8. While attempting to reconcile these discordant traditions, and mould them into one connected story, it was natural that the Greeks should find some affinity of character between Hercules and the Phœnician god Melcart, the son of Baal and Astarte (Ἀστερία). It was to the existence of a temple of Hercules at Gadira that the fable of this hero having there terminated his voyage after the battle of Geryon, owed its origin; and the neighbouring pillars of Hercules or Briareus(1853) were originally considered as the work of Melcart. The Hercules of the Carthaginians was also represented as a wanderer and conqueror;(1854) his particular province was the island of Sardinia;(1855) which island became also included in the Grecian mythology: he is likewise said to have passed through Spain.(1856) The discoverer of the purple dye, in the Tyrian tradition, is the same personage;(1857) the quail was sacred to him, the smell of that bird having resuscitated him from death.(1858) Great as the confusion soon became between the Doric and Phœnician traditions respecting Hercules, they may still be easily distinguished from each other; and the first effect of their union may perhaps be traced in the wish of Dorieus, the son of Anaxandridas, to found a kingdom near mount Eryx, because Hercules had formerly conquered that country;(1859) now the worship and name of the Phœnician Aphrodite (Astarte) existed on mount Eryx, and probably also that of her son Melcart. 9. Notwithstanding the long digression into which the examination of our subject has led us, we are afraid that the following positions, attempted to be established as the result of the preceding investigation, will by no means carry with them conviction to all readers. We may, however, rest assured, that whatever traces of an elementary religion can be discovered in this fable, they were additions totally at variance with its original structure. The fundamental idea of all the heroic mythology may be pronounced to be a proud consciousness of power innate in man, by which he endeavours to place himself on a level with the gods, not through the influence of a mild and benign destiny, but by labour, misery, and combats. The highest degree of human suffering and courage is attributed to Hercules: his character is as noble as could be conceived in those rude and early times; but he is by no means represented as free from the blemishes of human nature; on the contrary, he is frequently subject to wild, ungovernable passions, when the noble indignation and anger of the suffering hero degenerate into phrensy.(1860) Every crime, however, is atoned for by some new suffering; but nothing breaks his invincible courage, until, purified from earthly corruption, he ascends mount Olympus, and there receives the beauteous Hebe for his bride, while his shade threatens the frightened ghosts in Hades.(1861) As in the fable of Apollo, the godhead descends into the circle of human life, so in Hercules