make gods of articles they get from civilized people. The Todas worship
a cow-bell. The Kotas worship two silver plates, which they regard as
husband and wife, and another tribe manufactured a god out of a king of
hearts.

Man, having always been the physical superior of woman, accounts for the
fact that most of the high gods have been males. Had woman been the
physical superior, the powers supposed to be the ruler of Nature would
have been woman, and instead of being represented in the apparel of man,
they would have luxuriated in trains, low necked dresses, laces and
back-hair.

Nothing can be plainer than that each nation gives to its god its
peculiar characteristics, and that every individual gives to his God his
personal peculiarities.

Man has no ideas, and can have none, except those suggested by his
surroundings. He cannot conceive of anything utterly unlike what he has
seen or felt. He can exaggerate, diminish, combine, separate, deform,
beautify, improve, multiply and compare what he sees, what he feels,
what he hears, and all of which he takes cognizance through the medium
of the senses; but he cannot create. Having seen exhibitions of power,
he can say, omnipotent. Having lived, he can say, immortality. Knowing
something of time, he can say, eternity. Conceiving something of
intelligence, he can say God. Having seen exhibitions of malice, he can
say, devil. A few gleams of happiness having fallen athwart the gloom
of his life, he can say, heaven. Pain, in its numberless forms, having
been experienced, he can say, hell. Yet all these ideas have a
foundation in fact, and only a foundation. The superstructure has been
reared by exaggerating, diminishing, combining, separating, deforming,