172 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



specific type is transformed into the idol which repre- 

 sents and dominates over it, inspiring the com- 

 mission of beneficent or hurtful acts. Of this it 

 is unnecessary to adduce examples, since all the 

 mythologies which have reached this polytheistic 

 stage are anthropomorphic, and in these the specific 

 type, which serves as the first step to polytheism, 

 subsequently becomes a completely human idol. 



After this anthropomorphic classification has been 

 reached by logical elaboration, a new field is opened 

 for the reduction of special types into those which 

 are more general, as had been previously the case 

 in the early stages of myth. By continually con- 

 centrating, and at the same time by enlarging the 

 value of the conception, it is united in a single form 

 which constitutes the dawn and genesis of mono- 

 theism. This methodical process, which is charac- 

 teristic of human thought, rnaj 7 be traced in all 

 peoples which have really attained to the mono- 

 theistic idea, in the Aryan and Semitic races, in 

 China, Japan, and Egypt, in Peru and Mexico ; the 

 belief may also be obscurely traced in an inchoate 

 form among savage and inferior tribes, as, for ex- 

 ample, among the Indians of Central and North 

 America, and among some of the inhabitants of 

 Africa and barbarous Asia. 



While this conception took a more or less definite 

 form among the more advanced peoples, the earlier 

 and debased myths maintained their ground, and 



