On the theological side they established the doctrine of the immanence of God in opposition to the transcendental views of the Platonists and Aristotelians. Since the whole cosmos is in their view animated by the universal reason, every part of it is alive. The heavenly bodies were therefore naturally regarded as divine, gods to whom the names of the greater gods of popular theology were conveniently given. But on the whole the traditional gods were explained allegorically, being regarded as the names assigned to various manifestations of God in nature. So Zeus was the heavens or the ether, Hera air, Poseidon the waters, Demeter earth, Hephaestus fire, Hades darkness, and so on. Now this physical allegorizing tended to destroy all belief in the mythological divinities more effectually perhaps than any other assault that had been made since the attacks began in the sixth century. But we must not think that the Stoics disbelieved in the existence of gods. I have just spoken of their doctrine that the heavenly bodies are divine; and they held that the spirits of the wisest and best survive the body as lesser divinities, as daemons. All these, however, will cease to be when the present age comes to an end and the cosmos sinks back into universal fire. * * * * * In the religious philosophies which we have thus far considered the reason and the will were the chief means by which security and happiness here or hereafter could be obtained. These systems taught that salvation was a matter of man’s own effort, and within his own power. Yet in Marcus Aurelius, for example, we have again and again clear evidence that the last great Stoic was conscious of the insufficiency of man to save his own soul unaided, and the philosophies to which we are now to turn recognize man’s weakness and make salvation an act of grace from God.