Mircea Eliade: "The myths of the modern world"

In the first chapter of his studyΒ Myths, dreams and mysteries (published in 1957), the Romanian historian of religions Mircea Eliade deals with the question of the survival of the Myth, more or less "disguised", in the modern world. The question from which his analysis starts is the following: "What have myths become in modern societies?" Or rather: what occupied the essential place that myth had in traditional societies?Β».Β With these premises, Eliade therefore investigates the function of mythical thought in the twentieth century, analyzing in the first place the different types of eschatology underlying the political myths of our time: the "communist myth" and the "national socialist" one.

In the second paragraph, Eliade focuses on the survivals of mythic thought at the level of the individual experience of modern man, concluding that Β«The myth has never completely disappeared: it is alive in the dreams, fantasies and nostalgia of modern man; and the enormous psychological literature has accustomed us to find the great and the small mythology in the unconscious and semi-conscious activity of each individual ". The depth psychology of the Jungian school and Christianity are the two extremes that the historian of religions examines as privileged β€œmythical containers” of the current historical era.

Paragraph 3 deals with archetypes as models of behavior, as "mythical examples": Eliade notes that, although these "exemplary models" are now "masked" in the modern world, nevertheless contemporary man is still consciously influenced by them or less. Finally, in the concluding paragraph, Ours analyzes the techniques used by modern man to "get out of time". Of primary importance in this regard is the mythical function of poetry and reading: this is because, ultimately,Β "The defense from Time that every mythological behavior reveals to us, but which is in fact consubstantial with the human condition, we find it disguised above all in distractions, in the amusements of modern man".

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1.

What exactly is a "myth"? In the current language of the nineteenth century, "myth" meant everything that was opposed to "reality": the creation of Adam or the "masked man", such as the history of the world told by the Zulus or the TheogonyΒ of Hesiod, they were "meek". Like many other clichΓ©s of the Enlightenment and positivism, this one too had a Christian structure and origin: in fact, for primitive Christianity everything that was not justified in one or the other of the two Testaments was false: it was a "fable".

But the researches of ethnologists have forced us to return to this semantic inheritance, the survival of the Christian polemic against the pagan world. We finally begin to know and understand the value of the myth elaborated by "primitive" and archaic societies, that is, by human groups in which myth constitutes the very foundation of social life and culture. And one fact immediately strikes us: such companies believe that the myth expresses the absolute truth because it tells one sacred history, that is, a transhuman revelation that took place at the dawn of the Great Time, in the sacred time of the beginnings ("in illo temporeΒ»). Being real e sacred, the myth becomes exemplary, and consequently repeatable, since it serves as a model and also as a justification for all human acts. In other words, a myth is one true story which took place at the beginning of time and which serves as a model for the behavior of men. Imitating the exemplary acts of a god or a mythical hero, or simply telling their adventures, the man of archaic societies detaches himself from profane time and magically rejoins the Great Time, the sacred time.

As we can see, this is a total reversal of values: while current language confuses myth with "fables", the man of traditional societies discovers, on the contrary, the only valid revelation of reality. It was not long in drawing conclusions from this discovery. Avoiding insisting that the myth tells about impossible or improbable things, we have limited ourselves to saying that it constitutes a way of thinking different from ours, in any case not to be considered - "a priori" - as aberrant. An attempt was then made to integrate myth into the general history of thought, considering it as the form par excellence of collective thought. But since "collective thinking" is never completely abolished in a society, whatever its degree of evolution, it has not failed to observe that the modern world still retains a certain mythical behavior: for example, the participation of a whole society some symbols have been interpreted as a survival of "collective thought".

It was not difficult to demonstrate that the function of a national flag, with all the affective experiences it implies, does not differ at all from "participation" in any symbol in archaic societies. And this is to say that, at the level of social life, there is no solution of continuity between the archaic world and the modern world. The only big difference was the presence, in most of the individuals who make up modern societies, of a personal thought, absent or almost absent in the members of traditional societies.

There is no need to present general considerations on "collective thinking". Our problem is more modest: if myth is not a childish and aberrant creation of "primitive" humanity, but is instead the expression of a way of being in the world, what have myths become in modern societies? Or rather: what has occupied the place essential that the myth had in traditional societies? Indeed, certain "participations" in collective myths and symbols still survive in the modern world, but they are far from fulfilling the central function that myth has in traditional societies: compared to these, the modern world seems devoid of myths. It has also been argued that the anxieties and crises of modern societies are explained precisely by the absence of their own peculiar myth. Titling one of his books Man discovering his soul, Jung implies that the modern world - in crisis starting from the deep break with Christianity - is looking for a new myth that will allow it to rediscover a new spiritual source and restore its creative forces (1). In fact, at least apparently, the modern world is not full of myths.

