omena into living
subjects, and they flow from the same deep source. The object in view is
different, but their constructive faculty is the same, and they are, up
to a certain point in their long historic course, evolved in the same
way. Science, therefore, from one point of view, is the gradual
exhaustion and dissolution of myth into the objects which are
scientifically investigated, and this will appear more clearly in the
sequel.

The series of various phenomena, whether of light, of meteors, of water,
of vegetable and animal forms, which were the first subjects of myths,
became so interwoven as finally to be represented in an anthropomorphic
personality, and were thus gradually lost and evaporated in the ideal
symbol. As time went on, by the exercise of the intelligence, and by the
aid of the observations and collateral experiments naturally connected
with them, man ended where he had begun; released from myth, he only
recognized the facts and laws of the world. This clearly shows, not only
the formation of myths, but the process of evolution by which they pass
into science, in which they find their termination.

If, however, myth and science have the same origin, and start from a
common fact, a fundamental principle is necessary, and an internal human
act, which is at once the cause and genesis both of myth and science.
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 aestheticism; 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 perha