Evolnilon of TJieuhxji/. 243 



there prevailed. The King being the God-incarnate, the 

 religious sentiment was one of mere subjection, mostly 

 unrelieved by any ethical features. Obedience and worship 

 were first in consequence, and, although the ideas of sin and 

 its punishment became early prominent in the Osiris-worship 

 of Egypt, the subseqxient rise to influence of the worsliip 

 of Ra and Amnion largely obscured the moral idea incul- 

 cated by the older religion. 



Mythology and fetish-worship are together projjerly in- 

 cluded in the term polytheism. The issue out of these, by 

 a slow evolution, of the monotheistic idea follows in the 

 order of development. That such an idea was certain to 

 emerge at some time and place in religious history, was an 

 inevitable consequence of tlie advance in the generalizing 

 faculty possessed by man. The same impulse towards cen- 

 tralization in theistic ideas, by which he rose from the dis- 

 connected and unrelated fancies of fetish-worship to a 

 rational mythology, compelled a further advance to mono- 

 theism, — to the conception of a Primal Being, a single 

 Source, a Unity which should be comprehensive of all phe- 

 nomena, the sole result which would satisfy man's advancing 

 thought. If the immediate outcome was essentially an 

 anthropomorphic conception, it was still an immense advance 

 upon the miscellaneous and kaleidoscopic mythologies of 

 polytheism; though these had claimed good reason for 

 existence, as transitional and, indeed, necessary phases. 

 That the monotheistic idea was mainly given to the world 

 through the medium of Hebrew thought is a circumstance 

 due to the subjection of the Hebrew race to a mental and 

 social environment favorable to the development of this 

 idea among them. It was the evolution there of a germ im- 

 planted in the human mind everywhere. Every polytheism 

 has within itself the " promise and potency " of monotlieis]n. 

 The Hebrew did not consciously formulate the doctrine on 

 philosophical jirinciples, — it was a growth with him. That 

 there has existed among many peoples and races what we 

 may term a monotheistic sub-consciousness has been ably 

 shown by Mr. 8. Baring-Gould,* by evidences which are 

 conclusive. "Although Mosaism," says he, "must be 

 regarded as the mother of Christianity and Islamism, yet 

 classic antiquity, behind its imagery of myth and above its 

 pantheon, recognized, feebly and fitfully, it is true, but 



♦Origin and Development of Religions Belief. 



