POWELL. | STAGES OF MYTHOLOGIC PHILOSOPHY. 31 
whose essential characteristics are moral qualities, is the final product. 
The monotheistic god is not nature, but presides over and operates , 
through nature. Psychotheism has long been recognized. All of the 
earlier literature of mankind treats largely of these gods, for it is an 
interesting fact that in the history of any civilized people, the evolution 
of psychotheism is approximately synchronous with the invention of an 
alphabet. In the earliest writings of the Egyptians, the Hindoos, and 
the Greeks, this stage is discovered, and Osiris, Indra, and Zeus are 
characteristic representatives. As psychotheism and written language 
appear together in the evolution of culture, this stage of theism is con- 
sciously or unconsciously a part of the theme of all written history. 
The paleontologist, in studying the rocks of the hill and the cliffs of 
the mountain, discovers, in inanimate stones, the life-forms of the ancient 
earth. The geologist, in the study of the structure of valleys and 
mountains, discovers groups of facts that lead him to a knowledge of 
more ancient mountains and valleys and seas, of geographic features 
long ago buried, and followed by a new land with new mountains and 
valleys, and new seas. The philologist, in studying the earliest writings 
of a people, not only discovers the thoughts purposely recorded in those 
writings, but is able to go back in the history of the people many gen- 
erations, and discover with even greater certainty the thoughts of the 
more ancient people who made the words. Thus the writings of the 
Greeks, the Hindoos, and the Egyptians, that give an account of their 
psychic gods, also contain a description of an earlier theism unconsciously 
recorded by the writers themselves. Psychotheism prevailed when the 
sentences were coined, physitheism when the words were coined. So the 
philologist discovers physitheism in all ancient literature. But the verity 
of that stage of philosophy does not rest alone upon the evidence derived 
from the study of fossil philosophies through the science of philology. 
In the folk-lore of every civiilzed people having a psychotheistie phil- 
osophy, an earlier philosophy with nature-gods is discovered. 
The different stages of philosophy which I have attempted to charac- 
terize have never been found in purity. We always observe different 
methods of explanation existing side by side, and the type of a phi- 
losophy is determined by the prevailing characteristics of its explana- 
nation of phenomena. Fragments of the earlier are always found side by 
side with the greater body ofthe later philosophy. Manhas never clothed 
himself in new garments of wisdom, but has ever been patching the old, 
and the old and the new are blended in the same pattern, and thus we 
have atavism in philosophy. So in the study of any philosophy which 
has reached the psychotheistic age, patches of the earlier philosophy are 
always seen. Ancient nature-gods are found to be living and associat- 
ing with the supreme psychic deities. Thus in anthropologic science 
there are three ways by which to go back in the history of any civilized 
people and learn of its barbaric physitheism. But of the verity of this 
stage we have further evidence. When Christianity was carried north 
