Then, at the very best, polytheism must be far from good,--at its highest, it must be low. Were it much better than it has ever been--had it all the merits of Greek polytheism, without any of its faults, save those which are inherent in the very nature of polytheism--it would still be but a poor religion, for its essential and irremediable defects are such as to render it altogether incapable of truly satisfying the nature of man. It is a belief in more gods than one. This of itself is what reason cannot rest in--what reason is constantly finding out more clearly to be false. The more the universe is examined and understood, the more apparent does it become that it is a single, self-consistent whole--a vast unity in which nothing is isolated or independent. The very notion, therefore, of separate and independent deities, and still more, of course, of discordant or hostile deities, ruling over different departments of nature, is opposed to the strivings and findings of reason. The heart will no less vainly seek satisfaction in the belief of many gods. Its spiritual affections need a single Divine object. To distribute them among many objects is to dissipate and destroy them. The reverence, love, and trust which religion demands are a whole-hearted, absolute, unlimited reverence, love, and trust, such as can only be felt towards one God, with no other beside Him. The will of man in like manner requires to be under not a number of independent wills, but a single, all-comprehensive, perfectly consistent, and perfectly righteous will. It cannot serve many masters; it can only reasonably and rightly serve one. It can only yield itself up unreservedly to be guided by One Supreme Will. If there be no such will in the universe, but only a multitude of independent and co-ordinate wills, that full surrender of the will of the worshipper to the object of his worship, in which religion should find its consummation, is impossible. Further, polytheism is not only the belief in more gods than one, but in gods all of which are finite. There can be no true recognition of the infinity of God where there is no true recognition of His unity. But the mind of man, although finite itself, cannot be satisfied with any object of worship which it perceives to be finite. It craves an infinite object; it desires to offer a boundless devotion; it seeks an absolute blessedness. The aim of the religious life is the communion of the finite with the infinite; and every religion, however otherwise excellent, which suppresses the infinite, and presents to the finite only the finite, is a failure.