This inquiry forms the chief problem we have to solve, and it is precisely what we have endeavoured to state in this chapter.  In the necessary order of things the fact has its physiological and cosmic conditions in man; it is therefore necessarily internal and psychical, and it is accomplished by the special and intrinsic exercise of the intelligence.  We shall be convinced of this truth if we only consider that science and myth have a common origin.

It is evident that there are great difficulties in such an inquiry; for, putting aside other extrinsic difficulties, we have to reduce to a single act or fact the origin of the two vast worlds of myth and science; it is needful to gauge the inmost psychical faculty of the intelligence, and to discover the continuous yet rapid and delicate process of its exercise.

If we are able to attain our object and to tear away the veil which conceals this mysterious act, we shall have a noble recompense in the laborious path on which we have entered, inasmuch as we shall reveal one of the most important laws of life, of the exercise of reflex intelligence and of the genesis of science.  Yet we are very sensible how far we are from being equal to the enormous difficulties of this inquiry.

CHAPTER V.

THE ANIMAL AND HUMAN EXERCISE OF THE INTELLECT IN THE PERCEPTION OF THINGS.

Apprehension is the act, both in animals and in man, by which the spontaneous and immediate animation of things and of phenomena is accomplished.  It is therefore necessary to pause and consider this act, since it is, even in man, the source and foundation of the origin of myth, and in it we shall find the causes, elements, and action by which such a genesis is effected.  This fact is so evident that the necessity of making such an inquiry might almost be taken for granted, since the truth can be ascertained in no other way.

In the case of animal perception, which we have already considered, the external perception of an object is composed of three elements:  the phenomenon perceived, the living subject with which this phenomenon is animated, and the vague yet real power involved in the life thus infused into it by the animal.  Supposing any other animal to be the object perceived, these three elements are self-evident; since the phenomenon perceived in a given form causes the immediate assumption that it is a subject, actuated by a purpose of offence or defence, and hence follows the apprehension of a power capable of affecting him, which has in this case a real existence.  Phenomenon, subject, effective power, follow in a rapid and inevitable sequence, and are instantly combined in the integral image formed of the object apprehended by the senses.