ABSTRACT
At the end of the last century, several prominent historians of religion believed that, in the religious history of the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, and Indians they had found traces of a “primary monotheism”, which later had more or less disappeared. Max Müller rejected the theory of an original monotheism in the Veda religion, but his own theory on “henotheism” reflects the same romantic spirit conspicuous in many of his contemporaries. This chapter deals with the Supreme Beings of primitive peoples and examines the main arguments adduced in support of the theory about a primary monotheism by Father Schmidt and his pupils. Paintings and engravings of mammoth, bison, bear, elk, and other animals, done with wonderful skill by the prehistoric men on the walls of their primitive dwellings, cannot be explained merely as an expression of their aesthetic sense, but must have been connected in some mysterious way with their belief in spirits or souls.
