Watching with keen eyes the various and apparently conflicting operations of Nature, the Greeks, unaided by revelation, were led to believe in many distinct and sometimes hostile gods; for their science, as imperfect as their religion, had not yet arrived at a perception of unity beneath the apparent variety, nor taught them that all forces may be resolved into one. Hence we read of conflicts and jealousies among the divine inhabitants of Olympus, of which the most ignorant child should be ashamed. In more enlightened ages, philosophers severely censured this ascription of unworthy passions to the gods, and taught that they should only be conceived as serene, beneficent, and superior to human excitements. =22.= Much of the mythology of the Greeks belonged merely to poetry, and had no religious character whatever. Many stories of the gods may be explained by the familiar appearances of nature. E´os, the dawn, was the sister of He´lios, the sun, and Sele´ne, the moon. She dwelt upon the banks of Ocean, in a golden-gated palace, whence she issued each morning to announce to gods and men the approach of her greater brother. She was the mother of the Winds and of the Morning Star. I´ris was the messenger of the gods. The many-colored rainbow was the road over which she traveled, and which vanished, when she no longer needed it, as suddenly as it had appeared. =23.= The twelve who constituted the Olympian Council were Zeus, the supreme; Posi´don, the god of the sea; Apollo, the sun-god, and patron of music, poetry, and eloquence; A´res, the god of war; Hephæs´tus, of fire and the useful arts; Her´mes, the herald of the gods, and promoter of commerce and wealth; Hera, the great goddess of Nature; Athe´na, the favorite daughter of Zeus, and patroness of all wisdom, civilization, and art; Ar´temis, the goddess of the moon or of hunting; Aphrodi´te, of beauty and love; Hestia, of domestic life; and Deme´ter, the bountiful mother of harvests,—six gods and six goddesses. =24.= Beside these, and in some cases equal in rank, were Hades, the god of the under-world; Helios and Hec´ate; Diony´sus, the patron of the vine, whose rites bore some resemblance to the drunken So´ma worship of the Hindus; the nine Muses, daughters of Zeus and Memory, who presided over music, literature, and all the arts; the Oceanids and the Nereids, daughters of Posidon; and multitudes more, whom to enumerate would require a volume, instead of a few pages.