s was into right and left,
and the general name of Dactyli, Fingers, was given them. The right gods
broke the spells which the left wove, the right pointed out the ore
which the left had buried, the right disclosed the remedies for the
sickness which the left had sent. This venerable division is still
retained when we speak of a _sinister_ portent, or a _right_ judgment.
It is of physiological interest as showing that "dextral pre-eminence"
or right-handedness was prevalent in earliest historic times, though it
is unknown in any lower animal.

The thoughtful dwellers in Farsistan also developed a religion close to
man's wants by dividing the gods into those who aid and those who harm
him, subject the one class to Ahura-Mazda, the other to Anya-Mainyus.
Early in their history this assumed almost a moral aspect, and there is
little to be added to one of the most ancient precepts of their
law--"Happiness be to the man who conduces to the happiness of
all."[184-1]

When this dual classification sought expression through natural
contrasts, there was one which nigh everywhere offered itself as the
most appropriate. The savage, the nomad, limited to the utmost in
artificial contrivances, met nothing which more signally aided the
accomplishment of his wishes than _light_; nothing which more certainly
frustrated them than _darkness_. From these two sources flow numerous
myths, symbols, and rites, as narratives or acts which convey religious
thought to the eye or the ear of sense.

As the bringers of light, man adored the sun, the dawn, and fire;
associated with warmth and spring, his further meditations saw in it the
source of his own and of all life, and led him to connect with its
worship that of the reproductive principle. As it comes from above, and
seems to dwell in the far-off sky, he located there his good gods, and
lifted his hands or his eyes when he prayed. As light is necessary to
sight, and as to see is to know, the faculty of knowing was typified as
enlightenment, an inward god-given light. The great and beneficent
deities are always the gods of light. Their names often show this. Deva,
Deus, means the shining one; Michabo, the great white one; the Mongols
call Tien, the chief Turanian god, the bright one, the luminous one; the
northern Buddhist prays to Amitabha, Infinite Light; and the Christian
to the Light of the World.

On the other hand, darkness was connected with feelings of helplessness
and terror. It