16 
ANNUAL ADDRESS. 
myths, we have direct evidence that they are knowledge lost. 
An immense amount has been written upon myths in recent 
years, and the assumption has almost always been that they 
are primitive, original, the first stage towards knowledge. 
That is an assumption, and, — in this case, where we can test it, — 
it is an untrue assumption. 
If, in science, myth means the degradation of knowledge, 
does the very opposite of this hold good in religion ? Have 
we the right to assume that in religion, myth is knowledge in 
the germ ? 
In the Address given you a year ago, Dr. Welldon affirmed 
that it is so. He said : — 
“ Primitive man then personifies Nature. He spiritualises Nature. 
He invests objects not with life only but with will ; and his religion, as 
expressing the relation which he conceives to exist between his own 
spirit and the spiritual force outside himself, naturally takes the form 
of an attempt to influence the unseen powers in which he instinctively 
believes. 
“ This is the beginning of religion. It contains the germs of all 
the infinitely various creeds and cults which have elevated or 
desolated humanity. 
“For as man’s intellectual faculties were strengthened by 
observation and reflection, it was almost inevitable that he should 
effect the speculative transition from so-called idolatry to polytheism, 
from the worship of many gods to the worship of fewer gods, and in 
the end to monotheism. The spiritual powers resident in all natural 
objects converge into the one great spiritual power who is called God. 
And the gradual ennoblement of religion lies in the purging away of 
all the material imaginations which have gathered around the pure 
spirituality of God Himself. For when once the existence of 
spiritual beings, many or few, was apprehended, the belief in the 
supreme Being was a sure result of time and thought.” 
Is this so ? Have we on record a single observed case in 
which a religion has evolved in this sequence of spiritism, 
polytheism, henotheism, and finally monotheism ? Have we in 
all history an example of polytheism passing into monotheism 
except through the influence of monotheism from without ? 
We have abundant illustration of a conflict between the two 
ideas — coming from different quarters — and of the victory of 
the purer faith. But where and when have we an instance of 
the direct evolution of polytheism into the worship of One and 
Only God ? 
On this point let us look at the evidence supplied by the first 
