I will conclude this section with quotations from two distinguished authorities on Mythology, who would both dissent from the views which have been advanced above, but whose words seem to me to bear unintentional testimony in favour of those views. E. H. Meyer, in his _Indogermanische Mythen_ (ii. 612), says, "Roman religion seldom displays more than the _elementary rudiments_, or rather let us say the last remnants of mythology," and "whereas the cult of the greater gods is known to us in a form greatly affected by Hellenism, ... the local gods usually scarcely rise above the rank of spirits (_sich meistens kaum über daemonischen Rang erheben_)." Preller, in his _Römische Mythologie_ (i. 48), says, "The Romans' belief in gods would be termed more rightly _pandæmonism_ than _polytheism_.... One is involuntarily reminded of those Pelasgians of Dodona who, according to Herodotus, assigned neither names nor epithets to their gods.... Indeed, most of the names of the oldest Roman gods have such a shifting, indefinite meaning, that they can scarcely be regarded as proper names, as the names of persons." III. ITALIAN CULTS. The Italians borrowed cults as well as gods from Greece, but "these external additions gathered round the kernel of the Roman religion without affecting or transforming its inmost core" (Ihne, i. 119). The distinguishing characteristic of the religion of Rome is that "it was designed for use in practical life" (_Ibid._ 120), "The god of the Italian was above all things an instrument for helping him to the attainment of very solid earthly objects" (Mommsen, i. 181). In fact, the Italian god was a fetich, _i.e._, a magical implement; and in this sense of the word it is true that "the Romans saw everywhere and in all things the agency and the direction of the gods" (Ihne, i. 118). Every act of life was entangled in a complicated network of ritual.[14] Every part of the house, the door, doorway, threshold, hinges, every process of farming, sowing, manuring, &c., every act of life from birth to burial, had its own particular spirit; and the object of the Roman with reference to each particular spirit was "to manage, and even in case of need to over-reach or to constrain him" (Mommsen, i. 177). Preller in his _Römische Mythologie_ characterises the religion of Rome as, above all things, "a cultus-religion." We may add that in Rome, as in China, Assyria, and Babylonia, the cult was nothing but organised magic,[15] the superstitious customs, charms, and incantations familiar to the folk-lorist in all countries were organised by the practical Roman and were state-established by him. In fine, the Romans "in their gods worshipped the abstract natural forces, to whose power man is conscious that he is subject every instant, but which he can win over and render subservient to his purposes by scrupulously obeying the external injunctions which the State issues for the worship of the gods."[16]