Two instances will suffice to show how Renan’s hypothesis became the common property of educated people. It is treated as fully made out, both by Roscher, the German political economist, and by Draper, the American naturalist and historian of civilisation. The former says: ‘Life in the desert seems to be an especially favourable soil for Monotheism. It wants that luxuriant variety of the productive powers of nature by which Polytheism was encouraged in remarkably fruitful countries, such as India’ (_System der Volkswirthschaft_, 7th ed., Stuttgart 1873, II. 38). The latter: ‘Polytheistic ideas have always been held in repute by the southern European races; the Semitic have maintained the unity of God. Perhaps this is due to the fact, as a recent author has suggested, that a diversified landscape of mountains and valleys, islands, rivers, and gulfs, predisposes man to a belief in a multitude of divinities. A vast sandy desert, the illimitable ocean, impresses him with an idea of the oneness of God’ (_History of Conflict between Religion and Science_, London 1875, p. 70). This view has also passed into Peschel’s _Völkerkunde_, and Bluntschli also, in his lecture on the ancient oriental ideas of God and world in 1861, echoed Renan’s hypothesis of 1855. Footnote 47: _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, I. 297. Footnote 48: On the other side, Renan says (_Hist. gén._ 4th ed., p. 497) ‘Cette grande conquête (the recognition of Monotheism) ne fut pas pour elle (i. e. for the Semitic race) l’effet du progrès; ce fut une de ces premières aperceptions.’ Footnote 49: Much of this literature has been unnoticed, as e.g. a late pamphlet by Léon Hugonnet: _La civilisation arabe, défense des peuples sémitiques en réponse à M. Renan_, Geneva 1873. Footnote 50: _Histoire générale_, p. Footnote 51: _Geschichte des Materialismus_, 1st ed., 1866, p. 77. See 2nd ed., 1873, I. 149. Footnote 52: Ib. p. 83. See 2nd ed., p. 152. Footnote 53: _Cours de Philosophie Positive_, éd. Littré, Paris 1869, V. 90, 197, 324. Footnote 54: _Histoire générale_, p. 486: ‘L’unité de constitution psychologique de l’espèce humaine, au moins des grandes races civilisées, en vertu de laquelle les mêmes mythes ont dû apparaître parallèlement sur plusieurs points à la fois, suffirait, d’ailleurs, pour expliquer les analogies qui reposent sur quelque trait général de la condition de l’humanité, ou sur quelques-uns de ses instincts les plus profonds.’ Footnote 55: Ib. p. 27. Footnote 56: Max Müller, _Chips from a German Workshop_, I. 370. Footnote 57: _Introduction to the Science of Religion_, p. 390 _et seq._ Footnote 58: In _Chips_, &c., I. p. 341. Footnote 59: In _The Myths of the New World_, New York 1868. See Steinthal’s criticism of this collection in the _Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie and Sprachwissenschaft_, 1871, Bd. VII. Footnote 60: