Mil THEISM; EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 185 



The shape assumed by these first traces of 

 divinity is that of the shadows of men's own 

 minds, projected out of themselves by their 

 imaginations : 



" There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive 

 all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object those 

 qualities with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of 

 which they are intimately conscious. . . . The unknown causes 

 which continually employ their thought, appearing always in 

 the same aspect, are all apprehended to be of the same kind or 

 species. Nor is it long before we ascribe to them thought, and 

 reason, and passion, and sometimes even the limbs and figures 

 of men in order to bring them nearer to a resemblance with 

 ourselves." (IV. pp. 4467.) 



Hume asks whether polytheism really deserves 

 the name of theism. 



"Our ancestors in Europe, before the revival of letters, 

 believed as we do at present, that there was one supreme God, 

 the author of nature, whose power, though in itself uncontrol- 

 lable, was yet often exerted by the interposition of his angels 

 and subordinate ministers, who executed his sacred purposes. 

 But they also believed, that all nature was full of other invisible 

 powers : fairies, goblins, elves, sprights ; beings stronger and 

 mightier than men, but much inferior to the celestial natures 

 who surround the throne of God. Now, suppose that any one, 

 in these ages, had denied the existence of God and of his angels, 

 would not his impiety justly have deserved the appellation of 

 atheism, even though he had still allowed, by some odd capri- 

 cious reasoning, that the popular stories of elves and fairies were 

 just and well grounded ? The difference, on the one hand, 

 between such a person and a genuine theist, is infinitely greater 

 than that, on the other, between him and one that absolutely 

 excludes all invisible intelligent power. And it is a fallacy, 

 merely from the casual resemblance of names, without any 



