The immoral elements in Greek mythology, which have been constantly reprobated by ancient and modern writers, have often blinded them to the fact that Greek religion in its forms of worship and sacred formulæ was mainly pure and refined. The stories about the Gods, often of the type natural to savage folklore, did not constitute ancient religion; and they were the less able to choke the growth of a higher ethical-religious spirit in that they were not enshrined in sacred books that could speak with authority to the people. Yet we have not infrequent proofs in Greek literature, notably in Plato’s _Euthyphron_, that they might exercise at times an immoral influence on men’s conduct. Meantime the educational movement in the sixth and fifth centuries had awakened men’s minds to the importance of the moral question in literature. And the protests of Euripides are developed by Plato in his {116} scheme of education in the _Republic_, and the same point of view prompts him to his puritanical legislation against poets. Such moral movements in the polytheistic societies of Greece are interesting to mark, though their effect is often difficult to estimate. The new puritanical spirit had probably a wholesome influence on the more cultured minds; it had little influence on the mass of the people, nor does the later poetry of the Hellenistic period show much trace of it. As regards the actual forms of Greek ritual and worship, Euripides has nothing revolutionary to say. He appears to have a strong dislike for prophets, and in this he was in some accord with Æschylus, Sophocles, and the Athenian people. He shows great distrust for Delphi; and its influence was doubtless impaired at Athens during the Peloponnesian war. He protests against human sacrifice as a barbaric and non-Hellenic institution[116.1]--though he appears fond of it as a dramatic motive--and on one occasion the speaker argues that the Gods need nothing from mortals at all;[116.2] the thought was suggested merely by dramatic exigencies; and Euripides nowhere attempts a crusade against the value of sacrifice in general. He has only one important thing to say about it, namely that the small sacrifice of the pious often outweighs the hecatomb.[116.3] This thought implies a more spiritual view of the divine nature and is not infrequently expressed in the later literature; according to Theophrastos and Theopompos this higher view of sacrifice was even encouraged by the Delphic oracle.[116.4] {117}