[Sidenote: The role of parent-regarding feelings in primitive notions concerning the Divine] We saw in the last chapter that the feelings with which men tend to look upon the holders of the highest earthly dignity and power--the heads of churches, states and empires--are to a large extent derived from those which had originally shaped and coloured the child's attitude towards its parents. From the position of supreme human authority to that of superhuman power is, in imagination, but one further step; and accordingly we find that the tendencies and emotions connected with the parents can frequently and easily, by a further process of displacement, bridge over the gulf between kings and gods; and, by their association with the ideas of the Superhuman and the Divine, become important factors in moulding the religious feelings of mankind. Apart from this however, reasons for the transfer of many of the parent-regarding emotions to the sphere of religion are not far to seek. There exists a close and obvious correspondence between the attitude of the young child towards his parents and that of man towards the superhuman powers which he personifies as God, the Divine Father. In both cases the individual's life and destiny are controlled by powers that seem, in comparison with his own puny capacity and understanding, to be immeasurable in their might and mystery. In both cases the health, happiness and even the very existence of the individual seem to be dependent upon the beneficence and approval of these powers; powers which can be terrible, and against which no effort will avail, if once aroused to wrath; but which nevertheless can be to some extent controlled and made to work in harmony with the individual's needs and desires, if the latter will but conduct himself towards them obediently and with due persuasiveness and understanding.