m clean, carry him back and place
him in his temple again, where they fall down and make excuses for what
they have done. 'Of a truth,' they say, 'we were a little too hasty,
and you were a little too long in your grant. Why should you bring
this beating on yourself. But what is done cannot be undone.' Let us
not think of it any more. If you will forget what is past, we will
gild you over brighter again than before.

Man has never been at a loss for gods. He has worshiped almost
everything, including the vilest and most disgusting beasts. He has
worshiped fire, earth, air, water, light, stars, and for hundreds of
ages, prostrated himself before enormous snakes. Savage tribes often
make gods of articles they get from civilized people. The Todas
worship a cow-bell. The Kotas worship two silver plates, which they
regard as husband and wife, and another tribe manufactured a god out of
a king of hearts.

Man, having always been the physical superior of woman, accounts for
the fact that most of the high gods have been males. Had woman been
the physical superior, the powers supposed to be the ruler of Nature
would have been woman, and instead of being represented in the apparel
of man, they would have luxuriated in trains, low necked dresses, laces
and back-hair.

Nothing can be plainer than that each nation gives to its god its
peculiar characteristics, and that every individual gives to his God
his personal peculiarities.

Man has no ideas, and can have none, except those suggested by his
surroundings. He cannot conceive of anything utterly unlike what he
has seen or felt. He can exaggerate, diminish, combine, separate,
deform, beautify, improve, multiply and compare what he sees, what he
feels, what he hears, and all of which he takes cognizance through the
medium of the senses; but he cannot create. Having seen exhibitions of
power, he can say, omnipotent. Having lived, he can say, immortality.
Knowing something of time, he can say, eternity. Conceiving something
of intelligence, he can say God. Having seen exhibitions of malice, he
can say, devil. A few gleams of happiness having fallen athwart the
gloom of his life, he can say, heaven. Pain, in its numberless forms,
having been experienced, he can say, hell. Yet all these ideas have a
foundation in fact, and only a foundation. The superstructure has been
reared by exaggerating, diminishing, combining, separating, deforming,
beautifying, improving