Religious conceptions, etheologies,D thus comprehend above all that group of concepts which spring from man's relations to the super nal world; and this relation is of course al ways considered by philosophically inclined savages as not due to any physical activity merely, for all such activities or natural proc esses, they would naturally account for with purely rationalistic conceptions, as a matter of course. It is plain, therefore, that as man's knowledge of nature's laws widens, the domain of his supernal world shrinks in proportion. Theologies are always attempts to formulate just those truths considered necessary in man's struggle for existence. Of such theological opinions, ideas or conceptions, that of the gods, and the idea of God, remain even to this day the most important thoughts in human life. In all humanity, as well the lowest as the highest, there is an effort of some kind to express in doctrine man's conscious relation to the abid ing in the transitory of the Such con sciousness of a higher power is necessarily given when first the simple savage comes to such a stage of maturity that the fragmentariness of his creature life is contrasted instinctively with that in which he lives, and moves, and has his being. Thus conscious of a being more power ful, more abiding, greater than himself, man is constrained to establish some idea of that to which he must always submit. Hence arose those doctrines embodied in all polytheons, all pantheons, all aspirations to become one with God.
What is the minimum definition of God? A polytheon, a pantheon, or even the idea of God is always a world conception that domi nates man's soul. In all polytheistic stages of belief, however, not all gods, even some of the higher orders, are necessarily objects of devotion. For there are in some polytheons, faineant deities, deities who are recognized as real 'but who do not exercise any influence in human affairs. Hence they are not worshipped. We are now prepared to understand a con ception, and in particular that conception which at a minimum content conveys the idea of a polytheon, a pantheon, a or even of God. The definition of an in particular a religious idea, and when it is familiar, even of its name, is an impulse to some activity, the usually sense-perceptive result of which is a term or member of the concept's scope. Now the word polytheism conveys the idea of many gods, monotheism signifies belief in God. What is common to both the nature of the idea of a polytheon, and the idea of God? We understand by the nature of an idea its meaning. Now each and every creature prop erly human has to respect some higher power, a power that curtails his wishes. And each and every human being, therefore, adjusts him self to conditions; and so doing recognizes an authority of some kind to which he must sub mit on all occasions; and this authority of man's conduct, whatever it may be, is either his polytheon, his pantheon, his god or God.
The mention of this authority even is an impulse to religious behavior. Its moralsignificance is without question. For even the (to us) im moral practices of savage and semi-civilized peoples prove that religion and morality, while distinct, are yet inseparable. A superstitious awe of a polytheon, yea even of God, leads to immoral practices. And in this way also a pure religion will unfailingly regenerate whoever possesses it.
But does it not make a difference whether or not the truth of the conception is mentioned in the definition of God? Maybe it does. For what do we mean by truth in this con nection? In effect what one ought to mean by the truth or falsehood of the doctrine of deity is not the reality or otherwise of any events which are associated with its rise; but, on the contrary, the adequacy of the idea to inspire just such feelings and to constrain to just such religious behavior as will give expression to a believer's conscious relation to the ultimate grounds of existence, the abiding, in the meas ure that he knows them. And we are led to a second consideration in this connection. The late association of moral ideas with deity proves also to have been a fact. True ethical con siderations were originally foreign to ideas of deity. In the first three stages of mythology, of the four phases mentioned above, all gods are neutral in so far as ethical qualities are concerned. Sacred awe too easily degenerates into slavish fear in the savage heart. The lowly beginnings of theology are strangely un like its fruition. Only after having anthro pomorphized the deities of his polytheon did man conceive of his gods as moral beings. For man, as a rational animal, alone is moral. Con ceiving of his gods as possessing a human form, and in the days when ideas of kinship were first gaining clear recognition, early man trans ferred his own qualities, societal and moral, to his gods. Thus too, contrary to what Mr. Spencer says, ancestor worship was not primor dial, but late, owing to the late recognition of the ties of kinships. Gods in the polytheons of the anthropomorphic age are thus usually re vealed in the mythologies which have survived as organized into a tribe or other social groups. Thus arose the kinship features in all the higher mythologies, those of Vedic India znd pre Zarathustrian Iran, the polytheons of Semnites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Ro mans, Chinese and Japanese, as well as in those of the Aztecs, Mayas, Peruvians, and in those of the natives of the Polynesian isles.