e, but presides over and
operates through, nature. Psychotheism has long been recognized. All of
the earlier literature of mankind treats largely of these gods, for it
is an interesting fact that in the history of any civilized people, the
evolution of psychotheism is approximately synchronous with the
invention of an alphabet. In the earliest writings of the Egyptians, the
Hindoos, and the Greeks, this stage is discovered, and Osiris, Indra,
and Zeus are characteristic representatives. As psychotheism and written
language appear together in the evolution of culture, this stage of
theism is consciously or unconsciously a part of the theme of all
written history.

The paleontologist, in studying the rocks of the hill and the cliffs of
the mountain, discovers, in inanimate stones, the life-forms of the
ancient earth. The geologist, in the study of the structure of valleys
and mountains, discovers groups of facts that lead him to a knowledge of
more ancient mountains and valleys and seas, of geographic features long
ago buried, and followed by a new land with new mountains and valleys,
and new seas. The philologist, in studying the earliest writings of a
people, not only discovers the thoughts purposely recorded in those
writings, but is able to go back in the history of the people many
generations, and discover with even greater certainty the thoughts of
the more ancient people who made the words. Thus the writings of the
Greeks, the Hindoos, and the Egyptians, that give an account of their
psychic gods, also contain a description of an earlier theism
unconsciously recorded by the writers themselves. Psychotheism prevailed
when the sentences were coined, physitheism when the words were coined.
So the philologist discovers physitheism in all ancient literature. But
the verity of that stage of philosophy does not rest alone upon the
evidence derived from the study of fossil philosophies through the
science of philology. In the folk-lore of every civilized people having
a psychotheistic philosophy, an earlier philosophy with nature-gods is
discovered.

The different stages of philosophy which I have attempted to
characterize have never been found in purity. We always observe
different methods of explanation existing side by side, and the type of
a philosophy is determined by the prevailing characteristics of its
explanation of phenomena. Fragments of the earlier are always found side
by side with, the greater body of the l