ever not as representing independent blocks, arbitrarily arranged
in a certain consecutive order, not as five successive religious
consciousnesses, but merely as marking the entrance of certain new ideas
into the continuous religious consciousness of the Roman people. The
history of each of these periods is simply the record of the change
which new social conditions produced in that great barometer of society,
the religious consciousness of the community. It is in the period of the
old kingdom that our story begins.

At first sight it may seem a foolish thing to try to draw a picture of
the religious condition of a time about the political history of which
we know so little, and it is only right therefore that we should inquire
what sources of knowledge we possess.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when under the banner of the
new-born science of "Comparative Philology" there gathered together a
group of men who thought they held the key to prehistoric history, and
that words themselves would tell the story where ancient monuments and
literature were silent. It was a great and beautiful thought, and the
science which encouraged it has taken its place as a useful and
reputable member of the community of sciences, but its pretensions to
the throne of the revealer of mysteries have been withdrawn by those who
are its most ardent followers, and the "Indo-Germanic religion" which is
brought into being is a pleasant thought for an idle hour rather than a
foundation and starting-point for the study of ancient religion in
general. Altogether aside from the fact that although primitive religion
and nationality are in the main identical, language and nationality are
by no means so--we have the great practical difficulty in the case of
Greece and Rome that in the earliest period of which we have knowledge
these two religions bear so little resemblance that we must either
assert for the time of Indo-Germanic unity a religious development much
more primitive than that which comparative philology has sketched, or we
must suppose the presence of a strong decadent influence in Rome's case
after the separation, which is equally difficult. If we realise that in
a primitive religion the name of the god is usually the same as the name
of the thing which he represents, the existence of a Greek god and a
Roman god with names which correspond to the same Indo-Germanic word
proves linguistically that the _thing_ existed and had a name b