An illustration of another class is found in Max Müller's brilliant lectures on "Physical Religion," the chief theme of which is the development of Agni, the Vedic god of fire. The starting-point was the sensuous perception of the physical qualities of fire. The Idea and the will immanent in these qualities gradually raised men's thoughts from the material to the spiritual, until the Eastern world attained to what Max Müller calls "a precious line from the Veda"--"He who above the gods was the One God"--composed at least one thousand years before the Christian era. It was not the result of a supernatural revelation, but a natural outcome of man's thoughts guided and moulded by impressions of outward phenomena. That is to say, as Max Müller observes, there was nothing in it artificial--simply that which man could not help saying, being what he was and seeing what he saw. In the instances just advanced, the broad principle is most assuredly established that nature has a definite and continuous effect upon the development of man's conduct and thought. And as a consequence of this, we may affirm that Wordsworth's experience is true, in its measure, of all normal members of the race who are in touch with nature: "Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods And mountains; and of all that we behold Of this green earth; both what they half create And what perceive; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being." Why, even old Dr. Johnson in his Dictionary days would write to his friend Langton, in Lincolnshire: "I shall delight to hear the ocean roar, or see the stars twinkle, in the company of men to whom Nature does not spread her volumes or utter her voice in vain." And let us observe, that the naturalness of his feeling keeps him to the simplest, almost monosyllabic, English! CHAPTER XVI THALES