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LETTER VI.

PROFESSOR MAX MÜLLER and Mr. HERBERT SPENCER may be selected from amongst our ablest expositors of opposite sides of the question. Mr. Spencer's theory is in complete harmony with his system of synthetic philosophy; and in so far, is consistent and easily understood. Professor Müller is not quite so perspicuous. This is partly due to the ordinary reader's ignorance of the philological sources from which Mr. Max Müller deduces his theory, and partly from a leaning to transcendentalism inherent to the Professor's mind. His first step in the scientific treatment of religion is to lay it down as a postulate that, man is essentially a religious being. "What makes man man, is that. . he alone yearns for something that neither sense nor reason can supply." "There was in the heart of man from the very first a feeling of incompleteness, of weakness, of dependence," &c.1 These are the foundations of a religious instinct. The impulse to vent its overflow, under the stimulus of infinite surroundings, is as irresistible as the burst of leaf in spring, or the songs of the birds which herald it. "Before this vague yearning could assume any definite shape it wanted a name; it could not be fully grasped or clearly conceived except by naming it. But where to look for a name?" The relics of ancient mythologies, the myths of modern savages, and above all the débris of ancient language, show that, once upon a time, God and the sky were, in word and thought, as one. The sky was not the God of primitive man. But the identification of the idea of deity with sky was "a first attempt at defining the indefinite impression of deity by a 1 Introduction to the Science of Religion, pp. 18, 270.

name that should approximately or metaphorically render at least one of its most prominent features." 1

Let us tarry awhile to verify this pregnant statement. The most ancient and primitive religion whose sacred books are still in existence, is the religion of the Brahmans. The books are written in the old Sanskrit, and are called the Vedas.2 Whether any fragment of our Bible can compare with them in antiquity is not known. But we do know that, whilst the oldest manuscript of the Hebrew Bible dates from the tenth century after Christ, every line of the Vedic scripture is, probably, as it was three thousand years ago; and certainly every word and every syllable was counted, and stood as it now stands, six hundred years before the Christian era. "The hymns of the Rig Veda," says Professor Müller, "have revealed a state of religion anterior to the first beginnings of that mythology which in Homer and Hesiod stands before us as a mouldering ruin.” 3

The allusion here to the Grecian mythology is not accidental. The Veda contains the creed of the old

1 Introduction to the Science of Religion, p. 276.

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2 I refrain from confusing the reader with criticisms on the comparative age of the Veda and the Zend-avesta or sacred writings of the Parsees. "The Veda and the Zendavesta,' says Roth of Tubingen, are two rivers flowing from one fountain-head: the stream of the Veda is the fuller and purer, and has remained truer to its original character that of the Zend-avesta has been in various ways polluted, has altered its course, and cannot with certainty be followed up to its source." It has been convincingly shown by Professor Spiegel that Zend-the language of the Avesta-is distinctly Aryan, and it is enough for our purpose to understand that the Vedic books are the oldest writings of the Aryan races. In speaking of the Vedas as the religion of the Brahmans, it should be added that the

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Sanskrit in which they were written
is intelligible, even in India, to
scholars only. And although every
word of the Rig Veda is esteemed as
divine revelation, the sacred books
mainly in use amongst the Brah-
mans of the present day are the
Puranas, the Tantras, and the laws
of Manu, all of which are modern
as compared with the Veda.
may here be conveniently observed
that the Aryans were the supposed
descendants of Japheth; the Semites
or Shemites, including the Baby-
lonians, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Syri-
ans, Canaanites, Phenicians, He-
brews, and Arabs, the descendants
of Shem; and the Turanians, includ-
ing Samoyeds, Finns, Tungûses,
Turks, Mongols, the speakers of the
Tamilic dialects, the Thibetans, the
Malays, and the Siamese, &c., the
descendants of Ham.

3 Semitic Monotheism, Chips, i.
379.

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Aryan world. The Aryans (of whom you will hear more by and by) were the common stock from which, not Greeks only, but Armenians, Persians, Hindus, and all speakers of the Romanic, Celtic, Slavonic, and Germanic languages are derived. So that the Grecian mythology was also lineally descended from the Vedic. And, before we have done, we shall perhaps have reason to think that something of our own dogmas may be traced, as we can trace our language, to this same Indo-European source. Meanwhile we have to note how in Vedic times the name for God was also the name for sky.

