344 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



obliviousness, a deity who in early times is represented as hardening 

 men's hearts so that they may commit punishable acts, and as employ- 

 ing a lying spirit to deceive them, comes to be mostly thought of as 

 an embodiment of virtues transcending the highest we can imagine. 



Thus, recognizing the fact that in the primitive human mind there 

 exists neither religious idea nor religious sentiment, we find that, in 

 the course of social evolution and the evolution of intelligence accom- 

 panying it, there are generated both the ideas and sentiments which 

 we distinguish as religious, and that, through a process of causation 

 clearly traceable, they traverse those stages which have brought them, 

 among civilized races, to their present forms. 



And now what may we infer will be the evolution of religious 

 ideas and sentiments throughout the future ? On the one hand, it 

 is irrational to suppose that the changes which have brought the 

 religious consciousness to its present form will suddenly cease. On 

 the other hand, it is irrational to suppose that the religious conscious- 

 ness, naturally generated as we have seen, will disappear and leave an 

 unfilled gap. Manifestly it must undergo further changes ; and, how- 

 ever much changed, it must continue to exist. What, then, are the 

 transformations to be expected ? If we reduce the process above de- 

 lineated to its lowest terms, we shall see our way to an answer. 



As pointed out in " First Principles," 96, Evolution is throughout 

 its course habitually modified by that Dissolution which eventually 

 undoes it : the changes which become manifest being usually but the 

 differential results of opposing tendencies toward integration and dis- 

 integration. Rightly to understand the genesis and decay of religious 

 systems, and the probable future of those now existing, we must take 

 this truth into account. During those earlier changes by which there 

 is created a hierarchy of gods, demi-gods, manes-gods, and spirits of 

 various kinds and ranks, Evolution goes on with but little qualification. 

 The consolidated mythology produced, while growing in the mass of 

 supernatural beings composing it, assumes increased definiteness in the 

 arrangement of its parts and the attributes of its members. But the 

 antagonist Dissolution eventually gains predominance. The spreading 

 recognition of natural causation conflicts with this mythological evo- 

 lution, and insensibly weakens those of its beliefs which are most at 

 variance with advancing knowledge. Demons and the secondary di- 

 vinities presiding over divisions of Nature become less thought of as 

 the phenomena ascribed to them are more commonly observed to follow 

 a constant order, and hence these minor components of the mythology 

 slowly dissolve away. At the same time, with growing supremacy 

 of the great god heading the hierarchy, there goes increasing ascrip- 

 tion to him of actions which were before distributed among numerous 

 supernatural beings : there is integration of power. While in propor- 

 tion as there arises the consequent conception of an omnipotent and 



