"That the worship of the powers of nature, mitigated, indeed, and embellished, constituted the foundation of the Greek and Roman religion, will not be disputed by any person who surveys the fables of the Olympian Gods with a more penetrating eye than that of a mere antiquarian."
M. De Coulanges, speaking of them, says:
"The Sun, which gives fecundity; the Earth, which nourishes; the Clouds, by turns beneficent and destructive,—such were the different powers of which they could make gods. But from each one of these elements thousands of gods were created; because the same physical agent, viewed under different aspects, received from men different names. The Sun, for example, was called in one place Hercules (the glorious); in another, Phœbus (the shining); and still again, Apollo (he who drives away night or evil); one called him Hyperion (the elevated being); another, Alexicacos (the beneficent); and in the course of time groups of men, who had given these various names to the brilliant luminary, no longer saw that they had the same god."[549:7]
Richard Payne Knight says:
"The primitive religion of the Greeks, like that of all other nations not enlightened by Revelation, appears to have been elementary, and to have consisted in an indistinct worship of the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Earth, and the Waters, or rather, the spirits supposed to preside over these bodies, and to direct their motions, and regulate their modes of existence. Every river, spring or mountain had its local genius, or peculiar deity; and as men naturally endeavored to obtain the favor of their gods by such means as they feel best adapted to win their own, the first worship consisted in offering to them certain portions of whatever they held to be most valuable. At the same time, the regular motions of the heavenly bodies, the stated returns of summer and winter, of day and night, with all the admirable order of the universe, taught them to believe in the existence and agency of such superior powers; the irregular and destructive efforts of nature, such as lightnings and tempests, inundations and earthquakes, persuaded them that these mighty beings had passions and affections similar to their own, and only differed in possessing greater strength, power, and intelligence."[550:1]
When the Grecian astronomers first declared that the Sun was not a person, but a huge hot ball, instantly an outcry arose against them. They were called "blaspheming atheists," and from that time to the present, when any new discovery is made which seems to take away from man his god, the cry of "Atheist" is instantly raised.
If we turn from the ancient Greeks and Romans, and take a look still farther West and North, we shall find that the gods of all the Teutonic nations were the same as we have seen elsewhere. They had Odin or Woden—from whom we have our Wednesday—the Al-fader (the Sky), Frigga, the Mother Goddess (the Earth), "Baldur the Good," and Thor—from whom we have our Thursday (personifications of the Sun), besides innumerable other genii, among them Freyja—from whom we have our Friday—and as she was the "Goddess of Love," we eat fish on that day.[550:2]
The gods of the ancient inhabitants of what are now called the "British Islands" were identically the same. The Sun-god worshiped by the Ancient Druids was called Hu, Beli, Budd and Buddu-gre.[550:3]
The same worship which we have found in the Old World, from the farthest East to the remotest West, may also be traced in America, from its simplest or least clearly defined form, among the roving hunters and squalid Esquimaux of the North, through every intermediate stage of development, to the imposing systems of Mexico and Peru, where it took a form nearly corresponding that which it at one time sustained on the banks of the Ganges, and on the plains of Assyria.[550:4]