HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF MYTH AND SCIENCE. 197 



circular friction. The pieces of wood used for the 

 production of fire were called pramantha, that which 

 revolves, and arani was the disc on which the friction 

 was made. In this phase, the fetishes are, according 

 to our theory, in the second stage. The Greeks and 

 Eomans, and indeed almost all other peoples, knew no 

 other way of kindling a fire, and in the sacred rites of 

 the Peruvians the task was assigned to the Incas at 

 the annual festival of fire. The wood of the oak was 

 used in Germany, on account of the red colour of its 

 bark, which led to the supposition that the god of fire 

 was concealed in it. Tan is called lohe, or flame, in 

 Germany. This primitive mode of kindling a fire 

 was known to the Aryans before their dispersion, and 

 friction with this object was equivalent to the birth of 

 the fire-god, constraining him to come down to earth 

 from the air, from thunder, etc. ; indeed fire was also 

 called diita, the messenger between heaven and earth. 

 The question arose who had drawn fire from heaven, 

 and developed it in the arani. A resemblance was 

 also traced between the instruments for kindling fire 

 and the organs of generation, a reciprocal interchange 

 of various myths, as we have before observed. Agni 

 is concealed in arani, like the embryo in the womb 

 (Big- Veda) . Thus pramantha is the masculine instru- 

 ment, arani the feminine, and the act of uniting them 

 is copulation. 



Agni had disappeared from earth and was concealed 

 in a cavern, whence it was drawn by a divine person ; 



