heavens with the same vague idea of existence. But while Sir George Cox makes this "Animism"—this investing of all things with life—the natural result of man's thought, Mr. Max Müller ascribes the habit to the reflex action on thought of man's language. Man found himself, according to Mr. Müller (Selected Essays, i. 360), speaking of all objects in words which had " a termination expressive of gender, and this naturally produced in the mind the corresponding idea of sex," and, as a consequence, people gave "something of an individual, active, sexual, and at last personal character" to the objects of which they spoke. Mr. Müller is aware that the "sexual character of words reflects only the quality of the child's mind," but none the less he attributes the "animism" of mythopoeic man to the reflex influence of man's language, whereas Sir George Cox attributes it to the direct influence of man's thought. Thus Sir George deserts the authority from which he derives his evidence, and it is not here alone that he differs from Mr. Müller. Sir George's framers of "primary myths" are savages, morally and intellectually; Mr. Müller's mythopoeic men, on the other hand, are practically civilised. Man, in Mr. Müller's "mythopoeic age," had the modern form of the Family, had domesticated animals, was familiar with the use of the plough, was a dweller in cities, a constructor of roads, he was acquainted with the use of iron as well as of the earlier metals. (Selected Essays, vol. i. " Comparative Mythology."[1]) There is thus no escaping from the conclusion that, though Mr. Müller's evidence is nearly the sole basis of Sir George Cox's theories, yet from that evidence Sir George draws inferences almost the reverse of those attained by Mr. Müller. Yet starting from the same
- ↑ Mr. Müller has stated this proposition, but a note in Selected Essays proves that he now admits the uncertainty of the early use of iron.
