[2104] Examples are the Copernican and Newtonian theories; the magnitude of the stellar universe; Biblical criticism; the theories of evolution and the conservation of energy.
[2105] The general religious attitude may be the same whether the world be regarded as monistic or as pluralistic.
[2106] See above, § 172.
[2107] Cf. L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, part ii, chaps. v-vii.
[2108] An example is the Old-Hebrew usage respecting marriage with a half-sister or with a wife (not one's mother) of a father. Up to about the seventh century B.C. such marriages were lawful (Gen. xx, 12; 2 Sam. xiii, 13; xvi, 22); later they were forbidden (Ezek. xxii, 10 f.; Lev. xviii, 11). Maspero (in the Annuaire de l'école des hautes études, 1896) points out that in Egypt marriage between uterine brothers and sisters in the royal family was not only legal but a sacred duty, its object being to maintain the purity of the divine blood.
[2109] See above, §§ 107, 180, 219.
[2110] Amos ii, 7; Hos. iv, 14.
[2111] The Old Testament command to exterminate the Canaanites (Deut. vii, 2; xxv, 19; Josh. vi-xi) is not historical, that is, was not given at the time stated or at any other time. The Israelites, in fact, settled down among the Canaanites and intermarried with them, and at the time when the passages just cited were written (seventh century and later) there were no such alien tribes in Canaan. But these passages show how a current barbarous custom of war could be regarded by religious leaders as pleasing to God.
[2112] See § 630 ff.
[2113] So, for example, Butler's Analogy.