20 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



vails, there, as among the Hottentots and Caffres, religion has a milder 

 aspect ; while, among those tribes which, besides cattle-breeding and 

 agriculture, have engaged also in industry and commerce, a still more 

 humane spirit characterizes their worship. 



A similar difference, though on a less pronounced scale, is seen in 

 the two elements that united to form the Greek nation. The older 

 stock, whose blood ran in the peasantry, were a half-savage people and 

 their gods consequently rude — half -bestial satyrs and centaurs, black 

 Demeters, images of the unsown earth ; mountain Titans, uncouth 

 Pan ; thievish, tricksy Hermes ; the mighty but reckless, wanton Her- 

 acles, type of the red and angry sun, gods but half-focused in the 

 minds of their own worshipers, and represented often by rude blocks 

 of wood and stone. But these could not content the spiritual demands 

 of the later comers, the more polished Iranians, finer of temperament, 

 and imbued by their contact with the civilization of Asia Minor with 

 higher tastes. So we find among them more graceful and elevated 

 gods — stately Hera and chaste Artemis, heaven-born Pallas and the 

 beauteous Apollo — noble ideals of the highest manhood and woman- 

 hood that they could conceive. 



And as civilization still further progresses, as peace and law be- 

 come the rule in the community, as arts and knowledge increase, the 

 conceptions of the divine and the worship suitable for him rise pro- 

 portionately. With the exacter study of nature, sorcery and omens 

 become less credible. The gods themselves are seen to be subject to 

 an unchangeable order. Indications of intelligence, of goodness, and 

 of rectitude in the world, point irresistibly to a divine with the high 

 attributes from which alone these effects can proceed. As the reason 

 grows, the crude polytheism in which man at first rested is found en- 

 vironed with perplexities and inconsistencies. Reason pushes steadily 

 toward the universal and the single. If the thunder-cloud was a di- 

 vine being, why not every drop of rain that fell ? If the lion or bull 

 was a god, why not every fly and midge ? In revolt against such 

 cheapening of the idea of divinity, there would arise, with the devel- 

 opment of intelligence, a tendency to absorb the host of gods in fewer 

 and more potent gods. Next, the interaction of nature's processes 

 would be noted. The fire that warms the house is recognized as essen- 

 tially one and the same force with that which flushes the sky at dawn, 

 flashes from the solar orb, or gleams in the lightning's quick illumina- 

 tion : " Thou Agni," as the Vedic poet at length cried — " thou Agni 

 art Indra, art Vishnu, art Brahman-aspati. Thou Agni art born Va- 

 runa, becomest Mitra when kindled. In thee, son of strength, art all 

 the gods."— ("Rig. Veda," vii, 30, 31, vii, 1-3.) 



As observation widens, then, the diverse parts of nature are more 

 and more woven into one web. The various deities are recognized as 

 but aliases under which a single power hides. The unity of the world 

 forbids us to think of it as the prey of numberless capricious and in- 



