Introduction to a science of mythology

"The aim of this book is to show how empirical categories-such as the categories of the raw and the cooked, the fresh and the decayed, the moistened and the burned, etc., which can only be accurately defined by ethnographic observation and, in each instance, by adopting the standpoint of a particular culture-can nonetheless be used as conceptual tools with which to elaborate abstract ideas and combine them in the form of propositions."