Chapter 8

PRIMITIVE MAN AND THE CREATION OF MYTHS.

The golden age of the creative imagination.--Myths: hypotheses as to the origin: the myth is the psycho-physical objectification of man in the phenomena that he perceives. The role of imagination.--How myths are formed. The moment of creation: two operations--animating everything, qualifying everything. Romantic invention lacking in peoples without imagination. The role of analogy and of association through "constellation."--The evolution of myths: ascension, acme, decline.--The explanatory myths undergo a radical transformation: the work of depersonification of the myth. Survivals.--The non-explanatory myths suffer a partial transformation: Literature is a fallen and rationalized mythology.--Popular imagination and legends: the legend is to the myth what illusion is to hallucination.--Unconscious processes that the imagination employs in order to create legends: fusion, idealization. 118