Note 392 — Chapter V

The historical facts he introduces are merely illustrations; as any one will see who will read The Natural History of Religion, in Hume's Philos. Works, Edinb. 1826, vol. iv. pp. 435–513. I may mention, that there is a considerable similarity between the views advocated in this remarkable essay and the religious stages of Comte's Philosophie Positive; for Hume's early form of polytheism is evidently the same as M. Comte's fetichism, from which both these writers believe that monotheism subsequently arose, as a later and more refined abstraction. That this was the course adopted by the human mind is highly probable, and is confirmed by the learned researches of Mr. Grote. See his History of Greece, vol. i. pp. 462, 497, vol. v. p. 22. The opposite and more popular opinion, of monotheism preceding idolatry, was held by most of the great earlier writers, and is defended by many moderns, and among others by Dr. Whewell (Bridgewater Treatise, p. 256), who expresses himself with considerable confidence: see also Letters from Warburton to Hurd, p. 239. Compare Thirlwall's History of Greece, vol. i. p. 183, Lond. 1835, with the ‘einige Funken des Monotheismus’ of Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, in Kant's Werke, vol. ii. p. 455.