The object of this book is to present in compendious form the evidence which myths and dreams supply as to primitive man’s interpretation of his own nature and of the external world, and more especially to indicate how such evidence carries within itself the history of the origin and growth of beliefs in the supernatural.

The examples are selected chiefly from barbaric races, as furnishing the nearest correspondences to the working of the mind in what may be called its “eocene” stage, but examples are also cited from civilised races, as witnessing to that continuity of ideas which is obscured by familiarity or ignored by prejudice.

Had more illustrations been drawn from sources alike prolific, the evidence would have been swollen to undue dimensions without increasing its significance; as it is, repetition has been found needful here and there, under the difficulty of entirely detaching the arguments advanced in the two parts of this work.

Man’s development, physical and psychical, has been fully treated by Mr. Herbert Spencer, Dr. Tylor, and other authorities, to whom students of the subject are permanent debtors, but that subject is so many-sided, so far-reaching, whether in retrospect or prospect, that its subdivision is of advantage so long as we do not permit our sense of inter-relation to be dulled thereby.

My own line of argument will be found to run for the most part parallel with that of the above-named writers; there are divergences along the route, but we reach a common terminus.

The footnotes indicate the principal works which have been consulted in preparing this book, but I desire to express my special thanks to Mr. Andrew Lang for his kindness in reading the proofs, and for suggestions which, in the main, I have been glad to adopt.

E. C.

Rosemont, Tufnell Park,
London, March 1885.