 These conflicting demands are best satisfied by representing the various gods as something like ourselves and attributing particular qualities and attributes to them that are relevant to their specific sphere of influence (e.g., the god of war is cruel and ferocious etc.). Over time, among the vulgar, one of these gods will gradually emerge as a particular object of veneration and worship. In their anxiety to please and praise this god, worshippers will continually try to outdo their predecessors by attributing greater and greater powers and perfections to him. At last they will reach a point where they represent this god as infinite and entirely perfect, whereby they render his nature inexplicable and mysterious. The irony about this, Hume wryly observes, is that the vulgar arrive at a more “philosophical” conception of God by way of a process that is shaped by principles that are entirely unguided by reason.