In Sicily oxen were consecrated to the sun; and the island itself was called the Island of the Sun. The oxen which the companions of Ulysse ate when they landed, were consecrated to this god. The citizens of Assora adored the Chrysas river, that bathed their walls. At Enguyum the people revered the mother-goddesses, the same deities honored in Crete; namely, the major and minor Ursas. In Spain the people of Betic had built a temple to the morning star. The Accitans had erected to the god Sun, under the name of Mars, a statue whose head imitated the rays of the sun. At Cadix the sun was also adored, under the name of Hercules. All the nations of northern Europe, called Celtes, worshiped fire, water, the air, the sun, the moon, the stars, the trees, and the springs. The conqueror of Gaul, Cæsar, writes that the Germans immemorially adored the visible cause, and its principal agents, the sun, the moon, fire or Vulcain, and the earth, under the name of Herta. Near Narbonne, a city of Gaul, a temple was dedicated to the wind Circius which purified the atmosphere. At Toulouse there was a temple of the sun. The Franks professed the same religion. In America the Incas of Peru called themselves the sons of the sun: they dedicated temples and altars to this god, and had instituted feasts in his honor. The moon was associated to his worship, and was considered as the mother of all the sublunar productions; and as the spouse and sister of the sun. In Peru, the star Venus was adored, and also the meteors, the thunder, and Iris, or rainbow. Virgins had the care of keeping alive the perpetual fire. In Mexico the same religion existed. The inhabitants of the Isthmus of Panama, of Brazil, of Florida; the Indians of the coast of Cumana, the Floridians, Virginians, and the Canadians believed that there was a god in the heavens, and that this god was the sun, the spouse of the moon. They worshiped them as the two supreme causes which ruled the world. The above historical facts lead us to the conclusion that the adoration of the vast body of nature, together with the great soul which was supposed to animate it; and of its principal parts or members, together with the multifarious emanations of the great soul, which was supposed to animate them, was the former and universal religion of mankind, before the coming of Jesus Christ. Therefore the heathens did not worship the idols themselves, to which they had given such and such forms to represent the objects of their adorations; but they worshiped what in their mind they represented, the universe taken collectively, as in the idol of Pan; and the universe taken separately; namely, the important parts of the universe, as in their innumerable idols of the planets, stars, rivers, etc.