I THE FORMATION OF MONOTHEISM *) The problem of monotheism made its appearance in European thought during the eighteenth century. Voltaire, in his Dictionnaire philosophique, published in 1764, wrote: Aoother scholar, ... one of the profoundest metaphysicians of our time, gives strong reasons to show that polytheism was the first religion of mankind and that men begall by believing in a plurality of gods before their reason was suf­ ficiently enlightened to recognise but one Supreme Being. The metaphysician to whom Voltaire alludes was the Scottish philos­ opher David Hume. We read, in fact, in one of Hume's essays, which came out in 1757 under the title The Natural History o{ Religion: If we consider the improvement of human society, from rude beginnings to a state of greater perfection, polytheism or idolatry was, and necessarily must have been, the first and most ancient religion of mankind. Voltaire was of a different opinion; after the words we have just quoted, he adds: I venture to believe, on the contrary, that men began by knowing a single God, and that later, human weakness adopted a number of deities. He held, therefore, that monotheism was the oldest form of belief in God, and that polytheism did not appear until a later date. Voltaire, the unbe1iever, the rationalist, the pitiless mocker, was thus in agree­ ment for once, on an important point, with the doctrine of the Church, according to which belief in one God was revealed by God Himself to the first man, while polytheism in its manifold forms was nothing but a diabolical counterfeit, or an alteration allowed by God Himself, these alternatives corresponding to the two leading theologicaI doc­ trines in this connexion, that of plagiarism and that of- condescension. I need not say that Voltaire did not be1ieve in reve1ation. Like the rationalist that he was, he postulated none but a rational and natural *) The original (French) version of this essay was delivered as a lecture in the Grand Hall of the University of Brussels, on April 6, 1949, under the auspices of the Arthur Dekeyser Foundation, and published in the Revue de l'Universite de Bruxelles, March-April 1950. PETTAZZONJ, ESSAYS 2 THE FORMATION OF MONOTHEISM religion, the work of human reason, without any intervention of a supernatural kind; the idea of a single God he supposed to be an essential datum of this religion, and that it was not till later, owing to a "weakness" of the human mind, that the existence of many gods began to be supposed. It remains true that for Voltaire monotheism was earlier than polytheism, just as it was in the most orthodox theology. At nearly the same time J ean-Jacques Rousseau came forward in support of Hume's theory. This is what he wrote in Emile (1764): Laban's grotesques [the allusion is to the teraphim mentioned in Genesis 31, 19, in connexion with Jacob's departure from his father-in-law Laiban], savage manitous, Negro tetiches, all the works of nature and man, were the first deities of mortals; polytheism was their first religion and idolatry their first cult. They could not recognise a single God until, as they generalised their ideas more and more, etc. Whence did Hume and Rousseau get this new theory which was so decidedly opposed to the Church's traditional teaching? Assuredly not from rationalistic philosophy, seeing that Voltaire, one of its most authoritative representatives, would have none of it. It was not so much philosophy that was in question as ethnology. At the base of the new theory lie the discoveries and information, the manifold ob­ servations on the uncivilised peoples of Africa and America, and especially on their religious beliefs, in short the ethnographical data such as were to be found in the works of travellers, missionaries and so forth. Hume indeed expressly appeals to the religion of the savage tribes of America, Africa and Asia. Rousseau for his part expresses hirnself still more precisely, indeed in technical terms, for he defin­ itely names, alongside of Laban's "grotesques" (tnarmousets) , tnani­ tous and jhiches. The word manitou belongs to the religious voca­ bulary of the Algonkin peoples of N orth America, while fetish (feiti~o) is a term invented by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century to signify the idols made and adored by the African blacks. We can even, I think, point out the sources from which it is likely that Hume and Rousseau got their information. It is enough to mention, on the one hand, the work of Father Lafitau, published in 1724, with the title Les ma?urs des sauvages ameriquains compares au% mrrurs des pre­ miers temps, and dealing with the Indians of New France, in which the missions of the Society of Jesus were established; and on the other, the work of President de Brosses, Du cutte des Dieu% Fhiches, .