than that to be found in the pint-pot. Here religion steps in and undertakes to encourage him with hopes, if he will expend his vital energy in the development of his higher powers, and deter him by threats appreciable by a coarse, animal nature, from resisting his spiritual instincts, and burying them in fleshly indulgence.

But, also, if there be a God, then man bears relations to Him, and his duties to God are of a private nature, and therefore not of interest to the state, and in no way coming under the jurisdiction of science. And what are the duties man owes to God can only be ascertained by a revelation, for they cannot be discovered experimentally.

Consequently, there are four spheres; the sphere of physics, that of politics, that of psychology, and that of theology.

In the early ethic codes all four were fused into one, and as a religious act man abstained from pork, obeyed the king, cultivated his mental and spiritual powers, and worshipped God. Now, religion is seen to embrace only the two latter provinces, and to rule man in his duty to himself and his duty to God

CHAPTER XII

THE ORIGIN OF MONOTHEISM

The mode by which conclusions are reached not generally considered— Concrete terminology inadequate to express abstract ideas-Tendency of all religious systems to gravitate into Theism or Pantheism-First vague ideas of God-Polytheism, its logical difficulties-Escape in the direction of Monotheism-Absolute unity-Relative unity-The recognition of natural law-The idea of the unity of this law-The idea of transcendental knowledge-The idea of the unity of the Creator-The idea of the infinity of space, and of time-The idea of substance; which is spiritual or corporeal-The idea of the unity of corporeal substance the basis of Pantheism; that of the unity of spiritual substance the basis of Theism-Materialism-Theism and Pantheism not necessarily anta

gonistic.

EN arrive at conclusions, very generally, without in the least knowing by what train of thought they have been led. The examination of the starting-point, and the connotation of the stages through which thought moves to the result, are commonly neglected.

In investigating the origin of monotheism, it will be necessary to follow the chain of thought which has conducted intelligent races to theism, though the several links have been as little observed as are the distance-posts past which the traveller is whirled to his destination, and which, even if seen, leave no sensible impression on his .memory.

Two facts arrest our attention at the outset-the prevalence of monotheism, and the tendency of civilization towards it. Monotheism is at present the creed of a large section of the human race. The Christian, the Jew, and the Mohammedan hold the unity of the Great Cause, with varying distinctness, according to their powers of abstraction.

rope, by means of Science is hampered express its meaning.

Language will ever be cumbered with a concrete terminology, and will present a certain uncouthness in the expression of absolute ideas; and we must guard against being led astray by the figures of speech which we employ to express ideas which language is incompetent to express with precision. Thought girds up its loins, and outruns language. The mind struggles to find expression for ideas which transcend terminology, and is obliged to lay hold of such words and phrases as are at its disposal, and use them as best it can; like the captive, who, longing for freedom, plaits the straw of his mattress into which to escape from his dungeon. with a like inadequacy of language to To the child, the idea conveyed by the word "heaven" is one of place. He points to it; it is above his head; it is sprinkled with stars. When he is taught about the solar system, he calls that heaven. When he becomes a philosopher, he conceives heaven to be unlimited space. Child and philosopher alike use the term heaven, which signifies that which is "lifted or heaved up," and is as crude and material an expression as could well have been adopted. When a monotheist speaks of God "sitting on His seat,' "hiding His face," his idea is not necessarily anthropomorphic, but he uses metaphorical expressions without fear of being misunderstood by other monotheists, which

in the mouth of a polytheist would have a very material meaning.

The second fact we observe is the tendency shown by all religious systems that are in the hands of an actively intelligent people to gravitate into theism or pantheism. If we have here to go over ground already trodden, it must be pardoned; for in the examination of the springs of religious thought, we have to return again and again to the wild bog of savageism in which they bubble up. The recognition of Power uncontrolled by man has been shown to constitute the first religious idea. At that point it could not rest. At certain periods the movement in ideas is slow, and speculation is apparently at a standstill; but such periods are like the stress-points of a water-wheel: the movement is slowest because the greatest leverage is being employed, and that point passed, it revolves with accelerated velocity.

Through the dim perceptions of a bewildered intellect the primeval man saw confusedly piled up above him an awful Power, terrible in its might, vague in outline, and mysterious in its nature. Wherever he turned his eye it loomed on him, and seemed to threaten him with destruction.

At this first stage a great part of mankind still remains, its mind benumbed with fear. Throughout Central Africa, and along the snowy steppes of Northern Asia, this is the grade of intelligent conception of the Deity held by an untold population. In this conception there is no personality, no antagonism; and the life of the savage who holds this view is unruled by any moral code, unkindled by any hope of social or individual progress. He has no thought but for his day; his motives are drawn from his present necessities; he knows no past, cares for no future; lives only for the present, and that a present of animal

appetites. When the thunder growls, he grovels before it in abject terror, and screams prayers to it. When the sun is eclipsed, he rattled kettles to frighten the demons who is eating it. When serenity and sunlight return, his religious fervour disappears; born with danger, it disappears as danger vanishes.

But as civilization advanced, and with it a cultivation of the mental powers, man began to reason, not merely to perceive. He individualized powers, and classified them. His life was emancipated from the reign of terror, and as the witchery of the beauty of Nature fell on him, he cast himself in a rapture of love at her feet, and worshipped her in all her manifestations. He worshipped the sun, the earth, the trees, the winds. Little by little the objects of nature became personified and anthropomorphised, and he became a polytheist. But polytheism has a tendency towards monotheism. A less observant or intelligent reasoner would locate force in the object moved or produced; the more perspicacious observer would trace it to a single Will detached from the result. The former would place one intelligence in plants, another in water; the latter would attribute the impress on nature to a Divine Power, unfettered by matter, and uninvolved in it. The former would be a polytheist, and the latter a monotheist. the polytheist is encumbered with endless difficulties, from which he can only extricate himself in the direction of monotheism. If a stream of water be endowed with a divine intelligence because it flows down hill, why not also every rain-drop that trickles down the wall? The same law that governs the river rules the rill, and is impressed on the rain-drop. Rather than admit such an absurdity as the deification of every aqueous particle, the rational polytheist escapes upward to the conception of

But