INTRODUCTION. xxv 



through insufficient nourishment. It is not only 

 dwarfed, but many of its parts are suppressed. 



The small picture is only a dwarfed and degraded 

 picture of the large one. In order to interpret it 

 one has to reproduce in his imagination the original 

 model. The idea remains, but the general con- 

 figuration is often wholly altered. 



What we might call the natural of the Assyrians 

 was restricted pretty much to eating, drinking, pro- 

 creating, tending their flocks, sowing and gathering 

 their crops when they became settled, together with 

 fighting, slaughtering, plundering and enslaving. 

 All the rest was to them supernatural. The 

 Mahomedans seem to have turned both the natural 

 and supernatural into one wholesale supernatural, 

 for with them God's hand is everywhei^e and man's 

 hand nowhere. Under one great supreme Deity 

 everything was gathered up. 



In the transition of man from the savage animal 

 and fetish-ridden creature to the settled and agricul- 

 tural man, a theosophy became gradually evolved in 

 the minds of certain contemplative individuals. 



A supreme deity and two subordinate classes of 

 gods became necessary items of their thoughts — 

 good spirits and bad spirits accounted for benefits 

 and disadvantages ; the former were friends, the 

 latter enemies. These philosophers were shrewxl 

 enough to see that the supreme deity, although 

 propitiated by prayers and sacrifices, was often 

 helpless ; the evil spirits w^ere ' too much ' for him. 



