single conclusion. Without ceasing to
believe in the existence of genii, they invented the gods, a race of beings
far more powerful, not only than short-lived man, but even than the
confused army of demons, of those beings who enjoyed the control of not a
few of the mysterious agencies whose apparent conflict and final accord are
the causes of the life, movement, and equilibrium of the world.

[Illustration: FIG. 14.--Gods carried in procession; from Layard's
_Monuments of Nineveh_, first series, pl. 65.]

When the intellect had arrived at this doctrine, calmness and serenity fell
upon it. Each deity became a person with certain well-defined powers and
attributes, a person who could not escape the apprehension and the appeals
of mankind with the facility of the changing and fantastic crowd of demons.
His dwelling-place could be pointed out to the faithful, whether it were in
his own peculiar star, among the eternal snows upon the summits of the
distant mountains, or near at hand, in the temple built for him by his
worshippers. Such a deity could be approached like a sovereign whose honour
and interest are bound up with his word. So long as by prayer, and still
more by sacrifices, the conditions were observed on the suppliant's side,
the god, invisible though he was, would do his duty and protect those with
whom he had entered into an unwritten contract.

But in order to establish this mutual relationship between gods and men, it
was necessary that the former should be brought within reach of the
latter. With the development of the religious sentiment and of definite and
clear ideas as to the gods, the plastic faculty was called upon for greater
efforts than it had before made.

Something beside grimacing and monstrous images of genii was asked from it.
Figures were demanded which should embody something of the nobility and
majesty attributed to the eternal masters of the world. The divine effigy
was the incarnation of the deity, was one of the forms in which he
manifested himself, it was, as the Egyptians would say, one of his
_doubles_. Such an effigy was required to afford a worthy frame for the
supreme dignity of the god, and the house built by man's hands in which he
condescended to dwell had to be such that its superior magnificence should
distinguish it at a glance from the comparatively humble dwellings in which
mortals passed their short and fugitive lives.

It was thus that the temples and statues of the go