688 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



nationalities; his temples in Irania, in Egypt, in Crete, in 

 Babylonia and Assyria, in Greece and in Rome, were unrivaled 

 in size and splendor; his priests became rivals to and even 

 overthrew royal dynasties; his worship became so widespread 

 and stimulating that heliotheism (term suggested by the writer) 

 may well be regarded as the great transition religion from 

 polytheism to monotheism, that held sway and inclined the 

 thoughts of mankind upward for well nigh two millennia. 



It w^ould be beyond the scope of the present work to trace 

 how the greatest human characters amongst the different 

 nationalities of that period became linked with the sun in 

 human thought and aspiration as deified beings, who linked 

 man to the sun in sacred regard, and conversely who linked 

 the sun to man as a great power afar, that was thus brought 

 nigh to the deepest feelings of mankind, and that appealed 

 to them as an anthropomorphic personality while existing 

 as an unchanging celestial majesty. 



Thus Re, the great Sun-god of the Egyptians, intertwined 

 in thought with several of the deified kings and conquerors 

 of the nation; Marduk and Assur the solar deities of the Baby- 

 lonians and iVssyrians; Zeus the bright god and sky-father 

 of the Greeks, and Jupiter of the Romans, represented simi- 

 lar tendencies, along parallel lines, toward transition from an 

 uncorrelated polytheistic pantheon to the proenvironal rev- 

 erence and worship of one great Power in the universe. 



Heliotheism then represented a great religious proenvironal 

 impulse in which man endeavored to combine all the most 

 satisfying qualities of the various deities that he had formerly 

 worshiped with one great ruling, guiding, stimulating power, 

 the Sun. This power, as in the higher stages of polytheism 

 at an earlier period, became combined or interwoven with 

 outstanding human qualities of one or more high human per- 

 sonalities, so as to constitute at once an ultramundane power 

 of surpassing brightness and magnificence, as well as an object 

 that stood for deified humanity. Every stage of this process 

 can now be traced, alike for Re of the Egyptians and for Zeus 

 of the Iranians and later of their Greek descendants. 



