Virgil speaks of “Oceanus, _pater rerum_”; and in the Finnish epic, the Kalewala, it reads: “Three infants came forth from the same womb; water the oldest, fire the youngest, and iron between them.”[172] Water also entered into numberless rites of purification, of penitence, and sanctification.[173] Baptism by sprinkling or immersion belongs to the most ancient sacred rites; and the use of the fluid in divination, lustration, and libation was world-wide. The most venerable god of Chaldean mythology was Êa, lord of the _earth_ and “the waters under the earth.” He was the deity in whose gift were the harvest, the germination of seeds, the fertility of the soil. Extending the idea to embrace all life, the Aztecs worshipped the earth as Tonantzin, Our Beloved Mother, and the Peruvians as Mama Cocha, Mother Earth. From her womb, said they, do all that live proceed, and to her silent breast will all again return. Far below her opaque surface is the realm which the sun lights at night, the abode of happy souls, said the Aztecs, ruled by the clement Quetzalcoatl, who there abides until the time fixed for his return to men. From beneath the earth, repeat a hundred mythologies, did the first of men emerge seeking the light above but losing the joy below. So that in such distant points as Kamtschatka and the Andaman Islands we meet the same prophetic myth that at the end of the world the present earth will be turned upside down, and its then inhabitants will rejoice in the perennial warmth and light of the happier under-world.[174] Intimately associated with the worship of the four elements, and also with the myths of the cosmical concepts, we trace through primitive religions the sacredness and symbolism of _colours_. Everywhere, in all cults, they are connected with certain trains of religious thoughts, certain expressions of religious emotions, though by no means always the same. But I can only refer, in passing, to this extended subject, which has not yet received the psychologic analysis which its importance demands.[175] _3. Stones and Rocks._—When we turn from these universal elements, which we can readily conceive portrayed with some commensurate greatness the idea of the supernatural, to such a gross and material object as a _stone_, a common stone or rock, it is at first difficult to understand its wide-spread acceptance as a symbol of the divine. But if we reflect on its hardness and durability, on its colour and lustre, and on the strange shapes in which it is found, we can see why it was so chosen.