For example, there has been talk of the general strike as one of the rare myths created by the modern West. But this is a misunderstanding: it was believed that a 'idea accessible to a considerable number of individuals, and therefore "popular", could become a myth for the simple fact that its historical realization is projected into a more or less distant future. But this is not how myths are "created". The general strike can be a tool for political struggle, but it lacks mythical precedents, and this is enough to exclude it from any mythology.

The case of Marxist communism is quite different. Let us leave aside the philosophical validity of Marxism and its historical destiny; instead let us stop at the mythical structure of communism and the eschatological sense of its popular success. Whatever one thinks of Marx's scientific ambitions, it is evident that the author of the "Manifesto of the Communists"Takes up and extends one of the great eschatological myths of the Asian-Mediterranean world, that is, the redemptive function of the just (the" chosen ", the" anointed ", the" innocent ", the" messenger ", today, the proletariat) , whose sufferings have the mission of changing the ontological state of the world. Indeed, Marx's classless society, and the consequent disappearance of historical tensions, find their most exact precedent in the myth of the Golden Age, which according to many traditions marks the beginning and the end of history. Marx enriched this venerable myth with a whole Judeo-Christian messianic ideology: on the one hand, the prophetic role and the soteriological function that he attributes to the proletariat; on the other hand, the final struggle between Good and Evil, which can easily be compared to the apocalyptic conflict between Christ and Antichrist, followed by the decisive victory of the former. It is also significant that Marx takes up the Judeo-Christian eschatological hope in his own way an absolute end to history; in this he separates himself from the other historicist philosophers (for example, Croce and Ortega y Gasset), for whom the tensions of history are consubstantial with the human condition and therefore can never be completely abolished.

Compared to the grandeur and vigorous optimism of the communist myth, the mythology adopted by National Socialism appears strangely clumsy: not only because of the very limitations of the racist Herrenvolk?), but above all thanks to the fundamental pessimism of Germanic mythology. In its attempt to abolish Christian values ​​and rediscover the spiritual sources of the "race", that is, of Nordic paganism, National Socialism necessarily had to make an effort to revive Germanic mythology. From the perspective of depth psychology, such an attempt amounted exactly to an invitation to collective suicide: in fact theeschatonΒ announced and awaited by the ancient Germans is the ragnarokkr, that is, a catastrophic "end of the world" which includes a gigantic battle between gods and demons and which ends with the death of all gods and heroes and the regression of the world into chaos. It is true that after the ragnarokkrΒ the world will be reborn regenerated (in fact, even the ancient Germans knew the doctrine of cosmic cycles, the myth of the creation and periodic destruction of the world), however, replacing Christianity with Nordic mythology meant replacing an eschatology full of promises and consolations (for the Christian, the "end of the world" completes history and regenerates it at the same time) with a eschatonΒ definitely pessimistic.

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Translated into political terms, this replacement meant roughly: renounce old Judeo-Christian histories and resurrect the belief of your ancestors, the Germans, from the depths of your souls; then, prepare yourself for the final great battle between our gods and the demonic forces; in this apocalyptic battle, our gods and heroes - and we with them - will lose their lives, and this will be the ragnarokkr, but then a new world will be born. One wonders how such a pessimistic view of the end of history could have inflamed the imagination of at least part of the German people; however the phenomenon exists and still poses problems for psychologists.


2.

Apart from these two political myths, modern societies do not appear to have known others of similar magnitude. Let's think of the myth as human behaviour and at the same time as element of civilization, that is, as it is found in traditional societies. In fact, at the level ofindividual experience, the myth has never completely disappeared: it is alive in the dreams, fantasies and nostalgia of modern man; and the enormous psychological literature has accustomed us to find the great and the small mythology in the unconscious and semi-conscious activity of each individual. But what interests us above all is to know what, in the modern world, has taken its place Central enjoyed by the myth in traditional societies. In other words, and while acknowledging that the great mythical themes continue to repeat themselves in the dark areas of the psyche, we can ask ourselves whether myth as an exemplary model of human behavior does not also survive, in a more or less degraded form, among our contemporaries. It seems that a myth, like the symbols that arise from it, never disappears from psychic actuality: it only changes its appearance and disguises its functions. But it would be instructive to persist in research and unmask the disguise of myths on a social level.

