ies,--with the manners of an heroic age:--the power of
the sovereign of the aristocracy of heaven is the power of a Grecian
king over a Grecian state:--the social life of the gods is the life
most coveted by the Grecian heroes;--the uncertain attributes of the
deities, rather physical or intellectual than moral--strength and
beauty, sagacity mixed with cunning--valour with ferocity--inclination
to war, yet faculties for the inventions of peace; such were the
attributes most honoured among men, in the progressive, but still
uncivilized age which makes the interval so pre-eminently Grecian--
between the mythical and historic times. Vain and impotent are all
attempts to identify that religion of Achaian warriors with the
religion of oriental priests. It was indeed symbolical--but of the
character of its believers; typical--but of the restless, yet
poetical, daring, yet graceful temperament, which afterward conducted
to great achievements and imperishable arts: the coming events of
glory cast their shadows before, in fable.

XX. There now opens to us a far more important inquiry than that into
the origin and form of the religion of the Greeks; namely, the
influences of that religion itself upon their character--their morals
--their social and intellectual tendencies.

The more we can approach the Deity to ourselves--the more we can
invest him with human attributes--the more we can connect him with the
affairs and sympathies of earth, the greater will be his influence
upon our conduct--the more fondly we shall contemplate his attributes,
the more timidly we shall shrink from his vigilance, the more
anxiously we shall strive for his approval. When Epicurus allowed the
gods to exist, but imagined them wholly indifferent to the concerns of
men, contemplating only their own happiness, and regardless alike of
our virtues or our crimes;--with that doctrine he robbed man of the
divinity, as effectually as if he had denied his existence. The fear
of the gods could not be before the eyes of votaries who believed that
the gods were utterly careless of their conduct; and not only the
awful control of religion was removed from their passions, but the
more beautiful part of its influence, resulting not from terror but
from hope, was equally blasted and destroyed: For if the fear of the
divine power serves to restrain the less noble natures, so, on the
other hand, with such as are more elevated and generous, there is no
pleasure li