the reception of the
universal god with whom closes the series.

Other factors than those of an inward development undoubtedly were at
work in the formation of this growth. Especially prominent is the
amalgamation of the gods of the lower classes with those of the
priest-hood. Climatic environment, too, conditioned theological
evolution, if not spiritual advance. The cult of the mid-sphere god,
Indra, was partly the result of the changing atmospheric surroundings
of the Hindus as they advanced into India. The storms and the sun were
not those of old. The tempests were more terrific, the display of
divine power was more concentrated in the rage of the elements; while
appreciation of the goodness of the sun became tinged with
apprehension of evil, and he became a deadly power as well as one
beneficent. Then the relief of rain after drought gave to Indra the
character of a benign god as well as of a fearful one. Nor were
lacking in the social condition certain alterations which worked
together with climatic changes. The segregated mass of the original
people, the braves that hung about the king, a warrior-class rapidly
becoming a caste, and politically the most important caste, took the
god of thunder and lightning for their god of battle. The fighting
race naturally exalted to the highest the fighting god. Then came into
prominence the priestly caste, which gradually taught the warrior that
mind was stronger than muscle. But this caste was one of thinkers.
Their divinity was the product of reflection. Indra remained, but
yielded to a higher power, and the god thought out by the priests
became God. Yet it must not be supposed that the cogitative energy of
the Brahman descended upon the people's gods and suddenly produced a
religious revolution. In India no intellectual advance is made
suddenly. The older divinities show one by one the transformation that
they suffered at the hands of theosophic thinkers. Before the
establishment of a general Father-god, and long before that of the
pantheistic All-god, the philosophical leaven was actively at work. It
will be seen operative at once in the case of the sun-god, and,
indeed, there were few of the older divinities that were untouched by
it. It worked silently and at first esoterically. One reads of the
gods' 'secret names,' of secrets in theology, which 'are not to be
revealed,' till at last the disguise is withdrawn, and it is
discovered that all the mystery of former genera