But Polytheism, although indispensable and salutary as a provisional belief, was not destined to be permanent; it was to be superseded in due time, at least in the case of the _elite_ of humanity, by the higher and still more abstract system of Monotheism, which is regarded as the natural and inevitable product of human intelligence, independently of all supernatural teaching, at a certain stage of its development. But here, as in the former instance, the change is not effected suddenly; the human mind advances gradually from Polytheism to Monotheism, through the intermediate stage of the idea of Immutability or Destiny,--an idea suggested partly by the study of the invariable order of Nature, and partly by the irresistible domination of one great temporal power, such as the iron empire of Rome.[63] Historically, indeed, Monotheism is said to have spread in Europe through the Jews, who derived it from Egypt; but it is added that, had there been no Jews, others would have given birth to a system so necessary for the development of human thought. The prevalence of Monotheism, for a limited time, was useful, and even necessary, as the natural result of the great law of human progress, and the indispensable precursor of a new and brighter era; but it was temporary and provisional merely,--a stage in the onward march of development, not the ultimate landing-place of human thought. It is conceived to be radically incompatible with the recognition of invariable natural laws, and even with the exercise of the industrial arts.[64] It is, however, the last and highest form of the Theological Philosophy; and, having reached this stage, the human mind necessarily advances beyond it, until it arrives at a point where all theology disappears, and where it is entirely and forever emancipated from all the beliefs, the hopes, and the fears which have any reference to an invisible spiritual world.