animals, and in plants, but in the earlier ages of human history
it included also Wisdom, or Law--that "power by which all things
are discriminated or defined and held in their proper places."
The most renowned writers who have dealt with this subject agree
in the conclusion that, during thousands of years among all the
nations of the earth, only one God was worshipped. This God was
Light and Life, both of which proceeded from the sun, or more
properly speaking were symbolized by the sun.
In Egyptian hymns the Creator is invoked as the being who "dwells
concealed in the sun"; and Greek writers speak of this luminary
as the "generator and nourisher of all things, the ruler of the
world." It is thought, however, that neither of these nations
worshipped the corporeal sun. It was the "centre or body from
which the pervading spirit, the original producer of order,
fertility, and organization, continued to emanate to preserve the
mighty structure which it had formed."
It is evident that at an early age, both in Egypt and in India,
spiritualized conceptions of sun-worship had already been formed.
We have seen that Netpe, the Goddess of Light, or Heavenly
Wisdom, conferred spiritual life on all who would accept it. The
Great Mother of the Gods in India was not only the source whence
all blessings flow, but she was the Beginning and the End of all
things.
Of "Aditi, the boundless, the yonder, the beyond all and
everything," Max Muller says that in later times she "may have
become identified with the sky, also with the earth, but
originally she was far beyond the sky and the earth."[24] The
same writer quotes the following, also from a hymn of the
Rig-Veda:
[24] Origin and Growth of Religion, p. 221.
"O Mitra and Varuna, you mount your chariot which, at the dawning
of the dawn is golden-colored and has iron poles at the setting
of the sun; from thence you see Aditi and Diti--that is, what is
yonder and what is here, what is infinite and what is finite,
what is mortal and what is immortal."[25]
[25] Ibid.
Aditi is the Great She that Is, the Everlasting. Muller refers
to the fact that another Hindoo poet "speaks of the dawn as the
face of Aditi; thus indicating that Aditi is here not the dawn
