s; that it was done was undoubtedly of great importance
for the development of thought in wide circles.

Prodicus of Ceos, also one of the most famous sophists, advanced the idea
that the conceptions of the gods were originally associated with those
things which were of use to humanity: sun and moon, rivers and springs,
the products of the earth and the elements; therefore bread was identified
with Demeter, wine with Dionysus, water with Poseidon, fire with
Hephaestus. As a special instance he mentioned the worship of the Nile by
the Egyptians.

In Democritus, who was a slightly elder contemporary of Prodicus, we have
already met with investigation into the origin of the conceptions of the
gods. There is a close parallel between his handling of the subject and
that of Prodicus, but at the same time a characteristic difference.
Democritus was a naturalist, hence he took as his starting-point the
natural phenomena commonly ascribed to the influence of the gods.
Prodicus, on the other hand, started from the intellectual life of man. We
learn that he had commenced to study synonyms, and that he was interested
in the interpretation of the poets. Now he found that Homer occasionally
simply substituted the name of Hephaestus for fire, and that other poets
went even further on the same lines. Furthermore, while it was common
knowledge to every Greek that certain natural objects, such as the
heavenly bodies and the rivers, were regarded as divine and had names in
common with their gods, this to Prodicus would be a specially attractive
subject for speculation. It is plainly shown by his instances that it is
linguistic observations of this kind which were the starting-point of his
theory concerning the origin of the conceptions of the gods.

In the accounts of Prodicus it is taken for granted that he denied the
existence of the gods, and in later times he is classed as _atheos_.
Nevertheless we have every reason to doubt the correctness of this
opinion. The case of Democritus already shows that a philosopher might
very well derive the conceptions of the gods from an incorrect
interpretation of certain phenomena without throwing doubt on their
existence. As far as Prodicus is concerned it may be assumed that he did
not believe that Bread, Wine or Fire were gods, any more than Democritus
imagined that Zeus sent thunder and lightning; nor, presumably, did he
ever believe that rivers were gods. But he need not therefore have denied