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existed a practical monotheism, to which he endeavoured to 
return, as good men in all ages have looked back wistfully to 
a “ higher, holier, earlier, purer church.” It is easy to deny 
this great fact on the ground that we everywhere encounter 
numbers of figures of divinities ; but a careful analysis of 
these shadows will resolve them into their kindred air, and 
the result will be the same, whether the process is applied in 
Yedic India, or in Iran, Scandinavia, Germany, Italy, or 
Greece. Nor does this principle obtain in Aryan regions only. 
Prof. Sayce affirms* that Babylonian and Akkadian religious 
mythology is essentially solar ; that is, that we shall meet 
again with Mitra and Savitri and Yama and Agni, under other 
names indeed, but veritably the same personages in reality ; 
and M. Chabas, who is well-entitled to speak for Egypt, says 
that “ the Egyptian doctrine revealed to the initiated the 
unity and incomprehensibility of God, while the multitude was 
abandoned to the cult of material symbols.”! And thesemoderns 
have been anticipated by an ancient writer, who has left it on 
record that — 
“ nAoirrtov, Ylepcrecpovr), Atjju/jrrjp, Kv7rp(c, 'Epwreg, 
T piraveg, Nrjpeue, T riOvg, nal K vavo\a'irrig, 
"E pprig Q'> ' H ipaicrrog, re k X vrog, Eldv, Zsvg re, kcu ' Hpjj, 
” Aprepig, i]c’ Etcaepyog’ AttoAAwv, sig &tog earn ; .” 
The theory of an archaic monotheism has been objected to on 
the ground that the instance of Plato and the other philo- 
sophical Greeks of the great ages shows that the monotheistic 
idea is the culmination and end, not the beginning of human 
thought. But the reply is obvious. Doubtless it required the 
intellectual might of a Plato to free the human mind from the 
meshes of a long-established polytheism, but there is no evi- 
dence that any such powers are needed for the original recep- 
tion of the simple truth that “ there is one God, and none other 
but He.” Monotheism is simpler than polytheism, even as 
* “ The more the Babylonian mythology is examined, the more solar is 
its origin found to be ; thus confirming the results arrived at in the Aryan 
and Semitic fields of research.” Except Anu and Hea, “ the great deities 
seem all to go back to the Sun ” (Trans. Soc. Bib. Archceol. ii. 24G, note). 
We are thus, it will be observed, left with a triad, namely (1) Anu, 
Akkadian Ana, “the High” God : called Zi-Ana, “Spirit of the heavens 
Pater. (2) The Sun-god; Potentia. (3) Hea, the lord of wisdom and of 
the deep, called Hea- Ana, Gk. Oannes, “the god Hea,” Mens. 
f Records of the Past, x. 6. “ There may be truth in the assertion that 
the esoteric religion of ancient Egypt centred in a doctrine of divine unity, 
manifested through the heterogeneous crowd of popular deities.” (Tylor, 
Primitive Culture, ii. 322.) 
