The divisions of the universe suggested another grouping. The Vedic poets arranged their deities in three zones: the sky above, the intervening atmosphere, and the earth beneath. Babylonian cosmology placed Anu in the heaven, Bel on the earth, and Ea in the great deep, and these three became the symbols of the order of nature, and the divine embodiments of physical law. Homer already divides the world between the sky-god Zeus, Poseidon of earth and sea, and Hades of the nether realm: and Rome has its triads, like Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus, or again Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. Whatever be the origin of the number three in this connection, it reproduces itself with strange reiteration in both hemispheres. Other groups are suggested by the sun and moon and the five planets, and appear in sets of seven. Egyptian summaries recognised gods in the sky, on earth, and in the water; and the theologians of different sanctuaries loved to arrange them in systems of nine, or three times three. Out of this vast and motley multitude emerge certain leading types in correspondence {110} with certain modes of human thought, with certain hopes and fears arising out of the changes of the human lot. Curiosity begins to ask questions about the scene around. The child, when it has grasped some simple view of the world, will inquire who made it; and to the usual answer will by and by rejoin "And who made God?" Elementary speculation does not advance so far: it is content to rest if necessary in darkness and the void, provided there is a power which can light the sun, and set man on his feet. But the intellectual range of thought even in the lower culture is much wider than might have been anticipated; while the higher religions contain abundant survivals of the cruder imagination which simply loves a tale.