/ . / ff 
 y 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 A HISTOEICAL AND CRITICAL COMMENTARY ON THE OLD 
 
 TESTAMENT, WITH A NEW TEANSLATION: 
 VOL. I. GENESIS. Hebrew and English. 18s. 
 
 Abridged Edition. 12s. 
 VOL. H. EXODUS. Hebrew and English. 15s. 
 
 Abridged Edition. 12s. 
 VOL. III. LEVITICUS, PART I. Hebrew and English. 15s. 
 
 Abridged Edition. 8s. 
 -VOL. IV. LEVITICUS, PART II. Hebrew and English. 15s. 
 
 Abridged Edition. 8s. 
 A HEBKEW GEAMMAE, WITH EXEECISES: 
 
 PAET I. The Outlines of the Language, with Exercises; being 
 A Practical Introduction to the Study of Hebrew. 
 
 12s. Qd. 
 PAET II. The Exceptional Forms and Constructions, preceded by an 
 
 Essay on the History of Hebrew Grammar. 12s. Qd. 
 A KEY to the Exercises of the First Part. 5s. 
 BIBLE STUDIES: 
 
 PAET I. The Prophecies of Balaam (Numbers xxii. to xxiv.), or 
 
 The Hebrew and the Heathen. 10s. Qd. 
 
 PAET H. The Book of Jonah, preceded by a Treatise on 
 'The Hebrew and the Stranger'. 10s. 6d. 
 
 LONDON: 
 LONGMANS, GEEEN AND CO. 
 
PATH AND GOAL, 
 
 A DISCUSSION. 
 
 Haec, sis, pernoscas, parva perdoctus opella. 
 Namque alid ex alio clarescet, nee tibi caeca 
 Nox iter eripiet, quin ultima naturai 
 Pervideas : ita res accendent lumina rebus. 
 Lucret. I. 11061109. 
 
PA AND GOAL. 
 
 A DISCUSSION 
 
 ON 
 
 THE ELEMENTS OF CIVILISATION 
 
 AND 
 
 THE CONDITIONS OF HAPPINESS. 
 
 M. M. KALISCH, PH. D., M. A. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 
 1880. 
 
PRINTED BY W. DBUGULIN, LEIPZIG. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS ....... 1 
 
 Gabriel de Mondoza, p. 1. Hubert Gregovius, p. 4. 
 Arthur Berghom, p. 6. Noel Abington, p. 8. Percy 
 Humphrey, p. 10. Dr. Keginald Mortimer, p. 12. 
 Raphael Gideon, p. 13. Emanuel Panini, p. 16. 
 Arvada-Kalama, p. 18. Subbhuti, p. 20. Asho-raoco, 
 p. 24. Movayyid-eddin, p. 27. Erasmus Hermes, p. 28. 
 Walther Attinghausen, p. 29. Clement Melville, 
 p. 31. Andreas Wolfram, p. 32. 
 
 II. THE BOOK . . ., . . . . .. ., .. . '. 84 
 
 III. THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC . . . . . . . 61 
 
 IV. THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN . . . . . .121 
 
 V. EPICURUS AND DARWINISM . . . . . . .188 
 
 VI. THE DIGNITY OP MAN 247 
 
 VII. GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY 293 
 
 VIII. IMMORTALITY . . . . 331 
 
 IX. PANTHEISM 377 
 
 X. PESSIMISM .','.'. .418 
 
 XI. IDEALISM AND THE GOAL ...... . 473 
 
< 
 
 I 
 
 I. THE HOST AND HIS. -GUESTS, 
 
 IN the summer evenings during the year of the last 
 International Exhibition held in London, native and foreign 
 guests habitually met at the house of Gabriel de Mondoza 
 for a friendly exchange of ideas. 
 
 Cordova Lodge, situated in one of the northern suburbs, 
 was an unpretending structure of moderate dimensions, but 
 adorned with consummate taste and judgment. Nothing 
 betrayed an affected reproduction of a peculiar style or 
 a particular century; yet, whether owing to the statues, 
 busts and pictures of Greek deities and philosophers, 
 which, besides some original masterpieces of the Italian 
 school, studded the well-designed hall and principal apart- 
 ments, or whether owing to the refined simplicity and 
 arrangement of furniture abundant but not crowded, elegant 
 yet comfortable, the, whole made an impression such as 
 perhaps an ancient Athenian might have experienced when 
 entering the Propylaea or the Parthenon. It was an 
 atmosphere of calm cheerfulness inviting the mind at once 
 to concentration and intercommunion. 
 
 But the principal charm of the Lodge was its situation. 
 The host, an ardent lover of nature, had transformed it 
 into a veritable rus in urbe. The limited grounds which 
 surrounded the house, he had, with the utmost discrimina- 
 tion in economising space, laid out partly in shady walks 
 and gay flower beds, and partly in a well-stocked and 
 carefully cultivated kitchen garden. He had not only 
 found room for modest conservatories and hothouses, but 
 also for a diminutive farm that deserved to be admired 
 as a true model of neatness and utility. As, for his 
 sole recreation, he was often himself engaged in this 
 
2 THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 
 
 little domain with weeding and pruning, tying up and 
 transplanting, it was his special pleasure and pride to 
 send to his friends presents of the freshest roses and 
 ; sweetest grapes, of cream the richest and finest eggs. When- 
 ever he desired to pursue some deeper train of thought, 
 he was wont to retire into one of the small bowers 
 or summer houses, where, having encircled his small 
 plot with a close belt of high poplars and spreading plane- 
 trees, he was not liable to be disturbed by intrusive 
 sights or sounds. When, on the other hand, he fell into 
 one of those poetic moods which often powerfully swayed 
 him, he surveyed from an upper room of his house the 
 elevated and picturesque landscape that extended westward 
 before his view, or, in the evening, repaired to the ob- 
 servatory which he had constructed with most judicious 
 discernment, and where he had, before this time, made more 
 than one discovery of importance. For, relieved from worldly 
 care by a sufficient patrimony, he was determined to use 
 his powers in the service both of practical life and of 
 science. Work was to him not only a pleasure but an 
 indispensable necessity; he had indeed for many years 
 carried on his labours with such incessant eagerness that 
 his health, originally robust and elastic, began to show 
 monitory symptoms of decline. As he thus was less 
 enabled to seek in society that intercourse with congenial 
 minds, which was his greatest enjoyment, he gradually 
 gathered round himself the ablest men whose conversation 
 promised him improvement and assistance. 
 / For he had already passed through a remarkable inner 
 development. He was descended from a distinguished 
 family of Spanish Jews, which, emigrating from Holland, had 
 settled in England even during Cromwell's Protectorate. 
 His father, like his ancestors for many generations, was a 
 no less learned than zealous Talmudist. His mother, of 
 German birth, was of an essentially artistic nature, of such 
 delicate taste and tact, and, in spite of feelings deep and 
 strong, of such sweet gentleness and patient forbearance, 
 
THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 3 
 
 that all who came under her influence revered and loved 
 her as a perfect type of womanhood. While the father's 
 fire kindled Mondoza's religious sentiments, the mother's 
 self-possessed composure engendered an aesthetic frame 
 of mind, which seemed to calm the restless agitation of 
 the soul by holding all powers equally balanced. Thus he 
 naturally turned with like ardour to the study of the Bible 
 and of the classics, and ever hesitating which of the two 
 he should choose for special cultivation, he clung the more 
 firmly to both, and, soon freeing himself from untenable tradi- 
 tions, he earnestly laboured to weld the conceptions of the 
 Scriptures and of Hellenism into one homogeneous design. 
 Yet his mind remained unsatisfied. He felt that elevation 
 and beauty are unavailing without clearness in general 
 principles. For such principles he searched philosophy, 
 but in vain. He studied its chief systems eagerly: in all 
 he discovered uncertainty, conjecture, often self-contra- 
 diction. Then, without abandoning his old predilections, 
 he gave his full attention to the natural sciences which, 
 in the last two or three decades, had been so marvel- 
 lously advanced. Here at last, he thought, he had found 
 what he had so long yearned for. First, in conformity 
 with his natural bent towards the sublime, he was fascinated 
 by the wonders of astronomy and strove to form distinct 
 notions of the genesis and government of the universe. But 
 then, following his ethical instincts, he entered with increa- 
 sing delight into the problems of the origin of life upon 
 the earth into all that could throw light on the mutual 
 connection of all creatures up to man himself, who, what- 
 ever his pursuits, remained his supreme object and interest. 
 Thus, after long and laborious investigations, he succeeded 
 in devising a general view which combined and kept in 
 equipoise Hebrew, Greek and modern thought, and which, 
 he was confident, did justice both to the varied aspirations 
 of human nature and the complex course of universal 
 history. Did he deceive himself? Will the conflict and 
 friction with other opinions decide in his favour or compel 
 
4 THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 
 
 him to seek different paths? The following conversations 
 will help to settle the alternative. 
 
 It remains in this place only to be remarked that Mondoza 
 had long since lost his tenderly beloved wife it was 
 perhaps this bereavement which had stamped a pensive 
 melancholy upon features ennobled by the constant pre- 
 sence of great thoughts , and that now the whole 
 wealth of his affections was centred in an only promising 
 son centred but not absorbed; for he was charitable 
 almost beyond his means, as open to the suffering of 
 individuals as to the progress of society, self-denying, 
 generous alike to friend and opponent for his decided 
 views did not remain unchallenged : and many not un- 
 fittingly applied to him the words used by the great German 
 poet in describing an immortal friend: 
 
 HJnd hinter ihm, in wesenlosem Scheme, 
 'Lag, was uns Alle bandigt, das Gremeine'. 1 
 
 The company which assembled in Cordova Lodge during 
 the year of the International Exhibition, was more than 
 ordinarily numerous and varied; for even those literary 
 celebrities with whom Mondoza had not before been in 
 correspondence, found easy access and a hearty welcome. 
 To avoid interrupting, by personal explanations, the dia- 
 logues we shall have to record, we may here at once 
 mention and briefly sketch the principal guests. 
 
 One of Mondoza's most valued friends was HUBERT 
 GREGOVIUS, Professor of Biblical literature at a renowned 
 seat of learning in Germany. Though now advanced in 
 years, both his vigour and his zeal were unimpaired. He 
 had at first established himself as Lecturer in one of the 
 smaller Prussian universities, but had from the beginning 
 taught the Scriptures with such breadth and unbiassed 
 freedom, that in those days of despotic reaction, he soon 
 
 1 Tar from his soul, like airy phantoms, fled 
 'Mean thoughts, by which we all are curbed and led.' 
 (Goethe, Epilog zu Schiller's Glocke; Werke, 1840, vol. VI, p. 424). 
 

 THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 
 
 became an object of suspicion to the government, and a harm- 
 less public utterance was eagerly seized upon as a pretext 
 for dismissing him from his post. He was willingly received 
 in Switzerland, where he remained as an ornament to one 
 of the federal Colleges, until the political regeneration of 
 his country caused him to be recalled by a popular ad- 
 ministration proud of his learning and his fame ; and he 
 has since then, for nearly a generation, become the guide 
 of a large number of younger scholars happy in calling 
 themselves his pupils. 
 
 It was the merit of Gregovius to have been among the 
 first to apply to the Scriptures a treatment at once 
 minutely philological and largely historical. In the former 
 respect, he drew into the scope of his examination not 
 only all Shemitic idioms, but, soon recognising the para- 
 mount importance of Sanscrit, the Arian languages also; 
 while in the latter respect, he exhibited, in rare perfection, 
 that most invaluable of all gifts, a keen historical instinct, 
 the want of which can be replaced by no other faculty, 
 and which, almost equivalent to divination, is indispensable 
 in fields of enquiry, where the materials at our disposal 
 are mostly scanty and fragmentary. Indeed, common sense 
 was Gregovius' principal characteristic to such a degree 
 that the results of the ripest scholarship and the highest 
 linguistic acumen, when stated by him, appeared like 
 simple axioms claiming acceptance from every sound mind. 
 Being thus able at any moment to free himself from the 
 ballast of antiquarian learning, he was a most cheerful 
 companion, versatile in conversation, and evincing so lively 
 an interest in every pursuit and occurrence, that strangers 
 hardly knew, or cared to know, his particular avocation. 
 And yet, impartially consulting the labours of all his more 
 important predecessors, whether of the traditional or the 
 critical schools, and cautious in his researches, though 
 uncompromising in his conclusions, he had made the most 
 unwearied efforts, by means of a strictly scientific method, 
 to reconstruct on a rational basis the language and 
 
6 THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 
 
 literature of the Hebrews as well as their religion 
 and history; and he did this with such consistency and 
 success that future enquiries might render modifications 
 or additions necessary, but will not easily show the necessity 
 of altering the plan of the edifice in its main outlines. 
 In not a few points different from Gregovius, though 
 on the whole working in the same fields of knowledge, was 
 ARTHUR BERGHORN, who for some weeks was Mondoza's 
 constant guest. His appearance instantly arrested atten- 
 tion, not so much by his unusually tall, slender and sinewy 
 frame, but by a certain defiant aggressiveness stamped upon 
 his physiognomy, and by a proud superciliousness that 
 was mirrored in dark eyes half hidden under bushy eye- 
 brows. He likewise was a German doctor of Divinity and 
 had, with brief interruptions, held a chair at a university 
 which, in the course of the present century, has repeatedly 
 made itself conspicuous by very determined political 
 demonstrations. This spirit of public agitation, which 
 was stronger in Berghorn than in any of his restless 
 colleagues, incited him, even when his long-cherished 
 dream of German unity was at last realised, to oppose 
 an almost frantic hostility to the Emperor and the Empire, 
 merely because that unity had not been effected in the 
 precise manner which, from his peculiar theories of history, 
 he had declared to be the only possible one. He had 
 been among the most gifted and most unweariedly diligent 
 pupils of Gregovius, but he had scarcely been withdrawn 
 from this healthful influence when his polemical vehemence 
 delighted in setting forth, with regard to the Hebrew 
 language and the composition of the Scriptures, many 
 views which indeed displayed extraordinary penetration 
 and scholarship, but which were in reality hardly more 
 than bold conjectures, and, though eagerly read and 
 much admired as feats of ingenuity, were adopted or 
 approved by few. "While Gregovius was endowed with 
 the power of simplifying the recondite problems of Biblical 
 lore and bringing them home to the comprehension of 
 
THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 7 
 
 all, Berghorn's intellectual idiosyncrasy could hardly avoid 
 converting the simplest facts and truths into recondite 
 problems. Proud of an originality almost inexhaustible 
 in its resources, he dictatorially judged and rejected the 
 efforts of nearly all his predecessors; but he constantly 
 mistook assertion for argument, and dazzling hypothesis 
 for an established result. The master's criticism was by 
 the disciple perverted into a hypercriticism which not 
 seldom compelled him to retract or essentially to alter 
 views put forth as infallible and defended with categorical 
 obstinacy. Nevertheless, his suggestions and surmises, 
 however startling, seldom failed to promote Biblical studies 
 most effectually, since even the errors of a man of genius 
 are instructive. His somewhat vain endeavour to make 
 the researches of the past a tabula rasa, permitted his 
 brilliant abilities unrestricted scope, and produced a large 
 number of surprising combinations which, if the pictures 
 they exhibit of Hebrew politics and literature were essen- 
 tially kaleidoscopic, attracted to the subject many whom 
 a more sober treatment would have left indifferent. He 
 evinced, moreover, in the elucidation of historical and 
 religious ideas, a depth and force as if inspired by prophetic 
 ardour, and, in spite of a style rather quaint and hard, 
 his earnestness often succeeded in producing truly poetical 
 effects. Yet even these merits were not without strong 
 shades. In unconsciously idealising his theme, he strayed 
 into a twilight hardly less confusing than the 'mists of 
 dogma' which he was never tired to assail as 'irreligious'. 
 Although to a certain point unfettered by prejudice and 
 tradition, yet he clung to the old terms, which he had 
 neither the insincerity to take in their old sense, nor the 
 courage to abandon. But it was just these enigmatical 
 contradictions that made him one of the most interesting 
 personages to some a psychological study, to others an 
 object of admiration not unmixed with mysterious awe, 
 though all were careful not to tempt his irascibility or 
 to provoke his recklessly abusive antagonism. 
 
8 THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 
 
 While the two men just characterised were essentially 
 Biblical scholars, their friend NOEL ABINGTON was a most 
 prominent type of the Christian theologian. Although 
 entirely dissimilar to both in their salient traits, since he 
 possessed neither the simple clearness of the one nor 
 the critical subtlety of the other, he was regarded by 
 both with equal reverence. Who, indeed, could approach 
 that extraordinary man without experiencing an influence 
 almost akin to sanctification? Though living in an age 
 commonly described as worldly, he appeared almost like an 
 immediate apostle of his Master. 
 
 Being the son of a zealous minister of one of the stricter 
 English sects, he was brought up in a rigorous practice 
 of religious forms and exercises bordering on ascetism. 
 But the boy had a glowing heart and an exuberant ima- 
 gination, which found little nourishment in the cold and 
 bare ceremonialism that surrounded him. At an age 
 earlier than is usual even with strong and independent 
 intellects, he found himself engaged in a vehement struggle 
 for inward deliverance; and after a brilliant College 
 career, during which he endeavoured in vain to suppress his 
 tumultuous conflicts by an almost breathless industry, he 
 joined the national Church to the intense grief of his father, 
 from whom he was thenceforth greatly estranged. Many 
 years of toiling thought and research followed; but then he 
 was at last able to frame a system which satisfied him, and 
 which he has since then elucidated from the pulpit and the 
 academical chair with an eloquence and holy fire that 
 gained over all deeper and purer minds for the centre 
 of his doctrine, even if they were unable to follow him 
 in his deductions and arguments. 
 
 'The essence of religion,' which he had made it his 
 task to fathom, he declared, like Schleiermacher, to consist, 
 not so much in belief and worship, as in the feeling of 
 the absolute dependence of man and the whole world 
 upon an all-pervading Creator in that feeling of unspeak- 
 able wonder which penetrates the human soul in con- 
 
THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 9 
 
 templating the marvellous mechanism of the universe, in 
 scanning the stirring events of history, and in unravelling 
 the changeful experiences of individual lives ; since all alike 
 are felt to proclaim a boundless wisdom, power, and justice. 
 To him religion was, in fact, the ever present consciousness 
 of the ideas of truth and eternity, of goodness and Divine 
 judgment working within us with such irresistible force and 
 unfailing certainty that the soul neither demands nor requires 
 any other proof of the existence of God and His Providence. 
 But as the imperishable exemplar of human perfection, 
 through whom alone a full atonement, or a union with 
 God, is possible or can ever be truly beneficent, he regarded 
 the Christ of history, whom he first strove to make a rea- 
 lity in his own heart, and then endeavoured, with assiduous 
 and passionate fervour, to render intelligible to others. 
 In thus interpreting religion not only as a natural phe- 
 nomenon in man's mental constitution, but as the very 
 foundation and indispensable necessity of his exis- 
 tence, and constantly feeling himself in a loving inter- 
 communion with his Redeemer, he led a life truly 
 blissful, as it was scarcely touched by the world and its 
 anxieties. 
 
 A conception which regards as the pith of religion neither 
 knowledge of the truth nor charitable action, but an all- 
 governing sentiment, could not, it is evident, be free from 
 a certain enthusiastic mysticism, which precluded calmer 
 enquirers from accepting his views without reserve. And 
 yet, when he poured forth his tenets from the depths of 
 his conviction in speaking, he bent his chin upon his 
 breast, as if he were listening to the voice within ; or 
 when he gave free scope to that torrent of speech, which 
 seemed to flow from his lips as if under the spell of a 
 mighty inspiration ; few could hardly imagine how warm a 
 heart he had even for the smallest concerns of his fellow- 
 men, and how clearly and practically his eye surveyed 
 all the relations of life, so that complicated disputes were 
 not seldom referred to his arbitration. 
 
1 THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 
 
 Considering his principal aims, it is not surprising that 
 he scarcely bestowed an independent interest on the Old 
 Testament, to which his two friends devoted themselves 
 even with predilection: his care was not Biblical but 
 Ecclesiastical history; not the literature but the moral 
 and dogmatic teaching of the Scriptures ; and on all these 
 subjects he has written works which are acknowledged 
 to be mines of learning, classical in form and elevating 
 in tone, but which, nevertheless, because he sacrificed the 
 dogmatism of a past revelation to his idea of a perpetual 
 intercourse of the human heart with its Divine source, 
 have caused him to be described as a heretic from the 
 crown of his head to the sole of his foot. 
 
 Among his opponents the ablest and the most influential 
 was PERCY HUMPHREY, who occupied a chair of Divinity at 
 the same university as Noel Abington, and was no less 
 popular with a large number of students. He also was a 
 Christian theologian in the stricter sense ; and yet how great 
 was the difference in the work and character of both men! 
 Humphrey was the son of an eminent English physician, 
 studied theology and the Oriental languages with diligence, 
 and at first decidedly inclined towards German rationa- 
 lism; but suddenly a change took place, the causes of 
 which it was difficult to ascertain, and he became thence- 
 forth one of the staunchest champions of the Protestant 
 creed. He fought with all the arms of an extensive 
 erudition and a penetrating shrewdness, of a searching 
 analysis and an effective satire. The subjects he treated 
 engaged his attention but partially; for they shared it 
 with the refutation, or at least the unsparing criticism, 
 of his antagonists. He took a delight in multiplying, 
 with inventive ingenuity, the possible objections to his own 
 opinions, in order to attack and, as he believed, to demolish 
 them by his adroit and often surprising dialectics. "While 
 speaking, he moved his small, twinkling, clever eyes 
 restlessly; and when arguing, he usually placed the fore- 
 finger of his right hand upon that of his left hand in regular 
 
THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 1 1 
 
 intervals, as if lie were beating time; unless he put it for 
 a moment upon the extremity of his hooked and sharply 
 cut nose, which well harmonised with his thin face and 
 rigidly regular features. He performed his dialectic tasks, 
 as a rule, with such specious success, that many honestly 
 believed his arguments to be unassailable, and orthodoxy 
 established for all times. 
 
 Clinging to St. Augustin's maxim, "The New Testament 
 is concealed in the Old, the Old Testament is revealed 
 in the New' a , he made, of course, the utmost efforts to 
 represent the whole of the Old Testament history simply 
 as a prophecy pointing to Christ, the New Testament 
 history as a prophecy pointing to the latter days, and 
 the Scriptures in their totality as disclosing the gradual 
 progress in the revelation of Christian dogmas and the 
 scheme of salvation. Unlike Abington, who appealed to 
 the innate wants and aspirations of the human soul, he 
 attempted to prove his doctrines by means of a dexterous 
 exegesis and the supposition of a continuous Manifestation 
 from without. The work he had proposed to himself was 
 not easy and, in view of the constant progress of Biblical 
 and historical research, became more and more difficult 
 as he advanced ; yet his vindications of the Divine and 
 Mosaic origin and the absolute infallibility of the Pen- 
 tateuch, his spiritual interpretations of the Psalms and 
 other Books, and his comprehensive Christological de- 
 ductions and applications, called forth the admiration and 
 gratitude even of those who by no means shared his prin- 
 ciples, but were glad to find together, in such masterly 
 completeness and precision, everything that could well be 
 urged in defence of tradition. Humphrey's authority 
 extended far beyond the limits of his own country; in all 
 Protestant communities of the Old and the New World he 
 was honoured as a strong pillar of the Christian Church, 
 as a powerful bulwark against the inroads of neologian 
 subversiveness ; and his numerous works have become the 
 
12 THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 
 
 text-books in all the learned schools of Evangelical 
 theology. 
 
 It was natural that Mondoza felt pleasure in the personal 
 acquaintance of the famous controversialist, and his in- 
 terest was enhanced by seeing him in the company of no 
 less distinguished colleagues, with whom he had long carried 
 on a literary feud of more than ordinary animation and 
 severity. 
 
 A divine of a very different mould was Dr. REGINALD 
 MORTIMER, whose accomplishments and amiability made 
 him a welcome guest in all circles of society. He was 
 small of stature, and it cannot be said that he looked 
 venerable or imposing; but his fine head and a certain 
 aristocratic cast of his features, could not fail to strike 
 even the most casual observer as remarkable; his mouth 
 especially, even when he was silent, showed a variety and 
 changefulness of play indicating an unusual readiness of 
 speech and humour. Although a dignitary of the Church 
 he was Canon in a northern diocese he could scarcely 
 be designated otherwise than a nominal Christian; for a very 
 thin and transparent veil of Christian phraseology barely 
 concealed that classical humanitarianism which formed 
 the kernel of his creed. Yet for this very reason many 
 who stood aloof from the Church were glad to see him 
 in a position that enabled him to serve as a useful link 
 between the faiths of the Bible and the conclusions of 
 philosophy. And for such a mission, if mission it could 
 be called, few men were better fitted. For, imbued with 
 the spirit of Greek and Roman poetry and therefore ac- 
 customed to convey abstract ideas in a plastic form, he 
 most skilfully transformed the peculiar notions of the 
 Scriptures into general emblems, and abandoning one 
 essential tenet of Christianity after another as if it were part 
 of its husk, he moved in a region of thought, in which every 
 specific stamp was effaced. He hardly recognised a difference 
 between various creeds, as he saw only the simple and iden- 
 tical truths which are the foundations of all, and he often 
 
THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 13 
 
 pointed to the Christianity of a Shakespeare or Bacon 
 in order to prove, or rather allow it to be inferred, that 
 dogmas and articles of faith are unnecessary for moral and 
 intellectual greatness. And these views he advocated with 
 an eloquence which, if not powerfully impressive, was 
 wondrously pleasing and insinuating, ever fresh and pic- 
 turesque, ever elastic and buoyant. His lips and his pen 
 imparted even to the tritest thought a new life and an 
 unexpected charm, and the most perfect form of expression 
 seemed to offer itself to him spontaneously. Yet in spite 
 of his remarkable abilities, in spite of a noble and most 
 active zeal, and a wide popularity, the effects of his work 
 were comparatively slight. Not even his warmest friends 
 succeeded in entirely silencing those who described his 
 toleration in the office he occupied as laxity, and they 
 had little to reply when his assailants failed to discover 
 in him that strength of intellect and character which leads 
 to strict principles of thought, or that open candour which 
 distinguishes between beautiful play and manly conviction. 
 
 Free at least from Canon Mortimer's faults was 
 RAPHAEL GIDEON, Chief Rabbi in one of the principal 
 towns of the Grand Duchy of Posen, who had come to 
 England to collect among his opulent co-religionists con- 
 tributions towards a new Synagogue and the extension 
 of local charities. Born in a small town of that province, 
 he became, when still a child, familiar with the Hebrew 
 Bible and the Rabbinical commentaries. The boy soon 
 displayed an extraordinary talent, and when he, according 
 to custom, on the Sabbath after his thirteenth birthday 
 delivered in the Synagogue a Talmudical disputation to 
 signalise his religious majority, he so strongly impressed 
 the congregation with his gifts that it was decided that 
 he should be educated, at the expense of the commu- 
 nity, in a Rabbinical College in Prussia, renowned for 
 the ability and learning of its masters. 
 
 After due preparation, he entered that institution, but 
 attended at the same time the classical High School and 
 
14 THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 
 
 afterwards the university. His memory, acuteness, and 
 perseverance were alike astonishing, and his enormous 
 power of work, supported by a vigorous health which either 
 knew no illness or disregarded it, was an object of wonder 
 even to those of his teachers who were themselves quoted 
 as prodigies of industry. Thus he acquired an accumulative 
 knowledge not only in the Jewish and Oriental branches 
 of learning but also in the language and literature of the 
 Greeks sand Romans. But the latter he studied only as 
 auxiliaries to the former, and most noteworthy was his ab- 
 solute incapacity of understanding the spirit of Hellenic 
 culture. In the mythology of the Greeks he saw nothing 
 but a repulsive mixture of caprice, baseness and immora- 
 lity; in their history nothing but the vain contests of light- 
 headed youths who never attained the maturity of men; 
 and in their art hardly more than the trifling levity of 
 Sybarites who ? utterly unfit for the earnestness of life, 
 had no other aim than sensual frivolity. To enter seriously 
 into their philosophy, ethics, or science, he did not even 
 deem worth his while; and if in their writings he was 
 occasionally startled by some sentiment or principle recalling 
 the power, dignity or elevation of the Bible, he quickly 
 passed over the analogy by assuming an appropriation 
 from the Hebrews or by sagaciously pointing out some 
 heathen alloy. 
 
 To him 'Mosaism' was the emanation and the sum total 
 of all Divine wisdom, confirmed and enjoined, on the one 
 hand, by the teaching of the prophets, expanded and 
 'hedged in', on the other hand, by the traditions of Rab- 
 binism. Thus, although apparently placed amidst the 
 currents of western civilisation and familiar with its chief 
 productions, his thoughts rooted in the Eastern principle 
 of absolute supernaturalism. He used indeed the modern 
 terminology, but he lived in the notions of his ancestors. 
 New ideas touched the old, but did not mingle with them; 
 between both there was neither enmity nor a tendency 
 of amalgamation; it was a state of quiet indifferentism. 
 
THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 15 
 
 For the Rabbi was convinced that no earthly intelligence 
 could ever overthrow or even modify, however slightly, 
 God's primeval revelations. He was in his innermost heart 
 certain of the ultimate and universal victory of Judaism, 
 which, by a strange illusion, was to him nothing else but 
 a pure monotheism ; and scrupulously strict in the obser- 
 vance of its rituals and ceremonials, he expected that 
 Messianic time with a confidence which no adverse ex- 
 perience was able to shake. 
 
 He could indeed not fail to notice everywhere among 
 his co-religionists great and rapid changes, and he con- 
 stantly argued about this decay of the old faith in dis- 
 courses and writings which all, more or less, bore the 
 character of bitter philippics or tragically mournful laments ; 
 and though these efforts seldom convinced or produced 
 a practical effect, the sincerity of their ardour inspired 
 esteem for the man, while the happy illustrations from his 
 vast treasury of Rabbinical lore, with which they abounded, 
 awakened admiration for the scholar and interest in his 
 studies. 
 
 But with respect to Christianity he maintained a position 
 not only of toleration but of a certain friendliness. For 
 he considered its doctrine of the Incarnation as a Divinely 
 appointed instrument for gradually training heathendom 
 to the imageless monotheism of the Old Testament. 
 
 He called himself an orthodox Rabbi and he was one; 
 he made to his age no concessions beyond those demanded 
 by the duties of a good citizen and faithful patriot, which 
 he exercised conscientiously and to the ready practice of 
 which he impressively exhorted his congregations. He 
 loved his German country and prayed for its welfare, but 
 he prayed with equal fervour for the restoration of his 
 people to the Holy Land and the renewal of the service 
 of sacrifices in the Temple on Moriah. He did not, and 
 needed not, concern himself about this contradiction, as 
 his holy Books enjoined attachment to his adopted and 
 his ancestral country with equal solemnity, though the 
 
16 THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 
 
 latter was perhaps the intenser feeling of his heart. If 
 ever a fleeting doubt troubled him on this or any other 
 perplexity, he fought it down by main force; and fearlessly 
 indifferent to personal consequences, he never hesitated to 
 expound his strong opinions about the Divine inspiration 
 of the Hebrew Scriptures and Tradition, or about the 
 holiness of Moses, the prophets and the Jewish sages ; and 
 to expound them with the utmost determination, without 
 the least compromise, not even shrinking from paradox 
 and fanaticism: he was Fortis, et in se ipso totus, teres 
 atque rotundus. \ 
 
 It was men of this unbending temper who, in the 
 first half of the present century, called forth among the 
 educated Jews of Europe a reaction which, in nearly all 
 countries, led to a schism, though this has hitherto proved 
 neither wide nor deep. One of the ablest ministers of 
 these new communities who like to call themselves 'Re- 
 formers', was EMANUEL PANINI who, on account of the 
 urbanity of his manners and the refined ease of his con- 
 versation, was in Mondoza's house always greeted with 
 pleasure. Born and educated in Italy, he gradually deve- 
 loped that fiery eloquence which seems natural to the land 
 of Rienzi and Savonarola, and to which he imparted an 
 additional charm by apt citations from the great Italian 
 poets. Although trained in a famous Rabbinical school 
 and thoroughly competent to perform the functions of a 
 Rabbi, he declined this title and styled himself Preacher 
 of the 'Reform Congregation' over which he presided for 
 many years with sustained popularity. For he desired 
 to avoid even the remotest appearance of recognising the 
 validity of tradition or 'the oral Law,' the repudiation of 
 which is the main characteristic of his sect. But in this 
 point he was as little consistent as other 'Reformers.' 
 Although acknowledging the Mosaic ordinances as their 
 only canon, they found it impossible to abolish, even par- 
 tially, those customs which, like those connected with the 
 dietary precepts and the festival rites, had by the practice 
 
* X 
 
 & 
 
 THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS.**^ 17 
 
 of many centuries taken deep roots in Jewish life. They 
 could, therefore, in a limited sense only, be termed Karaites, 
 especially as they, on the other hand, happily refrained from 
 the unintelligent literalness of Karaitic interpretations. 
 
 Thus they might certainly claim the merit of having 
 materially simplified their religion, and of having Drought 
 it into closer harmony with the age. Yet in the most 
 essential question, their difference from the older schools 
 was only one of degree, not of principle. For they ad- 
 hered to the verbal inspiration of the Pentateuch with a 
 stubborn tenacity unsurpassed by the most rigorous Rab- 
 banites. Indeed they concentrated on that narrower field 
 all the dogmatic energy distributed by their brethren over 
 multifarious codes; and some of them could not be re- 
 strained from occasional ebullitions of that bigotry from 
 which they had themselves suffered so greatly for many 
 years after their secession. Like the Protestants and the 
 'Old Catholics', they held themselves entitled to the name 
 of 'Reformers', because they declared Divine inspiration 
 or tradition to have ceased at an arbitrarily chosen point 
 of their religious history. 
 
 In reference to the adherents of other creeds they insisted 
 upon a strict separation, which they believed proper for the 
 oldest race and the exclusive depositaries of truth. And 
 yet, with a curious inconsistency, they were proud of their 
 prophets who constantly proclaimed God's paternal love 
 towards all nations alike, and Emanuel Panini especially 
 unfolded and inculcated the lessons of an Isaiah and 
 Micah with an enthusiasm, in which the holy flame of 
 those exalted teachers seemed to be rekindled. Being 
 a great lover of music he seldom missed the performance 
 of a good Oratorio, nor did he scruple to hear the master- 
 pieces of the lyrical stage he introduced in his synagogue 
 the organ, which his orthodox co-religionists abhor in 
 Divine service as 'an institution of Gentiles.' While 
 the stirring strains of some old Jewish melody were 
 still vibrating through the hearts of the worshippers, 
 
18 
 
 THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 
 
 he would speak with a poet's fervour and imagery of the 
 glorious age when all mankind should be gathered under the 
 banner of Israel, and one law of love and knowledge and 
 peace should unite all the lands of the earth ; and then it was 
 difficult, under the thrilling sway of that influence, to re- 
 member those barriers between nation and nation, which, 
 from irresolution of thought and action, he himself un- 
 fortunately helped to strengthen ; while it was impossible 
 not to look hopefully forward to the diffusion of that ideal 
 of spotless honour and tender charity, which he almost 
 realized in his own life. 
 
 A new and uncommon attraction was imparted to Mon- 
 doza's assemblies by the presence of four Eastern guests, 
 who contributed in no small degree to a fuller and broader 
 discussion of some of the weightiest topics. The young- 
 est, but by no means the least remarkable among them 
 was the Brahman AEVADA-KALAMA, who had adopted this 
 name of Buddha's first Brahmanic teacher to intimate 
 that, like Buddha, he considered himself a regenerator 
 of Brahmanism. Born in Calcutta of an old family which, 
 belonging to the caste of physicians, had for several 
 generations been familiar with English society and cul- 
 ture, he lost no opportunity of mastering the chief Eu- 
 ropean works on science and literature, and above all on 
 theology. Sanguine in temperament, endowed with a 
 glowing imagination, and enthusiastic to such a degree 
 that he believed he beheld supernatural visions, he felt 
 from an early age strongly impelled to a deeper inves- 
 tigation into the nature of religious truth. 
 
 The soil had for some time been effectually prepared. 
 A Reform Association had in 1830 been originated by 
 R,am-Mohun-K,oy, and another, nine years later, by De- 
 bendra-Nath Tagore*. The latter maintained indeed the 
 
 * The older Association bore the 
 name of Brahmo-Subha or Brahmo 
 Somadsh, the later one that of Tatt- 
 
 vabadhing-Subha, the meaning of the 
 one being 'God-seeking Society', of 
 the other, 'Truth-seeking Society'. 
 
THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 19 
 
 authority of the Vedas in all points properly religious, but 
 denied their divine inspiration on account of the palpable 
 errors they teach with respect to the Deity; and he de- 
 manded as the sole condition of membership the renounce- 
 ment of idolatry, the acknowledgment of one God, and 
 a life of probity. Arvada-Kalama studied most zealously 
 everything connected with these reforms, to which he ac- 
 corded his lively sympathy. But he was still more pow- 
 erfully moved by the ardent activity of Baboo Keshub 
 Chunder Sen. At first, he followed him implicity; for he 
 admired the purity and strictness of his unitarianism. But 
 soon he found it difficult to overcome various points of 
 difference. He was reluctant to abandon some of the 
 harmless rites of his fathers, which he deemed useful on 
 account of their significance. Thus he declined to give 
 up 'the holy cord', the Brahman's distinctive badge, in- 
 tended always to remind him of his God and his duties,> 
 of his ancestors and his posterity. He was, in fact, averse 
 to all sudden and violent changes in the old customs 
 of the people. He did not, like Chunder Sen, sanction 
 marriages between members of different castes; nor 
 would he, in public worship, read and explain, besides the 
 Yedas, theistic passages from the holy books of other 
 nations. He belonged, in a word, to that division of the 
 Reform which, in 1865, under the name of 'Adi Brahmo 
 Somadsh', separated from the bold innovators of the 
 'Brahmo Somadsh of India'. Penetrated with this spirit of 
 conservatism, which alone, he believed, promised great 
 practical -results among the bulk of his countrymen, 
 "Ke~~tfiea to acquire a thorough knowledge of the sac- 
 red literature of the Hindoos and their abundant tra- 
 ditions. In due time, he was consecrated a minister 
 of his sect. However, urged by a thirst of further en- 
 lightenment, he so far defied Hindoo habits and notions 
 as to venture on a journey to the chief centres of Eu- 
 ropean learning and to make in each a shorter or 
 longer stay. 
 
20 THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 
 
 Almist simultaneous with his arrival in London was 
 that of the Buddhist SUBBHUTI. He was a native of 
 Kandy in Ceylon, but descended from a Japanese family 
 that had settled in the island forty or fifty years ago. 
 The traces of this origin were manifest throughout 
 Suhbhuti's life. For in spite of a most severe self-training, 
 he never succeeded in conquering a certain sprightly 
 vivaciousness which a censorious observer might easily 
 interpret as worldliness; and although wholly free from 
 personal ambition, he was agitated by an irresistible desire 
 to see and to know every phase of life and society. 
 Destined by his parents for the clerical order, he entered 
 in his tenth year, as a novice, the famous and splendid 
 viliara of his native town, and there he soon became con- 
 spicuous no less for his remarkable capacity in compre- 
 hending the subtleties of Gautama's doctrines, than for the 
 difficulty he experienced in submitting to the monastic dis- 
 cipline, more rigorous in Ceylon than in other Buddhistic 
 communities. Yet he remained in the institution from 
 deference to the wishes of his parents, and when he had 
 completed his twentieth year, he received the upasampada, 
 or ordination, amidst an exhibition of public interest such 
 as is only accorded to the most promising associates con- 
 fidently expected to rise, in due order, to the highest 
 wisdom of the Qravakas. He had not only mastered the 
 various canonical Books of the 'Triple Basket' (Tripitdka)* 
 together with their even more voluminous Commentaries 
 (Attliakaiha), but had eagerly studied many of the very nu- 
 merous works considered as the secondary sources of his 
 creed, b whether written in Cingalese, Pali, or Sanscrit. 
 
 But in spite of all honours, in spite of all advantages, 
 he could not be reconciled to the life of a recluse; he 
 tried hard to forget his uneasiness in the zealous instruc- 
 tion of a large number of devoted disciples, but in vain; and 
 when, ten years after his consecration, his parents died, 
 he renounced his vows and, laying aside the yellow robe, 
 abandoned the priestly vocation. Such a step, permitted 
 
THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 21 
 
 in his congregations, could by him be taken without the least 
 discredit, as not only his eminent learning but also his 
 piety and earnest ardour for the maintenance of the faith 
 were beyond suspicion. Partly his love of the holy 
 sciences, the knowledge of which he was anxious to revive 
 in Ceylon, a partly the desire of visiting his relatives in 
 the land of his ancestors, and, not least, an unconquerable 
 propensity for travel, induced him to undertake a journey 
 to Japan, yet not by the direct or shortest way, but 
 touching all the countries likely to yield new and useful 
 information about the tenets of his religion. 
 
 To such an enterprise he was especially stimulated by 
 the illustrious example of some great Chinese travellers 
 of earlier times, as Fa-hien and the renowned Hiouen- 
 Thsang b , with whose works, abounding in interesting facts 
 bearing on the origin and early development of Buddhism, 
 he had recently had an opportunity of becoming more fully 
 acquainted. Like those pious pilgrims, he longed 'to go 
 and seek the Law that it might serve as a guide to men and 
 secure their salvation'. For he saw with grief that a large 
 portion of his countrymen had been ensnared by Brahrnanic 
 superstitions and heresies; that they invoked and wor- 
 shipped Hindoo gods ; nay that, permitting ordination to 
 certain classes only and refusing to teach the holy Book 
 of Discipline to laymen, they had even, in some measure, 
 relapsed into the abhorred distinction of castes, which 
 it was their master's greatest glory to have demolished. 
 In support of these sad errors, they adduced the confused 
 and contradictory ordinances of doubtful authorities. The 
 increasing animosity between the two chief sects the 
 faithful 'Amarapuras' and the more pagan 'Siamese', who 
 taunted each other as 'religious outcasts' occasionally rose 
 to such a violence that it threatened seriously to endanger 
 the well-merited credit enjoyed by the Buddhists for absolute 
 toleration towards other creeds. For these reasons, and 
 in view of the advances Christianity had made in the 
 island since the English occupation, it appeared to be the 
 
22 THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 
 
 duty of all good patriots to uproot those fatal corruptions 
 by returning to the spirit of primitive Buddhism, a and for 
 this purpose to study its first sources in those earliest 
 Pali and Sanscrit works that command an undisputed 
 allegiance. To this chief end Subbhuti made his jour- 
 ney subservient with all his peculiar energy and intel- 
 ligence. 
 
 First turning to Siam, where, however, he did not 
 remain long, he made a protracted stay in Burmah, where 
 he entered into earnest discussions with the learned 
 Bananas, since, by a singular turn in the course of history, 
 the Cingalese receive at present their religious instruc- 
 tion and their chief priests from Burmah, whereas in former 
 ages they had themselves spread and taught Buddha's faith 
 in many neighbouring lands. Then our traveller passed 
 through those north-eastern provinces of India, where 
 Buddhism, about the beginning of the Christian era, had 
 found a last refuge from the persecutions of the Brahmans ; 
 went on northward into Tibet where, by command of the 
 aged Dalai Lamai, the august head of his religion, the rich 
 treasures of an old and varied literature were opened to 
 him; and, though reluctant to depart, he continued his 
 journey to China, where he was rejoiced to find Fo, his 
 beloved Buddha, in undiminished authority at least equal 
 to that accorded to his two great rivals Confucius and 
 Lao-tse b , and where the pious zeal of former rulers had 
 amassed a vast number of sacred books systematically 
 arranged and carefully translated from the original tongues . 
 
 While residing in China, he entered more fully than 
 he had done before into the wise and simple teaching of 
 Confucius, for which he conceived a growing sympathy, 
 as on account of its complete freedom from mysticism, 
 it seemed to him eminently fitted to engender a life at once 
 pure and useful. He acquired a competent knowledge of 
 the four 'holy scriptures' (kings), but turned his special 
 attention to the 'book of books (the sJiu-king), which, by 
 the manifold information it offers in history, metaphysics 
 
THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 23 
 
 and ethics, extended both the range and depth of his 
 mind. 
 
 Resuming his travels, he could not resist the temptation 
 to advance even into Mongolia, whither he was attracted by 
 the fame of distinguished Lamas; and he at last made his 
 way to Miako, the ecclesiastical capital of Japan and the 
 home of his race, where, in congenial intercourse with 
 learned bonzes, partially belonging to his own family, 
 he passed his time no less agreeably than profitably. 
 
 Eight years had thus been spent since his departure from 
 Ceylon, when he received intelligence of new sectarian 
 dissensions raging in the island, and he determined to 
 return by sea without delay. During his long voyage 
 he had leisure to survey the results of his experience, 
 and he was confirmed in the conviction he had always 
 cherished, that in spite of later modifications and additions, 
 the doctrines of his great Master were most staunchly 
 upheld in territories so wide and so densely populated that 
 Buddhism is still one of the most farspreading creeds of the 
 earth, a and that it has but little to fear from the exertions 
 of Christian missionaries, however able and zealous, pro- 
 vided that, in its present revival, it resolutely adhered to 
 that original simplicity and grandeur, which he had made 
 it his special task to point out and to enforced Arrived in 
 Ceylon, he exerted himself most strenuously to conciliate 
 the antagonists, and in the course of a few years he had 
 the satisfaction of seeing the party of the Amarapuras 
 strengthened by the accession of many influential de- 
 votees, the priesthood cleansed of those who disgraced 
 it by adding field to field and lending out money on 
 usury , c and the community in general awakened to a sense 
 of their grave defects in manly honesty and truthfulness. 
 
 But his irrepressible love of change and thirst for new 
 information allowed him no rest. He had from time to 
 time read in English journals longer or shorter accounts 
 of certain philosophical systems which had recently caused 
 unusual sensation in Europe, and which, as appeared to 
 
24 THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 
 
 him, possessed not merely incidental analogies but an 
 essential affinity with the teaching of Buddha; and most 
 anxious to study these views also at their source, he 
 joined some English officials who were returning to their 
 country on leave. 
 
 Animated by an equal desire of knowledge was the 
 Parsee dastoor, or Bishop, whom his co-religionists honoured 
 with the epithet of ASHO-RAOCO, i. e. pure splendour.* 
 He was a native of Surat, and a descendant of those 
 Parsees who, in the seventh Christian century, after the 
 destruction of the Sassanid dominion, had sought a refuge 
 in India from the proselytising violence of the conquering 
 Mussulmans. Although, like his whole sect, strongly and 
 gratefully attached to the British rule, the liberality and 
 equity of which he never wearied in extolling, he was pene- 
 trated by a more than ordinary love for the faith of his 
 ancestors and by no means shared the strange eagerness, 
 evinced by many of his brethren, of being 'Europeanised'. 
 He appeared, therefore, always in the exact costume of 
 his nation the sudra or long linen tunic, 'the garment 
 of the good and beneficent way ? , held together by the Jcusti 
 or thin woollen cord of seventy-two threads, passed three 
 times round the waist and scrupulously tied with the four 
 knots that are to remind the Parsee of the main import 
 of his religion. The angrdkha or loose ungirdled tunic, 
 which was thrown over the sudra, he usually laid off 
 when he paid longer visits, and sometimes also the turban 
 of folded white cloth which he wore over his topee or 
 silk skull-cap. b 
 
 He had from his early youth shown great taste for a more 
 general culture than the hereditary priesthood hereditary 
 against the commands of the lawgiver could offer, and 
 he availed himself of every possible opportunity of be- 
 coming familiar with the religious and philosophical re- 
 searches of the West. He was filled with shame and 
 indignation at the disgraceful ignorance of the greater 
 part of his order, and was convinced that the mdbeds, 
 
THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 25 
 
 who had lost all authority and even respect, could only 
 regain an honourable position by setting to the laity an 
 example of earnest zeal in the pursuit of intellectual 
 improvement. It was, morever, his ambition that the 
 Parsee community, though utterly insignificant in point 
 of numbers, should maintain and strengthen that social 
 prominence which they had acquired in so remarkable 
 a degree by their superior intelligence, enterprise and 
 industry; and that their worldly prosperity and their 
 proverbial success in commerce, should be the foundation 
 of yet more eminent distinction*. With these objects in 
 view, he utilised old institutions and founded new ones 
 in Bombay, Nowsaree and elsewhere, for the systematic and 
 comprehensive training of ecclesiastics, obtaining for these 
 Colleges the services of the most accomplished scholars. 
 In the course of his own studies, he could not fail 
 to perceive that the tenets of Zoroaster had, during the 
 twelve centuries that had elapsed since the first Parsee 
 settlement in India, been largely intermixed with the 
 conceptions and usages of the Hindoos: this had been 
 inevitable; for the Parsees had come to the Indian shores 
 as suppliants, and could conciliate the suspicions of the 
 native princes only by adapting themselves, as far as 
 they conscientiously could, to Hindoo practices and 
 customs 5 . But Asho-raoco was of opinion that, under 
 the enlightened and tolerant sovereignty of Great Britain, 
 the opportunity had arrived for restoring the purity of 
 his ancient faith by eliminating from its precepts and 
 ceremonials all that could not be traced to the authority 
 of Zoroaster or his recognised disciples and interpreters. 
 The Society established for this purpose soon spread and 
 gained influence, and it now bids fair to yield the most 
 desirable results. It will, therefore, be understood how 
 strongly the Dastoor repelled the title of 'magus' with 
 which he was commonly addressed in his western travels; 
 for he knew that it was borne by the superstitious 
 sorcerers and soothsayers among the old Chaldeans, 
 
26 THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 
 
 Medes and Persians, and that it ill befits the wis- 
 dom-loving followers of the 'Goldstar' Zarathustra, who 
 stigmatised the arts of magic as the evil suggestions 
 of the devas, while the 'magi', on their part, de- 
 tested his doctrine and persecuted it with unrelenting 
 bitterness. 
 
 He insisted that those who aspired to the priesthood 
 should be thoroughly and intelligently acquainted with 
 all that is left of the original twenty-one divisions or 
 noosk of their sacred literature ; not only with the three 
 parts of the Vendidad-Sade viz. the Tagna or Jzaslme, 
 the Vispered and Vendidad embodying the most current 
 prayers, litanies and statutes, but also with the elaborate 
 and difficult hymns of the Yesht, forming the chief portions 
 of the 'little' or KJiorda-Avesta. 10 Stimulated by the erudite 
 researches of European scholars, such as Burnouf and 
 Bopp, Windischmann and Spiegel, he eagerly pursued 
 the linguistic and historical investigation of those holy 
 books. But this did not satisfy him ; he applied himself 
 with untiring zeal to the metaphysical analysis of the 
 Parsee creed, and was determined to ascertain whether 
 the dualistic opposition of a good and evil force in 
 Zoroaster's system, which was the great stumblingblock 
 of all profounder minds of his sect, might not be removed 
 by merging both in the abstract principle of Eternal 
 Time or the Zervdne-Akarana. 
 
 In his search for a creed of unalloyed monotheism, he 
 hoped to be assisted by the great Christian theologians of 
 Europe, who, he believed, had, like himself, to battle 
 with the difficulty of reconciling unity and plurality in the 
 nature of the deity; and impelled by this yearning for 
 peace of mind, he had, after much hesitation, undertaken 
 the distant journey. The acquaintance of Mondoza, which 
 soon deepened into friendship, was procured to him by a 
 Parsee merchant who, leaving to his sons in Bombay the 
 management of the Indian branches of his house, had for 
 several years been settled in London. 
 
THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 27 
 
 Perhaps the greatest sensation, owing to his personal 
 appearance, was produced in Mondoza's circle by an Imam 
 of Teheran, who when a child, received on account of his un- 
 common beauty the name ofBedr el-Dsliemal (moon of come- 
 liness), but afterwards, at his installation as religious teacher, 
 was on account of his ardent zeal honoured with the ap- 
 pellation of Movayyid-eddin (strengthener of religion, or 
 defender of faith). It was, indeed, impossible not to be 
 impressed by a stature majestic yet singularly graceful; an 
 address dignified without coldness or apparent reserve; an 
 eye which, habitually soft and contemplative, at times darted 
 forth a concentrated fire like a sudden flash of lightning ; and 
 manly features that combined an almost rock-like solidity 
 capable of concealing the emotions of the mind, with a 
 wonderful suppleness no less capable of reflecting them. 
 
 He belonged to the most fervid and most scrupulous 
 division of the dissenting Shiites, viz. the Sheikis, who 
 arose, about fifty years ago, in Persia and Arabia through 
 the teaching of Hadji Sheik-Ahmed, and who, although 
 vehemently opposed to the orthodox Sunnites, still adopted 
 many of their traditional beliefs and legends. With a 
 certain complacent pride peculiar to his sect, he claimed 
 credit for investigating these points learnedly and, as he 
 considered, critically; but not only were his decisions 
 questionable, but, like nearly all Mohammedans, he included 
 in his creed many views that lie entirely beyond the horizon 
 of Islamism an inevitable consequence of the character 
 of a religion almost too plain and simple for imaginative 
 Orientals, as it is virtually exhausted in the one well- 
 known sentence, 'There is no other God but Allah and 
 Mohammed is His prophet'. 
 
 Movayyid had come to Europe in the retinue of his 
 King and had received permission to remain for some 
 time in order, if possible, to discover in the great national 
 libraries new materials for a full history of the numerous 
 sects of Islam, which work he had proposed to himself 
 as the task of his life. 
 
28 THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 
 
 In addition to the guests who have hitherto heen 
 described and may be taken to represent the principal 
 shades of religious conviction, the host's large sympathies 
 drew to his house a number of celebrities who cultivated 
 with success the chief branches of art and science, and 
 among whom four especially took a lively part in the 
 following conversations. 
 
 Not dissimilar to the Mohammedan in dignity and 
 grace, though with a preponderance of the latter element, 
 was ERASMUS HERMES, an uncompromising admirer of 
 Greek culture. This he deemed so entirely self-sufficient 
 that it did not require to be complemented by Christianity, 
 which, he thought, it had actually anticipated. Friends and 
 strangers, therefore, commonly called him the last great 
 heathen. Nor was this designation unsuitable to his ap- 
 pearance. His full and handsome face was a type of manly 
 beauty and elastic strength; and he derived a certain 
 additional grace from the habit of leaning his head slightly 
 towards the left shoulder and looking upwards his 
 colleagues said, as if he were holding converse with his 
 patron saint Phoibos Apollon. He was, perhaps more 
 thoroughly than any of his contemporaries, impregnated 
 not only with the genius of the Greek language but with 
 the spirit of Greek thought, and although philologists 
 admired him especially for a remarkable instinct or saga- 
 city in verbal criticism, he himself attached greater weight 
 to the historical reconstruction of Hellenic life and art, 
 on which task he brought to bear, besides an almost 
 exhaustive erudition, such a freedom and serenity of mind, 
 such a symmetry of mental powers, that listeners and 
 readers received the impression of a humanity calm, 
 complete, and happy. Moreover, his writings as well as 
 his conversations were seasoned with the true 'Attic salt' 
 of an easy and refined humour. Following no particular 
 school of philosophy, he had formed eclectic conceptions 
 from the systems of Plato, Zeno, and Epicurus. Among 
 the ancient poets, Lucretius and Horace were his guides; 
 
THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 29 
 
 among prose writers, his inclination fluctuated between 
 Plato and Aristotle ; but in Aristotle also he admired more 
 the moralist and metaphysician than the man of science. 
 The course of modern progress engaged indeed his 
 lively attention; but its chief attraction to him was the 
 comparison it suggested with classical antiquity, which he 
 not rarely found to deserve the palm of superiority. As 
 regards theology, he neither expressed adherence nor 
 opposition to any of the common doctrines; he simply 
 ignored them. 
 
 It will readily be understood that the young students who 
 attended his lectures at the great Dutch university whose 
 fame he had greatly increased, were attached to him with 
 enthusiastic affection. Not only was he an amiable com- 
 panion and a warm friend, but above all a most patriotic 
 citizen, since the state was in his eyes, as it had been of 
 old, the supreme end, in which all individual interests 
 should be unconditionally merged. It was remarkable how 
 little animosity he provoked in spite of a turn of thought 
 so strongly marked and apparently so anachronistic, and 
 how great a favourite he was in all social and learned 
 gatherings. 
 
 Very different from him in temper, method and aims was 
 WALTHEB ATTINGHAUSEN, one of the boldest champions 
 of the most advanced school of naturalists. He missed no 
 occasion for declaring the current forms of religion as 
 antiquated and therefore obnoxious. True enlightenment 
 and happiness, he maintained, were only possible by an 
 absolute abandonment of the dualistic ideas of Creator 
 and Creation in favour of a consistent monism simply 
 recognising the one principle of the identity of 'force and 
 matter'. From the movement of the primary 'cell' up to 
 the consciousness of man, he demonstrated an unbroken 
 connection and continuous development. The doctrines of 
 Devolution' and 'natural selection' he proclaimed as incon- 
 trovertibTe^certainties, which should be taught in the 
 schools instead of the Bible; and he revered Lamarck and 
 
 
30 THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 
 
 Darwin not only as the originators of a new science, but 
 also as the founders of a new, religion. This realistic 
 zeal went hand in hand with a pretended pessimism, which 
 he took a particular pleasure of picturing in the gloomiest 
 colours. And yet he propounded a natural religion which, 
 resting on man's noblest qualities, enjoined a 'charity' 
 requiring the subdual, or at least the restriction, of our 
 inborn selfishness for the benefit of our fellow-men. He 
 was even convinced that morality can never be firmly 
 established unless it be founded upon the doctrine of 
 evolution, since it is only by a clear perception of his 
 place in nature that man obtainsboth the right knowledge 
 of his obligations and the due energy for fulfilling them. 
 Against his opponents he acted with the utmost severity, 
 though never with ill-nature. He disdained no weapon of 
 invective or satire; and, radically consistent in his own 
 opinions, he never hesitated to draw from the views of others 
 inferences often exaggerated to absurdity and then more for- 
 cibly ridiculed. In conversation, his clear grey eyes, which 
 brightened up an open and extremely flexible countenance, 
 looked his opponents full into the face; and in excitement, 
 to which he was easily provoked, he was in the habit of 
 stamping his right foot more or less gently on the ground. 
 Yet in spite of his impulsiveness, he was a most patient 
 and laborious enquirer; and as his sole object was truth, 
 he was at any moment willing to sacrifice his most cherished 
 theories to riper researches. His earnestness and courage 
 would alone have secured him respect, even if he had not 
 won it, far beyond his native Switzerland, by many 
 successful investigations and not a few popular works, in 
 which he unfolded modern systems and results with a 
 vigorous clearness appreciated and enjoyed by a wide 
 circle of readers. He was, moreover, a ready and effective 
 speaker at public meetings, which he was fond of attending, 
 especially when their object was the promotion of scientific 
 and technical education which circumstance accounted 
 perhaps for his constant temptation to rise even when 
 
THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 31 
 
 speaking in private company. His decision, large knowledge, 
 and prompt, though sometimes indiscreet sarcasm never 
 failed to render a discussion more animated and more 
 instructive. 
 
