ng the
creative imagination. Where, indeed, find more favorable conditions for
knowing it?

Man, prior to civilization, is a purely imaginative being; that is, the
imagination marks the summit of his intellectual development. He does
not go beyond this stage, but it is no longer an enigma as in animals,
nor a transitory phase as in the civilized child who rapidly advances to
the age of reason; it is a fixed state, permanent and lasting throughout
life.[48] It is there revealed to us in its entire spontaneity: it has
free rein; it can create without imitation or tradition; it is not
imprisoned in any conventional form; it is sovereign. As primitive man
has knowledge neither of nature nor of its laws, he does not hesitate to
embody the most senseless imaginings flitting through his brain. The
world is not, for him, a totality of phenomena subject to laws, and
nothing limits or hinders him.

This working of the pure imagination, left to itself and unadulterated
by the intrusion and tyranny of rational elements, becomes translated
into one form--the creation of myths; an anonymous, unconscious work,
which, as long as its rule lasts, is sufficient in every way,
comprehends everything--religion, poetry, history, science, philosophy,
law.

Myths have the advantage of being the incarnation of pure imagination,
and, moreover, they permit psychologists to study them objectively.
Thanks to the labors of the nineteenth century, they offer an almost
inexhaustible content. While past ages forgot, misunderstood,
disfigured, and often despised myths as aberrations of the human mind,
as unworthy of an hour's attention, it is no longer necessary in our
time to show their interest and importance, even for psychology, which,
however, has not as yet drawn all the benefit possible from them.

But before commencing the psychological study of the genesis and
formation of myths considered as an objective emanation of the creative
imagination, we must briefly summarize the hypotheses at present offered
for their origin. We find two principal ones--the one, etymological,
genealogical, or linguistic; the other, ethno-psychological, or
anthropological.[49]

The first, whose principal though not sole champion is Max Mueller, holds
that myths are the result of a disease of language--words become things,
"nomina numina." This transformation is the effect of two principal
linguistic causes--(a) Polynomy; several words for one thing. Thus the
sun