out of polytheism. Both species may be descended from a common ancestor, but not one from the other. Further, the original form out of which the two later varieties were developed must have so developed by a series of intermediate forms. We should therefore expect, if we could trace monotheism back through these intermediate forms, to find some of them of such a kind that it would be difficult to say whether, strictly speaking, they were forms of monotheism or not, though they clearly were not forms of polytheism. Thus the essence of monotheism is that in it the worshipper worships only one god. What then shall we say of the worshipper who worships one god alone, but believes that the gods worshipped by other tribes exist, and are really gods, though his own attitude towards them is one of hostility? It is obvious that his is a lower form of faith than that of the man who worships only one god, and believes that, as for the gods of the heathen, they are but idols. Yet though his is not the highest form of monotheism, to call it polytheism would be an abuse of language. But if several tribes, each holding this rudimentary form of monotheism, coalesced into one political whole, and combined their gods into a pantheon, each tribe worshipping the others' gods as well as its own, we should have polytheism; while another tribe, of the same stock, might remain faithful to its god and develop the higher forms of monotheism. Thus polytheism and monotheism would both be evolved out of one and the same rudimentary form and common ancestor.

It may be said that to argue thus is to derive polytheism from monotheism, which is just as erroneous as to derive monotheism from polytheism, or to argue that apes are descended from men. It becomes necessary, therefore, to insist on the plain fact that religion is not an organism: religion is not an animal, or a plant, that it must obey identically the same laws of growth and evolution. It may be that there are resemblances between religion as an organisation and an animal organism. It is certain that there are great differences. It may well be that the resemblances are sufficient to create an analogy between the two cases; but the differences make it inevitable that at some point or other the analogy should break down; and

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fact of which the religious consciousness has direct intuition; and hence it is never, like a purely religious movement, propagated through the mass of average, unphilosophical mankind. They are not to be touched by complicated arguments; and the philosopher is not consumed by that zeal of the Lord which enables the religious reformer to fire his fellow-men. The prophets of Israel denounced the worship

of false gods. The philosophers of Egypt found accommodation for them as manifestations of the one real existence. The belief that the one reality is equally real in all its forms, and that all its forms are equally unreal, is not a creed which leads to the breaking of idols, the destruction of groves and high places, or the denunciation of all worship save at the altar of the Lord. Pantheism is the philosophical complement of a pantheon; but the spirit which produced the monotheism of the Jews must have been something very different. Nor is it easy to see why among the Jews alone monarchy should have yielded monotheism. If monarchy, like monotheism, had been an institution peculiar to the Jews, there might be something in the argument. But monarchy has flourished amongst most peoples, much more successfully than among the Jews, and nowhere has it had monotheism for its concomitant. Even "the supposed monotheistic tendency of the Semitic as opposed to the Hellenic or Aryan system of religion," which "is in the main nothing more than a consequence of the alliance of religion with monarchy, . . cannot in its natural development fairly be said to have come near to monotheism." Amongst the Jews, alone of the Semites, did it follow a line other than that of "its natural development."

With syncretism-the practice of not merely identifying different gods, but of fusing their cults into one ritual-the case is somewhat different. On the one hand, it is probable that several gods have gone to the making up of, say, the one god Apollo, in whose worship the rites of all are united. On the other, it is certain that for the Greek of any recorded period the personality of Apollo was as individual as his own. But even if we were to admit that the ritual of Jehovah is to be accounted for in this way, we should be no 1 Robertson Smith, op. cit. 74 and 75,

