152 PETARA, OR SEA DTAK GODS. 



is full, they think, of evil spirits ever on the alert to them, but 

 the subject o£ these antus opens up a new held of thought which 

 cannot be entered now. 



Petaras are not worshipped in temples, nor through the medium 

 of idols. Their idea of gods corresponds so closely to the idea of 

 men, the one rising so little above the other, that probably they 

 have never felt the necessity of representing Petarh by any spe- 

 cial material form. Petara is their own shadow projected into 

 the higher regions. Any conception men form of Grod must be 

 more or less anthropomorphic, more especially the conception of 

 the savage. He "invests Grod with bodily attributes. As man's 

 " knowledge changes, his idea of Grod changes ; as he mounts 

 " the scale of existence, his consciousness becomes clearer and 

 " more luminous, and his continual idealization of his better self 

 " is an ever improving reflex of the divine essence." ( l ) 



( x ) Origin and Development of Eeligious Beliefs. S. Barixo 

 G-ottld. Vol. i., p. 187. 



