aside once it was kindled. The winds which threaten
shipwreck, the rains which give increase, the drouth which dries up the
earth, the plague which brings death are under the control of the gods;
and it behooves man to walk warily in order not to offend them. Thus
was the path set in which man was to travel until he reached an ethical
monotheism.

As time passed, demons and gods gave way, in theory at least, to the
sovereignty of one powerful deity who gathered to himself the powers
and activities of the old multiplicity of agents whom man had
worshipped and {112} placated. It is probable that this movement
toward a consciously held monotheism reflected the changing political
organization of society. The old chaos of superhuman agents, each
doing what was right in his own eyes, gave way to a growing heavenly
order in which one powerful agent exerted his suzerainty over minor
principalities. Yet monotheism has always been relative, for the one
god has his agents of subordinate rank--agents, powers and
intercessors--just as the most absolute monarch has his ministers.
Political imagination cannot go beyond its source.

Christianity is usually regarded as the best type of monotheism; yet
the early Church Fathers thought of the old gods as demons working
their nefarious will upon man. It is notorious that many of the saints
of the calendar are only re-christened pagan deities adopted by the
Church to meet popular demands. The peasantry _would_ believe in the
agency of local divinities whose reputation had been great for the
healing of sickness, or the granting of children to the childless, or
the causing of rain to fall in seasons of drouth; and the Church,
wisely enough, controlled and adopted what it could not prevent. The
old pluralism of agencies refused to give way more than formally to a
single agent. The psychology of this resistance is simple enough.
Just as the king is unable to give his personal attention to the
requests of all his subjects but must delegate authority to officers to
look after details, so the one deity cannot give ear and attention to
the incessant cries of his myriads of creatures. I cannot help feeling
that the pious catholic has more psychological realism in these matters
than the protestant sectarian who wearies his deity with all sorts of
trivial matters. Surely a {113} million petitions at the same time
would distract any conceivable kind of personal deity!

But, in the presen