But though we have tried to show the insufficiency of the arguments advanced by Dr. Haug in support of his theory, we are by no means prepared to deny the great antiquity of some of the sacrificial formulas and invocations, and more particularly of the Nivids to which he for the first time has called attention. There probably existed very ancient Nivids or invocations, but are the Nivids which we possess the identical Nivids alluded to in the hymns? If so, why have they no accents, why do they not form part of the Sanhitâs, why were they not preserved, discussed, and analysed with the same religious care as the metrical hymns? The Nivids which we now possess may, as Dr. Haug supposes, have inspired the Rishis with the burden of their hymns; but they may equally well have been put together by later compilers from the very hymns of the Rishis. There is many a hymn in the Sanhitâ of the Rig-veda which may be called a Nivid, i. e. an invitation addressed to the gods to come to the sacrifices, and an enumeration of the principal names of each deity. Those who believe, on more general grounds, that all religion began with sacrifice and sacrificial formulas will naturally look on such hymns and on the Nivids as relics of a more primitive age; while others who look upon prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, and the unfettered expression of devotion and wonderment as the first germs of a religious worship, will treat the same Nivids as productions of a later age. We doubt whether this problem can be argued on general grounds. Admitting that the Jews began with sacrifice and ended with psalms, it would by no means follow that the Aryan nations did the same, nor would the chronological arrangement of the ancient literature of China help us much in forming an opinion of the growth of the Indian mind. We must take each nation by itself, and try to find out what they themselves hold as to the relative antiquity of their literary documents. On general grounds, the problem whether sacrifice or prayer comes first, may be argued ad infinitum, just like the problem whether the hen comes first or the egg. In the special case of the sacred literature of the Brahmans, we must be guided by their own tradition, which invariably places the poetical hymns of the Rig-veda before the ceremonial hymns and formulas of the Ya_g_ur-veda and Sâma-veda. The strongest argument that has as yet been brought forward against this view is, that the formulas of the Ya_g_ur-veda and the sacrificial texts of the Sâma-veda contain occasionally more archaic forms of language than the hymns of the Rig-veda. It was supposed, therefore, that, although the hymns of the Rig-veda might have been composed at an earlier time, the sacrificial hymns and formulas were the first to be collected and to be preserved in the schools by means of a strict mnemonic discipline. The hymns of the Rig-veda, some of which have no reference whatever to the Vedic ceremonial, being collected at a later