Anthropomorphism
Man at the beginning, knowing of two kinds of agents only, both tangible, themselves and the beasts, conceived the idea that the phenomena of nature were set in motion by invisible agents of some kind, their imagination followed its natural bent in picturing these agents under one or the other of the two aspects familiar to them, and sometimes under the two united; since these unknown powers—for instance amongst the Egyptians—often assumed the shape of creatures half man and half fish, or bird, or quadruped. But with the progress of civilisation these representations of divinities were modified. Man having obtained glimpses of the difference between the phenomenal and the non-phenomenal, was led to suspect the existence of an author for the one and the other; and this author or agent was perceived by him anthropomorphically, that is to say, arrayed with a human personality, but endowed with all the qualities of goodness and beauty which distinguish the highest and noblest of men. We know that anthropomorphism in the abstract is wrong, yet without it man could never have found the way of approach to this unknown author of all created things, and the desire to know him nearer was irresistible.
In one sense we are less advanced than our primitive ancestors. Attracted on the one hand by the occult properties of the magnet, and impelled by sensation, they advanced in all simplicity. At a later date they desired to have those things explained to them which they did not understand; men undertook this duty, greater distances grew up between them, and the sacred code was the result.