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