b. In the genesis of myths, the second moment is that of fanciful invention. Entities take form; they have a history and adventures: they become the stuff for a romance. People of poor and dry imagination do not reach the second period. Thus, the religion of the Romans peopled the universe with an innumerable quantity of genii. No object, no act, no detail, but had its own presiding genius. There was one for germinating grain, for sprouting grain, for grain in flower, for blighted grain; for the door, its hinges, its lock, etc. There was a myriad of misty, formless entities. This is animism arrested at its first stage; abstraction has killed imagination. Who created those legends and tales of adventure constituting the subject-matter of mythology? Probably inspired individuals, priests or prophets. They came perhaps from dreams, hallucinations, insane attacks--they are derived from several sources. Whatever their origin, they are the work of imaginative minds _par excellence_ (we shall study them later) who, confronted with any event whatever, must, because of their nature, construct a romance. Besides analogy, this imaginative creation has as its principal source the associational form already described under the name "constellation." We know that it is based on the fact that, in certain cases, the arousing of an image-group is the result of a tendency prevailing at a given instant over several that are possible. This operation has already been expounded theoretically with individual examples in support.[55] But in order to gauge its importance, we must see it act in large masses. Myths allow us to do this. Ordinarily they have been studied in their historical development according to their geographical distribution or ethnic character. If we proceed otherwise, if we consider only their content--i.e., the very few themes upon which the human imagination has labored, such as celestial phenomena, terrestrial disturbances, floods, the origin of the universe, of man, etc.--we are surprised at the wonderful richness of variety. What diversity in the solar myths, or those of creation, of fire, of water! These variations are due to multiple causes, which have orientated the imagination now in one direction, now in another. Let us mention the principal ones: Racial characteristics--whether the imagination is clear or mobile, poor or exuberant; the manner of living--totally savage, or on a level of civilization; the physical environment--external nature cannot be reflected in the brain of a Hindoo in the same way as in that of a Scandinavian; and lastly, that assemblage of considerable and unexpected causes grouped under the term "chance." The variable combinations of these different factors, with the predominance of one or the other, explain the multiplicity of the imaginative conceptions of the world, in contrast to the unity and simplicity of scientific conceptions. II