2. It seems quite impossible but that, if Nature-worship had been the basis of the system, the Sun, as the visible king of nature, must have had a prominent and commanding position in the system; whereas his place in Homer is even less than secondary. Looking at the realm of nature, to search out a varied organism, which would supply a powerful apparatus of instruments operative upon man to a presiding intelligence, the Greek naturally made Ζεὺς the king of Air. But had he merely wanted a symbol by which nature itself was to speak, how could he have forborne to choose the Sun?
3. There is, indeed, an extended use in Homer of the imagery of Nature-Powers. But however prominent as poetry, this is altogether subordinate as religion. His Nymphs and River-gods people the unseen, adorn his verse, and even supply a kind of drapery to the scheme of religious observances; but it is not by them that the world is governed. And with them may very well be classed, as far as the present argument is concerned, the crowd of Homer’s metaphysical impersonations.
4. That Neptune in particular is not properly an elemental power, seems to be made clear by three things at the least:
a. He can act by land as well as sea; witness his building the wall of Troy, and appearing as a warrior on the battle-field.
b. The θάλασσα, with which he is connected, is decidedly inferior, in its merely elemental character, to Oceanus; yet Oceanus has no share in the government of the world, and no moral personality, while Neptune has equal dignity with Jupiter, and is not far behind him in strength.
c. The true elemental gods of the θάλασσα, it is plain, according to Homer, are Nereus and Amphitrite; of whom the first is locally confined to the depths of the sea, and the other is scarcely a person, and cannot ideally be disengaged from the curly-headed billows.
5. In the Olympian Court, which is the real centre, according to Homer, of the government of the world, there is scarcely to be found a pure example of a Nature-power; there is no one leading deity, in whom that idea is not wholly subordinate; and in many of the leading deities, such as Minerva, Apollo, and even Juno, it is hardly to be perceived at all.
6. As to Juno in particular. When we compare the Greek with the Eastern religions, it appears that, if the former had been conceived in the same spirit as the latter, Juno ought to have been the earth, continually impregnated by the heaven, and yielding those fruits which would then stand as the proper results of her maternity.
But instead of this, in the great lottery of the universe, earth is actually left out, and remains undisposed of. It never appears in Homer, except in a formula of adjuration, in which we may naturally enough look to find antique ideas; and this seems like a stray vestige of another system, really founded on Nature-worship. But there Γαῖα remains, so far as the Greeks are concerned, isolated and undeveloped.