and Osiris. Of Attis we have only late
accounts, and do not know his early history. Osiris is an old
underground deity (later the judge of the Underworld), with functions
that included more than the vivification of vegetation, and the
absorption of the corn-spirit into his cult would be natural. The
collocation of a male with a female deity, common to the three cults,
may be merely the elaboration of the myth in accordance with human
social usage (the dead deity is mourned by his consort).[517] The
descent of Ishtar has been interpreted of the weakening of the sun's
heat in winter; but as she is obviously a deity of fertility and, in her
descent, disappears entirely from among men, while the sun does not
disappear entirely, she rather, in this story, represents or is
connected with the decay and rebirth of vegetation.

+284+. It is thus possible that, though many ancient ceremonies stand in
relation to the corn-spirit and also to a god, the explanation of this
fact is not that the spirit has grown into a god, but that it has
coalesced with a god. In all such explanations, however, our ignorance
of the exact processes of ancient thought must be borne in mind.

+285+. Trees have been widely credited with the power of bestowing
blessings of all sorts. But, like animals, they rarely receive formal
worship;[518] the reason for this is similar to that suggested
above[519] in the case of animals. The coalescence, spoken of above, of
tree ceremonies with cults of fully developed gods is not uncommon, and
trees figure largely in mythical divine histories.

STONES AND MOUNTAINS

+286+. Like all other objects stones have been regarded, in all parts of
the world, as living, as psychologically anthropomorphic (that is, as
having soul, emotion, will), and, in some cases, as possessing
superhuman powers.[520] The term 'sacred,' as applied to them, may mean
either that they are in themselves endowed with peculiar powers, or that
they have special relations with divine beings; the first meaning is the
earlier, the second belongs to a period when the lesser revered objects
have been subordinated to the greater.

+287+. The basis of the special belief in their sacredness was,
probably, the mystery of their forms and qualities, their hardness,
brilliancy, solidity. They seem to have been accepted, in the earliest
known stages of human life, as ultimate facts. When explanations of
their presence were sought, they were supposed to hav