and images of the chief gods of the Hindu Pantheon frequently represent them in the act of crushing their demonantagonists.

Krishna (a form of Vishnu) is often seen bruising the head of the malignant serpent Kaliya, and Siva tramples, during a kind of wild dance, on the prostrate body of the arch-fiend Tripura.

As regards Zoroaster's Dualism, I now submit briefly to this Society the explanation of it given to me by some learned Indian Parsis of Bombay (especially by Mr. K. R. Cama).

Let me first remark that we read in the Gathas, that Zoroaster began his mission by declaring that: "In the beginning there were two spirits-each active. These are the good and the base in thought, word, and deed." "I will declare the two primeval spirits of the world, of whom the better One thus spoke to the evil One-Neither our minds, nor our doctrines, nor our understandings, nor our belief, nor our words, nor our actions, nor our laws, nor our souls agree.'

The explanation given to me was that Zoroaster, although a believer in one Supreme Being, and a teacher of Monotheism, set himself to account for the existence of evil, which could not have its source in an all-wise Creator.

He, therefore, taught that two opposite-but not opposingprinciples or forces, which he calls "Twins," were inherent in the nature of the Supreme Being, called by him Ahura Mazda (or in Persian Ormazd), and emanated from that Being, just as in Hinduism, Vishnu and Šiva emanate from the Supreme Being Brăhmă.

These two forces were set in motion by Ahura Mazda, as his appointed mode of maintaining the continuity of the Universe.

The one was constructive, the other destructive.

One created and composed.

The other disintegrated and decomposed, but only to cooperate with the creative principle by providing fresh raw material for the work of re-composition.

Hence there could be no new life without death, no existence without non-existence.

Hence, also, according to Zoroaster, there was originally no really antagonistic force of evil opposed to good.

The creative energy was called Ahura Mazda's beneficent spirit (Spento-Mainyus), and the destructive force was called his maleficent spirit (Angro-Mainyus, afterwards corrupted into Ahriman), but only because the idea of evil is connected with dissolution.

The two spirits were merely antagonistic in name.

They were in reality co-operative and mutually helpful. They were essential to the alternating processes of construction and dissolution, through which cosmical being was perpetuated.

The only real antagonism was that alternately brought about by the free agent, man, who couid hasten the work of destruction or retard the work of construction by his own acts.

It is therefore held that the so-called dualistic doctrines of Zoroaster were compatible with the absolute unity of the one God (symbolized especially by Fire).

Ultimately, however, Zoroastrianism crystallized into a hard and uncompromising dualism.

That is to say, in process of time, Spento-Mainyus became merely another name for Ahura Mazda, as the eternal principle of good, while Angro-Mainyus or Ahriman became altogether dissociated from Ahura Mazda, and converted into an eternal principle of evil.

These two principles are believed to be the sources of two opposite creations which were incessantly at war.

On the one side is a celestial hierarchy, at the head of which is Ormazd; on the other side, a demoniacal, at the head of which is Ahriman.

They are as opposed to each other as light to darkness-as falsehood to truth.

The whole energy of a religious Indian Pārsī is concentrated on the endeavour to make himself-so to speakdemon-proof, and this can only be accomplished by absolute purity (in thought, word, and deed), symbolized by whiteness.

He is ever on his guard against bodily defilement, and never goes out to his daily occupations without first putting on a sacred white shirt and a sacred white girdle. Even the most highly educated, enlightened, and Anglicized Pārsis are rigorous observers of this custom, though it seems. probable that their real creed has little in common with the old and superstitious belief in demons and evil spirits, but rather consists in a kind of cold monotheistic pantheism.

How far Zoroastrian dualism had affected the religious opinions of the Babylonians at the time of the Jewish captivity is doubtful, but that the Hebrew prophets of those days had to reckon with dualistic ideas seems probable from Isaiah xlv, 6: "I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things." The New Testament, on the other hand, might be thought by a superficial reader

to lend some support to dualistic doctrines, inasmuch as it asserts the personality of Satan, and takes for granted the existence of evil spirits hostile to the spirits of men.

I need scarcely, however, point out that the Bible account of the origin, nature, and destiny of Satan and his angels differs, toto cœlo, from the Zoroastrian description of Ahriman and his host.

Nor need I add that the various monistic, pantheistic, and dualistic theories, briefly indicated by me in this paper, are utterly at variance with the Christian doctrine of a Personal, Eternal, and Infinite Being existing and working outside man and outside the material universe which He has Himself created, and controlling both, and in the case of human beings working not only outside man but in and through him.

Our Church of England Prayer Book tells us in one place that God "made all things of nothing,"* and this, no doubt, is the meaning we give to the word "create "in the first chapter of Genesis. But we are nowhere told, either in the Bible or Prayer Book, that, having created material germs on the one hand and the spirits of men on the other, He willed to endow these two distinct creations with an eternal independent separate existence and an independent capacity for selfevolution.

