And although the source is one, myth and science vary in their aspects
and effects, and have different fields of historic activity, so that it
is necessary to trace the cause of this diversity in their progress and
results, to enable us to make a scientific definition of the nature of
myth and science, their respective sources and objects.

If on the one side we continually see the birth of fresh myths, which
ramify into many fertile sources of superstitions, of religions, of
poetry and æstheticism; on the other side we see almost simultaneously a
more or less distinct and lively manifestation of the scientific
faculty, although still in an empirical form. They are like two streams
which issue from the same source and take a parallel course, sometimes
mingling their waters, only to separate anew, and then again to become
united as they fall by a wide mouth into the sea.

In this manner we have ascertained the actual origin of science and of
myth, and have entered on a field perhaps never before attempted nor
contemplated; we have established a firm basis for such researches, and,
which is perhaps still more important, have shown the continuity of the
mythical faculty between man and the animal kingdom. We have
ascertained this fact, in its cosmic necessities, both physiological and
psychical, but without considering the faculty on which it depends; we
have still to decompose the elements of which it consists, and to
consider their nature and number.

This inquiry forms the chief problem we have to solve, and it is
precisely what we have endeavoured to state in this chapter. In the
necessary order of things the fact has its physiological and cosmic
conditions in man; it is therefore necessarily internal and psychical,
and it is accomplished by the special and intrinsic exercise of the