things ought to be found also in animals, especially in those of the
higher types, in whom consciousness, the emotions, and the intelligence
are implicitly identical with those of man. Consequently, that which is
at first sight absurd becomes obvious and natural, and the fact is only
strange and inexplicable to those who have not carefully considered it.

We must, however, declare that this primary fact is not irreducible, and
that science ought not to be content to stop there, but should endeavour
to explain and resolve it into its elements, so as to be able to say we
have reached the point at which the genesis of myth really begins. This
aim can only be attained by the decomposition by analysis of the
primitive fact. Since intelligence in its essential elements, and in its
innate and implicit exercise, appears to be the same in man and in
animals, it is necessary to reduce the analysis of animal nature to a
primary psychical fact, in order to see whether by this fact, which is
identical also in man, the generating element of myth is really
revealed.

I propose to show that this research will reveal truths hitherto
unattained, and explain the general law, not merely of the extrinsic
process of science and of myth, but also of civilization.

Starting from this wide basis, we must trace, step by step, the dawn,
development, and gradual disappearance of myth. Since it is our
business to consider science as well as myth, and their respective
relations in the evolution common to both, we must, as briefly as
possible in the present work, pause to consider these two factors of the
human mind, observing the beginnings, conditions, and modes in which the
one arose and gradually disappeared, while the other advanced and
triumphed. We must not only regard the progress and transformation of