Many Graeco-Latin myths, beginning with that of Prometheus must be referred to _Mataricvan_ and to the _Bhrigu_, and we can trace in the name of Prometheus the equivalent of a Sanscrit form _pramathyus_, one who obtains fire by friction. Prometheus is, in fact, the ravisher of celestial fire (a phase of the polytheistic myth in a perfectly human form); he is a divine _pramantha_. It is Prometheus who in one version of the myth cleaves open the head of Zeus, and causes Athene, the goddess who uses the lightning as her spear, to issue from it. The Greeks afterwards carried on the evolution of myth in its transition from the physical to the moral phenomenon, and, forgetful of his origin, they made Prometheus into a seer. As _Bhrigu_, he created man of earth and water, and breathed into him the spark of life. Villemarque tells us that in Celtic antiquity there was an analogous myth, as we might naturally expect, since the Celts belong to the Aryan stock; Gwenn-Aran (albus superus) was a supernatural being which issued like lightning from a cloud. The more thoughtful Greeks did not limit the Promethean myth to the idol and to anthropomorphic fancies, but it passed into a moral conception, and we have a proof of this transition in AEschylus. In fact, as Silvestro Centofonti observes in a lecture on the characteristics of Greek literature, the grand figure of the AEschylean Prometheus is a poetic personification of Thought, and of its mysterious fates in the sphere of life as a whole. First, in its eternal existence, as a primitive and organic force in the system of the world; then in the order of human things, fettered by the bonds of civilization, and subject to the necessities, lusts, and evils which constantly, arise from the union of soul and matter in unsatisfied mortals. Thought is itself the source of tormenting cares in this earthly slavery, yet the sense of power makes it invincible, firm in its purpose to endure all sufferings, to be superior to all events; assured of future freedom, and always on the way to achieve it by reverting to the grandeur of its innate perfection; finally attaining to this happy state, by shaking off all the enslaving bonds and anxious cares of the kingdom of Zeus, and by obtaining a perfect life through the inspirations of wisdom, when the revolutions of the heavens should fill the earth with divine power, and restore the happiness of primeval times. It is evident that in this stupendous tragedy AEschylus is leading us to the truth in a threefold sense: aesthetic, morally political, and cosmic. The supreme idea which sums up the whole value of the composition is perhaps that of an inevitable reciprocity of action and reaction between mind and effective force, between the primitive providence of nature and the subsequent laws of art, both in the civilization of mankind and in the order and life of the universe.