The existence of the first element, tradition, is, to those who admit the truth of Scripture, undeniable, and it gives a clue to the elucidation of the leading principle in the belief in those gods, dæmons, fiends, sprites, &c., which, summed up, have constituted the objects of worship of different nations.
I. As in the course of generations the pristine revelation of the Godhead to man became obscured, and a vague and traditionary belief alone remained,—the conceptions, the thoughts and imaginations of each generation being implanted in the succeeding one, and influencing it by the force of habit, education, and authority,—man, impressed with an imperfect notion of a supernatural Power, and ignorant of the forces of the material world, on seeking to unfold the source of those changes which he beheld in the budding forth of spring, the fervid beauty of summer, the maturity of autumn, and the stern grandeur of winter, conceived that the wonderful phenomena ever going on around him owed their origin and effects to the influence of supernatural agency, and marking their apparent dependence upon the sun and other orbs in space, he offered adoration to those luminaries. But when he still further analysed the changes occurring on the surface of the globe, and comprehended the influence of the more palpable forces and elements, and the inexhaustible variety and seeming disconnectedness of the phenomena which he witnessed, incapable of otherwise solving the mysteries which surrounded him, he deemed each as the work of a potent and indwelling Spirit.[6]
Thus man concluded that he was surrounded by a world of supernatural beings, of different powers, attributes, and passions. The sun and moon, the planets and stars, were conceived to be the abodes of spiritual existences; and the effects caused by those orbs which more immediately influence our earth, were considered as the indications of the powers of their respective deities. So also the air, its clouds and currents; the ocean, with its mighty progeny of lakes and rivers; and the earth, its hills, dales, and organic forms, were peopled with incorporeal beings. Every object of beauty shadowed forth the operations of a beneficent Spirit; while devastating storms, barren places and deserts, and the convulsions of nature, betokened the malignancy of dæmons or fiends. According as a country's surface is harsh, rugged, barren, and storm-tossed, or clothed with lovely verdure and basking in the rays of a fervid sun, so do we find the principal characters of its mythology; stern, gigantic, and fierce gods or dæmons, or spirits more kind towards man, and full of beauty and grace. The passions and affections of man, for the same reasons, were considered to be under the sway of supernatural beings; in short, every operation of nature in the organic or inorganic, in the mental or physical worlds, was deemed an indication of the existence of a supernatural Being which ruled and governed it.[7]
These powers in the progress of time were personified and represented as possessed of passions and propensities similar to those of man; for the same finite and imperfect reason which had concluded that they dwelt in the phenomena they were supposed to explain, also deemed, being unable to conceive any higher type of existence than was seen in man himself, that they differed simply in degree of power, and were alike subject to those appetites and passions which characterised humanity.
This source of belief in spiritual existences is found dominant in the systems of mythology of all nations; and as it arises from causes which are inherant in man, it can easily be understood why there is so great a similarity in the primary mythological conceptions of different races.
The mythologies of ancient Greece and Rome furnish a very perfect illustration of the influence which this cause has exercised in the development of the belief in supernatural beings, and no better method of illustration can be adopted, than a sketch of the physical signification of the principal deities, and classes of deities, of those countries.
The primitive religion of the Greeks and Romans would appear to have consisted in the worship of the heavenly bodies (Sabaism):—the Titans are nearly all personifications of the celestial orbs. Subsequently, their mythology assumed a more physical character, and the offspring of Cronos (Saturn, time), or the personifications of the firmament, atmosphere, sea, &c., formed the leading deities of the more developed system of religion, and the reign of Jupiter commenced.
In this system, the god Jupiter is symbolical of the upper regions of the atmosphere (Æther). Euripides writes:—