(_β_) If we consider further examples of still well recognized metamorphoses of men and gods into animals, we shall find that, although they do not directly imply any transgression as the cause of such a change, as, for example, in the case where Circe possessed the power to change men into animals, yet, for all that, the animal condition is at least indicative of a misfortune and a humiliation, such as brings no honour even to the person who makes such a change subservient to private ends. Circe was quite a subordinate, obscure type of goddess, and her power appears as mere witchery, and Mercury assists Odysseus, when the latter contrives to free his comrades from the spell. Of much the same kind are the many shapes which Zeus takes upon himself, as, for example, when he is changed into a bull in his quest of Europa, or when he approaches Leda in the form of a swan, or fructifies the Danae in a shower of gold. In all these cases the object is one of deception, directed by purposes of an inferior, that is to say, not spiritual, but purely natural quality, purposes which the ever constant jealousy of Juno render unavoidable. The conception of a universal procreative life of Nature, which in many of the more ancient mythologies constituted the leading motive, is imaginatively reproduced in separate poetical tales about the easily enamoured disposition of the father of gods and men, exploits, however, which he does not carry through in his own or, for the most part, in human shape, but expressly either in the shape of animals, or some other embodiment of Nature.