ustomary to attach any idea of unity to these unseen powers. The
supposition that in ancient times and in very unenlightened conditions,
before mythology had grown, a monotheism prevailed, which afterwards at
various times was revived by reformers, is a belief that should have
passed away when the delights of savage life and the praises of a state
of nature ceased to be the themes of philosophers. We are speaking of a
people little capable of abstraction. The exhibitions of force in nature
seemed to them the manifestations of that mysterious power felt by their
self-consciousness; to combine these various manifestations and
recognize them as the operations of one personality, was a step not
easily taken. Yet He is not far from every one of us. "Whenever man
thinks clearly, or feels deeply, he conceives God as self-conscious
unity," says Carriere, with admirable insight; and elsewhere, "we have
monotheism, not in contrast to polytheism, not clear to the thought, but
in living intuition in the religious sentiments."[45-1]

Thus it was among the Indians. Therefore a word is usually found in
their languages analogous to none in any European tongue, a word
comprehending all manifestations of the unseen world, yet conveying no
sense of personal unity. It has been rendered spirit, demon, God, devil,
mystery, magic, but commonly and rather absurdly by the English and
French, "medicine." In the Algonkin dialects this word is _manito_ and
_oki_, in Iroquois _oki_ and _otkon_, the Dakota has _wakan_, the Aztec
_teotl_, the Quichua _huaca_, and the Maya _ku_. They all express in its
most general form the idea of the supernatural. And as in this word,
supernatural, we see a transfer of a conception of place, and that it
literally means that which is _above_ the natural world, so in such as
we can analyze of these vague and primitive terms the same trope appears
discoverable. _Wakan_ as an adverb means _above_, _oki_ is but another
orthography for _oghee_, and _otkon_ seems allied to _hetken_, both of
which have the same signification.[46-1]

The transfer is no mere figure of speech, but has its origin in the very
texture of the human mind. The heavens, the upper regions, are in every
religion the supposed abode of the divine. What is higher is always the
stronger and the nobler; a _superior_ is one who is better than we are,
and therefore a chieftain in Algonkin is called _oghee-ma_, the higher
one. There is, moreover, a naif and sp