phrase once more, it made him at home in the world. The mysterious
powers that controlled him it converted into beings like himself; and so
gave him heart and breathing-space, shut in, as it were, from the abyss
by this shining host of fair and familiar forms, to turn to the
interests and claims of the passing hour an attention undistracted by
doubt and fear.


Section 4. Greek Religion the Foundation of Society.

But this relation to the world of nature is only one side of man's life;
more prominent and more important, at a later stage of his development,
is his relation to society; and here too in Greek civilization a great
part was played by religion. For the Greek gods, we must remember, were
not purely spiritual powers, to be known and approached only in the
heart by prayer. They were beings in human form, like, though superior
to ourselves, who passed a great part of their history on earth,
intervened in the affairs of men, furthered or thwarted their
undertakings, begat among them sons and daughters, and followed, from
generation to generation, the fortunes of their children's children.
Between them and mankind there was no impassable gulf; from Heracles the
son of Zeus was descended the Dorian race; the Ionians from Ion, son of
Apollo; every family, every tribe traced back its origin to a "hero",
and these "heroes" were children of the gods, and deities themselves.
Thus were the gods, in the most literal sense, the founders of society;
from them was derived, even physically, the unit of the family and the
race; and the whole social structure raised upon that natural basis was
necessarily penetrated through and through by the spirit of religion.

We must not therefore be misled by the fact that there was no church in