2. Side by side with this conception of destiny were growing up new conceptions of the nature of the gods. The gods of wrath were passing away. The awe of the forces of nature, of night and thunder, of the whirlwind and the earthquake, which had underlain the primitive religions, was fading into mist. The meaner conceptions which had resulted from a vividly realized anthropomorphism, the malice and spite and intrigue which make some parts of the earlier mythology read like the _chronique scandaleuse_ of a European court, were passing into the region of ridicule and finding their expression only in burlesque. Two great conceptions, the elements of which had existed in the earliest religion, gradually asserted their supremacy. The gods were just, and they were also good. They punished wicked deeds, not by an arbitrary vengeance, but by the operation of unfailing laws. The laws were the expression of the highest conceivable morality. Their penalties were personal to the offender, and the sinner who did not pay them in this life paid them after death. The gods were also good. The idea of their kindness, which in the earlier religion had been a kindness only for favoured individuals, widened out to a conception of their general benevolence.[394] The conception of their forethought, which at first had only been that of wise provision in particular cases, linked itself with the Stoical teleology.[395] The God who was the Reason of the world, and immanent in it, was working to an end. That end was the perfection of the whole, which was also the perfection of each member of the whole. In the sphere of human life, happiness and perfection, misery and imperfection, are linked together. The forethought or “Providence” of God was thus beneficent in regard both to the universe itself and to the individual. It worked by self-acting laws. “There are,” says Epictetus,[396] “punishments appointed as it were by law to those who disobey the divine administration. Whoever thinks anything to be good that is outside the range of his will, let that man feel envy and unsatisfied longing; let him be flattered, let him be unquiet; whoever thinks anything to be evil that is outside the range of his will, let him feel pain and sorrow, let him bemoan himself and be unhappy.” And again: “This is the law—divine and strong and beyond escape—which exacts the greatest punishments from those who have sinned the greatest sins. For what says it? The man who lays claim to the things that do not concern him, let him be a braggart, let him be vainglorious: the man who disobeys the divine administration, let him be mean-spirited, let him be a slave, let him feel grief, and jealousy, and pity; in short, let him bemoan himself and be unhappy.”[397] * * * * *