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Muller's opinion, had originally pure ideas about the gods, and expressed them in language which we should call figurative. The figures remained, when their meaning was lost; the names were then supposed to be gods, the nomina became numina, and out of the inextricable confusion of thought which followed, the belief in cannibal, bestial, adulterous, and incestuous gods was evolved. That is Mr.
This is, no doubt, mainly a question of diet, exercise, efficient ventilation, and a wise distribution of hours, but it is also largely influenced by moral causes. Somnia quæ mentes ludunt volitantibus umbris, Nec delubra deum, nec ab æthere numina mittunt, Sed sibi quisque facit.
Still still I must away the roads are paved the posts are short the days are long 'tis no more than noon I shall be at Fontainebleau before the king Was he going there? not that I know Non enim excursus hic ejus, sed opus ipsum est. Plin. Lib. V. Epist. 6. Si quid urbaniuscule lusum a nobis, per Musas et Charitas et omnium poetarum Numina, Oro te, ne me male capias. A Dedication to a Great Man.
Therefore this before-mentioned act of sacrifice or amusement will be reiterated at given intervals; about it, as a centre, will be gathered all the associations of intense interest in human life; and the names connected with its origin once human names upon the earth will pass upon the stars, so that the nomina shall have changed to numina, and be taken upon the lips with religious awe.
But for the most part the numina were without even such symbolic representation, nor till about the end of the regal period was any form of temple built for them to dwell in.
See Raphelius on Acts vii. 43. where mention is made of the same offence against the positive commands of God. It may be distinctly proved, that the gods and goddesses of the heathens were accustomed to have their tabernacula and fana, and that some of them were portable. Virgil, we see in the Eneid, speaks of the Errantesque deos, agitataque numina Trojæ, as a great misfortune.
The first, whose principal though not sole champion is Max Müller, holds that myths are the result of a disease of language words become things, "nomina numina." In short, every word tends to become an entity having its attributes and its legends. The same adjective, "shining," refers to the sun, a fountain, spring, etc. This is another source of confusion.
But in course of time these words have lost their force their meaning has been forgotten and they have come to be mere proper names, designative but not significative. Here is material for the perverted imagination to work upon. A separate being is imagined answering to each of the names; and so the nomina become numina. Many gods are substituted for one; and the idea of God is instantly lowered.
In order to get rid of a disease nothing is more frequent among primitive men than to picture the sick person on wood or on the ground, and to strike the injured part with an arrow or knife, in order to annihilate the sickening principle. Finally, there is the magic influence ascribed to certain words. It is the triumph of the theory of nomina numina; we need not return to it.
Their ancestral paganism was allowed to remain substantially unchanged the nomina, but not the numina were altered; their awe and reverence for the caput orbis, ingrained in the populations of Europe by the history of a thousand years, made submission to Rome natural and easy; a host of myths 'abounding in points of attachment to human experience and in genial interpretations of life, yet lifted beyond visible nature and filling a reported world believed in on faith, adorned religion with an artistic and poetical embroidery very congenial to the nations of the South.
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