Chapter IV: Mythologism

[Sidenote: _Rupture of the unity of the synthesis a priori. Mythologism._]

When by the severance of subject from predicate, of history from philosophy, the mutilated subject is given as predicate, mutilated history as philosophy, and consequently a false predicate is posited, which predicate is an abstract subject and therefore mere representation; when this happens, there occurs the opposite error to that which we have just particularly examined. That was called philosophism; this might be called historicism; but since this last term has usually been employed to indicate a form of positivism, it will be more convenient to call it _mythologism._

The process of this error (somewhat abstruse in the way that we have stated it) becomes clear at once in virtue of the name that has been assigned to it. Every one has examples of myths present in his memory. Let us take the myths of Uranus and Gæa, of the seven days of creation, of the earthly Paradise, and of Prometheus, of Danaë, or of Niobe. Every one is ready to say of a scientific theory which introduces causes not demonstrable either in the experience or in thought, that it is not theory, but mythology, not concept, but myth.

[Sidenote: _Essence of the myth._]

What then is it that is called myth? It is certainly not a simple poetic and artistic fancy. The myth contains an affirmation or logical judgment, and precisely for this reason may be considered a hybrid affirmation, half fanciful and erroneous. If it has been confused with art, it is not so much a false doctrine of the myth that should be blamed, as a false æsthetic doctrine, which we have already refuted, and which fails to recognize the original and ingenuous character of art. On the other hand, the logical affirmation does not stand to the myth as something extrinsic, as in the case of a fable or image put forward to express a given concept, where the difference of the two terms and the arbitrariness of the relation between them declares itself more or less openly. In this case there is not myth, but _allegory._ In myth, on the contrary, the concept is not separated from the representation, indeed it is throughout penetrated by it. Yet the compenetration is not effected in a logical manner, as in the singular judgment and in the _a priori_ synthesis. The compenetration is obtained capriciously, yet it gives itself out as necessary and logical. For instance, it is desired to explain how sky and earth were formed, how sea and rivers, plants and animals, men and language arose; and behold, we are given as explanations, the stories of the marriage of Uranus and Gæa, and the birth of Chronos and of the other Titans; or the story of a God Creator, who successively drew all things out of chaos in seven days, and made man of clay and taught him the names of things. It is desired to explain the origin of human civilization, and the tale is told of Prometheus, who steals fire and instructs men in the arts; or of Adam and Eve, who eat the forbidden fruit, and driven from the earthly Paradise are forced to till the ground and bathe it with their sweat. It is desired to explain the astronomical phenomena of dawn or of winter, and the story is told of Phœbus, who pursues Daphne, or of the same god who slays one after the other the sons of Niobe. These naturalistic interpretations may pass as examples, however contested and antiquated they may be. In place of the concepts which should illuminate single facts, we are given representations. Hence are derived what we have called false predicates. Philosophy becomes a little anecdote, a novelette, a story; history too becomes a story and ceases to be history, because it lacks the logical element necessary for its constitution. The true philosophic doctrine in the preceding cases, for example, will be that of an immanent spirit, of which stars and sky, earth and sea, plants and animals, constitute the contingent manifestations; the doctrine which looks upon the consciousness of good and evil and the necessity for work, not as the result of a theft made from the gods or of a violation of one of their commands, but as eternal categories of reality; and which regards language, not as the teaching of men by a god, but as an essential determination of humanity, or indeed of spirituality, which is not truly, if it does not express itself. They will also, if we like, be the philosophic doctrines of materialism and of evolutionism; but these, in order to be accepted as philosophic, must prove, like the preceding, that they do not substitute representations for concepts and are strictly founded upon thought and employ its method, that is to say, that they are philosophy and not mythology. For this reason, in philosophical criticism, adverse philosophies often accuse one another of being more or less mythological, and we hear of the mythology of _atoms,_ the mythology of _chance,_ the mythology of _ether,_ of the _two substances,_ of _monads,_ of the _blind will,_ of the _Unconscious,_ or, if you like, of the mythology of the _immanent Spirit._

[Sidenote: _Problems concerning the theory of myth._]

The particular treatment of all the problems that concern the myth does not belong to this place, where it was important solely to determine the proper nature of that spiritual formation. It is customary, for instance, to distinguish between _myth_ and _legend,_ attributing the first name to stories of universal content, and the second to stories with an individual and historical content. This partition is analogous to that between philosophy in the strict sense and history, and as such, though it possesses no little practical importance, it is without philosophic value, because, as has been remarked, in myth the universal becomes history and history becomes legend. Nor is it only legend of the past, but it extends even to the future, and thus appear _apocalypses,_ the legend of the _Millennium,_ and _eschatology._ Again, myths are usually distinguished as _physical_ and _ethical,_ and this division is in turn analogous to that between the philosophy of the external world and the philosophy of the internal world, the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of the spirit, and stands or falls with it. So that by this criticism we can solve the disputes as to whether physical myths precede ethical or inversely, whether the origin of myth is or is not anthropomorphic, and the like.

