DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 4 1 



of the crops. The memorialist thinks that important services such 

 as these should not go unacknowledged, and he begs therefore in 

 accordance with the wish of the inhabitants to address the 

 Emperor on the subject. His Majesty replies, graciously con- 

 ferring the suggested tablet on the mountain divinities. 



Not very differently was the grateful spirit of the German 

 Emperor displayed during the late European war. After special 

 acts of successful carnage he made haste to chaunt the praises of 

 his bellicose Teutonic divinity, to whom, indeed, signal honours 

 were accorded at the close of the conflict. A like gratitude is 

 seen in a Vedic hymn, dedicated to Parganya, one of the deities 

 of the clouds, often addressed as supreme. Herein we read — 

 " Stop now, Parganya ; thou hast sent rain ; thou hast made the 

 ''deserts passable and hast caused the plants to grow; and thou 

 "hast obtained praise from men." It would seem, moreover, that 

 when the human mind has long accustomed itself to regard the 

 more variable phenomena of nature as influenced by religious 

 observances, it acquires a belief that even the stupendous 

 uniformities of the solar system are subject also to personal caprice. 

 Thus, Confucius taught " Honour the sky : reverence the manes 

 " (or spirits of the dead) ; if you do this, sun and moon will keep 

 " their appointed time." 



Before going further, it is necessary to say, in order to prevent 

 misunderstanding, that the word "person" is used here in its only 

 legitimate sense as signifying a human being. Applied to a 

 divinity the term would connote a perfect human form and the 

 highest degree of human faculties or affections, such as anger, 

 love, purpose, regret. In vertebrates these mental states are 

 known as psychoses, and are always found associated with 

 cerebration, being discharged as functions of the brain. 



The growth of the religious sense, when once it has risen above 

 fetichism, is remarkably illustrated in the history of the early 

 Hebrews. The intensely personal nature of their divinity is seen 

 in the statement that in his image and after his likeness man was 

 made (Gen. i, 26). Before they reached the magnificent 

 conception of One God, it is clear that they regarded Jahveh as 

 their own tribal divinity. " Wilt not thou possess that which 

 " Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess ? So whomsoever Jahveh 

 " our god shall drive out from before us, them will we possess." 

 (Judges xi, 24). Sometimes, too, " they forsook Jahveh the god 

 " of their fathers, and followed the gods of the people that were 

 " round about them and provoked Jahveh to anger." (Judges 

 ii, 12). And though they ultimately attained to the sublime belief 

 that purity and uprightness are better than the ceremonial 

 observances of any religion (Psalm Li, 16, 17), the tendency to 

 attribute to their divinity the possession of human senses and to 

 supply them with an appropriate stimulation, lingered to the last. 



