That worship is his recognition of the existence of such a force, and of its connection—or, at least, its possible connection—with his own welfare. It is the method by which he accounts for phenomena which have casually attracted his attention, or affect his life. In other words, Mythology was the natural philosophy of the early world.
But there were other forces than those of external Nature that more nearly—and, therefore, more powerfully—affected men's minds. Explanations were needed, not only of physical, but of biological phenomena. Fearfully and wonderfully as man is made, his own structure and its functions, since they were independent of his volition, seemed to imply the interference of some external agency. The animals and the plants which surrounded him presented similar phenomena, and received a similar explanation. The Romans, at least, created a complete pantheon of natural history. It is, indeed, difficult, when we read the long and curious catalogue of that pantheon which St. Augustine[1] has preserved for us, to believe that the deities whom he describes were ever regarded as anything beyond mere names of certain physical forms and processes. However this may have been, other phenomena of our nature suggested—and more than suggested—some unseen, superhuman, power. Sleep and waking—birth, and life, and death—dreams, trances, and visions—madness and the varied forms of nervous disease—all these raised questions, some of which have not yet been answered. From these facts it was almost inevitable that the untrained and unassisted intellect should draw the conclusion that disembodied spirits bore no unimportant part in the economy of Nature, and that these spirits—terrible, because unseen—were capable of becoming friends or foes. The
