GORY, Gobius, a genus of acanthopterous fishes, the type of the family gobildes. This family is distinguished by the thinness and flexibility of the rays of the dorsal fin; by the union—in most of the genera—of the ventral fins, which are thoracic, into a disk more or less capable of being used as a sticker; by the want of an air-bladder; and by a long intestinal canal without coca. The blenny (q.v.) family (bleniida) have by some ichthyologists been united with the goby family, whilst others unite with them the di.scoboli. (q.v.). The true gobies (gobius) are generally small fishes, some of them inhab. iting the shallow water of the coasts, and others found in deeper water; the species very numerous, and found in the seas both of the northern and southern hemispheres. They are very interesting on account of their habits; and are of the number of nest building fishes, employing a/gm and gfass=wrack.(zosterss marina), in the spring season, for making their nests. When the female has depbsited her eggs in the nest, the male watches over them till they are hatched. There are several British species, the largest of them—the BLACK GORY (G. niger)—about 5 or 6 in. long, some of them pretty common on all parts of the coast, and much in request for aquaria, of which they are among the most interesting occupants. They are often found in rock-pools on the coast. The disk formed by the ventral fins is often used for adhesion to stones. Most of the gobies prefer seas of clayey or muddy bottom, in which they excavate canals to pass the winter in. The species are more numerous •in the Mediterranean than in the British seas.—The goby family includes the dragonets (q.v.), anq several other interest ing wnera, among which are the boleopkthalmi of the Chinese seas, remarkable for their power of thrusting out their eyes in order to look around them.
GOD (Lat. Deus; Gr. Theo's), the self-existent and Supreme Being, creator and pre server of all things, and the object of human worship. The name is of Saxon origin. The idea is more or less definitely expressed in every language, as it may be said to be in some form or another a universal element of the human consciousness. There have been many nations, indeed, in every age of the world, that have been far from attain ing any such conception of God as is expressed above. The Supreme has been to•them the conception not of a single Being, but of many beings superior to man, and claiming his worship. In the general history of the world, polytheism precedes monotheism; the idea of many gods goes before the idea of one God, infinite and self-existent The general character of polytheism is everywhere the same.—A dualistic conception
of nature and life underlies it, and shows itself in varied expressions. In looking forth on nature—in looking within himself—man seems to see two principles striving for the mastery—an active and passive, a creative and recipient principle—a good and evil, a productive and destructive, a joyous and gloomy agent. On one side, there seems a power rich, benignant, and gracious, giving light to the day, verdure to the spring, abundance in autumn, scattering fecundity and blessing around; on the other side, there seems a power cruel and malevolent, quenching the light in darkness, consuming the verdure and fertility with scorching heat, or destroying them with cold. These contrasts seem eternal—they take possession of the imagination, and clothe themselves in diverse shapes. In every polytheistic religion, they will be found in the recognition of male and female, of good and evil divinities—Baal and Baaltis, Baal .Adonis and Baal 3loloch, in the old Phenician religion; Osiris and Isis and the evil principle, Typhon, in Egypt; and the more familiar opposites of Ahriman and Ormuzd, Jupiter and Juno, etc. The dualism assumes various shapes, now male and female, productive and pas sive; and now good and evil, conservative and destructive.
Whether this dualistic mode of conception, and the polytheistic view of nature that springs from it, be a later or an earlier type of thought than the monotheistic, has been a good deal disputed. Some see in it the corruption of monotheism—the worship of the Supreme gradually falling to a worship of the great forms of nature which most strik ingly represent Him—the sun and storm, the light and darkness, etc. Others, again, regard the polytheistic as the primitive view of nature, above which man gradually rises, by the growth and exercise of his reason. There is truth in this latter view, even ti those who believe that man originally received a divine revelation, which he has g corrupted. Polytheism is the natural religion of savage tribes throughout the world; and as man advances in civilization, he rises to purer and more comprehensive conceptions of Deity. His reason compels him to recognize the One in the many every where, to carry up all his conceptions into a unity. Polytheism, consequently, every where disappears before the march of civilization. It is incompatible with the lowest stage of speculative development.