moral order in human life. Moreover, as Nature has many aspects, each branch of Science tends to represent the Creator differently. To the imagination of the mere Geometrician, the infinite means infinite space; to the student of meteoric phenomena, the infinite is represented by mere force; to the arithmetician by mere number. To those of old who specially valued physical strength, God was a Bull; to those who specially valued cunning, a Serpent.
On the other hand, Vishnu, the Race-Preserver, comes to be thought of too much as the preserver of one's own tribe. Each tribe comes to have its own preserver, who fights against the preservers of other tribes. As patriotism degenerates into tyranny over other nations, so religious gratitude for the preservation of one's own race degenerates into contempt for the divine preservers of other races.
But the worst transformation is that which falls on the idea of the inspirer who teaches by the fire of love. Purification by fire degenerates into destruction by fire. The inspirer by love and pain becomes Siva the Destroyer, and then Moloch, who claims as his offering the burning alive of innocent babies. It is found, too, that pain is not the only condition under which the faculty for receiving poetic inspiration is momentarily increased; pleasure also heightens it. Inspiration of a certain sort can be got up by wine; Siva the Inspirer is thought of as Bacchus the wine-god, who is gratified by drunken orgies. The Adonai-idea degenerates into Adonis, the god of beauty of form, and into Aphrodite, the goddess of grace; finally into Cupid, the god of light love-fancies, and Venus the goddess of vicious indulgence.
