of the Artists.
Sec. 6. The Gods of the Philosophers.
Sec. 7. The Worship of Greece.
Sec. 8. The Mysteries. Orphism.
Sec. 9. Relation of Greek Religion to Christianity.

Sec. 1. The Land and the Race.

The little promontory and peninsula, famous in the history of mankind as
Greece, or Hellas, projects into the Mediterranean Sea from the South of
Europe. It is insignificant on the map, its area being only two thirds as
large as that of the State of Maine. But never was a country better
situated in order to develop a new civilization. A temperate climate,
where the vine, olive, and fig ripened with wheat, barley, and flax; a
rich alluvial soil, resting on limestone, and contained in a series of
valleys, each surrounded by mountains; a position equally remote from
excesses of heat and cold, dryness and moisture; and finally, the
ever-present neighborhood of the sea,--constituted a home well fitted for
the physical culture of a perfect race of men.

Comparative Geography, which has pointed out so many relations between the
terrestrial conditions of nations and their moral attainments, has laid
great stress on the connection between the extent of sea-coast and a
country's civilization. The sea line of Europe, compared with its area, is
more extensive than that of any other continent, and Europe has had a more
various and complete intellectual development than elsewhere. Africa,
which has the shortest sea line compared with its area, has been most
tardy in mental activity. The sea is the highway of nations and the
promoter of commerce; and commerce, which brings different races together,
awakens the intellect by the contact of different languages, religions,
arts, and manners. Material civilization, it is true, does not commence on
the sea-shore, but in river intervals. The arts of life were invented in
the valleys of the Indus and Ganges, of the Yellow and Blue Rivers of
China, of the Euphrates and the Nile. But the Phoenician navigators in the
Mediterranean brought to the shores of Greece the knowledge of the arts of
Egypt, the manufactures of Tyre, and the products of India and Africa.
Every part of the coast of Greece is indented with bays and harbors. The
Mediterranean, large enough to separate the nations on its shores, and so
permit independent and distinct evolution of character, is not so large as
to divide them. Coasting vessels, running within sight of land, could
easily traverse its shores. All th