Here is an example. It is evident that certain apparently profane festivals of the modern world still retain their mythical structure and functions: New Year's celebrations, or celebrations for the birth of a child, the construction of a house or even the entry into a new apartment. , betray the obscurely felt need for a absolute beginning, Of a incipit new life, that is, of a total regeneration. Despite the distance between these profane celebrations and their mythical archetype - the periodic repetition of creation (2) - it is evident that modern man still feels the need to periodically update these scenarios, albeit desacralized.

There is no need to establish to what extent modern man is still aware of the mythological implications of his festivities: it is only interesting that these festivals still have a dark but profound resonance in his whole being.

It is only an example, but it can enlighten us on a situation that seems general: certain mythical themes still survive in modern societies, but they are not easily recognizable since they have undergone a long process of secularization. The phenomenon has been known for a long time: in fact, modern societies define themselves as such precisely because they have exasperated the desacralization of life and the cosmos; the novelty of the modern world is expressed in the profane re-evaluation of ancient sacred values ​​(3). But we are interested in knowing whether all that survives of the "mythical" in the modern world is presented only in the form of schemes and values ​​reinterpreted on a secular level. If this phenomenon were to occur everywhere, it should be recognized that the modern world is radically opposed to all the historical forms that preceded it. But the very presence of Christianity excludes this hypothesis: Christianity by no means accepts the desacralized horizon of the cosmos and of life, which is the characteristic horizon of every "modern" culture.

The problem is not simple, but since the Western world still and largely refers to Christianity, it cannot be avoided. I will not insist on what were called the "mythical elements" of Christianity. Whatever happens to these "mythical elements", they have been Christianized for a long time and, in any case, the importance of Christianity must be judged from another perspective. But every now and then rumors arise that claim that the modern world is no longer, or is not yet Christian. Our purpose relieves us from dealing with those who put their hopes inEntmythologisierung, who think it is necessary to "demythologize" Christianity in order to restore its true essence. Some think quite the opposite.

Jung, for example, believes that the crisis of the modern world is largely due to the fact that Christian symbols and "myths" are no longer lived by the total human being, they have become only lifeless, fossilized, externalized words and gestures. and, consequently, without any use for the profound life of the psyche.

For us the problem arises in other words: to what extent does Christianity extend, in modern desacralized and secularized societies, a spiritual horizon comparable to the horizon of archaic societies, which are dominated by myth? Let's say right away that Christianity has nothing to fear from such a comparison: its specificity is assured because it resides in faith as a category sui generisΒ of religious experience, as well as in the enhancement of history. With the exception of Judaism, no other pre-Christian religion has valued history as a direct and irreversible manifestation of God in the world, nor faith - in the sense inaugurated by Abraham - as the only means of salvation. Consequently, the Christian polemic against the pagan religious world is historically outdated: Christianity no longer risks being confused with any religion or gnosis. Having said that, and taking into account the very recent discovery that myth represents a certain way of being in the world, it is no less true than Christianity, by the very fact of being a religion, had to preserve at least one mythical behavior: the liturgical time, that is the rejection of the profane time and the periodic recovery of the Great Time, of theillud tempusΒ of the "beginnings".

For the Christian, Jesus Christ is not a mythical character but, on the contrary, historical: his very greatness finds its support in this absolute historicity. In fact, Christ not only became man, "man in general", but he accepted the historical condition of the people within which he chose to be born; he did not resort to any miracle to escape this historicity, even if he did several miracles to modify the "historical situation" of the others (healing the paralytic, raising Lazarus, etc.). However, the religious experience of the Christian is based onimitation of Christ as exemplary model, on the repetition liturgical life, death and resurrection of the Lord, as well as on the contemporaneity of the Christian with theillud tempusΒ which opens with the nativity of Bethlehem and closes provisionally with the ascension. We know that the imitation of a transhuman model, the repetition of an exemplary scenario and the rupture of profane time with an opening that flows into the Great Time constitute the essential notes of the "mythical behavior", that is, of the man of archaic societies, who finds in the myth the very source of its existence. He always is contemporaries of a myth, both when narrating it and when imitating the gestures of mythical characters. Kierkegaard asked true Christians to be contemporaries of Christ. But even without being a "true Christian" in Kierkegaard's sense, one is, can not be doneΒ  not be contemporaries of Christ. In fact the liturgical season, in which the Christian lives during the religious service, it is no longer the profane duration, but precisely the sacred time par excellence, the time in which God became flesh, theillud tempusΒ of the Gospels. A Christian does not attend one commemoration of the Passion of Christ, as he attends the annual commemoration of a historic event. It does not commemorate an event, but revives a mystery. For a Christian, Jesus dies and rises before him, hic and nunc. Thanks to the mystery of the Passion or the Resurrection, the Christian abolishes profane time and is inserted into primordial sacred time.

