that the adoration of one God, without temples or images,
universally prevailed."[23]

[23] Godfrey Higgins, Celtic Druids.


Underlying all the ancient religions of which we have any
account, may be observed the great energizing force throughout
Nature recognized and reverenced as the Deity. This force
embraces not only the creative energies in human beings, in
animals, and in plants, but in the earlier ages of human history
it included also Wisdom, or Law--that "power by which all things
are discriminated or defined and held in their proper places."
The most renowned writers who have dealt with this subject agree
in the conclusion that, during thousands of years among all the
nations of the earth, only one God was worshipped. This God was
Light and Life, both of which proceeded from the sun, or more
properly speaking were symbolized by the sun.

In Egyptian hymns the Creator is invoked as the being who "dwells
concealed in the sun"; and Greek writers speak of this luminary
as the "generator and nourisher of all things, the ruler of the
world." It is thought, however, that neither of these nations
worshipped the corporeal sun. It was the "centre or body from
which the pervading spirit, the original producer of order,
fertility, and organization, continued to emanate to preserve the
mighty structure which it had formed."

It is evident that at an early age, both in Egypt and in India,
spiritualized conceptions of sun-worship had already been formed.