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MAY, 1882.)
CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANEA.
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and his relations to it in the same way with the rest of his knowledge, namely by observation and reflection, then polytheism is necessarilyantecedent to monotheism; it is simply inconceivable that the case should be otherwise-nor can we avoid allow ing everywhere a yet earlier stage which does not even deserve the name of religion, which is anly superstition.
Nearly all the religions of men are polytheistic ; monotheisms are the rare exception; namely--1, The Hebrew monotheism, with its continuators, a, Christianity, and b, Mohammedanism; and 2, the Persian monotheism, or Zoroastrianism (80 far as this does not deserve rather to be called dualism): the former apparently has behind it a general Semitic polytheism; the latter certainly grows out of the Aryan or Indo-Iranian belief in many gods. That they should be isolated pro. ducts of the natural development of human insight is entirely in harmony with other parts of human history; thus, for example, all races have devised instruments, but few have reduced the metals to service, and the subjugation of steam is unique; all races have acquired language, but few have invented writing : indeed, all the highest elements of civilization arise at single points, and are passed from one community to another.
A single author, of much influence--namely, M. Müller--has recently endeavoured to introduce a new member, with a new name into this classi. fication: he calls it henotheism (or kathenotheism)
the worship of one god at a time,' as we may render it. The germ of his doctrine is to be found in his History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature; where, after speaking of the various gods of the Veda, he says (p. 532, 1st. ed., 1859): "When these individual gods are invoked, they are not conceived as limited by the power of others, as superior or inferior in rank. Each god is to the mind of the supplicant as good as all [i.e. as any of P] the gods. He is felt at the time as a real divinity-as supreme and absolute, in spite of the necessary limitations which, to our mind, a plurality of gods must entail on every single god. All the rest disappear for a moment from the vision of the poet, and he only who is to fulfil their desires stands in full light before the eyes of the worshippers." And later (p. 526), after quotation of specimens : "When Agni, the lord of fire. is ad. dressed by the poet, he is spoken of as the first god, not inferior even to Indra. While Agni is invoked, Indra is forgotten; there is no competition between the two, nor any rivalry between them or other gods. This is a most important feature in the religion of the Veda, and has never been taken into consideration by those who have written on
the history of ancient polytheism." In his later works, where he first introduces and reiterates and urges the special name henotheism Müller's doc. trine assumes this form : (Lect. on Sc. of Rel., p. 141) that a henotheistic religion "represents each deity as independent of all the rest, as the only deity present in the mind of the worshipper at the time of his worship and prayer," this character being " very prominent in the religion of the Vedic poets;" and finally (Or. and Growth of Rel., lect. VI.), that henotheism is "a worship of single gods," and that polytheism is "a worship of many deities which together form one divine polity, under the control of one supreme god."
As regards the fundamental facts of Vedio worship, Müller's statements so exaggerate their peculiarity as to convey, it is believed, a wholly wrong impression. It is very far from being true in any genial way that the worship of one Vedic god excludes the rest from the worshipper's sight; on the contrary, no religion brings its gods into more frequent and varied juxtaposition and combination. The different offices and spheres of each are in constant contemplation. They are addressed in pairs : Indra-Agni, Indra-Varuna, Mitra Varuna, Heaven and Earth, Dawn and Night, and a great many more. They are grouped in sets: the Adityas, the Maruts, Indra and the Maruts, and so on. They are divided into gods of the heaven, of the atmosphere, of the earth. And they are summed up as "all the gods" (visve devda), and worshipped as a body. Only, in the case of one or two gods often, and of a few others occasionally (and of many others not at all), the wor. shipper ascribes to the object of his worship attributes which might seem to belong to a sole god: never, indeed, calling him sole god, but extolling him as chief and mightiest of the gods, maker of heaven and earth, father of gods and men, and so on. This fact had been often enough noticed before Müller, but no one had any difficulty in explaining it as a natural exaggeration, committed in the fervour of devotion. And it is in fact nothing else. This is evidenced by its purely occasional or even sporadic character, and by its distribution to its various objects. The office of Agni, as the fire, the god on earth, mediator and bearer of the
sacrifice to the other gods, is as distinct as any. | thing in Vedic religion, and the mass of his in
numerable hymns are full of it; but he, in a few rare cases, is exalted by the ascription of more general and unlimited attributes. The exag. gerations of the worship of Soma are unsurpassed and a whole Book (the ninth) of the Rig Veda is permeated with them yet it is never forgotten that after all, soma is only a drink, being purified for Indra and Indra's worshippers. The same
