d having had to fly for it to Egypt, where he gave
laws and learning to the Egyptians. Yet, curiously enough, this
myth probably means that the Sun God, who has in the other
story escaped the "massacre of the innocents" (the morning
stars), now plays the slayer on his own account, since the slaying
of many-eyed Argus probably means the extinction of the stars
by the morning sun (cp. Emeric-David, _Introduction_, end).
Another "Hermes" was the son of Nilus, and his name was sacred
(Cicero, _De Nat. Deor._ iii. 22, Cp. 16). The story of the
floating child, finally, becomes part of the lore of Greece.
In the myth of Apollo, the Babe-God and his sister Artemis are
secured in float-islands.

It is impossible to form a just estimate of the Bible without some
knowledge of ancient history and comparative mythology. It would be
impossible for me to go deeply into these matters in this small book,
but I will quote a few significant passages just to show the value of
such historical evidence. Here to begin with, are some passages from Mr.
Grant Allen's _Evolution of the Idea of God_.

THE ORIGIN OF GODS.

Mr. Herbert Spencer has traced so admirably, in his _Principles
of Sociology_, the progress of development from the Ghost to
the God that I do not propose in this chapter to attempt much
more than a brief recapitulation of his main propositions, which,
however, I shall supplement with fresh examples, and adapt at
the same time to the conception of three successive stages in
human ideas about the Life of the Dead, as set forth in the
preceding argument.

In the earlier stage of all--the stage where the actual bodies
of the dead are preserved--gods, as such, are for the most part
unknown: it is the corpses of friends and ancestors that are
worshipped and reverenced. For example, Ellis says of the
corpse of a Tahitian chief, that it was placed in a sitting
posture under a protecting shed; "a small altar was erected
before it, and offerings of fruit, food, and flowers were
daily presented by the relatives or the priest appointed to
attend the body." (This point about the priest is of essential
importance.) The Central Americans, again, as Mr. Spencer notes,
performed similar rites before bodies dried by artificial
heat. The New Guinea people, as D'Albertis found, worsh