he mythical names of gods; from _Genius_, a multiform and universal
power in ancient Latin mythology, we have _genialis_ and hence the
expressions _genialis lectus_, _genialis homo_, _genialis hiems_, and
poets and philosophers apply the same epithet even to the elements and
the stars. On the other hand, Virtue, Faith, Piety, and other like moral
conceptions, first regarded as real, yet impersonal entities, were
transformed into a perfect myth, and into human forms worthy of divine
worship.

Even in our own time, and not only among the uneducated people but among
men of high culture--when they do not pause to consider the real value
of words in the familiarity of daily conversation--any one who seeks for
the direct meaning of the terms he uses will admit the truth of what I
say. We constantly ascribe a real existence to abstract conceptions and
qualities, treating them as subjects which have a substantial being, and
which act for the most part with deliberate purpose, although they are
not transformed as in the case of myths into human shapes.

In abstract, intellectual conceptions, such as those of equality,
distance, number, and the like, the same faculty and the same elements
are at work as in those which express physical and moral qualities.
These conceptions, which as civilization advances ultimately become mere
intellectual symbols necessary for logical speech, are at first formed
by the actual comparison of things, and therefore by the aid of the
senses. Even if we were to assert with some schools of thought that they
were formed _a priori_ in the mind, sensation would still be necessary
as the occasion of displaying them. When such conceptions are expressed
in words there is a physiological recurrence to the mind of what may be
termed the shadow of previous sensations or perceptions, which are
united in an intellectual type to give rise to such conceptions. And in
the appearance of this phenomenal basis, thought unconsciously fulfils
the fundamental law of assuming, or I might say of actually _feeling_,
the reality of the subject.

It must be remembered that in speaking of these entities created by the
intellect, I refer to the primitive ages of human thought, or to the
notions of ignorant people, and also to the spontaneous language of
educated men, who in ordinary conversation do not pause to consider the
simple and logical value of their expressions. We are only giving the
natural history of the intelligenc