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It is useless to insist on the radical differences that separate Christianity from the archaic world: they are too evident to cause misunderstandings. But there is the identity of behavior that we have just mentioned. For the Christian, as for the man of archaic societies, time is not homogeneous: it implies periodic breaks that divide it into a "profane duration" and a "sacred time", the latter is indefinitely reversible, that is, it repeats itself all the time. infinite without ceasing to be the same. When it is stated that Christianity, unlike the archaic religions, proclaims and awaits the end of time, a distinction must be made: the affirmation is correct if it refers to "profane duration", to history, no longer if it refers to time liturgical inaugurated by the incarnation; L'"illud tempus"Christological will not be abolished by the end of history.

These few quick considerations have shown us in what sense Christianity prolongs a "mythical behavior" in the modern world. If we take into account the true nature and function of myth, Christianity does not seem to have surpassed the way of being of the archaic man; he couldn't do it. Homo naturaliter christianus. It remains to be known what those moderns who have kept only the dead letter of Christianity have substituted for myth.


3.

It seems unlikely that a society can completely free itself from myth, because among the essential notes to mythical behavior - exemplary model, repetition, breaking of profane duration and integration of primordial time - at least the first two are consubstantial with every human condition. So it is not difficult to recognize in some institutions - for example what moderns call education, education, didactic culture - the same function performed by myth in archaic societies. This is true not only because myths represent at the same time the sum of ancestral traditions and norms that must not be transgressed, and because the transmission - mostly secret, initiatory - of myths is equivalent to the more or less official "instruction" of a modern society; but also because the homologation of the respective functions of myth and education occurs above all if we keep in mind the origin of the exemplary models proposed by European education. In ancient times there was no gap between mythology and history: historical characters strove to imitate their archetypes, gods and mythical heroes (4). In turn, the life and gestures of those historical figures became paradigms. Already Tito Livio presents a rich gallery of models for young Romans. Plutarch then writes his own Lives of illustrious men, a true exemplary sum for future centuries. The moral and civic virtues of those illustrious personalities continue to be the supreme model for European pedagogy, especially after the Renaissance.

Until the end of the nineteenth century, European civic education still followed the archetypes of classical antiquity, the models that emerged in illo tempore, in that privileged period of time which was, for literate Europe, the apogee of Greek-Latin culture.

It was never thought to assimilate the function of mythology to that of education because one of the well-known characteristics of the myth was neglected: precisely that which consists in creating exemplary models for an entire society. On the other hand, there is a tendency that can be generally called human, that is, that of transforming an existence into a paradigm and a historical character into an archetype. This trend survives even in the most prominent representatives of the modern mentality. As Gide well understood, Goethe was fully aware of his mission to bring about an exemplary life for the rest of humanity. In everything he did he strove to create an example. In turn he imitated in life, if not the life of the gods and mythical heroes, at least their behavior. Paul ValΓ©ry wrote in 1932: "He gives us the example, "gentlemen," of one of the best attempts to make ourselves godlikeΒ».

But the imitation of models does not pass only through the school culture. Together with the official pedagogy, and even when his authority has long since vanished, modern man is under the influence of a whole widespread mythology that offers him many models to imitate.

Heroes, imaginary or not, greatly influence the education of European adolescents: such are the characters of adventure novels, war heroes, movie stars, and so on. This mythology is enriched with age: we discover the exemplary models launched by successive fashions and we strive to resemble them. Critics have often insisted on modern versions of the Don Juan, the military or political hero, the unfortunate lover, the cynic or nihilist, the melancholy poet, and so on: all these models prolong a mythology and their actuality is a sign of a mythological behavior. The imitation of archetypes betrays a certain disgust for one's personal history and the obscure tendency to transcend one's local, provincial historical moment and to recover any "Great Time", for example the mythical time of the first surrealist or existentialist manifestation.

