According to the view of them which has here been given, though I could not class the Erinuës with the traditive deities, it is clear that they must represent, under metamorphosis, an important association of ideas belonging to primitive tradition.
Let us now turn to the Sixth Class.
The translation of mortals.
Those for whom it was a mental necessity to animate with deity even the mute powers of nature, could not but find modes of associating man, who stood nearer to the Immortals, with them and their conditions of existence.
These modes were chiefly three:
The first, that of translation during life.
The second, that of deification after death.
The third, the conception of races intermediate between deity and humanity.
And it was perhaps not the simple working of a fervid imagination, but also an offshoot from this profound and powerful tendency, which has filled the pages of Homer with continual efforts to deify what was most excellent, or most conspicuous, in the mind or in the person of living man.
The mode of translation during life was early in date, and was rarely used, for not only are the Homeric examples of it few, but he records no contemporary instance.