 Following Attinghausen up to a certain point and then 
 separating from him with a somewhat unjustified and 
 unintelligible antipathy, CLEMENT MELVILLE entered into 
 the problems of human existence with an almost holy zeal 
 and seriousness. Like Attinghausen he regarded the 
 natural sciences as indispensable to all genuine and solid 
 advancement; but he treated science merely as the basis 
 and starting point for ascending to ideas. He clung to 
 philosophy in a strictly logical method; yet he did not 
 allow it to lapse into barren speculation, but caused it, 
 on all sides, to bloom forth in lessons of practical morality, 
 the loftiness and purity of which seemed to surpass all 
 previous systems of ethics. For his doctrines permitted no 
 other motives than love and the dictates of man's dignity; 
 and they knew no other aim than tranquillity of mind 
 through self-denying devotion to the common weal. They 
 rejected entirely the stimulus of hope and fear, of reward 
 and punishment. 
 
 Melville used indeed the words 'God' and 'Immortality,' 
 but, in spite of a complex and cautious phraseology, it 
 was evident that 'God' was to him virtually identical with 
 'Nature,' and 'Immortality' virtually identical with the 
 indestructibility of the eternal 'Substance;' neither the 
 one nor the other was endowed with personality. Thus 
 he also, like Attinghausen, taught a monism] yet, although 
 not going so far as to assume, like his predecessor Leibnitz, 
 a 'pre-established harmony' in the world, since he rejected 
 the principle even of teleology, he insisted with an enthu- 
 siasm truly sublime upon the necessary and possible harmony 
 in the thoughts of man, and through the thoughts, in his 
 feelings and his life. 
 
 Melville's monism was, therefore, on the one hand, en- 
 nobled by idealism, and, on the other hand, brightened 
 
32 THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 
 
 by optimism; he was thus in a strong and twofold oppo- 
 sition to Attinghausen's desponding materialism; and 
 it is intelligible why he investigated with particular zest 
 the questions of state and society, and why he often felt 
 a keen desire for political activity, to which he would 
 no doubt have yielded, had he not still more strongly 
 inclined to quiet research and speculation. Yet such 
 occasional wavering both in his theories and his actions, con- 
 tributed, it was curious to observe, even to enhance that 
 marvellous repose which he diffused by his personal inter- 
 course and his writings, and which many have described 
 as 'a foretaste of heavenly peace'. The force of his con- 
 victions might sometimes urge him to utterances of un- 
 disguised indignation; yet even in such rarle moments, 
 his agitation was no more than superficial, and never 
 touched the imperturbable depths of his soul. 
 
 Unquestionably one of Mondoza's most distinguished 
 visitors was ANDREAS WOLFRAM, the last whom we beg 
 leave briefly to introduce to the reader. In him the 
 spirit of classical Greece was wonderfully amalgamated 
 with the spirit of the modern world. His easy and beau- 
 tiful conception of life did not prevent him from the 
 minutest enquiries into the innermost principles of creation ; 
 and his penetrating scrutiny of the mysteries of nature 
 seemed only to impart to his artistic conceptions additional 
 fulness and reality. Hence he was often called 'a double 
 man' he might, like his great German fellow countryman, 
 justly liave been called 'legion'. For his knowledge was 
 indeed prodigious, and in conversation it welled forth as from 
 a hundred invisible springs. But no less remarkable than 
 his knowledge was his clearness; he reduced everything 
 to systematic order, shaped all details into an organic 
 whole his mind suffered no rudis indigestaque moles, no 
 disjecta membra. 
 
 Not only had he in his long life he was a true Nestor 
 and had passed through much more than two generations 
 made momentous investigations and intuitive discoveries 
 
/ 
 
 THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. 
 
 in nearly every division of natural science; nor had he 
 only the merit of having by long expeditions to the remotest 
 parts of the Old and New World uncommonly extended 
 the fields of observation and experience; but he possessed 
 a mastery and an elegance of language, which stamped his 
 works as models of classical German composition; for even 
 his descriptions of ethnography, nay of metereology, were 
 invested with the charm and value of artistic creations. 
 
 But the Bible and its teaching were entirely foreign 
 to him, the Old Testament no less than the New; and 
 this was no secret even to those who had never heard 
 the remark he often made to his familiar friends for all 
 public participation in theology he scrupulously avoided 
 that he would gladly help to deliver his age 'from here- 
 ditary Judaism.' Many pointed to this peculiarity as 
 the cause why, in spite of an almost boundless admiration 
 lavished upon him by the more highly educated classes, 
 he was hardly able to gain the ear, much less the heart, 
 of the people. Whether they were right or wrong in 
 such a conjecture, will perhaps become clear from some 
 of the conversations we are about to report. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to observe, in conclusion, that 
 seldom if ever all these friends were present together on 
 the same evening: each came to the hospitable Lodge 
 during the customary hours as time favoured or inclination 
 prompted. 
 
II. THE BOOK. 
 
 ON a warm and clear evening in the beginning of July, 
 the guests assembled in Cordova Lodge earlier and more 
 numerously than usual. They were not deceived in their 
 expectation of finding, after the oppressive heat of the 
 day, refreshing coolness in the shady walks and the in- 
 viting arbours. A gentle breeze which had arisen from 
 the south-east wafted through the pure air the fragrance of 
 splendid roses and delicate heliotropes, mingled with the 
 sweet scent of linden blossoms; and it was not before 
 they had witnessed a most beautiful sunset long lingering 
 in the crimson skies, that the friends retired to the spa- 
 cious drawing-room which opened on the tastefully designed 
 and partially covered terrace, and overlooked the smooth 
 and richly skirted lawn. After having partaken of re- 
 freshments which, in their cosmopolitan variety, were con- 
 siderately adapted to the habits of the Oriental guests 
 also, they had scarcely seated themselves at the open 
 windows, when the Buddhist Subbhuti took some papers 
 carefully wrapped up from the ample folds of his blue robe 
 and, presenting them to the host, said with his characteristic 
 vivacity, which made him plunge in medias res: 
 
 'I am greatly indebted to you, yet I am disappointed. 
 True, I understand the remarkable Book better through 
 your translation than I did in that which the worthy 
 English missionary read and explained to me in Kandy; 
 but I cannot find in it what you led me to expect'. 
 
 *What book'? naturally asked several of the guests at 
 once. 
 
 'The Book of Ecclesiastes', replied Mondoza, 'But did you 
 not, in reflecting on its speculations', he continued turning 
 
THE BOOK. 35 
 
 to Subbhuti, 'discover in them something of the spirit of 
 your own sutras, if not of the "Perfect Wisdom" of some 
 of your metaphysical works'?* 
 
 'How could I', cried the Buddhist with great animation, 
 'when I find in the Biblical shaster the -most contradictory 
 views and directions? On the one hand, the writer de- 
 clare~vas the result of his long experience, "Then I praised 
 mirth, because there is nothing better for man under the 
 sun than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry ". b On 
 the other hand, he maintains, in a very different strain, 
 "The day of death is better than the day of one's birth; 
 it is better to go to the house of mourning than to go 
 to the house of feasting; sorrow is better than laughter; 
 the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but 
 the heart of fools is in the house of mirth". c Yet these 
 startling inconsistencies extend to points of even greater 
 importance. In one part of the Book, the far-famed King 
 Solomon, whose wisdom is still proverbial in the East'. . . . 
 
 'Ecclesiastes is hardly the production of King Solomon', 
 said Gregovius quietly; 'it may be desirable to keep this 
 result of criticism in mind. I beg you to pardon my 
 interruption'. 
 
 'Not the work of King Solomon' ? exclaimed Subbhuti. 
 'By whom, pray, and when was it composed'? 
 
 'By whom it was written', answered Gregovius, 'it is 
 impossible to say, but certainly not before the time of 
 Alexander, the famous king of Macedon, who, as you know, 
 invaded India about three hundred years after the birth 
 of your Buddha, d and nearly seven hundred years after 
 the beginning of Solomon's reign'. 
 
 'There is intrinsic and irrefragable evidence', said 
 Humphrey with decision, 'that Ecclesiastes is the pro- 
 duction of Solomon himself, despite the idle guesses of 
 an infidel scholarship'. 
 
 'And despite the audacity of unblushing heresy', added 
 Eabbi Kaphael Gideon. 
 
36 THE BOOK. 
 
 'Surely it could not have been written before the period of 
 the Ptolemies or even the Maccabees', suggested Panini 
 with some hesitation. 
 
 'It cannot have been compiled before the age of Herod 
 from the fifteen fragments and interpolations which all who 
 have eyes may discern', protested Berghorn vigorously, 
 with a dark frown in his contracted eyebrows. a 
 
 'By Gautama's holy tooth! What am I to believe?' ex- 
 claimed the Cingalese Buddhist in bewildered agitation. 
 
 'The matter is perhaps not of such great moment as 
 you seem to imagine', explained Canon Mortimer persua- 
 sively. 'Every nation accustoms itself to regard certain 
 great men as the embodiment of all wisdom or worldly 
 shrewdness, and to attribute to them any conspicuous 
 work on practical ethics, the author of which is unknown or 
 doubtful; nay later writers have not seldom issued books 
 under the authority of those great names, in order to obtain 
 for their lessons a surer effect; and as they are indeed per- 
 vaded by the spirit and nourished by the instructions of 
 their renowned ancestors, might they not, with some justice, 
 assign to them the ideal authorship of their works ? Whether 
 the revered code of your Vinaya or moral 'Discipline' 
 was penned by your Master Sakyamuni, or four or five 
 centuries after him by one of his learned and pious dis- 
 ciplesand you are aware that some of our greatest scholars 
 regard Sakyamuni himself as an "unreal being" who never 
 existed at all, and as much a fiction as his numberless 
 preceding migrations 11 ^whether our Gospels were written 
 down by Christ's immediate Apostles or, much later, by 
 men thoroughly imbued with their teaching: is there really 
 any material difference? And if there be, it is to the 
 world's advantage; for thus we possess the doctrines of 
 the Masters and Founders, enriched by the experience and 
 enlightenment of more advanced generations. Whether, 
 therefore, Ecclesiastes be traceable to King Solomon or 
 some later thinker, the Book represents the highest spe- 
 culative wisdom attained by the Hebrews.' 
 
THE BOOK. 37 
 
 'Well, well 7 , said Mondoza, smiling, 'be it so. I would 
 not too anxiously enquire into the authorship of the Iliad, 
 and am content to enjoy the wonderful creation as re- 
 flecting throughout the spirit of Greece in the period of 
 her epic youthfulness. But', he added, addressing Subbhuti, 
 'we have interrupted you while engaged in pointing 
 out those divergencies in Ecclesiastes, which seem to 
 you to diminish the value of its teaching. Pray, 
 continue.' 
 
 'When you gave me your manuscript,' said Subbhuti 
 with increasing warmth, 'you made me anticipate that I 
 should find in the Book much that was almost identical 
 with the Meditations of Buddha; and you requested me 
 carefully to consider whether, if that were the case, I 
 ought not to accept those Hebrew doctrines also which 
 my creed rejects or at least ignores, especially the belief 
 in a God and the Immortality of the soul. But I confess, I 
 find nowhere a solid ground, nowhere a settled conviction 
 only here a fata morgana in the desert, there an ignis 
 fatuus in a treacherous morass ; the desert and the morass 
 are painful realities, the tempting visions are the mockery of 
 phantoms. I do not know whether the author is in earnest 
 when he contends, "As the beasts die, so die men; they 
 have all one breath of life . . . All go to one place ; all 
 are of the dust, and all return to the dust: who knows 
 whether the spirit of the sons of man goes upward, and 
 the spirit of the beast goes downward to the earth?"* 
 or when he surmises, "The dust returns to the earth as 
 it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it". b Shall 
 I follow him when he affirms that all is accident that 
 ( the same chance befalls man and beast, the good and 
 the bad, the righteous perishing in his righteousness 
 to be for ever forgotten, the wicked flourishing in his wicked- 
 ness to be buried with honour as if a God were conceivable 
 without the attribute of justice, that is, without a Pro- 
 vidence ; or shall I be guided by him when he proclaims 
 the strict doctrine of retribution with a confidence un- 
 
38 THE BOOK. 
 
 shaken by his daily experience to the contrary: "Though a 
 sinner do evil a hundred times and prolong his life, yet 
 surely I know that it shall be well with those that fear 
 God" ; or "God will bring every deed into judgment, even 
 every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be 
 evil"? a How can I, from this confusion, derive a clear 
 conception of the nature of the human soul, or the ruling 
 power of a God, such as you assume? Again, the author 
 admits indeed, "I saw that wisdom excels folly as far as 
 light excels darkness", and he offers some good remarks 
 besides in praise of wisdom b . Yet, on the other hand, he 
 ventures strange utterances like this, "In much wisdom 
 is much grief, and he that increases knowledge increases 
 sorrow" ; c nay he goes so far as to assert that the same destiny 
 and the same death are allotted to the fool and the sage, 
 and that it is therefore idle and futile to strive after 
 wisdom. d Have I really seized his meaning? "Science" 
 djndna the Sublime, the Unerring, should be vain and 
 bootless, and nothing more than "weariness of the flesh"? 
 "Science", such as the rishis or rahats command, and is 
 gained by one of the supreme degrees of contemplation, 
 so teaches our revered Buddha, is omnipotent". 
 
 'Worthless is the apostate Buddhist's "knowledge"', said 
 Arvada-Kalama bitterly and contemptuously. 
 
 'Science', continued Subbhuti firmly, 'could never have 
 suggested the frivolous lines of the Hindoo poet: 
 
 "I sang of friendship, wine and love, 
 "In early years of giddy youth. 
 "Now I am old, and know that all 
 "Is vanity of vanities. 
 
 "Yea, song and friendship, wine and love, 
 "The golden times of joyous youth, 
 "And oh! this late begotten wisdom, 
 "Are vanity of vanities". 6 
 
 'For true Science, according to Buddha as well as the 
 best of Hindoo sages, exercises dominion over the forces 
 of nature and all created beings ; it is endowed with the 
 
THE BOOK. 39 
 
 powers of miracle and enchantment; for it enables its 
 possessor to assume any form, to see and to hear at any 
 distance, to fix the length of his life and to know the 
 thoughts of others, to make himself visible and invisible 
 at will, to fly through the air, to walk on water as others 
 walk on dry land, to tell how many drops and how many 
 living creatures there are in the ocean, to dry up the sea, 
 though in one part it is eight hundred and forty thousand 
 miles deep, to grasp the sun and moon, to hide the earth 
 with the tip of his finger, and to shake to their foundations 
 earth and heaven ; a nay more, it is "Science" alone which 
 leads to true and imperishable happiness, since it is the 
 last stage before the soul enters into the bliss and salvation 
 of the Nirvana?. 
 
 'Well said, well said', murmured Movayyid-eddin ap- 
 provingly; 'for has not our Prophet declared, "The ink 
 of sages is more precious than the blood of martyrs" '? b 
 
 'How is it possible', continued Subbhuti, after a slight 
 nod of acknowledgment to the Mohammedan, 'to discover 
 in Wisdom any particle allied to pain or grief in her 
 who is man's sole joy and felicity, and the bond that 
 unites him with Eternity ? And this leads me to the prin- 
 cipal x$oint which shows still more strikingly, how little 
 community there is between the Hebrew philosopher and 
 my exalted Guide. Without referring to the more ri- 
 gorous precepts applicable to novices, consecrated priests 
 and holy hermits, we have been taught by our royal 
 Master's noble example no less than by his thrilling ex- 
 hortations, to reduce our wants both in raiment and food, 
 shelter and rest, to the utmost degree allowed by nature's 
 law of self-preservation, and in fact to look upon worldly 
 pleasures as the chief obstacle to the attainment of that 
 transcendent knowledge which opens the portals of the 
 Nirvana. But how does the Israelitish "Preacher" ex- 
 press himself? He declares and it seems most strange to 
 my ears and my mind , "God has made everything beau- 
 tiful in its time; He has also set worldliness in tlieir 
 
40 THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES (l. 1 6). 
 
 heart, without which man cannot understand the works 
 that God does, from beginning to end"'.* 
 
 The listeners looked at each other with surprise, and 
 after a short pause Gregovius said: 
 
 'I am afraid we shall be unable to understand each 
 other or to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion unless 
 we are permitted to examine the translation on which our 
 excellent Eastern friend has formed his opinions with 
 regard to the ''Preacher's" philosophy. I confess, the last 
 quotation he has introduced can scarcely sound more 
 strange to him than it sounds to me. May I, therefore, 
 propose to ask our host that he will kindly read to us 
 the version of the Book, with which he has favoured the 
 learned Subbhuti'? 
 
 'This will certainly be most desirable', cried Berghorn 
 with an energy that was not unlike a challenge. 
 
 Mondoza readily assented, and having placed Hebrew 
 Bibles of various editions at the disposal of those who 
 wished to follow in the original, he read, with two or 
 three short intervals, as follows: 
 
 THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 1. The words of the Preacher, the son of David, 
 king in Jerusalem. 
 
 2. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity 
 of vanities! Ally's vanity. 3. "What profit has a man 
 of all his labour in which he toils under the sun? 
 4. A generation passes away and a generation 
 comes; but the earth abides for ever. 5. And the 
 sun rises and the sun goes down, and hastens to its 
 place, and there it rises again. 6. The wind goes to 
 the south, and turns round to the north, it turns 
 
THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES (l. 7 18). 41 
 
 and turns continually ; and so the wind repeats its 
 turning. 7. All the rivers flow into the sea, yet the 
 sea is not full ; to the place whither the rivers flow, 
 thither they go again and again. 8. All the words 
 are wearisome, man cannot utter them; the eye is 
 not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with 
 hearing. 9. That which has been is that which shall 
 be; and that which has been done is that which 
 shall be done; and nothing whatsoever is new under 
 the sun. 10. There are things of which it is said, 
 See, this is new: it has been long since in the 
 ages that were before us. 11. There is no remem- 
 brance of the earlier generations; nor shall the later 
 generations be in the remembrance of those that shall 
 come after. 
 
 12. I the Preacher was king over Israel in Je- 
 rusalem. 13. And I gave my mind to enquire and 
 to search by wisdom concerning all that is done under 
 heaven: this is an evil business which God has given 
 to the sons of men to busy themselves therewith. 
 
 14. I have seen all the deeds that are done under 
 the sun ; and, behold, all is vanity and empty trouble. 
 
 15. That which is crooked cannot be made straight, 
 and the deficiencies cannot be numbered. 16. I 
 said to myself, Behold, I have acquired greater and 
 fuller wisdom than all who before me have been 
 rulers over Jerusalem, and my mind has understood 
 much wisdom and knowledge. 17. Yet when I gave 
 up my mind to know wisdom and to know madness 
 and folly, I perceived that this also is empty trouble. 
 18. For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that 
 increases knowledge increases sorrow. 
 
42 THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES (n. 1 11). 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 1. I said in my heart, Come now, I will try thee 
 with mirth, and enjoy pleasure! But, behold, this 
 also was vanity. 2. I said of laughter, It is mad; 
 and of mirth, What does it? 3. I thought within 
 myself to indulge my body with wine, while my 
 mind was guiding with wisdom, and to cling to folly, 
 till I might see what was good for the sons of men 
 to do under the heaven in the numbered days of 
 their lives. 4. I made me great works : I built me 
 houses ; I planted me vineyards ; 5. 1 made me gardens 
 and parks, and planted in them trees of all kinds of 
 fruit; 6. I made me lakes, to water therewith the 
 woods that bring forth trees ; 7. I acquired men 
 servants and maid servants, and had slaves born 
 in my house ; I had also larger possessions of herds 
 and flocks than all that had been in Jerusalem be- 
 fore me ; 8. 1 gathered me also silver and gold and the 
 treasures of kings and provinces; I procured me men 
 singers and women singers, and the delight of the 
 sons of men, wife and wives. 9. So I was great 
 and increased more than all that had been before 
 me in Jerusalem ; also my wisdom remained with me ; 
 10. And whatever my eyes desired I did not deny 
 them, I did not withhold my heart from any joy ; for 
 my heart was rejoiced through all my labour, and 
 this was my portion of all my labour. 11. Then I 
 turned my mind to all my works that my hands had 
 wrought, and to the labour that I had toiled to 
 effect; and, behold, all was vanity and empty 
 trouble, and there was no profit under the sun. 
 
THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES (ll. 12 23). 43 
 
 12. And I turned my mind to behold wisdom and 
 madness and folly; for what will the man do that 
 comes after the king? even that which has long since 
 been done: 13. And I saw that wisdom excels folly, 
 as far as light excels darkness; 14. The wise man's 
 eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. 
 Yet I perceived also that one event happens to 
 them all, 15. And I said in my heart, As it happens 
 to the fool, so it will happen even to me, and why 
 was I then more wise? And I said in my heart, 
 that this also is vanity. 16. For the wise man, like 
 the fool, is unremembered for ever, since in days to 
 come everything is long forgotten, and alas! the wise 
 man dies like the fool. 17. And I hated life, be- 
 cause the works that are wrought under the sun 
 appeared to me evil; for all is vanity and empty 
 trouble. 18. And I hated all my labour in which I 
 toiled under the sun, since I should leave it to the 
 man who shall be after me. 19. And who knows 
 whether he will be a wise man or a fool? yet shall 
 he be master over all my labour for which I have 
 toiled and acted wisely under the sun. This is also 
 vanity. 
 
 20. Then I turned round to let my heart despair 
 of all the labour in which I had toiled under the 
 sun. 21. For there is a man who labours with wis- 
 dom and knowledge and success; yet to a man that 
 has not laboured for it must he leave it for his 
 portion. This also is vanity and a great evil. 22. For 
 what has man of all his labour and of the trouble 
 of his heart, in which he labours under the sun? 
 23. For all his days are sorrow, and his work is 
 
44 THE BOOK OP ECCLESIASTES (ll. 24 in. 10). 
 
 grief; even in the night his heart has no rest. This 
 is also vanity. 
 
 24. There is nothing better for a man than that 
 he shonld eat and drink and enjoy himself in his la- 
 bour. This also I saw that it was from the hand of 
 God. 25. For who can eat and who can indulge 
 in pleasures more than I? 26. For God gives to a 
 man who is good in His sight wisdom and know- 
 ledge and joy; but to the sinner He gives the task 
 to gather and to pile up, in order to give it to him 
 that is good before God. This also is vanity and 
 empty trouble. 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 1. To every thing there is a season, and a time for 
 every purpose under the heaven: 2. A time for being 
 born, and a time for dying ; a time for planting, and 
 a time for plucking up that which 25 planted; 3. A 
 time for slaying, and a time for healing; a time for 
 breaking down, and a time for building up ; 4. A 
 time for weeping, and a time for laughing; a time for 
 mourning, and a time for dancing; 5. A time for 
 casting away stones, and a time for gathering stones 
 together; a time for embracing, and a time for keeping 
 aloof from embracing; 6. A time for seeking, and a 
 time for losing; a time for guarding, and a time for 
 casting away; 7. A time for rending, and a time for 
 sewing; a time for keeping silence, and a time for 
 speaking ; 8. A time for loving, and a time for hating; 
 a time for war, and a time for peace. 
 
 9. What profit has he that works in that wherein 
 he labours? 10. I have seen the business which God 
 
THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES (ill. 11 21). 45 
 
 has given to the sons of men to busy themselves 
 therewith. 11. He has made everything beautiful 
 in its time ; He has also set worldliness in their heart, 
 without which man cannot understand the works 
 that God does, from beginning to end. 12. I found 
 that nothing is good for them but to be merry and 
 to enjoy themselves in their lives; 13. And also that, 
 if any man eats and drinks and is happy in all his 
 labour, this is the gift of God. 14. 1 found that, what- 
 soever God does, that shall be for ever ; nothing can 
 be added to it, and nothing can be taken from it ; 
 and God works so that men should be in fear of Him. 
 15. That which has been is now again long since, and 
 that which is to be has been long since ; for God 
 puts forward anew that which has been laid aside. 
 16. And moreover I saw under the sun the place 
 of judgment there was wickedness; and the place 
 of justice there was iniquity. 17. I said in my 
 heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked; 
 for a time shall then come for every purpose and in 
 regard of every deed. 18. 1 said in my heart, This 
 is on account of the sons of men, that God might 
 prove them, and that they might see that they 
 themselves are beasts. 19. For that which befalls 
 the sons of men befalls the beasts ; indeed the same 
 thing befalls them; as the one dies, so dies the other, 
 and they have all one breath of life, and a pre- 
 eminence above the beast man has not; for all is 
 vanity. 20. All go to one place ; all are of the dust 
 and all return to the dust. 21. "Who knows whether 
 the spirit of the sons of men goes upward, and the 
 spirit of the beast goes downward to the earth? 
 
46 THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES (ill. 22 IV. 11). 
 
 22. Therefore I perceived that there is nothing better 
 than that a man should be joyful in his works; for 
 that is his portion : for who shall bring him to see 
 what shall be after him? 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1. And I saw again all the oppressions that are 
 done under the sun; and, behold, there were the tears 
 of the oppressed, who had no comforter ; and from 
 the hand of their oppressors came violence, and they 
 had no comforter. 2. Wherefore I praised the dead 
 who have long since died more than the living who 
 are still alive. 3. But happier than both is he who 
 has not yet been, who has not seen the evil deeds 
 that are done under the sun. 
 
 4. And I saw all the labour and all the success of 
 work, that for this a man is envied by his neighbour. 
 This is also vanity and empty trouble. 5. The fool 
 folds his hands together, and consumes himself. 
 6. Better is a handful of quietness than both hands 
 full of labour and empty trouble. 
 
 7. Then I saw again vanity under the sun. 8. There 
 is one alone without a second, and he has neither 
 child nor brother; yet is there no end of all his 
 labour, nor is his eye satisfied with riches. But for 
 whom do I labour and deprive myself of pleasures ? 
 This is also vanity and an evil business. 9. Two are 
 better than one, because they have a good reward 
 for their labour. 10. For if they fall, the one will 
 lift up his fellow; but woe to the single one who falls, 
 for he has not another to help him up. 11. Again, 
 if two lie together, then they get warm; but how can 
 
THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES (iy. 12 V. 5). 47 
 
 one get warm alone? 12. And if anybody attacks 
 the one, the two will stand up against him ; and a 
 threefold cord is not quickly broken. 
 
 13. Better is a poor and a wise child than an 
 old and foolish king who knows no longer how to 
 take warnings. 14. For out of the prison he goes 
 forth to reign ; for in his kingdom he was also born 
 poor. 15. I saw all the living who walk under the 
 sun, with. the second child that stood up in his place. 
 16. There was no end of all the people, of all that 
 have been before them : those also that come after 
 do not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and 
 empty trouble. 
 
 17. Guard thy foot when thou goest to the house 
 of God; and approaching to listen is better than the 
 offering of sacrifices by fools ; for they mind not 
 doing evil. 
 
 CHAPTER v. 
 
 1. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy 
 heart be hasty to utter a word before God; for God 
 is in heaven, and thou art upon earth, therefore let 
 thy words be few. 2. For as a dream comes through 
 a multitude of business, so a fool's voice is known by 
 a multitude of words. 3. When thou vowest a vow 
 to God, delay not to pay it ; for He has no pleasure 
 in fools : pay that which thou hast vowed. 4. Better 
 is it that thou shouldest not vow than that thou 
 shouldest vow and not pay. 5. Suffer not thy mouth 
 to cause thy flesh to sin; nor say thou before the 
 messenger [priest] that it was an error : why should 
 God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of 
 
48 THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES (v. 6 17). 
 
 thy hands ? 6. For as vanities are in a multitude of 
 dreams, so also in many words: but fear thou God. 
 
 7. If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and 
 violent perversion of judgment and justice in a pro- 
 vince, marvel not at the matter; for a high one 
 watches over a high one, and a highest one over 
 these. 8. Yet an advantage to a country in every 
 way is a king of a well cultivated land. 9. He that 
 loves silver is not satisfied with silver, nor he that 
 loves wealth with gain: this is also vanity. 10. When 
 property increases, they that eat it are increased ; 
 and what benefit has the owner thereof except 
 that he beholds it with his eyes? 11. The sleep 
 of the labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little 
 or much; but the surfeit of the rich does not suffer 
 him to sleep. 12. There is a sore evil which I have 
 seen under the sun, namely riches kept for their owner 
 to his harm. 13. For those riches are lost through 
 evil business ; and if he begets a son, then there is 
 nothing whatever in his hand. 14. As he came forth 
 from his mother's womb, naked does he go back again 
 as he came, and he takes nothing whatever of his la- 
 bour, which he may carry away in his hand. 1 5. And 
 this also is a sore evil: in every way as he came, so does 
 he go; and what profit has he that labours for the 
 wind? 16. Moreover, all his days he eats in darkness 
 and he is full of sorrow and has his suffering and 
 vexation. 
 
 17. Behold that which I have seen: it is good and 
 fair for man to eat and to drink and to enjoy himself 
 in all his labour in which he toils under the sun the 
 numbered days of his life which God gives him : foi 
 
THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES (v. 18 VI. 9). 49 
 
 this is his portion. 18. ^to any man also God has 
 given riches and wealth, and has given him the 
 power to eat thereof, and to take his portion and to 
 be merry in his labour, this is the gift of God. 
 1 9. For he will not much think of the days of his 
 life, because God engages him with the joy of his 
 heart. 
 
 CHAPTEB VI. 
 
 1. There is an evil which I have seen under the 
 sun, and it befalls men frequently : 2. A man to whom 
 God gives riches and wealth and honour, so that he 
 wants nothing for his soul of all that he desires, yet 
 God gives him not the power to eat thereof, but a 
 stranger eats it. This is vanity, and it is an evil 
 disease. 3. If a man beget a hundred children, and 
 live many years, so that the days of his years be 
 many, and his soul do not fully enjoy happiness, and 
 if he also have no burial; I say that an abortion is 
 better than he. 4. For though it comes in vanity, 
 aftd departs in darkness, and its name is covered 
 with darkness, 5. And moreover it does not see nor 
 know the sun; yet this has more rest than the other 
 [the longlived man]. 6. Even though he live a 
 thousand years twice told, but have seen no happi- 
 ness: do not all go to one place? 7. All the labour 
 of man is for his mouth, and yet the desire is not 
 satisfied. 8. For what advantage has the wise man 
 over the fool? what the poor that knows how to 
 walk before the living? 
 
 9. Better is that which is in the sight of the eyes 
 than the wandering of the desire: this is also vanity 
 
50 THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES (VI. 10 VII. 11). 
 
 and empty trouble. 10. That which exists has been 
 named long since ; and it is known that he is but a 
 man, who cannot contend with Him who is mightier 
 than he. 1 1. For there are many things that increase 
 vanity: what advantage has man? 12. For who 
 knows what is good for man in life, in the numbered 
 days of his vain life, which he spends as a shadow? 
 For who can tell a man what shall be after him 
 under the sun? 
 
 CHAPTER vn. 
 
 1. As a good name is better than precious oint- 
 ment, so is the day of death better than the day of 
 one's birth. 2. It is better to go to the house of 
 mourning than to go to the house of feasting; for 
 that is the end of all men, and the living takes it to 
 heart. 3. Sorrow is better than laughter ; for in the 
 sadness of the countenance the heart remains good. 
 4. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, 
 but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. 
 
 5. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than 
 for a man to hear the song of fools. 6. For as the 
 crackling of thorns unter a pot, so is the laughter 
 of the fool: this also is vanity. 
 
 7. Surely oppression makes a wise man silly, 
 and a gift corrupts the heart. 8. Better is the end of 
 a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit 
 is better than the proud in spirit. 9. Be not hasty 
 in thy spirit to be angry; for anger is harboured in 
 the bosom of fools. 10. Say not, How is it that the 
 former days were better than these? for thou dost 
 not enquire wisely concerning this. 11. Wisdom is 
 
THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES (vil. 12 25). 51 
 
 as good as an inheritance, indeed better to those 
 that see the sun. 12. For wisdom is a protection 
 and money is a protection ; but the superiority of 
 knowledge is, that wisdom preserves the life of those 
 that possess it. 13. Consider the work of God; for 
 who can make that straight, which He has made 
 crooked? 14. In the day of happines be happy, 
 and in the day of adversity consider that God has 
 also ordained the one just like the other to the end 
 that man should find nothing after him. 
 
 15. All this have I seen in the days of my vanity. 
 There is a righteous man that perishes in his right- 
 eousness, and there is a bad man that prolongs his 
 life in his wickedness. 16. Be not righteous over 
 much, nor show thyself over wise; why shouldest 
 thou destroy thyself? 17. Be not over much wicked, 
 nor be thou foolish; why shouldest thou die before 
 thy time? 18. It is good that thou shouldest cling 
 to this, and yet from that also not withdraw thy 
 hand. For he that fears Grod comes forth safe of all 
 that. 19. Wisdom strengthens the wise more than 
 ten mighty men who are in the city. 20. Surely 
 there is not a just man upon earth that does what is 
 good and sins not. 21. Also take no heed of all words 
 that are spoke"n, lest thou hear thy servant curse 
 thee; 22. For oftentimes also thy own heart knows 
 that thou likewise hast cursed others. 
 
 23. All this have I tried by wisdom: I said, I will 
 be wise ; but it was far from me. 24. That which is 
 far off and exceedingly deep, who can find it out? 
 25. I turned my mind to know and to search and 
 seek out wisdom and intelligence, and to know 
 
52 THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES (VII. 26 Vm. 8). 
 
 wickedness, folly and foolishness and madness: 
 26. And I find more bitter than death the woman, 
 whose heart is nets and pitfalls, and whose hands are 
 chains: he who pleases God escapes from her, but the 
 sinner is ensnared by her. 27. Behold, these things 
 have I found, says the Preacher, one by one, to find 
 a result. 28. That which my soul is still seeking, and 
 I have not found, is this: one man among a thousand 
 have I found, but a woman among all those have I 
 not found. 29. This only, behold, have I found, that 
 God has made man upright, but they seek out many 
 devices. 
 
 CHAPTER vin. 
 
 1. Who is as the wise man? and who knows the 
 meaning of things ? A man's wisdom causes his face 
 to shine, and the boldness of his face is changed. 
 2. 1 say, Keep the king's charge, and that on account 
 of the oath of God. 3. Be not hasty to go away from 
 him; stand not in an evil thing; for he does what- 
 soever he pleases; 4. Since the word of a king is pow- 
 erful, and who can say to him, what doest thou? 
 5. He who keeps the commandment knows of no evil, 
 and a wise man's heart knows both time and judg- 
 ment. 6. For to every purpose there is a time and 
 judgment, for great is the misery of man that is upon 
 him. 7. For he knows not that which shall be; for 
 who can tell him how it shall be? 8. As there is no 
 man that has power over the wind to check the wind, 
 so there is no power in the day of death, and then 
 is no release in the war; nor does wickedness deliver 
 those that are given to it. 
 
THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES (vm. 9 17). 53 
 
 9. All this have I seen, and applied my heart to 
 every deed that is done under the sun. There is a 
 time when a man rules over his fellow-man to his own 
 harm. 10. And so also I saw the wicked buried, and 
 they came to their rest, while those that had acted 
 uprightly went away from the holy place and were 
 forgotten in the city. This is also vanity. 1 1 . Because 
 sentence upon an evil deed is not executed speedily, 
 therefore the heart of the sons of men is bold in 
 them to do evil. 12. But, though a sinner do evil a 
 hundred times and prolong his life, yet surely I know 
 that it shall be well with those that fear Grod, who 
 are in fear of Him; 13. But it shall not be well with 
 the wicked, nor shall he prolong his days as a 
 shadow; because he does not fear Grod. 14. There 
 is a vanity which is done upon the earth, that there 
 are righteous men, to whom it happens according to 
 the work of the wicked ; and that there are wicked 
 men, to whom it happens according to the work of 
 the righteous: I said, that this also is vanity. 15. Then 
 I praised mirth, because there is nothing better for 
 man under the sun than to eat and to drink and to be 
 merry; and that will abide with him of his labour the 
 days of his life, which God gives him under the sun. 
 16. When I applied my heart to know wisdom, 
 and to see the business that is done upon the earth 
 for neither day nor night man sees sleep with his 
 eyes : 17. Then I beheld all the work of Grod, that 
 a man cannot find out the work that is done under 
 the sun: for though a man labour to seek it out, yet 
 he will not find it', and even if a wise man desires 
 to know it, he is not able to find it. 
 
54 THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES (iX. 1 9). 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 1. For all this I considered in my heart, and tried 
 to explore all this, that the righteous and the wise 
 and their works are in the hand of G-od; no man 
 knows either love or hatred; all that lies before them. 
 
 2. All things come alike to all: the same chance 
 befalls the righteous and the wicked, the good and 
 the clean and the unclean, him that sacrifices and 
 him that sacrifices not; as is the good, so is the 
 sinner, and he that swears as he that fears an oath. 
 
 3. This is an evil in all things that are done under 
 the sun, that the same chance befalls all; therefore 
 also is the heart of the sons of man full of evil, and 
 madness is in their heart while they live; and after 
 that they go to the dead. 4. For to him that is joined 
 to all the living there is hope; for a living dog is 
 better than a dead lion. 5. For the living know that 
 they shall die; but the dead know not anything, nor 
 have they any more a reward; for their memory is 
 forgotten. 6. Both their love and their hatred and 
 their envy have passed away long since, nor have 
 they for ever any more a portion in any thing that 
 is done under the sun. 
 
 7. Gro thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink 
 thy wine with a merry heart ; for God has long since 
 declared these thy deeds acceptable. 8. At all times 
 let thy garments be white, and let not thy head 
 lack ointment. 9. Live joyfully with the wife whom 
 thou lovest all the days of thy life of vanity, which 
 He has given thee under the sun, all the days of 
 thy vanity; for that is thy portion in life and in thy 
 
THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES (iX. 10 X. 2). 55 
 
 labour in which thou toilest under the sun. 10. What- 
 soever thy hand finds to do with thy strength, do; 
 for there is no work nor intelligence nor knowledge 
 nor wisdom in the Sheol whither thou goest. 
 
 11. Again I saw under the sun, that the race is 
 not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor 
 yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to the intelli- 
 gent, nor yet favour to the shrewd; but time and 
 chance happen to them all. 12. For man also knows 
 not his time: as the fishes that are caught in an 
 evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the 
 snare, so are the sons of men entrapped in the time 
 of misfortune, when it falls suddenly upon them. 
 
 1 3. This also have I seen that there is wisdom under 
 the sun, and it seemed great to me: 14. There was 
 a little city, and few men within it; and there came 
 a great king against it, and besieged it, and built 
 great bulwarks against it: 15. Now there was found 
 in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered 
 the city ; yet no man remembered that poor man. 
 16. Then said I, Wisdom is better then strength: 
 nevertheless the poor man's wisdom is despised, and 
 his words are not listened to. 17. The words of the 
 wise are listened to in quiet more than the cry of 
 the ruler among fools. 18. Wisdom is better than 
 weapons of war; but one sinner destrpys much good. 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 1. Asde&d flies cause the ointment of the apothecary 
 to stink and putrefy, so is a little folly more powerful 
 than wisdom and honour. 2. A wise man's heart is 
 at his right hand, but a fool's heart at his left. 
 
56 THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES (x. 319). 
 
 3. Also when the fool goes anywhere, his mind fails 
 him, and he says to every one that he is a fool. 4. If 
 the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not 
 thy place; for yielding pacifies great offences. 
 5. There is an evil which I have seen under the sun 
 on account of an error which proceeds from the 
 ruler: 6. Folly is placed in great dignity, and the rich 
 sit in lowliness. 7. I have seen servants upon horses, 
 and princes walking as servants on foot. 8. He that 
 digs a pit falls into it, and he that breaks a hedge is 
 bitten by a serpent. 9. He that hews stones hurts 
 himself therewith, and he that cleaves wood endan- 
 gers himself thereby. 10. If the iron be blunt, and 
 he do not whet the edge, then must he use greater 
 force; but wisdom is more profitable for success. 
 
 1 1. If the serpent bites for lack of enchantment, then 
 there is no profit in a master of the tongue. 
 
 12. The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious, 
 but the lips of a fool will destroy him. 13. The 
 beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness; 
 and the end of his talk is mischievous madness. 
 14. And the fool is full of words; yet man does not 
 know what shall be ; and what shall be after him, 
 who can tell him? 15. The labour of the foolish 
 wearies him out, who does not know how to go to 
 the town. 16. Woe to thee, land, whose king is a 
 child, and whose princes feast in the morning. 
 17. Happy art thou, land, whose king is the son 
 of nobles, and whose princes eat in due season, for 
 strength and not for revelry. 18. By slothfulness 
 the beam decays, and through idleness of the hands 
 the house drops through. 19. A feast is made for 
 
THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES (x. 20 XI. 9). 57 
 
 merriment, and wine gladdens life; and money pro- 
 cures everything. 20. Not even in thy thought 
 curse the king, nor curse the rich in thy bedchamber; 
 for the bird of the air carries the voice, and the 
 winged creature tells the matter. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 1. Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt 
 find it again after many days. 2. Give a portion to 
 seven and also to eight; for thou knowest not what 
 evil may be upon the earth. 3. When the clouds 
 are full of rain, they empty it out upon the earth; 
 and when a tree falls towards the south or towards 
 the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it 
 lies. 4. He that observes the wind does not sow; 
 and he that regards the clouds does not reap. 
 5. As thou knowest not what is the way of the wind, 
 nor how the bones grow in the womb of her that is 
 with child ; so thou knowest not the works of Grod 
 who makes everything. 6. In the morning sow thy 
 seed, and in the evening let not thy hand rest ; for 
 thou knowest not which shall prosper, whether this 
 or that, or whether they both shall be alike good. 
 7. And light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes 
 to behold the sun. 8. Indeed, if a man live many 
 years, let him rejoice in them all, and remember the 
 days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that 
 comes into existence is vanity. 
 
 9. Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let 
 thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy young 
 strength, and walk in the ways of thy heart and 
 in the sight of thy eyes! But know thou, that for 
 
58 THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES (xi. 10. XH. 10). 
 
 all this Grod will bring thee into judgment. 10. And 
 remove sorrow from thy heart, and keep thy body 
 free from evil; for youth, as the morning dawn, is 
 vanity. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 1. And remember thy Creator in the days of 
 thy youthful strength, ere the evil days come, and 
 the years draw nigh, of which thou shalt say, I have 
 no pleasure in them; 2. Ere the sun and the light 
 and the moon and the stars are darkened, and the 
 clouds return after the rain; 3. In the time when the 
 keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men 
 are bent, and the grinders are at rest because they 
 are few, and those that look out of the windows 
 are darkened, 4. And the doors in the street are 
 shut because the sound of the mill is faint, and 
 when one rises at the voice of the bird, and all the 
 daughters of song are low, 5. And when they are 
 afraid of heights, and terrors are on the road, and 
 the almond is despised, and the locust becomes 
 distasteful, and the caperberry fails because man 
 goes to his eternal house, and the mourners go 
 about the streets ,6. Ere the silver cord is severed 
 and the golden lamp shattered, and the pitcher is 
 broken at the fountain and the wheel shattered at 
 the cistern, 7. And the dust returns to the earth as 
 it was, and the spirit returns to God, who gave it. 
 
 8. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, all is vanity. 
 
 9. And the Preacher, besides being wise, also 
 taught the people knowledge; and he examined and 
 searched, and set forth many proverbs. 10. The 
 
THE BOOK. 59 
 
 Preacher sought to find out pleasing words and, 
 written in uprightness, words of truth. 11. The 
 words of the wise are as goads, and the men of the 
 assemblies as fastened nails; they are appointed by 
 one shepherd. 12. And further, by these, my son, 
 be warned: of making many books there is no end; 
 and much study is a weariness of the flesh. 
 
 13. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole 
 matter: Fear God and keep His commandments; 
 for this is the whole man; 14. For God will bring 
 every deed into judgment, even every secret thing, 
 whether it be good or whether it be evil. 
 
 When Mondoza had finished reading, a desultory dis- 
 cussion arose on the rendering of the most disputed verses and 
 terms, in the course of which Rabbi Gideon emphatically 
 declared that a natural and correct interpretation of the 
 Scriptures was only to be found in Talmud, Midrash, 
 and Sohar; a but a most pertinacious controversy was 
 carried on with regard to the passage which Subbhuti had 
 cited last, till finally a virtual agreement was attained, 
 though not without various modifications and strong provisos 
 on the part of Berghorn and Humphrey. Then the host 
 observed : 
 
 'However desirable it is accurately to understand every 
 single phrase, it cannot be our object to enter into philo- 
 logical niceties which, I am well aware, have an interest 
 only to few of us; but, faithful to the course we have 
 always followed in these conversations, we should try to 
 discover and to debate those general ideas which are 
 important to all alike as forming essential elements in our 
 actual modes of thought, and involving the motives of our 
 daily conduct. We do not search for that which appertains 
 to one time or one nation, but for those truths which flow 
 ,from the constitution and wants of human nature, and are 
 /on that account universal and unchanging. Let no one 
 
60 . THE BOOK. 
 
 presume to disparage or to deride learning ; yet it is only 
 the toilsome, and often steep and thorny road that leads 
 to the goal of serenity and freedom. It should, in the 
 poet's words, be "like the heaven's glorious sun" ; and it is 
 indeed mere "weariness of the flesh" and "continual 
 plodding", if it does not unchain and wing the mind in 
 rising to the first causes and their irrevocable operation.* 
 Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas'.* 
 
 'What else can be our aim', observed Wolfram, 'than 
 to learn 
 
 "By what pow'r 
 
 "The world is to its centre held"'?* 
 
 'True', said Humphrey with a slightly satirical curve of 
 his lips, 'but without reaching the despair of Faust'. 
 
 'Or the apostasy of Elisha ben Abujah', added Rabbi 
 Gideon. 
 
 'And as it appears to me', continued Mondoza, not 
 heeding the interruptions, 'that the Book of Ecclesiastes 
 mainly relates to the Enjoyment of Life, which very closely 
 concerns us all, may I suggest, that this question form 
 the subject of our discussion at our next meetings, and 
 that we, accordingly, enquire by what system of religion or 
 philosophy true enjoyment is best attained and secured' ? 
 
 '"The words of the wise are as goads,"' said Canon 
 Mortimer with a genial smile, '"and" 'was not this your 
 translation' ? "the men of the assemblies are as fastened 
 nails" : it is a pleasure to be led by so gentle a shepherd, 
 and although, in argument, we know that "one nail drives 
 out another", we shall each be found at our post like a 
 flag nailed to the mast.' 
 
 After conversing for some time in different groups on 
 the political and literary events of the day, the guests 
 separated for the night, having expressed to the host their 
 ready assent to his proposal. 
 
 iWas die Welt 
 "Im Innersten zusammenhalt" (Goethe 1 s Faust, I. 1). 
 
III. THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 THE next evening many of the Mends were already 
 assembled in the drawing-room, when the young and eager 
 minister of the Adi Brahmo Somadsh entered and, after 
 respectful salutations, turned to Erasmus Hermes, saying : 
 
 'Let me once more assure you how deeply I feel the 
 pleasure and advantage I derived this morning from your 
 company and explanations. Without so experienced a 
 guide my visit at the grand Institution would have been 
 perplexing and humiliating, rather than instructive. For, 
 surely, in order to appreciate and fully to relish the trea- 
 sures of antiquity in the British Museum, we need that 
 freedom of mind and that extensive erudition, of which your 
 kindness allowed me to enjoy the fullest benefit'. 
 
 'Whatever may be your satisfaction, which you so 
 generously express', replied Hermes politely, 'it can hardly 
 be equal to my own ; for your society has confirmed me in 
 the conviction that the masterpieces of Greek sculpture 
 exercise their irresistible power upon every susceptible 
 mind, no less in our utilitarian time than in the golden 
 era of Phidias and Praxiteles; not less in our northern 
 skies than in the sunny clime of Athens or Corinth; nor 
 less strongly upon an enthusiastic son of the East than upon 
 a tranquil sage of the Academy or the Porch. The relics 
 of Greek art are indeed among those precious possessions 
 which our host yesterday described as not appertaining 
 to one age and one people, but, being the emanations of 
 the highest gifts of our common nature, belong to mankind 
 for ever. And as Art essentially contributes to cheerful 
 enjoyment and cloudless serenity, it is religious in its 
 
62 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 influences and effects; nay it is itself the noblest, as it is 
 the most attractive, form of religion'. 
 
 'Indeed', assented Wolfram, 'if we desire to attain to a 
 humanity both sweet and perfect, we must discard the 
 chilling austerities of our Eastern creeds, those bitter fruits 
 of a luxuriant soil, and be Greeks again in temperament 
 and conceptions. How cold and blank does our world 
 appear to those who vividly recall that of a Homer or 
 Pericles, and have made this their haven and refuge ! Has 
 it vanished, that beautiful earth where the celestials, affec- 
 tionately associating with mortals, led happy generations by 
 the bands of joy, and demanded no other worship than 
 the mirthful songs of flower-wreathed maidens in radiant 
 temples, and the inspiriting games of emulating heroes 
 in lovely groves? Where are the days, when sombre reality 
 beamed in the roseate hues of poetry, grave truth smiled 
 in the dazzling garb of blithe fancy, and labour had no 
 other end than to add a keener zest to pleasure; when 
 breathing Nature revealed in every rivulet, in every tree 
 and rock, the loving trace of a god; when the sun and 
 the myriads of stars moved in tender harmony with men's 
 lives and hopes, and men themselves could expect, as a 
 reward for high deeds, to shine as immortals among the 
 hosts of heaven; when the heart, glowing in delight, knew 
 neither fear nor hatred, and even death, coming gently as a 
 beautiful youth, had no terrors, since it opened the portals 
 of an Elysium bright with a new existence of bliss ; when the 
 joyous mind matured all its innate blossoms and graces, 
 and Hellas at last gave birth to the divine Plato who, 
 to purify and exalt mankind, brought down from Olym- 
 pus the undying ideals of all that is great and beautiful 
 and noble' ? a 
 
 'I can hardly believe', said Humphrey with a marked tinge 
 of irony, 'that even a man whose eye, "in a fine frenzy 
 rolling", contemplates the past and the present through the 
 magic veil of poetry, should cling in sincerity to such airy 
 phantoms and unsubstantial shadows. The much vaunted 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 63 
 
 happiness of the ancient Greeks must, I am convinced, 
 be reckoned among the most unaccountable of popular 
 fallacies. There is scarcely a writer from Homer down 
 to the latest philosophers of the Roman Empire, who 
 does not draw human life in colours awfully dismal and 
 gloomy. From the almost endless array of proofs, it will 
 suffice to cite a few as they happen to occur to my memory. 
 
 'Homer, who represents his gods as "ever free from care", 
 "lightly living", and feasting in heaven, while they sit on 
 golden thrones and indulge in inextinguishable laughter* 
 Homer himself leads the melancholy chorus. He not only 
 applies to men the constant epithet of "wretched", b but he 
 lets Zeus declare: "Of all the creatures that breathe and 
 move on earth, none is more miserable than man", and 
 though he fancies that he will never suffer ill, as long as he 
 feels his strength unimpaired, he must, however reluctantly, 
 submit to the gods who constantly send him misfortunes. 
 
 'Does Hesiod, who reaches back into antiquity far enough 
 to be considered as intermediary between the epochs of 
 legend and history, content himself with describing a golden 
 time ? He sketches so terrible a picture of his own "iron 
 age", that hardly a single feature of human misery and 
 crime seems wanting. "Oh", he exclaims bitterly, "that I 
 were not linked with the fifth generation of men, but had 
 either died before, or been born later! For the present 
 race is of iron, and neither have they by day rest of toil 
 and woe, nor by night of consuming sorrow ; since the gods 
 dispense grievous troubles . . . The father is not true to 
 his child, nor the child to his father, not the guest to the 
 host, nor friend to friend; not even a brother is loving 
 and faithful as of old . . . Violence prevails ; town destroys 
 town; and honour, withheld from the pious and righteous, is 
 lavished upon the haughty evil-doer. Justice and shame 
 have disappeared, and wickedness tyranises over virtue." 
 And summing up his doleful experience, the poet concludes: 
 "Sad griefs alone are left to mortal men, and from those 
 ills there is no rescue". d How is it possible to express 
 
64 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 more forcibly anguish and despair? Not one ray is left 
 from the glory of Paradise to cheer a degenerate and 
 mournful race'. 
 
 'I must beg you', said Attinghausen 'not to introduce 
 myths. Science proclaims an invariable progress from the 
 less to the more perfect, never the reverse. Man has 
 not fallen, but risen. He struggled, successively, from 
 the rude epoch of stone to that of bronze, thence onward 
 to the period of iron, and a golden age, if it be possible at 
 all, lies not in the past, but in the distant future'. 
 
 'If, as some modern sages have proved to their own satis- 
 faction', replied Humphrey, 'the notion of Paradise is 
 not even a psychological possibility, how do they account 
 for the hard fact that it was actually conceived by nearly 
 all nations'? 
 
 'Indeed', said Subbhuti, 'we firmly believe that the 
 earliest inhabitants of the earth, being produced by "appari- 
 tional birth" , started at once in full maturity of existence ; 
 and as they retained many of the attributes of the better 
 world from whence they had come, they lived all together 
 in innocence and peace without requiring food, could soar 
 through the air at will, and their bodies shone forth in 
 such a glory that there was no need for a sun or moon ; 
 till they unfortunately lost all this happiness by eating of 
 the fatal substance which, having the appearance of boiled 
 milk, grew temptingly on the surface of the earth/* 
 
 'Pray, let me return to the pretended joyousness of 
 heathendom', resumed Humphrey, who did not seem 
 pleased with Subbhuti's analogy. 'The thoughtful poet 
 Theognis declares: "Of all things the most desirable would 
 be not to exist and not to behold the beams of the piercing 
 sun; but, having been born, it is best quickly to pass 
 through the gates of Hades and to lie buried under a high 
 mound of earth". b Would one not fancy to hear the heart- 
 rending laments extorted from Jeremiah or Job in times 
 of exceptional tribulation, or the fretful complaints indulged 
 in by our Ecclesiastes during his brief moods of unhappy 
 

 '.i V 
 
 THE CYNIC AND THK S 
 
 $& 65 
 
 scepticism? 3 nay are we not reminded of the custom reported 
 to have prevailed among some savage tribes of Thrace 
 and the Caucasus, who wept over new-born infants for 
 having entered this world of trouble, but buried the dead 
 with songs of rejoicing at their fortunate release? 5 
 
 'It may not appear surprising that the same desolate 
 sentiment is expressed with equal force by Euripides ; c but 
 who would expect it to pervade the productions of all 
 the other tragic writers likewise, so as to throw a veil 
 of the deepest despondency over their pages? Yet no one 
 perhaps, whether in ancient or modern times, has depicted 
 the ill-fated darkness of human existence with such over- 
 whelming power and thrilling pathos as Aeschylus in his 
 Prometheus, who, blessing men with the priceless and 
 heavenly boon of fire and for this act of beneficence 
 doomed to horrible agonies, is made to exemplify the 
 woeful experience that "he who achieves must suifer; so 
 sounds the primeval decree." d Nor is this the only harrowing 
 elegy poured forth by the recondite poet. Impregnated 
 with a weary melancholy must have been a mind that 
 exclaimed, "Alas for human life ! if happy, a shadow may 
 overthrow it; but, more grievous still, if sorrowful, a 
 moistened sponge wipes out the picture" 6 ; or that glorified 
 Death as the supreme deliverer ardently to be loved. f 
 
 'Where should a calm serenity be more surely looked 
 for than in the works of Sophocles who, in thought and 
 language, represents to us the perfection of Greek harmony ? 
 Yet he also joins in the general dirge: "Not to be born, 
 is man's highest felicity; the next, having seen the light, 
 swiftly to return from whence he came" ;& or: "Oh, mortal 
 and care-laden race of men! how, in our nothingness, do 
 we resemble shadows creatures chased about as a valueless 
 burden of the earth" ! h "If I die before my time", exclaims 
 Antigone, "I call it gain"; and Ajax: "I see that we all 
 who live are nothing but phantoms or empty shadows". 1 
 
 'Is it necessary to cite additional instances from Euripides? 
 They are at hand in abundance, all dilating on the same 
 
66 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 sad theme that "the fate of mortals is toil". a Not unlike 
 the curse fastened upon Eve is man's clinging to life in spite 
 of its dire wretchedness: "Oh ye life-loving mortals, who 
 ever yearn to see the morrow, though laden with the weight 
 of unnumbered ills" ! b And yet man grasps so convulsively 
 this existence of sorrow only from the tormenting uncer- 
 tainty of his lot after death, which he dreads as a riddle 
 obscure and fearful; and in vain does his anxious soul 
 languish for deliverance from this agony of doubt. d 
 
 'Let me pass over the touching regrets of Pindar, the 
 magnificent, at man's frailty, "the dream of a shadow" 6 , 
 bound to purchase every joy by consuming torture f , and 
 merely allude to the famous line of Menander, "He whom 
 the gods love dies young ;" but let me proceed to 
 Herodotus, the placid, who embodied this maxim in the 
 charming story of the pious youths Cleobis and Biton, 
 concluding with the words: "In these the gods have clearly 
 shown, that it is better for man to die than to live'". h 
 
 'May I be permitted', said Hermes 'for why should I 
 not be generous even to an adversary? in confirmation of 
 this remark to remind you of the analogous but perhaps 
 not quite so familiar narrative concerning Trophonius and 
 Agamedes, which, originally related by Pindar, has been 
 preserved to us by Cicero and Plutarch? After those two 
 brothers, the sons of a king of Orchomenus, had with great 
 exertions and sacrifices built the beautiful temple of 
 Apollo at Delphi, they entreated the god to bestow upon 
 them as a recompense that gift which would make them 
 most happy. Apollo replied that in three days their 
 petition would be granted, and at daybreak on the third 
 day they were found dead. 1 Nay when Pindar himself 
 once enquired of the oracle, what was best for man, the 
 priestess is said to have replied: of this he could not be 
 ignorant, if indeed he had sung of the fate of Trophonius 
 and Agamedes; yet he would soon be still more clearly 
 enlightened and a few days afterwards he died. k But 
 what do all these stories prove ? Hardly anything else, I 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 67 
 
 imagine, than the Biblical account of the comparatively 
 short life of Enoch, who "walked with God, and was no 
 more, for God had taken him"'. 
 
