sky (Divaspati), and so on; as in Scandinavia it is Sol the shining, Baldr the beautiful, and Frey the master.

At the time when man created all these epithets, he had no fear of being misunderstood, for the same naïf passion filled every soul. But as soon as the first age of man had passed, the next epoch, perplexed by the number of names, and not understanding their significance, sought to reduce the confusion to order. It was supposed that these appellations could not all belong to the same objects, and Mitra was distinguished from Sûrya, Bhaga from Tvashtar, and Divaspati from Aryaman. Thus the one object of veneration was multiplied into a crowd of deities. We shall recur to this process in the following chapter.

Every form of polytheism is sprung from nature-worship, or the concentration of force in material objects. In Persia, the blazing sun was adored as Ormuzd, and altars smoked perpetually in honour of fire. In the bleak North, the Norseman called on Odin, the stormy, and Thorr, the thunderer, and Loki, flame. In Gaul and Britain pillars were raised to the sun, altars to the moon, and fire was heaped under sacrificial caldrons to Ceridwen, the earth goddess.

But as civilization advanced, men's ideas underwent modification. The religious idea wrapped in the shell of naturalism lay like a gland on the earth. The sun of prosperity shone on it; the dew of intelligence moistened it; the germ of life burst the hard casing which had imprisoned it, and became a vital religion, flowering in polytheism, fruiting into monotheism. The laws governing that nature which had been ignorantly worshipped were observed, and the gods ceased to be material objects, and were transformed into governing principles.

From physical laws men advanced to moral laws, and, when the world of morals was invaded by men, they enthroned their gods above it. Humanity before religious truth acted like a painter sketching from nature. It began by blotting in the subject in rude masses of light and shade. Slowly the details were elaborated; the chiaroscuro gave each object its relative position, and the parts were blended by a common tint.

As man grew wiser he grew more grave, and his deities reflected his mood. The Hellenic gods moved from the physical to the metaphysical, and from that into the moral sphere. Zeus was originally the sky that fertilizes the earth and quickens nature. Clothed in swan garb of feathery cirrus, it approaches and overshadows Leda; in a shower of vernal rain it impregnates Danaë, the earth fettered in frosty chains.

So far the physical Zeus. In his metaphysical acceptation he became the law and harmony of the universe; and in his moral aspect he was the principle of justice, the source of good, the All-holy. In like manner, Athene, who sprang from the head of Zeus, was the heavenly fire striking with its lightning spear, and whirling the cloudy ægis; but in later times Pallas Athene was regarded as divine wisdom.

As soon as agriculture assumed a prominent position in the social economy, the observation and knowledge of the heavens became a necessity. The sidereal vault was the great farmer's-kalendar, and the operations of agriculture were governed by the motions of the heavenly bodies. The march of the sun, in its annual revolution, and the phases of the moon, formed the rough distribution of time to a rude people. But these observations were incomplete and truncated, and resulted in the creation of a year of ten

lunar months, of which five were summer and five were winter months. The number was increased to twelve when it was seen that certain groups of stars appeared and disappeared in fixed succession, and returned to the same situations above the horizon at the same periods. As soon as this was discovered, these groups of stars were given names. The recommencement of agricultural operations and the heliatic rising and setting of certain constellations were associated together, and the names and forms of the terrestrial objects brought into prominence at the rising of these constellations were applied to the clusters of stars. The sign of the bull indicated the month when the plough was driven through the soil; the lion pointed out the time when that animal, driven by the summer heat from its deserts, appeared near the rivers and brought destruction on the flocks; the constellation of the ear, or of the reaping virgin, fixed the time for gathering in the harvest, and the serpent that when the floods rose and wound among the pastures; and the symbol of the water-bearer told when the winter downfall of rain reached its climax. The mind of man, having once entered on this course, did not remain stationary. Soon the whole of the celestial sphere was covered with hieroglyphs of men and beasts and objects of every description, intended at first to announce to agriculturists the precise date at which certain phenomena were to take place, which would affect their labours in a manner more or less special. After a while, this system, inculcated on the mind by civil and religious education, for public utility, became sacred; and came to be regarded as reposing on incontestable truth, and was explained by myths. As the sun traversed the constellations it was said to be transformed. Osiris and Çiva were related to have been metamorphosed into bulls; the same was told of Zeus, and as

in that month the earth was fecundated by the early rains and warm sunbeams, strange tales arose of the union of the god with an Io, Isis, or Europa. Vishnu, for the benefit of man, was said to have taken at one time the form of a fish, then of a boar, a tortoise, a lion-headed man, and a dwarf, all symbols of zodiacal signs. Thus also are to be explained the Egyptian gods with heads of crocodiles, hawks, and dogs, and of sphinxes-figures of the Nile flood, occurring between the signs of the lion and the virgin.

From this observation of the planets and constellations arose the astrolatry of the Chaldeans, and the astrology of ancient and medieval times. "The ancient astrologers," says Maimonides, "having consecrated to each planet a colour, an animal, a piece of wood formed in a special manner, a metal, a fruit, a plant, formed of all these things a figure or representation of the star, observing for this purpose the proper instant, and a lucky day, a right conjunction, or any other aspect regarded as favourable. By magical ceremonies, they thought to make the influence of the superior beings pass into these figures or idols. Such were the idols adored by the Chaldee-Sabæans. In the worship tendered to them, the priest wore the colours proper to the symbolized planet. By these means the astrologers and magicians succeeded in passing themselves off as the dispensers of celestial favours. As the early peoples were all agriculturists, they persuaded them that they had the power to dispose of rains and all the good things of the seasons. Consequently agriculture was carried on subject to astrologic rites, and the priests made talismans, and inaugurated processions to draw down upon the harvests the salutary influences of the celestial virtues, and to drive far off all maleficent influences."1

1 Renand: Nouvelle Symbolique, p. 35; Bruxelles, 1861.

A world of deities analogous to the world of men was in like manner arranged into states, of which one became the head to whom the others were subordinated. Two empires were always represented, one of light, the other of darkness-one of life, the other of death-and afterwards morally contrasted as realms of good and of evil. The kingdom of light was subdivided according to the elemental divisions, and there were air, earth, and water deities; the air gods were of heavenly nature and disposition, those of the earth approached in character the gods of the nether world, but were nevertheless members of the heavenly kingdom. But this classification was the work of a later date, and was arbitrary, and often inexact. The moon goddess is made an earth goddess, and the god of the skies is precipitated into the sea, where he inaugurates a watery kingdom.

In the following chapter we shall see some farther developments of Polytheism,

The origin and modification in religious belief is due to the sense of man's physical weakness, his mental weakness, and his moral weakness.

At first he was only conscious of physical inferiority and then his gods were his superiors in brute force alone. when his intellect grew, he felt how unequal it was to grasp the laws of nature, and then the gods were treated as his superiors in wisdom and understanding.

At last his moral consciousness awakened, and with it a consciousness of sin; then he raised his gods to an altitude of moral holiness and purity which he himself despaired to reach. the Greeks?

Thus, if it be true that man is made in the image of God, it is also true that the gods man worships are images of himself, but larger, mightier, wiser, better. God is the superlative of man the positive.