, among
the Aryans and in many other tongues, signifies _hand_. This is the
case in Thibet, in Siam, and cognate languages, in the Indian
Archipelago and in the whole of Oceania, in Africa, and in many of the
American peoples and tribes, where it is the origin of the decimal
system. In Homer we find the verb [Greek: pempazein], to count in fives,
and then for counting in general; in Lapland _lokket_, and in Finland
_lukea_, to count, is derived from _lokke_, ten; and the Bambarese
_adang_, to count, is the origin of _tank_, ten.
When the numerical idea of five was first grasped, the conception was
altogether material, and was expressed by the image of the five-fingered
hand. In the mind of the earliest rude calculators, the number five was
presented to them as a material hand, and the word involved a real
image, of which they became conscious in uttering it. The number and the
hand were consequently fused together in their respective images, and
signified something actually combined together, which effected in a
material form the genesis of this numerical representation. But the
material entity gradually disappeared, the image faded and was divested
of its personality, and only the phonetic notation five remained, which
no longer recalls a hand, the origin of the several numerals, nor words
connected with it. It is now a mere sign, apart from any rational idea.
The same may be said of the other numerals.
We give these few examples, which apply to all words, since they all
follow the same course, beginning with the real and primitive image,
subjectively effecting their peculiar meaning. Hence we see how the
intrinsic law of myth is evolved in every human act in diverse ways, but
always with the same results.
In fact, before articulate speech, for which man was adapted by his
organs and physiological conditions, was formulated into words for
things and words for shape, man like animals thought in images; he
associated and dissociated, he composed and decomposed, he moved and
removed images, which sufficed for all individual and immediate
operations of his mind. The relations of things were felt, or rather
seen through his inward representation of them as in a picture,
expressing in a material form the respective positions of figures and
objects which, since they are remote from him, can only be expressed by
such words as _nearer, lower_ or _higher, faint_ or _clear_, by more
vivid or paler tints, such as we see in a running stream, in the forms
of clouds, in the reciprocal relations of all objects represented in
painting.
In order to understand the primeval process of thought by means of
images, it is necessary to conceive such a picture as living and mobile,
and constantly forming a fresh combination of parts. Animals have not,
and primeval man had not, the phonetic signs or words which give an
individual character to the images, and so represent them that by
combining these images in an articulate form, thought may be
represented by signs; and in and through these a universal and objective
mode of exercising the intellectual faculty of reasoning has been
created. |
