different peoples; and here it will be useful to analyse and define that element of the religious temper which we call fanaticism, and which sometimes affords one of the crucial distinctions between one religion and another. We may also obtain evidence from a comparison of the cosmogonic ideas prevalent over this area, so far as the records reveal any, as well as of the eschatological beliefs concerning man’s future destiny and his posthumous existence. Finally, we must compare the various cult-objects and forms of ritual, the significance of the {39} sacrifice; the position and organisation of the priesthood; and here it will be convenient to consider the ritual of magic as well as of the higher service and the part played by magic within the limits of the higher religion. If under each of these heads we have been able to discover certain salient points of divergence or resemblance between the Hellene and the Mesopotamian, we may be able to draw a general deduction of some probability concerning the whole question. In any case we may be encouraged by the assurance that the comparison of two complex and highly developed religions is fruitful and interesting in itself, whether it yields us definite historical conclusions or not. CHAPTER III. The Morphology of the Compared Religions. {40} As I said in a previous lecture,[40.1] “we must regard the religious structure to which the cults of Anatolia and Mesopotamia belonged as morphologically the same as the Hellenic.” The grounds of this judgment may be now briefly shown. In his _Histoire des anciennes Religions_, Tiele classifies most of these together under the category of Nature-Religions, which he distinguishes from the ethical: he is thinking of the distinction between that religious view in which the divinity is closely associated, or even identified, with some natural object, and that in which the divinity is a moral being merely, stript of all attributes that are derived from the world of nature. Serious objection may be taken to the terms in which this classification of religions is expressed. The only religions which would fall under the ethical class would be the Judaic, the Moslem, and the Christian: and yet the Hebrews in the most exalted period of their religion prayed to their god for rain and crops, and the Christian Churches do the same to this day. A deity whose interest is purely ethical has only existed in certain philosophic systems: he has never had an established cult. On the other hand, a nature-religion, at the stage when personal deities have been somewhat developed, which is not also {41} moral, has yet to be discovered. Religion, in its origin possibly non-moral, must, as society advances, acquire the closest relations with the social moral code. A Sun-god or Thunder-god--Shamash, for instance, of Babylon, Mithras of Persia, Sol Invictus of the later Roman Empire--may become a great divinity of an ethical cult and yet retain his association with the element.