intelligence. We shall be convinced of this truth if we only consider
that science and myth have a common origin.

It is evident that there are great difficulties in such an inquiry; for,
putting aside other extrinsic difficulties, we have to reduce to a
single act or fact the origin of the two vast worlds of myth and
science; it is needful to gauge the inmost psychical faculty of the
intelligence, and to discover the continuous yet rapid and delicate
process of its exercise.

If we are able to attain our object and to tear away the veil which
conceals this mysterious act, we shall have a noble recompense in the
laborious path on which we have entered, inasmuch as we shall reveal one
of the most important laws of life, of the exercise of reflex
intelligence and of the genesis of science. Yet we are very sensible how
far we are from being equal to the enormous difficulties of this
inquiry.




CHAPTER V.

THE ANIMAL AND HUMAN EXERCISE OF THE INTELLECT IN THE PERCEPTION OF
THINGS.


Apprehension is the act, both in animals and in man, by which the
spontaneous and immediate animation of things and of phenomena is
accomplished. It is therefore necessary to pause and consider this act,