metaphysically, assign the conditions of the spiritual; but,
practically, we all feel and represent to our own minds the agencies
of God, as liberated from bonds of space and time, of flesh and of
resistance. This the Greeks could _not_ feel, could _not_
represent. And the only advantage which the gods enjoyed over the
worm and the grub was, that they, (or at least the Paladins amongst
them--the twelve supreme gods,) could pass, fluently, from one
incarnation to another.

Thirdly. Out of that essential bondage to flesh arose a dreadful
suspicion of something worse: in what relation did the pagan gods
stand to the abominable phenomenon of death? It is not by uttering
pompous flatteries of ever-living and _ambrotos aei_, &c., that
a poet could intercept the searching jealousies of human penetration.
These are merely oriental forms of compliment. And here, by the
way, as elsewhere, we find Plato vehemently confuted: for it was
the undue exaltation of the gods, and not their degradation, which
must be ascribed to the frauds of poets. Tradition, and no poetic
tradition, absolutely pointed to the grave of more gods than one.
But waiving all _that_ as liable to dispute, one thing we
know, from the ancients themselves, as open to no question, that
all the gods were _born_; were born infants; passed through
the stages of helplessness and growth; from all which the inference
was but too fatally obvious. Besides, there were grandfathers,
and even great-grandfathers in the Pantheon: some of these were
confessedly superannuated; nay, some had disappeared. Even men,
who knew but little of Olympian records, knew this, at least,
for certain, that more than one dynasty of gods had passed over
the golden stage of Olympus, had made their _exit_, and were
hurrying onward to oblivion. It was matter of notoriety, also,