258 HASISADRA'S ADVENTURE V n 



standards, it appears to me that directorates are 

 proved, by familiar experience, to conduct the 

 largest and the most complicated concerns quite 

 as well as solitary despots. I have never been able 

 to see why *the hypothesis of a divine syndicate 

 should be found guilty of innate absurdity. Those 

 Assyrians, in particular, who held Assur to be the 

 one supreme and creative deity, to whom all the 

 other supernal powers were subordinate, might 

 fairly ask that the essential difference between 

 their system and that which obtains among the 

 great majority of their modern theological critics 

 should be demonstrated. In my apprehension, it 

 is not the quantity, but the quality, of the persons, 

 among whom the attributes of divinity are distri- 

 buted, which is the serious matter. If the divine 

 might is associated with no higher ethical attri- 

 butes than those which obtain among ordinary 

 men ; if the divine intelligence is supposed to be 

 so imperfect that it cannot foresee the consequences 

 of its own contrivances ; if the supernal powers 

 can become furiously angry with the creatures of 

 their omnipotence and, in their senseless wrath, 

 destroy the innocent along with the guilty ; or if 

 they can show themselves to be as easily placated 

 by presents and gross flattery as any oriental or 

 occidental despot ; if, in short, they are only 

 stronger than mortal men and no better, as it must 

 be admitted Hasisadra's deities proved themselves 

 to be then, surely, it is time for us to look some- 



