“When the fiery Indra hurls down the thunder-bolt, then people put faith in him. Look at this his great and mighty work, and believe in his great power.” Whence came this insistence to recall the great power of Indra? It almost suggests the thought that the rishis felt the approach of a change in their conception of the omnipotence of some of the gods of nature. “Offer praise to Indra, if you desire booty; true praise, if he truly exists. One and the other says, There is no Indra, who has seen him? Whom shall we praise? The terrible one of whom they ask where he is.”[102] But the poet at once introduces Indra on the scene, and makes him say:-- “Here I am, O worshipper! behold me here. In might I overcome all creatures.”--Id. In reading the Rig-Veda attentively, in spite of these efforts to revive the ancient faith, here and there can be discovered slight traces of scepticism, so slight as to be scarcely perceptible, and these apart from the incredulity exhibited concerning the powerful Indra. The Hindoo was by nature profoundly believing, but his intellect was subtle and scrutinising, and he considered it due to himself to give exact explanations of all; the rishis make the following true remarks. “Fire is quenched by water, a cloud hides the sun, the sun also disappears behind the sea;” and from these observations they draw the following conclusions. “Water must not be worshipped, since a cloud can carry it away; nor the cloud, since the wind can disperse it.” * * * * * The positivists have made too much of the fact that Dyaus, at one time in India, meant simply the sky and day; a rock is not more immovable than grammar, and it is moreover quite indifferent to all blows aimed at truths other than it holds.