For primitive man, as Max Müller well points out, the phenomena of fire would present a dual aspect--on the one hand as a fatal and destructive element, on the other hand, as a beneficent and even homely agency. The lightning would be seen flashing from the one end of heaven to the other, darting down at times to set ablaze the forests and prairies, at times to maim and kill both animals and men. Thus experienced, it would strike terror into the beholders, and impress them with a vivid sense of the presence of spiritual powers. As a late product of the emotions and conceptions thus stimulated, we have the fine myth of the ancient nature goddess, Athene-- sprung from the head of Zeus, the austere virgin, who was to become the personification of prudence, self-restraint, and culture, the celestial representative of the loftiest intellectual and spiritual ideals of the Greek world at its best. Hence, too, the group of conceptions which make the lightning and thunderbolts the weapons of the sky, putting them into the hands of the supreme ruler, and making them at last the symbols of law and order. "Out of the fire" (says Ezekiel) "went forth lightning." "Out of the throne" (says the seer of the Apocalypse) "went forth lightnings." In strong contrast is the beneficent aspect of fire, which, once known and "tamed," becomes almost a necessity for human life. It affords new protection against the cold, makes man peculiarly the cooking animal, and above all establishes the family hearth with all that is meant by "home." Of more distinctly utilitarian import are the uses of fire in fashioning tools and instruments, and the smelting of metals. And it is significant to note that man's use of fire almost certainly owed its origin to his emotional attitude towards it, culminating in worship. As many anthropologists have pointed out, the fire on the hearth had its unmistakable religious aspect, the result of the feeling of veneration for the "element" of fire before its production or use had been understood. And the kindling of the fire on the hearth was as much a sacrifice to the gods as a means to the cooking of food. Each house became a veritable temple of fire. Wonderfully instructive, as well as fascinating it is to trace the development of the home idea as based on the emotional experiences stimulated by the mystic influences of fire. Each house, as was just stated, was regarded as a temple of the divine element; but the common house, the tribe house, was specially singled out for this honour, and became a temple properly so-called. When bands of citizens set out to found colonies in strange lands, they took with them glowing embers from the tribal or national hearth, as AEneas brought with him to Italy the sacred fire of Troy. Until lately, we are told, the German peasant just married would take to his new home a burning log from the family hearth.