comparison of Zend asha and Sanskrit rita. These two words, in spite of marked differences in form and sound, are phonetic equivalents (Zd. sh=Skt. ṛit); and it is not one of the least triumphs of comparative philology that it has brought about their identification. Both can be traced to the Indo-European root ar, which, among its many bearings, implies the notion of 'order'—or, rather, of 'fittingness.' Both, finally, are the bearers, in their respective systems, of important religious notions: Asha being the name of one of the Amshaspands, and at the same time of the plan of God for man's welfare; while rita expresses the Vedic notion of morality in its various phases.

These are numerous points of contact, arrayed by our author with a skill which commands concurrence-until, at least, he sets about enlisting the very roots in his naturalistic theory. Skt. rita, as we have said, embodies the Vedic idea of morality; with a meaning nearly as abstract as the root ar itself, it must be, and is, a very pliable predicate; applied to things, it means 'fitting, suitable;' applied to the gods, it expresses the 'divine order,' cosmic or moral, according as the deity itself is conceived; in the worshiper, it means 'justice,' real or formal 'uprightness,' or 'sacrifice,' according to which idea of relig ious duty is uppermost then and there; the category of 'fitness' is, indeed, broad enough to underlie all possible uses and views of the word, without issue being taken as to the right of precedence this or that may lay claim to. M. Darmesteter does not even raise any issue; he takes it for granted that the original notion is a cosmical one, that of the ever-returning order in the heavens. It is a very simple assumption, not larger than a man's hand, though pregnant with manifold consequences and even with unlikely premises. It supposes, in fact, that men borrowed their principles and rules of action. as they did the division of their hours, from the movements of the stars. M. Darmesteter seems to forget that the roots are at the very least as old as the gods of the heavens, and that it is not an uncommon thing for men to adjust their own notions of fitness to the deity. But this convenient assertion of the priority of the cosmic sense is a godsend to his theory. He is enabled to bring the predicate ritâvan ('orderly ') into a close connection with Varuna; for it is evident that if rita is the

method of the heavenly movements, Varuna, the sky, is truly ritâvan above all other gods, the very seat and source of order. Then, as Vedic ṛita, so is Zend asha to be interpreted, and Ahura-Mazda at once takes his place by the side of Varuna; for be, likewise, is ashava, a warden of order: nay, the entire ethics of which Asha is center and pivot may be deduced from the naturalistic code and regulations. Pronounce over it the magic formula: "first a cosmic notion, then a moral one," and the whole process becomes as if dipped in clearness.

It is superfluous to raise a protest against views such as we have just mentioned To assume that cosmic notions have preceded and prompted all of our race's mental achievements, and that, to adopt the ancient sensualistic saying, nothing is in the understanding that was not previously in the stars, is a hypothesis which must sink by its own weight. Still here, at last, the conceptions of the two sister-races are brought together; in this primary, irreducible abstraction of "fitness" or "order" we come to a common standard, and can judge of the career run by the respective religions. Now, comparing the twin notions asha and ṛita, and taking into account the parallelism of which our author makes so much for his thesis, we may say that there is an abyss between them.

While rita is the last word of Vedic morality, an indistinct, unsexual, all-subservient category, asha is the first and purest word of Zoroaster's law; neither the old rendering 'purity,' nor the more accurate one 'order,' does full justice to the richness of its tenor; it is a sort of Mazdean logos, a mediator between the god and his people; a provident, contriving deity, who, with Ahura, planned the regulations and privileges of the settlers; it is Asha who gave them the kine; he is the soul and life of the good kingdom on earth, the champion of humanity against perfidy and violence; an abstraction, but with the unusual share of life which clothes such entities in Mazdeism; it is a god in posse; and as the moral agent, such is the nominal god, the Ahura of the Gâthâs: father, brother, and teacher of his worshipers.

Instead, then, of being like rita an obsequious servant, dragged into the service of the gods, but with most of its relations in low places, Asha is, first and last, a religious creation,