nearer to the desired conclusion that polytheism passes into monotheism; for, though syncretism on this theory terminates in monotheism, it does not start in polytheism. On the contrary, the analysis of the ritual even of polytheistic gods leads us back simply to inchoate monotheism. The earliest form of society, the clan, is not only a social community, it is also a religious society: fellow-tribesman and fellowworshipper are convertible terms, because the members of the clan are united to one another, not only by the bond of kinship, but also by joint communion in the sacramental sacrifice of the totem-god. Hence changes in the social or political structure may react upon the cult of the community, and vice versa. Thus, if two or more clans amalgamate, for any reason, their cults also will be amalgamated, for the ratification, or rather the very constitution of the political union, consists in the joint worship of the confederating clans at the same altar. When a tribe of the Fantis joins the confederation of the Ashantis, it does so by renouncing the worship of the Fanti god and joining that of the Ashanti confederation. Now, if the gods of the amalgamating clans have each a strongly marked individuality and a firm hold upon their worshippers, the result will be that each clan will worship the gods of the other clans-or the god of the clan which leads in the confederacy-without renouncing its own totem-god; and so the tribe which before amalgamation had but its own one god will after the amalgamation worship two or more gods. In this case, polytheism is the consequence of synoikismos, of political growth. But polytheism is not the consequence in all cases: syncretim is at first the more common consequence, because it is only by a slow process of development that gods acquire an individuality sufficiently well marked, and characteristics sufficiently specific, to prevent their being confused with other gods having a similar origin and the same ritual as themselves. At first the clan-god has not even a name of his own: he requires none, for the clan has no other god from whom he needs to be distinguished. For long, a general name or epithet suffices for all his needs. It is very late that he acquires a personal name, absolutely peculiar to himself. When, then, two or more clans, whose ideas of their gods are in this fluid state,

amalgamate, it is almost inevitable that their gods should be unified what is essential to their political union is that each should partake of the other's sacrifice and so become of one blood and one worship with each other; each therefore brings to a common altar its own animal-totem, each in turn dashes the blood of sacrifice on the same altar-stone, and each partakes of the other's victim. Thus the god of each passes into or manifests himself at the same altar and on the occasion of the same complex act of worship, and the identity of the altar and the unity of the ritual so add to the difficulty of mentally separating two nameless gods who have now nothing to distinguish them, that the very memory of their difference soon dies away. Even more rapid and complete is this process of syncretism, if one of the two gods has a personal name and the other has not; for the one with a name survives in the minds of men, and inherits altar and worship and all, whereas the nameless god is forgotten outright. In this way a god, whose worshippers were so vividly impressed with his personality as to appropriate to him a proper name, might, as his worshippers absorbed one tribe after another into their confederacy, come to inherit several different rituals: the various tribes might come to worship at his altar with their own rites and their own victims, but it would be at his altar and in his name. Thus, even if we admit that the complex sacrificial rites of the Levitical law are an instance of syncretism, inevitably consequent on the political process by which the Jews were formed into one state; still we are not thereby taken back from monotheism to previous polytheism, and we do gain an explanation not only of the ritual, but also of the backsliding which has been supposed to be a survival of polytheism; for some tribes doubtless would be reluctant to abandon their own gods entirely, and would seek to continue their worship concurrently with that of Jehovah.

The sacrifices offered to Jehovah point back, then, not to polytheism but to a low form of monotheism, in which each clan that offered sacrifice worshipped but one god, though that god was conceived in the form of the animal or plant which was sacrificed. This brings us to the question whether totemism, that lowest form of monotheism, is the earliest

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form of religion; and for the answer to the question we are reduced to conjecture. One certain fact, however, we have to go upon, if we accept the theory of evolution as applied to religion it is that, then, the law of continuity must prevail throughout the history of religion, that is to say, there must be a continuum in religion, something which is common to all religions, so far as they are religious, and which, however much its forms may change in the course of evolution, underlies them all. This continuum is sometimes assumed to be animism. But though animism exercises great influence over religion in its early stages, directing its course and determining its various forms, it is not in itself a religious idea nor a product of the religious consciousness. It is the belief that all things which act, all agents, are personal agents; and this theory is a piece of primitive science, not of early religion. Not all personal agents are supernatural, nor are all supernatural powers gods.1 Thus a specifically religious conception has to be imported into animism if it is to have any religious character at all. The religious element is no part of animism pure and simple. To make the personal agents of animism into supernatural agents or divine powers, there must be added some idea which is not contained in animism pure and simple; and that idea is a specifically religious idea, one which is apprehended directly or intuitively by the religious consciousness. The difference, whatever it may be, between human and divine personality is matter of direct, though internal, perception. Like other facts of consciousness, it may or may not, sometimes does and sometimes does not, arrest the attention of any given man. There are times, as Homer says, when all men have need of the gods, and when, in the words of Eschylus, he prays and supplicates the gods who never believed in them before. That the gods have the power, sometimes the will, to save; that silent prayer to them is heard and direct answer given to the heart -all these are certainly parts of the religious idea, and as certainly are no part of animism pure and simple.