he attains therefore to the same results, that is, he animates the
object of perception, and considers it as an efficient cause. This
identical faculty of perception in man and animals was only
differentiated when the reflex power of man subsequently enabled him to
regard objects, as we do now, as inanimate, and subject to the universal
laws of nature.

Even now, after all our scientific attainments, we are not wholly free
from the former innate illusion; we often act towards things as if we
lived in the early days of our race, and continue that primitive process
of personification in the case of certain objects.

We have shown what was the origin of the fetish and of myth, and how it
arose from the impersonation of all natural objects and phenomena, which
are transformed into living subjects. This shows that the faculty,
elements, and results of the apprehension are identical in man and
animals. If man created the fetish which in process of differentiation
generated all kinds of myths, he, like animals, was directly and
implicitly conscious of the living subject, and in it of an active
cause. Although in man the fetish retains its personality in his memory,
and becomes the cause of hopes and fears throughout his life, while its
effect on the animal is only transitory, and at the actual moment of
perception; yet this does not invalidate the truth of the principle, nor
prove that their impulses and genesis are not identical. Thus the
analysis of the faculty of apprehension confirms and explains the proof
before given of the origin of myths, and explains their causes.

We have all, however unaccustomed to give account of our acts and
functions, found ourselves in circumstances which produced the
momentary personification of natural objects. The sight of some