able with that for which Omniscience and Omnipotence must be responsible. Nor does it exclude all other objects of gratitude and reverence. It is indeed a glorified form of what we mean by Patriotism. It is a vast extension of patriotism to the whole human brotherhood. It is the sense of love and devotion to the Fatherland of us all, to the countrymen of the human race. And of such a patriotism, respect for the Earth and for the World is a wholesome and natural part.

CHAPTER V

POLYTHEISM

I PROCEED, in my systematic study of the moral and social efficacy of various religions, to consider that of Polytheism-the worship of many gods-which everywhere has succeeded the worship of Nature, and prepares the way for Monotheism, the worship of one deity.

It will be observed that the long evolution of religion is a gradual concentration, limitation, and definition of the religious instinct of reverence and submission. It first expands vaguely to all forms of Nature. Then it personifies special natural forces. At last it imagines a single power in the universe. Finally, it must turn to the chief power visible on our earth.

In Polytheism the more salient phases of Man and of Nature are endowed with personality and a superhuman power and spirit. We call it Paganism, and are apt to think it an obsolete superstition of classical times, as if Polytheism were concerned only with Jupiter and Juno, Mars and Venus. The contrary is true. From historic times Polytheism is far the oldest, most widely spread, most enduring of human religions. It was the religion of ancient Egypt for at least 5,000 years and probably double that time. And for the same vast period we can trace it in Asia. It was the religion of Greece for quite 1,000 years down to the time of Con

stantine and even of Justinian. It was the religion of Rome for more than 1,000 years. It was the religion of the European races down to the early Middle Ages, even to the time of Charles and Alfred. It was the religion of India for countless ages, and is still held by 200,000,000 Hindoos, having survived and expelled Buddhism.

Polytheism is the ancient religion of Japan and of nearly all Asiatic races in their primitive state, except that of China. Confucianism is a highly organised Fetichism; but socially and morally it is allied to Polytheism by recognising various providential powers, though these are not spiritualised or personified. In Asia and in Africa, in Europe and America, wherever there is an organised state with a fairly high civilisation of its own, Polytheism prevails until Monotheism is introduced by conquest or by missionaries. The one great exception is China, which remains a religion of Nature; but a religion of Nature highly modified by the worship of several powers having local seats and special influence.

In fact, after all these centuries since Moses little more than one-third of the human race are Monotheists. Polytheists are more numerous than any others except the Chinese Fetichists.

No Monotheism, except the Mosaic in one small and dispersed race, has ever had anything like the continuity and vast antiquity of many forms of Polytheism. No form of Monotheism has been so widely dispersed over

the human race, and seems so natural to the human mind in the earlier phases of civilisation.

I am not recommending Polytheism, but showing that, historically and sociologically, it covers a vast proportion of the ground in the religious history of mankind.

I turn to that striking analysis of Comte which has puzzled so many, but is one of the most signal instances of his profound genius.

In his "Polity" he says: "Polytheism is the most characteristic, most important, most durable, and most efficacious form which the theological type of religion has ever taken. The worship of one deity never has, and never can, produce so potent a type of religion as the worship of many deities has done and does. Monotheism in all its forms, Mosaic, Christian, Mussulman, Protestant, Catholic, Deist, does not exercise over the whole nature and life of man an influence so constant, so varied, so direct as Polytheism in its full vigour and perfection."

Monotheism is a degeneration, in one sense, a decline of theology, a shrinkage and falling away of the divine inspiration. Such is the startling paradox which Comte maintains.

Of course, we fully admit that in many respects Monotheism is both intellectually and socially a great advance on the whole, and especially that it is—or rather opens the ground for a great moral and spiritual ad

vance.

So too, we entirely accept the truism that Monotheism is a nobler type of religion, an indispensable phase of human evolution, infinitely more fitted to inspire purity and moral exaltation of nature, and far more reconcilable with the whole intellectual field.

No one doubts that the religion of St. Paul was a far grander ideal than the religion of Homer; that St. Bernard's ideal of spiritual morality was a higher type than that of Eschylus or Virgil. No one disputes that. But still Polytheism exercised a wider, more general, more spontaneous influence over the entire field of human life and activity than any other form of theology.

In Polytheism every aspect of Nature, every change in the physical conditions around, every act of daily life, every instinct of humanity, had its own personal, indwelling divine being, graduated, organised, but always active and manifesting its presence. The sun, the moon, stars, earth, air, clouds, rivers, fountains, sea, mountains, trees, flowers, animals—all had special divinities. Agriculture, vintage, seafaring, voyaging, boundaries, tombs, gates, statues, houses, hearths, chambers, etc., etc.-all were consecrated to some divinity, often very humble, local, simple, but superhuman and ideal. Libations, meals, omens, every act of life, weighing in scales, measuring a distance, founding a house, beginning a journey, had divine protectors.

It may be said that the devout Christian, Jew or Mussulman, constantly says his prayers, and meditates on the Almighty continually. But he cannot realise