products and acts of the consciousness, the emotions, and the
intelligence. This is asserted or admitted even by those who do not like
to hear of the genetic continuity of evolution, nor is there now any
school of thought which impugns such a truth. If this be true, as it
undoubtedly is, and since we are treating of the genesis of myth in its
earliest beginning, we will endeavour, with daring prompted by the
theory of evolution, to discover if the first germ of these
representations may not have already existed in the animal kingdom
before it was evolved in man in the fetishtic and anthropomorphic form.
This is an arduous but necessary inquiry, to which I am impelled by the
doctrine of evolution, as it is properly understood, as well as by the
universal logic of nature.

If I were to consider myth as it has ultimately been developed in man,
it would be a strange and absurd attempt to trace out any points of
resemblance with animals, who are altogether devoid of the logical
faculty which leads to such development. But if, on the contrary, we
endeavour to trace the earliest, spontaneous, and direct elements of
myth as a product of animal emotions and implicit intelligence, such
research becomes not only legitimate but necessary; since the instrument
is the same, the effects ought also to be the same.

We have already said that the fact has been observed and generally
admitted that the primary origin of myth in its essential elements
consists in the personification or animation of all extrinsic phenomena,
as well as of the dreams, illusions, and hallucinations which are
intrinsic. It is agreed that this animation is not the reflex and
deliberate act of man, but that it is the spontaneous and immediate act
of the human intelligence in its elementary consciousness and emotions.
It must therefore be evident that this vague and continual animation of