Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/165

 CHAP. II. NKW EELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 159 CHAPTER II. New Religious Beliefs. 1. The Gods of Physical Nature. Befokb passing from the formation of tribes to the establlsliment of cities, wo must mention an important element in the intellectual life of those ancient peoples. When we sought the most ancient beliefs of these men, we found a religion which had their dead ancestors for its object, and for its principal symbol the sacred fire. It was this religion that founded the family and estab- lished the first laws. But this race has also had in all its branches another religion — the one whose principal figures were Zeus, Here, Athene, Juno, that of the Hellenic Olympus, and of the Roman Capitol. Of these two religions, the first found its gods in the human soul ; the second took them from physical nature. As the sentiment of living power, and of con- science, which he felt in himself, inspired man with the first idea of the divine, so the view of this immensity, which surrounded and overwhelmed him, traced out for his religious sentiment another course. Man, in the early ages, was continually in the pres- ence of nature; the habits of civilized life did not yet draw a line between it and him. His sight was charmed by its beauties, or dazzled by its grandeur. He en- joyed the light, he was terrified by the night ; and when he saw the "holy light of heaven" return, he experi- enced a feeling of thankfulness. His life was in the hands of nature ; he looked for the beneficent cloud on which his harvest depended ; he feared the storm which