blems such as the beginning of language, of
thought, of mythology and religion, were started with youthful hope
that the Veda would solve them all, as if the Vedic Rishis had been
present at the first outburst of roots, of concepts, nay, that like
Pelops and other descendants of Zeus, those Vedic poets had enjoyed
daily intercourse with the gods, and had been present at the
mutilation of Ouranos, or at the over-eating of Kronos. We may be
ashamed to-day of some of the dreams of the early spring of man's
sojourn on earth, but they were enchanting dreams, and all our
thoughts of man's nature and destiny on earth were tinged with the
colours of a morning that threw light over the grey darkness which
preceded it. It was delightful to see that Dyaus meant originally the
bright sky, something actually seen, but something that had to become
something unseen. All knowledge, whether individual or possessed by
mankind at large, must have begun with what the senses can perceive,
before it could rise to signify something unperceived by the senses.
Only after the blue aether had been perceived and named, was it
possible to conceive and speak of the sky as active, as an agent, as a
god. Dyaus or Zeus might thus be called the most sublime, he who
resides in the aether, [Greek: aitheri naion hypsizygos], the heavenly
one, or [Greek: ouranios hypatos] and [Greek: hypsistos], the highest,
and at last _Iupiter Optimus Maximus_, a name applied even to the true
God. When Zeus had once become like the sky, all seeing or omniscient
([Greek: epopsios]), would he not naturally be supposed to see, not
only the good, but the evil deeds of men also, nay, their very
thoughts, whether pure or criminal? And if so, would he not be the
avenger of evil, the watcher of oaths ([Greek: horkios]), the
protector of the helpless ([Greek: ikesios])? Yet, if conceived, as
for a long time all the gods were conceived and could only be
conceived, namely, as human in their shape, should we not necessarily
get that strange amalgamation of a human being doing superhuman
work--hurling the thunderbolt, shouting in thunder, hidden by dark
clouds, and smiling in the serene blue of the sky with its brilliant
scintillations? All this and much more became perfectly intelligible,
the step from the visible to the invisible, from the perceived to the
conceived, from nature to nature's gods, and from nature's god to a
more sublime unseen and spiritual power. All this seemed to p