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: Zeus pataer] 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 theirs in the case of the older gods.
But it is unnecessary to spend time on this point.

It is impossible for any sober scholar to read the Rig Veda and believe that the Vedic poets are not worshipping natural phenomena; or that the phenomena so worshipped were not the original forms of these gods.

Whether at a more remote time there was ever a period when the pre-historic Hindu, or his pre-Indic ancestor, worshipped the Manes exclusively is another question, and one with which at present we have nothing to do.

The history of Hindu religions begins with the Rig Veda, and in this period the worship of Manes and that of natural phenomena were distinct, nor are there any indications that the latter was ever developed from the former.