sic and poetry, as well as his prophetic office of giving forth oracles as a mediator between Zeus and mortals. The relations of Apollo to social life in its various de- partments, and his connection with Delphi, where the religion of Greece found its centre, made him the most ! important of all the Greek divinities, Zeus only except- j ed. His attributes may possibly all be evolved from | the original conception of him as a nature-god ; but it , is hard to see how this can be done.
We have reached the point where we can state in brief several laws, as they may be called, of polytheism, which might be illustrated by an infinite number of facts, but will, we trust, commend themselves to our readers, after what has been said, without much ex- j planation. (1.) To a great extent, polytheism at its foundation is the worship of nature, i. e. of objects in nature which strike the attention of man, and are important aids to his well-being in the world. (2.) These objects are conceived of as living existences, and as having, together with superhuman power, the feelings and the will of men. (3.) In the course of i time, the living thing or god in the natural object becomes detached from it, is conceived of as an agent in human affairs, and may greatly enlarge its sphere I of operations. (4.) This process changes the attributes | and functions of the divinities. In this way, or by the mythological processes, the religions of heathen- ism may for some time be in a constant flux, and this will last as long as faith in the gods and the mytho- j logical spirit lasts. (5.) Among the changes may be mentioned the following : (a) the god of a clan or district becomes the god of a race ; (b) foreign gods are introduced ; (c) the same divinity, through the help of a new name, becomes a new personality by the side perhaps of the old one; (c7) old divinities drop out of worship ; (e) the relative importance of different gods may change ; (f) what is called I tkeocrasia, that is, a confusion of gods, takes place, but generally this is due to philosophical reflection : this | is sometimes a pantheistic process, and in the later | stages of Greek history it is carried so far that all the leading gods are considered to be forms or expressions for one and the same potence ; (g) in the most cultiva- ted nations of heathenism there came on a time when the mythology was rejected as being immoral, or was explained on various principles so as to bring it within the limits of the natural ; and the religion, under the attacks of a scepticism produced by moral feeling or philosophical doctrine, lost its hold on the national mind. This would naturally destroy the life of the nation, unless some new religion should take its place. To illustrate the changes through which the heathen religions can pass, we refer, first, to Hinduism, which appears in the Vedas as a simple worship of the gods of light, fire, etc. ; then passes into Brabmhiism, where Vishnu, an inferior god of the Vedas, and Siva, perhaps the same as the storm-god Rudra of the Vedas, take the principal place, and divide in their ramified mythol- ogies the worship of the nation between their respec- tive religions. A second instance is presented by the religion of Rome, which in its early stage was a punc- tilious, superstitious veneration of ceitain divinities, somewhat allied to those of Greece, together with other j vague, shadowy powers, and in its second stage adopted many of the gods and much of the mythology of Greece, so as to throw its own indigenous religion into the shade. | Then, in its third stage, Rome almost entirely lost its , old religion, and was a common harbor for all Oriental superstitions — the worship of Cj-bele and Isis and Mi- thras, and the Virgo Ccelestis from Carthage, and the Moloch-Jupiters of Syria. A third instance, with less clear outlines, is presented by Mexico, the religion of which seems to be a composite made up of parts from I 1;he religion of the Mayas, from that of the Toltecs, j from that of the Aztec conquerors, and of a residuum ! perhaps from other quarters. (6.) From this exposition it would seem safe to affirm that few religions preserve
POLYTHEISM
16
POLYTHEISM
anything more than the -pirit of their original form. '1 bey continue t- l»- n ligions of nature, that is, of divine it appears in the diversified objects of nature. II the philosophy which arises in heathen countries
willi... apt to be panthi I God and nature.
Polytheism, in any true view of it, must 1"' consid- ered in its rel itions to m\ thology : but we must speak on this branch of our Bubject with the greatest possible i ady considered mythology by
Mythology takes up the raw material, so to
rnished by heathen theology, and converts it into history, mingling with it much of poetic inven- ; faith; for there can be no doubt that the earliest bui cessors of the mj thological age be- lieved in their religion in this shape, as presented to them by the imaginations of a prior age uncoi coloring h hat they rece'n ed for true. Mytholo with attributing to its divinities human form and feel-