of themselves, and that oxen and lions would ascribe to their own divinities their own images and peculiarities. The whole structure of the Roman religion, built upon myths and adorned with fables, was ill fitted to stand the tests of analysis and criticism. It was destined to weaken and crumble the moment it was subjected to serious rational inquiry. Such inquiry was inevitable in the progress of that soul-growth which the centuries were sure to bring. Natural philosophy and historical study began to dissolve the sacred legends and to demand demonstration and proof where faith had before sufficed. Skeptical criticism began to dissect the formulæ of prayer and to analyze the elements of augury and sacrifice. Reason began to revolt against the proposition that Jupiter was justified in rejecting a petition because a syllable had been omitted or a word mispronounced. Men began to ask: "What explanation could be given of the strange changes of mind in the gods, often threatening evil on the first inspection of the victim, and at the second promising good? How did it happen that a sacrifice to Apollo gave favorable, and one to Diana unfavorable signs? Why did the Etruscan, the Elan, the Egyptian, and the Punic inspectors of sacrifice interpret the entrails in an entirely different manner? Again, what connection in nature was there between a fissure in the liver of a lamb, and a trifling advantage to a man, an inheritance to be expected, or the like? And on a man's intending to sacrifice, did a change, corresponding to his circumstances, take place in the entrails of the beast; so that, supposing another person had selected the same victim, he would have found the liver in a quite different condition?" The gods themselves became subjects of inspection and analysis. Their origin and nature were studied historically, and were also reviewed in the light of natural and ethical products. Three hundred years before Christ, Evhemere of Messina boldly declared that the gods were simply ancient kings deified by fear and superstition after death. Anaxagoras sought to identify the several deities with the forces and phenomena of nature, thus converting the pantheon into an observatory, or into a physical and chemical laboratory. Metrodorus contended that the gods were deifications of mere abstract ethical precepts.