There was also a manifest progress in the definition of the idea of God, that is, of a single infinite intelligence as the source and controlling power of phenomena.  We have it on record that in Peru this was the direct fruit of the myth of Viracocha.  It is related that the Inca Yupangui published to his people that to him had appeared Viracocha, with admonition that he alone was lord of the world, and creator of all things; that he had made the heavens, the sun, and man; and that it was not right that these, his works, should receive equal homage with himself.  Therefore, the Inca decreed that the image of Viracocha should thereafter be assigned supremacy to those of all other divinities, and that no tribute nor sacrifice should be paid to him, for He was master of all the earth, and could take from it as he chose.[1] This was evidently a direct attempt on the part of an enlightened ruler to lift his people from a lower to a higher form of religion, from idolatry to theism.  The Inca even went so far as to banish all images of Viracocha from his temples, so that this, the greatest of gods, should be worshiped as an immaterial spirit only.

[Footnote 1:  P. Joseph de Acosta, Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias, Lib. vi, cap. 31 (Barcelona, 1591).]

A parallel instance is presented in Aztec annals.  Nezahualcoyotzin, an enlightened ruler of Tezcuco, about 1450, was both a philosopher and a poet, and the songs which he left, seventy in number, some of which are still preserved, breathe a spirit of emancipation from the idolatrous superstition of his day.  He announced that there was one only god, who sustained and created all things, and who dwelt above the ninth heaven, out of sight of man.  No image was fitting for this divinity, nor did he ever appear bodily to the eyes of men.  But he listened to their prayers and received their souls.[1]

[Footnote 1:  See Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, Historica Chichimeca, cap. xlix; and Joseph Joaquin Granados y Galvez, Tardes Americanas, p. 90 (Mexico, 1778).]

These traditions have been doubted, for no other reason than because it was assumed that such thoughts were above the level of the red race.  But the proper names and titles, unquestionably ancient and genuine, which I have analyzed in the preceding pages refute this supposition.

We may safely affirm that other and stronger instances of the kind could be quoted, had the early missionaries preserved more extensively the sacred chants and prayers of the natives.  In the Maya tongue of Yucatan a certain number of them have escaped destruction, and although they are open to some suspicion of having been colored for proselytizing purposes, there is direct evidence from natives who were adults at the time of the Conquest that some of their priests had predicted the time should come when the worship of one only God should prevail.  This was nothing more than another instance of the monotheistic idea finding its expression, and its apparition is not more extraordinary in Yucatan or Peru than in ancient Egypt or Greece.