An adequate analysis of the widespread mythology of modern man would require volumes. In fact, myths and mythical images are found everywhere, secularized, degraded, disguised: it is enough to know how to recognize them. We have alluded to the mythological structure of New Year's celebrations or parties that greet a "beginning", where one can still glimpse the nostalgia of renovatio, hope that the world is renewed, that we can begin a new story in a regenerated world, that is created again. The examples could easily be multiplied. The myth of the lost paradise still survives in the images of the paradise island and the Edenic landscape: a privileged territory where laws are abolished, time stands still. This last circumstance should be emphasized, because it is above all analyzing the attitude of the modern towards time is one can discover the disguise of his behavior mythological. We must not lose sight of the fact that one of the essential functions of the myth is precisely the opening towards the Great Time, the periodic recovery of a primordial time. And this translates into the tendency to neglect the present time, what is called the "historical moment".

Launched into a grandiose nautical adventure, the Polynesians strive to deny its "novelty", its unprecedented adventure character, its availability; for them it is only a reiteration of the journey that a certain mythical hero has undertaken in illo temporeΒ to "show the way to men", to create an example. Living the personal adventure as the reiteration of a mythical saga is equivalent to evading the present. This anguish in the face of historical time, accompanied by the dark desire to participate in a glorious, primordial time, total, translates in the moderns into an attempt at times desperate to break the homogeneity of time, to "get out" of duration by resurrecting a time that is qualitatively different from that which, consuming itself, their own "history" creates. It is in this above all that the function of myths in the modern world is best recognized. With multiple but homologable means, modern man strives to get out of his own "history" and to live a qualitatively different temporal rhythm. It is an unconscious way of recovering mythical behavior.

This will be better understood by observing the two main ways of "escape" used by the modern: entertainment and reading. We will not insist on the mythological precedents of most of the shows; it is enough to recall the ritual origin of bullfighting, of races, of sporting events: they all have in common the characteristic of taking place in a "concentrated time", of great intensity, residual or substitute for magical-religious time. "Concentrated time" is also the specific dimension of theater and cinema. Even without taking into account the ritual origins and the mythological structure of drama and cinema, the important fact remains that these two kinds of spectacle use a time quite different from the "profane duration", a temporal rhythm concentrated and broken at the same time, which, beyond any aesthetic implication, it causes a profound resonance in the viewer.

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4.

Reading is a more nuanced problem. It is a question, on the one hand, of the mythical structure and origin of literature and, on the other, of the mythological function performed by reading in the consciousness of those who feed on it. The myth-legend-epic-modern literature continuity has been repeatedly illustrated and we dispense with dwelling on it. Let us simply remember that mythical archetypes survive to some extent in the great modern novels. The trials that a fictional character must pass have their role model in the adventures of the mythical hero. It was also possible to demonstrate how the mythical themes of primeval waters, the paradise island, the quest for the Holy Grail, heroic or mystical initiation, etc., still dominate modern European literature.

Very recently surrealism has given an extraordinary development to mythical themes and primordial symbols. The mythological structure of the appendix literature is evident. Each popular novel presents the exemplary struggle between Good and Evil, between the hero and the evil (modern incarnation of the devil), and rediscovers the great folkloric motifs of the persecuted girl, of the saving love, of the unknown protector, etc. Even in the detective novel, as Roger Caillois has excellently shown, mythological themes abound.

It is not necessary to remember that lyric poetry takes up and prolongs the myth. Each poem is an effort for recreate language, in other words to abolish the current, everyday language, and to invent a new language, personal and private, ultimately secret. But poetic creation, just like linguistic creation, implies the abolition of time, of history concentrated in language, and tends towards the recovery of the primordial paradisiacal situation, when it was created spontaneously, when the past it did not exist because there was no consciousness of time, memory of temporal duration. It is still said today: for a great poet the past does not exist; the poet discovers the world as if he were witnessing the cosmogony, as if he were a contemporary of the first day of creation. From a certain point of view it can be said that every great poet redo the world, because it strives to see it as if time and history did not exist: a singular reference to the behavior of the "primitive" and of the man of traditional societies.

But what interests us above all is the mythological function of reading, because it constitutes a specific phenomenon of the modern world, unknown to other civilizations. Reading replaces not only oral literature - still alive in the rural communities of Europe - but also the narration of myths in archaic societies. And the reading, perhaps even more than the spectacle, manages to cause a break in duration and at the same time an "exit from time". When he reads a detective novel to "kill" time or when he enters a foreign temporal universe that any novel represents, the modern reader is projected out of its duration and inserted into other rhythms, he experiences other stories. Reading is an "easy way", in the sense that it offers the possibility of modifying the temporal experience with little effort; reading is there distraction par excellence of the modern, it allows him the illusion of one mastery of time in which we can rightly suppose a secret desire to escape the implacable becoming that leads to death.

