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producing ifc after the generations which have passed without 
it but by expedients which Mr. Miiller repudiates. And we 
especially feel a difficulty in understanding how language, as 
complete as those Yedic forms of which. he especially treat s, 
and to which alone he applies his theory of origin, could have 
come in the way he supposes. In the old Sanskrit we arc 
told we have more perfect grammatical forms than the modern 
supplies, and these are really gems of language. 
“ Now I confess that such a vocative as Dyaus, having the circumflex 
instead of the acute, is to my mind a perfect gem, of the most preciom 
material and the most exquisite workmanship. Who has not wondered 
lately at those curious relics of pre-Hellenic art, brought to light at Hissarlik 
and Mykenae by the indefatigable labours of Dr. Schliemann ? I am the 
last man to depreciate their real value, as opening to us a new world on the 
classical soil of Greece. But what is a polished or perforated stone, what is 
a drinking vessel, or a shield, or a helmet, or even a golden diadem, com- 
pared with this vocative of Dyaus ? In the one case we have mute metal, 
rude art, and little thought ; in the other a work of art of the most perfect 
finish and harmony, and wrought of a material more precious than gold,— 
human thought.” * 
But bow could the Yedic Sanskrit, which we are told “is 
full of such pyramids of human thought,” have been pro- 
duced by a people who, for many generations, had only one 
word for all action ? Therefore, either the Yedic Sanskrit is 
not an original language, or language did not originate in the 
way Mr. Miiller describes. 
Discussing the origin of language after the above manner, 
he finds our modern word Deity through the Greek 0foc in the 
Sanskrit “ Deva, a bright thing,” which came from the root 
div, to shine, and which, before the Aryans broke up from 
their original seat, was no longer used in the sense of bright, 
but in the special sense of God, to which it was afterwards 
confined (p. 5). But if, when we meet with it for the first 
time in the oldest literary documents, it is so far removed from 
its primitive etymological meaning that “ there are but few 
passages in the Yeda where we can with certainty translate it 
still by ‘'bright/” what proof can the Yeda give us of the 
growth of the predicate God ? We are informed, however, 
how fire, although visible and tangible, came to be regarded, 
not as a semi- deity, according to programme, but as a full 
deity : — 
“ We must forget the fire as we know it now, and try to imagine what it 
was to the early inhabitants of the earth. It may be that, for some time, 
man lived on earth, and began to form his language and his thoughts, with- 
out possessing the art of kindling fire. Even before the discovery of this 
art, however, which must have marked a complete revolution in his fife, he 
* Hibbcrt Lecture, p. 144. 
