"Let us see what new principles, what higher morality and civilization were added by the diffusion of Christianity to those principles which were the spontaneous product of the race. We must first consider what part the pagan gods, as they were regarded by educated men, played in the history of the European race, with respect to the individual and to the commonwealth. The pagan Olympus, considered as a whole, and without reference to the various forms which it assumed in different peoples, was not essentially distinct from human society. Although the gods formed a higher order of immortal beings, they were mixed up with men in a thousand ways in practical life, and conformed to the ways of humanity; they were constantly occupied in doing good or ill to mortals; they were warmly interested in the disputes of men, taking part in the conflicts of persons, cities, and peoples; special divinities watched over men from the cradle to the grave, and they were loved or hated by the gods by reason of their family and race. In short, the heavenly and earthly communities were so intermixed that the gods were only superior and immortal men. "The people were accustomed to consider their deities as ever present, distinct from, and yet inseparably joined with them; so that the individual, the country, the tribes, were ever governed, guarded, favoured, or opposed by special and peculiar gods. Olympus had a history, since the acts of the gods took place in time and were coincident with the history of nations, so that every event in heaven corresponded with one on earth; the idea of divine justice was exemplified in that of men, and both were perfected together. Among pagans of the Aryan race there was a perpetual and repeated alliance between men and gods made in the image of man. This action of the gods both for good and evil became in its turn the rule of life for the ignorant multitude, and they acted in conformity with the supposed will and actions of the gods; the divine will was, however, nothing but an _a priori_ religious conception of an idol representing the forces of nature or some moral or religious idea. The moral perfection of nations, as time went on, also perfected the supreme justice of Olympus, and the moral worth of the gods increased as men became better. So that it was not the original theological idea, but man himself, who made heaven more perfect, and the gods morally better and more just.