Where a plurality of gods is believed in, these gods must stand in some relation to each other; and it is of importance to notice how the gods of the Veda are arranged. We can see here very clearly how unstable a thing polytheism is. The position of the gods is constantly changing with reference to each other. We find Agni addressed as if he were undoubtedly supreme; he dwells in the highest heavens, he generates the gods, he ordains the order of the universe; but then we find Indra spoken of in the same way, and Varuna, and Mitra, and others. Then we find pairs of gods addressed together. Indra and Agni are frequently so treated; so are Varuna and Mitra. There is no supreme god, or rather, each god is supreme in turn; the poet wants a god capable of being exalted in every way, and does so exalt the god he has before him. In this way a Monotheism is reached; the mind recognises a god to whom unlimited adoration can be paid. But it is a monotheism, as M. Barth well puts it, the titular god of which is always changing; and Mr. Max Mueller gives to this partial monotheism the name of Kathenotheism; that is, the worship of one god at a time without any denial that other gods exist and are worthy of adoration. Now this form of religion, in which several gods are worshipped, each of whom in turn is regarded as supreme, is not peculiar to India; we have met with it already, we shall meet with it again. But in India a peculiar way was found out of the difficulty. The Indian gods were too little defined, too little personal, too much alike, to maintain their separate personalities with great tenacity; nor did they lend themselves to a monarchical form of pantheon; no one of them was sufficiently marked out from the rest or above the rest, to rule permanently over them. Yet the sense of unity in Indian religion is very strong; from the first the Indian mind is seeking a way to adjust the claims of the various gods, and view them all as one. An early idea which makes in this direction is that of Rita, the order, not specially connected with any one god, which rules both in the physical and the moral world, and with which all beings have to reckon. Philosophy is busy from the first with the Vedic gods; the impulse to good conduct and that to mysticism are equally innate in this religion. We can see, even in the Rigveda, that India is to solve the problem of its many gods not in the way of Monotheism, by making one god rule over the others, but in the way of Pantheism, by making all the gods modes or manifestations of one being. "Agni is all the Gods" we read here. And a religion which arranges its objects of worship in this way will not be a religion of action, but of speculation and of resignation. BOOKS RECOMMENDED _S. B. E._ vol. xxxii. Vedic Hymns. xlvi. Hymns to Agni. Muir's _Sanscrit Texts_. M. Mueller's _Hibbert Lectures_. Monier Williams, _Indian Wisdom; Hinduism_ in "Non-Christian Religious Systems" (S.P.C.K.).