 'How is it possible', cried Humphrey, loftily, 'to maintain 
 such a parallel for a single moment? The heathen fables 
 exhibit the gods as arbitrary, capricious and frivolous; 
 for why do they grant life, if they do not mean it to 
 extend to its natural duration? Whether giving or taking 
 away, they act alike without a deeper ethical purpose. 
 You will ask, Why then was it necessary that Enoch 
 should depart prematurely? If the reason were not amply 
 evident from the narrative in Genesis, we should learn it 
 from that profound Apocryphal Book, the Wisdom of 
 Solomon, which plainly tells us: "Enoch pleased God, and 
 was beloved by Him, so that, living among sinners, he 
 was translated"; and again: "He being made perfect in 
 a short time, fulfilled a long time". a Enoch', continued 
 Humphrey, beating regular time with his right forefinger, 
 'Enoch died so young, not that he might be delivered 
 from worldly troubles, but that he might be protected from 
 the pitfalls of sin ; therefore, in dying young, he lost not the 
 true end of his existence ; for when he died, he was perfect 
 in piety and righteousness. We have here one of the 
 many striking instances proving the necessity of extreme 
 cautiousness in adducing heathen analogies: materials 
 almost identical are generally made to convey ideas 
 totally opposite. Paganism regards the body, revelation 
 the soul; the one is of the earth, earthy, the other connects 
 man with heaven'. 
 
 'On these points', replied Hermes politely, 'I cannot 
 presume to argue with the learned Professor of Divinity, 
 who enjoys means of illumination denied to an uninitiated 
 layman: may I ask him to continue with his relentless 
 indictment of classical antiquity'? 
 
 'I had observed', resumed Humphrey, ignoring the irony, 
 'that, according to Herodotus, even the most deserving 
 men were at a loss how to employ their lives with profit 
 
68 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 or contentment. But this is not all ; he declares, through 
 the mouth of the Persian Artabanus, that there has pro- 
 bably never existed a man who did not more than once 
 yearn for death as his sole escape from constant af- 
 fliction, and our torture is only enhanced by the moments 
 of happiness we are occasionally allowed to taste ; so that, 
 both in our life and our death, we manifestly see the 
 envy of the deity a , that does not suffer our prosperity to 
 be either great or lasting b . Indeed the thoughtful historian 
 is constantly and irrepressibly pursued by the idea that 
 human life is nothing but an unbroken chain of unavoi- 
 dable accidents which may at any moment shatter the 
 proudest power or fortune; he illustrates this conviction, 
 with tragical effect, by the conspicuous instance of Croesus, 
 and he never fails to impress a warning against calling a 
 man happy before his death. c Are such principles in any 
 way compatible with serenity of mind? More excruciating 
 than a Damocles' sword, the fear of rousing the jealousy of 
 the gods poisoned the enjoyment of the very boons which 
 they themselves were supposed to have bestowed. Nor 
 was that a fear which leads to wisdom or piety, but on 
 the contrary, a fear which undermined both, founded as 
 it was upon a depravity in the gods, which is the most 
 odious and detestable even in men'. 
 
 'But should we not remember', said Mondoza, 'that 
 this old view of the envy the deity was but transitorily 
 held; that not long after Herodotus, Anaxagoras with 
 equal decision laid down the maxim, "The deity is good"; 
 and that the same pure notion was still more refined by 
 subsequent thinkers' ? d 
 
 'Be this as it may', continued Humphrey, who felt that 
 he had laid perhaps too much stress on that point ; 'was 
 the disheartening apprehension of the treacherous insta- 
 bility of all human possessions ever conquered? The 
 fickleness of fortune was dwelt upon at all times 6 and des- 
 cribed in every conceivable imagery as a hasty flight, a 
 swiftly rolling stream, and especially as withering foliage/ 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 69 
 
 which simile indeed Biblical writers also employ, but never 
 without adding some elevating comfort; for when they 
 exclaim, "All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is as the 
 flower of the field", they hasten to continue, "But the word of 
 our God shall stand for ever": a we are readily reconciled to 
 the brevity of our existence when we know, that, whether 
 we live or die, God's kingdom on earth is steadily advanced'. 
 
 Several of the listeners seemed desirous to reply, but 
 Humphrey resumed quickly: 
 
 'Pray, do not let me lose the thread of my remarks. 
 I have hitherto spoken of the poets and historians ; do we 
 find the matter different when we turn to the philosophers? 
 Did these succeed in attaining by reflection that cheer- 
 fulness which the former were unable to secure by ima- 
 gination and experience? Certainly not; the writings of 
 the philosophers are no less shrouded in gloom and des- 
 pondency. Not astonishing perhaps is the saying of the 
 mystic Empedocles that "the miserable and wretched race 
 of men is wholly made up of struggles and groans" ; b but 
 who would expect similar, nay stronger laments being 
 uttered by that Plato whom our ardent Graecophile, in 
 common with many others, has called the divine, who is 
 uniformly pourtrayed to us as ever dwelling in the ce- 
 lestial and joyous harmonies of the spheres, and who, in 
 conjunction with his master, unjustly condemned and ready 
 to die, is so often asserted not only to have anticipated, 
 but in many points to have surpassed, the doctrines of 
 Christianity? And yet this divine Plato contends, that 
 "he who properly applies himself to philosophy ... is 
 only intent upon the one object of dying and being dead", c 
 that is, he is burning to escape from life's torments'. 
 
 'You must indeed allow me', said Canon Mortimer, 
 'here to interrupt you for a moment. If I remember 
 rightly, Plato, in this passage of Phaedo, meant to express 
 that peculiar idea of "yearning for death" [AsXsrav ano- 
 ^vyvKetv which recalls the Apostle's words, "you are dead 
 and your life is hid with Christ in God", d and to convey 
 
70 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 that the wise man frees himself, by every effort of con- 
 templation, from the disturbing influences of the body, and 
 thus tastes, even while still living on earth, a felicity si- 
 milar to that which his unfettered soul will enjoy in the 
 realms of immortality.* Am I mistaken in this reading 
 of the words?' he added, turning to Hermes. 
 
 'I believe,' replied Hermes, 'that they have always been 
 so understood by the profane expositors of the fine dialogue, 
 from Cicero down to our own time." 3 
 
 'By all in fact', added Wolfram calmly, 'who do not search 
 the literature of the Greeks as a polemical armoury, but 
 study it for improvement. In assuming an absolute hostility 
 between Christianity and pagan culture, you will neither 
 understand the one nor the other'. 
 
 "'"Anyone", muttered Attinghausen, glancing at Hum- 
 phrey, "anyone can cite Scripture for his purpose", as the 
 poet says/ c 
 
 'Well', continued Humphrey, by no means disconcerted, 
 *I can easily afford to sacrifice a few lines in Plato, as I am 
 able to adduce for my argument a whole work, in which the 
 same philosopher expresses himself with unmistakable 
 clearness I mean the dialogue "Axiochus" or "On death"'. 
 
 'It is with extreme regret', said Hermes with a passing 
 expression of irony, 'that I am again compelled to con- 
 tradict. The small book, in its first part, alludes to the 
 instruction given in the Academy and the Lyceum; it 
 cannot, therefore, have been written by Plato, but only 
 after his death, when his successors occupied the Academy, 
 and those of Aristotle the Lyceum.' d 
 
 'But certainly', rejoined Humphrey stubbornly, 'the author 
 of the "Axiochus" lived not long after Plato and wrote 
 in his spirit'. 
 
 'This must, to a certain extent, be admitted', said 
 Hermes, 'and you are free to draw any legitimate con- 
 clusion from this concession'. 
 
 'Well then', continued Humphrey in a tone as if he 
 had achieved a triumph, 'what does Socrates maintain in 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 71 
 
 that work? After quoting with approval some of the Ho- 
 meric and Euripidean meanings on human distress,* he 
 contends that man is a soul pent up in a mortal prison 
 during a wearisome journey, not a single portion of which, 
 from the helplessness of infancy to the crippling infirmities 
 of old age, b is exempt from pain and vexation; that a 
 removal from this life is a change from an evil to a 
 blessing which the gods grant early to those they love; 
 and that all alike, writhing under cares and passions, be- 
 wail their condition, whether they follow the slippery and 
 thorny paths of ambition as statesmen and scholars, or 
 earn a precarious livelihood in constant toil and peril; 
 and he finally confesses that he was so strongly impressed 
 by the teaching of the wise Prodicus on these matters, 
 that he had long since "drawn a line through the word 
 life as a thing utterly valueless", and was longing for 
 nothing so fervently as for death'. d 
 
 *I must at present', observed Hermes with more than 
 his usual decision, 'content myself with simply recording 
 my protest against these remarks and deductions, hoping 
 that a subsequent meeting will afford me an opportunity of 
 stating my reasons'. 
 
 'But this is not enough', continued Humphrey, without 
 attempting a rejoinder, and without the least change in 
 his voice and manner; 'the much extolled lessons of 
 Socrates, bearing fruit in many directions, matured two 
 monstrosities opposite in character but equal in hideous 
 noxiousness the sect of the Cynics andofCyrenaics. Who 
 can be so bold as to talk of enjoyment of life, when he 
 recalls the caricature figures of an Antisthenes and his 
 still more uncouth disciple Diogenes? When we represent 
 to ourselves these so-styled philosophers enveloped in a 
 coarse cloak as their only garment, and carrying a stick 
 and wallet to complete their beggar's outfit, and when we 
 see them infesting the streets and market places, demanding 
 alms or food, we fancy ourselves in the desolate forests 
 near one of the Buddhistic vihdras in China or Japan, in 
 
72 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 Ceylon or Java, and not in the presence of the "radiant 
 temples" and "flower- wreathed altars" of holy Athens or 
 Corinth; and instead of admiration, we can only feel dis- 
 gust or a Christian's compassion.' 
 
 '"Those who live in glass houses etc.'", said Atting- 
 hausen sotto voce. 'As if the Church had not fed more 
 mendicants than all the other creeds together'! 
 
 'The wise Sirach enjoins', said Rabbi Gideon with 
 emphasis, "My son, lead not a beggar's life; far better 
 it is to die than to beg"; and he declares justly, "Beg- 
 ging is sweet in the mouth of the shameless'".* 
 
 'Properly, therefore', added Humphrey with satis- 
 faction, 'was Antisthenes, on account of that brazen- 
 faced shamelessness, called "a downright dog" 'AnXo- 
 KVUV and his votaries simply Cynics'. b 
 
 'But Diogenes', interposed Mondoza, 'was designated 
 "the offspring of Zeus and a heavenly dog"\ c 
 
 'I thank our good host for this timely remark', said 
 Subbhuti with ardour. 'The fame of Diogenes has 
 reached us also and has penetrated into those Buddhistic 
 monastries to which our theological friend has referred 
 so contemptuously, and which, I am sure, he can not 
 have visited. We greatly admired Diogenes when we 
 learnt that, living in a tub, he cast away even his 
 cup when he saw a child drink out of the hand, and 
 broke his spoon when he found a boy taking up his 
 lentils with a crust of bread ; d that he asked of the 
 mighty king of Macedon no other favour than "not to 
 shade him from the sun"; and that, begging his simple 
 wants, he devoted himself entirely to his own improve- 
 ment and that of his fellow-men. All this we heard 
 with delight and confessed that he was a worthy disciple 
 of the great Buddha himself. For Gautama, the prince, 
 brought up in luxury and splendour, the heir to a power- 
 ful kingdom, gloried in none of his numerous names so 
 much as in that of "Maha Bhixu" or "the Great Mendi- 
 cant"; of this appellation he was prouder than of the 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 73 
 
 titles of Tatliagata, Baglmvat, Bodliisattva, Arhat, Qra- 
 mana, and even Dagabala, which describe his spiritual 
 dignity, his greatness of mind, and sanctity of heart; a 
 and we, his followers, feel honoured when our opponents 
 mean to deride us as Bhixus'. 
 
 'More easily indeed can you endure this designation', 
 said Arvada-Kalama pointedly, 'than those more reproach- 
 ful names of Ndstikas and Sunyavadins, which mark you 
 as believers in nothing or in a universal void'. b 
 
 'I know well how to appreciate your kind indulgence', 
 rejoined Subbhuti, without showing irritation, 'when I recall 
 to my mind those Brahmans who, with a high-sounding 
 term, call themselves Digambaras, that is, "men clothed 
 with space", but whom the Greeks, when they saw them 
 with amazement on the borders of the Ganges, called 
 yymnosophists, because they rejoice in a nudity shunned 
 even by savages. That simplicity of dress which our 
 Master enjoined and practised, was, however, one only of 
 the twelve rigorous observances which, in their combina- 
 tion, constitute the life of a pious ascetic, and one only 
 of the two hundred and twenty-seven precepts and pro- 
 hibitions of the Pratimoksha or great code of discipline, 
 which qualify him to rise to the highest contemplation. 
 And when we remember how strongly Buddha insisted 
 on almsgiving as a boundless charity to be practised 
 towards all creatures with the utmost self-sacrifice, and 
 how he intended it to lead "to the perfect maturity of 
 our individual being", that is, to the absolute extinction 
 of every impulse of selfishness; we must acknowledge 
 that the prescribed mendicancy of the holy monks is an 
 important means of moral training, and as such it has 
 in reality ever been found efficacious. 7 
 
 'Forsooth', exclaimed Humphrey emphatically, 'the 
 champions of Cynicism, by a strange fatality, become its 
 severest arraigners, and the very analogies they cite 
 condemn it. For what is Buddhism but an unwieldy 
 tree rank and poisonous, and ready to be cut down by 
 
74 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 the axe of Christianity, since it "cumbereth the ground" 
 as the most formidable of all superstitions that oppose 
 the spread of the Gospel? The Buddhist's charity is not 
 self-denial, but the most transparent selfishness; it does 
 not inculcate the command "to give", but the prohi- 
 bition "to take", unless the gift be offered as alms; it 
 engenders none of the activities of benevolence; it is 
 as inoperative as the dead faith which the Apostle James 
 rebukes; for the whole character of the Buddhist's prin- 
 ciples is negative; he resembles the modern utilitarian, 
 not in aiming at the greatest possible happiness, but at 
 the removal of all possible inconvenience from himself; 
 and in his scheme "nature becomes a machine, man an 
 organism, morality self-interested, deity a fiction". a Almost 
 the same may be said of his western twin-brother, the 
 Cynic', continued Humphrey quickly, as he saw Subbhuti 
 ready to reply; 'no sophistries will be able to disprove 
 that the Greek Cynics made human existence a frightful 
 parody, outraged decency, and revelled in habits at once 
 preposterous and repulsive. 6 To live in conformity to 
 nature was to them to live like beasts ; the human body, 
 which the Apostle Paul more than once calls "the Temple 
 of the living God", c was to them not merely the dungeon 
 of the soul, but its very grave'. d 
 
 'They called it even "a carcase" ', murmured Gideon, 6 
 'thus surpassing the very Buddhists, who regard it as 
 one large wound or sore, of which the garments are the 
 bandage'/ 
 
 'Is "beasts" not rather a strong term to apply to the 
 sect'? said Panini with hesitation. 
 
 'Not at all', answered Humphrey dogmatically. 'Diogenes 
 did not blush to advocate the community of women and 
 children, the nullity of marriage, and horribile dictu the 
 eating of human flesh. In such principles and practices 
 he saw nothing either "absurd" or "impious", and he 
 believed that all nations might adopt them with the greatest 
 advantage.^ The Cynics, in clamouring for the suppression 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 75 
 
 of the passions, blunted all natural feelings; and in 
 preaching contempt of praise, displayed an unbearable 
 vanity and arrogance. The bitter abuse with which the 
 disciples of the same master assailed each other incessantly, 
 was surely not edifying; but when Diogenes reproached 
 Plato with conceit and interminable ventilation of palpable 
 fallacies, and Plato, on the other hand, raised the counter- 
 accusations of affectation, morbid love of notoriety, and 
 even insincerity ; a or when Socrates, beholding Antis- 
 thenes with the rent in his cloak conspicuously turned 
 outside, taunted him saying, "I see your vanity through 
 the hole of your garment" ; it can be doubtful to nobody 
 on which side was the greater sense and truth. It is 
 well known and he has confessed it himself thatDiogenes, 
 this reputed despiser of temporal possessions, was com- 
 pelled to flee from his native town Sinope as a coiner 
 and a debaser of the public money ; b and how far from 
 insanity was a man who constantly repeated, "I would 
 rather go mad than feel pleasure"'? 
 
 'Those Cynics', said Gideon contemptuously, 'held indeed, 
 that "most men are within a finger's breadth of being 
 insane", d and Diogenes was by his contemporaries fitly 
 called "Socrates gone mad"'. e 
 
 'It is not surprising', continued Humphrey, who began 
 to feel some uneasiness at seeing himself so often in 
 agreement with Eabbi Gideon, 'that one who insolently 
 mocked, vilified and repelled everything which Providence 
 and nature supply for the comfort and beauty of life, 
 who despised the sciences and all arts as unnecessary 
 and unprofitable/ and was entirely indifferent to politics 
 and the interests of the state, as he boastingly called himself 
 "a citizen of the world" s it is not surprising that such a 
 man should at last lament that he had been overtaken 
 by the tragic curse, since he was 
 
 "Houseless and citiless, a wretched exile 
 
 "From his dear native land; a wandering outlaw, 
 
 "Begging a pittance poor from day to day". h 
 
76 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 'This is your Greece and her beaming gladness; this 
 the happiness bestowed by the gods of your pantheon' ! 
 
 'It cannot be denied', said Mondoza with a slight smile, 
 'that there is much truth in these eloquent charges; but 
 are they quite free from exaggeration ? I fear that, just 
 as Cynicism was a onesided interpretation of the lessons 
 of Socrates, so are those charges a onesided exposition 
 of the system of the Cynics. It appears that Socrates' 
 mind and character were so large and all-embracing 
 that his disciples with the exception of Plato alone 
 were unable to grasp his teaching in its totality, and that 
 therefore some, as Euclid and the rest of the "Megarics", 
 studied only his scientific methods, and some, as the 
 Cynics and Cyrenaics, only his code of ethics. This was 
 of itself a dissolution of that fine harmony which was 
 the master's main characteristic, but it must be admitted 
 that, in addition to this error, Antisthenes and his votaries 
 in many respects sadly confounded nature and human 
 nature* They forgot that none of our instincts can be 
 injurious if controlled by reason, which is the seal of 
 human nature, and blended with those higher principles 
 to which our whole life must obey; nay that all natural 
 impulses, thus ennobled and working in mutual subordi- 
 nation, not only engender a feeling of joyous well-being 
 and completeness, but open and enlarge the mind to a 
 deeper insight into the spirit and organism of the universe. 
 The whole man only can understand the whole creation: 
 if but a single nerve in the wonderful mechanism of the 
 eye be destroyed or inactive, the objects appear perverted 
 in form, colour, and proportions and all beauty has 
 vanished. The very misconceptions of the Cynics, who 
 fancied that by deadening some powers they fortified the 
 rest, prove most strikingly the truth of that principle of 
 Ecclesiastes, which our worthy Buddhist friend seems so 
 indignantly to repudiate, that "God has made everything 
 beautiful in its time, and has also set worldliness in man's 
 heart, without which he cannot understand the work that 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 77 
 
 God does, from beginning to end". I think I may hope 
 that his penetration and sincere love of enlightenment 
 begin to bring this idea nearer to his mind, and that he 
 will in theory also adopt those principles which, by aban- 
 doning his monastic life, he has acknowledged in practice'. 
 'I may confess', said Subbhuti cautiously, 'that our 
 conversations have strongly roused my reflection; yet I 
 cannot arrive at a decision; and I am so far from regard- 
 ing my withdrawal from the holy order as a merit, that, 
 on the contrary, I deeply deplore it as a weakness, which 
 the worldliness of my disposition was unable to overcome. 
 I am, alas! not one of those "brave conquerors", of whom 
 your poet speaks, 
 
 "That war against their own affections 
 "And the huge army of the world's desires ; " 
 
 but one who broke the solemn vow I had taken that 
 
 "To love, to wealth, to pomp I pine and die, 
 "With all these living in philosophy." 
 
 'Doubt is the pioneer of truth', rejoined Mondoza, 
 encouragingly; 'and conviction will, I trust, soon follow. 
 But do not, in order to sanction a stunted life, invoke that 
 poet whose gifts were as varied as the universe and whose 
 sympathies as wide as mankind, and who declared -that 
 
 "Every man with his affects is born, 
 
 "Not by might master'd but by special grace", 
 
 and who almost seemed to point to your sect when 
 he wrote: 
 
 "All delights are vain, but that most vain, 
 "Which with pain purchased doth inherit painV 
 
 'Cynicism, I ventured to observe, is disfigured by grave 
 defects; yet extreme carefulness is needed in our final 
 estimate. For who knows to what extent the Cynics owe 
 their evil repute to those eccentric singularities of manner, 
 which, being offences against established customs, are 
 often less readily pardoned than offences against nature? 
 And can we be quite certain that the accounts preserved 
 
78 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 to us by ancient writers are exact or even truthful, since 
 nothing is more easy than to make peculiarities con- 
 temptible and odious by travesty? Who would recognise 
 the real Socrates, such as Xenophon and Plato have drawn 
 him, in the reckless parodies of Aristophanes ? But granting 
 the authenticity of all the scurrilous details handed down 
 to us, we shall yet, if we keep our judgment unbiassed, 
 discover the grandeur of the Socratic mind even in its 
 Cynical mutilation and distortion. Penetrated with the 
 principle that, as the deity needs nothing, those approach 
 nearest to the deity who want least, Socrates had incul- 
 cated the utmost abstinence, temperance and simplicity: 
 the practical development of this principle in its fullest 
 consistency, was the aim of Antisthenes and his successors. 
 They were unable to attain it, as they strove mainly after 
 virtue and not equally after intellectual knowledge, and 
 by this error even imperilled their morals. Yet they were 
 surely neither without a certain happiness, nor without 
 a certain dignity and greatness. They looked upon them- 
 selves by no means as poor, for they argued: "Every- 
 thing belongs to the gods, and wise men are the friends 
 of the gods; but friends have all things in common, 
 therefore everything belongs to the wise"; a and Seneca hence 
 remarked that, if anyone doubted their felicity, he might 
 as well doubt the felicity of the immortal gods b . In self- 
 denial they found a source of constant cheerfulness. "The 
 very contempt of pleasure", they said, "if we only inure 
 ourselves to it, is a hearty pleasure", which those who 
 have once tasted it will not easily renounce. "A life of 
 ease", they were certain, the gods have graciously given 
 to men, who, however, by pining for luxuries, turn that 
 existence into a torture. d But a life of ease was to them 
 above all a life of independence; and fully in the spirit 
 of the sect was the answer given by Diogenes, who, when 
 Plato saw him wash vegetables and said, "If you had paid 
 court to Dionysius, you would not now be washing vege- 
 tables", laughingly exclaimed : "If you had washed vegetables, 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 79 
 
 you would never have paid court to Dionysius".* Yet they 
 were neither averse to life nor to such pleasures as came 
 spontaneously in their way. u lt is not living that is a bad 
 thing, hut living badly", said Diogenes, including, of course, 
 moral evil; and when asked whether he would accept 
 delicacies, he replied: "Philosophers eat everything just 
 as the rest of mankind do"'. b 
 
 "These little things", whispered Attinghausen to Wolfram, 
 "are great to little man" 'and even to great men'. 
 
 When Antisthenes, dangerously ill', continued Mondoza, 
 'endured terrible pain, and Diogenes hinted that a sword 
 might release him, he said: "I desire to escape from my 
 suffering, not from my life", to which his Greek biographer 
 adds: "He seemed to bear his disease more calmly for 
 his love of life"'.' 
 
 'But Diogenes himself, said Humphrey, 'is, by the most 
 trustworthy account, reported to have died by holding 
 his breath, "wishing", as the same biographer observes, 
 "to get rid of the remaining portion of his life"'. 
 
 'True', replied Mondoza, 'but Diogenes had at that 
 time reached the age of ninety. d Moreover, the Cynics 
 found delight and support in the exercise of virtue, which, 
 they contended, is of itself sufficient for happiness, may 
 be taught, can never be lost, and is like "a fortress in 
 our own impregnable thoughts" ; e pleasure they found in 
 useful labour, which, they contended, is sure to make life 
 happy, and even in literary pursuits; for they were by no- 
 means ignorant, as has been assumed, and they produced 
 numerous works especially on ethical subjects/ Their most 
 deplorable misapprehensions were those associated with 
 their professed return to nature ; and yet, even in carrying 
 out this idea, they acquired a merit for which they surely 
 deserve no slight praise ; for they were the first among the 
 ancients who denounced slavery as treason against the 
 dignity of man, because opposed to the ordinances of 
 nature. In this momentous question they were, therefore,, 
 in advance not only of Aristotle who considered that some 
 
80 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 men are born for servitude,* but also of legislators who 
 claimed a higher inspiration and are honoured as the 
 wisest guides of mankind. And when Diogenes himself 
 fell into slavery, he displayed an equanimity, a freedom, 
 and a manly self-respect, which compelled the esteem of 
 an illiterate master and evoked the deep attachment of 
 the children he instructed and trained; he became virtually 
 the ruler of the household, into which, as his employer 
 declared, a good genius seemed to have entered; so that 
 it was no empty boast when he, taken prisoner and exposed 
 for sale, bade the herald enquire, "if any one desired to 
 purchase a master". b And what was the opinion enter- 
 tained of him by those among whom he lived with a 
 publicity perhaps never equalled by any other man? We 
 are told that "he was greatly beloved by the Athenians'^, 
 not merely on account of the wonderful charm of his 
 lectures and conversations and his fascinating gift of 
 persuasion, but because, as an inscription on his brazen 
 statues recorded, "he alone taught men the great art of a 
 contented life and the surest path to glory and a lasting 
 happiness".' 
 
 'I cannot resist the tempation', continued Mondoza after 
 a short pause, 'to ask your permission to read to you 
 a translation I have prepared for a special purpose of 
 a few pages from the Discourses of Epictetus, which may 
 perhaps be new to some of our Eastern friends. The 
 wise Epictetus, not unjustly called the second Socrates, 
 draws in that treatise a picture of Diogenes and of Cynicism, 
 which appears to me hardly less than sublime, and as the 
 question how far simplicity of life contributes to its 
 happiness and enjoyment, is closely connected with the 
 chief subject of our discussion, I am inclined to believe that 
 the reading I propose would at this point not be irrelevant'. 
 
 Mondoza, complying with a general request, brought 
 from his adjoining study a manuscript, and having observed 
 that he would omit a few passages not directly bearing 
 upon the main enquiry, read as follows: 
 
THE CYNIC 
 
 "Epictetus was once asked by an acquaiStSHS^'wn seemed 
 disposed to join the sect of Diogenes, what were the Cynic's 
 qualifications and in what light the doctrine should be 
 viewed. 
 
 'Let us consider the question at leisure', he replied. 'But 
 I must at once tell you so much that, whosoever approaches 
 so weighty a matter without God, is hateful in His eyes 
 and only brings upon himself disgrace . . . Therefore, weigh 
 the subject well; it is different from what you may imagine 
 it to be. You think: "I am wearing a coarse cloak now; 
 I shall wear one as a Cynic also; I am sleeping on a hard 
 bed now, I shall lie hard then; I shall, besides, take a little 
 wallet and a staff, and going about to beg I shall begin to 
 abuse everyone I meet; and if I see anybody plucking the 
 hair out of his body, or having his hair neatly dressed, or 
 walking in purple, I shall revile him". If you fancy Cynicism 
 to be something like this, keep away, do not come near, it 
 will never suit you. But if, on the other hand, you represent 
 it to your mind as it really is and do not deem yourself 
 unworthy of it, reflect what a grand thing you undertake. 
 
 'First, as regards yourself, you must henceforth appear in 
 none of your actions as you are at present : you must accuse 
 neither Grod nor man ; must entirely banish desire, and con- 
 fine aversion solely to things that lie within our will and 
 choice ; you must be free from anger, resentment, envy and 
 pity; must covet no beauty, no fame, no luxury. For you 
 should remember that, when other people do such things, 
 they conceal them by their walls and houses, by darkness 
 and many similar expedients . . . But instead of all this, the 
 Cynic's only protection is a sense of shame and honour . . . 
 This is his house, his door, his attendant, his darkness. 
 He must never wish to hide any of his actions; if he does, 
 he is lost, he has ceased to be a Cynic, ceased to be a person 
 living under the open sky, a free man ; he has begun to be 
 afraid of something external, begun to need concealment, and 
 he cannot act as he likes ... If he thus lives in fear, how 
 can he have courage to direct other men with all his soul? 
 It is impracticable, impossible. 
 
 'Therefore you must, in the first place, purify your mind 
 or ruling faculty, and next your mode of life. Now the mind 
 is my material, as the wood is the material of the carpenter, . . . 
 and the work I have to accomplish is the right use of the 
 perceptions and impressions. But this poor body of mine 
 does not concern me ; its limbs do not concern me. Death? 
 
 G 
 
82 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 Let it come whenever it pleases, whether death of the whole 
 body or of any part. Flee? But whither? Can anybody banish 
 me from the world? He cannot. For wherever I go, there 
 I find the sun and the moon and the stars, there I find 
 visions and prophecies and intercourse with the gods. a 
 
 'However, the true Cynic must not be contented with this 
 preparation, but should remember that he has been sent as a 
 messenger from Zeus to mankind to instruct them with respect 
 to good and evil, and to show that they have gone astray 
 and are seeking the substance of good and evil in paths 
 where it is not, while they take no heed of those paths 
 where it may be found. And he must be a scout in the same 
 manner as Diogenes declared to Philip after the battle of 
 Chaeronea that he was a scout ; b for he must eagerly and 
 carefully espy which things are beneficent to men and which 
 hostile, and having espied them, he must come forward and 
 impart the truth fearlessly, taking care not to mark as 
 hostile that which is not really so, nor in any way to be 
 perturbed or confounded by false imaginations. 
 
 'He must, therefore, if occasion arises, be able to ascend 
 the tragic stage and with uplifted voice to say, like Socrates : 
 '"Oh friends, whither are you rushing? what are you beginning? 
 Oh ye miserable men, you are driven up and down like the 
 blind ; you are proceeding on a wrong road, having left the 
 right one; you seek happiness and strength where they are 
 not, nor do you trust others who would direct you. Why 
 do you seek happiness without? In the body? It is not 
 there ... In riches? It is not there. If you disbelieve me, 
 look at Croesus, look at the many wealthy men of our time 
 and consider the dire griefs which fill their lives. In high 
 station? It is not there; for if it were, those who have been 
 twice or three times consuls would necessarily be happy; but 
 they are not ... In royalty? Certainly not; for then Nero 
 and Sardanapalus would be happy; yet not even Agamemnon 
 was happy, although he was nobler than either. 
 
 '"Oh wretched man, what is it that goes wrong with you? 
 Your money affairs? No. Your body? No. You are rich in 
 gold and copper. What then goes wrong with you? That 
 part of you, whatever it may be, is neglected and corrupted, 
 with which we desire and avoid, strive onward and hold 
 aloof. In what respect is it neglected? It is ignorant of 
 the good for which it was created, ignorant also of the 
 nature of evil, and knows not what is essential to it and 
 what foreign . . . 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 83 
 
 '"But how is it possible to live happily without money or 
 raiment, without house or hearth, without slave or home? 
 See, God has sent you a man to prove to you that it is 
 possible. Look at me: I am homeless and houseless, own no 
 property nor slaves, sleep on the ground, have neither wife 
 nor children nor protection, but only earth and heaven, and 
 one rough cloak; yet what do I want? Am I not painless? 
 Am I not fearless? Am I not free? When did ever anyone 
 of you see me fail in anything I desired, or fall into anything 
 I wished to avoid? When did I ever blame God or man? 
 When did I accuse anybody? Did onyone of you ever see me 
 looking distressed or dejected? How do I treat those whom 
 you fear and admire? Do I not meet them like servants? 
 Who, seeing me, does not believe he is seeing his king and 
 master?'" 
 
 'This is the Cynic's language, his character, his aim in 
 life. Do you still suppose he is merely distinguished by 
 wallet and staff and begging and indiscriminate jeering at 
 everybody? . . . Therefore, reflect more carefully; know thyself; 
 consult the Deity; do not attempt anything without God; 
 for when He approves of your plan, you may be certain 
 that He either intends you to become great or to receive 
 many blows : for this also is peculiar to the Cynic, that he 
 must be beaten like an ass, and even while he is being 
 beaten love those that beat him, like the father of all, and 
 like their brother. a But you, when beaten, run into the 
 public streets and cry out: '"Oh Emperor, how am I ill- 
 treated in the midst of thy peace! Let us go to the Pro- 
 consul"' ! 'But what concern has the Cynic with the Emperor or 
 the Proconsul or anyone else except Zeus alone, who has sent 
 him on the earth and whom he serves? Does he invoke any 
 other than him? Is he not convinced that, when he suffers 
 anything from men, Zeus is training him? But Hercules, so 
 trained by Eurystheus, did not consider himself unhappy, 
 but ungrudgingly performed his tasks; and should anyone 
 practised and trained by Zeus himself, call out and be angry, 
 if he is worthy to bear the sceptre of Diogenes? . . . Was 
 this Diogenes likely to argue with the god who sent him 
 into the world, complaining that he was not treated as he 
 deserved he who gloried in his trials? . . . 
 
 'For why should he argue with Zeus? . . . Well, what 
 did he say about poverty ? what about death or toil ? How 
 did he estimate his own happiness compared to that of the 
 great king of Persia? Indeed he thought the two were not 
 
84 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 comparable at all. For do perturbations and griefs and 
 fears, and unsatisfied desires and the dread of accidents, and 
 envy and jealousies, allow even an approach to happiness? 
 But wherever the principles are depraved, there all these 
 evils are inevitable . . . 
 
 'If there existed a community composed only of wise men, 
 the Cynic might marry without detriment . . . But in the 
 condition of things as we find it at present, when we are, 
 as it were, arrayed for battle, the true Cynic should never 
 be drawn away from the ministration of God. He must be 
 able to move about among men, unfettered by the ordinary 
 duties of the world, and unentangled by those relations of 
 life, which he cannot neglect without forfeiting the character 
 of an honourable and good man, and to which he cannot 
 attend without ceasing to be a messenger and scout and 
 herald of the gods . . . When generalship or statesmanship 
 exempts a man from the obligation of matrimony and is 
 held to secure boons sufficient to compensate for childlessness ; 
 should the Cynic's royalty not be worth as much? 
 
 'We do not properly feel his greatness, nor represent to 
 ourselves his character in its full dignity . . . For if we 
 did, we should not wonder that he has not wife and children. 
 All are his children the men his sons, the women his 
 daughters ; he goes to all, he cares for all. Or do you think 
 that he rebukes the people from idle recklessness? He does 
 it as a father, as a brother and as the minister of our 
 common father Zeus. a 
 
 'If you please, ask me also if the Cynic shall take part 
 in affairs of the state. Do you require a higher kind of 
 public duty than that in which he is engaged? Must he 
 come forward among the Athenians and address them on 
 the revenues and the supplies? he who must speak to all 
 men, to Athenians and Corinthians and Romans alike, not 
 about revenues and supplies, nor about peace and war, but 
 about happiness and unhappiness, about well-being and 
 misery, about servitude and freedom? . . . What more exalted 
 public post can he fill than that which he actually occupies ?... b 
 
 'However, not merely by the qualities of his mind must 
 he convince the people that it is possible to be honourable 
 and good without enjoying the possessions they generally 
 prize; but he must prove to them also by the robustness 
 of his body that a simple and plain life in the open air is 
 by no means injurious to health and vigour ... A Cynic 
 who inspires pity, is considered a beggar; all turn away 
 
THE CYNIC AKD THE STOIC. 85 
 
 from him, all take offence at him. Nor must he appear 
 dirty, lest he repel people ; but his very ruggedness should 
 be clean and attractive. He ought also to have that natural 
 grace and penetration ... by which he is enabled to acquit 
 himself in all emergencies with readiness and propriety . . . 
 
 'But above all his mind, the dominant faculty, must be 
 purer than the sun; or else he is no better than an 
 unprincipled gambler who, being himself in the bonds of 
 vice, presumes to correct others . . . "When you see that he 
 has watched and laboured for mankind ; . . . that all his 
 thoughts are such as behove a friend and minister of the 
 gods and a sharer of Jove's dominion; and that he has 
 constantly before his mind these two maxims, "Guide me, 
 Zeus, and thou, Destiny", and "If it so pleases the gods, 
 let it so be done": a why should he not take courage to speak 
 freely to his brothers, his children, in a word, to his kinsmen? 
 
 'And finally, the Cynic's patience must be such that he 
 might appear to the multitude as devoid of all feeling and 
 like a stone. Nobody abuses him, nobody strikes him, nobody 
 insults him. He readily delivers up his body to all, to 
 let them use it as they please . . . 
 
 'So great, my friend, is the matter you contemplate; there- 
 fore, if you follow my counsel, take God as your guide, and 
 consider well your own qualifications'". 11 
 
 'No one, I believe, will deny', said Mondoza, laying 
 aside the manuscript, 'that a grand spirit breathes through 
 these thoughts; and few will fail to discover a striking 
 resemblance to many conceptions of the Old and the 
 New Testament, especially to that type of the Hebrew 
 prophets, or of the suffering Messiah, who, despised and 
 rejected, a man of sorrows, is sent down to enlighten or 
 to redeem mankind, and patiently bears their trespasses, 
 sins, and woes'. c 
 
 'This remark may be correct', replied Humphrey, 
 evidently summoning all his courage and confidence, 'but 
 it refutes most conclusively what it is meant to prove. 
 Such principles admit indeed a certain kind of happiness, 
 but whatever truth they contain, Epictetus has undoubtedly 
 borrowed from Christianity. . .' 
 
 'Indeed!' cried Hermes with unconcealed irony, 'bor- 
 rowed from . . .' 
 
86 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 'I entreat you, gentlemen', interposed Mondoza, 'to re- 
 frain from an old and intricate dispute rarely carried on 
 with profit, and still more rarely without bitterness; for our 
 purpose it is sufficient to know that the later successors of 
 Diogenes believed his views to have been faithfully expoun- 
 ded by Epictetus and his pupil Arrianus. But it is, perhaps, 
 just to remember that even Cicero quotes Antisthenes' 
 doctrine of one God pervading all nature, in declared op- 
 position to the plurality of gods assumed by the people'.* 
 
 'Well', said Humphrey, mortified and reluctantly sub- 
 duing his polemical ardour, 'I contend that such enjoy- 
 ment as may flow from the sonorous and strained senti- 
 ments to which we have been privileged to listen, is not 
 the enjoyment we are accustomed to associate with the 
 cheerfulness of the Greeks, and that, at any rate, it 
 differs toto coelo from that high-wrought picture which, 
 early this evening, has been so enticingly unfolded to us 
 in the description of a time "when sombre reality beamed 
 in the roseate hues of poetry, and grave truth smiled 
 in the dazzling garb of blithe fancy". Instead of pleasure 
 we find austerity, and instead of contentment we meet dismal 
 resignation; yet this austerity involves no depth, and 
 this resignation no strength. Thus the Cynic's life, 
 shrinking from man's most important duties and shorn 
 of all refining graces, is neither a full nor a beautiful 
 life, and is devoid both of true harmony and true joy'! 
 
 'How great, in spite of all its defects', began Hermes, 
 'were the charm and vitality of Cynicism'. . . 
 
 'Assuredly', interrupted Berghorn, 'in this age of 
 "restitutions", or as Lessing would say "Ehrenrettungen", 
 when scholars waste their energy and learning in glori- 
 fying a Tiberius or' (he added with knit brows and a 
 raised voice) 'even a Balaam, we cannot be surprised at 
 meeting with enthusiastic champions and uncompromising 
 votaries of a Krates and Hipparchia, a Monimus and 
 Onesicratus, all taking their inspirations from the ex- 
 patriated coiner'. 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 87 
 
 'How great were the charm and vitality of Cynicism, 
 I was about to observe', continued Hermes, suppressing 
 a smile, 'appears from the fact that it became the parent of 
 Stoicism, which, while following the profound Heraclitus 
 in physics, and Aristotle in logic, avoided in practical 
 life all that was offensive in the adherents of Antisthenes, 
 and enlarged his moral precepts into a system of ethics, 
 the wonderful consistency of which has been a frequent 
 theme of admiration,* and which, I do not hesitate to 
 affirm, was more calculated than that of any other school 
 or sect, whether philosophical or religious, to call forth 
 and to train men in the noblest sense of the word, b men of 
 an immovable strength of character, men who, being the very 
 prototypes of dignity and self-respect, attained an absolute 
 dominion not only over their passions and affections but 
 over the events of life itself, who governed but were not 
 governed, the real "lords of human kind"'. 
 
 'Hardly men', protested Rabbi Gideon with a tinge of an- 
 noyance; 'did not Diogenes himself describe the Athenians 
 as women, the Spartans as boys' ? c 
 
 'I will not at present', interrupted Humphrey, 'enter into 
 the doctrines of Zeno; but I may ask: were the Stoics 
 happy? Did they, any more than the Cynics, enjoy that 
 cheerfulness which is supposed to be specifically Hellenic? 
 Most pitiful were their declamations about the miseries of 
 human existence, and what was their sole and effectual 
 deliverance and remedy? Suicide! Suicide they legalised and 
 declared heroic, and they resorted to it without any sense 
 of its criminality. They maintained that "the only, or at 
 least the highest, boon for man is death", d which is simply 
 a parting from evils; 6 in fact that life is really death, 
 and ought to be lamented, if laments did not render it 
 still more unbearable/ Yet Cicero, who quotes these 
 sentiments with approval, devoted to the subject a special 
 work with such effect that many readers declared they 
 desired nothing more ardently than to quit the world 
 and its agonies. ff 
 
88 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 'From the writings of that Stoic sage, whose "Christian" 
 piety and enlightenment it is the custom of neologian 
 sceptics triumphantly to extol, from the writings of Seneca, 
 it would be easy to gather a large florilegium of despair. 
 "Our life", he says, "is a perpetual source of tears" ; "to 
 the most happy we can wish nothing better than death"; 
 nay, "whenever you see a wretched creature, you may be 
 sure that it is a man", and so in endless forms and 
 shades, varied and yet tediously monotonous. a Hardly less 
 fruitful in such dreary utterances is that other cheval de 
 bataille of heathen eulogists M. Aurelius, who plainly 
 declared it to be contrary to common sense to suppose 
 that man was created for the least enjoyment ; b but I will 
 only cite very few sentences as I must hasten to an even 
 more conspicuous example. "All human affairs", says the 
 glorious Emperor, "are smoke and nothing", "smoke and 
 ashes and a tale, nay, not even a tale". c "All that 
 belongs to the body is a river, all that belongs to the 
 soul a dream and vapour, life a warfare and a stranger's 
 sojourn, and after-fame oblivion". d "Amidst the darkness 
 and squalor of the world . . . our chief consolation is the 
 prospect of a speedy dissolution", 6 of "the extinction of 
 that soul which is nothing but a mist rising from the 
 blood"/ 
 
 'But now, passing over many other Stoic threnodies, I 
 finally proceed to Pliny's portraiture of human suffering, 
 which, in its shocking hideousness, might satisfy even a 
 Schopenhauer and Biichner, or any other fanatic of modern 
 pessimism a veritable slough of despond, black, ghastly, 
 and agonising'. 
 
 'But Pliny', observed Hermes calmly, 'was no Stoic ; he 
 did not sympathise with the teaching of Zeno, he did not 
 even understand it'.e 
 
 'Well', rejoined Humphrey, quickly collecting himself, 
 'I shall return to Pliny's dismal wail on a future occasion; 
 for I think, I have sufficiently illustrated the joyousness 
 of your Stoic idols'. 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 89 
 
 'The lot of the Stoics', said Dr. Mortimer, 'was not cast in 
 happy times. The independence of Greece had succumbed 
 to the ambition and astuteness of the Macedonian tyrant. a 
 The best and ablest minds, no longer finding satisfaction 
 in public life, and shunning it as a chaos of lawless 
 selfishness and mean passions, reluctantly withdrew, for 
 comfort and repose, into the sanctuary of their own 
 thoughts, and thus gathered strength to bear a sad and 
 painful reality. b To them liberty was the divinest attribute 
 of man, and liberty had been forfeited not more through 
 the insidious stratagems of a foreign conqueror, than 
 through the violence of a licentious populace: is it surprising 
 that a veil of gloom was spread over their vision, and that, 
 when their principles were diffused in Italy at a period when 
 Rome, corrupt and demoralised, groaned under the terrors 
 of a military despotism, they borrowed additional shadows 
 from the sternness of the Roman character and the dangers 
 of the time? "To be self-collected, to strive after moral 
 improvement, to bear, to suffer, to die, became the object 
 of life". c A favourite maxim was, "Gold is tried by fire, 
 a brave man by misery ". d There prevailed that revelling 
 in adversity, that keen delight in trials, which is echoed 
 in the beatitudes of our Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed 
 are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted"; "blessed 
 are they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for 
 theirs is the kingdom of heaven". 6 Calamities were wel- 
 comed especially as a training to virtue. As Paul declared, 
 "We glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh 
 patience", and James exhorted, "Count it all joy when 
 you fall into divers temptations"; so the Cynic Demetrius 
 considered that man most unfortunate who lived without 
 troubles and disturbing vicissitudes ; and Seneca was con- 
 vinced that God educates good men with severity, since, like 
 a strict father, he applies to them his own high standard/ 
 
 'But the retirement of the Greek Stoics from their 
 immediate surroundings was not without consequences 
 both important and beneficent. For it prompted them to 
 
90 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 raise their eyes beyond the narrow limits of their own 
 country, and thus not only to demolish the hateful distinction 
 between Greek and barbarian, but this is their immortal 
 merit to conceive the idea of a universal community, to 
 consider themselves as citizens of the world, and to realise 
 the scheme of a united mankind, governed and guarded 
 by an omnipresent and bountiful deity, the world-pervading 
 primeval Cause, at once supreme Reason and supreme 
 Love. Is it necessary to adduce proofs and examples? 
 They are copiously supplied in recent works attempting 
 to elucidate the analogies of the chief systems of religion, 
 and giving its due meed to paganism without questioning 
 the superior claims of Christianity. a But I may be per- 
 mitted to cite a few additional sentences which have struck 
 me as remarkable. For by a happy chance, I have this 
 morning gathered on this very point some passages of which 
 I intend availing myself in my next Missionary Sermon, and 
 which, as I found them, I at once translated into English'. 
 
 And taking a note-book from his pocket, he read as 
 follows : 
 
 "If you have abandoned the offices of a citizen, exercise 
 those of a man. Therefore we do not shut ourselves up 
 within the walls of a single city, but have extended our life 
 to an intercourse with the whole earth, and have declared 
 our country to be the world, being thus enabled to afford 
 to virtue a larger field. Are the tribune and the public 
 Assembly closed to you, look round and behold the lands 
 and nations endlessly spread before your eyes". b 
 
 "It is wicked to injure our country, therefore also any 
 citizen, for each citizen is a part of the country, and the 
 parts are sacred if the whole claims reverence. Hence it 
 is also wicked to injure any man, for every man is our 
 fellow-citizen in the larger commonwealth. How, if the hands 
 were to injure the feet, or the eyes the hands? As all the 
 members work together because it is in the interest of the 
 whole body that each should be preserved intact, so must 
 men take care of every individual, because all are born for 
 one community". 
 
 "Why should I specify in detail all that a man should do 
 and should not do, when I can express his whole duty in 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 91 
 
 a single formula? All that you see, all that appertains both 
 to matters human and divine, is one. We are members of 
 one great body. Nature has created us as kinsmen, since 
 we are all born from the same substance and for the same 
 work. She has implanted in us mutual love and made us 
 sociable beings". 4 
 
 "Let us have in our thoughts two commonwealths the one 
 large and truly common, which embraces both* gods and men, 
 in which we do not look upon this corner or upon that, but 
 measure the boundaries of our state by those of the sun; 
 and the other, that assigned to us by the accident of our 
 birth, and not including all men, but only a small number. 
 Some cherish both the larger and the smaller commonwealth, 
 some only the smaller, some only the larger". b 
 
 "To the wise we have given a commonwealth worthy of 
 him the world". c 
 
 "To whatever country I come, I come to my own. No 
 country is a place of exile, but another home". d 
 
 "Asia, Europe, are only corners of the world, the whole ocean 
 a drop in the universe, . . . the whole present time a point 
 in eternity. All is small, changeful, perishable. Everything 
 proceeds from the common ruling Power, either issuing from 
 it directly or by sequence". 6 
 
 "As you are yourself a component part of a social system, so 
 every act of yours should be a component part of it. Therefore, 
 any act which has no reference to the social good either 
 directly or remotely, tears your life asunder, destroys its 
 unity, and is factious, just as in a community a man is 
 factious when he acts for himself, standing apart from the 
 common agreement"/ 
 
 "A person separatinghimself from one fellow-man through hat- 
 red or aversion, cuts himself off from the whole social system".^ 
 
 "I say to the Universe, 'I love as thou lovest'". h 
 
 "Everything harmonises with me, which is in full harmony 
 with thee, Universe. The poet says, 'Dear city of Cecrops'; 
 should you not say, 'Dear city of Zeus'"? 1 
 
 "Man has kinship with the whole human family, not a 
 community of blood or race, but of mind". k 
 
 'I will omit', continued the Canon, 'the terse aphorisms 
 in which Cicero states these views of the Stoics, 1 and will 
 conclude with a saying attributed to the founder of the 
 sect himself, and noteworthy as recalling one of the most 
 memorable utterances attributed to Christ: 
 
92 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 "The whole organisation tends to this, that we shall no 
 more live separated by towns and communities, each distin- 
 guished by its own statutes, but that we shall consider all 
 men fellow-citizens and kinsmen, and that there shall be one 
 rule and order of life, like that of a single flock guided and 
 feeding by a common law". a 
 
 'Is there no grandeur', continued Mortimer, 'in views 
 so large and elevated? Is it possible for anyone to be 
 penetrated with their spirit, and at the same time, as the 
 Stoics did, to deem virtue the highest good and the end 
 of all knowledge, without feeling a constant thrill of joy 
 at any progress achieved even in the most distant country 
 by the obscurest race? It is easy to ridicule the hyper- 
 bolical saying of Chrysippus, "If a single wise man, 
 wherever he may be, only lifts up his finger intelligently, 
 all the good men on the whole earth are thereby bene- 
 fited" ; b yet it implies a wonderful conviction not only of 
 human community, but of the magic power of truth. 
 Every step the Stoic advanced in his wisdom added to 
 his clearness, his confidence, his cheerfulness. No more 
 than the Buddhist, could the Stoic understand the affirma- 
 tion of the Hebrew sage, "In much wisdom is much grief, 
 and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow", because 
 his only object was duty, and his sole enjoyment obedience 
 to its call for the weal of mankind. "Toil" and "wearying 
 labour" were as foreign to him as pain and grief. And 
 even if, in the depth of his sympathy, he should sometimes 
 have been saddened by a bitter experience, is not that 
 sympathy itself the intensest pleasure, the holiest joy? 
 The Apostle Paul speaks of a "godly sorrow" which brings 
 salvation, while "the sorrow of the world worketh death"'. d 
 
 'I must positively protest', said Humphrey with ill- 
 restrained vehemence, 'against this perversion of Stoicism. 
 The true Stoic was proud of feeling nothing, proud of an 
 impassiveness equally inaccessible to pleasure and distress, 
 to sympathy and aversion; or in the words of Pope: 
 "In lazy Apathy let Stoics boast 
 "Their virtue fix'd ; 'tis fix'd as in a frost". 6 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 93 
 
 'Epictetus contended that it is better for a father to let 
 his children grow up in wickedness than, by chastising 
 them, to imperil his own equanimity.* In losing a child 
 or a wife, we should simply say, it was a mortal being 
 we had loved, and we shall no more be disturbed; or 
 "My son died: what has happened? My son died, nothing 
 else". b The same sage graciously permitted a man to 
 pity a mourner with words and even to sigh and weep 
 with him, but only on condition that he felt no pity in 
 his heart. c Not even in the theatre ought we to evince any 
 inward interest in the action, nor should we speak of the 
 performance afterwards, lest we seem to feel admiration. d 
 Justly, therefore, has the Stoic's tranquillity been called 
 by Lactantius "an arrogant and almost insane principle", 
 since "he fancies he is able to overrule the power and 
 design of nature". 6 When Macduff was informed of the 
 murder of his wife and children, and bidden by Malcolm 
 to "dispute it like a man", he replied, "I shall do so, 
 but I must also feel it as a man". This is nature, at once 
 true and great, as depicted by a Christian poet. f 
 
 'And what is the Stoics' liberty, upon which so much 
 stress has been laid? Had they even lived in the most 
 flourishing period of republican Greece, they would have 
 been pitiful bondmen enthralled by the dreary doctrine 
 of a necessity or fate, to which man must blindly bend, 
 and which leaves no room whatever for the exercise of 
 his will. Do such notions admit of elastic buoyancy of 
 mind, of energy and hopefulness'? 
 
 'It is strange', observed Hermes, 'how prejudices are 
 bequeathed from generation to generation "like an eternal 
 disease"! There are questions, the discussion of which 
 should be approached with the warning given by Cleanthes 
 especially to the young, "Silence, silence, gently step"!e Is it in 
 itself credible that men like Zeno, Chrysippus, Eratosthenes, 
 or Panaetius, who scrupulously weighed and considered 
 even the least of their actions, regarded themselves and 
 others to be reduced to lifeless automata? Their "necessity" 
 
94 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 was hardly anything else than our "Providence or law of 
 nature" ; and the difficulties they experienced were scarcely 
 greater than ours are when we try to harmonise those 
 notions with the principle of free-will'. 
 
 'Good, good', said Movayyid-eddin pensively; 'the very 
 same charge has constantly been brought against Mohammed 
 and the Koran, and with equal injustice; for neither the 
 Prophet nor his revealed Book ever favoured fatalism. 
 He enjoined sincere and pious submission to Allah's dis- 
 pensations ; but who was more wonderfully active ? It was 
 tradition with its usual distortions, which, lowering itself 
 to man's natural indolence, grafted the idea of immovable 
 fatalism on the Islam. Tradition invented that "Preserved 
 Table" or "Book of Divine Councils", regarded as the 
 heavenly prototype of the Koran, which, woven of light 
 and gold, written with an angel's pen before the creation 
 of the world, and guarded by the awful arch-angel Israfil, 
 contains the record of God's unalterable decrees and sets 
 forth whether a man is to be happy or wretched, good or 
 bad, a child of Paradise or of hell. Thus the folly of 
 the Sunna has made men idle and helpless tools. One 
 of our great poets has these lines: "You do not escape 
 your fate ! This belief, listen, shall not discourage but fortify 
 you in trials: you are wise if, in every deed, you rely on 
 God's counsel, yet exert your strength'". 3 - 
 
 'I am glad', said Mondoza, 'that you have referred to 
 a very farspread prejudice against your religion. As 
 regards the Stoics, caution seems at least desirable. For 
 Josephus, in speaking of the chief sects of the Jews, 
 employs terms very similar to those used by the Stoics. 
 For with regard to the pious Essenes, he says plainly, 
 "They affirm that fate governs all things and that nothing 
 happens to man but what is in accordance with its 
 decision;" 6 and even in reference to the strict Pharisees, 
 his own sect, he intimates, "They believe that some actions, 
 but not all, are the work of fate, while some are in our 
 own power, being liable to fate, but not caused by fate" c 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 95 
 
 which casuistry betrays an embarrassment the historian 
 exhibits elsewhere still more decidedly.* Yet the Jews have 
 ever claimed the privilege of unfettered free-will, and pro- 
 bably with good reason, considering such declarations of 
 the Pentateuch as: "I have set before you life and death, 
 blessing and curse; therefore choose life that both thou 
 and thy seed may live"'. b 
 
 'Our Eabbins say', observed Gideon with an air of great 
 satisfaction, "Everything is in the hands of God except 
 our fear of God"; c and they relate that, when Job was 
 to be born, the angel of birth enquired of God whether 
 the man about to be called into existence was to be brave 
 or weak, wise or simple, rich or poor, but it is signi- 
 ficant to observe he did not enquire whether he was to be 
 pious or wicked. d Yet this is no more than what God 
 Himself said to Moses, as stated in Deuteronomy, "0 that 
 there were such a heart in them that they would fear 
 Me and keep My commandments . . . that it might be well 
 with them" ; e which implies that piety and happiness are so 
 entirely in man's own power that not even God can compel 
 him to the one in order to secure for him the other. 
 And the same principle is very clearly unfolded by the 
 wise Sirach, who enjoins, "Say not thou, It is through 
 the Lord that I fall away ... He has caused me to err; . 
 He left man in the hand of his own counsel ; . . . He has 
 set fire and water before thee, stretch forth thy hand unto 
 whether thou wilt"'. f 
 
 'Yet your wise Sirach', said Attinghausen, who always 
 showed peculiar impatience whenever the Rabbi spoke, 
 'your Sirach repeats with approval that "the Lord hardened 
 Pharaoh, that he should not know Him"; your chief 
 historian narrates that God incited, or allowed Satan to 
 incite, the great king David to commit a sin which He 
 punished with a fearful plague destroying the innocent; 
 and your most sublime prophet records God's injunction 
 concerning His chosen nation, "Make the heart of this 
 people torpid, and make their ears heavy, and shut their 
 
96 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 eyes, lest . . . they turn from their evil ways and be 
 healed'". a 
 
 'Very thoughtfully', said Arvada-Kalama, 'our poet sings : 
 
 "Brahma may indeed at will 
 
 "Threaten the flamingo's joys 
 
 "And his nest of lotus twined: 
 
 "But deprive him of his gift of 
 
 "Drawing milk from out the water, 
 
 "This not even Brahma may." b 
 
 'It is unnecessary', resumed Hermes smiling, 'here to 
 enter into the subtle speculations, by which the Stoics strove 
 to solve this problem, one of the obscurest in philosophy 
 and theology; it is sufficient to remark that, in spite of 
 their "Fate", they considered free-will possible, since they 
 referred the predestined decrees only to the concatenation 
 of events, not to human efforts, and only to the general 
 course of the whole, not specially to the actions of in- 
 dividuals; and that at any rate which is the essential con- 
 sideration they held men responsible for their conduct, and 
 hence sanctioned rewards and punishments : the well-known 
 anecdote of Zeno who, when his slave, convicted of theft 
 and chastised, remonstrated saying, "It was fated that I 
 should steal", answered him, "True, but it was also fated 
 that thou shouldest be scourged" this simple anecdote 
 settles the point. c And as they held virtue inseparable from 
 good intention or disposition, they stamped all deeds as 
 emanations of their own will, and could thus justly call 
 virtue "self-chosen". d Seneca declared: "Oh immortal 
 gods, I shall give you willingly whatever you demand; 
 I am compelled in nothing, I suffer nothing against my 
 wish, I do not serve God but give him my assent". 6 
 Epictetus affirmed: "Nobody is master over another's 
 will, . . . God has placed me by myself, has put my will in 
 obedience to myself alone, and given me rules for its right 
 use"; f nay he boldly maintained: "If God had made that 
 part of himself which he took from himself and gave to 
 us, of such a nature as to be hindered or compelled 
 either by him or by others, he would not then be God, 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 97 
 
 nor would lie be taking care of us as he ought"*. And 
 Marcus Aurelius wrote that, in all the changes of life, it 
 was his comfort to know: "I have the power to do nothing 
 displeasing to my God and to the Divine genius within 
 me, for there is none who can force me to trespass against 
 him" ; b a view very closely approaching that expressed by 
 the English poet who described the great First Cause 
 as a Being 
 
 "Who, binding Nature fast in Fate, 
 "Left free the human will". 
 
