Early Hebrew religion was naïvely dualistic, and that is one reason why it has been so potent in the history of religion. God was indeed conceived of as omnipotent; that conception was the path that led to monotheism. But the idea of omnipotence was elaborated dramatically rather than philosophically. The heavens might declare his glory and the firmament show his handiwork, but he was revealed in national history and (according to the conception of the later prophets) in personal experience more than in natural phenomena. Even a very early prophet discovered that the still small voice rather than the earthquake or the fire was the symbol of his presence. The Genesis account of the fall solves the problem of evil upon an essentially monistic basis by making human sin responsible for even the inadequacies of nature and attributing everything from weeds to mortality to the luckless error of the first man. Neither the goodness nor the omnipotence of God is abridged in this naïve but sublime conception in which the human conscience assumes responsibility for more than its share of human ills in order to save the reputation of divine virtue. The monism of this account is, however, qualified by the injection of the tempting serpent, an element which is precursory of the belief in the devil, which the Jews inherited from Babylonia and Persia and which has fortunately qualified all monistic tendencies in Jewish and Christian orthodoxy until this day. A profounder instinct than reveals itself to the casual observer persuades fundamentalism to defend the reality of the devil with such vehemence. It may be metaphysically inconsistent to have two absolutes, one good and one evil, but the conception provides at least for a dramatic portrayal of the conflict which disturbs the harmonies and unities of the universe, and therefore, it has a practical and ethical value. The idea of attributing personality to evil may be scientifically absurd but it rests upon a natural error. When the blind and impersonal forces of nature come to life in man they are given the semblance of personality.