We have purposely omitted prior reference to the development of religion among the Hebrews because their religion has been so important for our own civilization. The mythological element in it was relatively small for various reasons; yet this is true only if we have regard to fable and aesthetic tale. Their world was one of personal agency just as it was for other races. But the Hebrews made a fresh start long after they had isolated themselves from the general Semitic stock. Their migration from their ancient home could not help but wither the more local myths, and this tendency was reenforced by the adoption of a new god, Yahweh, the God of the Kenites. Yahweh was a god of the lightning who thundered from Mount Sinai, and he was a god of battles, just as was Thor, the thunder-god of the Scandinavians. This war god naturally obtained their allegiance during the years of conflict with the Canaanites, and gained in prestige as time elapsed. The Canaanites had their local Baal cults and myths, and these were associated with agricultural festivals and with that worship of fertility which was so wide-spread among the ancients. The followers of Yahweh, on the other hand, were hillmen and shepherds and their rites were closely connected with sacrificial observances. {27} As time passed, the two races mingled and the tendency was toward an amalgamation of their respective cults. But a storm of protest set in, led by the prophets and the simpler, less concretely naturalistic religion prevailed. The very simplicity of the cult of Yahweh made it a fitting basis for that ethical development which we associate with the names of Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and Jeremiah. Only an ignorance of the ethical deepening of other religions can excuse the belief that this ethical development was absolutely unique. Probably it is the aspect of national monotheism, or henotheism, as it should more accurately be called, which impresses so many, whereas this feature was an historical accident. To claim that the Hebrew development was unique and therefore supernatural is to assume that the relatively unique must be supernatural. But such an assumption has no foundation in experience, for differences in the development of nations are the rule rather than the exception. Shall we say that English constitutional development is supernatural because no other nation achieved such a form of government by itself? Shall we assert that Greek art was supernatural because it was unique? Is it not evident that the wish has been father to the thought in this case? All early peoples have looked upon themselves as chosen and upon other peoples as gentiles and barbarians. We have accepted this prejudice of the Hebrews because we have adopted a modified form of their religion with its racial traditions.