2o 4 THE THRESHOLD OF EVOLUTION 



but he also expected his priests to have supernatural gifts 

 and endowments, for at this age he was inclined to endow all 

 nature with supernatural attributes, so it became necessary 

 that the priest should be a weather prophet also. This in- 

 duced the priests and prophets to become students of necro- 

 mancy and of the law as well as of religion. In the preceding 

 ages, the ages of civilisation and of agriculture, a knowledge 

 of astronomy and meteorological science began to hold as high 

 a place in the requirements of the people as that of religion, 

 so we now find that study is the correct counterpart of religion 

 in Table III., for it was astronomical study that evolved reli- 

 gions, and oflr Table III. is therefore correct in placing it 

 opposite religion. 



This is why the Chinese religion and certain forms of 

 Buddhism contain so many false ideas and teachings 

 which the well-balanced, wise and well-informed mind clearly 

 sees are only the confusions of an imperfect knowledge of 

 revelation, science, and astronomy, and why fortune-telling, 

 clairvoyance, necromancy and astronomical facts have in the 

 past been welded together in all manner and forms of super- 

 stitious beliefs, such as that astronomical influences can decide 

 and rule the fates of mankind, which in reality can only be 

 influenced by the power of God's Trinity, the effect of what 

 we call fate. But as God is the infinity of ether, there is some 

 small ground-work for such BELIEFS ; for God uses astro- 

 nomical influences to enforce the decrees of Fate in exactly 

 the same manner that He used the concurrent forces of heat and 

 cold, heredity and variation, as collateral influences to produce 

 new metamorphosis in reconstruction (of creation He now uses 

 mental ones to create new) forms of Government or religion, or 

 underlying influences that produce war, or a new revelation 

 of religious ideals and scientific discoveries. 



The religious teacher was consulted not only on all 

 matters of superstitious belief, but also on all matter pertain- 

 ing to war, agriculture, health, and the weather. It therefore 

 became necessary for him to study the laws of nature and the 

 influences of the heavenly bodies. He became a weather 

 prophet and an astronomical student as well as a law giver. 

 His superior knowledge thus gained soon won him the respect 

 of fear and reverence, ever given by one man to the man he 

 feels to be his intellectual superior. Thus study became the 