The old Sanskrit word for God was Deva. This was derived from Dyaus, "sky," the root of which was dyu, "bright." A comprehensive term signifying "brightness thus became the name for Deity. So too Dyaus was changed into the Greek Zeus, and into the Latin Deus; and alas! through the spite of the Zoroastrians, who turned the Aryan deva into evil spirits or daeva, the Aryan name for God has become our Devil. Professor Müller explains the first part of the process in this wise: The infinite, the all-encompassing, had got itself a name. But the name gradually ceased to be a metaphor, and was then further perverted by literal use. "The first step downwards. would be to look upon the sky as the abode of that Being which was called by the same name; the next step would be to forget altogether what was behind the name, and to implore the sky, the visible canopy over our heads, to send rain, &c. Lastly, many things that were true of the visible sky would be told of its divine namesake, and legends would spring up, destroying every trace of the deity that once was hidden beneath that ambiguous name."1 Professor Müller has enunciated his theory in so many ways that, I feel rather ashamed at my inability to make it, from all points, as clear to myself, and therefore to you, as I feel sure that it must be to its author. The truth is, I am not sufficiently satisfied with the premises

1 Science of Religion, p. 273.

to be thoroughly persuaded as to the conclusion. If primitive man were equipped with an intuitive apprehension, however vague, of God, why should less primitive man "forget altogether?" It is a beautiful thought that "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar ;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home."

But unless we entirely subject our knowledge to our imagination, or cling blindly to the degeneration dogma, the above theory would seem to break down from inherent weakness. There is, however, so much palpable truth in what Professor Müller says, that we are bound to follow him with our best attention.

It is quite in keeping with the known laws of association and oblivion, and also with the use or abuse of language (presently to be illustrated), that the meaning of the word Dyaus should be perverted. The heavens, with their infinitude and their ever-changing aspects, would represent to untutored man all the mighty forces of productive and destructive nature. Light, warmth, rain, snow, wind, fire, &c., would be associated with different states of the firmament; and, as the magazine of these powers, the sky might metonymically stand for the change. The Aryan man, startled by the sound of thunder, might exclaim, It thunders. And the It, after the principle here laid down, would implicitly mean the sky. Professor Müller thinks that the idea of God would be understood. He adds, "It would. be more in accordance with the feelings and thoughts of those who first used these so-called impersonal verbs to translate them by He thunders, He rains, He snows." And since the thunder is from the sky, and the sky was. named Dyaus (the bright one), “He thunders and Dyaus

thunders became synonymous expressions, and by the mere habit of speech He became Dyaus and Dyaus became He. Henceforth Dyaus remained as an appellative of the unseen though ever-present Power which had revealed its existence to man from the beginning," &c.

Be the rationale what it may, all the world over, from Aryan times to our own, the Sky, the Heaven-God, and the Sun-God, have been the highest objects of man's worship. The Zeus TаTηρ of the Greek, and Jupiter or Jovis pater of the Roman, are the Dyaus pitar and divaspati or Heaven-father, of the Veda. The common expressions sub divo, "in the open air," and sub Jove frigido, “ under the cold sky," show for how many ages the original identity was preserved: though assuredly no Roman used these phrases with an inkling of how he came by them. “In the religion of the North American Indians," writes Dr. Tylor, "the Heaven-God displays perfectly the gradual blending of the material sky itself with its personal deity.”1 "In South Africa, the Zulus speak of the Heaven as a person ascribing to it the power of exercising a will, &c. The rude Samoyed's mind scarcely, if at all, separates the visible person of Heaven from the divinity united with it under one name, Num. Among the more cultured Finns, the cosmic attributes of the Heaven-God, Ukko, the old one, display the same original nature; he is the ancient of Heaven, the father of Heaven," &c. In the Shoo-king, or sacred book of history, compiled by Confucius, it is written, “Heaven is supremely intelligent." "Tien, Heaven, is in personal shape the Shang-ti, or Upper Emperor, the Lord of the Universe." The following is quoted by the late Archdeacon Hardwick from the "Journal of the Asiatic Society" (1856), xvi.: “Whom do you worship?' I asked [of a Chinaman]. I worship Heaven just as you foreigners do,' he replied. Who is the Heaven you worship?' 'Why, Shang-te, of course,' said he. 'Can you see Shang-te or not?' I inquired. 'Why,' replied

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1 Primitive Culture, vol. ii. p. 255, ff.

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