element of religion, which was anciently designated as Astrology, is
now known as Theology.

All the evidences bearing upon the subject indicate that the founders
of the primary form of religion were a sect of philosophers, known as
Magi, or wise men, of the Aryan race of Central Asia, who, having lived
ages before any conceptions of the supernatural had obtained in the
world, and speculating relative to the "beginnings of things," were
necessarily confined to the contemplation and study of nature, the
elements of which they believed to be self-existent and endless in
duration; but, being wholly without knowledge of her inherent forces,
they explained her manifold processes by conceiving the idea that she
was animated by a great and inherent soul or spirit, emanations from
which impressed all her parts with life and motion. Thus, endowing man,
and other animals, with souls emanating alike from the imaginary great
soul of nature, they believed, and taught, that immediately after death
all souls were absorbed into their source, where, as "the dewdrop slips
into the shining sea," all personal identity was forever lost. Hence we
see that although recognizing the soul as immortal, considering it, not
as an entity existing independent of matter, but as the spirit of
matter itself, the primary religion was the exponent of the purest form
of Materialism.

Being the Astronomers of their day, and mistaking the apparent for the
real, the ancient Magi constructed that erroneous system of nature
known as the Geocentric, and, in conformity thereto, composed a
collection of Astronomical Allegories, in which the emanations from the
imaginary great soul of nature, by which they believed all
materialities we're impressed with life and motion, were personified
and made to play their respective parts. Basing the religion they