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The exterior temple is here a work of art, and the interior a natural cave.

Men repaired in the first ages either to the lonely summits of mountains, or else to caverns in the rocks, and hollows in the bosom of the earth, which they fancied were the residence of their gods. At the entrance of these, they raised their altars, and performed their vows. . . . When, in process of time, they began to erect temples, they were still determined in their situation by the vicinity of these objects, which they comprehended within the limits of the sacred enclosure. . . . Amongst the Persians, most of the temples were caverns in rocks, either formed by nature, or artificially produced.

A similar change, from a similar cause, occurs in the Paradiso of Dante, C. xxvii.

As Phas, Phthas, Hephaistos, Vulcanus, Hestia, Vesta, Seva, Agni, Pavaca, &c.

Fire, and likewise the god of fire, was by the Amonians styled Apthas, and Aptha; contracted, and by different authors expressed, Apha, Pthas, and Ptha. He is by Suidas supposed to have been the Vulcan of Memphis: Φθας, ο Ηφαιστος παρα Μεμφιταις. And Cicero makes him the same deity of the Romans: Secundus (Vulcanus) Nilo natus, Phas, ut Ægyptii appellant, quem custodem esse Ægypti volunt. The author of the Clementines describes him much to the same purpose: Αιγυπτιοι δε ομοιωσ----το πυρ ιδια διαλεκτω Φθα εκαλεσαν, ο ερμηνευεται Ηφαιιστος . . . Ast, Asta, Esta, signified fire, and also the deity of that element. The Greeks expressed it Εστια and the Romans Vesta. . . . Procopius, speaking of the sacred fire of the Persians, says expressly, that it was the very same which in aftertimes the Romans worshipped, and called the fire of Hestia, or Vesta: Τουτο εστι το πυρ, οπερ Εστιαν εκαλουντο, και εσεβοντο εν τοις υστεροις χρονοις Ρωμαιοι. This is farther proved from a well known verse in Ovid:

Bryant's Ancient Mythology.

The worship of solar or vestal fire may be ascribed, like that of Osiris and Isis, to an enthusiastic admiration of nature's wonderful powers; and it seems, as far as I can yet understand the Vedas, to be the principal worship recommended in them. We have seen, that Mahadeva himself is personified by fire; but subordinate to him is the god Agni, often called Pavaca, or the purifier, who answers to the Vulcan of Egypt. Sir William Jones.

That without heat there could be no existence, is a well-known philosophical truth. The doctrines of nature and mythology are seldom so much in unison.

Zenoni νους κοσμου πυρινος, et Posidonio πνευμα νοερον και πυρωδες, cujus scintillæ et αποσπασματα ac σπερμαρα sunt animæ. Heyne.

Fire, light, and air, were long the symbols of the mental principle among oriental nations; and the tenuity of those fine essences continued for ages to be thought nearly similar to that of the soul. Drummond's Academical Questions.

Si l'on vouloit démonter la machine humaine, et analyser ce fluide nerveux, qui, suivant les oracles de la médecine, avertit le cerveau de toutes nos sensations, et devient aussi le mobile de nos facultés intellectuelles, il seroit aisé de prouver, que la matière mobile qui le compose est fortement impregnée de ce feu élémentaire. Telle seroit peut-être l'origine de ces expressions, ame ardente, imagination embrasée, flamme de génie, qu'on trouve dans toutes les langues primitives, et qui ne sont des métaphores que pour l'homme du peuple, qui n'est pas initié dans les mystères de la nature. Philosophie de la Nature.