such who became noted, would, in the mind of the uncritical savage ...
lead to identification with the dawn."[10] In another passage: "The
primitive god is the superior man ... propitiated during his life and
still more after his death."[11] Summing up, Spencer thus concludes:
"Instead of seeing in the common character of so-called myths, that
they describe combats of beings using weapons, evidence that they
arose out of human transactions; mythologists assume that the order of
Nature presents itself to the undeveloped mind in terms of victories
and defeats."[12] Moreover (_a posteriori_), "It is not true that the
primitive man looks at the powers of Nature with awe. It is not true
that he speculates about their characters and causes."[13] If Spencer
had not included in his criticism the mythologists that have written
on Vedic religion, there would be no occasion to take his opinion into
consideration. But since he claims by the light of his comparative
studies to have shown that in the Rig Veda the "so-called nature
gods,"[14] were not the oldest, and explains Dawn here exactly as he
does in New Zealand, it becomes necessary to point out, that apart
from the question of the origin of religions in general, Spencer has
made a fatal error in assuming that he is dealing in the Rig Veda with
primitive religion, uncritical savages, and undeveloped minds. And
furthermore, as the poet of the Rig Veda is not primitive, or savage,
or undeveloped, so when he worships _Dyaus pitar_ [Greek: Zeùs patáer]
as the 'sky-father,' he not only makes it evident to every reader that
he really is worshipping the visible sky above; but in his
descriptions of gods such as Indra, the Dawn, and some other new gods
he invents from time to time, long after he has passed the savage,
primitive, and undeveloped state, he makes it no less clear that he
worships phenomena as they stand before him (rain, cloud, lightning,
etc.), so that by analogy with what is apparent in the case of later
divinities, one is led inevitably to predicate the same origin as