COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



that it was quite as likely to bring disaster as 

 good fortune. Thus the volitional agencies by 

 which fetishism sought to account for surround- 

 ing phenomena came to be regarded as capri- 

 cious and malevolent agencies, whose wrath 

 must be averted by prayer or sorcery, and 

 whose favour must be bought by sacrifice. Thus 

 arose the conception of God as a consuming fire. 

 Thus it was that in Egypt deprecating prayers 

 were addressed to the crocodile, and in Syria to 

 the serpent; that Hindu mothers threw their 

 children into the Ganges, while Carthaginians 

 burned their new-born infants in front of the 

 brazen image of Moloch. 



This sense of a Satanic presence in nature, 

 whether embodied in the form of a malevolent 

 devil or in that of a ferocious deity, ever ready 

 to burst forth with fire and consume his crea- 

 tures, has been of long continuance. It lies at 

 the bottom of mediaeval witchcraft, and it shows 

 itself in the modern "revival meetings" in which 

 the religious theories of uneducated people still 

 betray their close kinship with those of the sav- 

 age. From the educated portion of the com- 

 munity, however, it has entirely disappeared ; 

 and its disappearance is manifestly due to that 

 part of their education which has consisted in 

 the scientific generalization of natural agencies, 

 and in the consequent deanthropomorphization 

 of their conceptions, of force. We have seen 

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