to these more rational forms, are the great factors of myth in all its forms, of superstitions, of religions, and also of science.  We have reduced all the normal and abnormal sources of these fanciful ideas to that single source which we have just indicated.  Penetrating below the kingdom of man into that of animals, we have there discovered where the germ was formed, and this completes the doctrine of evolution and bears witness to its truth.  The evolution of myth went through the regular process, by which it was formulated and simplified, until it was resolved into all the sciences and rational arts, and was thus transformed into a positive science, passing through an ulterior stage of myth and science before it took the definitive form of a purely intellectual conception.

We have seen that the source of myth is the same as that of science, since perception is the condition of both, and the process pursued is identical, although the subject on which the faculty of thought is exercised is changed.  Therefore the problem of myth, which includes every achievement of the human understanding, and fills all sociology, is transformed into the problem of civilization.  Thought has run its course in the vast evolution from myth to science, which is rendered possible by the permanence and duration of a powerful and vigorous race, and hence came the gradual transition from the illusions which involve the ignorance and servitude of the majority of the people to truth and liberty, since these are released from their earlier wrappings, and the human race rises to a sense of its nobility and highest good.  We have considered this evolution as a whole and in its details, and have seen that every achievement of the human understanding passes through the same phases, and reaches the same goal.  We have adduced witnesses to confirm our own observation from history and ethnography in general, apart from any bias for a religious and scientific system.  We believe that in this way alone there can be any true progress in the science which we have undertaken to consider in this essay.

The result of the inquiry shows that by a slow yet inevitable evolution man rose from his primeval condition of error, illusion, and servitude to his fellow man, to that degree of truth and liberty of which he is capable:  he was so made that he necessarily advanced to the grand height which has been attained by the most laborious and intelligent of the human race.  He rises higher, and is more sensible of his own dignity, in proportion as he becomes, within the limits of his nature, the artificer of his own greatness and civilization.  While many peoples have become extinct, others have, owing to their natural incapacity, remained in a savage and barbarous condition, while others again have attained to a certain amount of civilization, but their mental evolution has stopped short.  Our own race, originally, as I believe, Aryo-Semitic, for it is possible that these two powerful