From another point of view, however, the practical universality of religion was again and again cited in proof of its truth. Antiquity was not scientific in its method of treatment, and though it did not accept all religions as altogether equal, it had no difficulty in regarding them as substantially homogeneous. The Egyptian worship of animals might be lashed with satiric scorn, but the mysteries of its religion, venerable from an immemorial past, deserved the highest respect. The process of identification of the gods of different religions was always going on as they were carried from land to land. The Apologist, therefore, like the Cretan Cleinias in Plato's _Laws_ when the Athenian stranger asked him to prove the existence of the gods, could always appeal to two main arguments--first, the fair order of the universe and the regularity of the seasons, and secondly, the common belief of all men, both Hellenes and barbarians. This common belief, however, itself required explanation. Its value {47} really depended on its origin. If that ranked no higher than the crouching impulses of fear, it had little worth. Even if it was sought in the sense of dependence, in quiet trust in a sheltering order, or in intelligent inference based on the demand for a cause, the question still pressed for an answer, "What made this possible?" The answer was given by the doctrine of the _Logos_. The term _logos_ has played a famous part in philosophical theology. It appears in our New Testament at the opening of the fourth Gospel, "In the beginning was the Logos." Our translators render the Greek term by the English "Word." It is derived from the verb _legein_, to "speak" or "say." _Logos_ is primarily "what is said," utterance, or speech. Speech, however, must mean something. When we look out upon the objects of the world around us--rock, river, tree, horse, star--we learn to separate them into groups, because while some say quite different things to us, others speak to us, as it were, with nearly the same meaning. We recognise a common meaning in various sorts of dogs, or in still larger classes such as the whole family of birds. But in human intercourse what is said has first been thought. _Logos_ thus takes on another meaning; it is what thinking says _to itself_, or what we call "reason." The processes of science consist in finding out these meanings or reasons, and getting them into intelligible relations with each other. {48} And when the early Greek thinkers had reached the conception of the unity of the world, here was a term which could be called in to express it. The world must have a meaning; it must express some thought. And did not thought imply thinking?