To turn from these nations to a member of the north-western group, such as Greece, is like passing from an arid desert into a land flowing with milk and honey. _Panic_ and _hero_ have already been mentioned. _Iris_ (the flower, and also the part of the human eye), together with the beautiful word _iridescent_, have come to us from the Greek goddess Iris, whose outer form was the rainbow. _Titanic_ is from the Titans, huge earth-beings who rebelled against God much as did the fallen angels in Genesis. _Hermetically_ (in ‘hermetically sealed’) comes to us from the Greek messenger-god, Hermes, by a roundabout route (see Chapter VII); and in more or less common use are _Aphrodisiac_, _Apolline_, _Asia_, _Atlas_, _chimera_, _daedal_, _Dionysiac_, _Elysian_, _Europe_, _Hades_, _harmony_, _lethal_, _Muse_ and _music_, _mystery_, _nemesis_, _nymph_, _paean_, _panacea_, _phaeton_, _protean_, _satyr_, _siren_, _stygian_. The word _erotic_, from Eros, a Greek god of love, is an interesting example of the way in which the experiences of past civilizations evaporate into essential refinements of modern speech. Because of differences between Greece and Rome, which it took about two thousand years to work out on the stage of history, we are now able to make a fine distinction, such as that between _erotic_ and _amorous_. The true Roman god of love, however, though in the world of phantasy he still survives in his original form, _Cupid_, has only actually entered our language in the word _cupidity_. In the difference between the material associations of _cupidity_ and the more imaginative ones of _erotic_ we begin already to divine a fundamental dissimilarity between Greek and Roman mythology. Other words which come to us from Roman religion are _cereal_, _genius_, _fate_, _fortune_, _fury_, _grace_, _June_, _mint_, _money_, _Saturday_, _vesta_, the names of the planets, _contemplate_, _sacrifice_, _temple_, _Host_ (from ‘hostia’, the victim which was sacrificed), _augury_, and _auspice_. The last two words take us back to the Roman custom of divining the will of the gods by watching the flights of birds. ‘Aves-specere’ meant ‘to see birds’, and we still have the first word preserved to us in _aviary_. _Fury_ and _grace_ are translations of Greek names; but in some of the others—especially _money_ and _mint_, from the goddess Moneta—we behold the late reflection of a highly significant process. It is this: As time went on, Roman religious feeling quickly changed in two almost opposite ways. On the one hand it attached itself more and more to concrete and material objects, and, on the other, its gods and goddesses were felt less and less as living beings, and more and more as mere abstract intellectual “conceptions”. Yet these two changes were not really opposite, but complementary. For as the visible part of a goddess like Ceres became more and more solid, as she came more and more to be used simply as a synonym for _corn_, the invisible part of