 'Hence the Stoics neither sanctioned the dark concep- 
 tion of the tragic poets that "God himself puts guilt into 
 man's heart when he desires utterly to destroy a house" ; c 
 nor were they tempted to assume, like the Greek people 
 and the Hebrews, that God visits the iniquities of the 
 fathers upon the children'. d 
 
 'The Stoics', said Attinghausen, who evidently found it 
 impossible to remain silent any longer, and fairly rose to 
 his feet, 'were on the right track with regard to human 
 liberty as well as to several momentous problems of 
 physics; but they had neither sufficient courage nor 
 sufficient knowledge to be consistent. Their pantheism and 
 pessimism, their sound materialism, their partial insight 
 into the relation of "force" and "matter" 6 and the 
 indestructibility of both, all this not less than their pro- 
 clamation of an all-governing law irrevocable as Fate, were 
 the first harbingers of the great truths which modern 
 researches into the operations of nature have worked out 
 and placed beyond all doubt ; while with respect to God, 
 it is enough to refer to that fine passage of Seneca declaring 
 how preposterous it is to pray to heaven with uplifted 
 hands, since the God who is able to grant us everything 
 is with us and in us, and raises us above every extraneous 
 Power/ However, the Stoics carried no principle to its 
 full and legitimate conclusions, and have by this half- 
 heartedness caused manifold and serious mischief. For they 
 set the example of monastic ascetism; they assumed in 
 
 H 
 
98 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 the universe a perfection and fitness entirely imaginary; 
 they suggested to the Christian theologian most of his 
 proofs of the existence of God; a they retained as a 
 damnosa hcereditas from the schools of Socrates the 
 fantastic doctrine of Immortality as far as it was com- 
 patible with their view of a periodical conflagration of 
 the world; and they invented that purgatory fire, which 
 for many millions of men has converted the earth into a 
 veritable hell. b Thus, in physics, they were unable to 
 conquer the old dualism of God and universe; and in 
 ethics, they clung to the no less dangerous dualism of 
 necessity and free-will'. 
 
 'However important these points are', said Mondoza 
 more quickly than was his wont, 'I beg you to refrain 
 from the consideration of subjects which would draw us 
 far away from our present discussion. I am indeed, for 
 my part, inclined to think that the Stoics did not feel 
 themselves so unfree in their actions as is often repre- 
 sented, since they defined virtue as strength of will founded 
 on good sense ; but I believe that we should more surely 
 arrive at an agreement, if it were possible to place before 
 our minds a complete picture of the Stoic sage, the indi- 
 vidual traits being carefully gathered from ancient authori- 
 ties, and the whole bearing the stamp of authentic truth- 
 fulness in fact the real eagle, and not some fabulous 
 griffin or visionary dragon. All of us, I am sure, would 
 be pleased and grateful, if our erudite friend Hermes, who 
 lives and breathes in the classics, would undertake the task'. 
 
 'It is impossible', replied Hermes, 'to decline an appeal 
 which imposes upon me so agreeable a duty, although 
 I am afraid that my extemporised attempt after the elabo- 
 rate efforts of not a few ancient and modern writers will 
 prove an Ilias post Homerum. Like our amiable host, 
 I well perceive how essential an element in our enquiry 
 such a portrait would be, and I am, therefore, doubly 
 anxious to do it full justice: the subject is ramified 
 rerum tamen ordine ducar. 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 99 
 
 'Well, the wise man, say the Stoics, finds supreme 
 happiness or "the .chief good" in a life conformable to 
 nature, by which he understands a life in accordance with 
 reason, with virtue, and the laws of the universe, since 
 "men's individual natures are all parts of universal nature" ;* 
 and as he holds that virtue alone, which may be taught, b 
 leads to happiness, so he believes that it is of itself sufficient 
 to secure it; wherefore he deems everything else to be 
 "indifferent", such as noble birth, health, beauty, power, 
 fame, riches, life itself, and above all pleasure; 6 although 
 some Stoic teachers d allowed that for happiness "there 
 is also need of good health and strength and competence." 6 
 But virtue is by the Stoic sage considered to be a disposition 
 of the mind always consistent and resulting in a life of 
 perfect harmony. This disposition he is bound to seek for 
 its own sake, in purity of heart and intention; and in 
 the same spirit he must practise virtue, not in obedience 
 to the law, or from hope and fear, or any other extrinsic 
 motive in all which cases it is no quality that produces 
 right actions/ In virtue he includes the virtues, of which 
 four are fundamental viz. prudence, manliness, justice, 
 and temperance and the rest subordinate yet indis- 
 pensable, such as magnanimity, self-restraint, endurance, 
 energy, and thoughtfulness ;* although some admit only the 
 one all-comprising virtue of prudence analogous to James 7 
 and Paul's "royal" or "perfect" law of charity 11 or consider 
 that he who possesses one virtue completely, possesses 
 all, since they are mutually connected. 1 He is "good", 
 which is to him equivalent to being "perfect according 
 to the nature of a rational being" ; for reason is his guide 
 and guardian, and morality his strongest principle of 
 action k . 
 
 'Therefore, though he does not disregard logic and physics, 
 he attaches supreme importance to ethics. Comparing 
 philosophy to a fertile field, he looks upon logic as the 
 fence, on physics as the soil or the fruit-tree, and on ethics 
 as the crop ; and in this sense the chief good is to him 
 
100 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 also "knowledge". a His first and holiest law is duty, and 
 he scrupulously fulfils his obligations towards his country, 
 his parents, b relatives and friends ; for the wise man alone 
 is capable of that true and unselfish friendship which holds 
 the friend to be "another self". c He does not live in soli- 
 tude or inactivity, d being by nature "sociable and prac- 
 tical". He takes part in the affairs of the state according 
 to his abilities and opportunities; since he alone is fit to 
 be magistrate, judge, and orator. He marries and carefully 
 educates his children in his own strict principles. 6 Yet he 
 does not consider himself the citizen of a particular country, 
 but of the whole community of men, since all are brothers 
 and must live together as such, being not merely "parts" 
 v but "organic members" of the same divinely formed and 
 >A\H directed system. f He alone is happy, free, good, perfect, 
 \ Mionourable, beautiful, loveable. He is anxious for self- 
 Vj improvement and therefore never wholly immersed in worldly 
 business. He is without vanity, presumption or hypocrisy, 
 modest and contented, equally free from false pride and 
 servile humility. He is upright in heart and mind. He 
 appreciates men's good qualities and overlooks their faults; 
 he cherishes, therefore, neither hatred nor revenge. He 
 s severe in countenance and demeanour, yet affable and 
 kind, and considers urbanity a duty. He is strictly 
 economical, yet no lover of money, which he spends freely 
 for the acquisition of knowledge. He is abstemious and 
 rigidly simple in food and dress ; in this respect he regards 
 Cynicism as "a short cut to virtue" ; but he rejects it in 
 as much as it is indecorous and self-castigating. He is 
 pious and worships the gods by prayer and sacrifice in 
 holiness of heart a true priest and a true king, nay even 
 divine and godlike.^ 
 
 'He believes that God is one or a unity, whether He be 
 called Mind, Providence, Fate, Zeus, or by any other name ; h 
 that He is "unbegotten", immortal and imperishable, wise, 
 rational, perfect, omniscient, without human form, the 
 Creator of the Universe, the beneficent Father of all men. 1 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 101 
 
 'He wonders at nothing as extraordinary, 3 but is parti- 
 cularly careful to keep himself free from all perturbations 
 of the mind, not only from their four chief forms of 
 pleasure and desire, grief and fear, but also from anger, 
 and passion, displeasure and indignation,^ and'-^though he 
 should constantly practise benevolence 3ven from' pity> 
 However, and this has too frequently" been oveiloofed 
 he is a stranger to perturbations, not, like the bad, from 
 callousness and obtuseness, but from self-control ; d and he 
 admits sensibility so far as it does not impair composure. 
 He is indeed so teaches even Epictetus like all men 
 unavoidably subject to first and sudden emotions or affec- 
 tions of the mind 6 in feeling fright, terror or grief, but his 
 reason at once recovers its balance and, refusing assent to 
 those emotions, soon restores him to complete equanimity/ 
 He does not regard physical pain as an evil ; for there 
 is only one evil that can befall the virtuous, which is his 
 succumbing to vice. He thus lives in perfect "impassi- 
 bility" (apatlma), sustained by reason and nature, enjoying 
 "a fearless liberty".* 
 
 'He does not form his opinions lightly, and takes care 
 not to be misled by appearances, whence he is "free 
 from error" and always acts and judges rightly. h He 
 attaches little value to the polish and graces of style and 
 is satisfied with clearness and precision. 1 Yet when elo- 
 quence offers itself spontaneously, he may properly employ 
 it to adorn noble thoughts. k Nor is he in general indifferent 
 to the beautiful, but, like all Socratics assigning to it a 
 very high function, he holds that the beautiful is the only 
 good, which is virtue ; as, on the other hand, everything 
 good is beautiful, since both terms are equivalent. 1 
 
 'And lastly, though he regards pleasure as no good but 
 as "an irrational elation of the mind at something which 
 appears to be desirable"," 1 and shuns much or excessive 
 laughter, he loves and courts joy, which, being the opposite 
 of pleasure, is "a rational elation of the mind", and includes 
 delight, mirth and cheerfulness of spirits. He reckons it 
 
102 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 among the three "good conditions of the mind", the other 
 two being caution and volition, and among the few "final 
 boons" in conjunction with courage, prudence and liberty ; 
 and he is ccnripced that such joy is felt especially as a 
 concomitant' of the chief good, or of the practice of virtue.* 
 * ''Tli6se : are : tH-e main features of the picture', concluded 
 Hermes, ~'ancl they suggest, I think, serious doubts as to 
 the right of desponding pessimists to claim the Stoics as 
 their own.' b 
 
 'If this is not', said Humphrey, "haughtiness and rebellious 
 presumption, it is simply and purely an ideal'. 
 
 'And so is Christ, the Christ of our faith', said Abington, 
 who had followed Hermes with close attention. 'Let no 
 one undervalue ideals, whether those of the philosopher or of 
 the theologian. They are the fullest expression of the eternal 
 attributes in man, the guides of his soul to the Promised 
 Land of light and truth. Man's greatness is in his deeds, 
 his dignity in his aspirations. The goal lies in a bound- 
 less distance, it is enough for mortals to be sure that 
 they are advancing on the Divinely illumined path. But 
 were the Stoics on that path?' he added musingly, and 
 almost to himself. 
 
 'The statement with which we have been favoured', 
 resumed Humphrey, 'is a mixtum compositum, the motley 
 ingredients of which, like the herbs for Medea's cauldron, 
 have been collected from all zones and all ages. Glance at 
 the model sage as he is revealed to us in the pages of 
 Seneca: that exemplar has aptly been characterised by 
 a recent writer as "a pompous abstraction at once ambitious 
 and sterile, a sort of moral Phoenix, impossible and repul- 
 sive, a faultless and unpleasant monster, dry and bloodless, 
 yet indulging in practical Epicureanism."' 
 
 'I must beg your pardon', said Hermes with a slight 
 shade of sarcasm in his manner, 'my delineation has not 
 been culled from "all zones and ages", but I have been 
 particularly anxious not to introduce any trait unwarranted 
 by the authority of the earliest founders of the sect them- 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 103 
 
 selves. And as regards Seneca's description of the "vir 
 bonus", I must confess, I am fairly amazed. That sketch 
 breathes a fervour for virtue, which it seems hardly possible 
 to feel or to express more strongly. The passage is too 
 long for quotation. Seneca begins : "If we were permitted 
 a vision of the good man's soul, what beautiful and holy 
 features should we behold! how grandly and serenely 
 bright" ! He then specifies the sage's qualities, which com- 
 prise nearly every manly excellence; 8 he continues: "If 
 anyone should meet with such a character, more exalted 
 and more majestic than any we are accustomed to see 
 among men, should he not, spell-bound with awe as if he 
 had met a divinity, silently pray that the sight may not 
 be accounted to him sinful" ? h and he concludes: "It will 
 be in our power to recognise such virtue even if it be hidden 
 by bodily infirmity, oppressed by indigence, and assailed by 
 humiliation and ignominy". 6 How much is wanting to 
 complete the figure of a "Servant of God" or "a suffering 
 Messiah"'? 
 
 'But the visionary character of the Stoic ideal', said 
 Humphrey, 'is amply proved by the fact that it has never 
 been even distantly approached'. 
 
 'This assertion may well be questioned', said Hermes. 
 'We are told that the Athenians who honoured Zeno with 
 a golden crown and a splendid tomb, declared in a pub- 
 lic decree that these distinctions were accorded to him 
 because "he made his life a pattern to all men in adapting 
 it to the doctrines he had taught". d Seneca expressly 
 declares : "Let it not be said that our wise man is nowhere 
 found ; we do not invent an idle paragon of human per- 
 fection, nor do we conceive the lofty image of a phantom ; 
 but such as we really see him, so we have represented 
 him and shall in future represent him, although within 
 long periods one only may be found" ; he adds that Cato 
 perhaps exceeded even the Stoic model ; e and with rising 
 confidence he encourages men to nourish the expectation 
 of seeing such greatness commonly realised ; for, he says, 
 
104 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 "it is in consonance with the commonwealth of the human 
 race, that there should exist something invincible, that 
 there should be some one against whom fortune is power- 
 less ". a And did not the first Antonines on the imperial 
 throne, who as men and rulers followed no other law 
 than that of reason and nature, almost make this dream 
 a truth? It is only necessary to recall the wonderful 
 character of Antoninus Pius, as depicted by his adop- 
 tive son Marcus Aurelius. b And may not our hope almost 
 grow into a cheering certainty when we remember how 
 constantly this Emperor exhorted himself, in his high 
 position "to remain simple, to be good, pure, earnest, 
 unostentatious, a lover of justice, pious, kind, affectionate, 
 and zealous in all good works; in a word, to become and 
 always to be such as philosophy would wish to make 
 hini"? c Not even the most inveterate opponents of the 
 Stoics, who denounced their tenets, dared to attack the 
 purity of their lives ; nay those who, like Plutarch, tried 
 to ridicule their teaching, bore brilliant witness to their 
 moral elevation ; d though it would, of course, be too much 
 to suppose, that all who assumed the Stoic's cloak were 
 distinguished by the Stoic's virtues ; for everywhere "there 
 are many wandbearers, but few inspired"'. 6 
 
 'Well is it said in our great national epic', remarked 
 Arvada-Kalama : 
 
 "The triple staff, long matted hair, 
 "A squalid garb of skins or bark, 
 "A vow of silence, meagre fare, 
 "All signs the devotee that mark, 
 "And all the round of rites, are vain, 
 "Unless the soul be pure from stain."' f 
 
 'But even if all this were so', cried Humphrey with 
 increased eagerness, 'it would prove very little ; for grant- 
 ing that you are right in attributing to the Stoics all the 
 fine qualities you have so adroitly woven into a specious 
 likeness, I must accuse you of a partiality into which 
 a scholar ought not to be misled even by blind enthusiasm; 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 105 
 
 for it amounts to a deliberate suppression of an important 
 part of the truth'. 
 
 Heedless of the murmur of disapprobation with which 
 the last words were received, Humphrey continued firmly : 
 
 'I do not hazard statements without being prepared to 
 support them by adequate proofs. I will not dwell upon 
 the many sophistical absurdities propounded by the Stoics, 
 which have often and deservedly been covered with derision, 
 such as, that the "wise man" is the lawful and sovereign 
 possessor of everything; that the foolish are mad; that 
 suffering, misery and bondage do not exist ; that all offences 
 are equal in guilt and all virtues equal in merit, without 
 any differences or intermediate gradations conceits which 
 the so-styled philosophers of the sect have themselves 
 called "paradoxes'". 4 
 
 'Let us even here be lenient or at least cautions', inter- 
 posed Abington ; 'the central doctrine of Christianity was 
 "unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks 
 foolishness" ; b many of the noblest maxims in the New 
 Testament might sound like "paradoxes" to those who, 
 shrouded in worldly prudence, are blind to all-sacrificing 
 Wisdom ; for "the foolishness of God is wiser than men". c 
 
 "Willst du, Freund, die erhabensten Holm der Weisheit 
 
 erfliegen, 
 
 "TVag' es auf die Gefahr, dass dich die Klugheit verlacht. 
 "Die Kurzsichtige sieht nur das Ufer, das dir zuruckflieht, 
 "Jenes nicht, wo dereinst landet dein muthiger Flug." d 
 
 'Like Stoicism, Christianity allows only the one distinction 
 between a godly and an ungodly life; there is nothing 
 between the two". 6 That truth which is drawn from the 
 depth of our inner nature, if measured by the ordinary 
 standard of temporal interest, must appear paradoxcial. 
 Not without justice Chrysippus observed: "On account of 
 the exceeding grandeur and beauty of our doctrines, they 
 appear to many like exaggerated fancies" ; f and Epictetus 
 said to a disciple : "Those who taunt you at first, will 
 afterwards admire you".* This was certainly the case of the 
 
106 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 Christians. For who but the spiritually minded will fathom 
 Christ's injunction, "Whosoever shall smite thee on thy 
 right cheek, turn to him the other also"? or his affirmation, 
 'If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say 
 unto this mountain, remove hence . . . and it shall remove' ; 
 or St. Paul's saying, almost in the words of the Stoics, 
 that the believers "though having nothing, yet possess all 
 things"? or the maxim of John, 'Whosoever hates his 
 brother is a murderer', or of James, "Whosoever shall 
 keep the whole Law, and yet offend in one point, he is 
 guilty of all" ? a or even the repeated utterances expressing 
 the absolute inability of the rich to enter the Kingdom 
 of Heaven, at which Christ's very disciples were "excee- 
 dingly amazed"' ? b 
 
 'Sophocles' Antigone also', added Hermes, 'valuing the 
 unwritten and eternal law of the~gods more highly than 
 the king's command, declared, when about to meet her 
 death: "If I now appear to thee to do a deed of folly, 
 I am, I think, guilty of folly only in a fool's eye"' c . 
 
 'I certainly did not expect', said Humphrey lightly, 
 'that the Stoic extravagances would find so many warm 
 champions in this company. But this is of little importance 
 to my argument, and I proceed to observe that your 
 Stoic sage, that non-pareil of perfection, repudiated none 
 of those detestable doctrines which he had inherited from 
 the schools of Socrates, neither the community of women 
 surely a hideous blot on your fair picture, admirably 
 screened by the plea that "thus he could love all children 
 equally after the manner of fathers" , cl nor incestuous 
 marriages 6 , nor the eating of human flesh/ nor the super- 
 stitions and abuses of divination, which the Stoics even 
 confirmed and extended'.^ 
 
 'May I venture to remark', said Hermes timidly, and avoid- 
 ing Humphrey's sparkling eye, 'that the reason why Zeno 
 and Chrysippus, Athenodorus and Posidonius, vindicated to 
 divination a universal existence was because they believed 
 "that Providence was universal" ; while Panaetius and others 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 107 
 
 denied it all foundation ? a And may I be permitted to add', 
 he continued, regaining his confidence, 'that most of the 
 eccentricities with which the Stoics have been charged, 
 were gradually corrected by themselves through the force of 
 common sense and experience? Some plainly admitted 
 that pain was an evil and health a good, that even property 
 was not undesirable, that pleasure might without reproach 
 be enjoyed as "a common boon", though not valued as 
 "an end", b and that all offences and crimes are not equal. 
 With respect to power, fame and the adiaphora in general, 
 Seneca observes, that the wise man, who is worthy of 
 them all, need not shun them, though he must not be 
 anxious for their possession; and he need not abandon 
 them, though he must be able to bear their loss without 
 apang. d The same philosopher avows that the Stoics depart 
 indeed from the prevailing views, but generally return to 
 them by another path. 6 This was admitted by their ancient 
 antagonists, though these blamed it as inconsistency/ Even 
 in reference to the mode of living I beg you to allow 
 me this one remark more , a moderate enjoyment was 
 gradually permitted and recommended. True, Stoics loved 
 to repeat those verses of Euripides which Chrysippus was 
 wont to quote : "Mortals need but two things, the ground 
 corn of Demeter and a draught of water ";& they faithfully 
 maintained this old diet of "water and polenta", which 
 satisfied even the wealthy Seneca, and with which, he said, 
 he would challenge the gods to a contest of bliss ; h and 
 they clung to the traditional habit of "a plank-bed and 
 skin", which the great Stoic Emperor thankfully enjoyed; 1 
 nay, a few of their very rigorous teachers, such as Epictetus, 
 believed that he only who denies himself even unsought 
 enjoyments, "will govern with the immortals" like "those 
 godlike men" Diogenes and Heraclitus. k But as a rule, 
 they adopted, in these matters also, a judicious middle- 
 course delineated by Seneca with excellent good sense: 
 the Stoic, he says, should in his dress and all his habits 
 carefully avoid everything that might bring his tenets into 
 
108 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 contempt and repel people from adopting them; being 
 directed to live in accordance with nature, he should not 
 neglect his physical wants ; and while practising frugality, 
 he should abstain from self-torture, and keep equally 
 remote from worldliness and austerity'. a 
 
 'May I now', said Humphrey impatiently, 'at last be 
 allowed to proceed to my principal point? The Stoic 
 reprehensibly passed beyond the anterior schools in showing 
 indulgence to no one, in considering no punishment too 
 severe for the slightest offence, and holding himself free 
 from any obligation whatever towards the animals "on 
 account of their dissimilarity to men". b He did not con- 
 ceive God simply as he has been described to us but 
 and now I am able to make good my charge of a suppressio 
 veri he believes that "the substance of God is the whole 
 world and the heaven" in such manner that each fraction 
 of the universe is pervaded by "a portion of God", each 
 division bearing a distinct name according to its powers, 
 such as Zeus, Hephaestus, or Poseidon ; while every human 
 soul is a part or fragment of the world, which is one and 
 finite and, of course, endowed with life and reason. 6 He 
 holds, therefore, the most unequivocal pantheism and the 
 crudest materialism, which make "God is the world" 
 identical with "God produced the world". He conceives 
 God both as the primary matter d from which all existing 
 things were formed, and as the primary power that formed 
 them; and he thus arrives at the paradoxical inference 
 that "the universe is neither animate nor inanimate". 6 
 Yet in order not to leave the slightest doubt, he assigns 
 the rank of "the first god" also to the ether or original 
 fire sensibly infused into all created beings and things ; f 
 nay he sets forth the bare definition: "God is a rational 
 body", or "Intelligence in matter. "" It was therefore, a 
 well-founded taunt that "the Stoic god has neither head 
 nor heart" '. h 
 
 'Allow me a single word in self-justification', interrupted 
 Hermes. 'My object was to describe the wise man of 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 109 
 
 the Stoics from the ethical aspect, and hence I did 
 not include their views on physics or metaphysics. Pray, 
 continue'. 
 
 'The ancient writers of the school', resumed Humphrey, 
 without heeding the explanation, 'furnish, with respect to 
 God, a long series of alternatives, from which they allow 
 us to choose ad libitum. Seneca speaks of "that Framer 
 of the Universe, whoever he was", whether an all-powerful 
 God or incorporeal Reason, whether a divine Breath 
 diffused with equal force through all things great and 
 small or a Spirit hovering over the world extraneously, 
 whether Fate or an immutable chain of closely connected 
 causes.* No less helplessly does Marcus Aurelius waver 
 between a Power that has regulated the world for all 
 times by a single act of creation, and a perpetual pro- 
 duction and annihilation of atoms ; between the anthropo- 
 morphic gods of Greece and Rome, who freely interfere 
 in the course of events, and an invisible Spirit who has no 
 influence over the eternal order of nature; between a 
 God and no God; between a God who concerns himself 
 with the affairs of men, and one to whom these affairs 
 are utterly indifferent; between stern Necessity, benign 
 Providence, and blind Chance. b In a word, a pantheistic 
 monotheism is confusedly mingled with a motley polytheism'. 
 
 'But is it not' said Hermes, 'a splendid proof of the 
 Stoic's moral greatness that, in spite of these uncertainties, 
 he never flinched in his allegiance to virtue, and that, 
 even if he should have failed to recognise a ruling Provi- 
 dence, he had in his own "dominant principle" an unerring 
 guide all-sufficient to secure his well-being by fortifying 
 him for his duties'? 
 
 'This rationalistic assertion', replied Humphrey, 'which 
 is a mere evasion of my charge, may well be doubted. 
 For what is the Stoic's "dominant principle" ? What is 
 his soul? It is, by his own definition, "a body" divisible 
 into eight parts, which if it be the precious soul of a 
 sage of the Porch, for the souls of the rest of mankind 
 
110 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 are not worth troubling about continues indeed after 
 death, but only, like every other material substance, to 
 perish in the periodical conflagration of the world, a or, 
 according to a later teacher, to return "to its friends and 
 kinsmen, the elements" 6 a noble kinship! Chrysippus 
 thus compendiously expounds the Stoic's theology: "Zeus 
 and the world equal man, while Providence equals the 
 soul; at the universal conflagration Zeus, being alone 
 imperishable, withdraws himself into Providence ; and then 
 both combined continue to exist in the single substance 
 of the ether" c surely, a wonderful system, as luminous as 
 it is sublime, and an exquisite foundation of a sound 
 morality! To complete his aids to self-improvement, the 
 Stoic considers the only criteria of truth and the only 
 means of judgment to be external "perception and sen- 
 sation" ' d 
 
 'Not a few, however', remarked Hermes, 'added also 
 "right reason"'. 6 
 
 'Thus', concluded Humphrey, 'the magnificent sage 
 descending from his soaring elevation to grovelling 
 materialism, is responsible for the fatal principles of a 
 Hobbes and Locke; he is the true author of the tabula 
 rasa of the human mind ; it is he who first taught virtually 
 that "nothing is in the intellect that was not before in 
 the senses"/ This is your "fragment of the deity": it is 
 certainly not our "Divine image" 7 ! 
 
 'Let angry censors beware', said Attinghausen with a 
 great effort at composure, 'lest all these alleged charges 
 be in reality as many eminent praises ; for they strongly 
 recall that famous cosmogony of the Stoics, which almost 
 disputes with Kant and Laplace the palm of originality^, 
 and even that monism or absolute unity of the world, which 
 it is the glory of modern science to have established. 
 How imperfect and elementary, compared to these notions, 
 are those of the Hebrew sage Ecclesiastes ! He may 
 possibly have had a faint glimmer of the uniform and 
 unchangeable order of things, when he said, "I found 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. Ill 
 
 that whatever God does, that shall he for ever, nothing 
 can be added to it and nothing can be taken from it"; 
 or -perhaps also when he declared that everything has 
 its fixed and appointed season : a but of an intimate 
 interchaining of the parts of the universe, of an inner and 
 inevitable relation of cause and effect, he exhibits not 
 the slightest appreciation'. 
 
 *I will not at present', said Humphrey, 'argue these 
 wide and somewhat irrelevant subjects; for I must advance 
 to my concluding and most serious impeachment of the 
 Stoics, namely, that they reckoned life among the "in- 
 different" things, and thus not only authorised but encou- 
 raged suicide. "Of all matters necessary to man", they 
 said, "none is easier to him than to kill himself". b It was 
 their particular pride to be true to nature: but nature 
 binds everything that lives to life. If there were any 
 consistency in their system, no occasion for the crime of 
 suicide could possibly arise. For if, as they maintain, there 
 exists a complete harmony between the laws of human 
 life and the laws of the universe, the result would follow 
 that man could never be brought into a condition con- 
 stituting a material antagonism between the course of the 
 world and his own destiny. But such perfect harmony, 
 quite natural under a monotheistic dispensation, can never 
 be realised under the assumption of a pantheistic autonomy 
 of reason, which consistently leads to self- extinction. Yet 
 life is a sacred trust, of which we have not the arbitrary 
 disposal; life is a post, which we must not desert; life 
 is a preparation for eternity, which it is iniquitous to 
 shorten; life is' ... 
 
 'Yes, yes', cried Attinghausen impatiently, 'but what 
 would become of liberty, of truth, of patriotism? what 
 would have become of the Christian Church itself without 
 a contempt of life? "A path for liberty"! Der Freiheit 
 eine Gasse! my great countryman Arnold von Winkelried 
 is said to have exclaimed when he threw himself into the 
 dense forest of hostile spears. You believe, that "there 
 
112 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 is no atonement without blood"; and we know that a 
 signal progress was never achieved without self-sacrifice. 
 The Cynics and Stoics were the great examples of the 
 host of martyrs who sealed their convictions with their 
 death'. 
 
 'Our ancestors', said Rabbi Gideon with an expression 
 of contempt, 'hardly required such questionable models. 
 That they could die for the truth, they proved in the age 
 of the Maccabees, in the wars with the sanguinary Romans, 
 and ever afterwards during unhappy centuries. The mother 
 of the seven children was not more brave than Rabbi 
 Akiva, or than Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon, who exclaimed 
 when the flames were closing round him: "My children, 
 I see this holy parchment crumble into ashes, but its Divine 
 words rise uninjured to heaven" '. a 
 
 'To offer up our lives', said Humphrey, as if he had 
 not heard the last speaker's remark, c for the highest 
 boons, for the revealed truths and the glory of the Church, 
 is a worship precious in the sight of God and securing 
 the crown of immortality. But to throw away our existence 
 for a caprice or in a fit of frivolous despondency, "to 
 commit suicide out of pure ennui and discontent at a life 
 overflowing with every possible means of indulgence"' . . . b 
 
 'The Stoics', interrupted Mondoza, 'certainly did not 
 act thus. They regarded life as worthless when they believed 
 they could, neither in the world nor in solitude, continue 
 it any longer in congruity to their notions of moral dignity, 
 that is, "according to nature" in the sense which they 
 attached to the term; c and they only held themselves 
 justified in resorting to the "rational departure", as they 
 euphemistically called self-destruction,* 1 when they desired 
 to escape from thraldom and ignominy, from the ruthlessness 
 of despotism, from compulsory acts of baseness, yet also from 
 paralysing -infirmity of body or mind. They were wrong. 
 Their action was, in most cases, shortsighted impatience. It 
 was flight, not combat. 6 For there are thousand unexpected 
 ways of rescue from difficulties which despair deems insur- 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 113 
 
 mountable. Everyone leaves behind those for whom it is 
 his duty to live, to work, or at least to feel; and even 
 to the weakened frame and intellect a sphere of usefulness 
 is possible, which may be most important for the completion 
 of the great task of life or for the purposes of the 
 whole. 
 
 'This conviction began to dawn upon the later Stoics 
 themselves; Seneca exhorted alike to "a fortitude of dying" 
 and "a fortitude of living", to a frame of mind equally 
 averse to a passion for life and a passion for death ; a and 
 Epictetus said that, if disciples consulted him on this 
 point, he would answer: "Wait for God; when he shall 
 give the signal and release you from this service, then 
 depart to him; till then, persevere in the duties he has 
 imposed upon you; . . . remain, do not recklessly withdraw 
 yourselves" ; b and both acknowledged that there is hardly 
 any condition or misfortune, in which a well-balanced 
 mind cannot discover features of brightness or hopefulness, 
 or which might not be made profitable for self-training. d 
 
 'Yet, notwithstanding all this, many of the eager Stoics 
 were noble and heroic souls. An ever elevating spectacle 
 will be the life and death of Cato, whose unbending mind 
 alone, as Horace wrote, Caesar who conquered the world, 
 could not conquer; whom Yirgil, the pure-minded, has 
 placed in the pious retreats of Elysium as a lawgiver and 
 a judge ; whose self-destruction even Cicero recognised as 
 the inevitable necessity of a nature of unsurpassed grandeur; 
 and whom the enthusiasm of Lucanus has pictured as one 
 not born for himself but for the whole earth, the common 
 father of nations, the spotless defender of right and 
 justice, virtuous for mankind. 6 When in Rome every 
 depraving vice was sapping the foundations of society and 
 success was worshipped as the supreme deity, it was the 
 Stoics alone who still believed in integrity, the Stoics 
 alone who opposed their lives to unscrupulous violence or 
 criminal ambition. They were convinced that not conquest, 
 not wealth, not even art or refinement makes and preserves 
 
1 14 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 a state powerful, but the citizen's inflexible morality. 
 Their lot could not be otherwise than tragical; for they 
 were preachers in the desert. They vainly believed that 
 they could save the republic when the ancestral manliness 
 and purity had vanished, and when "the question was not 
 whether there should be despotism but who should be 
 the despot". a Yet they did not shrink from the post as- 
 signed to them by the deity that spoke in their hearts ; they 
 boldly asserted it even against the apparent decision of 
 fate or the gods "Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa 
 Catoni" b than which few grander words have ever been 
 uttered: for the sake of human right and human dignity 
 they calmly suffered derision and death. Their spirit 
 guided the stinging pen of a Tacitus, c a Persius and 
 Juvenal ; d and even Horace, who in his earlier productions 
 taunted some of their paradoxes, has yet, in devoting one 
 of his finest and maturest odes to the description of "the 
 just and steadfast man" who "is neither terrified by the 
 lawless dictates of the populace nor the tyrant's frowning 
 mien nor even by Jove's destructive thunderbolt", 6 
 unconsciously depicted a Quintus Sextius and a Julius 
 Canus, a Thrasea and a Helvidius, a Musonius Rufus and 
 a Cornutus. "Das Leben ist der Giiter hochstes nicht" 
 life is not the highest of boons this was the watchword 
 of all patriots, all great champions of mankind, and will 
 remain our watchword as long as we are faithful to our 
 nature and our duty'. 
 
 'The modern English poet', said Canon Mortimer, 'has 
 well echoed our thoughts: 
 
 "We must be free or die, who speak the tongue 
 "That Shakespeare spoke, the faith and morals hold 
 "Which Milton held"'. f 
 
 'This fills me with great delight', said Subbhuti warmly, 
 'for it reminds me of a fine saying of Confucius in his 
 Tchong-yong. The true sage, he declares, combines 
 equanimity and heroism, which never forsake him, whether 
 he lives in a land where virtue or the divine Tao reigns, 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 115 
 
 or in a land where it is despised; not even there will he 
 bend, but look bravely into the face of death"'*. 
 
 'But this subordination of life to yet more precious 
 possessions', continued Mondoza gratified, 'by no means 
 involves indifference to its value. On the contrary, "the 
 readiness" imparts to our mind a secure and intrepid 
 composure, which is at least akin to serenity, if to many 
 it is not one of its choicest forms'. 
 
 'Whatever judgment we may pass on the adiapliora', 
 said Gregovius, anxious to complement Mondoza's remarks, 
 'this notion was fraught with momentous consequence for 
 the Stoic's life and mode of thinking. Our worthy friend 
 Subbhuti has referred to the inconsistencies of Ecclesiastes 
 with respect to the doctrine of retribution to the frequent 
 instances of good men suffering and wicked men flourishing. 1 * 
 In fact, the Preacher finally discarded the whole problem 
 in utter perplexity as unfathomable by human wisdom. 
 To the Stoic that problem did not exist. For all those 
 boons which the Preacher had in view, were to the Stoic 
 no boons, all those ills were to him no ills : he knew only 
 one good virtue, and only one ill moral evil. Of the 
 former, he believed, he could be robbed by no fate; the 
 latter, he was certain, no fate could force upon him. The 
 saying alluded to before, "Whenever you see a wretched 
 being, you may be sure that it is a man", he met with 
 the maxim, "Whenever you see a manly man, you may 
 be sure that he is not wretched". d The gods, he said, 
 have put it entirely into our power not to fall into any 
 real calamity; for how can that which does not make a 
 man worse, make a man's life worse? Universal nature, 
 he argued, can surely not have committed so great a 
 mistake as to suffer good and evil to happen indiscrimi- 
 nately to the upright and the bad; but as life and 
 death, pain and pleasure, riches and poverty, happen 
 equally to the upright and the bad, being intrinsically neither 
 honourable nor base, they are neither boons nor ills. 6 
 A production like the Book of Job was impossible from the 
 
116 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 Stoic point of view; Stoical is not even the sentence, "The 
 Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the 
 name of the Lord;" nor the final result, "The fear of 
 the Lord that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is 
 understanding." And the Book of Ecclesiastes? It would 
 not be difficult to gather from this work a number of 
 maxims which might appear to coincide with the principles 
 of the Stoic. The Preacher recognises also the beauty 
 of a tranquil mind devoted to a life of simplicity and 
 labour. "Better is a handful of quietness" he declares, 
 "than both hands full of toil and empty trouble"; "He 
 that loves silver is not satisfied with silver" ; "The sleep 
 of the labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or 
 much". a He insists likewise on purity of thought, cautious- 
 ness of speech, and charity of deeds: "Approaching to 
 listen is better than the offering of sacrifices by fools"; 
 "Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thy heart be 
 hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, 
 and thou art upon earth, therefore let thy words be few" ; 
 "Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it 
 again in many days". b And he also censures heedless 
 laughter, rejects speculation as weariness of the flesh, and 
 counsels practical obedience to God's commands. But 
 is therefore the spirit of the Book, of Ecclesiastes akin to 
 the Discourses of Epictetus or the Meditations of Marcus 
 Aurelius? Even these excellent maxims lose a great part 
 of their value by being scattered, amidst frequent and 
 palpable self- contradictions, in a composition which conveys 
 the spasmodic lamentations of a restless discontent utterly 
 foreign to Stoicism. But even if this better teaching 
 were consistently carried out, would it harmonise with 
 that of Zeno? Reference to one fundamental idea will 
 suffice. As a physician, says the Stoic, "prescribes" for 
 different patients different remedies with the identical object 
 of curing them, so universal nature "prescribes" for men cer- 
 tain afflictions in consonance with the order establisted by 
 Fate, since the whole universe is one harmonious system : 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 117 
 
 therefore man must be satisfied with anything that befalls 
 him, first because it was so appointed and interwoven with 
 his destiny through an unbroken series of antecedent causes, 
 and secondly, because it is certain to contribute to the 
 good of the whole.* Is this at all in the spirit of the Bible? 
 
 'I should say. certainly not', cried Humphrey emphatically. 
 
 'But might not that pious resignation in the will 
 of Providence, as exemplified in the Book of Job, and espe- 
 cially in the two verses you have quoted from it', said 
 Paniniwith some hesitation, 'be made to agree, at least 
 in a certain sense, with the Stoic principles you have 
 enunciated' ? b 
 
 'By no means', replied Gregovius ; 'but in order to answer 
 your question fully, I shall have to make a few prelimi- 
 nary remarks on' ... 
 
 'Pray', interposed Mondoza, 'let us not to-night enter 
 into a new subject. The evening is far advanced, and 
 our Eastern friends are not accustomed like ourselves 
 in this respect far from following nature in the manner 
 of the Stoics to turn night into day and day into night. 
 You will, however, permit me to add a few words. Our 
 esteemed Canon Mortimer has kindly compared me to a 
 gentle shepherd; I would fain aspire to be at least a 
 vigilant one. Yet my flock seems to-night to have roamed 
 and strayed in various directions, though I trust always 
 to good and wholesome pastures. I would, therefore, 
 re-unite the flock once more and bring it back to the 
 fold that is, I would, before we part, briefly recapitulate 
 the course of our argument, as far as it has gone, lest 
 we lose the Path and miss the Goal. 
 
 'In our meeting of yesterday, I proposed, in connection 
 with the Book of Ecclesiastes, to make "the enjoyment 
 of life" the subject of our conversations, and this evening 
 an accidental description and eulogy of Greek art and 
 habits furnished the welcome opportunity for advancing 
 at once to the heart of the question. Our friend Hum- 
 phrey considered that praise not only exaggerated, but 
 
118 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 entirely undeserved, and, with great knowledge and a 
 zeal evidently stimulated by some ulterior object dear to 
 him, he endeavoured to prove that a cheerful view of life 
 is neither discoverable in Homer nor in Hesiod, neither 
 in Theognis nor in Pindar, nor in the works of the three 
 great tragic poets, nor in the pages of Herodotus, and 
 still less in the teaching of those philosophers whom he 
 has so far characterised. Against the earlier portions of 
 his remarks comparatively few objections were entertained, 
 although it appeared to me that our friends Hermes and 
 Wolfram have only postponed, not renounced, a full 
 rejoinder. But a very determined opposition was at once 
 raised against the depreciatory account and estimate of 
 Cynicism and Stoicism; and what is the result of the discus- 
 sion? It seems to be this: both systems are certainly grand 
 in conception and design, but cannot be absolved from 
 a harshness and onesidedness which do not permit a 
 life either full or joyous; for they impart indeed to the 
 character strength, but not elasticity; fortify the moral 
 sense and partially occupy and train the intellect, but 
 leave the feelings and the imagination unsatisfied. 
 
 'A commonwealth of Stoics would be glorious and 
 magnificent, but it is impossible. For by placing fame, 
 power, and wealth among the adiaphora, it banishes all 
 those incentives to action, by which, as the experience of 
 many ages has shown and thoughtful Stoics have themselves 
 admitted, men are generally prompted and urged onward. 
 The interests of such a society would be few, and stagna- 
 tion would inevitably terminate in decay. a Chrysippus, in 
 acknowledging that the wise man, when engaged as orator 
 or statesman, must speak and act as if riches, reputation, 
 health and all other temporal objects, were boons and 
 not adiaplioraf virtually acknowledged the impractibility 
 of Stoicism in actual society. Thus again the truth of 
 the Hebrew philosopher's maxim is brought home to us 
 that without "worldliness" man is unable either to measure 
 or to carry out his aims and tasks. 
 
THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 119 
 
 'Yet, we should be careful to notice, Stoicism involves 
 three important elements of true happiness. It teaches 
 universal fellowship and equality with an unrestricted 
 consistency upheld by no other sect or creed: it enforces 
 constant self-improvement and untiring exertion for the 
 true welfare of others: and it aims at an equanimity 
 undisturbed by passion and unshaken by events; while it 
 supplies at the same time the means for maintaining 
 this fortitude in assigning absolute sovereignity to reason, 
 reducing earthly boons to their true value, and exalting 
 man's dignity and freedom. These are not only strong 
 foundations but essential ingredients of a serene existence. 
 They realise what Wordsworth describes as "the homely 
 beauty of the good old cause", that is, "plain living and 
 high thinking". 
 
 'However, the Cynic and Stoic systems are not co-extensive 
 with Greek culture or philosophy ; and our erudite Hellenists 
 will no doubt take care to prevent in this respect mistakes 
 or injustice. I foresee a struggle, but the minds, as Luther 
 thinks, must "burst against each other" to produce the 
 spark of truth'. 
 
 Refreshments were again taken, after which most of the 
 guests departed. Abington alone remained to speak with 
 the host, while Hermes engaged in conversation with 
 Humphrey. At first the latter was cold and distant, but 
 Hermes' consummate urbanity soon conquered this reserve, 
 and he was just observing that he agreed with Antisthenes' 
 saying that we ought to be most thankful to our enemies, 
 as they are the first to detect our errors, 4 when they 
 were joined by Mondoza who, strongly commending this 
 sentiment, remarked that he admired it especially in 
 the improved form given to it by his favourite German 
 poet: 
 
 "Theuer ist mir der Freund, doch auch den Feind kann ich 
 
 niitzen ; 
 "Zeigt mir der Freund was ich kann, lehrt mich der Feind 
 
 was ich soll"; b 
 
120 THE CYNIC AND THE STOIC. 
 
 but that he admired even more the maxim of the Stoics 
 that "good men are friends even when they belong to 
 different countries", and that therefore, though the one 
 had his intellectual home in Greece and the other in 
 Palestine, they would, he was sure, continue to enrich 
 the discussions in Cordova Lodge by their instructive 
 encounters : upon which Humphrey and Hermes separated 
 with a cordial shake of the hand. 
 
IY. THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 THE next evening, many of the guests had already 
 assembled and were admiring the splendid roses which 
 Movayyid-eddin had sent to the host from Yeitch's 
 famous nursery, and which, he said, surpassed in brilliancy 
 of colour and richness of perfume those even of his own 
 native Teheran, the home of some of the finest varieties, 
 when Humphrey entered with a quick step and, instead of 
 taking the empty chair by the side of Hermes, he sat 
 down almost exactly opposite to him in the farthest window. 
 This circumstance, Mondoza surmised, augured little good 
 for the stability of the amicable alliance which he had 
 flattered himself he had secured between his theological 
 and his classical friend; and in order to remove the un- 
 certainty at once, he turned to Humphrey saying: 
 
 4 We must indeed at least, not a few of us must 
 beg your forgiveness for having yesterday so often inter- 
 rupted you in your remarks on what you believe to be 
 the current fallacy of ascribing cheerfulness to the ancient 
 Greeks ; may I ask whether you intend continuing the 
 argument, or whether we may now enter upon a general 
 examination of our main subject'? 
 
 'I shall briefly continue the argument', replied Humphrey; 
 'but', he added with decision, 'I hope that, in this cos- 
 mopolitan company, we shall be allowed freedom of dis- 
 cussion. For the contention which I yesterday waived 
 in reference to Cynicism, I now repeat in reference to 
 Stoicism with increased determination and maintain that 
 the later Stoics borrowed their best doctrines from 
 Christianity and then surreptitiously foisted them on the 
 founders of their sect, whose opinions are known to us 
 
122 THE STOIC AND THE CHEISTIAN. 
 
 only through the questionable medium of those later 
 followers, as the original writings are almost totally lost'. 
 
 'But will not this enquiry', remonstrated Mondoza with 
 some anxiety, 'lead us considerably away from our prin- 
 cipal point'? 
 
 'Only apparently', replied Humphrey; 'moreover, the 
 importance of the subject would even justify a digression. 
 1 am supported by the uncontestable authority of the 
 Christian Fathers. Origen and Jerome do not merely 
 point out a general resemblance between the Stoic para- 
 doxes and some striking maxims of Christ, a but the one 
 distinctly informs us that Epictetus was a Christian, the 
 other, in common with St. Augustin, says the same of Seneca, 
 who should be recognised as a Father of the Church and 
 inserted in the "Catalogue of Saints" ; b while Tertullian 
 and Eusebius assure us of the intimate relations enter- 
 tained by Marcus Aurelius with Christian teachers. 6 We 
 are, therefore, justified in regarding the Stoic writers as 
 unscrupulous plagiarists of the New Testament.'* 1 
 
 'It is an amazing folly', cried Berghorn, 'to stamp Seneca 
 as a Christian on the ludicrous assumption that the pro- 
 consul Gallic, who tried St. Paul in Achaia and treated 
 him with supreme contempt, sent to his brother Seneca some 
 of the Apostle's writings at a time when the latter had 
 hardly yet written anything; 6 or on the strength of the 
 spurious, though early, fabrication of a fictitious corres- 
 pondence between St. Paul and Seneca, the absurd triviality 
 of which is a shameless libel on the fiery originality of 
 the one and the eloquent persuasiveness of the other. f 
 All that has been discovered in Seneca of Christian dog- 
 mas, such as the Trinity, Confession, or the Paradise of 
 Saints, is simply a proof of the incredible ignorance and 
 obtuseness of purblind though perhaps well-meaning 
 theologians. Seneca utterly ignored the Christians, probably 
 because he knew 7 , and cared to know, nothing about their 
 life or creed, and not, as St. Augustin supposes, because 
 he dared not praise and would not blame them; while 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 123 
 
 he branded the Jews as "a most iniquitous people" wasting 
 the seventh part of their existence in the culpable idleness 
 of their sabbath.' 4 
 
 'We have the testimony of the Talmud', remarked Rabbi 
 Gideon peremptorily, 'that Marcus Aurelius, the friend 
 of Rabbi Judah Hannasi, was a secret Jew. True, there 
 is still some Itttle doubt as to the identity of that "An- 
 toninus" whom our Rabbins so often introduce, since Jewish 
 historians of almost equal authority identify him, severally, 
 with Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Alexander Severus, 
 Caracalla, and Heliogabalus ; b but as Marcus Aurelius in 
 his "Meditations" declares that "all men are children of 
 one Father", and that "all are citizens of the same world- 
 comprising state, and enjoy equal rights", what is 
 clearer than that he is the "Antoninus" of the Talmud, 
 since those maxims are evidently echoes from the Old 
 Testament? Indeed we have almost a right to consider 
 Zeno himself a Hebrew; for was not his native town, 
 Citium in Cyprus, largely populated by Shemites, and 
 did not ancient writers repeatedly call him a "Phoenician"? 
 Not so preposterous, therefore, as has often been asserted, 
 is Philo's view that Zeno derived the chief part of his 
 wisdom from the Books of Moses, and that for this reason 
 he deserves, like Cleanthes, to be called a holy man. More- 
 over, Josephus plainly says that "the sect of the Pharisees 
 greatly resembles that which the Greeks call Stoic" '. d 
 
 'Surely', said Arvada-Kalama, 'great and good must 
 those have been whom all races and creeds are proud to 
 call their own'. 
 
 'How is it possible', said Hermes, 'to attribute to 
 Epictetus the least sympathy with the Nazarenes, when 
 we remember that he characterised them as "madmen", 6 
 though his admirable "Manual", adapted and modified, was 
 diligently read by Christians ! f Or how can we consider 
 Marcus Aurelius as a friend of the Christians when we know 
 that he sanctioned more than one sanguinary persecution; 
 that in Rome not a few were cruelly tortured; that almost 
 
124 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 under his eyes many, and among them the pious Justin, 
 suffered the death of martyrdom ; a that, so far from being 
 impressed with this heroism, he wrote in his "Meditations", 
 slightingly, that man's readiness to die "must proceed 
 from his judgment and not be mere obstinacy, such as is 
 displayed by the Christians, and it must be carried out 
 rationally and with dignity, not theatrically"'! 5 
 
 'The reason is obvious', replied Humphrey. 'The Stoic 
 Emperor, accustomed to regard self-sacrifice merely as 
 cold resignation, was utterly incapable of understanding the 
 fervent enthusiasm with which the Christian martyrs went 
 to death "glorying in the Lord". Moreover, the taunt 
 has of late been fully returned by a celebrated historian, 
 who properly describes Stoic philosophy as u an empty, yet 
 perfidious play with hypocritical phrases", "a terminological 
 chatter" made up of "hollow conceits", and the Stoics 
 themselves as "bigmouthed and unbearable Pharisees", 
 among whom Cato was conspicuous "as a fool of prin- 
 ciples" and "a Don Quixote". 
 
 'And certainly', continued Hermes, a smile of irony having 
 passed quickly away, 'no one in our days will found a 
 conclusion on the famous story of the Legio Fiilminatrix 
 said to have been composed entirely of Christians and 
 so called because, in the war against the Quadi, their 
 prayers called down a terrible thunderstorm which scattered 
 the enemy, and copious showers of rain which saved the 
 exhausted Romans ; d in consequence of which phenomenon, 
 the Emperor, it is asserted, wrote a letter to the Senate, 
 attributing his deliverance to the Christians and thenceforth 
 recommending them to clemency and consideration : e a legion 
 of that name existed even under Augustus j f the letter to 
 the Senate has, from Scaliger to our time, been recog- 
 nised as the composition of some ignorant semi-barbarian f 
 and the second awful persecution of the Christians took 
 place three years after the alleged miracle ; h whereas, 
 on the other hand, there can be no doubt as to the 
 authenticity of imperial decrees warning all, under penalty 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 125 
 
 of banishment, against the introduction of creeds calculated 
 to excite or unsettle people's minds. 3 Marcus Aurelius was, 
 therefore, a no less determined, and a much more dangerous, 
 enemy of the new faith than the Epicurean Celsus, the 
 earliest and strongest type of its literary opponents'. 13 
 
 'But do not all these facts plainly prove', said Gideon, 
 'that the philosophical Emperor inclined towards Judaism'? 
 
 'In his time', replied Hermes, 'Christianity was hardly 
 considered as anything else than a sect of Judaism, and 
 both alike were denounced as "pernicious and execrable 
 superstitions", the diffusion and toleration of which, to 
 the detriment of the national religion, was supposed to 
 have incited the angry gods to visit the Empire with 
 grievous perils and disasters.* 1 It was a common charge 
 that the Christians "practised the feasts of Thyestes and 
 the incests of Oedipus" ; current on all lips was the saying, 
 "Rain is wanting, it is the Christians' fault"; when the 
 Tiber overflowed its banks or the Nile did not overflow, 
 when famine or pestilence ravaged, when a solar eclipse or 
 an earthquake spread terror, the multitude, to appease the 
 gods, at once raised the cry, "The Christians to the lions"! 6 
 
 'Fain would I, to conciliate our theological friends, 
 admit at least a mutual influence between Christianity 
 and Stoicsm; f but not even this middle course is open 
 to us. In the two centuries before and after the Christian 
 era, Stoicism was in the Roman world the most widespread 
 and the most popular of all speculative schools. The 
 "domestic philosophers", such as from the time of the 
 Scipios were attached to the households of the great, 
 and who, similar to the Christian private chaplains, 
 attended to their masters' spiritual wants as moral guides, 
 confessors, and comforters in misfortune or bereavement, 
 were, as a rule, Stoics, among whom Areus of Alexandria, 
 in the retinue of Augustus, has become noted in history/ 
 And as the Stoics taught in the palaces of the rich, so 
 the kindred Cynics preached to the poor and the idle in 
 the streets, in the market place, in all public thorough- 
 
126 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 
 
 fares, an ever active band of wandering "messengers" or 
 apostles, reproving the reckless, correcting the profligate, 
 and constantly keeping before the eyes of all the bright 
 and spotless image of virtue. Such a life tempted, of 
 course, the pen of the satirist, and it is difficult to resist 
 the impression that Lucian, in pourtraying Peregrinus 
 Proteus travelling about and enjoining a new code of 
 morals, then imprisoned and issuing cyclical epistles, but 
 always surrounded by an admiring crowd wearing the 
 Cynical cloak, and at last, amidst a terrible earthquake, 
 dying voluntarily for the good of mankind, yet walking and 
 seen on earth even after his death it is difficult, I say, 
 not to recognise in this delineation a travesty of the life, 
 labours and death partly of St. Paul and partly of Christ. a 
 
 'Thus an impartial study of history compels the con- 
 viction that Christianity, in its most essential tenets and 
 conclusions, is largely indebted to the system of the Stoics ; 
 and it is so indebted in the doctrine of the logos through 
 Philo and the Alexandrian teachers ; in the ascetic severity, 
 poverty and unworldliness of the Essenes, with their 
 rejection of slavery and their un- Jewish partiality for 
 celibacy ; b and above all in that limitless universalism 
 which embraces within its circle all mankind'. 
 
 'But was not this universalism', said Panini fervently, 
 'proclaimed with unequalled force by the Hebrew prophets, 
 from the earliest down to the latest, and cherished as the 
 most precious of human hopes'? 
 
 'This is in a certain sense true', rejoined Hermes, 'but 
 that great principle would unfailingly have been lost, if 
 Judaism, which in the four or five centuries intervening 
 between the last prophet and the origin of Christianity, 
 was steadily narrowed and contracted, had not been 
 fertilised from without. Moreover, I repeat, your remark 
 can only be admitted with great restrictions. The univer- 
 salism of the Hebrews, glorious as it was, never freed 
 itself entirely from a certain national peculiarity and 
 exclusiveness : it was in Jerusalem and the mountain of 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHEISTIAN. 127 
 
 the Temple of the Lord that, in the Messianic time, the 
 Gentiles were to join the Hebrews under the sceptre of a 
 king from the favoured race of David ; a whereas Diogenes 
 and Zeno, Epictetus and Antoninus declared the world 
 to be their home, considered that, wherever they found 
 fellow-men, they had found the abode of the deity, and 
 deemed all good and wise men alike fit rulers of the 
 world. b The Hebrew legislators never abrogated slavery, 
 and even in their latest ordinances they sanctioned odious 
 distinctions between Hebrew and Gentile slaves. And 
 when in a subsequent period the doctrine of Immor- 
 tality was developed, it was only by a few isolated 
 and enlightened Rabbins that the idea of an equal par- 
 ticipation of Jew and Gentile in the bliss of a future 
 world was timidly and vaguely entertained'. 4 
 
 'But are the Christians less rigorous in this point'? 
 asked Gideon sarcastically, and taking care not to look 
 at the speaker. 'I think I have somewhere read that 
 Gregory, called the Great, once wept and prayed for the 
 soul of Trajan who had afforded protection to the Christians : 
 in the following night, so he relates, he was assured by 
 a Divine vision that the power of his supplications had 
 delivered the good Emperor from hell, but that this favour 
 was only granted on condition that he would never intercede 
 for any other heathen'. 6 
 
 'It is neither my wish nor my duty to defend Christian 
 intolerance', replied Hermes firmly; 'only Christians like 
 Zwinglius, Erasmus and others nurtured by the humanising 
 spirit of the classics, admit into their heaven upright 
 pagans like Aristides, Socrates, or Marcus Aurelius; f and 
 I rejoice to think that, under the same beneficent influence, 
 the number of su<Sh large-minded Christians is increasing, 
 because James's and Peter's humane and intelligent doctrine 
 of justification by works triumphs more and more over 
 Paul's dangerous mysticism of justification by faith' .e 
 
 'Our sages contend', said Rabbi Gideon, 'that if "the 
 strangers of justice" have part in the other world, Anto- 
 
128 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 ninus that is, Marcus Aurelius is at the head of 
 them air a . 
 
