HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF MYTH AND SCIENCE. 175 



" Christianity was originally based on the abso- 

 lute idea of the divine first Principle, to which one 

 portion of the Semitic race had attained by intel- 

 lectual evolution, and by the acumen of the great 

 men who brought this idea to perfection. Either 

 because of their clearer consciousness, or from their 

 environment and the physical circumstances of the 

 race, the Semitic people passed from the primitive 

 ideas of mythology to the conception of the absolute 

 and infinite Being, while other races still adhered to 

 altogether fanciful and anthropomorphic ideas of this 

 Being. Our race had an Olympus, like the others, 

 and throughout its history this Olympus was always 

 assuming new forms, although a human conception 

 was the basis of its religious ideas. The Chinese and 

 Semitic races were the first to rise to the conception 

 of an absolute first principle, but in both cases the 

 conception was more or less unfruitful. N 



" The gradual transition from consciousness to 

 conception, from the fact to the idea, from the idol 

 to the law, from, the symbol to the thought, from the 

 finite to the infinite, is the characteristic and essential 

 course taken by the human mind. But, practically, 

 this process is more gradual or more rapid, is re- 

 tarded or advanced, attains its aim or stops short 

 in its first rudiments, according to the race in which 

 it occurs. So it was that, as we have just said, the 

 Chinese and Semitic races were the first to reach 

 the final goal of this psychological progress; other 



