Mythology

Imaginative forms in which the religious apprehensions, especially of pagan nations, clothe themselves. There is commonly a dim conception of God as One, but distant, while his various attributes, or his modes of working in nature, are conceived more or le distinctly as individual divine personalities. This humanization of the Divine forces was most complete among the Greeks, though even here there was a good deal of confusion between different divinities. Zeus or Jupiter (a personification of the bright æther) is supreme, with his spouse Heré or Juno, the variable lower sky. Around them are Apollo and Artemis, originally Sun and Moon; Pallas Athene, the enlivening air, godde of wisdom; Vesta, the flame of the hearth, and Hephaestus, or Vulcan, the flame of the forge, god of art; Ares, or Mars, once, perhaps, the dark storm-cloud, now god of rude war; and many others, from rank, like that of Poseidon or Neptune, hardly inferior to Jupiter. down to the Hamadryads, who died with the trees they inhabited. Their characters were as various as their attributes, but holine , righteousne , or benignity, in the Christian sense, appears at most in uncertain gleams, and behind them all is the blind Fate from which they are imperfectly disengaged, and into whose absorbing power, like the dynasties of ruder forces preceding them, they are always in danger of falling back. The Teutonic mythology is like the Græco-Roman, but purer, The Hindu mythology, in its main deities, Brahma, Vishnu (in his manifold incarnations), and Siva, with their feminine counterparts, is more a personalization of metaphysical attributes of the Godhead than of physical forces. The Babylonian and Syrian worship, which was gro ly libidinous and cruel, was largely founded on a ociation of the heavenly bodies. Baal representing Jupiter or the Sun, Ashtoreth Venus or the Moon, the gloomy Molech Saturn, and so forth. The Mexican mythology rested on the same general principles, modified by differences of climate and situation; but, though originally mild, had become hideous by the superimposition of Aztec cruelties. The formle mythologies of savage and barbarous tribes are innumerable. Christianity has not destroyed mythology, but has reduced it to a purified and harmle play of the fancy.