in India the
passionless sage is still in popular esteem superior to warriors,
statesmen and scientists.

15. _Eastern Polytheism_

Different as India and China are, they agree in this that in order not
to misapprehend their religious condition we must make our minds
familiar with a new set of relations. The relations of religion to
philosophy, to ethics, and to the state, as well as the relations of
different religions to one another, are not the same as in Europe. China
and India are pagan, a word which I deprecate if it is understood to
imply inferiority but which if used in a descriptive and respectful
sense is very useful. Christianity and Islam are organized religions.
They say (or rather their several sects say) that they each not only
possess the truth but that all other creeds and rites are wrong. But
paganism is not organized: it rarely presents anything like a church
united under one head: still more rarely does it condemn or interfere
with other religions unless attacked first. Buddhism stands between the
two classes. Like Christianity and Islam it professes to teach the only
true law, but unlike them it is exceedingly tolerant and many Buddhists
also worship Hindu or Chinese gods.

Popular religion in India and China is certainly polytheistic, yet if
one uses this word in contrast to the monotheism of Islam and of
Protestantism the antithesis is unjust, for the polytheist does not
believe in many creators and rulers of the world, in many Allahs or
Jehovahs, but he considers that there are many spiritual beings, with
different spheres and powers, to the most appropriate of whom he
addresses his petitions. Polytheism and image-worship lie under an
unmerited stigma in Europe. We generally assume that to believe in one
God is obviously better, intellectually and ethically, than to believe
in many. Yet Trinitarian religions escape being polytheistic only by
juggling with words, and if Hindus and Chinese are polytheists so are
the Roman and Oriental Churches, for there is no real distinction
between praying to the Madonna, Saints and Angels, and propitiating
minor deities. William James[60] has pointed out that polytheism is not
theoretically absurd and is practically the religion of many Europeans.
In some ways it is more intelligible and reasonable than monotheism. For
if there is only one personal God, I do not understand how anything that
can be called a person can be so expanded as to be capable of hea