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in this early stage of their knowledge of fire, have travelled 
along the metaphysical path of abstraction to the predicate 
God, and have found in their new acquaintance and playfellow 
“ something invisible and unknown, — it may be the Lord ? 33 
Could men in this condition have formed of themselves this 
highest conception of Divinity, which is uttered in the incom- 
municable name, which man never did devise, but which was 
proclaimed by the Deity ? If they had any knowledge of this 
name, it must have been by revelation, pure and simple ; it 
has no other source. Yet we are told that it was the oldest of 
all myths. If this be so, then in the earliest records of human 
thought we have proof that men started with a knowledge of 
G-od, as pure, necessary, infinite, immediate being; but that 
they had so far degraded this grand conception as to ascribe 
that being to a plaything, the product of friction with two 
sticks. This was not an approach to the true idea of the 
infinite, but a departure from it, and it has not the semblance 
of a sensuous source or authority. 
Unsubstantial as the entire theory is seen to be, it is, never- 
theless, assumed as proven, and employed in the sixth Lecture 
to prove that man must have grown his religion after this 
manner. The lecture begins thus : — 
“ If you consider how natural, how intelligible, how inevitable was the 
origin and growth of the principal deities of the Veda, you will perhaps 
a , r ree with me that the whole controversy, whether the human race began 
with monotheism or polytheism, hardly deserves a serious discussion.” 
We have seen that the origin of one at least was unnatural, 
unreasonable, and therefore not inevitable ; we have also seen 
that, in making this god, they had a remnant of true mono- 
theism remaining, which was the only rag of divinity they 
could hang on the god of their own making. And we further 
assert, that whether they started with monotheism or poly- 
theism is a question of the highest import, because it involves 
this more primary query — Did the Creator leave His immortal 
creatures, whom He had made in His own image, and into 
whom Mr. Muller says “ He breathed the Spirit Grod/ ; without 
any knowledge of Himself? and were they so unfurnished 
with intelligence, that it was inevitable, after they had kindled 
a fire by rubbing two sticks, that they should ascribe infinitude, 
divinity, to the sparks of their own kindling? We do not 
suppose Mr. Muller would give an affirmative answer to this 
query; but an affirmative answer is the only one possible, 
from the “ natural, intelligible, and inevitable 33 origin and 
growth of the Yedic deities. Seeing, therefore, how entirely 
he has failed to establish his theory thus far, we are not de- 
