they did, the question
must remain unanswered. And here is the point of my tale. In the fulness
of time, when the earthborn men had all passed away, the ruler of
the universe let go the helm, and became a spectator; and destiny and
natural impulse swayed the world. At the same instant all the inferior
deities gave up their hold; the whole universe rebounded, and there was
a great earthquake, and utter ruin of all manner of animals. After a
while the tumult ceased, and the universal creature settled down in
his accustomed course, having authority over all other creatures,
and following the instructions of his God and Father, at first more
precisely, afterwards with less exactness. The reason of the falling off
was the disengagement of a former chaos; 'a muddy vesture of decay'
was a part of his original nature, out of which he was brought by his
Creator, under whose immediate guidance, while he remained in that
former cycle, the evil was minimized and the good increased to the
utmost. And in the beginning of the new cycle all was well enough, but
as time went on, discord entered in; at length the good was minimized
and the evil everywhere diffused, and there was a danger of universal
ruin. Then the Creator, seeing the world in great straits, and fearing
that chaos and infinity would come again, in his tender care again
placed himself at the helm and restored order, and made the world
immortal and imperishable. Once more the cycle of life and generation
was reversed; the infants grew into young men, and the young men became
greyheaded; no longer did the animals spring out of the earth; as the
whole world was now lord of its own progress, so the parts were to
be self-created and self-nourished. At first the case of men was very
helpless and pitiable; for they were alone among the wild beasts, and
had to carry on the struggle for existence without arts or knowledge,
and had no food, and did not know how to get any. That was the time when
Prometheus brought them fire, Hephaestus and Athene taught them arts,
and other gods gave them seeds and plants. Out of these human life was
framed; for mankind were left to themselves, and ordered their own ways,
living, like the universe, in one cycle after one manner, and in another
cycle after another manner.

Enough of the myth, which may show us two errors of which we were guilty
in our account of the king. The first and grand error was in choosing
for our king a god, who belongs to t