To this rude people God caused Himself to be announced first, simply as "the God of their fathers," in order to make them acquainted and familiar with the idea of a God belonging to them also, and to begin with confidence in Him.
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Through the miracles with which He led them out of Egypt, and planted them in Canaan, He testified of Himself to them as a God mightier than any other God.
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And as He proceeded, demonstrating Himself to be the Mightiest of all, which only One can be, He gradually accustomed them thus to the idea of THE ONE.
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But how far was this conception of The One, below the true transcendental conception of the One which Reason learnt to derive, so late with certainty, from the conception of the Infinite One?
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Although the best of the people were already more or less approaching the true conception of the One only, the people as a whole could not for a long time elevate themselves to it. And this was the sole true reason why they so often abandoned their one God, and expected to find the One, i. e., as they meant, the Mightiest, in some God or other, belonging to another people.
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