RELIGIOUS RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. 343 



with this differentiation of physical attributes from those of humanity 

 there goes on more slowly the differentiation of mental attributes. 

 The god of the savage, represented as having intelligence scarcely if 

 at all greater than that of the living man, is deluded with ease. 

 Even the gods of the semi-civilized are deceived, make mistakes, re- 

 pent of their plans ; and only in course of time does there arise the 

 conception of unlimited vision and universal knowledge. The emo- 

 tional nature simultaneously undergoes a parallel transformation. 

 The grosser passions, originally conspicuous and carefully ministered 

 to by devotees, gradually fade, leaving only the passions less related 

 to corporal satisfactions ; and eventually these, too, become partially 

 dehumanized. 



These ascribed characters of deities are continually adapted and re- 

 adapted to the needs of the social state. During the militant phase of 

 activity, the chief god is conceived as holding insubordination the 

 greatest crime, as implacable in anger, as merciless in punishment ; 

 and any alleged attributes of a milder kind occupy but small space in 

 the social consciousness. But, where militancy declines and the harsh 

 despotic form of government appropriate to it is gradually qualified 

 by the form appropriate to industrialism, the foreground of the reli- 

 gious consciousness is increasingly filled with those ascribed traits of 

 the divine nature which are congruous with the ethics of peace : di- 

 vine love, divine forgiveness, divine mercy, are now the characteristics 

 enlarged upon. 



To perceive clearly the effects of mental progress and changing 

 social life, thus stated in the abstract, we must glance at them in the 

 concrete. If, without foregone conclusions, we contemplate the tra- 

 ditions, records, and monuments, of the Egyptians, we see that out of 

 their primitive ideas of gods, brute or human, there were evolved 

 spiritualized ideas of gods, and finally of a god ; until the priesthoods 

 of later times, repudiating the earlier ideas, described them as corrup- 

 tions : being swayed by the universal tendency to regard the first state 

 as the highest — a tendency traceable down to the theories of existing 

 theologians and mythologists. Again, if, putting aside speculations, 

 and not asking what historical value the " Iliad " may have, we take 

 it simply as indicating the early Greek notion of Zeus, and compare 

 this with the notion contained in the Platonic dialogues, we see that 

 Greek civilization had greatly modified (in the better minds, at least) 

 the purely anthropomorphic conception of him : the lower human at- 

 tributes being dropped and the higher ones transfigured. Similarly, 

 if we contrast the Hebrew God described in primitive traditions, man- 

 like in appearance, appetites, and emotions, with the Hebrew God as 

 characterized by the prophets, there is shown a widening range of 

 power along with a nature increasingly remote from that of man. 

 And, on passing to the conceptions of him which are now entertained, 

 we are made aware of an extreme transfiguration. By a convenient 



