Lastly, the nature-worship of the Hellenes was pre-eminently concerned with Mother-earth--with Ge-meter, and this divine power in its varied personal forms was perhaps of all others the nearest and dearest to the popular heart: so much of their ritual was concerned directly with her. And some scholars have supposed, erroneously, I think, but not unnaturally, that all the leading Hellenic goddesses arose from this aboriginal animistic idea. We may at least believe this of Demeter and Kore, the most winning personalities of the higher Hellenic religion. And even Athena and Artemis, whatever, if any, was their original nature-significance, show in many of their aspects and much of their ritual a close affinity to the earth-goddess. But, as I have indicated above, it is impossible to find in the early Mesopotamian religion a parallel figure to Ge: though Ishtar was naturally possessed of vegetative functions--so that, when she disappears below the world, all vegetation languishes--yet it would be hazardous to say that she was a personal form of earth: we may rather suspect that by the time the Semites brought her to Mesopotamia from the West, she had lost all direct nature-significance, and was wholly a personal individual. Finally, the cleavage between the two groups of peoples in their attitude towards the powers of nature is still further marked in the evolution of certain moral and {115} eschatologic ideas. The concept of a Ge-Themis, of Earth as the source of righteousness, and of Mother-earth as the kindly welcomer of the souls of the dead, appears to have been alien to Mesopotamian imagination, for which, Allatu, the Queen of the lower world, is a figure wholly terrible. CHAPTER VII. The Deities as Social-Powers. {116} The next important section of our survey is the comparison of the social and ethical aspects of the religions in the eastern and western areas. Here again the former warning may be repeated, not to draw rash conclusions from the observance of mere general points of similarity, such as occur in the religious systems of all the more advanced societies of which we have any explicit record. The idea that religion is merely a concern of the private individual conscience is one of the latest phenomena in all religious history. Both for the primitive and the more cultured communities of ancient history, religion was by a law of its nature a social phenomenon, a force penetrating all the institutions of the political life, law and morality. But its precise contribution to the evolution of certain social products in the various communities is still a question inviting and repaying much research. It will be interesting to compare what may be gleaned from Assyriology and the study of Hellenism bearing on this inquiry, although it may not help us much towards the solution of our main question.