We know, indeed, that God is Spirit (IIveûμa ó Оeós),† and that, having created man's spirit with a separate personality of its own, He has endowed it with moral free agency; that is, with the power to choose or reject the good or the evil.

We know, too, that this freedom of choice is held by acute thinkers to furnish a fairly satisfactory explanation of the origin of evil without having recourse to the Indian method of solving the difficulty through the doctrine of metempsychosis. But the exact relationship of man's spirit to material organization is not revealed to us. Nor can we tell whether the dissolution of man's body at death releases his spirit from all connection with even the subtlest forms of matter, so that an intermediate conscious existence of entire separation from matter is possible to it.

* See the third prayer at the end of the Marriage Service; and compare Psalm xc, 2.

+ So also, ó Deòs Pŵs éσTI, “God is Light," 1 John i, 5.

I am reminded by the Rev. C. G. Chittenden, of Hoddesdon (who has sent me some able remarks on my paper), that Butler (Anal. i., 5; iv., 2) considers that the gift of moral free agency only furnishes a partial explanation of the origin of evil, and that the same writer thinks it possible

What we may surely believe is that God is always creating, and that out of His eternal Workshop (if I may so speak reverently) are for ever issuing new spirits and new material

forms.

Surely, too, we must believe that God is for ever superintending and supporting His creations; and that not a single spirit and not a single material atom can exist for a single instant without His upholding and vivifying power.

We Christians, at any rate, who feel that we depend on our Creator for life and breath and all things, may surely so interpret the words of Christ, "My Father worketh hitherto and I work."

It has occurred to me that, with the permission of the President, I might add a few remarks to my paper; and in the first place I should like to remind you that the Brāhmanical expression for the One Infinite Being-God is Existence, Thought, Joy-has been compared with the Christian statement of God's tri-une Nature.

God is Life. God is Light.

God is Love.

In regard to this point, however, I may observe that the Sanskrit translators of the Bible have translated the words I am the Life by a phrase meaning I am the Life-causer, because we believe that God is not simply Pure Life but the Giver of Life to His creatures.

The difference, too, between God is Joy and God is Love is to be noted (though we may also note that the Apostle St. Paul's three primary fruits of the Spirit are Love, Joy, Peace).

I may also be permitted to point out as noteworthy that the idea of a peculiar sacredness attaching to the number “three” runs through all Indian systems of thought.

And, in explanation of the prevalence of this idea, I may remind you of a well-known fact that there are not a few cases in which three seems to exhaust all that can be conceived of any subject.

For example, Past, Present, and Future exhaust the whole conception of time; Length, Breadth, and Height, of space; Solid, Liquid, and Gaseous, of matter; and not less than three lines (or a triangle) enclose a space.

Let me also add that one object of my remarks this evening has been to draw attention to the fact that Brahmanism

that the living agent may exist and even be active apart from matter (Anal. i., 1). (See page 28.).

is a most subtle system of pantheistic philosophy, which, while it is tolerant of Christianity and claims to have much common ground with Christianity, admits of the development of every form of corrupt religious doctrine and idolatrous superstition.

It is on this account a very formidable antagonist-more formidable than either Zoroastrianism or Muhammadanism an opponent indeed of such hydra-like vitality that no Christian missionary can hope to cope with it effectively, unless he be armed with the truest and most divinely tempered weapons in the whole Christian Armoury.

And let me further say that the grossest polytheistic superstitions of modern India, absurd and deplorable as they may appear to us, are not to be scornfully brushed aside, as if they were mere heaps of rubbish obstructing the onward march of the victorious army of Evangelists, and quite unworthy of serious examination.

On the contrary, these, to us tangled and unintelligible, masses of time-honoured traditionary doctrines and practices, which I have elsewhere treated of under the general name of Hinduism, are really like rugged jungle-clad mountain ranges, rising one behind the other in the path of the progress of Christianity. Or rather perhaps may they be compared to a series of outposts grouped in circle after circle around the ever-receding fortress of Pantheistic Brahmanism. Hence it is that the proud and self-confident Hindu, when apparently driven in defeat from the defence of any one point, retires, without the slightest sense of humiliation, to other coigns of resistance, and has always the last resource of retreating behind what he conceives to be the impregnable Brahmanical dogma that:

There is only one God-only one Infinite Essence-which, although inseparably one, is to be identified with every really existing thing, and may manifest itself in manifold ways and in different forms in different places.

The PRESIDENT (Sir G. G. Stokes, Bart., V.P.R.S.).—I am sure I need not ask you to return your thanks to Sir Monier Williams, for the very learned and deep discourse with which he has favoured us. (Applause.) I now invite those present who have attended to these religious views of other nations, to make some remarks.

C. COLLINGWOOD, Esq., M.D.-I venture to call attention to the interesting fact that in these very ancient books we find a nearer