i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



word ceased to be used for the good gods, to whom the term devas 

 was appropriated. And to the Iranians, the devas of their foes became 

 so hateful that the word became synonymous with evil spirit — a mean- 

 ing still retained in our word devil. Out of the throes of this bitter 

 early contest of the Parsees came that trumpet-call to intensest and 

 unceasing struggle against all sin and impurity and wickedness that 

 put the religion of Zarathushtra on such an astonishingly lofty moral 

 plane. 



Thus, when two nations stand for a length of time in hostility, 

 neither prevailing, the result is usually to intensify the special pecul- 

 iarities in the faith of each and widen their diversity. But, when one 

 conquers the other, the result is generally to amalgamate the religions 

 of the two peoples, in more or less degree. It is natural, of course, 

 that the faith of the subjected people should be shaped over in the 

 mold of the victor's faith. But the reverse of this is almost equally 

 common, and we repeatedly see, as we follow down the course of his- 

 tory, the race conquered in battle gradually reasserting itself under 

 the new regime^ and subduing the conquerors, socially and religiously, 

 by infusing among them the customs and faith they had sought at 

 first to trample under foot. Thus, we find the Turanian peoples whom 

 the Iranians subdued in Persia retaliating upon the victdts, by uncon- 

 sciously, as the years went by, introducing into the higher Zara- 

 thushtran faith the doctrine of the fravashis, or ancestral tutelary 

 spirits, the magical practices and excessive adoration of fire, and the 

 soma, or drink of immortality — none of which seemed native to the 

 Aryan religion. 



So in the Brahman religion, the idea of the transmigration of souls, 

 quite absent from the early Vedic hymns, becomes, when we reach 

 the time of the collection called the laws of Manu, one of the most 

 prominent features of the religion. Unknown as it is in all other 

 branches of the Aryan family, its rise and prominence among the 

 Brahmans are to be referred to the pre- Aryan occupants of the Ganges 

 Valley, whom the Aryans conquered and absorbed, and from whose 

 belief in it the Brahmans derived it, when, at length, the conquerors 

 and conquered had been fused together into one people. So with the 

 animal-worship of Egypt, so opposite in character to the worship of 

 Osiris and Ra. It is best explainable as a remnant of the religion of 

 the inferior people who inhabited the land of the Nile in far remote 

 ages, and who were subdued by the emigrants from Asia, who brought 

 higher knowledge and a more spiritual faith with them and founded 

 the wonderful civilization that in ancient times distinguished that 

 land. The new faith, unfortunately, could not wean the common 

 people altogether from their grosser faith, but was forced to receive 

 much of it into itself. 



Again, we may notice the influence of political considerations, in 

 establishing some of the peculiar institutions of religion, such as that 



