The Earth, Gaia, became more and more important to the Hellenic mind. Passing through various stages of development, she became, successively, Gaia in the first generation, Rhea in the second, and Dêmêtêr (Γή μήτηρ), Mother Earth, in the third. In like manner the Sun is successively Hyperiôn, son of Heaven and Earth; Hêlios, son of Hyperiôn and Theia; and Phoebus-Apollo, son of Zeus and Latona. The Moon is first Phoebe, sister of Hyperiôn; then Selênê, sister of Hêlios; and lastly Artemis, sister of Apollo. Pallas, probably meaning at first "the virgin," became afterward identified with Athênê, daughter of Zeus, as Pallas-Athênê. The Urania Pontus, the salt sea, became the Titan Oceanos, or Ocean, and in another generation Poseidôn, or Neptune. The early gods are symbolical, the later are personal. The turning-point is reached when Kronos, Time, arrives. The children of Time and Earth are no longer vast shadowy abstractions, but become historical characters, with biographies and personal qualities. Neither Time nor History existed before Homer; when Time came, History began. The three male children of Time were Zeus, Poseidôn, and Hadês; representing the three dimensions of space. Height, Breadth, and Depth; Heaven, Ocean, and Hell. They also represented the threefold progress of the human soul: its aspiration and ascent to what is noble and good, its descent to what is profound, and its sympathy with all that is various: in other words, its religion, its intelligence, and its affection. The fable of Time devouring his children, and then reproducing them, evidently means the vicissitudes of customs and the departure and return of fashions. Whatever is born must die; but what has been will be again. That Erôs, Love, should be at the origin of things from chaos, indicates the primeval attraction with which the order of the universe begins. The mutilation of Uranos, Heaven, so that he ceased to produce children, suggests the change of the system of emanation, by which the gods descend from the infinite, into that of evolution, by which they arise out of the finite. It is, in fact, the end of Asia, and the beginning of Europe; for emanation is the law of the theologies of Asia, evolution that of Europe. Aphroditê, Beauty, was the last child of the Heavens, and yet born from the Ocean. Beauty is not the daughter of the Heavens and the Earth, but of the Heavens and the Ocean. The lights and shadows of the sky, the tints of dawn, the tenderness of clouds, unite with the toss and curve of the wave in creating Beauty. The beauty of outline appears in the sea, that of light and color in the sky.[227] § 4. The Gods of the Poets.