"I am no more than man; when I order you anything with respect to religion, receive it, and when I order you about the affairs of the world, then am I nothing more than man." There is no question of his equality with the Godhead, or even of his sharing any part of the divine nature. He is simply the instrument, endowed with a power and authority outside himself, a man who possesses one cardinal thesis which all those within his faith must accept. The idea which represents at once the scope of his teaching and the source of his triumphs is the unity and indivisibility of the Godhead. This is the sole contribution he has made to the progressive thought of the world. Though he came later in time than the culture of Greece and Rome, he never knew their philosophies or the sum of their knowledge. His religion could never he built upon such basic strength as Christianity. It sprang too rapidly into prominence, and had no foundation of slowly developed ideas upon which to rest both its enthusiasm and its earthly endeavour. Mahomet bears closer resemblance to the ancient Hebrew prophets than to any Christian leader or saint. His mind was akin to theirs in its denunciatory fury, its prostration before the might and majesty of a single God. The evolution of the tribal deity from the local wonderworker, whose shrine enclosed his image, to the impersonal and distant but awful power who held the earth beneath his sway, was Mahomet's contribution to the mental development of his country, and the achievement within those confines was wonderful. But to the sum of the world's thought he gave little. His central tenet had already gained its votaries in other lands, and, moreover, their form of belief in one God was such that further development of thought was still possible to them. The philosophy of Islam blocks the way of evolution for itself, because its system leaves no room for such pregnant ideas as divine incarnation, divine immanence, the fatherhood of God. It has been content to formulate one article of faith: "There is no God but God," the corollary as to Mahomet's divine appointment to the office of Prophet being merely an affirmation of loyalty to the particular mode of faith he imposed. Therefore the part taken by Islam in the reading of the world's mystery ceased with the acceptance of that previously conceived central tenet.