 'Even Christ', continued Herrnes, 'reared as he was in 
 a Jewish atmosphere, seems to have been content with 
 a mission to his co-religionists only. I need not remind 
 you that to the Syro-Phoenician woman who entreated 
 him to heal her daughter, he replied, "I am not sent but 
 unto the lost sheep of Israel; ... let the children first be 
 filled, for it is not meet to take the children's bread and 
 to cast it to the dogs" b yes, "to cast it to the dogs"; 
 and that he consequently enjoined upon his disciples not 
 to preach to the Gentiles or any city of the Samaritans, but 
 to "go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" ; c 
 nay that James declared in the assembly of the Apostles, 
 that their appointed work was to "build up again the 
 tabernacle of David which was fallen down", and to gather 
 the Gentiles under its roof-, d so that in reality, if we con- 
 sider, besides, Christ's affirmation that in all eternity not 
 a tittle of the Mosaic Law shall fail, 6 the "universal 
 Church" could have been nothing more than a moderately 
 extended Judaism. But Paul', continued Hermes with a 
 warmth unusual in him 'oh, that he had not elaborated 
 that fatal dogma of justification by faith, and thus destroyed 
 his own great work! Paul, born in Tarsus, a principal 
 centre of Stoicism/ and apparently well acquainted with 
 its tenets and literature^ recognised no "chosen people", 
 but boldly declared, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, 
 there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor 
 female, for you are all one in Chris t", h and thus pro tanto 
 opened to Christianity the gates of the whole world. In 
 support of his principles he referred indeed to utterances 
 of Hebrew prophets, 1 yet it is not impossible that he derived 
 the chief impulse to his cosmopolitan exertions from the 
 Stoics, and thus set the example to Justin and Tertullian, 
 Clemens of Alexandria and Origen, and the other early 
 Fathers who sedulously studied and freely used the works 
 of Stoic teachers. Christianity, therefore, as represented 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 129 
 
 by Christ and St. Paul, is a combination, not quite organic, 
 of a peculiar the Essenic form of Hebraism and a 
 peculiar branch of Hellenism ; and as it unites the merits, 
 so it shares the defects of both, which are a one-sided, 
 however praiseworthy, striving after moral perfection and 
 the "Kingdom of Heaven", with a deplorable neglect of 
 public and domestic life, of art and science, commerce 
 and industry, and every other pursuit or culture calculated 
 to expand the mind and to enlarge the fabric of society 
 that is, with an almost total neglect of everything which 
 we at present call civilisation'. 
 
 'Be this as it may', said Mondoza 'and I confess, 
 I cannot wholly deny the truth and force of these remarks 
 I may be allowed to add one observation on a subject 
 so fraught with important aspects and inferences. Stoicism 
 and Christianity differ fundamentally in those very points 
 which are distinctively characteristic of the Bible, and 
 more particularly of the New Testament: for the Stoics 
 do not hold the creation of the world, out of nothing, by 
 a living and personal God; a they do not recognise any 
 special scheme of Redemption through another's death; 
 they assign predominant rule not to faith, but to reason, 
 wherefore Paul warned his followers against "philosophy 
 and the vain deceit" of natural religion, since Christ is 
 the only true foundation ; b and they do not believe in the 
 eternity of the soul and an after-life dispensing rewards 
 and punishments. Sage and saint, "rational departure" 
 and devout martyrdom, virtue and piety, fortitude and 
 holiness these contrasts express the chief distinctions 
 between Stoic and Christian. Erasmus says of Seneca, 
 "If you read him as a heathen, he wrote like a Christian; 
 if you read him like a Christian, he wrote like a heathen" : d 
 this apt description may well be applied to the Stoics in 
 general ; and though, in some of the ethical features, the 
 Stoic wise man exhibits a remarkable and even startling 
 resemblance to the righteous man of the Bible, not those 
 traits even need have been copied or imitated from the 
 
 K 
 
1 30 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Old and New Testament, since analogous precepts of 
 morality are scattered in nearly all systems of religion and 
 philosophy'. a 
 
 'We shall never do justice to this great subject', said 
 Abington after a little pause, evidently absorbed in his 
 thoughts, 'unless we remember the two fundamental truths, 
 that the end of all historical development is Christianity, 
 and that ancient history is merely "a prophecy heralding 
 Christ". The pagan world, penetrated with the sense of its 
 own insufficiency, conceived moral and philosophical 
 ideas, of which it was able to foster no more than the 
 first germs, and which were only matured by Christianity. 
 It marked out aims which it had not the power to realise, 
 and which pointed forward to Christianity as their fulfil- 
 ment. This is the most manifest of all proofs ofateleological 
 scheme in the education of mankind, the goal of which 
 is the incarnate Christ a proof far more striking and 
 cogent than any derived from an analysis of the ancient 
 forms of religion. Stoicism awarded to man a dignity 
 raising him to a giddy, artificial and untenable height: 
 Epicureanism relegated him to an abyss testifying to his 
 deep fall: but both were a preparation for Christianity, 
 which was destined to restore the human character to its 
 primitive and natural nobility. The Stoic's aberration in 
 ethics followed with necessity from his aberration in physics. 
 His pantheism, like every other shade of pantheism, rendered 
 a genuinely moral disposition of mind impossible ; any truly 
 ethical element it might involve, it adopted as if by chance 
 and as an inconsistency ; and any vividly religious feeling 
 it might display, it tolerated only by a logical confusion'. b 
 
 'By my soul' ! Attinghausen burst forth, rising involun- 
 tarily, 'this is almost too strong. Pantheism is graciously 
 admitted to be compatible with a high degree of ethical 
 and religious sentiment; and yet, in the same breath, it 
 is pronounced entirely incapable of all such principles. 
 Mysteries like these are far above plain men of science. 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 131 
 
 I contend, on the contrary, that true morality can only 
 be expected from true pantheists'. 
 
 'Hardly from those', continued Abington calmly, 'whose 
 conceptions are evolved exclusively by the negative opera- 
 tions of the intellect, or who place themselves in conscious 
 opposition to the proclaimed theism of Christianity; though 
 in a certain degree from those ancient thinkers who, 
 unable to rise to one personal God, yet felt and acknow- 
 ledged a deity pervading the universe, and expressed this 
 unity by the indefinite term of "the divine"'. 
 
 'I would not allow even such a restriction', said Melville 
 with great earnestness; 'for from the idea of the one 
 infinite Substance with its infinite Attributes from "the 
 One and the All" which is identical with the deity, results 
 with unfailing necessity a law of ethics as lofty and pure as 
 that idea itself; since all that exists is but a modality 
 of the divine Substance the natura naturata is indeed 
 identical with the natura naturans. I will at present not 
 pursue this subject farther ; a but I could not sanction by 
 silence an assumed hostility between pantheism and morals: 
 I hold both to be inseparable, and in a great measure 
 identical'. 
 
 "Nor am I at this moment disposed', resumed Abington, 
 'to argue either against the hard texture of our current 
 materialism or against the subtler tissues of Spinozism. 
 Allow me, then, to continue my remarks. The idea of 
 a Divine principle permeating alike men and all nature, 
 led the Stoics to the just conviction of a fixed order to 
 which everything must submit, and of a far-reaching law 
 which indissolubly connects the development of man with 
 the development of the Divine force in the universe; and 
 in acting on this conviction, they found the possibility of 
 virtue and happiness. However, as in following their pursuits, 
 they had before their eyes no supreme aim, no common work 
 to be accomplished conjointly by the universe and individual 
 men, or to be carried onward towards completion by a 
 self-conscious eternal Love and a teleological Wisdom; 
 
132 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 neither their virtue nor their felicity could be real and 
 genuine. For man's morality consists in his advancing, as 
 a free organ yet with ready subserviency to the whole, 
 the accomplishment of the great common task; and his 
 happiness consists in a complete harmony of his single 
 life with the general course of the world; which harmony, 
 however, the Stoics were so entirely unable to attain that 
 under certain circumstances they permitted the wise man 
 to put an end to his life with his own hand. It is only 
 Christianity which has established a supreme aim and a 
 universal purpose in the idea of the Kingdom of God and its 
 glorification by means of a living and active theism; and 
 it is only Christianity which has discovered the indispen- 
 sable consonance in which every individual should live 
 with the general law of a moral order of the world. 
 "Considered from a Christian point of view, this entire 
 globe is designed that on it God might be revealed and 
 sanctified through mankind ; Nature is designed with the 
 object of revealing God to man; and man is designed so 
 as to receive in his mind this revelation and to stamp 
 his own Divine impress on the matter borrowed from 
 Nature : in fact, Christianity discloses to us that the whole 
 world has been framed with the view that it should 
 be brought to the goal of perfection by visibly realising 
 the Kingdom of God"'. a 
 
 i Valketab-ilmubmi ) , said Movayyid-eddin devoutly, 'by 
 the Book of lucid Instruction! 13 How profound is the 
 intelligence of the learned Giours! May Allah sharpen 
 my understanding and illumine me by their wisdom'! 
 
 'You may well be perplexed', said Attinghausen. 'The 
 Stoics have been reproached with indulging in empty 
 verbiage: all we have just heard is hardly more than soun- 
 ding phrases. It amounts to the much quoted proposition: 
 "Object and end alike of every man and of the whole universe 
 is the glorification of God through the Kingdom of God". 
 But what is the precise meaning of such terms? How can 
 the universe be co-ordinated with man as contributing to 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHEISTIAN. 133 
 
 the glorification of the Kingdom of God, unless it be in some 
 manner endowed with life and consciousness ? But if so, we 
 have virtually that pantheism which has been rejected with 
 such contempt and horror. As Nature follows its own 
 immanent laws, it could, at best, only glorify itself, if it 
 were not so grievously imperfect and often so wildly and 
 terribly destructive. And I much suspect that in the 
 words, "This entire globe is designed that on it God might 
 be revealed through mankind", there lurks the old pre- 
 scientific delusion of the earth being the chief and central 
 body of the world, since, as far as we know, men are only 
 found on the earth. Is it necessary to refute speculations 
 founded on exploded fancies'? 
 
 'Certain systems of thought are indeed irreconcilable', 
 rejoined Abington ; 'therefore, without attempting a reply, 
 I proceed to point out that the fundamental error of the 
 Stoics their pantheism unfitted them to form a proper 
 notion of personal individuality. Their world was devoid 
 of that archetype of all individuality, a personal Spirit. 
 Unable, therefore, to bridge over the chasm between the 
 Personal and the Universal, they were compelled blindly 
 to subject themselves to the unintelligible law of an im- 
 mutable and iron necessity; and, when assailed by difficulties, 
 they saw nothing left but resignation in the form of self- 
 destruction. Again, the Stoics deduced everything from 
 theoretical "knowledge", and would, therefore, have been 
 incapable of finding virtue, even if their "knowledge" had 
 not been spurious and false'. 
 
 'But is not "intellectual love", said Melville, 'man's most 
 perfect, because most godlike, attribute'? 
 
 'Not to the Christian', replied Abington, 'whose love 
 is the gift of grace and the fruit of faith'. 
 
 'Do not, however', said Canon Mortimer, 'high authorities 
 acknowledge that the principle of noble intention, upon 
 which the Stoics, in all "right actions", strongly insist as 
 essential, almost coincides with the principle implied in 
 St. Paul's distinction between "good deeds" and "deeds of 
 
134 THE STOIC AND THE CHEISTIAN. 
 
 the Law", the former having their root in a holy disposition 
 gained by inward regeneration, the other resulting from 
 outward discipline and therefore only apparently good'? a 
 
 'Certainly', replied Abington; 'but this regeneration must 
 indeed be that of the Christian a regeneration flowing 
 from, and accompanied by, those qualities to which I 
 shall presently refer, but to which paganism was a stranger. 
 
 'It is true, that the Stoic rightly discriminates between 
 .a legitimate dispassionateless or apatheia and an immo- 
 vable insensibility; yet, while proudly imagining that he 
 rules by his reason, he is constantly reminded that he 
 is no more than the toy of an implacable necessity. Though 
 at liberty to love his child, he must not mourn its death, 
 because death ensues from the inherent ordinances of 
 the universe in their inextricable connection. The Christian, 
 on the other hand, feels his weakness and his dependence, 
 and suffers; but he conquers the infirmity by the force 
 of the Divine life that is within him; for he gratefully 
 .accepts the suffering as the decree of an educating Wisdom 
 .and Love, and he bears it joyfully as a sacrifice he readily 
 offers to his heavenly Father. "While feeling his weakness, 
 he feels his strength; it is not his own power by which 
 he prevails, but the power of God". Humility teaches 
 him in his griefs and trials that moderation which is the 
 true apatheia] for this he does not gain by overweening 
 reason, but by that submission to God, which rules his 
 whole life; and thus the Christian apatheia is "the com- 
 plete symmetry between the human and the Divine, or 
 the true beauty of the soul"'. b 
 
 'All this would be most excellent', Attinghausen broke 
 forth like an uncontrollable torrent, 'if you could prove 
 it to be true. Prove it true, and I shall be the first to 
 adopt it. But everything is pure assumption. The wish has 
 been father to the thought. Because such views, con- 
 ceived by feebleness and reared by fancy, permit you to 
 live in ease and security, you have decreed them to be in- 
 contestable. This is the action of children and cowards, and 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHKISTIAN. 135 
 
 not of men. But we are no longer children. Paul said 
 nearly two thousand years ago: "When I was a child . . . 
 I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put 
 away, childish things". If Paul was a man in comparison 
 with his Jewish contemporaries, he is in comparison 
 with our age a child. "We are no longer under a school- 
 master". We do not deem it our duty to "submit our- 
 selves to our spiritual masters and pastors". When you 
 say that the opinions you have stated are based upon 
 "revelation", you say what to many of us has ceased to 
 have any meaning. All proofs of the existence of God 
 and of the immortality of the soul have signally failed; 
 to the man of science they are a priori inadmissible. 
 Atticus said to Cicero who had recommended to him 
 Plato's Phaedo, "While I am reading, I assent, but 
 when I lay down the book and begin to reflect for myself 
 on Immortality, my assent vanishes" ; a and when Laplace 
 was asked by Napoleon, why he never mentioned God in 
 his Mechanism of the Heavens, he replied, "Sire, je 
 n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothese". But intrinsically 
 baseless is the fanciful contrast of a fallen world and a 
 saving or atoning deus ex machina. And if you were at 
 least honest! But you are not. The Bible censures Asa, 
 king of Judah, because "in his illness he did not consult 
 God but the physicians". b This is consistent and intelli- 
 gible. But how do you act? You punish with fine and 
 imprisonment a Christian sect for consulting, in illness, not 
 the physicians, but God; although you have been assured 
 that "the prayer of faith shall save the sick". c You have 
 been enjoined, "Take no thought for the morrow", and taught 
 to ask, "Give us this day our daily bread", yet you pru- 
 dently adhere to the Preacher's admonition, "In the mor- 
 ning sow thy seed, and in the evening let not thy hand 
 rest". d In a word, you profess belief in the guidance of 
 a higher Power, but you act as if there were ^neither a 
 God nor a Providence. Your political and private life 
 is regulated on principles diametrically opposed to those' 
 
136 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 of the Old and New Testament. You extol the Kingdom of 
 Heaven and long for empire on earth. You confess it to 
 be your duty to "renounce the pomps and vanity of this 
 wicked world", yet you not only deem pleasure desirable 
 but luxury a social necessity. You have been told again and 
 again how difficult it is for the rich to be saved, and you are 
 hotly engaged in a race for wealth. You suspect and 
 often denounce science, but you practically act upon all 
 its ascertained conclusions. Till you demonstrate your 
 dogmas, we must decline your fools 7 paradise; and trying 
 to bear life as best we may in patient labours for our 
 fellow-men, we find our hell in self-contempt, and our 
 heaven in the certainty of partaking in the eternal life 
 of mankind'. 
 
 'A brutumfulmen! Sound and fury !' muttered Humphrey 
 with set teeth. 
 
 'No, no ! I pray 7 , cried Mondoza, who at last succeeded 
 in checking Attinghausen, 'let us, I implore you, leave 
 these subjects to calmer deliberation; they are too weighty 
 to be disposed of by dogmatic assertions, however 
 earnest the convictions which prompts them. May I 
 ask our friend Abington to continue where he has been 
 interrupted' ? 
 
 'Like the Buddhist, who has no Deity and no Divine 
 lawgiver', resumed Abington placidly, 'the Stoic had no 
 just consciousness of guilt or sin, and had therefore no 
 sense of holiness or of communion with God; he could 
 not be a true "priest"'. 
 
 'But', said Gregovius, 'I must crave permission for 
 a few words we find in Stoic writings, especially those 
 of Seneca, on this point many remarkable utterances, in 
 form and spirit almost Biblical. Let me cite a few as 
 specimens. "There is not one of us who is without fault". 
 "We all have erred and shall trespass to the end of our 
 lives". "We strive after virtue, while entangled by vices". 
 "I have not attained health, nor shall I ever attain it; 
 I am tossed on a sea of infirmities." "When I reprove 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 137 
 
 vice, I reprehend above all my own". And only this one 
 more: "There is no man found who can absolve himself; 
 and if anybody claims to be innocent, he can only 
 do so with respect to witnesses, not before his con- 
 science"'.* 
 
 'And may I ask', added Subbhuti not without some 
 irritation, 'whether our learned friend has ever read the 
 Confession of sins embodied in "the Liturgical Services 
 of the great compassionate Kwan-yin", which are adorned 
 by a Preface of the great Emperor Yung Loh'? b 
 
 'These analogies', said Abington with unusual hesitation, 
 'are mostly external and accidental, for a reason which I soon 
 hope to make evident. The Stoic is ignorant of the great 
 consummation for which this world has been planned, 
 ignorant of the establishment of the Kingdom of God on 
 earth, to which everything else must be made subordinate; 
 he can, therefore, have no share in the universal-dominion 
 reserved for that Kingdom; he is hence not a true "king", 
 not truly a "judge", not truly "rich". In a word, it is only 
 in connection with a Christian life, founded on Christian 
 humility, that the truth implied in the Stoic paradoxes 
 receives its significance and realisation. 
 
 'Further, the Stoic did not bear in his heart the principle of 
 a Divine Love ; he was ruled by selfishness ; he was, therefore, 
 not "free". His much-praised "power of self-determination" 
 was an illusion, because it was involved in an irreconcilable 
 contradiction to the law of universe. He was the sport 
 of outward influences and forces, because he ever remained 
 a slave of nature, and therefore of sin ; and his conception 
 of sovereign liberty, which presumed to lift itself above 
 the law of morality and to create its own law, consistently 
 led him to the legalisation of self-destruction. True 
 liberty is the privilege of the Christian alone, who, "while 
 following the impulse of the will of God, guides himself 
 by his own will, . . . and who, though he cannot escape 
 dependence, makes this dependence itself a subject for 
 the exercise of his moral liberty"'. 
 
138 THE STOIC AND THE CHBISTIAN. 
 
 'Marvellous'! said Attinghausen; 
 
 "Mir wird von alle dem so dumm, 
 
 "Als ging' mir ein Muhlrad im Kopf herum"'! a 
 
 'Marvellous indeed"! added Asho-raoco, who had 
 evidently not understood the meaning of the German 
 quotation. 'How admirable a notion of liberty! How 
 plain! how clear! Ah, your ability and acuteness might 
 even reconcile Ormuzd and Ahriman, and thus relieve 
 me from my heavy perplexity'! 
 
 'In the strongest possible contrast to the Stoic's egotistical 
 and baneful self-exaltation', continued Abington calmly, 
 'is the other extreme of desperate self-annihilation, which 
 cannot but follow from the submission to a cruel necessity 
 absorbing all individual existence. Christianity alone 
 carries out consistently the principle of a complete agree- 
 ment between the personal and the universal law ; it teaches 
 man that he fulfils his appointed task by acting simply 
 as the organ of Divine Providence, and by maintaining his 
 dignity through the glorification of God. It thus elevates him 
 so high above the operation of all worldly conditions that, 
 however narrow and depressing these may appear, they 
 exhibit him in impregnable majesty; and it enables him. 
 to understand, that true fortitude, equally unconquerable 
 by life and by death, is manifested in self-preservation, 
 as suffering and struggling Christians have testified under 
 the most terrible trials. b The right direction is given 
 to us by St. Paul who, in the midst of his toils and 
 perils, wrote: "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a 
 desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far 
 better; nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful 
 for you"'. c 
 
 'Did not the noble Stoics also', remonstrated Hermes, 
 'intend, by their "rational departure", a "glorification of 
 God", when they proved by a resolute deed that life was 
 valueless without the Divine attribute of liberty? That 
 they were clearly conscious of such a mission, cannot be 
 doubted. To the question, why wise and good men must 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHBISTIAN. 139 
 
 meet with misfortunes, a Stoic master replied: "That 
 they may instruct others how to endure ; they are born to 
 be examples' 7 .* When throwing himself into the flames, 
 Peregrinus said: "I desire to be useful to the world in 
 showing how death should be despised". b Indeed, the 
 philosophers considered that God himself had assigned to 
 them their post as preceptors, which they were not allowed 
 to desert either in life or in death'. 
 
 "'The santification of God's name", said Rabbi Gideon, 
 'was the avowed object of all Jewish martyrs; they 
 died, not for their own fame, but for God and His holy 
 cause'. 
 
 'This has never been questioned', replied Hermes; 'but 
 how did the Jews act when they were not inflamed by 
 religious passion? Ecclesiastes, living in a time of lawless 
 oppression similar to that in which the greatest Stoics 
 proved their valour, counsels deference and submission 
 to the rich and the powerful; against outrage and degrada- 
 tion he has only tears and an impotent wish for death; 
 he can summon neither fortitude nor resignation. In his 
 perplexed despondency, he, on the one hand, praises those 
 as the most happy who have never been born, and, on 
 the other hand, maintains that "a living dog is better 
 than a dead lion", because the living have at least the 
 one comfort of knowing that they will die. d The Stoic 
 admits that life is valuable, but only so long as he can 
 realise its highest objects. Or would Cicero, who quietly 
 awaited his inevitable assassination, appear to us less 
 deserving of respect or less matfly, if he had followed the 
 example of Cato ? And did not even Eusebius and Jerome 
 and other Christian Fathers, under similar circumstances, 
 approve of determined anticipation'? 6 
 
 'True', answered Abington, 'but many more condemned 
 it Justin Martyr, Lactantius, and St. Augustin, and 
 also several ecumenical Councils. f The Bible deemed a 
 direct prohibition unnecessary. The instances of self- 
 destruction it records are few ; but the motives of Samson, 
 
140 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Ahitophel, and Judas Iscariot were contemptible or cul- 
 pable; the instance of Saul alone bears an analogy to 
 the cases we are considering; yet even Saul shrank from 
 the deed and "fell upon his sword" only when his sole 
 companion refused to lay hand on him. a Permit me, 
 however, to resume the thread of my observations. The 
 Stoic, in recognising a law common to the world and the 
 individual, rose indeed to a certain universalism; but this 
 universalism was not life, but bore the germ of death 
 in itself; for it effaced every distinctive individuality, 
 without which no buoyancy or progress is possible. By 
 removing all particular differences founded on the statutes 
 of reason and creation, it did violence to nature; it lacked 
 that true and organic unity which, inwardly animated by 
 a higher principle, yet leaves all vital varieties intact, 
 and which could only be established by the life-giving 
 breath of Christianity'. 
 
 'This objection to Stoic universality', said Hermes, 'it 
 would, I think, be difficult to substantiate. As it was 
 the rule in ancient countries to allow even to a subjected 
 people its national and ancestral customs, no special 
 character or development was suppressed or disturbed. 
 Even the exceptional example of Alexander the Great 
 confirms this rule. It is difficult to see why Zeno's hope 
 that all men will one day live, like a united flock, under 
 the rule of a common law, cannot be understood in the 
 same sense as the very analogous saying of the New 
 Testament that "there shall be one fold and one shepherd'". b 
 
 'But where', asked Abifigton, 'was the bond that could 
 hold together the incongruous parts ? It was certainly not 
 science, which was without a general or even far- spread 
 influence. The result could only have been a confused 
 and shapeless mass sure to crumble again into the original 
 atoms. 
 
 'I come to another point. Plato regarded evil on earth 
 as indispensable, because, according to his theories, there 
 must exist the opposite of good, which cannot possibly reside 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHKISTIAN. 141 
 
 with the gods. a The Stoics went farther. They were by 
 their pantheism misled to look upon evil as a necessity in 
 the harmony of the world: "the evil also", says Chrysippus, 
 "is an integral part of the rest, for it happens in a certain 
 manner according to the law of nature and not without ad- 
 vantage to the whole ; and without it there would be no good" '. b 
 
 'So then', exclaimed Asho-raoco, 'the sages of Greece 
 also recognise the necessity for Ahriman'! 
 
 'But does not that doctrine', said Mortimer, 'virtually 
 coincide with the Biblical teaching which is most distinctly 
 expressed by the later Isaiah: "I form light and create 
 darkness; I make peace and create evil; I the Lord 
 do all these things"? 6 And do not most men agree with 
 the poet who considers 
 
 "All discord harmony not understood, 
 "All partial evil universal good'"? d 
 
 'True', answered Abington, 'but this applies only to 
 the physical world and the incidents of life, not to the 
 iniquities of man. These the Christian regards with a 
 holy indignation, with "the hate of hate" and "the scorn of 
 scorn" not weakened even by his brotherly charity; he deems 
 vice and crime by no means useful, still less necessary for 
 the harmony of the whole, and he strives with all his might 
 to banish them from the earth. Indeed, warfare against per- 
 versity is the Christian's chief duty, for he knows that sin 
 arises from man's guilty abuse of the precious gift of liberty'. 
 
 'I think', said Attinghausen with some warmth, 'that 
 the Stoics are treated by theologians with shameless in- 
 gratitude. They were, of course, wrong in asserting the 
 necessity or usefulness of moral evil. For if man is 
 destined for virtue and happiness, why is he born with 
 those vicious propensities which, as experience shows, 
 render felicity and peace of mind impossible? And what 
 advantage for the whole can there be in murder, plunder 
 and tyrannical oppression? in avarice, envy, anger and 
 hatred? It is enough to be sorrowfully aware that such 
 deeds of wickedness are perpetrated, and that man is tor- 
 
142 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 tured by pernicious passions; and we must guard and 
 protect ourselves as much as lies in our power. But we 
 should not, by a mischievous ingenuity, labour to de- 
 monstrate that those terrible evils are really boons that 
 dense darkness is light, that deadly poison is wholesome 
 food. a And as regards the physical world, what advantage 
 to the whole are earthquake, floods, drought, famine, de- 
 structive lightning, hurricane, tornado, pestilence? disease, 
 tormenting pain, premature death? Yet in thus distorting 
 facts and falsifying reason, the Stoics surely meant to 
 "vindicate the ways of God to man", or to prove that 
 "whatever is, is right", b by establishing one of those aerial 
 systems of ''-theodicy", which, from Chrysippus to Leibniz 
 and from Leibniz to our recent optimists, form one of 
 the most astounding phenomena in the history of philo- 
 sophy, as they seem deduced from some imaginary structure 
 like Campanella's Utopian "Civitas Solis", rather than 
 from the stern world in which we live. Therefore, I am 
 so far from admitting that the Stoics were not religious 
 enough, that, on the contrary, I contend, with deep re- 
 gret, that they made too large concessions to the 
 superstitions of their time in vainly attempting to uphold 
 the dogma of a uniform harmony belied alike by the life 
 of individuals, the events of history, and the awful ravages 
 of the elements'. 
 
 'Very different from the superb apathy of the Stoic 
 sage', continued Abington, in no way disturbed by Atting- 
 hausen's remarks, 'is the equanimity of the militant Christian. 
 And that Stoic sage, how indistinct is his portrait in 
 spite of the numerous traits which compose it! He can not, 
 therefore, serve as a practical guide to morality ; his existence 
 can nowhere be proved; he remains a dim phantom. Never- 
 theless, by a sad but significant confusion, the Stoic, 
 while still in the midst of self-education, unconsciously 
 identifies himself with his ideal; and from this strange 
 error arises an overweening apotheosis of human virtue, 
 in which the Stoic sage fancies that he is raised above 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 143 
 
 all laws of morality and aspires to be himself a law to 
 others an elated haughtiness which does not shrink 
 from asserting a complete equality of the "good man' 7 
 with Zeus himself. 3 "As it behoves Zeus", he affirms, 
 "to know his dignity in himself and his life, and to talk 
 loftily while living in accordance with such high pro- 
 fessions, so this behoves every good man, to whom Zeus 
 is superior in nothing". b The Stoic could not pass beyond 
 the limits of paganism. His portrait of the sage owes its 
 origin to man's legitimate and irrepressible desire of be- 
 holding all Divine perfection united in a concrete personality 
 and in human form; c but in Christ alone has that grand 
 figure been realised, because he is himself the supreme law, 
 he judges, but is judged by none, and he alone can avail 
 us as a complete type for the regulation of our lives'. 
 
 'The Christ to whom these remarks refer', said Hermes, 
 'is no less a creation of idealising reason than the Cynic 
 or Stoic model depicted by Epictetus and Seneca. Whether 
 the actual contemporaries of the great prophet of Na- 
 zareth, who knew him as "Joseph's sou", held him to be 
 sinless and faultless, the image of Divine perfection, may 
 be doubted and is a question that does not here con- 
 cern us; it is enough that, after his death, he was con- 
 ceived as such and set forth as the eternal exemplar. d 
 If he is deemed efficient for the practical guidance of 
 life, why not the wise men of the Stoa, who are theoretical 
 constructions founded upon at least as much reality and 
 experience? 6 Was it necessary to proclaim one of them 
 a god in order to qualify him for such a function? Was 
 it even necessary to bestow upon him divine honours such 
 as were bestowed upon Epicurus by the veneration of 
 his disciples' ? f 
 
 'The many millions who follow the great Confucius', 
 said Asho-raoco slowly and pensively, 'have never been 
 tempted to make of him a god'. 
 
 'Nor we of Buddha', said Subbhuti hesitatingly, and then 
 added sadly, 'at first'. 
 
144 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 'Nor we ever of Moses', said Gideon proudly, 'and our 
 Rabbins assure us that the reason why God Himself 
 buried him in a grave known to no mortal was to pre- 
 vent idolatrous worship and superstitious pilgrimages/ 
 
 'But this very point', said Abington in his most me- 
 ditative manner, his head bent on his breast, 'constitutes 
 an eminent, if not the most striking, superiority of 
 Christianity. The pagans were incapable of conceiving 
 a deity essentially distinct from man; to them the Divine 
 was nothing else than the human intensified and exalted, 
 nothing more than "the reflexion which man's reason, 
 mirrored in the radiance of its own light, casts beyond 
 the sphere of the human ". a The difference was merely 
 a difference of degree. But the God of Christianity is 
 a Spirit. He has no affinity with the human except that 
 He breathed into man an immortal soul. He is a Being 
 absolute, existing above and beyond all nature, incomparable, 
 unattainable by any chain or gradation. Therefore, on the 
 one hand, Plato and his successors, though consciously 
 and zealously idealising Socrates, were unable to deify 
 him, or even to endow him with a single superhuman 
 attribute by which he might have been empowered to 
 work, as God's messenger, for the weal of mankind in 
 accordance with a large plan of teleological education 
 as the fixed aim. b They were unable to achieve this be- 
 cause the figure of Socrates, however noble and com- 
 manding, rested on a human foundation and was not 
 fitted to realise the full and living amalgamation of the 
 Divine and the human. 
 
 'But, on the other hand, Christianity, to accomplish its 
 scheme of redemption, was privileged to let God descend 
 upon earth as the eternal source of grace and forgiveness ; 
 for "the human cannot rise to the Divine, unless the 
 Divine descends to the human" ; and "the Divine can 
 never be perfectly understood and contemplated save in 
 its unity with the human". This is the essential difference 
 which sharply separates paganism from Christianity: in 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHEISTIAN. 145 
 
 the former, the divine, expressed through the world of ideals, 
 always remains to man's consciousness something extra- 
 neous which lies in the domain of imagination and know- 
 ledge; while in the latter, the divine penetrates into the 
 sphere of religion and faith, and it accomplishes this 
 truly and efficaciously by concentrating the multitude of 
 ideals into the unity of the Logos, and then imparting to 
 the Logos a concrete form in the flesh'. a 
 
 'I am amazed', said Gideon, who had listened to Abing- 
 ton's speech with knitted brow and closed eyes, evidently 
 making the utmost effort to understand its meaning; 'I am 
 really amazed at this prodigious feat of logic. In plain terms 
 it amounts to this: Paganism makes hardly a distinction 
 between god and man, therefore it cannot declare a man 
 to be a god ; Christianity regards God as a Spirit absolutely 
 different from the attributes of man, therefore it is able 
 to endow God with the form of a man. Common sense 
 would expect exactly the reverse ; for is it not much more 
 natural for man, who has in himself a Divine breath, to 
 ascend and to become Divine, than for God, who has 
 nothing corporeal, to descend and to become human? 
 But what is poor common sense to the fathomless depths 
 of Ecclesiastical theology? Yet supposing even, that the 
 logic were faultless, is it such wonderful praise for a 
 religion professing to be spiritual, that it conceives and 
 requires a God assuming bodily form? Taunt the Rabbins 
 as contemptuously as you may, in the whole range of 
 their vast literature you will find nothing like this deceptive 
 casuistry 7 . 
 
 'In Dante's words', muttered Panini, "'State contenti, 
 umana gente, al gwm"'. b 
 
 'You share', replied Abington, 'a misconception of 
 Incarnation very common among your co-religionists. 
 Luther declared it grievous heresy to contend that "the 
 Father or the Holy Ghost has become a man"; and he 
 rightly taught that "Christ was born a natural son of 
 Mary and the Holy Ghost, in every way and manner a 
 
146 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 true man, like myself and everybody else"; a and a similar 
 doctrine is very clearly enunciated in the second of our 
 Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. b For in Christ "the two 
 whole and perfect natures" are joined in one person by 
 a union unio personalis that can be compared to no 
 other combination, because the connecting bond is the 
 person of the Logos, who blends both natures by an 
 indissoluble tie: c Christ is at once very God and very 
 man who, as the Apostle says, "being in the form of God, 
 thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but . . . 
 took upon himself the form of a servant". d But while, 
 as perfect man, or as the concrete realisation of a life holy, 
 sublime and self-sacrificing, he has for ever become the 
 distinct and historical prototype of the existence of every 
 man according to his individual gifts, peculiar aims and 
 special relations, he is, as perfect God, the eternally 
 inapproachable prototype, which man should strive to 
 imitate, but with which he can never confound himself; 
 and thus he constantly teaches that humility which is the 
 supreme and cardinal quality of the Christian, but is 
 despised or disregarded by the Stoic. Every step in moral 
 improvement makes the follower of Christ more lowly, the 
 Stoic more defiant; the one more deeply conscious of his 
 dependence, the other more strongly intoxicated with that 
 presumptuous self-sufficiency which leaves no room for any 
 genuine and meritorious virtue'. 
 
 'Marcus Aurelius is right', said Attinghausen, whispering 
 to Hermes: '"The most intolerable of men are those who 
 boast of their humility"'. 6 
 
 'There exists', continued Abington unfalteringly, 'no 
 more prominent contrast between Christian and heathen. 
 But in that feeling of dependence is joy, in this empty 
 self-sufficiency nothing but melancholy resignation : for it is 
 this point to which, in accordance with our common enquiry, 
 my remarks have tended from the beginning, and for the 
 elucidation of which I have, with your kind indulgence, 
 ventured to enter into the essence of Christian ethics. 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 147 
 
 There is, I maintain, no true happiness in the Stoic's 
 unreal life no true happiness in the dark abysses of his 
 pantheism and materialism, none in the chilly altitudes 
 of his audacious self-idolatry ; and whatever light or warmth 
 it may have possessed in the times of paganism, has been 
 eclipsed by the bright radiance of Christianity'. 
 
 'Is it thus', said Wolfram, not without a slight irony, 
 'that you account for the fact that, as Christianity 
 spread, Stoicism vanished, and that Marcus Aurelius, 
 whose reign probably witnessed the first collection of New 
 Testament Scriptures, was almost the last great Stoic'? 
 "*I certainly think so', replied Abington. 'That highly 
 praised Emperor, who dreamt of "liberty and equality", and 
 re-instated the people into their ancient rights, 3 despaired 
 of establishing a superior commonwealth, because, as he 
 complained, he was unable to effect that moral reformation 
 without which nothing could be expected but servitude 
 and debasement^ Marcus Aurelius was too much infatuated 
 by the pride of reason to see that the remedy could not 
 be supplied by philosophy, but only by religion, and too 
 shortsighted to perceive that his own Stoic ideal, long 
 since more than realised in Christ, had begun to effect 
 a regeneration which was to extend to all mankind in all 
 ages. The Stoa had gravitated towards the Christian 
 standpoint; when this aim was reached, it had accom- 
 plished its pre-ordained purpose in the teleological course 
 of history ; and it disappeared by that process of absorption, 
 which ever merges the lower in the higher phase'. c 
 
 'I admit the fact', said Hermes, 'but I must question 
 the explanation. "While there was the faintest prospect 
 of the recovery of a rational and a dignified existence, 
 the noblest characters sought a refuge in the citadel of 
 Stoicism, lived and died as patriots, and tried to re-kindle 
 the flame of republican honour and integrity. But when, 
 after the period of the excellent Emperors, all hope was 
 extinguished; when, as Marcus Aurelius himself wrote, 
 "faith and reverence and justice had fled up to Olympus 
 
148 THE STOIC AND THE CHEISTIAN. 
 
 from the earth", a and people constantly re-echoed the old 
 words of Euripides, that Virtue is "but a word and a dark 
 delusion of nocturnal dreams" ; b when all lands and nations 
 groaned, without redress or relief, under ruthless tyranny, 
 rapine and bloodshed: then even the most heroic courage 
 was broken; the pithy maxim of Epictetus, "Bear and 
 Forbear", lost its magic power ; d the feeling of self-reliance 
 changed into a feeling of dependence, and Stoicism gave 
 way to Christianity. Men renounced this world and 
 centred their hopes in the next; they abandoned earthly 
 boons in exchange for spiritual bliss. For as the state 
 is, so are religion and philosophy: the monarchical EaSt 
 developed monotheism, republican Greece and Rome 
 maintained long a polytheism; the Court of the great 
 king of Persia was the exact image of the Court of 
 Ahura-Mazda in the celestial spheres; and the Christian 
 "Kingdom of heaven" itself is but a human Empire raised 
 to its ideal prototype. There was indeed an absorption 
 of paganism by Christianity ; but in this process some of 
 the finest and grandest elements of humanity were destroyed 
 or weakened. The transformation was not in every respect 
 a gain, and it is only by the revival of classical learning 
 that the loss has been partially recovered. Greece and 
 Rome restored to Europe the vital forces withdrawn or 
 enchained by Judea and Galilee. Neglect the study of 
 the classics, and you relapse into barbarism'! 
 
 'We seem certainly', said Rabbi Gideon with bitterness, 
 'to have relapsed into the "hot fever of Graecomania"'. 
 
 'It appears impossible', said Mondoza after a brief 
 interval, during which most of the guests carried on 
 desultory conversations, 'to dismiss the wider subject so 
 clearly and so suggestively introduced by our learned friend 
 Abington, without a few observations which he has almost 
 rendered imperative by his earnestness and decision. It is 
 true and I think the remarks I made yesterday prove my 
 impartiality in this point that several features in the Stoic's 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 149 
 
 character are harsh, narrow, perhaps unloveable, but they 
 are strong, manly and commanding; and it will always 
 depend on the natural disposition of individuals whether 
 they admire these latter or the opposite qualities : some will 
 feel more attracted by Bossuet, others by Fenelon ; some 
 more by Calvin, others by Erasmus. But the assertion 
 that those qualities are not compatible with a proper 
 degree of humility, seems to me scarcely just. Epictetus 
 says of Diogenes: "How did he love mankind? As it 
 behoved the minister of Zeus at the same time yearning 
 for the welfare of men and obedient to the behests of 
 God". a It would be easy to quote from the Hebrew 
 prophets, the Apostles, the Christian Fathers and later 
 divines numerous utterances conveying precisely the same 
 combination of personal effort and conscious submission 
 under a Divine guidance that combination which con- 
 stitutes a modesty neither destructive of energy nor of 
 self-respect. How many sad errors and abuses would have 
 been avoided in the Christian Church itself if both elements 
 had always been heeded alike upon this subject I will not 
 at present dilate. But I must urge grave objections 
 against the very foundations upon which our friend 
 Abington has raised his finely designed structure. 
 
 "The end of all historical development", he contends, 
 "is Christianity". What is "Christianity"? Is it the 
 teaching of Christ or of Paul ? of Paul or of James and 
 Peter? Is the Christianity of Athanasius identical with 
 that of Arius? that of Jerome identical with that of 
 Luther? that of Wesley kindred to that of Arnold? 
 Which, then, of all these and many other forms, is the 
 "end of historical development"? By each new progress 
 that end is obviously removed into greater distance; it is 
 no fixed point, but the illimitable horizon ever near yet 
 ever unapproached. When one development of Christianity 
 has been reached, it becomes the starting point of another, 
 perhaps materially different phase, which is still Christia- 
 nity. Nor are the modifications always caused exclusively 
 
150 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 by an organic advancement from within, but they often 
 result from influences not only extraneous but foreign. 
 St. John's elaborate doctrine of the Logos was derived 
 from the Hellenistic speculations of Alexandria ; Scholastic 
 theology was thoroughly tinctured by a very complex form 
 of heathen philosophy; Luther's liberal concessions to 
 reason were stimulated by the remarkable discoveries in 
 the exact sciences. Christianity is the powerful stream 
 which, absorbing in its course numerous rivers and rivulets, 
 is constantly swelled and widened; and thus it coincides 
 at last with civilisation which is the real, but never really 
 attained, aim of historical development.* 
 
 'In this sense, yet in no other, we may assent to our 
 thoughtful friend's second contention, that the entire 
 history of antiquity was only "a prophecy heralding 
 Christianity", or pointing towards it as its realisation. 
 In as much as the founders of the chief schools of Greek 
 philosophy preceded by centuries the earliest originators 
 of Christianity, it was not only possible, but probable and 
 almost necessary, that the great and fruitful ideas they 
 had promulgated should, in that long interval, be enlarged, 
 deepened and refined, and that, therefore, the form given 
 to them in the New Testament should be better fitted for the 
 conquest of the world than the original Hellenic conception, 
 especially as, in that form, they were not a little ennobled 
 by the spirit of Hebrew prophecy. The blossoms of Stoic 
 wisdom, which grew on the great tree of knowledge, had in 
 the course of ages been matured into fruits, which, in 
 their turn, require other ages to be mellowed, but will 
 probably never attain perfection, to refresh and to satisfy 
 struggling humanity. 
 
 "Die Zeit ist eine bliihende Flur, 
 "Ein grosses Lebendiges ist die Natur, 
 "Und alles ist Frucht und alles ist Samen". b 
 
 'Thus Christianity, though undoubtedly representing a 
 higher stage of culture than that of Greece or Rome, is a 
 term not implying finality. But I trust', concluded Mondoza, 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 151 
 
 speaking in a graver tone than was his wont, 'I shall be par- 
 doned if I add that Christianity, by raising its founder into 
 an incarnation of the Eternal, not only excluded from its 
 community the stricter monotheists, but, when these refused 
 to forswear the One God of their fathers, considered it 
 its duty to consign them to the flames of the stake and 
 still more terrible deaths, or cruelly to expel them from 
 sunny climes and happy homes'. 
 
 A deep melancholy had, during the last words, spread over 
 Mondoza's features, and he seemed to suppress some 
 additional observations from fear of being betrayed into 
 exhibiting yet greater emotion. 
 
 'I can well understand your grief, said Hermes after 
 a few moments, 'when I remember the misery your own 
 ancestors suffered in the land of Philip and Alva: but 
 are not these names sufficient to remind us that the 
 Christians raged no less fiercely and mercilessly against 
 each other? that the vaunt of Christianity being a 
 religion of all-embracing brotherhood under the banner 
 of God, became a hollow and blasphemous mockery'? 
 
 'Let the dark past', said Mondoza, recovering his 
 serenity, 'be forgotten, as its crimes have long since been 
 forgiven, but let us not forget the warnings it inculcates. 
 Christianity, I am thankful to know, has advanced to that 
 toleration which permits all creeds to live and to work 
 peacefully side by side. But we should not be lulled into 
 a dangerous sense of security. The aberrations of the 
 human intellect, the vagaries of human fancy, are incal- 
 culable and, I am afraid, ineradicable. They are possible 
 even in our age of high scientific progress; for even in 
 our days the pernicious principle, "I believe because it 
 is aburd", is echoed in authoritative maxims like these: 
 "The paradoxical is the criterion of the Divine", or, 
 "A religion of Divine revelation must have paradoxes"; 8 
 whereas in truth the safest criterion of the Divine is that 
 plainness which is felt by all and understood by all, and 
 the most blissful religion that which has no "mysteries". 
 
152 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Dangerous to society is not that rationalism which is so 
 often misjudged because it is occasionally misused, but 
 any system resting on the command, "Crucify your reason" ! 
 Therefore, whenever we are in peril of deserting the broad 
 and luminous path of intelligence and moderation, we 
 should, in sorrow, not in anger, recall to our minds a 
 religion of love turned by abstruse dogmas into an instru- 
 ment of persecution and carnage perhaps more fearful and 
 more destructive than any that has been recorded in 
 the annals of mankind'. 
 
 After a brief pause, Hermes said, addressing Mondoza : 
 'I cannot refrain from expressing to you my acknowledgments 
 and gratitude for having, in the earlier parts of your 
 remarks, vindicated to the Stoics that true modesty which 
 alone deserves the name of a virtue. There was surely 
 no supercilious self-righteousness in Seneca, who advised, 
 "Think ill of yourself in your heart", and who looked 
 upon himself not as a physician, but as a patient who had 
 culpably caused his . disease ; a nor in Epictetus, who 
 declared that the beginning of all philosophy is our sense 
 of being weak and imperfect in the most essential things, b 
 wherefore we should watch our own nature like an enemy 
 laying snares to our safety ; c and surely not in Marcus Aure- 
 lius, to whose mind the feeling of moral frailty was ever 
 present.* 1 Nor can arrogant vaingloriousness have been 
 a characteristic of men who acted upon the admonition, 
 "You must not wish to appear to possess any knowledge, 
 and if others have a high opinion of you, mistrust yourself" ; e 
 nor want of humble resignation a fault of those who, in 
 case of any accident, never complained, "I have lost a boon", 
 but accustomed themselves to say, "I have given the boon 
 back"/ who, in fact, considered it the proof of a well-trained 
 mind, on every occasion meekly and contentedly to ad- 
 dress all-governing Fate: "Give what thou pleasest, take 
 back what thou pleasest"! g which sentiment has even by 
 zealous divines been allowed to breathe the spirit of the 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 153 
 
 Bible, though I think it is stronger and manlier. 8 As my 
 remarks have led me to this comparison, may I presume 
 to engage your attention for a few moments longer and 
 extend the analogy to those two points which are generally 
 described as specifically and distinctively Christian 
 universal charity and love of the enemy? I do not hesitate to 
 contend that in both respects Christianity is no more than the 
 echo of paganism. Antisthenes declared four hundred years 
 before Christ literally: "It is royal to do good, although 
 you are abused for it" which is identical with the Apostle's 
 "royal law" of love. b Marcus Aurelius, confirming the apho- 
 rism, said: "It is peculiar to man to love even those who 
 injure him" ; c "The best mode of taking revenge upon an ad- 
 versary is not to act like him" ; d and which is one of the 
 admirable nine precepts prized by him as the gift of the 
 heavenly Muses "True benevolence is invincible; for what 
 can the most reckless man do to you if you preserve 
 towards him a kind disposition" ? e Nay, the Stoics aspired 
 to pass even beyond Christ's precepts. To the question, 
 "What shall the wise man do when he is smitten on the 
 cheek"? the answer was given: "What Cato did in such 
 a case; he did not fall into a passion, he did not take 
 revenge for the insult, he did not even pardon it, but 
 protested that he had suffered none; which was more 
 magnanimous than if he had expressed forgiveness"'/ 
 
 'We are told', said Arvada-Kalama, 'that he who does 
 good to those who have abused and insulted him, is the 
 truly twice-born man'. g 
 
 'Even so', said Subbhuti; 'for Buddha enjoins: "A man 
 who foolishly inflicts upon me wrong, I will return to him 
 the protection of my ungrudging love; the more evil comes 
 from him, the more good shall go from me" ; for, as the 
 Maitri or the great meditation of kindness says, "though 
 his words and his actions be bad, his mind may be free 
 from evil" ; and if he has but one good quality, we should 
 think of this, and forget all his faults. And how truly 
 beautiful are the words we are taught daily to repeat: 
 
154 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 "May every being experience happiness, peace and enjoy- 
 ment! ... As a mother protects her child, the child of 
 her heart, so let immeasurable benevolence prevail among 
 all beings! . . . Let these dispositions be established in all 
 wherever they may be, so that every place may be con- 
 stituted an abode of holiness"'! 3 
 
 'But the brotherly love of the Stoics, and of the heathen 
 in general', said Humphrey with even more than his usual 
 dogmatism, 'was nothing but selfishness. I will at present 
 not speak of the Buddhists, who bless by honied words 
 and not by acts, who take but do not give, who are an 
 overflowing fountain of mercy receiving back all streams 
 within themselves, and whose religion is "a mere code of 
 proprieties, a mental opiate, a venal traffic in merit, a 
 system of personal profit "'. b 
 
 'How can we be selfish', said Subbhuti perplexed, 'as 
 our Master constantly denies that there is any self, neither 
 an inferior or finite self, nor a superior or infinite self? 
 
 'But as regards the Stoics', continued Humphrey uncon- 
 cerned, 'in assuming the closest connection between all 
 parts of the universe, they cherished the hope that, in doing 
 good to others, they were useful to themselves, and hence 
 they made self-love, as Epictetus distinctly says, the 
 principle and foundation of charity'. 
 
 'And so did the Old Testament', said Gregovius 'in 
 commanding, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"; 
 and so did Christ and the Apostles in repeating that 
 command as the chief test, if not as the sum, of all 
 righteousness'. 
 
 'Yet the ancients', said Hermes, 'were by no means 
 blind to the dangers of self-love. It is indeed right, observed 
 Plato, that everyone should be his own friend; but as, 
 by undue excess, self-love has a tendency to degenerate 
 into egotism, it is often the cause of every sin. d And 
 as to Epictetus, no one will seriously accuse of mean 
 selfishness a philosopher whose ethics were based on the 
 conviction that every man is a child of God like ourselves, 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 155 
 
 and hence claims our affection and forbearance. 3 The 
 judgment of many has indeed been misled by outward appea- 
 rances. The sect of the Stoics, remarks Seneca, is by those 
 who do not know it often described as "harsh" and "stern" 5 , 
 but "in reality none is kinder and gentler, none more philan- 
 thropic or more zealous for the common weal, so that it 
 seems to be their only object to benefit and help not 
 themselves merely but to do good to all and every one". c 
 And this law of benevolence was also applied to slaves 
 with an intense sympathy not even surpassed in the New 
 Testament. 4 "Slaves", said Chrysippus, "are onlypermanent 
 hirelings"; 6 and as St. Paul commanded, "Masters, give 
 unto your servants that which is just and equal, knowing 
 that you also have a Master in heaven", with whom 
 "there is no respect of persons" 5 , so said Seneca, at a 
 time when the Roman slaves, vast in numbers, were help- 
 lessly at their masters' mercy for life and death: 8 Slaves 
 are "men, comrades, friends" ; they have the same origin 
 as their masters, enjoy the same heaven, breathe, live 
 and die like them; and moreover, their bodies only, not 
 their souls, can be brought into subjection; 11 they should, 
 therefore, not only be treated with kindness, but be 
 instructed in all profitable knowledge, be admitted to the 
 conversation, the councils and the social intercourse of 
 the family, so that they may be held by the ties of love, 
 not of fear'. 1 
 
 'We have heard much of the moral indignation', said 
 Attinghausen, 'in which it is the pious Christian's duty 
 and privilege to burn against evil-doers; will you telL 
 us, how this subject was viewed by the heathen Stoics' ? 
 
 'The point', replied Hermes, 'is admirably treated by 
 Seneca in a full and elaborate exposition. Starting from 
 the maxim of Theophrastus that "it is impossible for the 
 good not to be wroth with the bad", he maintains that the 
 virtuous ought to feel neither anger nor hatred against 
 the erring, but, remembering his own imperfections, try 
 to improve and reclaim him by a paternal spirit of com- 
 
156 THE STOIC AND THE CHEISTIAN. 
 
 bined severity and love. a Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius 
 speak in the same generous sense and in terms even 
 more explicit. 1 * Is this aristocratic or "superb" apathy? 
 Is it not, both morally and practically, at least as excellent 
 as that precept of the Pentateuch, which I admit to be 
 very beautiful: "Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy 
 heart; thou shalt surely rebuke thy neighbour, so that 
 thou bear not sin on his account"'? 6 
 
 'Whatever assertions', said Berghorn positively, 'may 
 be hazarded by onesided panegyrists, the incontestable 
 fact remains that Marcus Aurelius was not only a Roman 
 Emperor and Stoic philosopher, but the offspring and 
 product of a Christian age'. 
 
 'We have this proverb', said Movayyid-eddin, 'appro- 
 vingly: "Men bear a greater resemblance to their time 
 than to their fathers"'. d 
 
 'In those very points', continued Berghorn, 'which showed 
 Marcus Aurelius to have passed beyond the old Roman spirit 
 and beyond original Stoicism, he approached Christianity 
 most remarkably and manifestly especially in his inward 
 piety, his unmurmuring submission ta the will of the 
 deity, his deep sense of the vanity of all things temporal, his 
 conviction of man's weakness and sinfulness, his constant 
 care for the purity or salvation of his soul, in the spotless 
 probity of his life, in a scrupulous devotion to all duties 
 great and small, in a boundless philanthropy including 
 even the unworthy, the treacherous and the ungrateful: 
 all these are traits which shone conspicuously in the con- 
 duct of the primitive Christians'. 6 
 
 'It is a mistake', replied Hermes, 'which is frequently 
 made, to assume an essential difference between the earlier 
 and the later Stoics. Their system, by its nature, admitted 
 little change or development. Seneca, yielding to the 
 exigencies of his political and social position, may partially 
 and in subordinate matters have relaxed the traditional 
 severity; but the moral tenets of Epictetus and Marcus 
 Aurelius are virtually identical with those of Zeno and 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 157 
 
 Chrysippus; and among all the qualities that have just 
 been enumerated there is not a single one that has not 
 been taught and insisted upon by the founders and oldest 
 adherents of Stoicism, however alien some of them may 
 be to the ancient Roman's tone of mind'. 
 
 'I am not prepared to admit', cried Humphrey, 'what 
 our ingenious Berghorn postulates. "The divergencies of 
 Marcus Aurelius, as well as of Seneca, from the spirit 
 of Christianity are at least as remarkable as the closest 
 of their resemblances ". a For I must, once for all, pro- 
 test against an idol worship which threatens to become 
 general and mischievous. What is it that we really find 
 in the Emperor's perpetually lauded Confessions, which 
 some have described not merely as pure but as holy? 
 We see in them a pedant entirely incapable of emancipating 
 himself from the arid wisdom of the school; a brooding 
 casuist who, with the painful self-complacency and assurance 
 of his sect, enunciates ex cathedra maxims and reflexions 
 vague and fragmentary, conveying a frigid morality never 
 relieved by a breath of individual sentiment or thought 
 barren directions of a fastidious pedagogue without any 
 practical tendency or effect" 3 . 
 
 'A few words in answer must suffice', said Hermes in the 
 tone of one who feels that he needs all his powers of 
 self-restraint. 'The practical value of Marcus Aurelius' 
 principles was tried and ever found effectual, not in the 
 idyllic tranquillity of a rural ministry, but in the tur- 
 moil of imperial duties embracing a large part of the 
 globe during a reign signalised by unexampled and almost 
 uninterrupted convulsions, wars and disasters. Practical 
 ethics, always characteristic of the Stoics, was by their 
 later followers cultivated with an almost absolute exclusion 
 of speculation. As the sheep, says Epictetus, do not 
 show to the shepherds the grass to prove to them how 
 much they eat, but digest it and then give to their master 
 wool and milk, so must well-digested science and theory 
 become evident by good and useful works. 
 
158 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 'And with regard to the principles themselves, I will 
 only quote three which are in close connection with the 
 centre of our discussion. 
 
 'The first: u To enjoy life means to join one good deed to 
 another so as not to leave the smallest interval between". 8 
 
 'The second: "Man's cheerfulness results from perfor- 
 ming the proper duties of a man, the chief of which is 
 benevolence towards his fellow- creatures ". b 
 
 'And the third : "In this above all take delight and seek 
 recreation in passing from one' act of goodwill to another 
 act of goodwill, with your thoughts directed to God'V 
 
 'Is this not more than the frigid or barren declamation 
 of a pedant? "There is nothing great in human affairs 
 unless they be surveyed with a large mind". d And is it 
 just to assert that the votaries of such a philosophy, 
 however wise, tender and blameless, must necessarily be 
 of an intense and deep sadness, vainly yearning for that 
 "peace of God which passeth all understanding", and 
 restlessly stretching out their arms for something beyond? 6 
 Kings praised and envied Zeno's "perfect happiness"/ and 
 Marcus Aurelius maintained that "a man who in all things 
 follows reason, can never be otherwise than collected 
 and cheerful" '. 
 
 'And is not', remarked Attinghausen, 'Seneca perhaps 
 right when he says, that "True joy is an earnest matter, 
 and is not felt most by those who laugh most",? h 'Moreover', 
 he added with great seriousness, 'has there ever been 
 a truly eminent man without a tinge of deep sadness in 
 the recesses of his heart? 
 
