modern theories respecting the genesis of organisms, that there are, excluding some psychical elements, many and important points of resemblance 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 is only the result of a reaction of the same intelligence on itself. Such a theory does not in any way interrupt the natural evolution and genesis of the animal kingdom, while the distinctive peculiarity of man is shown in an act which, as I believe, clearly explains the new faculty of reason acquired by him.

I must admit that in speaking of the psychical faculty as a force which possesses laws peculiar to itself, it has appeared to a learned and competent judge that I have conceded a real existence to this faculty, independently of the physiological conditions through which it manifests itself, which might be called a mythical personality in the constitution of the world. If I had really made such an assertion, it would be an error which I am perhaps more ready than others to repudiate, as it will appear in the present work. I am far from blaming the courteous critics who allege such objections to my theory, and indeed I am honoured by their notice. I must blame myself for not having, in my desire to be brief, sufficiently defined my conception.

I hold the psychical manifestation to be not only conditioned by the organism, to speak scientifically, and to be rendered physiologically possible by these conditions, but I consider it to be of the same nature as the other so-called forces of the universe; such, for example, as the manifestations of light, of electricity, of magnetism, and the like. When physicists speak of these forces—if the necessities of language and the brevity of the explanation constrain us to adopt the term forces, as though they were real substances—they certainly do not believe, nor wish others to believe, that they are really such. It is well known that such expressions are used to signify the appearance under certain circumstances of some special phenomena which group themselves by their mode and power of manifestation into one generic conception as a summary of the whole. They always take place, relatively to these circumstances, in the same mode and with the same power, so that they may at once be experimentally distinguished from others which have been grouped together in like manner.

Such manifestations do not imply a real cosmic entity of these forces, as if they were independent of the matter whence they issue; they are simply determinate and determinate modes of motions, of actions, and reactions in the elements of the world. For if magnetism appears to reveal itself in determinate elements, its modes of manifestation are peculiar to itself, and its efficacy with respect to other forces is also peculiar; yet it by no