In Greece they were derived from mythology, itself not due
to a religious source at all, but developing in the course of time into a
body of religious conceptions, entirely human in form and character. To
the unprogressive ritual element it brought these conceptions,
itself--he pterou dunamis, the power of the wing--an element of
refinement, of ascension, with the promise of an endless destiny. While
the ritual remains fixed, the aesthetic element, only accidentally
connected with it, expands with the freedom and mobility of the things of
the intellect. Always, the fixed element is the religious observance; the
fluid, unfixed element is the myth, the religious conception. This
religion is itself pagan, and has in any broad view of it the pagan
sadness. It does not at once, and for the majority, become the higher
Hellenic religion. The country people, of course, cherish the unlovely
idols of an earlier time, such as those which Pausanias found still
devoutly preserved in Arcadia. Athenaeus tells the story of one who,
coming to a temple of Latona, had expected to find some worthy
presentment of the mother of Apollo, and laughed on seeing only a
shapeless wooden figure.
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