THIRD EDITION
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQU.
1885
| I | ON IDEAS AND SOURCES OF MYTH | 1 |
| II | ANIMAL SENSATION AND PERCEPTION | 48 |
| III | HUMAN SENSATION AND PERCEPTION | 68 |
| IV | THE STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM | 104 |
| V | THE ANIMAL AND HUMAN EXERCISE OF THE INTELLECT | |
| ON THE PERCEPTION OF THINGS | 116 | |
| VI | INTRINSIC LAW OF THE FACULTY OF APPREHENSION | 135 |
| VII | THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF MYTH AND SCIENCE | 155 |
| VIII | ON DREAMS, ILLUSIONS, NORMAL AND ABNORMAL HALLUCINATIONS, | |
| DELIRIUM, AND MADNESS—CONCLUSION | 241 | |
| INDEX | 328 |
Myth, as it is understood by us, and as It will be developed andexplained in this work, cannot be defined in summary terms, since itsmultiform and comprehensive nature embraces and includes all primitiveaction, as well as much which is consecutive and historical in theintelligence and feelings of man, with respect to the immediate and thereflex interpretation of the world, of the Individual, and of thesociety in which our common life is passed.
We hold that myth is, in its most general and comprehensive nature, thespontaneous and imaginative form in which the human intelligence andhuman emotions conceive and represent themselves and things in general;it is the psychical and physical mode in which man projects himself intoall those[Pg 2] phenomena which he is able to apprehend and perceive.[1]
We do not propose to consider in this treatise the myths peculiar to onepeople, nor to one race; we do not seek to estimate the intrinsic valueof myths at the time when they were already developed among variouspeoples, and constituted into an Olympus, or special religion; we do notwish to determine the special and historical cause of theirmanifestations in the life of any one