Under  these  new  ideas  it  was  only  natural  that  sun
and  star  and  lightning  flash  should  come  to  have  a
new  significance  for  man,  and  make  their  impress
on  religion.  Animal  worship  was  profoundly  mod-
ined  in  ways  ingeniously  set  forth.  The  simple
oblations  of  the  earlier  period  give  place  to  sacri-
fices to  fire,  and  to  the  heavenly  bodies.  So  strong
is  the  desire  to  become  transformed  into  white,
flaming  spirits,  and  to  be  joined  to  the  supernal
fellowship  of  such,  that  men  bring  themselves  as
offerings,  and  seek  transfiguration  in  the  holy  altar
flames.  Hence  human  sacrifices  ;  hence  also  in-
cremation of  the  dead.  In  time,  the  idea  of  the
soul  takes  on  greater  and  greater  dcfiniteness  ;  so
also  the  idea  of  the  immaterial  supersensual  gods.
The  long-continued  stimulation  of  the  imagination
renders  myth-constructions  possible.  Some  of  the
great  priesthoods  of  history  invent  hieroglyphic  and
alphabetic  writing,  and  in  time  there  naturally  fol-
low sacred  books,  cosmogonies,  codes  of  religious
laws,  etc.,  etc.  The  magic  wand  of  the  first  fire-
bringer  has  at  last  created  a  spiritual  and  unseen
counterpart  to  the  world  which  is  seen.  In  this
enchanted  world  we  live  to-day  ;  the  lowest  of  us
showing  our  faith  by  superstitious  fetichism,  the
highest  of  us  by  attempts  at  a  purely  spiritual  wor-
ship. That  highest  Christian  conception,  "  God  is
light,  and  in  Him  is  no  darkness  at  all,"  is  simply
the  culmination  of  a  mode  of  thinking  which  started
ages  ago  with  the  spark  which  some  savage  prehis-
toric flint-chipper  struck  out  of  the  flinty  stone.^

'  Very  simil.ir  to  Caspari's  view  is  that  set  forth  by  Professor  J-
Frohschammer  in  his  late  work,  Die  Genesis der  Menschheit.  Miinchen.
1883:  pp.  68-381.
382  PARADISE  FOUND.
