Alchemy leads up to chemistry.
The notion of a man-god, or of a human being endowed with divine or
supernatural powers, belongs essentially to that earlier period of
religious history in which gods and men are still viewed as beings
of much the same order, and before they are divided by the
impassable gulf which, to later thought, opens out between them.
Strange, therefore, as may seem to us the idea of a god incarnate in
human form, it has nothing very startling for early man, who sees in
a man-god or a god-man only a higher degree of the same supernatural
powers which he arrogates in perfect good faith to himself. Nor does
he draw any very sharp distinction between a god and a powerful
sorcerer. His gods are often merely invisible magicians who behind
the veil of nature work the same sort of charms and incantations
which the human magician works in a visible and bodily form among
his fellows. And as the gods are commonly believed to exhibit
themselves in the likeness of men to their worshippers, it is easy
for the magician, with his supposed miraculous powers, to acquire
the reputation of being an incarnate deity.
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