It is said that when the Government had been persuaded, chiefly by the two Humboldts, to found a chair of Sanskrit at the University of Würzburg, and had nominated Bopp as its first occupant, the philological faculty of the University protested against such a desecration, and the appointment fell through. It is true, no doubt, that in their first enthusiasm the students of Sanskrit had uttered many exaggerated opinions. Sanskrit was represented as the mother of all languages, instead of being the elder sister of the Aryan family. The beginning of all language, of all thought, of all religion was traced back to India, and when Greek scholars were told that Zeus existed in the Veda under the name of Dyaus, there was a great flutter in the dovecots of classical scholarship. Many of these enthusiastic utterances had afterwards to be toned down. How we did enjoy those enthusiastic days, which even in their exaggerated hopes were not without some use. Problems such as the beginning of language, of thought, of mythology and religion, were started with youthful hope that the Veda would solve them all, as if the Vedic Rishis had been present at the first outburst of roots, of concepts, nay, that like Pelops and other descendants of Zeus, those Vedic poets had enjoyed daily intercourse with the gods, and had been present at the mutilation of Ouranos, or at the over-eating of Kronos. We may be ashamed to-day of some of the dreams of the early spring of man’s sojourn on earth, but they were enchanting dreams, and all our thoughts of man’s nature and destiny on earth were tinged with the colours of a morning that threw light over the grey darkness which preceded it. It was delightful to see that Dyaus meant originally the bright sky, something actually seen, but something that had to become something unseen. All knowledge, whether individual or possessed by mankind at large, must have begun with what the senses can perceive, before it could rise to signify something unperceived by the senses. Only after the blue aether had been perceived and named, was it possible to conceive and speak of the sky as active, as an agent, as a god. Dyaus or Zeus might thus be called the most sublime, he who resides in the aether, αἰθἑρι ναἱων ὑψἱζυγος, the heavenly one, or οὐρἁνιος ὕπατος and ὕψιστος, the highest, and at last _Iupiter Optimus Maximus_, a name applied even to the true God. When Zeus had once become like the sky, all seeing or omniscient (ἐπὁψιος), would he not naturally be supposed to see, not only the good, but the evil deeds of men also, nay, their very thoughts, whether pure or criminal? And if so, would he not be the avenger of evil, the watcher of oaths (ὅρκιος), the protector of the helpless (ἱκἑσιος)? Yet, if conceived, as for a long time all the gods were conceived and could only be conceived, namely, as human in their shape, should we not necessarily get that strange amalgamation of a human being doing superhuman