[Sidenote: _Myth and religion. Identity of the two spiritual formations._]

But the myth can assume another name, which makes yet clearer the knowledge of the logical error of which the analysis has been given: the name of _religion._ Mythologism is the _religious error._ Against this thesis various objections have been brought, such as that religion is not theoretical but practical, and has therefore nothing to do with myth; or that it is something _sui generis,_ or that it is not exhausted in the myth, since it consists of the complex of all the activities of the human spirit. But against these objections it must above all be maintained that religion is a theoretic fact, since there is no religion _without affirmation._ The practical activity, however noble it may be held, is always an operating, a doing, a producing, and to that extent is mute and alogical. It will be said that that affirmation is _sui generis_ and goes beyond the limits of human science. This is most true, if by science we understand the empirical sciences; but it is not true, if by human science we understand philosophy, since philosophy also goes beyond or is outside the limits of the empirical sciences. It will be said that every religion is founded upon a _revelation,_ whereas philosophy does not admit of other revelation than that which the spirit makes to itself as thought. That too is most true; but the revelation of religion, in so far as it is not that of the spirit as thought, expresses precisely the logical contradiction of mythologism: the affirmation of the universal as mere representation, and this asserted as a universal truth on the strength of a contingent fact, a communication which ought to be proved and thought, whereas on the contrary it is taken capriciously, as a principle of proof and as equivalent or superior to an act of thought. The theory of religion as a mixture hardly merits refutation, since that complex of the activities of the spirit is a metaphor of the spirit in its totality; that is to say, it gives not a theory of religion, but a new name of the spirit itself,--the object of philosophic speculation.

[Sidenote: _Religion and philosophy._]

Since then, religion is identical with myth, and since myth is not distinguishable from philosophy by any positive character, but only as false philosophy from true philosophy and as error from the truth which rectifies and contains it, we must affirm that religion, in so far as it is truth, is identical with philosophy, or as can also be said, _that philosophy_ is the _true religion._ All ancient and modern thought about religions, which have always been dissolved in philosophies, leads to this result. And since philosophy coincides with history, and religion and the history of religion are the same, and myth and religion are strictly speaking indistinguishable, we can see very well the vanity of the attempt that is being made beneath our eyes to preserve a religion or mythological truth side by side with a history of religions, which on the contrary is supposed to be practised with complete mental freedom and with an entirely critical method. This, which is one of the tendencies of so-called _modernism,_ is condemned as contradictory and illogical, by philosophy not less than by the Catholic Church.[1] The history of religions is an integral part of the history of philosophy, and as inseparable from it as error from the history of truth.

[Sidenote: _Conversion of errors into one another. Conversion of mythologism into philosophism (theology) and of philosophism into mythologism (mythology of nature, historical apocalypses, etc.)._]

When religion does not dissolve into philosophy and wishes to persist together with it, or to substitute itself for philosophy, it reveals itself as effective error; that is to say, as an arbitrary attempt against truth, due to habit, feelings and individual passions. But the destiny of every form of error is to be unable to persist before the light of truth. Hence the constant change of tactics and the passage of every error into the error from which it had at first wished to disassociate itself, or into which it did not mean to fall. Thus æstheticism, dislodged from its positions, takes refuge in those of empiricism; and empiricism either descends again into pure sensationalism and æstheticism, or becomes volatilized in mysticism. Thus (to stop at the case we have before us) mythologism, which intends to be the opposite of philosophism and to work with blind fancy instead of with empty concepts, is obliged in order to save itself from the attacks of criticism to have recourse to philosophism; and religion is then called _theology._ Theology is philosophism, because it works with concepts which are empty of all historical and empirical content. Myth becomes _dogma_; the myth of the expulsion from Paradise becomes the dogma of original sin; the myth of the son of God becomes the dogma of the incarnation and of the Trinity. Nor must it be thought that for its part philosophism does not accomplish the opposite transition. Every philosophy of nature ends by appearing as a _mythology of nature,_ every philosophy of history as an _apocalypse._ Sometimes even a sort of revelation occurs in them, and we often find that the unthinkable connections of concepts constituting those pseudo-philosophies are obtained and comprehended in virtue of second sight, as the result of a mental illumination, which is the prerogative of but a few privileged persons. Finally, philosophism and mythologism embrace one another and fall embracing into empiricism and into the other forms of error previously described.

[Sidenote: _Scepsis._]

This perpetual transition from one form of error to another gives rise to a _scepsis,_ which promotes the reciprocal dissolution of errors, and scorning illusions and confusions, throws their _mental vacuity_ into clear light. Such a scepsis fulfils an important function. The lies of æstheticism, mathematicism, philosophism, mythologism, cannot resist it. Their little wordy strongholds are broken into; the shadows are dispersed. Especially against mythologism, which in a certain sense may be called the most complete negation of thought, a scepsis is helpful; and owing to the resistance offered here more than elsewhere, by passions and interests, it often takes the form of violent satire. The last great epoch of this strife is what is called the _Aufklärung,_ Encyclopedism or Voltaireism, and was directed against Christianity, especially in its Catholic form. We must make so many reservations in what follows concerning the enlightened Encyclopedist and Voltairean attitude, that here we feel obliged to indicate explicitly its serious and fruitful side.

[Footnote 1: See with reference to this G. Gentile, _Il modernismo e l'enciclica, Critica,_ vi. pp. 208-229.]