elements. At best, they were the exciting stimuli; in many cases, it is doubtful whether they exercised any influence whatsoever upon the origin of mythological conceptions. Whether, for example, the crescent moon has actually any connection with the flaming sword of the angel of Paradise, or whether it suggested the club of Hercules, this and much else is possible, but is incapable of demonstration. Even where this influence upon mythological conceptions is incontestable, celestial phenomena are subordinate to terrestrial factors, and in most cases they have left no trace in consciousness. Proof of the dominant importance of the terrestrial environment is not far to seek. Even the celestial gods are conceived as men or as anthropomorphic beings, and it is usually the earth that is regarded as the scene of their activity. The theories maintaining the originality of the god-idea have more and more been displaced by the contrary view, namely, that the gods developed out of lower forms of mythological thought. Here there are _two_ distinct interpretations. The first and the older is the _ancestor theory_. This represents a particular form of animism, for the soul of the ancestor is thought to become a god. The worship of the god, therefore, is held to have been originally a reverence paid to the ancestor. The main evidence for this view is found in the ancestor worship which is actually being practised, among many peoples, even at the present time. Prior to the Jahve religion, such a cult is supposed to have prevailed even among the Israelites. Do not the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob appear as the ancestors of the later tribes of Israel? More significant still are the ancestor cults that have prevailed in China and Japan since very ancient times. It should be remembered, however, that these cults, wherever they occur, represent but more or less prominent elements of more extensive mythological and religious conceptions. Hence the ancestor theory, also, is an arbitrary construction based on a presupposition which is in itself very improbable, namely, that all mythology and religion must eventually be traceable to a single source. The contention, for example, that a Zeus or a Jahve was a human ancestor elevated into a deity is a completely arbitrary supposition, lacking the confirmation of empirical facts.