RELIGION AND THE ENVIRONMENT. ii 



likewise were boisterous and stalwart beings, riding on the tempest, 

 amusing themselves by feats of strength, reveling in the crash of 

 battle, and gathering the fallen heroes into the bright Valhalla, there 

 to reward them for their courage with foaming cups of mead, and the 

 barbaric delights of ceaseless combats, in indestructible bodies. Thus, 

 instead of the Graces and the beautiful Apollo of Greece, we find in 

 Scandinavia deities as blustering and uncouth as the Northland itself, 

 but manly and good-hearted. While in Greece the primitive Aryan 

 faith takes on a more aesthetic and refined aspect, in Germany and 

 Scandinavia it becomes more tragic and intense. 



Let us follow next the steps of that part of the Aryans who turned 

 their steps southward into the languorous plains of India, and we shall 

 see a different change. The first thing we notice is, that Dyans — the 

 shining one, the bright sky of day — loses his ancient pre-eminence. 

 His supremacy in the thoughts of the Aryan emigrants is first taken 

 by Varuna — the night-sky. In the hot clime of India, the bright sky 

 of day was no longer so pleasant to them, and Varuna seemed a kinder 

 deity, and therefore became more popular. But soon he also is super- 

 seded by Indra, the rain-god, who, with his glittering lance — the light- 

 ning — pierces and releases the imprisoned waters. For in India, then, 

 as to-day, the coming of the rainy season after the long drought is 

 by far the most important of all nature's changes. It was not long 

 before Indra, therefore, by his terrible might and his beneficent prowess 

 in slaying the drought-serpent, became, with his coadjutors, the Maruts, 

 the beating winds, the chief object of Vedic adoration. And soon we 

 notice an equally significant change. The vigorous Aryan, in the 

 debilitating heats of the Indian plains, became a victim of lassitude. 

 He lost his healthful delight in the good things of sense and earth. 

 The languid air lulled him in dreamy reveries. Meditation takes the 

 place of service in the commandments of religion ; and asceticism, in- 

 stead o& the divine blessings, becomes the pious practice. So great 

 and so rapid is the change that comes over their faith that, before 

 many centuries have passed, pessimistic views of life become so seated 

 in the race that the illusiveness of the world and the essential wretch- 

 edness of life become cardinal doctrines of faith ; and the great desire 

 of men's heart's is not for renewed lease of life, but for the means of 

 obtaining exemption from the misery of rebirth. And so it has been 

 with other nations and races. The physical characteristics of the 

 countries they have dwelt in have powerfully modified the aspect of 

 their religion. The races inhabiting the most barren and unfavorable 

 quarters of the globe — such as the Patagonians, Hottentots, Kamschat- 

 kans — have suffered correspondingly in their possibility of religious 

 progress. Conversely, it is that intermediate zone between the tropical 

 and the temperate — the land of the olive, the fig, and the orange — 

 where the mean temperature is not lower than 60° Fahr. nor more 

 than 75° Fahr., that has been the home of the great founders of re- 



