special Terrestrial Conditions under which Thought was, necessarily also, as it would appear, first developed. And so, our theorem is proved that, not from any absolute quality of the Mind; and still less from any such actual existences as 'spirits;' but simply from the peculiar, and probably necessary conditions of mental development, philosophic Thought began with conceiving Causes as Spirits; began with the conception of Causation as a Onesided Determination; began with the theory of Spiritism. But it is in this Philosophy, thus resulting from nothing higher than an ignorance determined by the economical effects of the Powers of Nature; it is in this Spiritist Philosophy that the Naturian Mythology, and every theological Mythology whatever has its root. The Philosophy, indeed, of Spiritism is the soil from which these branched mythologies naturally and necessarily spring. And hence, in showing of what phenomena the Spiritist Philosophy was the generalisation, we analyse, as it were, the soil which produced these Mythologies. And, in discovering the mental facts which I have above stated, and so neutralising the elements of that soil, we destroy, not the roots only of the Mythologies which it has produced, but the very soil in which they were rooted.

SECTION III.

THE REFLECTION OF NATURE IN THE NILE-VALLEY.

1. HAVING thus seen what is the theory of Causa. tion implied in the myths of Naturianism, and what is the origin of that theory, the theory of Spiritism; we see at once both what the character is, and what is the origin of the character of the Consciousness in which the aspects of Nature are primævally mirrored. But before proceeding further to show that the great myth of Osiris is but a reflection of Nature in a Consciousness conceiving causes as 'spirits,' let me briefly point out the prodigiously momentous and far-reaching effects of that primitive conception of Causation, of which the character is determined, as we have seen, by the economical effects of the Powers of Nature. The one distinctive characteristic of Man as compared with other animal races is progress. But why? Because, speaking generally, men alone inherit, add to, and transmit tradition. See, then, how necessarily determinative of the whole after-history of Thought was the character of its primitive conceptions. See how great was the error, already noted, of Mr. Buckle in affirming the great division between European Civilization and Non-European Civilization to be the basis of the philosophy of history," the fact being that the most important elements of civilization, the religious beliefs of Europe, are all founded on traditional

1 History of Civilization, vol. 1. pp. 138-9.

conceptions of Oriental origin. And see how vast is the revolution involved in tracing to their source all Spiritist conceptions whatever, and even such last theistic beliefs as those which, with all his antitheological zeal, were still cherished by Mr. Buckle; the vast revolution involved in discovering them to be but forms of that primitive conception of Causation, the untruth of which is almost sufficiently evidenced by the conditions of its origin and diffusion. This discovery and the revolution made by it are due to Philosophy. And hence such a difference of function, as implies the very reverse of such an isolating division as Mr. Buckle contended for, is to be recognised between the East and the West in the general history of Humanity. The thinkers of the West, amid Aspects of Nature that, as Mr. Buckle has pointed out, were more favourable to the development of the reason than of the imagination, have, in the fearless investigation of the interrelations of phenomena, arrived, at length, at the conception of Causation as Mutual Determination. But this progress has been made in the midst of, and in opposition to those Spiritist or theological conceptions of Causation derived from the East. And hence the true basis of the Philosophy of History' is the conception, not of a great division' which isolates the West from the East, but of a functional difference which brings East and West into more evident correlation, and necessary connection.

2. Now, in showing that the Religions of the First Age of Humanity are reflections of Nature, and hence rightly distinguished by the name of Naturianism, and

in showing, more particularly, that the myth of Osiris is a reflection of the Powers and Aspects of Nature in the Nile-valley; I would first point-out that such a conclusion is but a corollary from our fundamental metaphysical principle of Correlation, and hence supported by all those facts and reasonings which tend to the establishment of that principle. For this principle, as we have seen, presents to us all human notions whatever, even those reckoned, by the idealist school of metaphysicians and moralists, innate,' as really products only of the mutual action between, on the one hand, Sensations and Images as determined and determining coexistents, and, on the other hand, that fundamental Integrating Activity of the mind which, in its subjective aspect, appears as Want of Oneness. It is the sublime force of this Want and Activity, and the fact that the results of it are, through language, transmitted, accumulated, and transformedit is this that distinguishes the mind of Man from that of the noblest even of his Elder Brethren. This Want and Activity differing not in kind, but in sublimity of development, from that which manifests itself in the brute, is that active principle and anticipation' of which the great English Platonist, in the passage which I have taken as motto to this chapter, speaks as enabling the mind to comprehend' Nature, 'correspond, and vitally sympathise with it,' not hearing in it but mere noise and sound and clatter,' but an 'intellectual music and harmony,' wherewith it is ravished and enthusiastically transported.' And it is to the reciprocal action between this active principle and anticipa

tion,' this Want and Activity, on the one hand, and on the other, the Powers and Aspects of Nature, that I would trace the origin of the Mythologies of Naturianism.

3. For myths are the score, as it were, of that music. which the human Mind hears in Nature; the score of that music discoursed by the pipe of Pan; and the necessary creation of beings in whom Want of Oneness, and spontaneous Integrating Activity, manifests itself in those highly developed forms which we call generalising reason, and poetic imagination. In myths, facts do not appear in the simple form which would be adequate to their particular expression, but in a general and ideal form determined by the genius of the people, and the symbolism of their language. A myth, in the true sense of the word, may be defined as an ideal conception which is the symbol of an actual verity.2 Myths, if we use the term in this general sense, belong to the scientific, as well as to the theological stage of human intelligence. And in the formation of theological as well as of scientific myths, the imagination has had to conform itself to the condition of not opposing itself to the general state of knowledge. But in the period to which the latter class of myths distinctively belong, the knowledge with which they have to be in accordance has so immensely increased as to have given

1 Compare Strauss, Leben Jesu, b. 1. Einleitung, § 8, ss. 29 Bestimmt man hienach von Seiten der genannten Forscher (Gabler, Schelling, und Bauer) den Mythus in Allgemeinen als Darstellung einer Begebenheit, oder eines Gedankens in geschichtlicher, aber, durch die sinnliche phantasie-reiche Denk-und-Sprachweise des Alterthums, bestimmter Form.' 2 Compare Littré, Avant-propos to his translation of the Leben Jesu, p. xx. Une conception idéale, mais renfermant une vérité interne qu'on retrouve quand on veut.'