A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c11.201

c11.201

There is what Leibnitz called *perennis quædam philosophia*, a search after truth which was not confined to the schools of priests or philosophers. Its language, no doubt, is less exact than that of an Aristotle, its tenets are vague, and the light which it sheds on the dark depths of human thought resembles more the sheet-lightning of a sombre evening, than the bright rays of a cloudless sunrise. Yet there is much to be learnt by the historian and the philosopher from these ancient guesses at truth; and we should not deprive ourselves of the new sources which have so unexpectedly been opened for studying the history of man, fearful and wonderful as his structure, by casting wanton doubts on all that conflicts with our own previous conclusions. I add only one more hymn, in which the idea of one God is expressed with such power and decision, that it will make us hesitate before we deny to the Aryan nations an instinctive Monotheism. (Rv. x. 121.)