strong Powers, while the more passive divinities, although they were
kept as a matter of form in the ceremonial, yet had in reality only
tongue-worshippers.

With some few exceptions, however, it will be found impossible to say
whether any one deity belonged to the first pantheon.

The best one can do is to separate the mass of gods from those that
become the popular gods, and endeavor to learn what was the character
of each, and what were the conceptions of the poets in regard both to
his nature, and to his relations with man. A different grouping of the
gods (that indicated below) will be followed, therefore, in our
exposition.

After what has been said in the introductory chapter concerning the
necessity of distinguishing between good and bad poetry, it may be
regarded as incumbent upon us to seek to make such a division of the
hymns as shall illustrate our words. But we shall not attempt to do
this here, because the distinction between late mechanical and poetic
hymns is either very evident, and it would be superfluous to burden
the pages with the trash contained in the former,[1] or the
distinction is one liable to reversion at the hands of those critics
whose judgment differs from ours, for there are of course some hymns
that to one may seem poetical and to another, artificial. Moreover, we
admit that hymns of true feeling may be composed late as well as
early, while as to beauty of style the chances are that the best
literary production will be found among the latest rather than among
the earliest hymns.

It would, indeed, be admissible, if one had any certainty in regard to