 "Wer erfreute sich des Lebens, 
 "Der in seine Tiefen blickt"'? 1 
 
 'But', resumed Humphrey, 'Marcus Aurelius himself 
 confessed that his disposition was such that, without 
 special and constant efforts, he might have committed the 
 most grievous offences ; k and as a constitution requiring 
 incessant physic, must be unsound, so also a mind needing 
 perpetual self-admonition'. 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 159 
 
 'The character', said Mortimer, 'may thus lose in simple 
 beauty, but it gains in heroism. Noble is a great man's 
 struggle with adversity, nobler the struggle with his own 
 failings and passions. Are we not also commanded, 
 "Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation"' ? 
 
 'And yet', continued Humphrey with renewed eagerness, 
 'this model sage who "passed from one act of charity 
 and goodwill to another", has in ecclesiastical history 
 written his name with blood as the author of two of the 
 most inhuman persecutions suffered by the Christians. 
 Annulling the law of Trajan who had allowed no action 
 on the part of the judges without the previous testimony 
 of an unsuspected witness, he permitted inquisitorial 
 impeachments and indiscriminate massacres'.* 
 
 'Indeed', said Abington with his usual absorption in 
 his subject, 'the Stoic aversion to a faith that could not 
 be proved by arguments of reason and fortified itself by 
 the hope of an eternal life, was in Marcus Aurelius 
 intensified into "a philosophical fanaticism of logic inevi- 
 tably engendering intolerance and thirst of persecution"'. 11 
 
 'It would be impossible', said Hermes calmly, 'to declare 
 the Emperor guiltless. I will not even shelter him under 
 the excuse which adversaries no less than apologists have 
 considered valid, that the horrors were committed, without 
 his knowledge, by the arbitrary recklessness of his Governors 
 or Proconsuls and the irrepressible bigotry of the heathen 
 populace. Trustworthy records of history preclude such 
 a plea. c But his deplorable policy can at least be compre- 
 hended and in a certain sense extenuated. The Christians 
 were constantly accused to him of breaking and defying 
 the public laws, and especially of refusing the customary 
 homage to the statues of the Emperors. Steadily increasing 
 in numbers, they formed associations always regarded by 
 Roman statesmen with the utmost suspicion ; d and evidently 
 preferring these religious unions to the political organi- 
 sations, they seemed to constitute an imperium in imperio 
 distrusted as a dangerous step towards the dissolution 
 
1 60 THE STOIC AND THE CHEISTIAN. 
 
 of society. Though incessantly admonished by the authori- 
 ties to conform to the ordinary usages of the Roman 
 world, they persisted in their combinations and meetings a ; 
 and therefore, even independently of their doctrines, they 
 appeared culpable on account of their "stubbornness and 
 inflexible obstinacy" b . Christianity, at that time little 
 known or understood, and branded as "atheism", was con- 
 founded with every kind of foreign superstition, and, often 
 hardly distinguished from Judaism, was looked upon as 
 a contemptible branch of a most detestable religion. Many 
 Christians, impelled by an ardour for martyrdom, exhibited 
 an exaggerated and wild enthusiasm which even con- 
 temporary Fathers stigmatized as frenzy, and which the 
 Stoic Emperor could not regard otherwise than as theatrical 
 display. d In spite of his philosophical principles, Marcus 
 Aurelius preserved a large fund of the old Roman piety, 
 which he was particularly anxious to foster among the people, 
 as the Roman religion was inseparably entwined with the 
 Roman polity, and it was hardly possible to shake the 
 one without undermining the other. As all the great 
 oaths of state were sworn by the national deities, and all 
 public enterprises of importance were inaugurated by 
 offerings and supplications, he declared not only disbelief 
 in the gods but neglect of prayer and sacrifice to be 
 wicked. 6 "The gods", he even said, "are visible to our 
 eyes"/ He was guided by dreams. g The appearance of 
 the plague in Italy and the threatening danger of war were 
 taken by him as warnings from the gods demanding the faith- 
 ful restoration of the ancient worship. For this purpose, 
 to which he subordinated even his military plans, he 
 summoned to Rome priests from all parts of the Empire, 
 caused the town to be purified and expiated in every 
 way both by Roman and foreign ceremonials, and prepared 
 to the gods lectisternia for seven days. h If these points 
 are kept in mind, they will impart additional weight to 
 the plea which appears to me the most forcible namely, 
 that the Christians, unlike the heathen, regarded every 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 161 
 
 religious conviction except their own as execrable super- 
 stition, and denounced every other religious worship as 
 diabolical delusion. This intolerance was unprecedented in 
 the Roman commonwealth, which readily recognised every 
 foreign nationality and every strange creed; and it naturally 
 provoked intense and bitter hostility. 3 The Roman 
 authorities, indifferent to the religious doctrines of the 
 subdued nations, simply enforced obedience to the civil laws. 
 Of this policy even the New Testament offers several con- 
 spicuous proofs in the proceedings of Pontius Pilate 
 towards the Pharisees and Christ ; b of Junius Gallio, c 
 Seneca's elder brother, towards St. Paul and the Jews 
 in Achaia; d and of Festus andAgrippain Caesarea towards 
 the same Apostle. 6 Although the Christians constantly 
 protested to be good citizens/ Christianity was in truth 
 incompatible with the permanence of the Roman state. 
 It beheld in the pagan Empire an ungodly power, to be 
 obeyed indeed, but ripe for destruction, which, as was 
 ardently hoped, would soon be consummated at Christ's 
 expected re-appearance in the clouds of heaven. When- 
 ever the Christians believed the ordinances of men to be 
 in conflict with the ordinances of God, they evaded or 
 defied the former, not by rebellious violence, but by a 
 passive and invincible resistance unto death; and they 
 eschewed as much as possible military service, public 
 offices, and lawsuits before the ordinary tribunals, because 
 they were unwilling to swear the prescribed oaths.s 
 
 'Yet, in spite of all this, Marcus Aurelius addressed 
 to the General Assembly of Asia a very moderate Rescript, 
 which he caused to be published in Ephesus, probably 
 in the ninth year of his reign (A. D. 169): he warned 
 the authorites not to instigate the Christians to tumult by 
 false accusations, nor to afford to them opportunities for 
 dying as triumphant martyrs of their God ; he repeated the 
 injunctions of his predecessor not to trouble them unless 
 they made attempts against the Roman government; and 
 he added that, if anyone was arraigned merely on account 
 
 M 
 
162 THE STOIC ANB THE CHKISTIAN. 
 
 of being a Christian, he was to be absolved, and his 
 accuser punished. a Of a "fanaticism of logic" we can find 
 no trace whatever in a man so calm, mild and temperate. 
 The material interests of the Empire were the only 
 object of his solicitude'. 
 
 'It is satisfactory to find', said Humphrey, this time 
 rather disconcerted, 'that even so ardent a champion is 
 at least compelled to admit that the pagan prince, in 
 spite of his philosophical enlightenment which, however, 
 did not prevent him from seeing the gods with his own 
 eyes acknowledged the necessity of prayer'. 
 
 'Yes', replied Hermes, 'but of what kind of prayer ! True, 
 he once said, that if a man wished to entreat the gods, he 
 should do so "simply and nobly", after the model of that 
 Athenian invocation, "Send rain, send rain, Oh dear Zeus, 
 upon the fields of the Athenians and upon the plains" ! b 
 thus ascribing to prayer, in the usual childlike manner, 
 a positive effect. But in one of the finest parts of his 
 Reflections he develops a theory of supplication which 
 not even the most advanced philosopher or naturalist in 
 our age need hesitate to adopt. Instead of anxiously 
 petitioning, he says, for the possession or preservation of 
 specified boons, we should rather ask for that force of 
 character which does not need those boons for happiness. 
 To the anticipated objection that for this no prayer is 
 required as it lies in our own power, he replies: "Is it 
 not better to use with liberty what we can achieve our- 
 selves, than in slavery and mean subjection to crave for 
 what is unattainable" ? c And then he confidently invites a 
 trial of the comforting efficacy of such practical supplication'. 
 
 'A pride', cried Humphrey, 'almost amounting to blas- 
 phemy! Lucifer's fall awaits it'. 
 
 'Yet our immortal Buddha', observed Subbhuti, 'dis- 
 claimed likewise all thoughts of dependence on any 
 extraneous power. Man, he says, makes his own fortune, 
 shapes his own destiny, since he inherits from his pre- 
 vious existences the moral strength or karma to curb 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHEISTIAN. 163 
 
 and subdue the upadana or attachment to worldly objects. 
 He may become sublimer and happier than any god, not 
 by prayer or sacrifice, but by meditation profound and 
 holy above all by the secret and silent meditation of 
 dliyana^ which shuts out the entire world. Alas! that 
 I could not rise to such greatness. Our whole worship 
 consists in repeating the moral precepts, in placing flowers 
 before the image of Gautama, and in reading the bana 
 on sacred days. 3 
 
 'Of course', replied Humphrey, vehemently, 'those who 
 are ignorant of an intelligent Ruler of the universe, to 
 whose glory they are bidden to live, must be ignorant both 
 of the nature of sin and of rational prayer, because by 
 them no supreme and holy will can be offended, invoked, 
 or propitiated. They have no unerring Law, because they 
 have no unerring Lawgiver from whom it emanates. And 
 what is the result of such cold and meagre devotions? 
 When your people, in the hour of trial, have in vain 
 repeated the eternal tun-sarana, "I take refuge in Buddha, 
 I take refuge in the Truth, I take refuge in the Priest- 
 hood", and feel the burden of their affliction unrelieved, 
 they forget your Buddha, who exists no longer, and his 
 "Truth", which is no more than a sound and a fancy, 
 and turn for help to the demon priest with his lying 
 incantations and offerings'. 11 
 
 'Pray, let me conclude my remarks on the Roman 
 Emperor's creed', said Hermes, who had not been displeased 
 at the interruption. 'As regards the visible appearance 
 of the gods, the phrase itself is in its context obscure; 
 but supposing even that it is so grossly heathen as it 
 impresses us at first sight, the monarch hastens to add, 
 that he venerates the gods as he venerates his soul: for just 
 as he is certain of his soul, although he has never beheld it, 
 so he is certain of the existence of the gods through the 
 power which they everywhere exercise and he constantly 
 feels d a notion expressed in almost precisely the same 
 manner by Christian philosophers and theologians'. 6 
 
164 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 'Surely 7 , said Attinghausen, half indignantly, 'no such 
 trouble need be taken to defend the heathen against Jew 
 or Christian with respect to Divine apparitions, which 
 abound in the Bible and culminate in Christ'. 
 
 'Like all Stoics', continued Hernies smiling, 'in fact 
 like most of the ancient thinkers, he freely accepted the 
 tenets of the popular religion, but only as myths. For 
 employing those well-known modes of allegorical inter- 
 pretation, which so largely exercised the ingenuity of Jews 
 and Christians also, he infused into those myths the -pure 
 conceptions of his own philosophy. He could thus, he 
 believed, supply nobler motives of action without destroying, 
 nay while apparently supporting and strengthening, those 
 old faiths upon which the stability of the commonwealth 
 seemed to depend. In this sense Plutarch justly com- 
 plained, that, like the other Stoics, he left no single 
 notion of their ancestral theology sound and unadulterated. a 
 Against superstitious fears, against exorcisms and incanta- 
 tions, against miracle-working and similar juggleries, he 
 expressed himself with unequivocal contempt. b And as 
 regards religious worship, he held, with Seneca, that "God 
 is not honoured by the fat bodies of slaughtered bulls 
 nor by offerings of gold and silver, but by a pious and 
 righteous disposition"; and taught, with Epictetus, that 
 "Sacred acts must be performed in thoughtfulness and 
 purity of mind ; otherwise you have only learnt the words 
 by heart and say, 'Sacred are the words by themselves'". d 
 All this combined, I think, forms a theory of religion worthy 
 of the philosophical freedom of the most enlightened 
 of the ancients whether Greek or Hebrew 7 . 
 
 'Granting even, for argument's sake', said Humphrey 
 after a short reflection, for he saw the necessity of 
 shifting his line of attack, 'granting even that these opinions 
 and sentiments are not derived from Christian sources 
 though, I repeat, this can never be demonstrated, since 
 we have no authentic writings of Stoics earlier than the 
 middle of the first Christian century , they prove nothing 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHEISTIAN. 165 
 
 For the heathen world, however deeply fallen, never lost 
 the original image of God entirely, but retained some 
 sparks of the Divine Intellect, and preserved some faint 
 traditions of the primitive revelation; so that the Apostle 
 might well say, that "the Gentiles, though not having the 
 Law, do by nature the things contained in the Law and 
 show the works of the Law written in their hearts'".* 
 
 'Nothing', said Arvada-Kalama with zeal, 'proves more 
 conclusively how men wandered away from primitive truth 
 to superstition and polytheism than the literature of the 
 Hindoos, which, in its earlier productions, alludes to no 
 image of any god, to no mode of idol worship, not even 
 to a formal temple, since heaven was regarded as the 
 father of the universe and earth as the mother'. 
 
 'Whether we start from the supposition of a primitive 
 revelation of the principal truths or not', said Abington r 
 evidently anxious to avert a discussion on this vexed and, 
 as he believed, intangible subject, 'it would be an unfair 
 and a bigoted view of the world's history were we to 
 deny the high standard of morality and practice, of which, 
 by the invisible workings of God's spirit, paganism was 
 capable. But though many of the heathen might well be 
 described as just, were there any who deserved the epithet 
 of righteous or holy? And allowing even that men like 
 Socrates, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius might, by 
 straining the term, be described as holy, how many like 
 them can be counted in all the annals of antiquity? Their 
 number is most insignificant "not five in the whole circle 
 of ancient history and ancient literature"; while under the 
 dispensation of the Kingdom of Heaven we see holy lives 
 constantly realised among the high and the humble, the 
 cultivated and the illiterate lives transfigured with a light 
 from the Throne of Mercy'. b 
 
 'Men like those you have named', said Melville, 'are 
 rare under any system, rare also among Christians ; it is 
 enough that they were possible under the discipline of 
 heathen philosophy. Moreover, they could never have 
 
166 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 arisen, unless there had existed in their age and amidst 
 their people the elements, it may be the weak and 
 scattered elements, which composed their character; and 
 unless we assume a miracle repudiated by nature and 
 disproved by history, we are compelled to admit that at 
 least the germs of those moral qualities which we admire 
 in the Stoic sages must, even in periods of apparently 
 hopeless corruption, not only have been numerous and 
 far-spread among the masses, but must have maintained 
 such vitality that, under favourable conditions, they could 
 develop into righteousness and holiness. But in no case 
 are we allowed to make a religion or a philosophy 
 alone responsible for the moral deficiencies of any age. 
 That even Christianity, although rooted for so many cen- 
 turies, does not necessarily train even just men, that it 
 may co-exist with vice, fraud, and crime, we are taught, 
 alas! by daily experience. Pagan truth, as far as it is 
 truth, is not less Divine than Christian truth, and the 
 Christian's weakness is as completely human as the pagan's 
 weakness. All religions are noble efforts to reach the 
 Spiritual, but all are imperfect because subject to the 
 resisting forces of the material world; and as yet none has 
 succeeded in penetrating and sanctifying the intellects of 
 men although', he added more slowly, 'I believe that 
 one of them, beginning to be recognised in its whole 
 beauty, is destined thus to bless mankind'. 
 
 'It is certain', resumed Abington, desirous to make his 
 view still clearer, 'that life, conscience and reason supplied 
 some of the heathen with a partial knowledge of God 
 with a kind of natural religion which, in a certain sense, 
 is also a revelation, since, however inadequate, it could 
 not have been obtained without the Divine spirit and 
 guidance. "It was a striving to pass beyond the limits 
 of the old world, an impatient effort to outrun the organic 
 development of history in the removal of those boundaries". 51 
 Thus a few of the pagan doctrines seem to coincide with 
 the lessons of Christianity. Yet they are only the dim 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 167 
 
 images, the fleeting and unsubstantial shadows of the 
 truth, because they are not vivified by the belief in the 
 efficacy of repentance and the forgiveness of sin through 
 Divine goodness, nor animated by the cardinal hope of 
 Immortality, which paganism never definitely grasped and 
 without which man is only an unheeded atom destined to 
 be swallowed up in the mystery of nature. "Alike the 
 morality and the philosophy of paganism, as contrasted 
 with the splendour of revealed truth, are but as moon- 
 light is to sunlight", the "rays of heaven struggling their 
 impeded way through clouds of darkness and ignorance". 
 The heathen's and particularly the Stoic's hope, as the 
 best among them felt most strongly, was uncertain; his 
 illumination fragmentary and vague; his speculative thought 
 incapable of reaching the radiance of heaven or of touching 
 the heart of the multitude; his tentative knowledge too 
 abstract, too fantastic, too purely theoretical to form the 
 character or to exercise influence over political and social 
 institutions ; his whole life without a central principle or 
 motive, without an authoritative sanction, without a kindling 
 ardour, without real or lasting consolations. Christianity, 
 on the other hand, "has stirred the hearts of men, moulded 
 the laws of nations, regenerated the condition of society. 
 It gave to mankind a fresh sanction in Christ's word, a 
 perfect example in his life, a powerful motive in his love, 
 an all-sufficient comfort in Immortality made sure by his 
 Resurrection and Ascension" '. a 
 
 'I own', said Arvada-Kalama, who had shown signs of 
 restlessness almost from the beginning of Abington's 
 speech, 'I am utterly perplexed, and all I have heard is 
 to me like a dark riddle. I have read of a philosophy 
 which flourished in the Middle Ages and is called the 
 Scholastic. In listening to our friend, I imagined that 
 he was enriching it by a new theory, with this difference 
 that the dialectic portions of his remarks were not borrowed 
 from Plato or Aristotle but from some text-book of Christian 
 Evidences. I cannot discover a single fixed principle. 
 
168 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 In that description, which I take to be a fair specimen 
 of modern theology, I neither recognise Christianity nor 
 paganism, but behold a monstrous conglomeration of both'. . . 
 
 i Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam etc.\ muttered 
 Attinghausen, with a smile of satisfaction. 
 
 'Everything rocks and rolls', continued the fervid Brahman, 
 'like a light plank helplessly tossed on treacherous waves. 
 First heathenism is flattered by a large concession like 
 this: "To the present day the best Christian may study 
 the Manual of Epictetus not with interest only but with 
 real advantage", or "An unconscious Christianity covers 
 all the sentiments of Marcus Aurelius". a Then heathenism 
 is depreciated to serve as a foil for the glorification of 
 Christianity. Next again our attention is called to some 
 fine features which heathenism displayed independently of 
 Christianity; as for instance, "Epictetus showed that a 
 Phrygian slave could live a life of the loftiest exaltation ; 
 Marcus Aurelius proved that a Roman Emperor could live 
 a life of the deepest humility" : b and thus the estimate 
 constantly oscillates to and fro, or reels in a giddy circle. 
 
 'If, as you admit, God guided those pure-minded Gentiles 
 who anxiously sought His love and His attributes, why did 
 He not vouchsafe to them His whole truth? why at least not 
 enough for salvation ? Do you believe I know you affirm 
 the contrary that God is a respecter of persons? Will 
 He not accept me because I am not of the seed of 
 Abraham, or because my reason cannot consent to your 
 creeds? Do not halt between two opinions. Either say 
 plainly, that you allow to reason no dominion whatever 
 and insist upon those dogmas which constitute your 
 "revealed" religion; or confess, though the admission may 
 cost you a pang,, that in every age and clime, anyone 
 following reason with singleness of heart, is vouchsafed 
 to find God, to understand His nature, and to be received 
 into His grace. 
 
 'We, the followers of the Brahmo-Somadsh, have set 
 you the example. We have discarded the Trinity, the 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAniT" 169 
 
 Incarnation, every form of Transubstantiation. We 
 approach God in spirit as a Spirit and as our common 
 Father, without an Intercessor. We recognise no "Holy 
 Scriptures", except the pious thoughts of good men, of 
 whatever country or language; for, as you say yourselves 
 very beautifully, "There are diversities of gifts, but the 
 same Spirit; there are diversities of operations, but it is 
 the same God who worketh all in all". a Hence whosoever 
 adores the one, the living, the personal God, and 
 hopes to see Him face to face in eternity, is our brother. 
 Mankind is one great community, such as the Stoics 
 darkly divined. Yet we honour the harmless customs of 
 our ancestors and grant everyone the fullest freedom of 
 conscience and practice within the boundaries of a 
 pure theism. 
 
 'If you are honest, if you are logical and I know you 
 are the one and desire to be the other you will arrive 
 at the same goal. Candour and consistency will force 
 you, as it has forced us, to abandon all artificial and 
 irrational beliefs. I know well you say: "The Divine 
 origin of Christianity does not rest on its morality alone". 
 But you confidently expect that Christianity will one day 
 be adopted by the whole world: if this ever come to pass, 
 it will be on account of its morality, not on account of 
 its mysteries. How can a universal religion be built 
 upon doctrines so specific and peculiar that they have 
 never been discovered except by a small sect of a small 
 people, and can hardly be made intelligible or acceptable 
 to anyone beyond the pale of the Christian Church ? But 
 the conviction of the existence of God or gods, of a Pro- 
 vidence, and a binding law of ethics is found among 
 nearly all nations of the earth, and the trust in Immortality 
 among most of them. A universal religion must appeal to 
 what is universal in human nature. 
 
 'Now, you defend the Christian principles and assert 
 their imperative necessity; but do not deceive yourselves 
 the defence and the assertion are made with a faint- 
 
170 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN, 
 
 heartedness vainly covered by a generous glow of language, 
 splendid generalities, and often by a strained vigour. 
 Your arguments are not like those cords which it required 
 a Samson's strength to tear asunder, but like the delicate 
 gossamer destroyed by a breath. You resemble those strange 
 people who try to leap over their own shadow a you do 
 not get beyond your old prejudices. For is a truth not 
 a truth, unless it has a supernatural sanction which you 
 cannot prove ? Is a truth not a truth, if we see it indeed 
 realised by a few only, but feel certain that, with proper 
 opportunities, it will be realised by all, and that then 
 the aim of humanity will almost be reached? 
 
 'If the philosophy of the Stoics had little influence over 
 political and social life, can the same objection be made 
 to that of the Academics or Peripatetics, who yet were 
 also heathen philosophers? The contention that Stoicism 
 was purely abstract and theoretical, without a guiding 
 principle or motive, without ardour or comfort, I will not 
 stoop to refute;, for it is overthrown by every Stoic 
 utterance. Into such perversions, I might also say into 
 such pious frauds, are even excellent men ensnared by 
 a sectarian zeal! Your good sense and your ingenuousness 
 make you yield point after point to Natural Religion, 
 and yet you convulsively cling to your fancied Revelations. 
 You refine and you toil in order to find out palpable 
 distinctions ; but these distinctions are like the grass upon 
 the housetops, of which your Psalmist speaks and "where- 
 with the mower does not fill his hand, nor the sheaf- 
 binder his arm", but "which withers before it is cut". 
 Yet we resolute theists hope soon to welcome you, 
 saying, "The blessing of the Lord be upon you; we bless 
 you in the name of the Lord"M b 
 
 'What can be simpler and more self-evident', said Mo- 
 vayyid-eddin, 'than my religion? It bids me only agree 
 to two things: that Allah is God, and that Mohammed 
 is His prophet. Justly our poet says: How easy has 
 God made the believer's task! He sent down from heaven 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 171 
 
 a hundred books, the contents of these he reduced to 
 four, and these again to a single one. In the Koran is 
 enclosed all science, and in the first seven verses the 
 Koran's whole strength, as the full tree is enclosed in 
 its germ. We need for perfect piety nothing more than 
 seven short verses. May not, then, the Islam one day 
 be spread over the whole globe as the religion of all 
 nations and tribes'? 4 
 
 'It is strange', said Rabbi Gideon with mingled in- 
 dignation and scorn, 'that men should so heedlessly forget 
 "the rock whence they were hewn and the pit whence 
 they were dug" that they should forget Abraham, who 
 alone was called and blessed, b and who is the source of 
 all salvation. His children are unfettered by obscure 
 dogmas, theirs is a religion of reason and demonstrable 
 truth. This fact has been recognised by so early a Jew- 
 ish writer as Josephus, the Pharisee, and has been con- 
 clusively proved by the long line of Jewish philosophers 
 from Simeon ben Jochai, the reputed author of the 
 Sohar, to Saadiah and the rest of the Geonim, by Ebn 
 Ezra, Solomon ben Gabirol and Judah Halevi, by Mai- 
 monides, Bechai and Aramah, Abarbanel, Gersonides, 
 Cresca and Mendelssohn, down to Frankel, Luzzatto and 
 Hirsch in our own age. The Jews need no faith, but 
 only the knowledge of God and His Law; and to them, 
 therefore, belongs that future when the God of Israel 
 will be one and His name one'. 
 
 'It is indeed remarkable', said Melville with his usual 
 serenity and composure, 'to what extent the minds of men 
 can be blinded by self-deception. Our worthy young 
 friend Arvada-Kalama regards himself as most liberal 
 and tolerant in admitting to his religion all men "within 
 the boundaries of a pure theism". But how, if seekers 
 as earnest as himself do not find that personal God with 
 whom he seems to commune so familiarly, but see the 
 working of the Divine spirit diffused through all nature, 
 through all mankind, in the eternal Substance and the 
 
172 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 eternal Attributes? Like him, they follow the direction 
 of reason; will he insist that his reason is infallible and 
 theirs perverted? If he values toleration so sincerely as 
 he undoubtedly does, he should not restrict it "within 
 the boundaries of a pure theism". 
 
 'And as regards our Mohammedan and Jewish guests, 
 can they have seriously reflected on the scope of the 
 remarks with which they have favoured us? Both assume 
 it to be a self-evident axiom of reason that God literally 
 dictated codes of laws to chosen servants, and dictated 
 them under manifestations wholly irreconcilable with 
 their own notions of God as an incorporeal Spirit. The 
 Lord so we read in the Hebrew records descended 
 upon Mount Sinai, and there, though not seen, He spoke 
 distinctly and intelligibly, yet so awfully that the people, 
 in terror and consternation, entreated Moses: "Speak 
 thou with us, and we will readily hear, but let not God 
 speak with us, lest we die". a The conception may be 
 grand, but it is mythical ; nor is it in congruity to reason, 
 for it is in opposition to the laws of nature. 
 
 'But even irrespective of the origin of those codes, we 
 must ask: does reason require or sanction the six hundred 
 and thirteen laws, many of them ceremonial and ritual, 
 which Judaism finds in the Pentateuch, or the numerous 
 and motley stories, most of them legendary and fan- 
 tastical, gravely related in the Koran? If Judaism were 
 a religion of reason, it would not have excommunicated 
 and cursed Spinoza; if Mohammedanism were a religion 
 of reason, it would not have employed, as it would not 
 have needed, for its propagation the aid of fire and sword 
 and every sanguinary cruelty. 
 
 'Judaism and Mohammedanism are "positive religions," 
 like Christianity, and the difference is only one of mode 
 or qualification. If the two former enclose fewer and 
 perhaps less astounding dogmas than the latter, they are 
 founded on a dogma also involving an absolute enchainment 
 of reason ; for they claim, merely by virtue of their exis- 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 173 
 
 tence, to be Divine, to be unchangeable, and to be all- 
 sufficient. The one Biblical command, "Thou shalt not 
 add to it, nor shalt thou take away from it", would alone 
 be enough to arrest all progress and to shackle all in- 
 telligence. Yet there have been additions. Now, the 
 expansion of reason is increase of light, of depth, of 
 liberty; but the expansion of the Pentateuch is the 
 Talmud, and the expansion of the Koran is the stupendous 
 and sterile mass of Sunnite speculations and fables. I 
 think, no other argument is needed'. 
 
 'All this', said Movayyid-eddin pointedly, looking at 
 Subbhuti, applies equally to Buddha, who, declaring, "I 
 know, therefore you must believe", demanded implicit 
 submission to his doctrines, which "his intuition" as- 
 sured him were identical with those taught by all former 
 Buddhas'. a 
 
 "Nothing can be more unanswerable than our excellent 
 Melville's remarks', said Attinghausen gleefully, his spi- 
 rits having evidently been heightened by the turn of the 
 conversation. 'Once when Mendelssohn had a favour to 
 ask of Frederick the Great, his friend, the Marquis 
 d'Argens, pleaded for him in these terms: "A Catholic 
 who is no Catholic, intercedes for a Jew who is no Jew, 
 with a Protestant who is no Protestant". This is the 
 case of most Jews and Christians of the present time. 
 You are what Lessing calls "betrogene Betriiger". You 
 belong nominally to one religion, but really to another, 
 or to none at all. But this self-illusion is inevitable. 
 The current of the age in which you live is stronger than 
 your professions and your creeds. The Stoics say, "The 
 fates lead the willing, the unwilling they drag onward" 
 Volentem ducunt fata, nolentem trdhunt: you are carried 
 away volentes, nolentes. Yet you continue to nurse the 
 fiction that you are Rabbanites or Catholics, Karaites 
 or Protestants; while, in fact, with you the Bible is like 
 the tragedy of Hamlet without Hamlet. The very core 
 and centre are wanting. 
 
174 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 'However, I trust that our spiritual pantheist, to whose 
 observations some of us at least have listened with sincere 
 pleasure, will not himself imitate the obnoxious practice 
 he has impugned in others, but will allow us, the mis- 
 understood and much reviled adherents of an honestly 
 realistic pantheism and hearty pessimism, to build up an 
 edifice of philosophy^ and morals according to our reason, 
 and to build it up with the strong and imperishable 
 materials supplied by experience and a patient study of 
 the operations of nature. And as I am sure that no 
 religion is, or can be, more comprehensive, more intel- 
 ligible and more incontestable than that resulting from 
 our principles, researches and conclusions, I confidently 
 predict the near approach of the day when a free and 
 noble materialism will be the creed of the world and 
 connect all nations by the ties of one clear and unerring 
 conviction. Then there will be no disputes about the 
 nature of a Deity we ignore ; no exclusion from a heaven 
 we deny; no distinctions of races or castes we prove to 
 be unnatural. There will only be one uniform law of 
 manly integrity and tender kindness, about which we 
 are all agreed'. 
 
 'I may perhaps be justly blamed', said Mondoza, who 
 during the last two or three speeches had evidently yielded 
 to his own reflexions, 'to have allowed the discussion to 
 take so meandering a course. For opinions of such 
 gravity ought not to be propounded without being at 
 once fully supported. But I promise you, Gentlemen, 
 that you shall find me in future less indulgent. I shall 
 try to hold the reins with a firmness sufficient, I hope, 
 to check the exuberant ardour of even the most fiery and 
 most generous steed. 
 
 'However', he continued with an hesitation which but 
 gradually gave way to his customary decision, 'has this 
 entire conversation brought us no essential gain for the 
 chief point we are pursuing? Stoicism has exhibited to 
 us fortitude and uprightness through reason as precious 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 175 
 
 elements of happiness; does Christianity include none 
 that is peculiar to it ? It includes indeed such an element ; 
 but the form in which this characteristic appears I say 
 it reluctantly and with deep sorrow not only neutralises 
 its intrinsic beneficence, but is fraught with immeasurable 
 injury. Christianity inspires the faithful with the calm 
 confidence of a firmly established union with God and 
 of eternal salvation; and this conviction cannot but shed 
 over the whole existence a radiance of joy and comfort. 
 'But what is the source of this felicity? A vicarious 
 Sacrifice. Either of these two notions is an offence against 
 reason, against human dignity, and against God. In 
 Adam it is affirmed all men have sinned; through Christ's 
 life and blood all men are saved. a But the God of justice 
 can neither impute to unborn generations the guilt of an 
 ancestor, nor can He impute the righteousness of His 
 Son or of Himself to an unrighteous world. Without 
 intention and consciousness, without actual deed or thought, 
 there is neither sin nor piety; and in subjecting the one or 
 the other to the principle of vicariousness, we expose 
 moral right and wrong to utter confusion. b And the 
 Sacrifice? Christianity claims to have delivered men 
 from the "curse of the Law", that is, from its "killing" 
 forms and rites, and yet it centres its own scheme of 
 Redemption in the grossest of all ceremonials. Why was 
 this "sacrifice" necessary, in opposition to the declaration 
 that God has pleasure only in "sacrifice of praise" and 
 "doing good"? c Was it because "without shedding of blood 
 there is no remission"?* 1 But if so, the new dispensation 
 clung to one of the crudest conceptions of the old: in- 
 deed the analogy between the atoning "blood of goats and 
 calves" at the conclusion of the Old Covenant, and the 
 atoning "blood of Christ" at the conclusion of the New, 
 is in the Epistle to the Hebrews carefully and minutely 
 developed, 6 although with this inevitable ambiguity that, 
 as Christ is both man and God, he is at once victim and 
 High-priest. f And why "an atonement" at all? Because 
 
176 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 God's majesty, offended by Adam's transgression, in order 
 to be upheld in its honour and authority, required "satis- 
 faction", or "propitiation", or "a ransom", to appease His 
 "wrath", and "to reconcile" Him to men. a But this teaching 
 of the Christian Church, besides involving the Scripture 
 narrative in grave self-contradictions, 15 attributes to God no 
 majesty but such contemptible littleness that He can neither 
 be adored nor loved. It destroys, morever, the one grand 
 feature in the scheme of Redemption; for it exhibits in- 
 deed the example of a sublime self-sacrifice for the wel- 
 fare of mankind ; but, instead of representing Christ's career, 
 in probable accordance with history, as a voluntary and 
 heroic struggle for the truth of the prophets against the 
 bigotry of the Pharisees,* 1 it assumes that, for the con- 
 summation of a pre-ordained design, Christ was "sent" 
 or "charged" by God to suffer a death from which he 
 could not possibly withdraw, as he himself declared, 
 "I came down from heaven not to do my own will but 
 the will of Him who sent me". e Yet in that bitter struggle 
 for such, in spite of his readiness f , he proved it to have 
 been by his sorrowful prayer in the garden of Gethsemane 
 and his words of agony on the crosse in that struggle 
 lies an interest at once human, pathetic, and inspiring. 
 'But these theoretical errors might be overlooked with 
 a sigh of regret if they were not unhappily coupled with 
 the two terrible doctrines of election and eternal damnation, 
 which turn the regret into anguish. Whether the "election" 
 be taken in the more rigorous Calvinistic sense of real 
 pre-destination solely by God's sovereign will, or in that 
 wavering and almost meaningless Lutheran modification 
 which makes it coincide with the Divine fore-knowledge 
 of men's piety or impiety , h all orthodox authorities are 
 agreed that the elect are few, 1 while the rest are con- 
 demned to the everlasting tortures of hell. k And as hu- 
 mility is incessantly and properly inculcated as a chief 
 Christian virtue, who can be confident that he is among 
 those few of God's chosen favourites? Must not just the 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 177 
 
 most sensitive hearts, the most tender consciences be torn 
 by doubts and excruciated by the thought of a horrible 
 destiny that may await them through untold millenniums? 4 
 Not even the cautious and moderate teaching of the Anglican 
 Church on this point, as set forth in the seventeenth of the 
 thirty-nine Articles of Religion, is altogether consolatory ; 
 for although it lays stress mainly on the "Predestination 
 to Life" vouchsafed to those "whom God hath chosen 
 for everlasting salvation", and hardly touches the question 
 of their own co-operation; yet it cannot help alluding to 
 "the most dangerous downfall" of the rest, "whereby they 
 are thrust either into desperation" or utter wrecklessness. 
 Let hereto be added that awful figure against which the 
 Christian is bidden to be ever on his guard the malignant 
 figure of the arch-fiend and seducer Satan, who ensnared 
 Eve and tempted Christ himself, b "the god of this world", 
 who, "armed with all powers and unrighteous deceit", 
 poisons the hearts of men, and "as a roaring lion walks 
 about seeking whom he may devour". 
 
 'Is such a belief compatible with enjoyment or happi- 
 ness? It may be answered that experience shows that 
 it is. But can we be sure of this? On the one hand, 
 many earnest minds may be the secret prey of agonies 
 concealed from the world ; and, on the other hand, many 
 minds are not earnest: in their frivolous superficiality they 
 either do not realise the exact force of the dogmas they 
 profess, or they modify them, conveniently and arbitrarily, 
 so as to allow at least comparative tranquillity ; in the former 
 case they are irreligious, in the latter they are not Christians. 
 In those ages when Christianity really filled the hearts 
 and thoughts of men, nothing was left to the timid and the 
 sincere but to seek refuge from temptations in seclusion, 
 and, while making sterile devotions and dreary ascetism a 
 preparation for death, to desert the duties of life. d 
 
 'Their hopes were fanned by the doctrine that, besides 
 election, faith secures salvation. 6 It would at first sight 
 seem difficult to harmonise both agencies, the one depending 
 
 N 
 
178 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 on the decree of God, the other appearing to flow from 
 the volition of man. But the difficulty vanishes by remem- 
 bering that faith also is regarded as a gift of God's 
 grace, a without which man, by the Fall totally disabled 
 in his powers and perverted in his aims, is intellectually 
 dead and morally so helpless that even St. Paul, long 
 after his call, exclaimed in despair at his unavailing 
 combats against sin, "0 wretched man that I am! who 
 shall deliver me from the body of this death" ? b God's 
 "fore-knowing" is really and in every respect a "pre- 
 destinating", and man's free-will is restricted within limits 
 narrower than those in which the Stoic is held by Fate. 
 For as the Apostle teaches that "God hath mercy on 
 whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He 
 hardeneth"; or that, like the potter, "of the same clay 
 He maketh one vessel unto honour and another unto 
 dishonour" : d it is difficult to see how the Christian can 
 at all be made reponsible for his actions, and what scope 
 and effect are left to contrition and repentance'. 6 
 
 'Surely, this is right', said Movayyid-eddin, 'for our 
 holy Koran says: "God leads into error whom He pleases, 
 and whom He pleases He guides on the right path"'. f 
 
 'But how', continued Mondoza, 'if honest and struggling 
 minds could not attain a "faith" in the atoning power 
 of Christ's blood,^ and could not help regarding the doctrine 
 of justification by faith as pernicious to moral energy and 
 improvement? 11 if they could not attach to baptism the mystic 
 force of being, like faith, wholly indispensable for salvation? 1 
 if, in spite of his decided, though sometimes prudently 
 reserved affirmations, 15 they could not recognise the 
 humble Galilean, "the carpenter" and "the carpenter's 
 son", 1 who declared, "My kingdom is not of this world", 111 
 as the Messiah described in the Old Testament as the 
 powerful restorer of the throne and splendour of his 
 ancestor David of Judah, n and if, surrounded by strife, 
 ignorance and iniquity, they could not look upon him as 
 the promised bringer of universal peace, knowledge and 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 179 
 
 righteousness? if they could not fathom the idea of his 
 pre-existence "in glory before the world was", a nor the 
 idea of his immaculate conception through the Holy Ghost ? b 
 if they could not regard him as the "Son of God" in 
 any other than the ordinary sense familiar to the Hebrews, 
 and could still less understand that he was "one with the 
 Father ", d without sin and error, 6 all-powerful in heaven 
 and on earth, Creator and Preserver of the world, "Lord 
 of the dead and the living"/ since he repeatedly makes 
 a clear distinction between himself and God,e or that he 
 formed with God and the Holy Ghost a Trinity, which 
 is yet a Unity, all three being "of one substance, power 
 and eternity ", h of which conception there is not even a 
 trustworthy trace in the New Testament,' and which strongly 
 recalls analogous notions in eastern and western mytho- 
 logy? 1 ' if they could not credit the extraordinary miracles 
 attributed to him in the Gospels, and questioned, as quite 
 inadequate, the proofs and authorities adduced for his 
 Resurrection, which at first the Apostles themselves 
 doubted as "an idle tale", 1 or for his Transfiguration, 
 Descent into hell, and Ascension ? m if they were entirely at 
 a loss how to reconcile Christ's assurance that "till heaven 
 and earth pass no jot or tittle of the Law shall pass", 
 with Paul's vehement and almost paradoxical contention 
 that he who upholds circumcision, that is, the very "sign" 
 and foundation of the Old Covenant, has no part or 
 "profit" in the New, since Christ has "redeemed men 
 from the curse of the Law" which "worketh wrath"? 11 
 if they felt that they might piously entreat their God for 
 strength in temptation without the intercession of a 
 Mediator who declared, "No one cometh unto the Father 
 but by me", and therefore called himself the "door" or 
 the "way", and if they could assign no reality to the 
 Devil and his host of demons? Then, held to be excluded 
 from the number of God's elect and to be rejected by His 
 grace, those earnest men were a horror to the world and 
 perhaps a detestation to themselves objects of implacable 
 
180 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 persecution and unspeakable misery;* for "the wrath of 
 God" so says the Gospel of St. John "abideth on them"; b 
 and to them applied those injunctions which recall the 
 harshest commands of the Pentateuch against the bitterest 
 political foes: "If there come any unto you and bring not 
 the doctrine of Christ, receive him not into your house, 
 neither bid him God speed"; or: "Be ye not unequally 
 yoked together with unbelievers; for what part hath he 
 that belie veth with an infidel"? 
 
 'And what was their offence? Had they no right to 
 listen to that reason which the Bible describes as "the 
 light of God"? No, answered the Church; by Adam's dis- 
 obedience man lost the Divine image, and his deteriorated 
 intellect became wholly unfit for truth and righteousness. 
 How is serenity to be found amidst such uncertainties? 
 how a calm clearness in such entangled conflicts? Again you 
 will say and I readily admit it that many real Christians, 
 following the summons, "Come unto me, all ye that la- 
 bour, and I will give you rest", d lead lives of sunny and 
 tranquil happiness in the exercise of every noble virtue, 
 nay that some almost realise that heavenly peace which 
 a great modern painter has poured out over a group of 
 early Christians in his grand picture of "the Destruction 
 of Jerusalem". But at what price do they purchase that 
 felicity and peace? A Proverb of Solomon says, "The 
 man who strays from the path of reason, dwells in 
 the assembly of shadows". 6 Shadowy is an existence 
 enveloped in an atmosphere of self-illusion and fancy; 
 shadowy an existence that allows, nay compels man's 
 Divinest power to slumber the sleep of death or to fight 
 with unreal phantoms. 
 
 'The tree is known by its fruit, you say. But what 
 crimes, what horrible iniquities have been possible side 
 by side with the Christians' noble virtues? And can be- 
 lievers, nay ought they to be happy when they remember 
 the hundred millions of their non-Christian fellow-men 
 the Lutheran Catechism mentions expressly "pagans, 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHBISTIAN. 181 
 
 Turks and Jews'' whom they, in addition to the rejected 
 of their own community, without exception, the good as 
 well as the bad, consign to the unquenchable flames of 
 Gehenna?* Is happiness conceivable with this awful 
 cruelty or callousness of heart ? b 
 
 'Where is that refreshing simplicity of teaching, "re- 
 vealed unto babes" and "hid to the wise", c which at first 
 so powerfully attracted "the poor in spirit" and the 
 simple-minded, and which, comprised in the words Charity 
 and Love, d the Master conveyed in plain maxims and 
 pleasing parables or allegories? But alas! even he, by 
 alluding to "the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, 6 
 and thus seeming to point to esoteric tenets, unfortunately 
 encouraged and almost sanctioned the reveries of dogmatic 
 speculation; 1 " and even he, in affirming with respect to 
 believers, "In my name shall they cast out devils, take 
 up serpents, drink deadly things without hurt, and heal 
 the sick by laying their hands on them"* in assigning 
 such effects to "faith", removed it beyond the experience 
 of the human soul into the sphere of the miraculous and 
 the fanciful. 
 
 'That Christianity which has been worked out by the 
 mysticism of Apostles and Fathers, and the subtle ca- 
 suistry of Councils and even of Reformers, bestows 
 neither true illumination nor true peace. It has hence 
 been virtually relinquished by the best and most gifted 
 Christians in their abhorrence of the doctrines of eternal 
 punishment and of the damnation of the unbaptised; h in 
 their abandonment, with even greater decision than the 
 Pelagians and Socinians, of the dogma of man's absolute 
 depravity and his natural incapacity for any moral or 
 spiritual impulse whatever in consequence of Adam's 
 Fall; 1 in their placing "works" above "faith" ; k in their 
 substituting for a vague" Kingdom of Heaven" a healthy 
 appreciation of the interests of this world, and for "a 
 groaning desire" to be released from life since "to die 
 is gain" a manly resolution to fulfil its obligations j 1 in 
 
182 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 their essential adoption of a free theism by an allegorising 
 conception of Christ's attributes and mission ; and in their 
 rational interpretation of the Scriptures generally. In 
 short, traditional Christianity is more and more replaced 
 by a religion which, cleared from confusing myths and 
 obscuring symbols, may really become a worship "in 
 spirit and in truth" and therefore in "liberty".* 
 
 'In the crucible of philosophic and historical analysis, 
 the abstruse ingredients of Christianity have imperceptibly 
 been volatilised. This liberal view has found a strong 
 support in two maxims of the Gospels, which indeed 
 cannot easily be fitted into the Christian scheme, as they 
 annul the cardinal dogma of election by grace, but are 
 unquestionably its vital germs; the first: "God sent not 
 His son into the world to condemn the world, but that 
 the world through him might be saved" ; b and the other : 
 "If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto 
 your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father 
 give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him"? c Even 
 Paul, following his better instincts in what is perhaps 
 the purest and noblest portion of all his writings, declares 
 charity to be greater than faith; he elsewhere calls it 
 "the bond of perfection" or "the end of the commandment"; 
 indeed love, or "bearing one another's burdens", is to 
 him "the fulfilling of the Law". d In this teaching rests 
 the conquering power of the system. 6 
 
 'Yet the Christian's "calm confidence of a firmly 
 established union with God and of eternal salvation", 
 is a sublime strength, a profound truth, and an un- 
 failing spring of happiness/ That confidence is won by 
 a modest subordination under the plans of an all-embracing 
 Love, by the indelible Hope of the final triumph of right, 
 and by the earnest promotion of this "Kingdom of Heaven" 
 through energy of action, sincerity of purpose, and benevo- 
 lence of heart. Such a conviction will engender a true eudae- 
 monism manifested in contentment and tranquillity of soul 
 through the consciousness of God's mercy and approval. 6 The 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 183 
 
 shell which encloses this pearl the form in which the New 
 Testament teaches this truth is not of primary importance: 
 the shell, whether tempting or not, does not impair the value 
 of the pearl ; even in the received form the truth may, though 
 indeed but partially, work its beneficent ends. While the 
 Stoic's philosophy contributes to our happiness the element 
 of self-dependent strength, the Christian's creed furnishes 
 the no less important constituent of hopeful reliance : for 
 without hope man could not bear the sternness of life'. 
 
 With very different and mingled feelings was this speech 
 of Mondoza heard by his various guests. Humphrey had, 
 at several points, hardly been able to master his impetuous 
 desire of protesting against the remarks. Abington 
 more than once made signs of decided dissent. Rabbi 
 Gideon and Panini looked at their co-religionist in mute 
 perplexity. Canon Mortimer studiously maintained an 
 absolute impassiveness of face defying all interpretation ; 
 while Gregovius and Melville preserved their usual calm- 
 ness, and Hermes, Wolfram and Attinghausen scarcely 
 concealed their satisfaction. Of the Orientals, Arvada- 
 Kalama and Subbhuti, in unison for once, exhibited a 
 lively and, as it seemed, a gratified interest; the dignified 
 composure of the others was but occasionally broken by 
 marks of a roused attention. 
 
 After a short interval Mondoza resumed: 
 
 'Pray, Gentlemen, do not consider me ungenerous in 
 now concluding our conversations for this evening and 
 thus seeming to secure the advantage of the last word'. 
 
 'Forgive me', interrupted Subbhuti with his native vi- 
 vacity, and producing a small volume, 'if I detain you 
 for a few moments longer in calling your attention to a 
 passage in an eloquent book written in my island of 
 Ceylon by one of the best and kindest of Christian mi- 
 nisters, with whom I ever had the privilege of coming 
 into contact. In so far as the work is intended as a re- 
 futation of Buddhist doctrines, I can, of course, find no 
 fault with the author, whom, on the contrary, I greatly 
 
184 THE STOIC AND THE CHEISTIAN. 
 
 admire both for his ability and his generous ardour in 
 furthering what he considers the salvation of his heathen 
 fellow-men. But I sincerely think that he, like all other 
 Christian missionaries, totally defeats his object by laying 
 stress on a point which is indeed the centre of his creed, 
 but is repugnant to the followers of Gautama to such a 
 degree that it will ever repel them from Christianity. 
 Towards the end of the work, the writer, addressing 
 us Buddhists, says: 
 
 "If the mighty Lord of all could not, in consistence with 
 his attribute of justice, save man without an atonement, 
 neither will he save you, if you reject that atonement. I 
 feel for you; I sympathise with you; I know something of 
 the difficulties with which you have to contend. For many 
 generations your forefathers have been taught to regard the 
 sacrifice of blood with aversion, as a thing impure in itself, 
 and as the root of all evil; and whilst these thoughts are 
 cherished, or the remembrance of them retained, there can 
 be no sincere trust in the expiation wrought out for man 
 upon the cross; though it is by this alone that we can be 
 saved from God's Wrath and eternal perdition. When the 
 flower and the fruit are thought to be an adequate offering, 
 as an expression of religious thought and feeling, there can 
 be no right appreciation of the vileness of sin, or of man's 
 need of an all-worthy Substitution. We can only learn this 
 from the saddest of all sights, the outpouring of the life's 
 blood".i 
 
 'Is this the teaching', continued Subbhuti, 4 by which 
 Christians endeavour to civilise or to humanise our people? 
 Our good host seems to reject all sacrifices as irreligious. 
 But granting that the idea of sacrifice to an all-loving 
 Being might be entertained, are we to understand that the 
 agony of bloodshed is more acceptable to Him than the 
 harmless offering of fragrant fruits and flowers? The worthy 
 man from whose book I have quoted admits that "there is a 
 winningness, a pleasantness, and a natural gentleness 
 
 i B. Spence Hardy, The Le- 
 gends and Theories of the Buddhists, 
 compared with History and Science 
 
 (Williams and, Norgate), 1866, pp. 
 223, 224. 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 185 
 
 about the people of Ceylon, that when converted to 
 Christianity will make them like angel-spirits": 1 is that 
 doctrine of blood likely to enhance a "natural gentleness" 
 which, I may confidently affirm, is common to all follo- 
 wers of our Tathagata? 
 
 'The writer does not hesitate to predict that "the time 
 will come when the vihara will be deserted, the dagoba 
 unhonoured, and the bana unread". If this should ever 
 happen, the lessons of Siddharta will surely not be sup- 
 planted by those of a Church which represents its God 
 not only as delighting in a human victim, but as so ruth- 
 lessly cruel that in the words of the same excellent 
 minister "the dangers that await the unbelieving will be 
 more appalling than all the horrors that are told of 
 Awichi, and they will be everlasting"; while he admits 
 the awful fact that, according to his Scriptures, "the saved 
 are few, the perishing many". 2 
 
 'Is it, then, surprising to hear him lament that the 
 number of my brethren influenced by the saving power of 
 Christianity is insignificant, and that, "apart from the paid 
 agents of the Church", fewer still are found willing to aid in 
 its diffusion? Or do you hope to allure us by your ce- 
 lestial rewards? You are mistaken. You who brand the 
 religion of the Maha-Bhixu as "a system of personal 
 profit, a traffic in merit, a venal process" you promise 
 to the faithful a place "in heaven among the seraphim 
 with the dazzling diadem upon the brow". 3 We dis- 
 claim, we hardly understand, such "traffic in merit". 
 
 'I admit that Christianity is grand and noble in its 
 morality, and that through this it may one day spread 
 not only over my beautiful island but over many of the coun- 
 tries peopled by hundreds of millions of Gautama's vo- 
 taries; but your toil and treasure will be wasted, unless you 
 divest the creed of all that is specifically Christian of the 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 229. 
 
 2 Ibid. pp. 223, 225. 
 
 3 Ibid. pp. 213, 214, 227. 
 
186 THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 belief in a personal God and an individual self with an 
 immortal soul, in a Gospel, a Holy Spirit, and above 
 all in a redeeming or atoning Sacrifice of blood. Then 
 Christianity will essentially coincide with the code of 
 Buddha. For like him you proclaim universal equality 
 and universal charity, and like him one of your Apostles 
 has declared: "The world is crucified to me, and I unto 
 the world". 
 
 'Buddhism is no new inspiration; for Gautama has 
 only repeated and sanctioned the tenets of the twenty- 
 four Buddhas that preceded him in twelve anterior Tcalpas, 
 and he will himself be followed by another and yet 
 higher Buddha, the great Nagardjuna. He readily acknow- 
 ledged excellencies in other religions also, and ungrud- 
 gingly allowed wisdom and miraculous powers to his op- 
 ponents. Therefore he never persecuted ; and during the 
 twenty-three centuries of our existence we have not ori- 
 ginated a single war. I know that even this has by your 
 animosity been turned into a reproach, as indicating "moral 
 imbecility" and "a fatal indifference about error as about 
 everything else." But by the nirwdna which I yet hope 
 to reach! Is moral strength manifested by that horrid 
 carnage in which Jews and Christians, Brahmans and 
 Mohammedans alike have revelled? You say, war also is 
 beneficial, as it stimulates the energies and prevents stag- 
 nation. Yet you profess that p,eace is your highest aim ; 
 your millennium is the age of peace, and your Redeemer 
 is the prince of peace. And is not toleration a better 
 proof of a strong conviction in the final triumph of truth 
 than impatient fanaticism? We are of opinion that tran- 
 quillity and holiness may be attained by all who earnestly 
 yearn for them. We are not indifferent to the truth, but 
 we do not pretend to be its sole possessors, and as such 
 entitled to condemn and to hurl into the eternal flames 
 all who do not seek "the city of peace" by the same 
 path as we do. Buddha did not affirm, "I am the Light 
 of the world", but was content to say, as every good 
 
THE STOIC AND THE CHRISTIAN. 187 
 
 man should be able to say, "I am sent to bear witness 
 of the light"'. 
 
 A storm of controversy threatened to burst forth, when 
 Subbhuti had finished. Not only did Berghorn and 
 Humphrey look like angry Discontent, but even Abington 
 and Melville seemed eager to give expression to strong 
 remonstrance ; but Mondoza was happily able to forestall 
 them all by saying: 
 
 'You must allow, Gentlemen, that it would be inexpedient 
 to attempt a criticism on so large a subject at this late 
 hour. You will have ample opportunities of refuting 
 both me and our Buddhist friend in every point and as 
 far as I am concerned, I shall even court the occasions 
 of further discussion, were it only to unfold my own po- 
 sitive views with greater distinctness'. 
 
 Longer than usual the guests remained to converse in 
 various groups. The host had a large scope for dis- 
 playing his fine tact and judgment, and, effectually aided 
 by Mortimer and Hermes, he at last succeeded so well 
 in conciliating even those who had been most startled 
 or pained by the last speeches, that all separated in genial 
 cordiality. 
 
 Wolfram alone, a master in astronomical enquiries, 
 stayed and accompanied Mondoza to the observatory, 
 where they were occupied for several hours, as the night 
 was beautifully fine and clear. 
 
Y. EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 WHEN the guests assembled the next evening, the first 
 stars were already glittering in the cloudless sky. Mondoza 
 and Wolfram were seen in lively conversation. Hermes, 
 approaching Wolfram, with whom he had long been on 
 terms of affectionate intimacy, said: 
 
 'Yesterday night, when we ordinary mortals were either 
 in the land of dreams or poring over faded parchments, 
 you and our worthy host, rising above this humble planet 
 on the wings of the telescope, were roaming in infinite 
 space and travelled no doubt through the twenty millions 
 of stars attainable by your excellent instrument, alighting, 
 it may be, for a while at the famous a centauri, the 
 nearest of your three hundred and fifty thousand catalogued 
 stations, and then rushing onward till you reached the 
 remotest of these orbs, your awful a aurigae, the distance 
 of which from this mite of an atom inhabited by us poor 
 creatures of an hour, is, I am sure, like the Hindoo 
 world-periods, expressed by a unit with sixty-three noughts. 3 
 May we be allowed to participate in those fairy rambles 
 and be initiated in your discoveries with respect to the ap- 
 palling time when, by the disappearance of air and water, all 
 life will become extinct on the earth, as it has long since va- 
 nished on our faithful satellite, the moon; or when the earth 
 will lapse into the sun and be burnt up ; or when the sun, by 
 the Greek poet called the heart of the universe, will be cold 
 and dead, having spent all its light and warmth, so that 
 this globe, "changed into an ice-ball, will lazily roll round 
 the cherry-red sun, and the last human eye will be closed 
 amidst all-enfolding darkness" b consummations impending 
 
EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 189 
 
 within such a very few billions of years that we are 
 utterly unable to enjoy a single moment of peace'? 
 
 'Not the telescope', replied Wolfram, laughing, 'engaged 
 us yesterday so much as that even more wonderful contri- 
 vance, the spectroscope. With an instinct which professional 
 astronomers might envy, our host, from the very day that 
 Kirchhoff's and Bunsen's remarkable invention and theory 
 permitted an intelligible interpretation of Frauenhofer's 
 mysterious lines, divined the supreme importance of spec- 
 tral analysis for ascertaining that "world-formula", or 
 finally establishing that unity of all worlds, which alone 
 seems to satisfy his logical and organically connecting 
 mind'. 
 
