This is the only sense, so far as I can see, that can properly be given to the word αὐτός.
Apollo, on the other hand, is the son of Λήτω or Latona. For her name there appears to be but one satisfactory meaning, and it is this; that her origin was before the memory of man, that is, before the period within which the Greek mythological system had been constructed.
It cannot fail to be remarked, that the relation between the mythical origin of Apollo and that of Minerva exhibit a difference entirely analogous to that found in the traditions which they represent respectively; and which would give to Apollo a mother, but to Minerva none. In both, however, we may here trace a strong resemblance to the Messianic traditions of Holy Scripture and of the Jews.
3. These deities have a great variety of functions, of which the secondary forms, or the executive applications, are delegated to others, of less power and pre-eminence, but still also in most cases strictly Olympian gods. These satellite-divinities it may be convenient to designate by the name of Secondaries.
The Secondaries of Minerva.
The Secondaries of Olympus are so important a class, that they deserve, as a class, a distinct consideration.
They are as follows:
First, for Minerva, in her great characters as goddess of wisdom, of war, of polity, and of industrial art.
In the first, Mercury is her Secondary: for both are presiding divinities or patrons of that calculating faculty applied to conduct, which, on the side of virtue, reads as prudence, and which in its degenerate form is craft (κέρδεα or κερδοσύνη).
In treating the god Mercury, with respect to this capital particular, as a secondary of Minerva, I do not mean that he is nothing else: but that the traditions about Hermes were found capable of, and were allowed to bear, such a form, that it is impossible to describe fully the function of the one deity without including something that is also annexed to the other, or to draw any clear line between them.