Myriads of gods were the
actors in "the rushing metamorphosis" of the old myth-haunted Nature;
while chemic and elemental forces perform the same parts in the
masquerade of the modern _Phasis_. Both mythology and science,
therefore, stick fast in secondary causes.
Myths are the religion of youth, and of primitive, unsophisticated
nations; while science may be called the religion of the mature man,
full of experience and immersed in the actual. The Positivism of Comte,
like the old myth-worship, sets up for its deity human nature
idealized, adorned with genius and virtue. The Positivist worships
virtuous human nature, conditioned and limited as it is; while the
Mythist worshipped it reflected on the outer world and endowed with
supernatural attributes, clothed with mist-caps and wishing-caps that
gave it dominion over space and time. The restless, glittering,
whimsical sprites of fairy mythology, that were believed of old to have
so large a share in shaping the course of Nature and of human life,
have vanished from the precincts of the schoolmaster at least. They
could not endure the clear eyebeam of Science, which has searched their
subterranean abodes, withering them up and metamorphosing them into
mere physiological forces.
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