The defense from Time that every mythological behavior reveals to us, but which is in fact consubstantial with the human condition, we find it disguised above all in the distractions, in the amusements of modern man. Precisely in these we measure the radical difference between modern cultures and the rest of civilization. In every traditional society, any responsible gesture reproduced a mythical, transhuman model and, consequently, took place in a sacred time. Work, trades, war, love, were sacred things. Reliving what the gods and heroes had experienced in illo temporeΒ it translated into a sacralization of human existence, which thus completed the sacralization of the cosmos and of life. This sacralized existence, open to the Great Time, could be tiring many times, but it was just as rich in meaning; in any case, it was not crushed by time. The real "fall in time" begins with the desacralization of work; only in modern societies does man feel a prisoner of his profession, because he can no longer escape time. And since he cannot "kill" time during work hours - that is, when he enjoys his true social identity - he tries to "get out of time" in his free hours: this explains the dizzying number of distractions invented by modern civilizations. In other words, it is exactly the opposite that happens in traditional societies, where "distractions" almost do not exist because "going out of time" is obtained with all responsible work. Precisely for this reason, as we have just seen, the great majority of individuals who do not participate in an authentic religious experience reveal their mythical behavior, as well as in the unconscious activity of their psyche (dreams, fantasies, nostalgia, etc.), in the their distractions. In other words, the "fall in time" coincides with the desacralization of work and the mechanization of existence that follows from it; it implies a badly disguised loss of freedom; so that the only possible escape on a collective scale remains distraction.

These few observations may suffice. The modern world has not completely abolished mythical behavior, it has only reversed its field of action: myth is no longer dominant in the essential sectors of life, it has been "removed" both in the dark areas of the psyche and in secondary or secondary activities. also irresponsible of society. Despite the fact that the mythical behavior continues, disguised, in the function performed by education, this is now almost exclusively of interest to the young age; indeed, the exemplary function of education is about to disappear: modern pedagogy encourages spontaneity. Outside of authentic religious life, myth mainly nourishes distractions. But it never disappears: on a collective scale, it sometimes manifests itself with considerable force, in the form of a political myth.

In spite of everything, the understanding of the myth will be counted among the most useful discoveries of the twentieth century. Western man is no longer the master of the world: there are no longer "natives" before him, but interlocutors. It is good to know how to start the dialogue; it is essential to recognize that there is no longer a break in continuity between the "primitive" or "retrograde" world and the modern West. It is no longer enough, as it was enough half a century ago, to discover and admire Negro or Oceanian art; we must rediscover in ourselves the spiritual sources of those arts, we must become aware of what still remains "mythical" in a modern existence, and which remains so precisely because even this behavior itself is consubstantial with the human condition as it expresses the anguish in the face of time.


Note:

Note 1. By "modern world" we mean contemporary Western society, but also a certain state of mind that was formed through successive floods starting with the Renaissance and the Reformation. The active classes of urban societies are "modern", that is, the human mass which has been more or less directly shaped by education and official culture. The remainder of the population, especially in central and south-eastern Europe, still clings to a traditional, half-pre-Christian spiritual horizon. Agricultural societies are generally passive in history; they almost always suffer it, and when they are directly involved in the great historical tensions (for example, the barbarian invasions of low antiquity) their behavior is one of passive resistance.

Note 2. See M. Eliade, Le Mythe de l'Eternel Retour, Gallimard, Paris 1949 (English translation: The myth of the eternal return, Rusconi, Milan 1975, pp. 59 et seq.).

Note 3. The process is best highlighted by the transformations of the values ​​attributed to "nature". The relationships of sympathy between man and nature have not been abolished - it could not be done -, but these relationships have changed value and orientation: aesthetic or simply sentimental emotions and practices have been substituted for magical-religious sympathy. sporting or hygienic, etc., contemplation has been replaced by observation, experience and calculation. It cannot be said of a Renaissance physicist or a naturalist of our times who do not like "nature"; but in this "love" we do not find the spiritual attitude of the man of archaic societies, the one, for example, which still survives in European agricultural societies.

Note 4. See in this regard the researches of Georges DumΓ©zil, cfr. ours too Myth of the eternal returnΒ cit., pp. 41 ff.