believed, the polytheism is the aboriginal Indian plant into which the
pantheistic idea has been grafted as communities have become
brahmanised, the pantheistic idea very readily presents itself to the
mind of the educated Hindu. In any discussion regarding human
responsibility the idea crops up that _all_ is God, "There is One only,
and no second." We can scarcely realise how readily it comes to the
middle-class Hindu's lips that God is all, and that there can be no such
thing as sin. The pantheists are thus no separate sect from the theists,
any more than the theists are from the polytheists. The same man, if a
member of the educated class, will be polytheist in his established
domestic religion, theist in his personal standpoint and general
profession, and probably a pantheist in a controversy regarding moral
responsibility, or should he set himself to write about religion.

[Sidenote: Illustration of polytheism, monotheism, and pantheism
commingling.]

Take a statement of the mingling of polytheism, monotheism, and
pantheism from the extreme south of India, a thousand miles away from
Benares. "Though those men all affirmed," we read, "that there is only
one God, they admitted that they each worshipped several. They saw
nothing inconsistent in this. Just as the air is in everything, so God
is in everything, therefore in the various symbols. And as our king has
diverse representative Viceroys and Governors to rule over his dominions
in his name, so the Supreme has these subdeities, less in power and only
existing by force of Himself, and He, being all pervasive, can be
worshipped under their forms."[66]

[Sidenote: Pure pantheism rare.]