Nevertheless, in accepting this
conclusion as well established by linguistic science, we must
be on our guard against an error into which writers on
mythology are very liable to fall. Neither sky nor sun nor
light of day, neither Zeus nor Apollo, neither Dyaus nor
Indra, was ever worshipped by the ancient Aryan in anything
like a monotheistic sense. To interpret Zeus or Jupiter as
originally the supreme Aryan god, and to regard classic
paganism as one of the degraded remnants of a primeval
monotheism, is to sin against the canons of a sound inductive
philosophy. Philology itself teaches us that this could not
have been so. Father Dyaus was originally the bright sky and
nothing more. Although his name became generalized, in the
classic languages, into deus, or God, it is quite certain that
in early days, before the Aryan separation, it had acquired no
such exalted significance. It was only in Greece and Rome--or,
we may say, among the still united Italo-Hellenic tribes--that
Jupiter-Zeus attained a pre-eminence over all other deities.
The people of Iran quite rejected him, the Teutons preferred
Thor and Odin, and in India he was superseded, first by Indra,
afterwards by Brahma and Vishnu. We need not, therefore, look
for a single supreme divinity among the old Aryans; nor may we
expect to find any sense, active or dormant, of monotheism in
the primitive intelligence of uncivilized men.
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