uman form, and divine power, credibly associated in the
ancient heart, so as to become a subject of true faith irrespective
equally of fable, allegory, superstitious trust in stone, and
demoniacal influence?

It seems to me that the Greek had exactly the same instinctive feeling
about the elements that we have ourselves; that to Homer, as much as
to Casimir de la Vigne,[75] fire seemed ravenous and pitiless; to
Homer, as much as to Keats, the sea-wave appeared wayward or idle, or
whatever else it may be to the poetical passion. But then the Greek
reasoned upon this sensation, saying to himself: "I can light the
fire, and put it out; I can dry this water up, or drink it. It cannot
be the fire or the water that rages, or that is wayward. But it must
be something _in_ this fire and _in_ the water, which I cannot destroy
by extinguishing the one, or evaporating the other, any more than I
destroy myself by cutting off my finger; _I_ was _in_ my
finger,--something of me at least was; I had a power over it and felt
pain in it, though I am still as much myself when it is gone. So there
may be a power in the water which is not water, but to which the water
is as a body;--which can strike with it, move in it, suffer in it, yet
not be destroyed with it. This something, this Great Water Spirit, I
must not confuse with the waves, which are only its body. _They_ may
flow hither and thither, increase or diminish. _That_ must be
invisible--imperishable--a god. So of fire also; those rays which I
can stop, and in the midst of which I cast a shadow, cannot be divine,
nor greater than I. They cannot feel, but there may be something in
them that feels,--a glorious intelligence, as much nobler and more
swift than mine, as these rays, which are its body, are nobler and
swifter than my flesh;--the spirit of all light, and truth, and
melody, and revolving hours."

It was easy to conceive, farther, that such spirits should be able to
assume at will a human form, in order to hold intercourse with men, or
to perform any act for which their proper body, whether of fire,
earth, or air, was unfitted. And it would have been to place them
beneath, instead of above, humanity, if, assuming the form of man,
they could not also have tasted his pleasures. Hence the easy step to
the more or less material ideas of deities, which are apt at first to
shock us, but which are indeed only dishonourable so far as they
represent the gods as false and unholy. It i