Myth and Science | Page 7

between man and
animals in the exercise of their consciousness, intelligence, and
emotions, if indeed they are not identically the same. The comparative
psychology of man and animals plainly shows that the perceptions,
both in their respective organs and in their mode of action, act in the
same way, especially in the higher animals; and the origin, movements,
and associations of the imagination and the emotions are likewise
identical. Nor will it be disputed that we find in animals implicit
memory, judgment, and reasoning, the inductions and deductions from
one special fact to another, the passions, the physiological language of
gestures, expressive of internal emotions, and even, in the case of
gregarious animals, the combined action to effect certain purposes; so
that, as far as their higher orders are concerned, animals may be
regarded as a simple and undeveloped form of man, while man, by his
later psychical and organic evolution, has become a developed and
complex animal.[4]
In my book on the fundamental law of intelligence in the animal
kingdom, I attempted to show this great truth, and to formulate a
principle common to all animals in the exercise of their psychical
emotions, by setting forth the essential elements as they are generally
displayed. I think I was not far from the truth in establishing a law
which seems indubitable; although, while some men whose opinion is
worthy of esteem have accepted it, other very competent judges have
objected to some parts of my theory, but without convincing me of
error. I repeat my conclusions here, since they are necessary to the
theory of the genesis of myth, which I propose to explain in this work. I
hold the complete identity between man and animals to be established
by the adequate consideration of the faculties, the psychical elements of

consciousness and intelligence, and the mode of their spontaneous
exercise; and I believe the superiority of man to consist not so much in
new faculties as in the reflex effect upon themselves of those he
possesses in common with the animals. The old adage confirms this
theory: Homo duplex.
No one now doubts that animals feel, hear, remember, and the like,
while man is able to exercise his will, to feel, to remember, deliberately
to consider all his actions and functions, because he not only possesses
the direct and spontaneous intuition with respect to himself and things
in general which he has in common with animals, but he has an
intuitive knowledge of that intuition itself, and in this way he multiplies
within himself the exercise of his whole psychical life. We find the
ultimate cause of this return upon himself, and his intuition of things, in
his deliberate will, which does not only immediately command his
body and his manifold relative functions, but also the complex range of
his psychical acts. This fact, which as I believe has not been observed
before, is of great importance. It is manifest that the difference between
man and other animals does not consist in the diversity or discrepancy
of the elements of the intelligence, but in its reflex action on itself; an
action which certainly has its conditions fixed by the organic and
physiological composition of the brain.
If it should be said that the traditional opinion of science, as well as the
general sentence of mankind, have always regarded reflection as the
basis of the difference between animals and man, so that there is no
novelty in our principle, the assertion is erroneous. Reflection, as an
inward psychical fact, has certainly been observed by psychologists and
philosophers in all civilized times, and instinctively by every one; nor
could it be otherwise, since reflection is one of the facts most evident to
human consciousness. But although the fact, or the intrinsic and
characteristic action of human thought has been observed, and has often
been discussed and analyzed in some of its elements, yet its genesis has
not been declared, nor has its ultimate cause been discovered. We
propose to discover this ultimate cause, and we refer it to the exercise
of the will over all the elements and acts which constitute human
intelligence; an intelligence only differing from that of animals by this

inward and deliberate fact, which enables man to consider and examine
all his acts, thus logically doubling their range. This intelligence has in
animals a simple and direct influence on their bodies and on the
external world, in proportion to their diverse forms and inherited
instincts; while in man, owing to his commanding attitude, it falls back
upon itself, and gives rise to the inquiring and reflective habit of
science.
We do not, therefore, divide man from other animals, but rather assert
that many proofs and subtle analyses show the identity of their
intelligence in its fundamental elements, while the difference