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 branches were derived from a common
stock, has persisted without interruption in spite of many adversities
and revolutions, and has displayed in successive generations the
progress of general civilization, and the goal which man is able to
reach in his highest perfection of mind and body, favoured by the
physical and biological conditions of climate. In this race, whether
with respect to myth and science or to civilization, the theory of
evolution has practically been carried out in all its phases and
degrees.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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