But Fetishism is only the initial step in the process of our intellectual development; and it passes into Polytheism, not suddenly and _per salium_, but slowly and gradually, through the intermediate stage of "_Astrolatrie_," or the worship of the heavenly bodies. The mind is imperceptibly divested of the idea that everything around it is animated, and, by a process of real, but as yet imperfect generalization, it rises from Fetishism to Polytheism; in which latter system of belief an order of powers superior to Nature is recognized, while as yet there is no conception of a supreme and all-perfect Mind. The Polytheistic system, which prevailed so universally in the ancient world, and which still prevails among Heathen nations, is supposed to have been, not a _declension_ from a purer and better state, not a _corruption_ either of natural or revealed religion, but _a step in advance_ of the primary faith of mankind, a result of growing intelligence, a vast and most beneficial change in the right direction. It was the first great product of the metaphysical spirit, the result of an early but imperfect generalization; it constituted the principal era of the theological history of mankind; it was admirably adapted, and, indeed, indispensably necessary, to the exigencies of society at the time when it prevailed; it was more intensely religious than Monotheism itself, since it brought man habitually into contact with a multitude of gods, whose symbols were always present and visible to the eye, while it exerted a wholesome influence on Science, on Poetry, on Industry, on Morals, and, indeed, on the whole process of man's mental and social development.[62]