wholly concerned, aye, engrossed, with any individual worshipper's
woes or desires,--a readiness to notice a fellow when he is going
to bed. This will bring indescribable comfort to simian hearts;
and a god that neglects this duty won't last very long, no matter
how competent he may be in other respects.

But one must reciprocate. For the maker of the Cosmos, as they see
him, wants noticing too; he is fond of the deference and attention
that simians pay him, and naturally he will be angry if it is
withheld;--or if he is not, it will be most magnanimous of him.
Hence prayers and hymns. Hence queer vague attempts at communing
with this noble kinsman.

To desire communion with gods is a lofty desire, but hard to attain
through an ignobly definite creed. Dealing with the highest, most
wordless states of being, the simians will attempt to conceive them
in material form. They will have beliefs, for example, as to the
furnishings and occupations in heaven. And why? Why, to help men
to have religious conceptions without themselves being seers,--which
in any true sense of "religious" is an impossible plan.


In their efforts to be concrete they will make their creeds amusingly
simian. Consider the simian amorousness of Jupiter, and the brawls
on Olympus. Again, in the old Jewish Bible, what tempts the first
pair? The Tree of Knowledge, of course. It appealed to the
curiosity of their nature, and who could control /that!/

And Satan in the Bible is distinctly a simian's devil. The snake, it
is known, is the animal monkeys most dread. Hence when men give their