Religion as a Factor in Human Evolution 687 



and the planetary goddess Sothis, with their personified quaH- 

 ties, caused proenvironal out-reachings beyond man and this 

 world to spheres and systems beyond. The same is true of 

 the deities of the other nations already named. 



On the other hand the deification of views or of groups of 

 views that were analytic and degrading in tendency, and that 

 caused weakening of national life when put into practice, 

 gave rise to such gods and goddesses as Anmion, Bel or Baal, 

 Astarte, Venus, and other deities. These, while in part unit- 

 ing and personifying true views of nature and of human life, 

 became associated with other views that permitted and even 

 ensured scenes of debauchery, of vice, of deceit, and of human 

 cruelty, all of which led to individual and to national decay, 

 often amid surroundings that seemed to proclaim wealth, 

 success, prosperity. 



But steady if slow evolution — upward advance — took place, 

 at one time in one nation, at another time in some other. And 

 it is specially noteworthy that all true advance has in nearly 

 every case been effected, not through the combined efforts 

 or consensus of opinion of a tribe or nationality, but through 

 the powerful advocacy of a higher proenvironal ideal on the 

 part of one or of a few individuals. 



So from amid the diffuse and often conflicting polytheisms 

 of early Egyptian, Iranian, Aryan, and Semitic peoples there 

 gradually emerged the unified view that one great supramun- 

 dane power, majesty, and brightness governed the moon, the 

 planets, and also the earth in its growth, fertility, seasonal 

 changes, warming effects, and human happiness. That power 

 was the Sun. In reaching this position, man had not hit on 

 a lucky guess. The view represented ever-widening sense- 

 impressions presented by the phenomena of the world and 

 the universe. These sense-impressions, gathered by the Irano- 

 Sumerian star-gazers through long centuries, were sununated 

 into great and still greater proenvironal mental responses, 

 that carried man onward and upward to ever wider and higher 

 views. Therefore from 5000 to 2000 years ago the Sun-god 

 held preeminent place in the religions of the most powerful 



