A great corollary also ensues from studies undertaken with the aid of
sociology, that is, the genesis, form, and gradual evolution of human
societies. These vary in character, in attitude, in power, form and
duration, with the different characters of races, and thus fulfil in
various ways the cycle of myth and science of which they are capable. It
would indeed be difficult to attain to a clear and adequate conception
of the universal evolution of myth and science, but for the existence of
a privileged race distinguished for its psychical and organic power,
which from its beginning until now, although subject to many partial
eclipses, has on the whole maintained its position in the world so as to
present to us the long historical drama of its evolutions. Other races,
peoples, or tribes have disappeared in the struggle for existence, or
have remained essentially incapable of further progress even in a
relatively inferior degree, so as to afford no aid in following the
successive development of myth and science; while the Aryan family, a
race to which I believe that the Semitic originally belonged,[6]
furnishes the unbroken sequence of events and the stages of such complex
evolution. Nor certainly is there any signs of the disappearance of this
race, since every day its intellectual and territorial achievements,
added to the instruments of a powerful material civilization, invigorate
its strength and presage its indefinite duration in forms we are not
able to foresee, unless indeed fatal astral or telluric catastrophes
should hinder its progress or bring it to an end.
If we compare this race with itself at different epochs, and in the many
different peoples into which it was severed, and if at the same time we
confront it with the types of other peoples at various stages, from the
rudest to the most civilized, it becomes possible to form a clear
conception of the genesis and successive evolution of myth and science
of which the human race is capable, and in this way we may understand
the general law which governs such evolutions. This study also teaches
us that humanity, whether we agree with monogenists or poligenists, is
physically and psychically in all respects the same in its essential
elements; in all peoples without distinction, as ethnography teaches us,
the origin and genesis of myth, the implicit exercise of reason and its
development, are, at all events up to a given point, absolutely
identical. All start from the same manifestations and mythical
creations, and these are afterwards developed according to the logical
or scientific canons of thought, which are applied to their
classification. Both among fetish-worshippers and polytheists there was
a tendency towards monotheism, although sometimes it could only be
discerned in a vague and confused manner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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