characters. Thus Indra, the great god of the Vedic Indians, "the thunderer," through fear of whom "both heaven and earth trembles," the conqueror of Vrittra, is the rain-god, who pierces the cloud by his thunderbolts, and lets the long-needed waters fall upon the thirsty earth. Varuna, the Greek Ouranos, most spiritual of Vedic deities, who knows all things, the secret as the open, who punishes transgressors, and yet is gracious to him who has committed sin, is just the open enveloping heaven. Surya, the all-seeing, “who beholds all creatures, the good and bad deeds of mortals," who rides in a car drawn by fleet and ruddy horses; Savitri, the golden-eyed, who illuminates the atmosphere and all the regions of the earth, are only names of deities who personify the Sun. And this naturalism appears everywhere, in Ushas, the Dawn, Agni, Fire, Vayu, the Wind, the Maruts, the Storm-gods. And if we pass to Greece, the same thoughts, only modified in their expression, again meet us. Athene is the Bright or the Blooming, without mother, daughter of Zeus, the coloured dawn coming out upon the brow of the brightening sky. In Gaia, Dione, Demeter, in Helios, Phoibos, Eos, and in the myths, familiar enough to all, that grow out of and round these and similar names, the naturalism characteristic of the race finds expression. In the Jupiter and Juno of Rome, in the Wodin and Thor of Germany, the same mode of conceiving deity is manifest, only with a difference in representation, such as was inevitable to peoples so unlike in geographical situation and political constitution as the Latin nations of sunny Italy, and the Teutonic tribes of the stormy North. The mode in which deity was conceived and represented in the Indo-European family determined the character of its religions, the place they held, and the functions they exercised alike in the life of the individual and of the state. As naturalism furnished forms to the religious ideas, it imposed upon them its own limitations. The gods never escaped the fate of the physical objects that suggested their being and supplied their names. Their existence had a beginning, was to have an end, their power to act was limited, themselves either the subjects or victims of a dread, undeified Might, named or unnamed. Thus the Vedic Indra has a father and mother, is concealed at his birth, crushes in fight his father, and wages perpetual war against Vrittra and the Asuras. Varuna is an Aditya, a son of Aditi, who has several sons besides. Indeed, all the Vedic gods are derivative beings, are extolled as creators, yet are regarded as themselves creatures, with the same ebb and flow, struggle, failure, triumph in their lives as there are in ours. The Greek gods move within still narrower limits, are feebler, simply because more distinctly personalized, and placed in more definite and orderly relations. Zeus, though the king of the gods, can be circumvented, contradicted, resisted. The Olympian aristocracy is by no means obedient or deferential, and Hera is a queen who can often out-general and defeat her lord. But higher than all stands fate, Moira, whose decrees bind even the gods. Zeus cannot save Sarpedon, dearest to him of mortal men, because he is fated to die.* Polyphemos, in his prayer to Poseidon, recognises Destiny as higher than the god.+ Poseidon wishes to lead Æneas from death, because fate has decreed his escape. The very immortality, which is the distinctive attribute of the gods, is not self-given and maintained, springs from their use of nectar and ambrosia. § And as in the Greek, so in the German mythology. The gods cannot escape their doom, must go down in a common catastrophe, the victims of Ragnarökr. There is, therefore, no self-contained existence or power in the Indo-European gods. The very names which gave them being were like the shirt of Nessus, garments that involved death. But while the primary Indo-European conception of deity imposed such limitations on the existence and power of the gods, it helped to develop the elements of independence and freedom in the idea of man. He stood over against deity, not as a servant or slave, but as voluntary, independent, with as good a right to exist as the god, though with less power to assert or enforce it. Hence in the pure, unreformed Indo-European religions there was none of the slavish dread of deity one meets everywhere * "Il.," xvi. 434. "11.," xx. 300 ff. + "Od.," ix. 528 ff. § Nägelsbach, "Homerische Theol.," 42 ff. Y in the Semitic. God and man not only so nearly approach each other as almost to blend in nature, but their powers are, if not well matched, yet so much akin, that the god easily becomes jealous of the prosperous man. There was even a tendency to regard the deities as somewhat dependent on human gifts. Thus Indra loves and is exhilarated by the soma juice. Without it he is like a thirsty stag, or a bull roaming in a waterless waste. All the gods hasten eagerly to partake of it, and it confers immortality on gods as well as men.* Thus, too, Poseidon goes off to the Ethiopians to a hecatomb of bulls and lambs, and is delighted with his feast. The scent of bulls and goats, or choice lambs and kids, offered in sacrifice, pleases Apollo. The same feeling is manifest, too, in those ironical pictures of the Olympian court and its contentions so common in Homer, and in the readiness to make game of the gods so characteristic of the Greeks, so unintelligible to us. The healthy Indo-European Naturalism never knew the abject prostration of spirit before the invisible powers so universal among the Semites, developed rather a somewhat super-eminent manliness that did not care to bow too low even to deity. These peculiarities of the Indo-European religions produced another of their distinctive characteristics: they * R.-V., viii. 4, 10; v. 36, 1; viii. 2, 18, 48, 3. "Il.," i. 40, 315. were what may be termed political as opposed to theocratic. Religion did not dominate the state, but the state the religion. This, perhaps, is put a expresses substantially the truth. little too absolutely, but The Indian Aryans im plored victory from the gods, and praised Indra who had hurled his thunderbolts against the Dasyus, shattered their cities, destroyed them, and given the land to the Arya.* The tragic sacrifice at Aulis, though unknown to Homer, shows what value the Greeks set upon, and what a price they thought it in certain cases right to pay for, the favour and help of the gods. But, to say nothing of the horror the legend excited in the national mind-a horror which regarded the sacrifice as a crime clamant for revenge—it is certain that, while the Greeks were always wishful to propitiate the invisible powers, their wars were never either really or formally undertaken to extend the dominion or exalt the glory of their gods. The political idea was prominent alike in the Vedic, Hellenic, and Germanic mythologies. The state made its own laws, did not receive them from deity. The king was no infallible representative and organ of heaven, had no absolute authority, had his action limited and directed by the council, while behind and above both stood the assembly. Within the state, necessary to its prosperity, but controlled, not controlling, stood the religion. It did not dare to assume the sovereignty of the nation, the direction of the individual. Impiety was a * R.-V., i. 103, 3; iii. 34, 9; iv. 26, 2. |