Growth of Greek Gods.--Such beings, however, are something less than gods; and the Greeks, long before we know them, had made the step which the Romans scarcely made at all, from the spirit to the god, from the vague unseen power behind an object or an act, to the free being conceived with human attributes and feelings, who can be the patron of a community, and afford help in all its concerns. Not all the spirits rise into gods; it depends on circumstances which of them are selected for that advance; but the choice once made, their rise was rapid. As the gods grew into personality and definite character, though the function out of which they first sprang was not forgotten, other functions were added to them; and as a god grew in power and consideration, his worship was set up in new places, where other titles and attributes awaited him. The local god might be identified with the great god from a distance. The god of a powerful community, as Athene ("she of Athens"), might be adopted wherever the influence of that community extended; thus new gods arose and old ones took local form. When a change took place in the habits of the people, it was followed by a corresponding change in the character of their gods. When agriculture comes in, the gods have to take notice of it, the pastoral god turns agricultural, and even the huntress Artemis becomes an encourager of fertility. When navigation rises in importance, a number of the gods, Poseidon at their head, become sea-gods. Stones, Animals, Trees.--In Greece the worship of the gods soon superseded that of objects not possessing any human character. Traces of such lower worships survive, it is true, in the later religion in great abundance, but they have no influence in its development; they only tell their story of the otherwise forgotten past. Stones were worshipped in early Greece. Not to speak of the cromlechs and dolmens, which are found there as in all parts of Asia and Europe, and the meaning of which is so little understood, stones were preserved as sacred objects in various places, even to late times, and had no doubt originally been worshipped. The god Hermes was represented in every period by a slab of stone set upright, a human head and other human features being indicated on it. Even in later Greece, boards or blocks of wood were in some places exhibited on rare occasions, which were the oldest images of the Artemis or the Aphrodite there adored. Though for the public eye splendid statues had taken the place of the goddess, the original image was still thought to have a sanctity all its own. We also notice that the gods of Greece are associated with animals. Zeus is a bull in Crete; he has also other transformations: Pan is a goat; Artemis is a bear in some provinces, elsewhere a doe. The Athene of the Acropolis is a serpent. Apollo is sometimes connected with the mouse. Along with these identifications of the gods with animals we may mention the