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had seen the sparks of lightning, he had seen and felt the light and warmth 
of the sun, he may have watched even, in utter bewilderment, the violent 
destruction of forests by conflagration, caused either by lightning or friction 
of trees in summer. In all these appearances there was something extremely 
perplexing. At one moment the tire was here, at another it had gone out. 
Whence did it come ? Whither did it go ? If ever there was a ghost in 
our sense of the word, it was fire. Did it not come from the clouds ? Did 
it not vanish in the sea ? Did it not live in the sun ? Did it not travel in 
the stars ? All these questions may sound childish to us, but were very 
natural before men had taught fire to obey their commands. And even after 
they had learnt to produce fire by friction they did not understand cause and 
effect. They saw the sudden appearance of what we call light and heat. 
They felt fascinated by it, they played with it, as children are fascinated by 
it even now, and will play with fire whatever we say .... They called him 
the quick or ag-ile, in Sanskrit ag-nis, in Latin ig-nis. So many things 
were told of him, how that he was the son of two pieces of wood ; how, as 
soon as he was born, he devoured his father and mother ; how he disappeared 
when touched by water ; how he dwelt on the earth as a friend ; how he 
mowed down a whole forest ; how at a later time he carried the sacrificial 
offerings from earth to heaven, and became a messenger and mediator be- 
tween the gods and men : that we need not wonder at his many names and 
epithets ; nor need we wonder at the oldest of all myths, that there was in 
the fire something invisible and unknown, yet undeniable — it may be the 
Lord.” * 
This wonderful genesis of a god claims a careful exami- 
nation ; to us it seems a grand building on the narrowest basis 
— a pyramid with its apex for a foundation. It starts with an 
unfounded hypothetical assumption. And till it can be shown 
that not only man might have lived and have begun to 
form his language, by the slow process of “mar mar / 9 with 
diverse accentuation, before he knew how to kindle a fire, but 
that he did live long enough to see forests burned down by 
lightning or friction before he found out how to light a fire for 
himself, the whole theory is baseless : this is its sole foundation, 
and it is incapable of proof. Man as yet is supposed to know 
nothing of fire but what he has seen in the sun, in the sparks 
of lightning, and in burning forests; yet these appearances 
and disappearances are extremely perplexing. The sjoarhs of 
lightning might have perplexed them if they had seen them, 
but otherwise we cannot conceive of one of the questions of 
wonder which he supposes having been put by man before he 
knew how to make a fire for himself. The last they certainly 
did not ask ; for in such ignorance of earth they had not 
become such good astronomers as to ask the question, Are the 
stars globes of fire ? How could they have learned to produce 
{ire by friction, and yet not know the relation of cause and 
effect in this particular case ? What proof is there that they 
played with it, or were fascinated by it ? And how could they, 
* Hibbert Lecture, pp. 206-7. 
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