The attribution of higher and abstract qualities to the gods was probably of comparatively late origin. Especially is this to be observed in the case of Tezcatlipocâ, to whom, at the period of the Conquest, we find attributed such a bewildering array of qualities, both concrete and abstract, lofty and the reverse, as would seem to indicate that, had European influences failed to penetrate to Anahuac, his worship might have reached the monotheistic stage, and in time have overshadowed that of the other gods of the Mexican pantheon. Undoubtedly, too, the priesthood, and probably the nobility, fostered a more esoteric and loftier type of religion than was understood of the people, and good proof (which is by no means confined to the rather doubtful circumstance that Nezahualcoyotl of Texcuco built a temple to the “Unknown God”) is forthcoming that theological questions of greater or less complexity had begun to exercise the minds of the hierarchy. UNITY OF RELIGIOUS CONCEPTION THROUGHOUT MEXICO At the epoch of the Conquest it is abundantly clear that the Aztecâ had succeeded in establishing their tribal cult, enriched with the beliefs of the peoples they had conquered, over a wide area. They had adopted into their pantheon such deities of the surrounding tribes as appealed to their imagination, or were too powerful to be ignored, and actually “imprisoned” many others of lesser puissance, whose idols were kept in confinement in a building within the precincts of the great temple at Mexico-Tenochtitlan. [39] Within the historical period but little radical difference existed between the several Mexican cults, which all appear to have been affected by a common influence. We observe, therefore, the phenomenon of certain early religious forms originating under common influences, separated for centuries and profoundly altered by immigrant forces, at length brought together again by the amalgamating powers of conquest under the influence of one central and paramount cult, only, when once more united, to find a common destruction at the hands of the ministers of an alien and invading faith.