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Even in the writings of Cicero it is declared the duty of a citizen to resist Euhemerism as prejudicial to religious worship; and if the Academic and the Epicurean appear in his dialogues, the former has to plead the excuse that, while as a philosopher he is a disciple of Carneades, as a citizen and -pontifex- he is an orthodox confessor of the Capitoline Jupiter, and the Epicurean has even ultimately to surrender and be converted.
The deities were all polite names for the organs and powers of procreation. Then again there was a period of what is sometimes called Euhemerism the theory that the gods and goddesses had actually once been men and women, historical characters round whom a halo of romance and remoteness had gathered.
In the fragment it appears as atheism pure and simple, and it seems obvious to understand it in the same way in Polybius. That he shows a leaning towards Euhemerism in another passage where he speaks about the origin of religious ideas, is in itself not against this—the two theories are closely related and might very well be combined.
As far as we have gone, Tsui Goab, like Heitsi Eibib among the Namas, is a dead sorcerer, whose graves are worshipped, while, with a common inconsistency, he is also thought of as dwelling in the sky. Even Christians often speak of the dead with similar inconsistency. But, while the Khoi Khoi think that Tsui Goab was once a real man, we need not share their Euhemerism.
This very interesting Supreme Being, in a middle barbaric race, is the Polynesian Taa-roa, as described by Ellis in that fascinating book 'Polynesian Researches. 'Several of their taata-paari, or wise men, pretend that, according to other traditions, Taa-roa was only a man who was deified after death. Euhemerism, in fact, is a natural theory of men acquainted with ancestor-worship, but a Euhemeristic hypothesis by a Polynesian thinker is not a statement of national belief.
Herbert Spencer: the modern Euhemerism, which recognises an element of historical truth in myths, as if the characters had been real characters, and which, in most gods, beholds ancestral ghosts raised to a higher power. There remains a third system of mythical interpretation, though Mr. Muller says only two methods are possible.
Its great influence is seen from numerous similar attempts in the Hellenistic world. At Rome, in the second century, Ennius translated his works into Latin, and as late as the time of Augustus an author such as Diodorus, in his popular history of the world, served up Euhemerism as the best scientific explanation of the origin of religion.
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