Other factors than those of an inward development undoubtedly were at work in the formation of this growth. Especially prominent is the amalgamation of the gods of the lower classes with those of the priest-hood. Climatic environment, too, conditioned theological evolution, if not spiritual advance. The cult of the mid-sphere god, Indra, was partly the result of the changing atmospheric surroundings of the Hindus as they advanced into India. The storms and the sun were not those of old. The tempests were more terrific, the display of divine power was more concentrated in the rage of the elements; while appreciation of the goodness of the sun became tinged with apprehension of evil, and he became a deadly power as well as one beneficent. Then the relief of rain after drought gave to Indra the character of a benign god as well as of a fearful one. Nor were lacking in the social condition certain alterations which worked together with climatic changes. The segregated mass of the original people, the braves that hung about the king, a warrior-class rapidly becoming a caste, and politically the most important caste, took the god of thunder and lightning for their god of battle. The fighting race naturally exalted to the highest the fighting god. Then came into prominence the priestly caste, which gradually taught the warrior that mind was stronger than muscle. But this caste was one of thinkers. Their divinity was the product of reflection. Indra remained, but yielded to a higher power, and the god thought out by the priests became God. Yet it must not be supposed that the cogitative energy of the Brahman descended upon the people's gods and suddenly produced a religious revolution. In India no intellectual advance is made suddenly. The older divinities show one by one the transformation that they suffered at the hands of theosophic thinkers. Before the establishment of a general Father-god, and long before that of the pantheistic All-god, the philosophical leaven was actively at work. It will be seen operative at once in the case of the sun-god, and, indeed, there were few of the older divinities that were untouched by it. It worked silently and at first esoterically. One reads of the gods' 'secret names,' of secrets in theology, which 'are not to be revealed,' till at last the disguise is withdrawn, and it is discovered that all the mystery of former generations has been leading up to the declaration now made public: 'all these gods are but names of the One.' THE SUN-GOD.