 4 You owe forgiveness for this humiliating praise', said 
 Mondoza, 'to the indulgence of friendship. But it ever 
 appeared to me an irresistible conclusion that, if the earth 
 is, through our central sun, allied with the distant 
 Neptune, this sun itself must, by the same law of gravity, 
 be allied to a more general, if not a universal, system of 
 suns. a This conception, an inevitable corollary of Kant's 
 and Laplace's nebular theory, seemed to me to receive the 
 strongest support from a discovery which, enabling us to 
 examine the chemical composition of the astral worlds, 
 proved the ingredients of many of the remotest fixed stars 
 to be virtually identical with those composing our own 
 planet; and when the spectrum disclosed to us, one by 
 one, the familiar elements of hydrogen, natrium, magnesium, 
 titanium, aluminum, and others to the number of twenty- 
 four out of the sixty-five hitherto known to us, b I could 
 not help proceeding one step farther and asking whether 
 there does not exist one primary element which, no more 
 found on this developed earth and in other advanced 
 stars, is the origin or foundation of the rest, and which, 
 by the nature of its particles, is capable of the required 
 multiplicity of combinations. And indeed, at the extreme 
 boundaries of the cosmic systems accessible to our obser- 
 vation, and in nebulae apparently indis solvable, a substance 
 
190 EPICUEUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 has been detected in large quantities an igneous ga 
 mingled with hydrogen and oxygen which seems t< 
 exercise an important influence on the formation am 
 development of new worlds. Only after having fathomec 
 this primary element and its attributes, together with th< 
 functions and forces of molecules in connection witl 
 light, heat and electricity, will it be possible for uf 
 approximately at best to find that "world-formula' 
 to which our friend Wolfram has alluded and which wil 
 permit us to determine the probable condition of the 
 universe at any period, past or future to find the one idea, 
 first and last, the one cardinal principle, that dominates 
 the cosmos, and of which all other laws and forces are 
 secondary varieties. This subject, to which my slight 
 studies are directed, will, I am certain, not be ne- 
 glected by our great astronomers. I know indeed, the 
 difficulties are immeasurable; but our hopefulness is 
 encouraged when, among numerous other proofs of 
 astonishing progress, we consider that the use of the simple 
 spectroscope, has, within a very short time, brought the 
 heavenly bodies suddenly and unexpectedly so near to 
 our comprehension that we shall soon be more familiar 
 with their innermost constitution than with their distances, 
 dimensions and movements, and many other problems 
 which have absorbed men's attention for thousands of 
 years'.* 
 
 'But supposing', said Rabbi Gideon in a tone slightly 
 sarcastical, 'that mystic formula were revealed, what would 
 be the gain for wisdom or happiness'? 
 
 'To this most pertinent question', said Mondoza com- 
 posedly, 'I reply that my cosmological idea of nature 
 would indeed be sadly incomplete and sterile if it did not 
 include the enquiry in what sense the universe is the 
 result of Thought, and consequently discloses an Intelligence 
 which may be traced as a phenomenon no less real than 
 the elementary substances and forces, and may thus be 
 proved objectively and inductively. The question of 
 
EPICUEtTS AND DAEWINISM. 191 
 
 questions, therefore, seems to be whether, as the whole 
 creation is ruled by the same physical and mechanical 
 laws, it is also pervaded by the same principles of logic 
 and ethics or, in a word, whether it operates by plan 
 and design. Not before we have attained clearness on 
 this point, can our minds and hearts derive true satisfaction 
 from the scientific examination of nature. I have of 
 late pondered much over Goethe's aphorism: "When 
 philosophers banished the teleological view, they divested 
 Nature of understanding (Verstand); they had not the 
 courage to endow her with reason (Vernunft), and so she 
 was left spiritless (geistlos)". I wish that our conversa- 
 tions may mature our conclusions: but I for one am not 
 impatient, and I shall welcome, without partiality or 
 disquietude, any inference which honest research may 
 mark out as truth'. 
 
 'I see the time approaching', said Wolfram, with 
 enthusiasm, 'when we, in a form infinitely higher than 
 that of Plato's harmony of spheres, shall comprehend the 
 whole world as an eternal symphony of powers in rhythmic 
 motion, and when the aspect of the star-spangled heavens, 
 arousing the mighty chords of that symphony, shall bind 
 our intellects to that of the universe, and our hearts to 
 that of every sentient creature, to bless us at once with 
 divine elevation and human sympathy'! 
 
 'What is the object of this rhapsodical effusion'? said 
 Humphrey, sharply; 'and what is its source? Its object is 
 rebellion and its source conceit. Nature's Holy of Holies 
 will ever remain veiled from your irreverent eyes : you hardly 
 advance to the Court of her Temple. All your deductions 
 are based on a boundless space filled with infinite agglomera- 
 tions of atoms two undemonstrable abstractions. Hence 
 your systems are nothing but airy conjectures withered 
 leaves chased about by every wind'. 
 
 'Let us at once', said Attinghausen with mock solem- 
 nity, 'take our vows upon the Astro-theology of Derham 
 and proclaim that the distant nebulae are clefts or 
 
192 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 "threadbare spots" in the firmament, intended to afford 
 us a glimpse of the glory of the empyrean, the abode 
 of beatified spirits. And, to complete our science, let us 
 abjure the heresy of supposing that the fossils in the 
 earth are remains of destroyed organisms, and piously 
 confess that they are marvellous lusus naturae; or rough 
 and inorganic models afterwards infused with the breath 
 of life; or, lastly, "stone-flesh" engendered by the rocks 
 fertilised through the "seminal air"'. 
 
 'Scepticism', said Panini, sadly, 'is like that insatiable 
 beast of prey in Dante's Inferno: 
 
 "Ha natura si malvagia e ria 
 
 "Che mai non empie la bramosa voglia, 
 
 ''E dopo il pasto ha piu fame che pria"'. a 
 
 'If indeed', said Rabbi Gideon with a scornful glance 
 at Attinghausen, 'the numberless stars, as you naturalists 
 opine, are as many light-giving worlds or suns, it would 
 follow that the vault of heaven should in the night be 
 illumined with infinitely greater brightness than by day, 
 and you can uphold your dogmas only by another unproved 
 assumption the existence, in the universe, of an extremely 
 fine medium absorbing the light of those countless suns. 
 But if so, space would, by the principle of the preservation 
 of force, have in the course of time acquired an immense 
 intensity of heat: but as this is not the case, one of your 
 oracles, to explain everything to his own satisfaction, has 
 generously presented us with a "fourth dimension". b Thus 
 surmise is made to support surmise, and your whole 
 science is guesswork. You are not ashamed to declare, 
 that "the naturalist knows only bodies and qualities of 
 bodies ; that he calls all beyond this transcendent, and 
 that transcendency is regarded by him as an aberration 
 of the human mind". c Your fancy may rise to a suppositi- 
 tious ether, but your wingless soul creeps inertly in the 
 dust. You may pile up knowledge as high as the ill-fated 
 tower of Babylon, but wisdom is far from you. Pierce 
 space with your telescopes and your spectroscopes; the 
 
EPICUEUS AND DARWINISM. 193 
 
 mind that pervades it eludes your rude grasp. How much 
 vain toil and empty trouble could you spare yourselves 
 by remembering the words of the sacred writer: "Where 
 shall wisdom be found? It is not found in the land of 
 the living; God understandeth the way thereof; for He 
 looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the 
 whole heaven"'*. 
 
 'Or', added Abington, 'by remembering the modern 
 poet's plaintive address to Truth, 
 
 "To catch Thee, they start forth with nets and poles, 
 "But with a spirit's stride Thou walkest through their midst", 
 
 'and his apostrophe to Astronomers, 
 
 "Your subject is indeed the most sublime in Space, 
 "But not in Space doth the sublime reside"'. b 
 
 The company had not noticed that the south-easterly 
 part of the heavens had gradually darkened till it was 
 overspread with a dense mass of clouds. But the peculiar 
 shades of the atmosphere now arrested general attention, 
 and all burst out in a simultaneous expression of 
 astonishment when they suddenly beheld a magnificently 
 brilliant meteor of a vivid red rising from the north-west, 
 below the Great Bear, and observed how that meteor, 
 moving south-eastward, sank beneath the clouds, describing 
 between the skies and the surface of the earth a 
 rectilineal course of almost fifty degrees. When the 
 phenomenon had vanished, the eager eyes of the guests 
 turned spontaneously to Wolfram, as if expecting an ex- 
 planation. Nor were they disappointed; for the zealous 
 Nestor, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the 'point where 
 the star had vanished, in order to observe the characteristic 
 luminosity to its final disappearance, exclaimed: 
 
 'A wonderful spectacle! The height of the clouds can 
 not have exceeded 900 metres, and the shooting star 
 must have passed through our atmosphere at an elevation 
 of less than 800 metres above the earth's surface ! These 
 heavenly visitors are becoming extremely familiar, though 
 
 o 
 
194 EPICUEUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 it would be desirable to admire their beauty at a some- 
 what safer distance'*. 
 
 'But are not these meteors', said Arvada-Kalama, 'very 
 innocuous bodies, which, just on account of their harm- 
 lessness, are contemplated with so much quiet pleasure' ? 
 
 'It would be cruel', replied Wolfram, 'to disturb an 
 exquisite enjoyment by needless alarm; but we now know 
 that those shooting stars are nothing else than small 
 comets freely wandering through space in irregular swarms, 
 and perceived by us only when their journeys bring them 
 near our earth. b But the chief interest lies in their 
 contingent changes; for the sun is capable of converting 
 the swarm into a parabolic group, and a planet to which it 
 approaches, may transform it into an elliptical or annular 
 conglomeration. Therefore, it is not quite beyond the 
 range of possibility that these small comets, on their 
 part, may at any time influence the nature or the orbit 
 of our earth, and that then' . . . 
 
 'Justly has the prophet warned us', interrupted Gideon, 
 "Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed 
 at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed 
 at them"'.i 
 
 'One at least of the great heathens', said Hermes, 
 laughing, 'was certainly not terrified by them, and 
 earnestly strove to deliver his benighted fellow-men from 
 the same unreasonable apprehensions.' 
 
 'Ah'! cried Humphrey, with his usual quickness, 'you 
 allude to that arch-infidel Epicurus; but his confidence 
 was the confidence of folly, of which Solomon speaks; 
 for surely, t*hat knowledge of nature, from which he 
 borrowed his sense of security, is hardly distinguishable 
 from dream or fiction. He speaks as if he had sat in the 
 council of creation. A world, he is certain, is produced 
 by suitable seeds emanating from one or several other 
 
 1 Jerem. X. 2. 
 
EPICUBUS AND DARWINISM. 195 
 
 worlds and moving towards a particular point where they 
 unite and crystallise into a nucleus for successive additions.* 
 The sun, the moon and the stars may, according to his 
 exalted wisdom, be "a little greater or a little smaller 
 than they appear, or they may be just such as they look" 6 ; 
 while their rising and setting may be caused by their 
 becoming lighted up and extinguished alternately; or 
 this is the pinnacle of his erudition a new moon is 
 generated and decays every day, to be substituted by 
 another in its place ! d Earthquakes, he tells us, arise from 
 the wind penetrating into the interior of the earth, although 
 he admits other possibilities equally sagacious and scientific ; e 
 and as regards shooting meteors, such as we have just 
 seen, he allows us the choice between particles detached 
 from stars, substances set on fire by the action of the wind, 
 the re-union of inflammable atoms brought together by 
 reciprocal attractions, and not a few similar conceits/ Yet 
 I am thankful to our ardent Hellenist for having reminded 
 us of Epicurus; for it is to this philosopher if philosopher 
 he can be called and to his school that our argument, 
 Broken off last night, must proceed, if it is to lead to a 
 solid or satisfactory conclusion'. 
 
 'By all means 7 , said Mondoza, 'let us continue that line 
 of reasoning which you have hitherto pursued with so 
 much consistency, and which, by eliciting every variety 
 of opinion, seems best calculated to promote our object 
 of discovering the elements of human felicity and of 
 harmony of character. But I suppose that even your 
 penetration and ingenuity will find it difficult to deduce 
 from the systems of Aristippus and Epicurus a Greek 
 life tainted with gloom or moroseness'. 
 
 'Nothing seems to me easier or more evident', replied 
 Humphrey, his small eyes sparkling in unusual restlessness; 
 'for it is an indisputable law of psychology that one extreme 
 generates another 
 
 "Violent delights have violent ends, 
 "And in their triumph die". 
 
196 EPICUEUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 'A striking proof is at hand. I need hardly remind 
 you of the reckless levity displayed by the Cyrenaics who 
 gloried in the unprincipled adroitness and versatility of 
 their master Aristippus. a Pleasure was their god; sensual 
 indulgence the aim of their existence. Varying a line of 
 Horace, they might have taken as their motto: "Get 
 pleasure, get pleasure ; if you can, lawfully; if not, pleasure 
 by any means". Defining the highest good as "a gentle 
 motion tending to sensation", b they did not allow that to 
 be pleasure which consists in a calm condition of well- 
 being or in a state of undisturbedness, but they demanded 
 "motion", that is, special and positive enjoyment. This 
 they considered desirable for its own sake, but happiness 
 simply for the sake of the definite pleasure. Under such 
 circumstances, it is a matter ,of course that they declared 
 the pleasures of the body to be superior to those of the 
 soul, and the sufferings of the body to be more agonising 
 than those of the mind. d They were only consistent when 
 they affirmed that gratitude, friendship and charity had 
 no real existence, but were merely upheld or cultivated 
 as far as they were advantageous; that a man of sense 
 will do everything for his own interests, since no one else 
 is to him of equal importance with himself; and that he 
 will, therefore, not be so rash and foolish as to risk any 
 danger on behalf of his country. 6 Indeed, it is in no 
 respect surprising that, going a step farther, they con- 
 tended that "pleasure is a good even if it arises from 
 the most obj ectionable causes and the most preposterous 
 actions" ; f nay that, proceeding yet a further step towards 
 the precipice of iniquity, they held that "a wise man 
 might steal and commit adultery and sacrilege at proper 
 seasons" of course, for the purpose of winning the 
 highest boon of pleasure. And why not? "None of those 
 actions", they logically maintained, "are disgraceful by 
 nature, if we only have the courage to discard the common 
 opinion about them, which owes its existence to the 
 consent of fools"; whence the wise man's only duty lies 
 
EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 197 
 
 in avoiding public acts which might bring upon him 
 punishment or discredit. 3 
 
 '"Were they at least happy at such a price' ? continued 
 Humphrey rapidly, to prevent being interrupted. 'The 
 answer given by history to this question is ghastly. 
 Hegesias, one of the most famous of the Cyrenaic teachers, 
 was by king Ptolemy banished from the country because 
 he set forth life's disappointments and vexations, man's 
 miseries and agonies, so persistently and so forcibly that 
 many of his hearers in despair committed suicide whence 
 he obtained the name of "Death-Advocate". 15 This is the 
 grim climax of your Greek merriment'! 
 
 'Is it just', said Canon Mortimer in a tone of gentle 
 reproof, 'to judge the merits of a school of philosophy 
 by the wild exaggerations of extreme fanatics? The atheist 
 Theodorus is answerable for most of those disgraceful 
 utterances which so shock our sense of morality. Yet 
 charity might at least discover some points of extenuation. 
 A mere love of paradox often induces men to give 
 expression to views which scarcely represent their con- 
 victions. For even Theodorus, in evident self-contradiction, 
 repeatedly called thoughtfulness and justice good qualites, 
 and their opposites evils. c But the founder of the Hedonic 
 sect, though in many respects displaying a deplorable laxity 
 of conduct, enjoined lessons which go far to account for 
 the great influence he exercised. He indulged indeed in 
 luxury whenever it was in his grasp for indifference to 
 enjoyment he held to be perversity of mind , but he 
 never pined for it. His maxim was: "The most merito- 
 rious thing is not abstention from pleasures, but, while 
 having them at our command, not to be their slave" ; d 
 and in harmony with this principle, he earnestly advised 
 his daughter Arete not to attach herself to superfluities. 
 Other masters of the school taught that the wise man 
 should be absolutely free from envy, passion and super- 
 stition, as these originate in a distortion of judgment; 
 and the followers of Anniceris strongly insisted upon 
 
198 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 gratitude and patriotism to be practised as sacred duties, 
 and upon friendship prompted, not by selfishness, but by 
 a natural feeling of benevolence. It is, therefore, easy 
 to see that even the Cyrenaics, in proposing pleasure as 
 their chief end, set forth opinions enclosing the germs 
 of a nobler development'. 
 
 'All of us', said Hermes with a smile of satisfaction, 
 'must admire the large-minded equity of observations 
 which prove that the Church has room for every variety 
 of opinion, or, if it should have none, that it is at any 
 moment ready to widen its aisles'. 
 
 'A most valuable ally'! whispered Attinghausen to 
 "Wolfram. 
 
 4 I cannot prevail upon myself, said Humphrey pointedly, 
 but without looking at the Canon, 'to pass so lightly over 
 views fraught with the utmost significance for those who 
 have the sacred truths of Christianity at heart. I must, of 
 course, not hope to make myself understood by those 
 who, wrapped in the pharisaical cloak of a humanitarian 
 Hellenism, thank their gods that they are not like those 
 barbarians, the Christians; nor by those who, looking 
 upon their own enlightened selves as the measure of all 
 things, and reducing Nature to a mechanical agglomeration 
 of matter, have banished from their language the words 
 God, mind, and soul. But I have a right to expect a 
 broader and more impartial examination from those who 
 have not entirely shaken off authority and tradition as 
 an unbearable yoke, and profess to teach the Gospel and 
 its spiritual lessons'. 
 
 'I trust', said Mondoza with the utmost courtesy, 'that 
 the remarks with which you are about to favour us, will 
 not carry us too far from our chosen path by entering 
 into the mazes of metaphysical or dogmatic speculation'? 
 
 'I shall try to heed your warning', replied Humphrey; 
 'but it is especially in order to protest against your own 
 concluding observations of last evening that I feel it to 
 be my duty to draw the inferences from the ascertained 
 
EPICURUS AND DABWINTSM. 199 
 
 . 
 
 course of Greek culture more fully and more distinctly 
 than would otherwise have been required. 
 
 'Now, I contend, that nothing proves so strikingly as 
 that very culture to the excellencies of which I am not 
 insensible that the knowledge of the natural man has a 
 sharply marked boundary, beyond which it is unable 
 to pass'. 
 
 'Who has ever denied that'? interrupted Attinghausen. 
 
 'The knowledge to which I allude', continued Hum- 
 phrey earnestly, 'is probably not that which you have in 
 your mind. I refer to the invisible world to the hidden 
 life of our hearts and souls, and I affirm that, however 
 varied and brilliant the achievements of the human intellect 
 have been, there is one enigma which the natural man 
 could not solve; one question, suggested by a longing 
 deep and painful, which he could not answer; it is the 
 question : "How can I be made free from my sins" ? The key 
 to this problem has been supplied by Christ in revealing the 
 way of redemption, of conciliation with the Father, and 
 of justification before His tribunal. This message of 
 peace is the centre and the cardinal point of all wisdom; 
 * it is the new truth which Christianity has brought to 
 mankind, which was never divined by any mortal, and is 
 higher than all reason, nay which the angels themselves 
 are desirous to fathom'.* 
 
 'But this Christian dogma', said "Wolfram, 'is not 
 exclusively Christian'. 
 
 'It is such mistakes', replied Humphrey, 'which I am 
 anxious to remove. That doctrine is exclusively and 
 specifically Christian. To the enquiry, which the heathen 
 too raised in a thousand forms and with burning eagerness, 
 "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from 
 the body of this death"? the new Covenant alone was 
 able to reply, "I thank God through Christ our Lord", 
 who "of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, 
 and sanctification, and redemption" 15 . Pagan antiquity 
 also justice requires this acknowledgment harboured a 
 
200 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 certain consciousness of sin and the oppressive feeling of 
 impotence in struggling against its wiles. Let me recall 
 to you the one touching appeal of Euripides: 
 
 "0 send a light to illumine the souls of men anxious to 
 ''learn the germ and root of misery, anxious to know which 
 "is the immortal god whom they should appease to find 
 "relief in their wretchedness"!* 
 
 'Yet pagans failed to see the true cause of their weak- 
 ness and dejection. They possessed indeed a more or less 
 clear idea of God as the all-powerful Creator and Ruler, 
 but they did not know Him as the Father, as the source 
 of Love and Holiness, and they were thus unable to 
 conceive the hope of salvation. Persecuted by the incessant 
 admonition of the inner voice, "What must we do to be 
 saved"? and seeing no star to guide them, they fell a 
 prey to the scourges of the inexorable Erinnys, and the 
 rod of relentless ate. And, what is both most remark- 
 able and most saddening, when at last, in the fulness of 
 time, He appeared who was able to heal their bleeding 
 wounds, the vehement yearning changed into a no less 
 vehement resistance, and instead of recognising and hailing 
 him as the great physician, they rejected him with obdurate 
 bitterness and malice. 
 
 'That strong yearning is testified not only by the works 
 of their poets and historians, but, with still more thrilling 
 power, by some of their master-pieces of sculpture, the 
 aesthetic merit of which, however eminent, is yet subordinate 
 to their religious significance. Who can behold the 
 mournful figure of Niobe, that mater dolorosa of ancient 
 art, without finding in the sublime composition a confir- 
 mation of the Biblical doctrine, that God visits men's 
 iniquity on their children and children's children? Or 
 who can contemplate the grandly pathetic group of Laocoon 
 without feeling that the serpents of sin and death hold us 
 and our children inextricably enfolded, threatening agony 
 and doom ? Indeed that group is a faithful image of the 
 ancient world itself: it rouses at the same time a certain 
 
EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 201 
 
 human admiration and the profoundest compassion; it 
 reveals at once the most perfect symmetry of beauty and 
 the giant struggle of the best and noblest against the 
 dark powers of iniquity and destruction. The struggle 
 was hopeless; the serpents encompassed their unhappy 
 victims in closer and closer coils; for there was none 
 who crushed the serpents' heads. 
 
 'Thus an unspeakable despondency is diffused over all 
 antiquity like a lowering cloud. Escape from these feelings 
 of torment was possible only in two ways by intoxication 
 through sensual enjoyment, or by self-annihilation; and 
 the philosophical schools of Greece chose either the one 
 or the other, and sometimes both in succession. Stoicism, 
 no more than Hedonism, armed man with strength, 
 purity, comfort, and hope'. 
 
 'But it should not be forgotten', said Hermes, with an 
 expression of surprise, 'that, as the Cynic school was 
 refined into Stoicism, so the teaching of Hedonics advanced 
 to the higher stage of Epicureanism'. 
 
 'Epicureanism'! echoed Humphrey almost with a shudder. 
 'It is the most detestable, because the most insidious of 
 all poisonous excrescences of the Grecian mind. The 
 Epicurean is a dangerous voluptuary, a despicable drone 
 in the human hive'. 
 
 'He is worse', added Rabbi Gideon; 'he is an infidel, 
 and our sages, in searching for a term to designate an 
 apostate, could find none stronger or more reproachful 
 than "an Epicurus'". 
 
 'Indeed', said Subbhuti earnestly, 'we have always been 
 taught to hold his life and theories in the deepest detestation'. 
 
 'Hedonism', added Panini, 'leaves at least faith un- 
 touched, but the doctrines of Epicurus are so' ... 
 
 'I hope to goodness', interrupted Attinghausen with a 
 stamp of unusual vehemence, 'there will soon be an end 
 of these pious ejaculations! I lay any wager you like, 
 that none of you, who seem horror-stricken at the mere 
 mention of Epicureanism, have the least notion of the 
 
202 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 system beyond that which you imbibed from the "good" books 
 of your nurseries, or from the fact, duly inculcated in your 
 minds, that the first learned and formidable writer against 
 Christianity, was an Epicurean. Shall I calmly listen to 
 blasphemous ravings'? 
 
 'I can well understand your indignation', said Abington 
 with his accustomed composure; 'for to you that system 
 is doubtless a religion alas, how lifeless a substitute! 
 and I admit that it is not unfrequently condemned without 
 an adequate acquaintance with its tenets ; yet the repug- 
 nance seems to me to arise from an instinct the strength 
 and extent of which are no mean presumptions of its 
 soundness and legitimacy'. 
 
 'And yet', observed Mondoza, 'Epicurean philosophy 
 seems to be endowed with a wonderful vitality. Ridiculed, 
 despised and, as I believe, misunderstood from the 
 beginning, it again and again rose triumphantly over 
 doctrines of apparently greater elevation, and flourished 
 when almost every other school had decayed.* And if I 
 do not misread the signs of the time, its general tendencies 
 are at present more wide-spread than ever, and are likely 
 to gain still further ground as science advances. It seems 
 to me, therefore, not only a matter of interest but of 
 considerable importance to obtain a clear and accurate 
 knowledge of the subject; and I am sure I shall not 
 appeal to our friend Hermes in vain for performing, with 
 respect to the gardens of Epicurus, the same office he 
 so readily undertook in connection with the shades of 
 the Porch'. 
 
 'The task', replied Hermes cheerfully, 'is equally grateful 
 and much less complicated; for the whole system flows 
 naturally from a few principles almost as plain as axioms. 
 These principles are: all men desire happiness; happiness 
 is impossible without tranquillity of mind ; tranquillity of 
 mind is secured by freedom from all fears of superstition; 
 superstition is conquered by a thorough study of nature and 
 her laws ; and this study is facilitated by ease and the comforts 
 
EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 203 
 
 of life ; therefore, ease and comfort are desirable for the 
 attainment of supreme happiness'.* 
 
 'Everything depends', said Arvada-Kalama, 'upon the 
 meaning of "ease and comfort"'. 
 
 'Excepting the last link', said Panini with a doubtful 
 shake of the head, 'the whole sounds, in your statement, 
 almost like the teaching of the Stoics'. 
 
 'The resemblance between the two schools is indeed 
 remarkable', replied Hermes. 
 
 'No Stoic paradoxes'! cried Humphrey sarcastically. 
 'Every unbiassed mind has the unmistakable impression 
 that both are opposed almost like antipodes; and as I 
 strongly abhor Stoic haughtiness, so have I the pro- 
 foundest aversion to Epicurean frivolousness'. 
 
 'I trust', replied Hermes, with dignity, 'that scholars 
 listened to as authorities in important branches of learn- 
 ing, are not solely guided by impressions and groundless 
 antipathies, but show themselves amenable to the evidence 
 of facts, even if these should aim at demolishing a long- 
 cherished conviction or prejudice. Now', continued Hermes 
 placidly, 'Epicureanism is commonly held to be syno- 
 nymous with luxury and self-indulgence. But what is the 
 account given in authentic sources? "Simple fare", said 
 the founder of the school, "procures us as much pleasure 
 as costly viands, provided that the feelings of suffering 
 and want are removed ; and corn and water afford extreme 
 enjoyment if taken when needed. To accustom oneself, 
 therefore, to simple and inexpensive habits is a chief 
 ingredient in promoting health ; and then, when we occasio- 
 nally have an opportunity for more sumptuous repasts, 
 we appreciate them the more heartily"'. 
 
 'Excuse the interruption', said Arvada-Kalama ; 'are 
 these your own words'? 
 
 'They are a quotation', replied Hermes', as literal as pos- 
 sible, from Diogenes Laertius. This writer continues :" When, 
 therefore, we say, that pleasure is a chief good, we are 
 not speaking of the delights of the libertine or voluptuary, 
 
204 EPICUKUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 as some of our opponents fancy, who are ignorant of our 
 views or interpret them perversely; but we mean the 
 freedom of the body from pain and of the soul from 
 perturbation. For it is not protracted revelries and 
 splendid feasts that make life agreeable, but sober con- 
 templation which examines into the reasons for all we 
 choose or avoid, and which chases away the vain opinions 
 which usually engender soul-troubling confusion"'*. 
 
 'And are these indeed the principles of the Epicureans' ? 
 exclaimed Movayyid-eddin. 'Then let us write over the 
 door of Cordova Lodge the words that were inscribed 
 over the temple library of Thebes: ^TXHS IATPEION; for 
 here the soul is truly healed of deceitful traditions'. 
 
 'It is, moreover, added', continued Hermes, 'that "the 
 gifts of nature are well defined and easily acquired, while 
 idle desires are insatiable". 1 * Contemporary testimonies 
 assure us that "Epicurus and all his disciples lived most 
 simply and most economically; that they were content 
 with a small cup of light wine, while all the rest of their 
 drink was water". Epicurus himself observed in a letter 
 to a friend that he was satisfied with water and plain 
 bread, adding: "Send me some Cytherean cheese, so that 
 if I wish to have a grand feast, I may have the means". 
 Hence Juvenal could write, "If you ask me what amount 
 of income is sufficient, I will tell you: just as much as 
 thirst and hunger and cold require; as much as satisfied 
 thee, Epicurus, in thy small garden; no more than the home 
 of Socrates once contained".* 1 Is it, therefore, necessary 
 to point out how closely the Epicureans' mode of life 
 coincided with the simplicity of the Stoics themselves? 
 In one of the finest and noblest works that have happily 
 been bequeathed to us by the ancients the immortal 
 poem of the Epicurean Lucretius that simplicity is in 
 more than one passage glowingly extolled; let one specimen 
 suffice : 
 
 "0 wretched mortals! Race perverse arid blind! 
 "Through what dread dark, what perilous pursuits, 
 
EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 205 
 
 "Pass ye this round of being! know ye not, 
 
 "Of all you toil for, Nature nothing asks 
 
 "But for the body freedom from disease, 
 
 "And sweet unanxious quiet for the mind? 
 
 "And little claims the body to be sound: 
 
 "But little serves to strew the paths we tread 
 
 "With joys beyond e'en Nature's utmost wish . . . 
 
 "Since, then, nor wealth, nor splendour, nor the boast 
 
 "Of birth illustrious, nor e'en regal state 
 
 "Avails the body, so the free-born mind 
 
 "Their aid as little asksV 
 
 'Therefore Epicurus praised as a high virtue that con- 
 tentment which does not necessarily demand smallness 
 of possession, but teaches the tranquil use of whatever has 
 fallen to our share, since he believed that "those men 
 enjoy luxury most thoroughly who are best able to do 
 without it". b Hence you will easily infer what lie meant 
 when he declared pleasure to be "the beginning and end 
 of a happy life": c pleasure was to him indeed the first 
 boon and "connate" with us, d the motive power of all 
 we choose and avoid, the standard measure of every sen- 
 sation; 6 but how did be define pleasure? In distinct op- 
 position to the Cyrenaics, he found it simply in the ab- 
 sence of pain and discomfort; he required no "motion" 
 or individual and positive enjoyments, but merely a general 
 condition of well-being; nay his antagonists taunted him that 
 his pleasure was not pleasure at all, and that, "according 
 to him, it was not even possible to live agreeably"'/ 
 
 'This is exactly', said Arvada-Kalama approvingly, 
 'like the Nydya system of our Hindoo philosophy the 
 absence of pain is the summum ~bonum'. 
 
 'Not quite like your intricate and confused Nyaya', 
 said Asho-raoco ironically. 5 
 
 'Let me adduce a Stoic's testimony', continued Hermes 
 quickly. 'Seneca writes : "Those Epicureans who indulge 
 in luxury, do not act so by the precept of their master 
 Epicurus, but, being slaves to vice, they cover their own 
 effeminacy by his teaching, and frequent places of in- 
 
206 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 struction where they are sure to hear self-indulgence 
 praised; they do not consider how sober and temperate 
 that pleasure of Epicurus is, but, clinging to the name, 
 they seek for their illicit affections an authority and 
 a cloak". Nay he adds that, what Epicurus prescribes 
 is not only holy and righteous but, when closely examined, 
 most serious; for his "pleasure is reduced to very dimi- 
 nutive and meagre proportions, and the very same thing 
 we call the law of virtue, is called by him the law of 
 pleasure".* Moreover, as pleasure is to him only the 
 means of attaining happiness, it must be rejected whenever 
 it might possibly result in annoyance; while pain must 
 be endured when it promises to engender a, higher gra- 
 tification. But the pleasures of the soul are considered 
 by him superior to those of the body ; whence it follows 
 that we should readily undergo physical discomfort to secure 
 an intellectual enjoyment. Now pleasure is inseparable from 
 virtue alone, whereas everything else, being perishable, 
 is separable from pleasure. In this sense we must take 
 the maxim that we choose the virtues, not on their own 
 account, but for the sake of pleasure, just as we seek 
 the skill of the physician for the sake of health. Nor 
 should we permit ourselves to misconstrue the bolder 
 saying that, if the pleasures of the profligate made an 
 end of the fears of his mind and taught him the limit 
 of his desires, we could not reasonably blame him: for 
 the premises are, according to Epicurus, an impossibility. 
 Freedom from disquietude of the soul is the supreme 
 object, to which everything must be made subservient. b 
 In a word, the "pleasure" of Epicurus is not materially 
 different from the "cheerfulness" of Democritus; nor the 
 "dulce est" of the Epicurean from the "bene est" of the 
 Stoic. c 
 
 'Again, Epicureanism is usually considered equivalent 
 to enervated cowardice. But Epicurus declared that 
 "if the wise man were even put to the torture, he would 
 still be happy", d and a few hours before his death he 
 
EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 207 
 
 wrote: "Painful disorders have attacked me so fiercely 
 that their violence can hardly be exceeded; but the 
 serenity of my mind, arising from the recollection of 
 my philosophical enquiries, counterbalances all these 
 ills". a Nor was he subdued by adversity; for "the wise 
 man", he said, "defies chance"; b and "not making Fortune 
 a goddess, he believed it better to be wretched while 
 acting with reason, than to be prosperous without 
 reason". 
 
 'Among the many marvels of history, this is not the 
 least surprising that a speculative school inculcating 
 such principles should have become almost a by- word 
 of contempt and ridicule. Yet such was the case at a 
 very early period. The only explanation lies in the 
 obvious fact that, as among the Stoics, so there were a- 
 mong the Epicureans many "wandbearers", but few "in- 
 spired". Opinions involving so nice a balance of impulse 
 and reason, were particularly liable to the abuse of the weak 
 and the insincere. Epicureanism easily relapsed into 
 Hedonism for both "drank of one cup" d till it appeared 
 to centre in the reckless self-admonition: "Let us eat 
 and drink, for to-morrow we shall die". 6 Horace was 
 in the right medium when, in the spirit of the lines, 
 
 "Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem, 
 "Dulce est desipere in loco," 
 
 he invited to a moderate and rational enjoyment/ But 
 when he called himself "a porker of the herd of Epicurus", 
 he easily misled himself and others into regarding Epicurus' 
 teaching as "an insane philosophy"^. That even an 
 Epictetus should have so far mistaken the "pleasure" of 
 the Epicurean as to accuse the whole sect of sacrificing 
 to it every behest of morality, 11 proves the great difficulty, 
 experienced by many, of recognising virtue in any other 
 garb than that of austerity though not a few, as Cicero, 
 Lucian, and Plutarch, have levelled their hostile darts 
 against Epicureans and Stoics alike. 1 
 
208 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 'What, then, was the Epicurean's ideal of happiness? 
 Fortified in the calmness of his reflexions, unshaken by 
 all extraneous influences, and absolute master of his de- 
 sires and passions, he tried to rise to the heights of wis- 
 dom and thence tranquilly to contemplate the breathless 
 race and giddy strife of the multitude wrestling for power, 
 wealth, and fame a in a word, "to be undisturbed either 
 by sleeping or waking fancies, but to live among men 
 like a god". b Is this not almost precisely the existence 
 of the Stoic sage who, in his placid self-possession, vies 
 in happiness with Zeus himself?' c 
 
 'Swayed by the pagan's characteristic egotism', interrupted 
 Humphrey, who had been very restless during this speech, 
 'the Epicurean philosopher is satisfied if he has but pro- 
 vided for his own magnificent self. What concern has he 
 with the ignoble crowd? To him "it is sweetest enjoyment 
 to behold from the safe coast a vessel in distress, and 
 the voyagers struggling with the fury of the waves". d 
 Yet even he draws a terrible picture of human misery 
 and uses it as a main support of one of his worst heresies. 
 How helpless, he exclaims, is man from his infancy! 
 Fitly is the child ushered with bitter cries into a life 
 of interminable woes, a life of enforced and slavish toil 
 for an uncertain existence, and of constant warfare 
 against insidious foes and dangers. 6 There you see again, 
 in its full bloom and tempting beauty, the joyousness of 
 your Grecian life and temperament'! 
 
 'Your reproaches', replied Hermes, 'are unfounded; for 
 one of the Epicurean's strongest feelings was com- 
 passion, and in those verses to which you have alluded, 
 Lucretius expressly declares that the pleasure at our 
 own safety is marred by the sight of the sufferers ; f while 
 the earnest and deeply sympathetic picture of the ills of 
 humanity should shelter him from the common charges 
 of heedless levity. Yet in spite of that description, he 
 called life "delightful", and blamed as utterly false the 
 lines of Theognis, which you have quoted a few days ago 
 
EPICUKUS AND DARWINISM. 209 
 
 with so much emphasis, to the effect that the most de- 
 sirable of all things is not to be born ; and the next desirable, 
 to pass into Hades as quickly as possible after birth. a 
 If in these two points there is a contrast between the 
 wise man of Epicurus and of Zeno and many will 
 admit that the difference is in favour of the former the 
 affinity between both is in various other features again strik- 
 ingly manifest. For like the Stoics, the Epicureans main- 
 tain that the wise man should not be a "Cynic" or a "beggar"'. 
 
 'He knew not Buddha's dignity', murmured Subbhuti. 
 
 'But should, on the contrary', continued Hermes, 'take 
 care of his property and provide for the future ; that he 
 should not entangle himself in the affairs of the state; 
 that he should not marry except under certain uncommon 
 circumstances; that he should be indifferent to the arts 
 of oratory; that he should pursue theoretical knowledge 
 only in so far as it will help him fully to understand 
 the code of ethics and to acquire that freedom from 
 anxiety which is "the health of the soul" and is derived 
 from convictions; although, with this object in view, he 
 cannot study too diligently or too seriously; 1 ' and to support 
 himself in these difficult tasks, he should always have 
 before his mind some great model as leader and guardian. 6 
 
 'But in various doctrines Epicurus maintained a decided 
 and conspicuous opposition to Zeno. For not only did 
 he, as I have observed, allow that the good man, though 
 clinging to pleasure as the highest boon, may feel grief 
 and pity, but he affirmed that all faults are not equal; 
 that self-destruction is legitimate under no condition 
 whatever, since death is neither to be feared nor to be 
 sought, and satiety of life arises usually from men's own 
 errors; that the heavenly bodies are not endowed with 
 reason, and are not portions of the divine nature; that 
 augury has no reality ; that true piety is shown by the serene 
 contemplation of all things, and requires neither prayers, 
 vows, nor sacrifices ; d and lastly, that we are not under 
 the rule of Necessity, which is an irresponsible power, 
 
210 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 but are endowed with free-will, which renders us answerable 
 for our actions; as, indeed, the fables of mythology would be 
 preferable to the harrowing belief in an inexorable Fate. a 
 
 'Briefly, then, his chief principles are these. The riches 
 needed to satisfy our wants are easily procurable, while 
 imaginary wealth has no limits. They do not consist in 
 accumulating property but in diminishing our desires. The 
 wise man requires little, but he may expend largely accord- 
 ing to his means, as he does not reject an ampler enjoyment 
 of life. He gains his subsistence honourably, but not 
 too laboriously, and best by imparting instruction in 
 philosophy. He restrains his passions, especially those 
 of love, as they disturb his tranquillity of mind, and 
 therefore his happiness. He values the esteem of his 
 fellow-men, but is indifferent to fame. He does not waste 
 the present in anxiety about the future. He banishes 
 envy and covetousness, finds greater delight in bestowing 
 than in receiving benefits, and readily pardons injuries. 13 
 If we consider, besides, the irreproachable lives of the 
 ancient Epicureans, admitted by those who jeered at their 
 principles, 6 their fidelity in friendship even unto death, d 
 and the qualities of kindness and beneficence, which they 
 seemed to have inherited from their beloved and almost 
 divinely honoured Master and unfading exemplar; 6 and 
 if we, lastly, remember that they cultivated and encouraged 
 industry and commerce, the fine arts and all polite pursuits 
 of the intellect, which they considered "the blessings and 
 delights of life"; f we shall be inclined to avow that, in 
 avoiding the one-sided harshness of Stoicism, and assigning 
 to reason, not a despotic sovereignty, but merely a con- 
 trolling power, over the senses and all legitimate instincts, 
 they closely approached to the highest form of a com- 
 plete, harmonious, and happy humanity'. 
 
 'In this highest form of humanity', said Humphrey 
 bitterly, 'they deemed it indispensable to include some 
 of the admirable principles of their Cyrenaic predecessors ; 
 for, like these, they maintained that "Justice has no 
 
EPICUKUS AND DARWINISM. 211 
 
 independent existence, but is simply a mutual engagement 
 to guard against injury" ; that "Injustice is not intrinsically 
 bad, but bad only on account of the fear of detection 
 inseparable from it" ; in a word, that "Everything ceases 
 to be right when it ceases to be useful" ! a Perfectly 
 justified, therefore, is the severe reprobation of Epictetus, 
 to which you have alluded, declaring that the views of 
 the Epicureans are mischievous, causing the ruin of cities 
 and families, unfit even for women, and instead of 
 supporting and fortifying men in the temptations of life, 
 confirming and encouraging them in every vice. b And 
 as regards the affinity between the Epicureans and the 
 Stoics, I can hardly deny it when I remember that the 
 Stoic Brutus and the Epicurean Cassius made common 
 cause for the assassination of their mutual benefactor'! 
 'As in all other matters', said Mondoza, 'the truth lies 
 probably midway between the extremes. With regard to 
 the sentences bearing on justice and injustice, which 
 sound indeed most objectionable, we should not forget 
 that they form part of political speculations, which it 
 would be as unfair absolutely to transfer to the sphere 
 of private morality, as it would be so to transfer the 
 ideas of modern thinkers who have written about the 
 "Social Contract". In another utterance preserved to 
 us, Epicurus declares on the contrary, that right should 
 be done, not in the letter but in the spirit of the laws, 
 not only in public but also in secret, not from compulsion 
 but from the pleasure felt in the exercise of justice.* 1 
 Moreover, Epicurus propounded that the highest of all 
 qualities and one even more valuable than philosophy 
 itself is "thoughtfulness" fypwycig , which is the source of 
 all other virtues, and that "we cannot possibly live 
 agreeably unless we live also prudently and honourably 
 and justly"; or live prudently and honourably and justly 
 without also living agreeably, as this is inseparable from 
 the virtues. 6 Yet it seems impossible to acquit the Epicu- 
 reans entirely from the charge of a certain selfishness. It 
 
212 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 has been quaintly said by Spinoza : if a triangle could speak, 
 it would say, God is eminently triangular ; and a circle 
 would say, the Divine nature is eminently circular'.* 
 
 'Similarly', said Hermes laughing, 'Xenophanes had 
 declared long before that, judging from the gods of 
 Homer, the horses would represent their deities with 
 hoofs, and the oxen with horns'. b 
 
 'For as man is', continued Mondoza, 'so is his heavenly 
 ideal. Now the God of Epicurus is a being "exempt 
 from all occupation, incorruptible, and living in perfect 
 joy and bliss", c "neither doing anything himself, nor giving 
 others anything to do", d removed high above all affairs 
 of men, and in his Olympic repose unconcerned at their 
 piety or iniquity, their struggles and sufferings. 6 Such is 
 the prototype of the Epicurean philosopher. Happily 
 delivered from all fear of death and superstition, this 
 sage has but the one aim of preserving his serene com- 
 posure undisturbed by any activity that might involve 
 him in conflicts or difficulties. Hence also, arises the 
 fallacy from which he seeks to 'derive comfort in death: 
 "We are continually engaged in the very same pursuits, 
 nor can the prolongation of life bring to us any new 
 pleasure"/ Useful labour, beneficent employment of time 
 and strength, and opportunities for advancing the whole 
 these were to him but secondary considerations in 
 reflecting on the object of life.s Like the Stoic, there- 
 fore, he kept aloof from affairs of the state and evaded 
 the obligations of matrimony and of the education of 
 children. It was this that gave rise to the reproach 
 often repeated against the Epicureans that they desired 
 to dissolve the natural community of men. h Their own 
 happiness and that of their immediate associates and 
 friends, their own purity and moral elevation, were their 
 sole end; they cared little whether they promoted the 
 interests of the common weal or not. While the Stoics 
 conceived a cosmopolitanism to which every individual 
 readily subordinated himself as a ministering organ, the 
 
EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 213 
 
 Epicureans, though theoretically recognising the same prin- 
 ciple, in reality narrowed it to a friendship which each 
 member hoped to make serviceable for his own support 
 and encouragement'. 
 
 'For the very same reasons', said Gregovius, 'the Prea- 
 cher was unable to attain true happiness. In his copious 
 laments about the monotony of existence 4 and the vanity 
 of all things, we can discover no public-spirited aim which 
 he had at heart and furthered with all his might. 
 Constantly brooding upon himself, he remained a stranger 
 to joy and tranquillity of mind. In his failure that of 
 the Epicureans is mirrored'. 
 
 'The aptness of this analogy and inference', resumed 
 Mondoza, 'can hardly be doubted; and I have only to 
 add that science, which the Stoics placed beneath ethics, 
 was by the Epicureans positively slighted : b forced into 
 the service of practical usefulness, it was treated with 
 an empirical superficiality which deprived it of its proper 
 rank in the economy of human pursuits'. 
 
 'This last charge', said Attinghausen with warmth, 
 'I say it with regret and reluctance, is not without 
 foundation. Yet I must most strongly protest against 
 the conclusions which might be drawn, and have frequently 
 been drawn, from this concession. Not by his ethics, 
 but by his physics has Epicurus become one of the greatest 
 benefactors of mankind. We owe him a greater debt 
 than the deepest gratitude can avow or the most fervid 
 eloquence can describe. For he alone among the ancients 
 carried out the important and fruitful principles of 
 Democritus' doctrine of atoms with almost perfect con- 
 sistency, and he has thus, in the truest sense, become the 
 father of modern science. Although admitting occasional 
 delusions, he declared, with unqualified decision, the senses 
 to be the only safe and irrefutable criteria of truth, to which 
 even reason must submit, as all reasoning has the senses for 
 its indispensable basis. c He taught that there are no other 
 than bodily realities, the qualities of things being only 
 
214 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 accidents without an independent and incorporeal exis- 
 tence. 
 
 'Yes', interrupted Humphrey sarcastically; 'to him the 
 soul also is corporeal a bodily substance composed of 
 certain particles which are diffused over the frame, and 
 some of which are endowed with an extreme mobility 
 causing life and thought. From being enveloped by 
 the rest of the body, this wonderful soul "an aggregate 
 of atoms, or whatever it may be" a obtains the power of 
 sensation; and, of course, as it is produced together with 
 the body, so it grows, gains or loses in strength, decays 
 and is dissolved in concert with it : sensation perishes in 
 both simultaneously; for the mind and soul are as 
 inseparable from the body "as the perfume is from balls 
 of frankincense". b And having thus improved upon the 
 sublime teaching of Democritus, c the sage plainly lays 
 down the maxim that "they who pretend that the soul 
 is incorporeal, utter words destitute of sense, since, if it 
 were incorporeal, it would be unable to do or to suffer 
 any thin g". d From such excellent materials it was easy 
 for the poetical champion of Epicurus to construct a 
 mind and a soul consisting of four distinct corporeal 
 elements, though he was unable to find names for all. 6 
 Surely, these are views after the materialist's own heart, and 
 no wonder that he lavishes incense on their heathen author'. 
 
 'No wonder indeed', said Attinghausen, who had listened 
 to Humphrey's remarks with surprising calmness; 'for 
 hence it follows that death is a matter with which we 
 are not at all concerned, since it is only the end of 
 sensation ; and while relieved from fear of death, we are 
 cured of all vain longings after Immortality/ 
 
 'I was not allowed before', said Arvada-Kalama with 
 some irritation, 'to complete my comparison between Hindoo 
 and Epicurean philosophy; but the similarity is striking and 
 affords another proof of the great influence which Indian 
 thought exercised upon the culture of Greece. Our Nyaya 
 philosophy is often branded as materialistic yet only by 
 
EPICUBUS AND DARWINISM. 215 
 
 those who do not, as we do, distinguish between the soul 
 and the soul's organs, which alone we derive from nature ; 
 nor between soul (atman), which is the self, and mind 
 (manas, mens) or the medium which, standing between 
 the self and the impressions of the senses, prevents these 
 impressions from crowding upon the soul simultaneously 
 or promiscuously, and admits them but singly and con- 
 secutively, as the mind, which is no larger than an atom, 
 can attend only to one thought at a time. a If this 
 resemblance should not appear sufficient', continued 
 Arvada-Kalama more rapidly, as Attinghausen showed 
 signs of impatience, 'I can refer you to our Sarikhya 
 theory, which regards the souls alone as substances, 
 aims at a complete cessation of the three kinds of pain 
 that inherent in man (as desire or grief), that arising 
 from ordinary things, and that produced by supernatural 
 causes , and considers the soul, though apparently held 
 in thraldom, to be "ever essentially a pure and free 
 intelligence"'. 1 * 
 
 'But, unlike Epicurus', said Subbhuti calmly, yet some-, 
 what pointedly, 'your wise Kapila endowed man with a 
 plurality of souls, as he was compelled to do from the inter- 
 minable number of new births with which he favours you'. c 
 
 'True', rejoined Arvada-Kalama warmly, 'yet this provi- 
 sion saves the soul at least from that annihilation, which 
 Epicurus glorified and Kapila deprecated'. 
 
 'Theologians are alike all over the world', said Atting- 
 hausen, fully looking at Arvada-Kalama with mingled 
 contempt and pity. 'You call yourselves Reformers and 
 Unitarians, but you retain a sneaking affection for old 
 creeds and old subtleties, and while at every point your 
 philosophy undermines your religion, your religion in 
 return confuses your philosophy. But let me continue', 
 he added with an abrupt shrug of his shoulders. 
 
 'Epicurus has intrepidly and effectually destroyed 
 the Socratic fallacy of a teleological design in nature. d 
 We must beware, he tells us, of imagining that the 
 
216 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 heavenly phenomena and the movement of the stars are 
 regulated by an immortal Being, or that they gave them- 
 selves, with reflection and wisdom, the motions they 
 possess; for, he says with a remarkable approach to the 
 truth, "from the first impulse imparted to the heavenly 
 bodies since the organisation of the world, there is derived 
 a sort of necessity which regulates their course to this 
 day". a In a word, he insists upon the unalterable laws 
 of matter as determining- the condition and progress of 
 nature. He thus extirpated all superstition arising from 
 religion indeed both terms were to him equivalent; he 
 silenced all terrors born of ignorance, and, I need not 
 say, dethroned all popular gods, or, as he expressed it, 
 "released Nature from her proud masters and cruel 
 tyrants " b for those unoccupied and perfectly happy 
 entities dwelling in the regions of light, were mere 
 puppets incapable of doing any harm, and entirely unlike 
 the Stoic or Academic Providence I say, he really and 
 finally dethroned the anthropomorphic gods, without half- 
 heartedly propping up their authority ? as the Stoics did, 
 by allegorical artifices ; d nay he, or at least his great 
 disciple Lucretius, declined in the clearest terms any 
 idea of a theodicy; for he proved that this world, so far 
 from being the best that is possible, was by no means even 
 a tolerably good one. If there were nothing else to show 
 that the earth was not prepared by a divine power for 
 man's abode, this would be amply manifest from its 
 numerous and grievous defects large portions occupied 
 by mountains, seas and marshes; burning heat rendering 
 almost two-thirds of the rest uninhabitable; the soil yielding 
 its produce reluctantly to exhausting labour, and yet the 
 crops liable to perish by drought or ruthless hurricanes; 
 diseases and wild beasts raging against men; men 
 destroying men in bloody strife; and the elements often 
 annihilating the virtuous, while sparing the wicked. 6 
 
 *But Epicurus' greatest and most lasting merit is this 
 that he has for ever overthrown the doctrine of Creation of 
 
EPICUEUS AND DARWINISM. 217 
 
 calling into existence out of nothing by substituting the 
 natural and fortuitous combination of an infinitude of 
 eternal and indestructible atoms. a Everything that exists, 
 he taught, was produced from these blind and senseless 
 elements, or, "Nature carries on her operations through 
 imperceptible particles ". b By this principle, together with 
 its correlative that no single thing is ever reduced to 
 nothing, he struck at the very root of all errors and super- 
 stitions. The universe, he affirmed, is boundless both in 
 reference to the quantity of bodies it contains, and to 
 the magnitude of the vacuum. d There is an unlimited 
 number of worlds, not necessarily all of the same form, 
 some being perhaps spherical, others elliptical, and others 
 of a different shape. 6 The varieties of living creatures 
 did not originate in heaven, but were produced by that 
 earth which now nourishes them, in the same manner as, 
 though far less vigorously or abundantly than in the 
 youthful ages of nature, at present "many animals spring 
 forth from the earth, generated by moisture and the 
 quickening heat of the sun"; whence the earth is justly 
 called the universal mother/ And all bodies will be 
 successively destroyed from various causes, some more, 
 others less rapidly, yet only to be reconstructed in new 
 combinations of their atoms'.^ 
 
 'How utterly incapable', said Abington, 'the Epicureans 
 necessarily were of rising above inert matter into the 
 sphere of the spiritual, is proved, with appalling vividness, 
 by that earliest and most venomous of all assaults which, 
 no later than the second Christian century, was levelled 
 against the new faith by Celsus the Epicurean. 11 But we 
 have reason to be thankful even for these audacious blas- 
 phemies, as they called forth Origen's triumphant vin- 
 dication, which, as it surpasses the treatise of Celsus no 
 less in learning and acumen than in depth and charity, 
 has anticipated the refutation of almost every objection 
 that has been, or that can be made to the teaching of 
 Christianity'. 11 
 
218 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 'As far as I am aware', said Hermes, 'Celsus did not 
 inveigh against the moral principles of the Bible, but 
 only against its dogmas; for as regards the former, he 
 denounced the Scriptures merely for attempting to support 
 them by the fictitious authority of God or a direct in- 
 spiration, while other nations who discovered the same 
 truths honestly and modestly set them forth as the sug- 
 gestions of men'. a 
 
 'His mistake', replied Abington, 'was one which he 
 shared with all pagans: Christian ethics are not identical 
 with heathen ethics, however specious the resemblance 
 occasionally may appear to a cursory observation ; for it 
 is only through the mystery of those dogmas, unfathom- 
 able to the heathen mind, that they receive their full 
 meaning and significance'. 
 
 'Notwithstanding some errors of detail', said Wolfram, 
 lost in his reflections, 'the system of Epicurus is a 
 wonderful example of instinctive insight into the operations 
 of nature '. b 
 
 'It seems to me', said Berghorn dogmatically, 'a crude 
 conglomeration of daring fancies and impious hazards 
 fully rebutted by Cardinal Polignac's "Anti-Lucretius'". 
 
 'And all these fair and promising germs', continued 
 Wolfram musingly, 'were doomed to lie dormant for 
 fifteen centuries in the cold soil of Christianity, and 
 would surely have perished, were not their vigour and 
 vitality so extraordinary. What incentives had Christianity 
 for investigating the earth which, laden with the primeval 
 curse, was not man's real home; or for studying the ce- 
 lestial bodies which were soon to be replaced by a new 
 heaven, or the human frame which, being the carnal obstacle 
 to salvation, needed subdual by self-torture? What in- 
 centives indeed to such researches had Christianity which 
 dreaded science as ungodly and imprisoned or burnt its 
 most illustrious votaries? It revelled in signs and wonders 
 and scouted the laws of nature. The only science it suf- 
 fered was the double-faced abnormity of scholasticism, 
 
EPICUEUS AND DARWINISM. 219 
 
 and the cosmic power whose dominion it made omnipotent 
 was that of Satan. Thought was a shadow and life a 
 caricature'. 
 
 'Well', resumed Attinghausen with new fervour, 'the 
 germs of ancient Greece were not destroyed but have, 
 within our own century, sprung up with marvellous strength 
 and rapidity. 1 repeat, the idea of Creation the idea 
 of acts of production arbitrarily performed by an extra- 
 mundane Being on a premeditated plan must be un- 
 reservedly renounced, both as regards the inorganic and 
 the organic world. In the one reigns, with irrepressible 
 necessity, the principle of force inherent in matter; and 
 in the other rules, with equal imperiousness, the principle 
 of development, evolution or descent, and either principle 
 acts mechanically that is blindly and aimlessly by 
 agencies purely physical and chemical. We cannot even 
 admit the compromise of the inconsistent and the timid 
 who indeed allow "efficient causes", that is, the immanent 
 forces of nature, to be adequate to the formation of the 
 heavenly bodies and the whole inorganic kingdom, but 
 insist, with respect to animals and plants, upon the co- 
 operation of "final causes" or of forces working with 
 consciousness and design a distinction without any foun- 
 dation either in science or logic. What room, therefore, 
 is left to miracle and supernaturalism, which have too long 
 usurped the place of knowledge and law ? What room to those 
 fairy fancies of a man-like Creator, with which we are 
 unfortunately imbued in our childhood, and which, car- 
 rying confusion and darkness into every sphere of thought, 
 many are unable to shake off through life? The origin 
 of a thousandfold mischief, the embryo of a thousand- 
 headed hydra, is the very opening sentence of the tra- 
 ditional Book: "In the beginning God created heaven and 
 earth"'. 
 
 'Not all the powers of hell', exclaimed Humphrey, 
 'will prevail against that Book. How often have its 
 enemies raised a shout of jubilation at its supposed 
 
220 EPICUEUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 ovortlirow! It stands as firm as the eternal Rock iron 
 which its life-giving waters have emanated. As if youi 
 hypothesis of evolution were a new discovery! It has 
 not even the poor merit of originality. I will not speak 
 of the Greeks who, it is asserted with pride, were the 
 first to propound this monstrosity too'. 
 
 'I am afraid', said Hermes, 'you do the Greeks too 
 much honour. With the exception of a casual remark 
 of Aristotle, which he himself at once rejects, bearing on 
 the possible existence of creatures produced by chance 
 with fitness, and the probable disappearance of others so 
 'produced without fitness I say, with the exception of 
 this one incidental remark, which is never made the 
 starting point for further conclusions, there is nothing in 
 all the Greek philosophers, which has more than a very 
 superficial and, I must add, a very crude resemblance to 
 recent theories.' 8 
 
 'This is quite immaterial to my purpose', continued 
 Humphrey; 'it is enough for me to refer to Kant and Goethe, 
 whose genius, it is contended, divined the law of the 
 conservation of force, and the metamorphosis of plants 
 and animals, and to Lamarck, Oken, Geoffroy Saint- 
 Hilaire, and the irreverent author or authors of the "Vestiges 
 of the Natural History of Creation", who endeavoured to 
 set forth the hypothesis in pseudo-systematic connection. 
 Did all these luminaries and even Schopenhauer, the 
 tearful, is claimed as a pioneer b succeed in shaking the 
 authority of the Bible or the faith derived from it? Did 
 they succeed in making the world believe that man is 
 no more than a developed ape, bird, reptile, or fish? They 
 possessed as little power for evil as that arch-blasphemer 
 Voltaire; for they were ignominiously repulsed by one 
 infinitely their superior in every attainment and quali- 
 fication by the great Cuvier, who in that memorable 
 public discussion held in the French Academy in 1830, 
 effectually silenced Geofroy Saint-Hilaire, the most eminent 
 of the daring neologians. c Peace was restored, and I 
 
EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 221 
 
 say it with grief and humiliation it was left to one of my 
 countrymen, nearly thirty years afterwards, to renew the 
 unholy war, to disturb the tranquillity of the Church, 
 and to degrade the dignity of man. And what, after all, 
 is the feat of which he boasts? He appropriated Saint- 
 Hila ire's idea of "a structural plan common to all creatures" 
 or "1'unite de composition organique"; and he appro- 
 priated at the same time his antagonist Cuvier's opposite 
 idea of an individual organisation accorded to, or acquired 
 by, each plant and animal in conformity with its peculiar 
 conditions of life; and out of these two borrowed prin- 
 ciples he framed his paradox that new species and old 
 species are virtually identical'. 
 
