It is now more usually given to polytheistic races, thus excluding Mahommedans.
The term properly implies a clear polytheistic conception of gods in contrast with men, while it recognizes that some men cross the dividing line.
It presents itself historically as an intellectual revolt against the difficulties involved in the presupposition of theistic and polytheistic systems, and in philosophy as an attempt to solve the dualism of the one and the many, unity and difference, thought and extension.
In a letter home he described Rome as "the most wonderful place on earth," but the Roman Catholic religion as "polytheistic, degrading and idolatrous."
He assumes that the narrative was meant ethically, not physically, in order to eliminate false and polytheistic notions; and he draws attention to that double narrative in Genesis which was elsewhere to be so fruitfully handled.
