Agni, or fire. The Incarnation represents the Vedic solemnity of the production of fire, symbol of force of every kind, of all movement, life, and thought. The Trinity of Father, Son, and Spirit is the Vedic Trinity of Sun, Fire, and Wind; and God, finally, is 'a cosmic unity.'
Such speculations almost take away the breath of a mere man of letters. What one is inclined to say of them is this. Undoubtedly these exploits of the Aryan genius are gratifying to us members of the Aryan race. The original God of the Hebrews, M. Burnouf says expressly, 'was not a cosmic unity;' the religion of the Hebrews 'had not that transcendent metaphysic which the genius of the Aryas requires;' and, 'in passing from the Aryan race to the inferior races, religion underwent a deterioration due to the physical and moral constitution of these races.' For religion, it must be remembered, is, in M. Burnouf's view, fundamentally a science; 'a metaphysical conception, a theory, a synthetic explanation of the universe.' Now, 'the perfect Arya is capable of a great deal of science; the Semite is inferior to him.' As Aryas or Aryans, then, we ought to be pleased at having vindicated the greatness of our race, and having not borrowed a Semitic religion as it stood, but transformed it by importing our own metaphysics into it.
And this seems to harmonise very well with what the Bishops of Winchester and Gloucester say about 'doing something for the honour of Our Lord's Godhead,' and about 'the infinite separation for time and for eternity which is involved in rejecting the Godhead of the Eternal Son, Very God of Very God, Light of Light;' and also with the Athanasian Creed generally, and with what the clergy write to the Guardian about 'eternal life being unquestionably annexed to a right knowledge of the Godhead.' For all these have in view high science and metaphysics, worthy of the Aryas. But to Bible-religion, in the plain sense of the
