lan of the Bh_r_igus
(Phlegyas).[221]

In other poems we hear of the mystery of fire being produced by
rubbing pieces of wood; and here it is a curious fact that the name of
the wood thus used for rubbing is in Sanskrit Pramantha, a word which,
as Kuhn has shown, would in Greek come very near to the name of
Prometheus. The possession of fire, whether by preserving it as sacred
on the hearth, or by producing it at pleasure with the fire-drill,
represents an enormous step in early civilization. It enabled people
to cook their meat instead of eating it raw; it gave them the power of
carrying on their work by night; and in colder climates it really
preserved them from being frozen to death. No wonder, therefore, that
the fire should have been praised and worshipped as the best and
kindest of gods, the only god who had come down from heaven to live on
earth, the friend of man, the messenger of the gods, the mediator
between gods and men, the immortal among mortals. He, it is said,
protects the settlements of the Aryans, and frightens away the
black-skinned enemies.

Soon, however, fire was conceived by the Vedic poets under the more
general character of light and warmth, and then the presence of Agni was
perceived, not only on the hearth and the altar, but in the Dawn, in the
Sun, and in the world beyond the Sun, while at the same time his power was
recognized as ripening, or as they called it, as cooking, the fruits of
the earth, and as supporting also the warmth and the life of the human
body. From that point of view Agni, like other powers, rose to the rank of
a Supreme God.[222] He is said to have stretched out heaven and
earth--naturally, because without his light heaven and earth would have
been invisible and undistinguishable. The next poet says that Agni held
heaven aloft by his light, that he kept the two worlds asunder; and in the
end Agni is said to be the progenitor and father of heaven and earth, and
the maker of all that flies, or walks, or stands, or moves on earth.

Here we have once more the same process before our eyes. The human
mind begins with being startled by a single or repeated event, such as
the lightning striking a tree and devouring a whole forest, or a
spark of fire breaking forth from wood being rubbed against wood,
whether in a forest, or in the wheel of a carriage, or at last in a
fire-drill, devised on purpose. Man then begins to wonder at what to
him is a miracle, none the less so because