248 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



ity was regarded separately, later the rise of civiliza- 

 tion led to a modification of custom, to a reference of 

 action and belief to the standards of pure reason, and 

 to an attempt at unification. Once this occurred, and 

 equally so whether the attempt at unification had an 

 intellectual or a moral basis, polytheism was doomed. 

 Its downfall has been often described; the reasons 

 for it are suggestively put by Jevons in his little book, 

 "The Idea of God.'' It passes through a stage where 

 one among the gods is pre-eminent: but finally even 

 that does not suffice, and in its place arises a mono- 

 theistic creed. 



Monotheism may start as a purely local or tribal 

 affair — my one God against yours. It may not only 

 start, but long continue so. Readers of Mr. Bang's 

 collection of startling German war-sayings will re- 

 member the superbly national prayer of the Prussian 

 pastor who addressed his God (I quote from mem- 

 ory) as "Du, der hoch iiber Cherubinen, Seraphinen, 

 und Zeppelinen ewig tronst." (J. P. Bang, Hur- 

 rah and Hallelujah. London, 1916.) But this idea, 

 too, is self-contradictory, and merges into that of one 

 God for all men. The primitive anthropomorphism 

 which had invested the first vague and mysterious 

 spirits with human parts and passions, human speech 

 and thought, also fell into gradual desuetude. It 

 was kept up as a symbol, or because of the difficulty 

 of describing a God except in terms human indi- 

 viduality, but its literal truth was deliberately de- 

 nied. God became different from and more than 



