We have seen that the child's attitude towards his father is usually an ambivalent one, _i. e._ it is determined partly by tenderness and affection and partly by hostility or fear. Naturally the relative predominance of one or other motive varies from one case to another, both as regards the religious life of individuals and as regards the beliefs and forms of worship adopted by various races, nations, sects or denominations. Thus the paternal qualities ascribed to the deity are sometimes derived chiefly from that attitude of the child towards its father in virtue of which it sees in him a being full of helpful wisdom and tender pity, to whom it can turn for encouragement, guidance and assistance in the difficult affairs of life, and especially in times of trouble; sometimes on the other hand more emphasis is laid upon those aspects of the father in which he appears as a severe and perhaps cruel master or tyrant who enforces strict obedience to his harsh commands and who inflicts dire penalties upon all who dare to oppose his wishes or defy his laws. In the higher forms of religion the more directly hostile relations between child and parent are seldom openly manifested, the conception of the father as wicked or immoral tending to disappear with increasing culture, though the notion of obedience to a stern, relentless authority may be maintained. This in its turn however frequently gives place to the idea of the kindly, helpful and forgiving father, according to a process of development which in many respects appears to resemble the evolution of thought as regards the relations of the individual to the state or the king, to which we have already drawn attention. It is a change of this nature for instance that, more perhaps than all else, marks the step from Judaism to Christianity; the latter giving promise of a reign of kindliness and forgiveness in place of the harsh and uncompromising exercise of paternal authority so characteristic of the former. It is for this reason that Christianity (at any rate in its primitive form) especially appealed to and encouraged the poor, the weak and the helpless, those who were most in need of kindness and assistance; and by so doing has encountered the opposition or contempt of those who see the paternal authority (and therefore its projection as the authority of the Universe) in a sterner shape[176], or of those who (like Nietzsche's Supermen), in their own sense of power and independence, despise all who, as though they were still children, require the assistance of a beneficent father to help them through their lives. [Sidenote: The splitting up of parental attributes among two or more divinities] [Sidenote: The Devil] [Sidenote: The dissociation of good and evil in theology and in the individual mind]