Grant that it is so, there is nothing here which militates against our position, which is this,--not certainly that there is not a revelation of God in man's being, made to every rational creature, but that there has been an express revelation superadded to it; and that it is not true that "the common consent of mankind to the existence of God has been adduced as a proof of a tradition of a revelation in past times," but that the mode and manner of the consent attests the fact of tradition and the fact of revelation. But what have we just heard? That there is a revelation of God's existence in man's nature, _i.e._ in _each_ man's nature--"it is a revelation made to every man's nature." Then the indefinite lapse of time demanded for the evolution of the ideas, which we have just been combating, is not after all necessary. "_Habemus reum confitentum._" But inasmuch as the consent of mankind is only "to one or more deities," it is only so far a testimony to the existence of God as it is shown that polytheism arose out of the corruption of this belief; and, moreover, by no means proves "that all men have drawn the same inference from the same premises," even if it were possible to reconcile this statement with what is said at page 113--"The shapeless religion of a primitive people gradually assumes a definite form. It is that of nature-worship. _It progresses through_ polytheism and idolatry, _and emerges into_ monotheism or pantheism" (_vide infra_). At this point I should wish to put in the accumulation of evidence which L'Abbe Gainet has collected to prove that monotheism was the primitive belief.[122] When this evidence is dispersed, it will be time enough to return to the subject. [122] "Monotheisme des Peuples Primitifs," in vol. iii. of "La Bible sans la Bible." In any case, we may fall back upon the following testimony in Mr Baring Gould:--