But the total revolution of the fortunes of men, and the end of that epoch which we nowadays designate as the "old world," was due to one especial influence. It was this. Among the Phantoms so appreciated by the ancients was a certain one called Wisdom. This Phantom had duly contributed to the prosperity of the times, and like the others received high honour from men, a number of whom consecrated themselves to her service. She had frequently promised her disciples to show them her mistress, the Truth, a superior spirit who associated with the gods in heaven, whence she had never yet descended. The Phantom assured them that she would bring Truth among men, and that this spirit would exercise so marvellous an influence over their life, that in knowledge, perfection, and happiness they would almost rival the gods themselves. But how could a shadow fulfil any promise, much less induce the Truth to descend to earth? So after a long confiding expectancy, men perceived the falseness of Wisdom. At the same time, greedy of novelty because of the idleness of their life, and stimulated partly by ambition of equalling the gods, and partly by the intensity of their yearning for the happiness they imagined would ensue from the possession of Truth, they presumptuously requested Jove to lend them this noble spirit for a time, and reproached him for having so long jealously withheld from men the great advantages that would follow from the presence of Truth. They with one accord expressed dissatisfaction with their lot, and renewed their former hateful whinings about the meanness and misery of human things. The Phantoms, once so dear to them, were now almost entirely abandoned, not that men had discerned the unreality of their nature, but because they were so debased in mind and manners as to have no sympathy with even the appearance of goodness. Thus they wickedly rejected the greatest gift of gods to men, and excused themselves by saying that none but inferior genii had been sent on earth, the nobler ones, whom they would willingly have worshipped, being retained in heaven.