the alleged and unmistakable progeny of the Mazdean god. The words are phonetically related, but is there any filiation between the conceptions of which they are the exponents? Can Asha be explained by an evolution of the abortive germs contained in Sanskrit rita? We answer, no! but rather by a revolution. In truth, every utterance of the older Avesta points to a deeper and more sweeping change than the easy passage of a cosmic stage into a moral one; the very Zend words for which a sure equivalent is furnished by the Vedas are involuntary witnesses to a spiritual invasion and conquest. For, though we cannot claim to arrest and analyze that most evasive of all phenomena, a rising religion, this at least we may assert, that when a new spirit flows in and threatens to run overboard, men do not create words, nor daintily pick the fittest ones; the prophetic ferment makes shift of every syllable and fills them up to the brim, oblivious of former contents, only so it find channels. It is not a difficult task to trace in the religious nomenclature of the Avesta an influx of a new spirit. Ahura may be historically related with the Asura and Asha with rita; nay, we may grant, against all odds, that the personæ of the Avesta can be paired, one by one, with those of the Vedas: this would only make it the more obvious that, under old covers, an element foreign and superior to Vedism once made irruption; the eyes of the Iranian settlers were suddenly opened, and religion became conscious; the gods. were compared and parted; the deity, stripped of his aerial brilliancy, was clothed in the brighter attributes of a moral, responsible principle; no longer coldly spying, like jealous Varuna, with the thousand eyes of night, Ahura planned and provided for the happiness of his people. Placed above and farther away than the gods of the atmosphere, he, however, raised man to himself. A new motive of action was set a-going, the spirit of kindness (Vôhu-Mano) became the incentive of both god and worshiper. Following the course of Vedism from the oldest data, there is no note which vibrates in unison with the gentle accents of Mazdeism; not even when we come to that great revulsion which shook the Vedic system off its hinges, Buddhism.

That such a religious out-pouring took place is vouched for by the oldest of the Avestan texts, which bear throughout the traces of the conflict. At the same time, we must confess that the scantiness of those very texts leaves us little hope that the circumstances of the reform will ever come to light. We can not even fully determine the nature of the beliefs against which incipient Mazdeism was pitted. Haug made much of certain traces of hostility against Vedic tenets and rites, to connect the rise of Zoroaster with the final separation of the two nations; but, though specious, this view is not sustained in its entirety by the Gâthâs; the movement seems to have been social as much as religious, directed against tribes of the same blood and speech, but adherent to a nomadic and predatory manner of life. Nevertheless, Mazdeism may have entered the world as a protest against a flat and stagnant naturalism; for in the younger Avesta, when the original hatred is assuaged and the reform has lost its primitive meaning, we see old naturalistic gods and rites reappear whose absence in the Gâthâs was characteristic. Thus Mitra (Mithra), the fair-haired god of heaven, resumes his place by the side of Ahura, while the exhilarating Soma (haoma) flows again in honor of the masters above.

Of all the symptoms of this moral renovation, our author has seen none; the noisy god of the clouds smothers for him the voice of the apostle of Vôhu-Manô. The sweeping symbolism to which he defers is powerless to account for the inner contents of the myths, yet he proposes to extend it to thoughts which root far deeper than myths. It would be interesting to know the true descent and filiation of the gods and tenets of Mazdeism, even though it should run against our theories; but we cannot believe that the method which is to lead us to the truth will ask of us to overlook the moral import of the texts, to substitute for the diversity of national genius the sameness of one typical myth, and to belittle the spontaneity of religious phenomena.

ARTICLE V.- RELATION OF EVOLUTION TO CHRIS

TIANITY AND RATIONAL TRUTH.

MEN have no genius for making worlds, but they have, for making theories. And, doubtless, so far as the principles and method of the Great World-maker are brought down to our observation and to the range of our powers, we may regard this divine gift and opportunity to be our warrant and our invitation to use them; only we are to remember that no theory can stand for its ingenuity, and certainly not for its absurdity. To be good for anything, it must be based, not on fancies and notions, but upon the facts of creation, and those facts rightly interpreted.

Of the theories of world-making, which had their origin in ancient mythologies, we have now nothing to do. They were the playthings of poets. Nor shall we speak of the theory of creation by emanation, the product of Oriental minds; nor of an ideal evolution, essentially Hegelian in its stamp, and belonging to the world of thought, and not to the world of fact. Nor have we to do, now, with that form of the doctrine which supplements the process of natural evolution by successive creations, and by supernatural interpositions in the way of miracle. To this theory as a comprehensive method of divine agency, supplemented by creative acts, by miracle and Providential overruling, as held by Professors Dana, Gray, and LeConte, with Martineau and many others, the writer sees no objection. It has not been definitely formulated, and those holding it, in substance, might differ in terms, and in the proportion of the several agencies recognized in it. But in this general form of statement, we might all hold it, and be consistently Christian in our faith, and with the Bible, possibly, as the first and best teacher of the doctrine.

The real antagonism to Christianity and to rational truth is in that theory of evolution which excludes from the entire process all creative acts with all supernatural agency; and claims to explain the existing system of things altogether by