Page:Primitive Culture Vol 2.djvu/261

 CHAPTER XVI.

ANIMISM (continued).

Higher Deities of Polytheism — Human characteristics applied to Deity — Lords of Spiritual Hierarchy — Polytheism: its course of development in lower and higher Culture — Principles of its investigation; classification of Deities according to central conceptions of their significance and function — Heaven-god — Rain-god — Thunder-god — Wind-gods — Earth-god — Water-god — Sea-god — Fire-god — Sun-god — Moon-god.

the religions of the world and studying the descriptions of deity among race after race, we may recur to old polemical terms in order to define a dominant idea of theology at large. Man so habitually ascribes to his deities human shape, human passions, human nature, that we may declare him an Anthropomorphite, an Anthropopathite, and (to complete the series) an Anthropophysite. In this state of religious thought, prevailing as it does through so immense a range among mankind, one of the strongest confirmations may be found of the theory here advanced concerning the development of Animism. This theory that the conception of the human soul is the very 'fons et origo' of the conceptions of spirit and deity in general, has been already vouched for by the fact of human souls being held to pass into the characters of good and evil demons, and to ascend to the rank of deities. But beyond this, as we consider the nature of the great gods of the nations, in whom the vastest functions of the universe are vested, it will still be apparent that these mighty deities are modelled on human souls, that in great measure their feeling and sympathy, their character and habit, their will and action, even their material and form, display throughout their adaptations, exaggerations and distortions,