Nature furnishes the earliest gods—The national state makes early impression on religion—Its forms pass over into the world of the gods—Their origin and function in nature retire into the background—The gods become active in the sphere of human affairs—They are intellectualized and spiritualized till the human arena becomes their domain—The gods are correlated into a general system—In the conception of death and the hereafter we find a glorious celestial realm reserved exclusively for kings and…