 'You seem desirous', said Attinghausen ironically, 'to 
 prove once more how justly your great Charles Lyell 
 observed that, whenever a new and surprising scientific 
 discovery is made, people, and especially theologians, say 
 at first, "It is not true"; next "It is opposed to religion"; 
 and finally, "We have known that long ago". The day 
 will come, and it is not far off now, when Englishmen will 
 be as proud of Darwin as they are of Newton. He has 
 clone for the organic creation what Newton achieved for 
 the inorganic world. But the one as little as the other 
 was original in the strictest sense of the word; for neither 
 of them originated the great law with which their names 
 are associated ; but they did more they demonstrated it, 
 and thus raised a speculative conjecture into a scientific 
 truth. The highest genius does not necessarily create, 
 but more frequently constructs or adapts; and the most 
 fruitful operation of the mind is the free combination 
 of opposites or extremes. Darwin started indeed from 
 the two antagonistic views of Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier, 
 but he avoided the one-sidedness of both in neither 
 assuming an absolute identity nor an infinite multiplicity 
 of species, but aiming at unity in variety, and at variety 
 in unity. And this object he accomplished by introducing 
 the new and most important principle of inheritance, which 
 
222 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 acts as a universal law of organic nature, and which, 
 as it includes that of variableness a part only of the 
 progenitors' qualities being transmitted most satisfactorily 
 accounts both for the constant resemblances and the ever 
 changeful differences, both for uniformity and individuality, 
 in a word, for the production of new species. The 
 system of Copernicus migh't have remained a barren, 
 though interesting, hypothesis, claiming many more mar- 
 tyrs like Galilei, had not Newton for ever established it 
 on an immoveable basis and made it so absolutely irre- 
 futable, that science could smile at the impotent opposition 
 even of a Leibniz. The system of Lamarck might have 
 been transferred from book to book as a fantastic curiosity 
 without exercising the slightest practical influence, had not 
 Darwin demonstrated it by such an overwhelming mass 
 of exact and cogent facts and by the suggestion of such 
 plausible means of transmutation, that, in its main features, 
 it will for ever be unassailable. Other agencies of course, 
 likewise of a purely mechanical kind may in future be 
 discovered besides natural selection, struggle for existence, 
 and survival of the fittest, inheritance and variability, 
 freedom and migration, adaptation to climate, abodes, 
 and other physical conditions ; or we may see reason for 
 altering our estimate of the relative efficacy of these in- 
 fluences^ But although so short a time has elapsed since 
 the publication of the "Origin of Species" the "Principia" 
 of the nineteenth century , there is hardly a branch of 
 science, which it has not revolutionised, nay which it has 
 not kindled into new life. b We were before aware that 
 new species are produced from the old in constant and 
 unbroken succession; we can now see how they are pro- 
 duced; we had formerly a belief, we have now a 'know- 
 ledge; and this is derived from transmutations such as 
 we sea effected daily before our eyes'. 
 
 'I may be allowed', said Gregovius, 'to confirm this 
 reasoning from my own sphere of study. Allusion has 
 been made to the "arch-blasphemer" Yoltaire and his 
 
EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 223 
 
 attacks on the Scriptures. These attacks, though prompted, 
 I am confident, by a pure love of truth and by his deep 
 anxiety "d'ecraser Finfame", and, I may add, though 
 often guided by a fine literary instinct, would have 
 remained fruitless and have left the edifice of medieval 
 theology untouched, had the^r not been followed by those 
 minute and patient labours of Biblical critics, which, 
 calling in the aid of philosophy and history, of philology 
 and general literature, have demonstrated for all who 
 are open to argument that the Bible and its doctrines 
 represent a gradual development of human thought in 
 matters of religion as marvellous, if not as grand, as the 
 slow and successive evolution of organic growths. Thus 
 a rationalistic and often frivolous scepticism was changed 
 into a severe and systematic science. No subsequent 
 efforts of traditionalists will ever be able to alter the 
 outlines of the two new branches of knowledge thus called 
 into existence the science of comparative mythology and 
 of the history of religions. Though, therefore, Biblical 
 criticism, as understood and pursued in our time, may, in 
 one sense, not be original, yet in another and more im- 
 portant aspect it is a new creation'. 
 
 'It is really incomprehensible', cried Humphry, instigated 
 to increased vehemence by the introduction of the Scrip- 
 tural analogy, 'how men pretending to the capacity of 
 weighing and sifting evidence, can speak of Darwinism 
 as demonstrated, when the very basis on which it rests 
 is either a tacit acknowledgment of its utter hollowness 
 or an entirely unproved assumption. In answer to the 
 fundamental question, "How did the first and simplest 
 living beings originate" ? it is contended that they were 
 either brought forth by a creative Intelligence, or by the 
 spontaneous production the generatio aeqidvoca or epi- 
 genesisQi organisms of the most rudimentary kind which 
 it is possible to conceive. At first, the former alternative 
 was no doubt as a concession to the religious preju- 
 dices of Englishmen prudently put forward by the new 
 
224 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 apostle, who, with the same cautious discretion, refrained 
 from applying his debasing principles to the origin of man. 
 But soon that view was abandoned, first by his clamorous 
 disciples, and afterwards by himself, in favour of the 
 second and more radical alternatives Not only audacious 
 theorists like Blichner, Vogt, and Hackel, but, I grieve 
 to say, scholars like our distinguished countrymen Lyell 
 and Huxley, from whom we had a right to expect greater 
 moderation, threw aside the transparent mask. It was 
 boldly asserted that man, being merely the most highly 
 organised of vertebrate animals, must take his "place" 
 as the immediate offspring or "development" of ape-like 
 mammals, kangaroo-like marsupialia, lizard-like reptiles, 
 certain classes of fishes, and the Acrania, those remark- 
 able vertebrates of the lowest kind, which are without 
 head, skull and brain, without a centralised heart, jaws 
 and legs, and resemble the still extant amphioxus; that 
 man has twenty-two such progenitors in continuous grades ; b 
 but that his primary ancestor is one of those microscopic 
 particles of primordial slime or of the semi-fluid albumi- 
 nous substance formed by inorganic combinations of carbon 
 organisms without organs, or, as they are called with an 
 overwhelming variety of denominations, Protoplasms, 
 Plastidules, Monera, Protists, Protogenes, Protamoeba, 
 Protomyxa, Vampyrella, et cetera et cetera ; and that these 
 "last factors of psychical life" arise by spontaneous birth, 
 are formless and structureless, not having reached even 
 the organisation of a simple "cell", yet live and feed, 
 and propagate by self- division. The signal honour of re- 
 presenting this new Adam was conferred upon that Bathy- 
 bius which Huxley detected by analysing, in 1868, some of 
 that wonderful slime presented to him, and which he bap- 
 tised.Ifathytius Haeckeliis If Huxley and Haeckel expected 
 immortality from this discovery, their hopes were doomed 
 to speedy disappointment. For not only were they, soon 
 afterwards, forced to confess that "spontaneous gene- 
 ration has as yet not been clearly ascertained", 4 but the 
 
EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 225 
 
 very existence of that Bathybius Protoplast, which had 
 been asserted to "cover the depths of the ocean in the 
 form of an unbroken expanse of slime", has proved to be a 
 delusion.* Now the questions obviously arise : if generatio 
 cequivoca produced from inorganic matter one or as is 
 generously conceded "a few" protoplasms, why could it 
 not produce the primordial germs of all organic struc- 
 tures in whatever number? And if so, where is the 
 necessity of assuming evolution or lineal descent of a 
 family or class from one entirely different, such as has 
 never yet been observed in nature? Again, if evolution 
 really takes place, is it not marvellous that, after the 
 many millions of years you assume to have elapsed since 
 the beginning of animal life on earth, there still exist 
 vast numbers of creatures of the lowest types, on which 
 all your laws of inheritance, adaptation and struggle for 
 life have not exercised the least effect? And what is the 
 reason that urges romancing scholars to the adoption 
 of the precarious principle of spontaneous production ? 
 Their reason forsooth! It is simply this: there must either 
 be a self-made and self-developing protoplasm or a God, 
 and they prefer the protoplasm. They plainly say : generatio 
 ceqmvoca, though not proved and not provable I wonder 
 what has become of that unbegotten chemical entity, the 
 Acarus - Crossiij which played so conspicuous a part in 
 this matter some forty years ago b generatio ceqmvoca, 
 though unproved, "has nothing improbable in itself, and 
 must, for general reasons, necessarily be assumed as the 
 beginning of all living populations" which supposition 
 is "simply an unavoidable conclusion of logically arguing 
 reason"! Let us not be deceived: the secret of the un- 
 exampled success of Darwinism is the ill-concealed hope 
 of shaking off, together with the miracle and the prin- 
 ciple of design, the Creator also. The revived doctrine 
 was seized with such exulting eagerness because it seemed 
 to aim a deadly blow against the Scriptures and Christianity. 
 For why was that strange dogmatism which, you will 
 
 Q 
 
226 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 admit, makes larger demands upon blind faith than any 
 decree of Pope or Council, so convulsively grasped ? 
 Simply because certain persons cannot suffer even a God 
 powerful enough to call into being "a microscopic atom 
 of slime". Into such absurdities are they ensnared by 
 their Satanic arrogance'! 
 
 4 Is it quite impossible', said Canon Mortimer cautiously, 
 'to reconcile the two opposite opinions? May we not 
 suppose that the Creator, having once produced the world 
 with all its laws and forces, and having determined thence- 
 forth not to interfere in their operation, endowed them 
 with the qualities required for "natural selection", and 
 thus secured a predestined progress in His works' ? 
 
 'No compromise' ! exclaimed Attinghausen warmly. 'A 
 similar view has been held by some of the most eminent 
 votaries of the theory, nay perhaps by its framers them- 
 selves. 3 But apart from introducing the teleological prin- 
 ciple, which all nature disclaims, and apart from thoroughly 
 destroying unity and sublimity, as there would be neither 
 a sovereign Creator nor a sovereign Force, I do not see 
 how that expedient can aid Biblical orthodoxy, which 
 assumes, for instance, the production of man on the sixth 
 day by a direct act of Creation, and not by natural 
 selection or evolution during many myriads of years'. 
 
 'Let me pass in review', said Humphrey with evident 
 zest, 'a few of your proofs or illustrations of "develop- 
 ment". Moles and shrew-mice, you say, once upon a 
 time found no longer any food either on or in the earth; 
 then they "adapted" themselves to a flying mode of life, 
 in order to snatch the insects moving above them; in 
 consequence of these attempts, they acquired the mem- 
 brane between their toes and became bats: that is', 
 continued Humphrey, beating time with his right fore- 
 finger and continuing to do so during the whole of this 
 speech, 'first the moles learnt to fly, and then they obtained 
 the membrane which qualified them for flying. Certain 
 antelopes, searching the ground in vain for sustenance, 
 
EPICUBUS AND DARWINISM. 227 
 
 stretched their heads in order to reach the leaves of the 
 palm-trees; thus their necks grew longer and longer 
 and they became giraffes; that is, the food of the 
 antelopes must, in the course of millenniums, have con- 
 stantly risen a little higher and higher, in order to give 
 their necks an opportunity to stretch and grow longer. 
 Some lizards, in order to seize their prey more unobserved, 
 discontinued their old habit of running, crept and became 
 serpents : which surely was a very questionable policy on 
 the part of the lizards, and was, evidently for this reason, 
 not adopted by all. At a certain period, the short- 
 legged wolves had devoured all beasts they could con- 
 veniently take hold of; in the struggle for existence they 
 strove to overtake animals of greater speed and they 
 became long-legged wolves: there remains only the 
 problem, why those swifter animals which, in the terrible 
 race, struggled no less for life, did not likewise get legs 
 of increasing length. These few instances will sufficiently 
 show the wonderful solidity of Darwinian "demonstrations". 
 The whole system is a reckless play with words and 
 facts, calculated to decoy and to entrap the vanity of 
 sciolists'.* 
 
 'With a little humour', said Attinghausen laughing, 
 'it would be easy to ridicule any profound or comprehensive 
 theory, including that of Copernicus and Newton. Paradox 
 and truth are often close neighbours; but many a paradox 
 is recog'nised as a truth if we consider the gradual and 
 often imperceptible links of transition that mark a long 
 chain of conclusions. And in this respect, Darwinism 
 labours at present more from a superabundance than 
 from a deficiency of minute details accumulated by careful 
 observers'. 
 
 'The abrupt statement', added Gregovius approvingly, 
 'that "the Law of Moses" was written thousand years 
 after Moses, may appear a startling paradox to those who 
 have not patiently traced the literature of the Hebrews 
 from age to age'. 
 
228 EPICUEUS AND DABWINISM. 
 
 'I admit', continued Attinghausen, 'that spontaneous 
 generation has as yet been proved neither in nature nor 
 by experiment. But does this justify the inference that 
 it is impossible, or that it did not really happen in any 
 of the earlier stages of our planet? Are at present 
 diamonds still formed in nature, or have we succeeded in 
 the laboratory in crystallising carbon ? As the conditions 
 for the production of that mineral existed at a certain 
 period, so a condition might once have existed for the 
 origin of the first organic cell: you claim no special act 
 of creation in the one instance; why do you claim it in 
 the other ? a We must insist, that the supposition of 
 spontaneous generation is indispensable, if we desire to 
 -comprehend nature by the laws of causality' 
 
 'Darwinism is a horrible hypothesis', cried Rabbi Gideon, 
 greatly irritated by the remarks of the last two speakers. 
 4 The Psalmist says, and I say with him, "I hate those, 
 O Lord, that hate Thee; I hate them with a perfect 
 hatred" those who delight in telling us that we are 
 formed, not in the image of God, not "marvellously and 
 wonderfully", but in the image of the ape. Can beasts 
 transmit to us the Divine qualities they do not possess? 
 Are grapes gathered from thistles'? 
 
 'I would not go so far in condemning the doctrine', 
 said Subbhuti reflectingly. 'If there were no connection 
 between the animals, how would transmigration or rather 
 repetition of existence be possible? It is true, we may 
 now be delivered from these awful states by entering intc 
 the Nirwana, but Buddha himself, in the many anterioi 
 births to which he voluntarily submitted for the welfare 
 of mankind, has been as he remembered and declared 
 "an elephant, a lion, a horse, a bull, a deer, a dog, z 
 guana, a jackal, a monkey, a hare, a pig, a rat, a ..." 
 
 'I hope you have soon finished the dreary catalogue' 
 interrupted Gideon. 
 
 "'A serpent', continued Subbhuti quietly, as if he were 
 repeating a prayer, 'a frog, a fish, an alligator, a hansg 
 
EPICUBUS AND DAEWINISM. 229 
 
 bird, a pea-fowl, an eagle, a cock, a wood-pecker, a 
 water-fowl, a jungle-fowl, a crow, a snipe, and a kindura 
 or merman" : a there must, therefore, be a transition con- 
 ceivable from one creature into another. Besides', he 
 added with great seriousness, 'I really think that animals 
 are wiser than many men; for in my countries I have 
 seen monkeys who had once been intoxicated, turn away 
 with disgust from beer or brandy and would on no 
 account touch it again; 6 while in your streets I have often 
 been saddened by the sight of drunken men and women 
 who must have known from experience the shocking 
 eifects of strong beverages'. 
 
 'You are right', said Attinghausen, laughing merrily; 
 'and something like it has struck me also since I came 
 here from Switzerland. Nor are you mistaken in supposing 
 perpetual transitions. Nature as little as the history of 
 a people and of mankind knows a chasm or bound. 
 There is throughout an unbroken continuity. Not even 
 the spheres of the organic and inorganic creations can 
 be entirely separated. This has been recognised by nearly 
 all biologists and chymists, who have adopted the living 
 "soul-atom" of Leibniz, endowed with affinity, whereas 
 the physicists, as a rule, still cling to the inert and passive 
 atoms of Descartes. As the ideas which dominate each 
 period of history are the outcome of the ideas of all 
 preceding epochs, from which they were evolved by the 
 operation of precise laws, so the plants and animals which 
 distinguish the various eras of geology, are not new 
 creations, but developments or lineal descendants of those 
 characterising the preceding ages. This continuity is, in 
 wonderful agreement, proved by the palaeontological 
 remains and the embryonic stages of existing creatures. 
 The higher we ascend in the geological strata, the more 
 numerous and the more fully organised, in steady advance, 
 are the petrefactions they contain. Of vertebrates we 
 find in the oldest Silurian layers only the fossils of 
 imperfect cartilaginous fishes, the place of which is in 
 
230 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 the next strata occupied by fishes of a higher class ; then 
 follow, successively, amphibia and reptiles, especially the 
 colossal lizards; again, after a long interval and in the 
 younger formations of the earth, the warmblooded birds, 
 and lastly, in the uppermost layers, the mammals, 
 beginning with the marsupialia, then rising to the more 
 perfect genera up to the man-like ape, and finally to man 
 himself. Now it is a most noteworthy and significant fact 
 that the human embryo passes through precisely the same 
 stages and in precisely the same order as is indicated 
 by these palaeontological organisms. I need only recall 
 the gradual progress of the heart, and remind you that 
 at first this chief organ is wanting in the embryo and is 
 replaced by a pulsating vein as is the case with the 
 lowest vertebrates, the Acrania, permanently during life ; 
 that then this vein grows thicker and bends in the shape 
 of an S just as is the case with the following class of the 
 vertebrates, the Cydostoma ; that next this curve changes 
 into a complete knot, which becomes a double-chambered 
 heart with the simplest circulation of the blood from 
 the heart to the respiratory organs, hence through all 
 parts of the body, and then back to the heart just as 
 is permanently the case with the fishes; that the heart 
 next unfolds itself into three chambers with the same 
 simple circulation of the blood as is constantly the case 
 with the reptiles; that thus, continuing through several 
 other stages, it is enlarged into four chambers as is 
 the case with all mammals ; but that it is only after birth 
 that the circulation becomes twofold, viz. successively, 
 from the heart into the lungs, back to the heart, into 
 all parts of the body, and again to the heart. Similar 
 metamorphoses are undergone by the other vital organs, 
 especially the brain in its relation to the spinal cord and 
 spinal marrow. Anyone may obtain a clear idea of this 
 important matter if, watching fowls' eggs in a hatching 
 apparatus, he is careful to notice how the simple egg- 
 cell changes into a bipartite gastrula, this again into a worm- 
 
EPICUBUS AND DARWINISM. 231 
 
 like and acephalous germ, this into other forms exhibiting 
 the structures of a fish, an amphibium, a reptile, and at 
 last of a bird, till the chicken is finally hatched after 
 twenty-one days. In a word, anyone may convince himself 
 of the truth of the following momentous law of biology: 
 the embryonic development of the individual is a rapid, 
 compendious, and in all essentials faithful recapitulation 
 of the development which has been accomplished by its 
 entire cognate class of animals from the simplest begin- 
 nings during incalculable myriads of years. Or briefly : the 
 individual ontogenesis is an epitome and sketch-like image 
 of the protracted phylogenesis.* This extraordinary bio- 
 genetic principle, presenting as it does a strikingly parallel 
 succession of forms in the fossil fauna and the actual 
 embryos, both of which lie open to our precise observation, 
 is doubtless one of the most irrefragable proofs in favour 
 of the theory of evolution, and almost compels the inference 
 that the different genera have passed through the same 
 series of gradual development'. 
 
 'These are nothing but idle and frivolous fancies', cried 
 Berghorn frowningly; 'and if they prove anything, they 
 prove, on the contrary, that the same inner or ideal law of 
 development governs the systematic succession of forma- 
 tions throughout the physical world; and that, therefore, 
 nature does not work by mechanical forces but by the 
 logical principle of design'. b 
 
 'Is it still possible', continued Attinghausen, absorbed 
 in his subject, 'to resist testimonies so authentic and so 
 palpable? The pedigree of the animal kingdom, which 
 we are now able to construct with almost perfect exactness, 
 shows us man as the last branch; and as that immediately 
 preceding, and resembling him in every material point 
 of organisation, it shows us the Ape'. 
 
 'As long as men have self-respect', exclaimed Panini 
 with unwonted vehemence, 'and believe in their high 
 destiny, they will turn away with detestation from a 
 doctrine so despicable and revolting 
 
232 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 "Uomini siate, e non pecore matte, 
 
 "Si che il Giudeo tra voi di voi non rida"'. a 
 
 'Science', said Attinghausen quietly, 'is not concerned 
 with feelings, whether of sympathy or aversion: taking its 
 course with the same necessity as the laws upon which 
 it is based, it pursues truth as its sole object. Now truth 
 may sometimes be unwelcome and even painful; but 
 injurious it can never be. Prove our facts to be false, 
 prove our inferences to be erroneous this is the only 
 way of saving your traditions. Declamation is unavailing. 
 But quite groundless are your apprehensions that the 
 theory of transmutation is debasing in its effects. The 
 immeasurable enlargement of knowledge it engenders, 
 will be attended by a moral exaltation of which we are 
 as yet unable to form an adequate idea. For that theory 
 makes man truly cosmopolitan, releases him truly from 
 the fetters of superstition a nodis religionum and the 
 despotism of an overawing authority; it substitutes manly 
 reflection for unreasoning belief, and honest research for 
 fictitious revelation. In its purifying furnace, the creeds 
 will be consumed, and from their ashes religion will rise'. 
 
 'The very same dangers', said Wolfram, 'which are now 
 apprehended of Darwinism, were predicted of the doctrines 
 of Copernicus and Newton ; the moral order of the world 
 was declared to be imperilled; yet those doctrines marked 
 the dawn of a brighter day -than mankind had ever 
 enjoyed before'. 
 
 'The analogy is utterly fallacious', said Berghorn 
 menacingly. ; The discoveries of Copernicus could, at 
 most, unsettle the Divine authority of the Bible, but not 
 the grandeur of positive religion ; they may be heretical, 
 but they are not atheistical; while Darwinism destroys 
 all religion, revealed and natural alike. There is no 
 reason whatever why man should follow a higher code of 
 ethics than his nearest kinsman, the Gorilla or Chimpanzee, 
 with which he is said to form one species. Simia quam 
 similis turpissima bestia nobis'I* 
 
EPICUEUS AND DARWINISM. 233 
 
 'I entreat you', said Attinghausen warmly, 'to keep 
 aloof from a common misconception. Though man has 
 arisen from the animals, he has risen above them. He 
 is indeed simply an organism similar to other animal 
 organisms ; but he is, so far, the highest and most privileged 
 of all. His brain and nervous system especially are more 
 remarkably developed than those of any other living 
 creature; and as the mental and moral faculties are 
 attached to these material organs, we contend that, in 
 the same degree as the brain of man is superior to the 
 brain of the most advanced ape, he is also superior in 
 his aspirations and sentiments. For man's sole lawgiver 
 is his head: a sound and strong mind is inseparable from 
 a tender and generous heart. If man follows his nature, or 
 his organisation, he cannot be otherwise than devoted 
 and high-minded, as the monkey cannot be otherwise than 
 cunning, spiteful, and selfish'. 
 
 'Beautifully says Marcus Aurelius', added Hermes: 
 '"Let any one do or say what he pleases, it behoves me 
 as a man to do what is right, just as the emerald would 
 declare, Let anyone do or say what he pleases, I must 
 be an emerald and preserve my brilliancy."' 
 
 'All the great virtues', continued Attinghausen, 'that 
 have hitherto been practised by the best of our fellow- 
 men, will be exercised by us with greater zeal when this 
 is fanned by a doctrine which proves those virtues to be 
 the irresistible dictate of our nature and supplies us with 
 the means of fully understanding and more harmoniously 
 unfolding our character. Indeed the laws of evolution 
 alone are capable of inspiring us with a proper fervour 
 for morality. They will be ennobling and fortifying to 
 all, but especially to our children; for a natural and 
 rational religion, replacing an obscure and dogmatic 
 theology, will be "based on the feeling of human duty 
 deduced historically, and hence most safely, from the 
 social instincts of animals, which in some, as the ants, 
 are in the best sense Christian". For the feeling of duty 
 
234 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 is roused and fostered by those principles of association 
 and division of labour, which prevail among animals no 
 less strongly than among men ; and as the law of transmu- 
 tation operates universally, we are justified in supposing 
 that man's moral sentiments have been gradually evolved 
 from the social instincts of duty actively at work in the 
 lower creation. Yet not even moral qualities are wanting 
 in many animals; we see touching fidelity in the dog, 
 conjugal tenderness in parrots "the Inseparables" , and 
 maternal affection in the lioness: such feelings are the 
 germs of human love and charity, and the prototypes of 
 those higher obligations which, involving the abandon- 
 ment of our innate egotism for the benefit of our fellow- 
 men, have by religious lawgivers been stamped with a 
 Divine sanction. Thus the new science will be entrusted 
 with the additional task of exploring the "the history of 
 civilisation of animals", just as we have long been 
 accustomed to trace the history of human civilisation.' 3 
 
 'The array of extravagances', cried Humphrey, 'seems 
 really to be endless. Your special pleading discloses 
 more and more fully the discreditable fact that, in your 
 theory, the difference between man and animal is merely 
 nominal. Both are dust and nothing but dust. They 
 are born without an object and die without an aim; and 
 I can well understand that one of your poets, reflecting 
 on the toils of life, bursts forth into the sigh, "So much 
 labour for a shroud" So viel Arbeit um ein Leichentuch! 
 A shroud is "the portion of all your labour". But while 
 you raise a laughter by the "Christian" virtues of your 
 ants, bees and wasps, you provoke the bitterest hostility 
 by the ill-considered advice of forcing your crude and 
 scandalous doctrines upon our youth'. 
 
 'This language is not novel to me', said Attingbausen 
 with uncommon calmness. 'Great scientific authorities 
 say: "I approve of Darwinism, yet it must by all means 
 be kept away from our schools". 1 * But they assign no 
 cause for this cowardly duplicity. Is there an esoteric 
 
EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 235 
 
 and an exoteric science? Is that which is true for the 
 master false or dangerous for the pupil' ? 
 
 '"Ennobling and fortifying indeed'"! continued Hum- 
 phrey without heeding the interruption. 'There is no form 
 of paganism that could produce results so iniquitous and 
 so disastrous; for none attempts such unholy treason 
 against our dignity'. 
 
 'I rather think', said Hermes composedly, 'none places 
 our dignity so high, and is better calculated to elevate 
 our youth. For monism, in its method genetic, that 
 is, strictly logical and rational, values no information 
 unless it is understood in its causal connection with 
 every branch of knowledge. It imparts, therefore, to 
 the intellect a light and a clearness which you also 
 call Divine, and it cannot accomplish this without at 
 the same time ameliorating and enlarging the heart. But 
 monism fosters these ethical qualities even more directly 
 by impressing upon the young scholar at each step 
 his relationship with everything that breathes, and by 
 reminding him, on the one hand, of his humble origin, 
 and stimulating him, on the other hand, to self-denying 
 exertions in the struggle for general improvement. 
 It permits no dead learning and it permits no moral 
 self-sufficiency. The time cannot be far when the natural 
 sciences, taught in this spirit, will receive in our schools 
 the rights that have too long been withheld from them 
 to the most serious detriment of a sound and complete 
 culture'. 
 
 'I am surprised', said Rabbi Gideon, 'to hear this 
 paean of the exact sciences sung by one who usually soars 
 to the lofty heights of Parnassus and Olympus, and subsists 
 on the nectar of Heliconian Muses'. 
 
 'It is a great error to suppose', said Hermes vivaciously, 
 'that those who insist upon the classics as indispensable, 
 are indifferent to science. If they seem to urge the 
 study of the former with excessive eagerness, it is because 
 the cultivation of the latter is the prevailing spirit of our 
 
236 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 time and threatens to usurp a dangerously exclusive 
 ascendency. A great, and not the least important, portion 
 of Greek and Roman literature is devoted to questions 
 of natural philosophy in its widest extent. Aristotle's 
 universal mind embraced nearly every department and 
 laid the foundations of a science in each; and both earlier 
 and later thinkers laboured diligently to explain the 
 phenomena of nature. The Greeks could not have attained 
 that fine harmony of mind which is their main glory, if 
 they had neglected so essential a branch of human 
 pursuits. It is true that their limited or inaccurate 
 observation did not allow them safely to ascend to first 
 principles, and that their cosmogonies and theories of 
 biology are often fanciful. Yet we should not undervalue 
 their achievements even in this respect. Beginning with 
 the elementary conjectures of the Ionic schools, they 
 made in less than three centuries such progress that 
 Epicurus could divine the law of the conservation of force, 
 on which rests the proud edifice of the mathematical physics 
 of our day; and although he failed to formulate this law 
 with precision, he supported it by a proof fully equal in 
 solidity to that put forth, by Leibniz nearly two thousand 
 years later. a With respect to the treatise on "the Opinions 
 of Philosophers", which bears Plutarch's name, it has 
 been justly observed, that it contains the germs of nearly 
 all the modern discoveries, nay these discoveries them- 
 selves, though, of course, mixed up with much error. b 
 However this may be> the classics strongly arouse the 
 student's interest in all problems of science it is a matter 
 of history that the scientific study of nature followed 
 immediately after the revival of classical learning and 
 that keen and wholesome zest should be fully satisfied. 
 There is no antagonism between the classics and science, 
 and there can be none; for beauty is compatible with 
 strength, and imagination with clearness. Let both be 
 cultivated as sisters, not as rivals, and let them be 
 cultivated earnestly and lovingly: the one will ward off 
 
EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 237 
 
 barbarism, the other superstition; the one will make our 
 lives gentle and refined, the other secure and dignified. 
 But the habit of scientific thought must be acquired 
 early; and hand in hand with literature, it should be 
 exercised in our lowest schools as well as in our highest, 
 simply as a means of mental training, even independently 
 of its practical utility'. 
 
 'The fittest bond between the classics and any special 
 science', said Attinghausen, greatly encouraged, 4s the 
 doctrine of evolution; it is at once philosophic, historical, 
 and as far as- it is possible exact; at once realistic 
 and ideal; the only true means of reconciling the con- 
 flicting principles which, in questions of education, dispute 
 the superiority with each other; for it engages alike memory 
 and observation, alike the speculative and imaginative 
 faculties'. 
 
 'But there are some children', said Panini, 'who have 
 no taste whatever for the classics, and others who have 
 no ability whatever for science'. 
 
 'In either case', replied Hermes, 'the need of combining 
 both is all the greater. The one class is surely capable 
 of acquiring the rudiments of science, the other of seiz- 
 ing the general spirit of the classics, and the advantage 
 will in each case be incalculable'. 
 
 'I do not think it necessary or even advisable', said 
 Rabbi Gideon determinedly, 'to let the young spend much 
 time on these extraneous matters. For science tends to 
 impart to the mind hardness and dryness at a period 
 when it needs flexibility, to limit the horizon of thought 
 before knowledge has been surveyed as a whole, and to 
 engender, not merely an indifference to, but often a 
 contempt for, the emotional sides of our nature. The 
 ancient Hebrews are generally reproached with an utter 
 incapacity for accurate research; yet by whom has the 
 universe ever been described more grandly or more profi- 
 tably? The most distinguished of modern naturalists 
 has designated the hundred-and-fourth Psalm as the 
 
238 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 sublimest epitome of the cosmos. And why is the Psalm 
 sublime ? Because the Hebrews looked upon the cosmos 
 as the marvellous work of God and the reflexion of 
 His majesty; because they regarded man not as a "cel- 
 lular soul", but as the image of the Eternal ; and because 
 they did not derive their code of morals from the social 
 instincts of the ants, but from the unerring source of 
 Wisdom. The Psalmists understood nature better and 
 more profoundly than all pantheists and monists, because 
 they understood it ethically and reverentially: and it is 
 the principles of morality and religion that we must above 
 all strengthen in our youth. Let those who feel a par- 
 ticular vocation for science and think they can thus con- 
 tribute to enhance the comforts of men's lives, devote 
 themselves to that study in riper years and in special 
 establishments'. 
 
 4 Your ethical conception of nature', cried Attinghausen, 
 incited by his anti-Biblical fanaticism, 'does not offer us 
 great temptations when we consider that it peopled the 
 world with witches, demons and devils without number, 
 and thus converted earth into hell; when we consider 
 that it gave birth to the vagaries of the Kabbalah which 
 cunningly utilised its pretended familiarity with the world 
 of spirits; when we consider that Joshua' . . . 
 
 'Let there be no strife', interrupted Mondoza, 'through 
 misunderstanding or exaggeration! Surely, our worthy 
 Rabbi does not mean that our youth should be instructed 
 in the Biblical notions of the cosmos instructed that 
 the firmament of heaven is "a molten mirror" or "a 
 curtain" spread over the earth, has a gate through which 
 the angels descend and ascend, windows through which 
 the stores of rain and tempests are sent down, and an 
 expanse in which the sun, moon and stars are fixed; 
 while the heaven itself, extended above that firmament 
 and supported by pillars, is the palace or throne of God : 
 instructed that the sun has, at the western boundary of 
 heaven, a tent where he enters in the evening and remains 
 
EPICUBUS AND DARWINISM. 239 
 
 over night, to emerge in the morning with refreshed vigour, 
 and is obscured or eclipsed by a mighty dragon ensnaring 
 his disc; that the moon, as "the lesser luminary", bears a 
 relation to the earth analogous to that of the sun or "the 
 greater luminary"; that the stars, the companions or 
 smaller associates of the moon, are designed to enhance 
 or to replace her light, are inhabited by angels from the 
 beginning of creation, and thus constitute God's army or 
 "host of heaven" ; that, extended over the waters, and 
 reposing on foundations or pillars, the earth never moves, 
 except when God's wrath shakes it for the chastisement 
 of men ; or that it "hangs upon nothing" and has borders, 
 extremities, gates and bars; that the seas, on the third 
 day of creation concentrated in certain parts of the planet, 
 reach down to the "gates of death", since beneath the 
 waters is the Sheol, the abode of the departed spirits, 
 "the house of meeting for all the living"; and that all 
 our present heaven and earth and seas, sun and moon 
 and stars were produced out of nothing in six days. a 
 I say, I am certain, our worthy Rabbi does not desire 
 that these notions should be inculcated into our children 
 as facts. I may go farther and assume that he does not 
 even desire the incompatibility of these notions with the 
 researches of modern science to be concealed from the 
 young, but that he is as anxious as our ardent friend 
 Attinghausen himself to arm them for life's struggle with 
 all the power and light of recent discoveries. His in- 
 genuity will not find it difficult, in spite of those cosmo- 
 logical errors, to save the authority of the Bible as a 
 guide in morality and religious truth, though even he 
 must be prepared for considerable concessions. But is 
 it necessary that, in abandoning what is antiquated, we 
 should also renounce that sublimity which pervades the 
 Scriptural views of the universe, and which is an unchange- 
 able attribute of the human soul? We may convey that 
 sublimity in another form, we may nurture it from other 
 sources, but it can never be lost or deserted. The Bible 
 
240 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 will for ever claim the glory of having uplifted man above 
 the earth and himself; and even when it shall have long 
 ceased to work these effects, it will rouse and inspire 
 man's thoughts to devise stronger wings for reaching the 
 same elevations'. 
 
 'It is a great injustice', said Gideon, half apologetically, 
 'to assert that the Jews entirely neglected science. In 
 the later periods of their history, they were zealous 
 astronomers, especially with the object of calculating the 
 seasons of the festivals. There are in the Talmud many 
 subtle disquisitions and computations, and the work of 
 Maimonides on the course and phases of the moon his 
 "Kiddush Hachodesh" has been extolled as remarkable 
 by the highest scientific authorities 7 . 
 
 'The divine excellence of our religion', said Movayyid- 
 eddin, 'is proved by this also that, while in the Middle 
 Ages the Christian nations were enveloped in the dark- 
 ness of ignorance, the Moslems not only studied sedu- 
 lously all that the classical authors of Greece and 
 Alexandria had written on Mathematics, Astronomy, and 
 Medicine, but added to this knowledge so materially 
 that they may justly be said to have created most dis- 
 ciplines anew, and thus, through the medium of the 
 Crusaders and the Spanish Moors, to have become the 
 real parents of modern science. An empire of such 
 extent and simple grandeur', continued Movayyid-eddin, 
 all his latent fire bursting forth, 'an empire extending 
 from Spain to India, which merged every difference of 
 nations and of classes in the equal dignity and merit of 
 all the faithful, and where the sole will of the founder 
 or his successor ruled absolute over all, had not yet 
 been seen in the world. When brilliant conquests unpre- 
 cedented in history for their rapidity and completeness had 
 established the Mussulman power on strong foundations, 
 all the arts of peace sprang into sudden existence. Poetry 
 and music were refined; architecture produced immortal 
 creations ; commerce and industry flourished ; great thinkers 
 
EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 241 
 
 developed the tenets of our faith into a solid system, and 
 with wonderful sagacity fixed the theories of language 
 and logic; others fathomed the recondite laws of nature, 
 and enriched the sciences of chemistry and medicine 
 with invaluable discoveries; while enterprising and intelli- 
 gent travellers explored distant lands and described their 
 manners and their history. The courts of many high- 
 minded caliphs a were the brilliant centres of famous 
 scholars, philosophers, poets and artists. The numerous 
 seats of learning from Ghazna to Cordova were endowed 
 with universities, libraries, observatories and other noble 
 institutions in abundance; and within a few hundred years 
 Islamism brought forth a new literature more copious 
 than that of ancient Greece and Rome, comprising all 
 the main branches of human knowledge, and leaving its 
 indelible mark on each so that it could well contend 
 that it had proved its intellectual superiority over its 
 earlier rival, Chris tianity. b Eager Jews and Christians 
 were long obliged to gather instruction at the feet of 
 Mohammedan teachers, and even in the twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries Christian scholasticism owed its 
 greatest triumphs to the influences of Arabic philosophy. 
 The first Latin translation of Aristotle was made from 
 the Arabic ; from the Moslems Albertus Magnus borrowed 
 the best part of his wisdom; and as late as the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries, the Canon of Avicenna was the 
 most important work in medicine. So much for the 
 incessant taunt of western scholars alleging that, the 
 Shemitic races, fitted only for fantastic reverie, are in- 
 capable of scientific research, because totally deficient in 
 the sense of causality'. 
 
 'The new and stronger wings which our host desires', 
 said Hermes with animation, 'have long since been found 
 and tried. To counteract the hardening and utilitarian 
 tendencies of science, there exists a no more ready or more 
 effectual means than a familiar intercourse with the beau- 
 tiful world of the Greeks. Here is wealth, fire, play and 
 
242 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 freedom, the dominion of ideas over narrow interest, of 
 form over matter, the empire in fact of the Muses and 
 Graces. It raises us, more surely than anything else, 
 above the earth and above ourselves 
 
 "In die heitern Regionen, 
 
 "Wo die reinen Formen wohnen". 
 
 'And yet, while our soul is borne up to the Parnassus 
 and the assembly of the blessed gods, we do not lose 
 the firm ground of reality. "We belong at once to heaven 
 and to earth ; we give to the one our heart, to the other 
 our duty, and thus realise the highest joy and the fullest 
 perfection. When science is in danger of being lowered 
 into a servile handmaid of materialism and avarice 
 "into a milch-cow that provides us with butter" , she 
 regains her liberty and her dignity she becomes again 
 "the high, the celestial goddess" by one touch of the 
 magic wand of classical humanism. When knowledge is 
 in peril of being degraded into a mechanical trade, it 
 is by this same powerful contact ennobled into Art. In 
 holy converse with the grand and lofty souls of Helks, 
 in the growing consciousness of our inward affinity with 
 their aspirations, our minds are cleansed and uplifted. 
 Then let the cold and sober laws of causality draw from 
 Nature her mysterious veil, and from History her romantic 
 charm; we shall be able to infuse into Nature a new 
 life and invest History with a higher interest. Then we 
 may safely analyse our ideals without destroying their soul, 
 and we may acknowledge the problems of metaphysics 
 as unsolvable without blushing before our reason. And 
 then will be moderated that breathless haste of life, 
 which is the disease of our time. The mind, not immersed 
 in the poor wants of the moment, will once more be 
 disposed to rise into the spheres of beauty or to descend 
 into the mines of truth, patiently to search and to fashion, 
 and in this searching and fashioning to find its chief 
 delight and reward. It was by these means that the 
 treasures of human enlightenment have been won, that 
 
EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 243 
 
 the impulses of our common nature have been exalted. As 
 once Greek humanism delivered Europe from eccle- 
 siastical bondage, so it is now destined to shield us from 
 the monster of low and mercenary materialism, which 
 threatens to strangle in its iron arms that delicate offspring, 
 modern culture. Our Palladium is Hellenism. We are 
 safe as long as we guard it and reverently trust to its 
 protection. These are the principles which must be kept 
 alive in the minds of our youth'. 
 
 'I see more and more clearly', said Mondoza, medi- 
 tatingj 'how difficult it is to separate in our conversations 
 science and art. Evidently, true science and true art 
 are so nearly akin and touch each other in so many 
 points that, preferring organic to formal order, we must 
 allow both, at least partially, to be discussed together. 
 Learning, to be a real delight, must in a certain sense 
 become Art; and aptly says the poet with respect to 
 the "Learned worker". 
 
 "Never refresh him the fruits of the tree he traineth with 
 
 labour; 
 "Only by Taste is enjoyed what Erudition may plant n . a 
 
 'As regards the views on education which our friend 
 Hermes has expressed with so much eagerness, I believe 
 that few will dissent from them in principle. But alas! 
 "Grey, friend, is all theory." Is the plan practicable ? 
 Unfortunately all schemes of education, however excellent, 
 are jeopardised by the one fundamental difficulty of find- 
 ing a sufficient number of really competent teachers. As 
 of the poet, so it may be said of the teacher: nascitur, 
 non fit. For over and above a full mastery of his sub- 
 jects, which is frequent enough, he requires a combination 
 of qualities as precious as it is rare firmness and kind- 
 ness, judgment and tact, earnestness and cheerfulness, 
 enthusiasm and patience, the power of inspiring at once 
 affection and respect, the strictest logic and the freest 
 play, knowledge of character and indulgence, the capacity 
 of rousing interest by eloquence or humour and of arrest- 
 
244 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 ing it by clearness and solidity, a mind equally accurate 
 in detail and illumined by great principles, and the 
 most valuable gift of all the ability of extracting from 
 facts the essence or spirit, and of thus converting in- 
 formation into nourishment and strength for the intellect 
 and the character. We can hardly discuss at present 
 the whole of this wide question, and let me only observe 
 that, considering the difficulty to which I have alluded, 
 the system of education should be so framed that, while 
 giving the largest possible scope and liberty to those 
 who possess a teacher's natural vocation, it should ensure 
 the best possible work from those who do not possess 
 it. There is no better means of counteracting the nar- 
 rowness of the latter class than by making the range of 
 subjects as wide as possible; and under any circumstances 
 the aim of education can never be wholly missed if the 
 exact sciences are combined with the classics or some 
 other idealistic study'. 
 
 'Yet I am afraid', said Melville, 'it is sure to be missed, 
 let the masters' endowments be ever so perfect, with the 
 present system of prizes, which stimulates a thirst for 
 rewards instead of inculcating a sense of duty; with the 
 present practice of publicity of results, which lays the 
 foundation of that morbid craving for notoriety which forms 
 so painful a feature of our time; and above all, with 
 that network of examinations which, forced upon the master 
 and the pupil from without, binds both together, not by 
 a union of minds, but by the common fear of impending 
 ordeals, which forbids the master to spend his time upon 
 the slow process of unfolding the pupil's reasoning or 
 moral powers, instead of employing it more expediently 
 upon storing his memory with information capable of 
 being weighed and counted, and calculated to swell the ag- 
 gregate number of marks. Under such a system you require 
 no schools, but merely repetitoria; you require no in- 
 structors, but persons who, with an approved text-book 
 in their hands, are able to hear lessons; nay that most 
 
EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 245 
 
 priceless of all examples to the young, a master's great 
 individuality, is positively dangerous to success in exa- 
 minations. In a word, you rouse propensities that may 
 permanently taint the character, and you test acquire- 
 ments the value of which is at best but subordinate'. 
 
 'I have, like Nestor', said Wolfram with great warmth, 
 'seen three generations, and I may, therefore, be per- 
 mitted to add one remark on a subject upon which our 
 progress in the future so largely depends. Competition is 
 a keen wind that scatters many tender blossoms which, 
 under more genial conditions, might have ripened into 
 valuable fruit; for those blossoms are not always the 
 choicest which adhere most firmly to the tree. Yet exa- 
 minations are an undeniable necessity. The dilemma can 
 only be solved by constantly reminding ourselves that 
 they are a necessary evil, the operation of which we are 
 bound in every way to mitigate. Examinations should 
 be made more and more absolute, less and less competitive. 
 Their number should be more and more reduced by allowing 
 the master in recognised schools to decide on the pupils' 
 attainments from their general work, instead of leaving 
 that decision to the chances of a few desultory papers. 
 They should not demand or expect a variety and com- 
 prehensiveness of information which ripe scholars know 
 to be unattainable by young students. Let the questions 
 be searching, but not enigmatical; large, but not limit- 
 less; and let the examiners be satisfied with accomplish- 
 ments, and not require feats of rapidity. From the one ex- 
 treme of too great laxity you have passed to the opposite 
 pole of an injurious and unnatural stringency it is 
 time you should find the rational medium. If you value 
 soundness, freedom and originality of mind, if you honour 
 study and culture for their own sakes, if you desire to 
 make science and literature subservient to all that is 
 estimable and noble, education should be based on prin- 
 ciples at once lofty and humble lofty as regards the 
 aim, humble as regards the results we can hope to 
 
246 EPICURUS AND DARWINISM. 
 
 achieve. Then our youth, now groaning under a burden 
 they are unable to bear, will be again, as they were 
 described by the poets of old, fresh, buoyant, hopeful 
 and modest'. 
 
 *I am shocked and alarmed', said Mondoza, almost 
 involuntarily rising, 'to see how far we have again strayed 
 from our prescribed path! Pride must have its fall. I 
 boasted yesterday that I felt strong enough to control 
 and check your meandering courses, but I find I have 
 been quite powerless to guide as, by a veritable process 
 of evolution, topic was educed from topic. I am at present 
 even at a loss how to gather into a knot the many 
 threads which have been woven side by side. Nor must 
 we to-night prolong the discussion any further, as 1 
 know that many of you are anxious to attend the un- 
 usually interesting Conversazione of the Society of Arts 
 at South Kensington. But I declare, even at the risk of 
 another humiliating failure, that I will henceforth be a very 
 Phalaris in tyranny to any erratic disputant, and I trust, 
 therefore, that we shall to-morrow be able to gauge 
 the value of Science and of Monism for the advance- 
 ment of human happiness and the perfection of human 
 character'. 
 
 Humphrey and Attinghausen alone were reluctant in 
 consenting to the host's proposal, as their anxiety for a 
 decisive battle had evidently increased from hour to hour; 
 but seeing the necessity of restraining their eagerness, 
 they parted with the rest Humphrey to retire to his 
 study, and Attinghausen to plunge into the very thick 
 of the company at South Kensington, examining, talking, 
 and listening with the same keenness of interest. 
 
VJ. THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 'As I know', said Attinghausen, when the next evening 
 most of the friends had assembled in Cordova Lodge, 
 'that I shall to-night have to bear the brunt of a severe 
 assault, I must be allowed to make a few remarks sug- 
 gested by prudence for recklessness is no chivalry. 
 
 'We Darwinists do not profess to be able to solve all 
 difficulties connected with organic life. A theory of such 
 vast scope does not issue from a man's brain perfect and 
 fully armed; but we may confidently leave it in the care 
 of those who will come after us. When the system of 
 Copernicus and the laws of Kepler and Newton were 
 enunciated, that most wonderful of intellectual achieve- 
 ments, the precise discovery of the planet Neptune through 
 the irregularities in the orbit of Saturn, was potentially 
 accomplished, though it actually followed after an in- 
 terval of centuries. Thus the theory of transmutation, 
 though still problematical in some of its details, has 
 opened the possibility, nay the certainty, of physiology 
 and biology becoming sciences almost as exact as as- 
 tronomy itself; because the main principles are unassail- 
 able. The impulse has been given, and the motion will 
 continue till the idea has spent its force ; and if the idea 
 be sound, it will gather new strength as it moves on- 
 ward. A master hand has drawn the outlines, zealous 
 and able disciples will complete the design. The number 
 of curiosities of nature has by this doctrine been sensibly 
 diminished, while the series of phenomena intelligently 
 explained has in the same proportion increased. Barren 
 
248 THE DIGNITY OF MAN, 
 
 wonder has been succeeded by a patient enquiry which 
 has neither weakened our appreciation nor our reverence 
 of nature. There are still many enigmas left, but we 
 consider them merely as enigmas to us, not in them- 
 selves. The key may at any moment be found perhaps 
 it is found already, awaiting the skilful hand that can 
 apply it. There is no limit to rational investigation. 
 Science no less than religion requires faith, but, unlike 
 religion, it is constantly engaged in contracting its sphere 
 and replacing its surmises by objective truth. The war- 
 cry of "Creation and immutable Species" is growing 
 fainter and fainter, and our standard, bearing the motto 
 "Development and Progress", is victoriously advancing. 
 All things originate and grow simply by physico-chemical 
 processes operating as mechanical causes: this is the 
 universal law. All the general phenomena in the life of 
 animals and plants completely harmonise with the theory 
 of evolution; and all are thereby united as by a common 
 principle. Numerous facts that have hitherto been iso- 
 lated or anomalous, are brought into one focus and into 
 organic connection; others find an unexpected or more 
 harmonious explanation ; a and conspicuous among them 
 is that most momentous triple parallel between the em- 
 bryonic, systematic, and palaeontological development of 
 living organisms, which I have yesterday tried to point 
 out. We have therefore a well-founded right to place 
 our theory, as a great and general law of induction) at 
 the head of the sciences of zoology and botany, and 
 then, by means of deduction, to apply it to man, whose 
 intimate alliance with the rest of the animal creation, 
 and more especially with the Apes, is thus indisputably 
 established'. 
 
 'The whole question', said Humphrey impatiently, 
 'hinges on the meaning of "species": can you give a 
 precise definition'? 
 
 'This is one of the most difficult parts of the subject', 
 said Attinghausen, slowly, 'and . . .' 
 
\ 
 
 THE DIGNITY OF ^tt*r L-J^^ 249 
 
 'I was prepared for this suspicious evasion', interrupted 
 Humphrey, looking around with a significant nod. 
 
 'And it is so difficult', continued Attinghausen quietly, 
 'just because the transitions from one organism to that 
 next above it, are often almost imperceptible. Therefore, 
 in fixing a new species, that is, in deciding on the nature 
 and importance of an advance, much is necessarily left 
 to individual judgment; and we must admit that both 
 the morphological and the physiological notion of species 
 is not absolute, but only relative. The same difficulties 
 meet us, in a yet higher degree, in determining the genera, 
 families, and classes; and they account for the great 
 fluctuations we discover in comparing the complete systems 
 that have been framed from Linnaeus to our time'. 
 
 'But is not', said Canon Mortimer, 'the sterility of 
 hybrids an irrefutable proof of the sharp distinction and 
 the unalterable constancy of species'? 
 
 'Even this last refuge', replied Attinghausen, 'has been 
 closed to the votaries of ths old schools, since decisive 
 facts and experiments have taught us, on the one hand, 
 that two different "gopd species" as hare and rabbit, 
 lion and tiger, willow and blackberry can produce fertile 
 hybrids; and, on the other hand, that the offspring of 
 the same species as horses, dogs, and hyacinths under 
 certain conditions bring forth only sterile hybrids'. 
 
 'I see no reason', said Humphrey dogmatically, 'for 
 discarding, in favour of minor scholars, the authority of 
 Linnaeus, who declared that "there are as many species as 
 there were living creatures at first created by the Divine 
 spirit" ; or that of Agassiz, who affirmed that "each species 
 is the separate and immutable embodiment of a creative 
 idea of God"; or, lastly, that ofVirchow who says pithily: 
 "The plan of organisation is within the same species 
 unalterable; species does not depart from species" '. a 
 
 'The famous Italian astronomer Sechi', added Panini, 
 'has declared in his last work: "The assertion that one 
 organism can change into another has no more sense 
 
250 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 than if some one were to propound that a clock can 
 change into a steam-engine". a Will men not remember our 
 great Dante's injunction: 
 
 "Non fate come agnel che lascia il latte 
 "Delia sua madre, e seraplice e lascivo, 
 "Seco medesimo a sua placer combatte"'? b 
 
 'It would really be unpardonable', said Attinghausen 
 indignantly, 'were we to devote our attention to anachro- 
 nisms which have found their reductio in absurdum in 
 the pious fancies of Agassiz, whose God is simply an 
 experimentalising operator. The progressive metamor- 
 phosis of all living beings is, on a vast scale, only what 
 is successfully carried on by ourselves in artificial breeding, 
 which perpetually produces new varieties or races. We 
 choose for such purposes the fittest specimens; while 
 nature "selects" them in her own way by allowing the 
 most perfect alone to survive in the severe contests of 
 competition and the difficulties of existence. ()ur means 
 are of course most limited compared with the inexhaustible 
 resources of nature, and our time insignificant compared 
 with her eternity; and corresponding to these factors are 
 the smallness and magnitude, the rapidity and slowness, 
 the transitoriness and permanence, of the results; although, 
 with a definite aim in view, man can accomplish trans- 
 mutations more directly by almost entirely excluding 
 chance. Never was analogy more legitimate, and it is 
 no less momentous than safe, for it extends to man 
 himself. 
 
 'I will not dwell on the wonderful progress made by 
 man during the millenniums of his historical existence in 
 language, refinement, social and political order, and every 
 other branch of culture, to such an extent that the ci- 
 vilised European of our time hardly shows any point of 
 resemblance with the. primitive savage who was unable 
 to produce even stone implements and was probably 
 devoid of articulate speech. Indeed, considering the 
 immejise differences in bodily and mental characteristics, 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 251 
 
 I believe we may justly contend that the various types 
 of men which are generally regarded as "races" or va- 
 rieties of one species homo sapiens represent as many 
 separate or "good" species, developed in the struggle 
 with outward conditions, the elements and the require- 
 ments of existence not only the five races of Blumen- 
 bach distinguished according to the colour of the skin, a 
 but also the three others detached by Pritchard from 
 the brown and black races viz. the Australian negroes, 
 the Papuas, and the Hottentots. If we regard the ex- 
 tremes of "Longheads" and "Shortheads", b of white and 
 black, of woolly-haired and straight-haired races, it seems 
 impossible to include them all in the same species. It 
 is true that there are between those extremes intermediate 
 forms constituting manifold and very gradual transitions 
 but the same uncertainties, as I have observed, exist in 
 defining the species of animals. Yet transitions are im- 
 portant as witnesses of the unity of mankind, that is, of 
 the descent of all races from common ancestors, through 
 probably not from one couple'. 
 
 'Be this as it may', said Humphrey, provoked especially 
 by the speaker's last words, 'the stress laid by Darwin 
 on "the struggle for life", is fanciful. Every species is 
 by a wise Providence armed for self-defence and self- 
 preservation; and all instances that have been adduced 
 to the contrary are without any validity, because they 
 lie wholly beyond our experience'. 
 
 'It is only necessary for me', replied Attinghausen, 'to 
 point again to the history of man himself. Even the 
 shortest periods jof observation suffice to force upon us 
 the facts that certain black and brown species the 
 Hottentots, the Australians, and the Papuas and the 
 red species of America, are manifestly unable to maintain 
 themselves, in the struggle for existence, against the white 
 European species which, by a multitude of favourable 
 influences, attained a development greatly superior to 
 the rest; and that those species, visibly dwindling away 
 
252 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 as the white man advances, are undoubtedly doomed to 
 early extinction. No more cogent illustration of the law 
 of natural selection is wanted, and it is derived from the 
 actual experience of the last generations. I need, there- 
 fore, not urge the probability that, in the course of time, 
 few of the other species will prove competent to cope 
 with the same privileged rival, whose progress is at present 
 decided and rapid beyond all precedent. My argument 
 gains infinitely in force on your traditional supposition 
 of one species composing the whole human family. For 
 if not even the feebler varieties of the same species prove 
 capable of permanent existence, but are absorbed by the 
 stronger races, how much less can a lower species sustain 
 the unequal contest with a higher species ! The new prin- 
 ciple is impregnable'. 
 
 'Who can presume', said Abington in a tone of solemn 
 remonstrance, 'to fathom the schemes of an all-ruling 
 Intelligence? If certain species of animals have served 
 their appointed end, they must cease to exist, to make 
 room for others better adapted to the altered conditions 
 of our planet and more necessary at that epoch of the 
 world's existence. With this conviction we must rest 
 satisfied; all beyond is idle, unprofitable, and irreverent 
 speculation' ! 
 
 'Ah'! exclaimed Attinghausen, half in irony and half 
 in anger, 'it is difficult not to apply to you the words 
 of the poet: 
 
 "Are you not like the women who for ever 
 
 "Again return and cling to their first words, 
 
 "When one has reasoned with them for long hours" ? a 
 
 'I warn you, theologians', he continued menacingly, 
 'your times of spiritual arrogance are over; your old weapons 
 have lost their edge; your thunderbolts rebound on your- 
 selves. You must either enter the arena, or retire into 
 your cloistered isolation withered branches cut off from 
 the stem of human culture, withered branches neither 
 receiving nor giving strength and nourishment. Hie 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 253 
 
 Eliodus, hie salta. Your logic for even you feel the 
 necessity of attempting at least a semblance of argumen- 
 tation would, from your point of view, be tolerable if 
 we had only to account for the extinction of animals, 
 but 1 have referred particularly to species of men, which 
 are to you mere varieties. If all men are brothers in 
 the sense that all are the offspring of one primary couple 
 created by God Himself, the disappearance of some races 
 is wanton arbitrariness on His part, and their extirpation 
 fratricidal iniquity on yours. Instead of looking com- 
 placently, nay rejoicingly, at the perceptible diminution 
 of the "inferior" tribes, you should by all possible means 
 try to prevent it, and instead of forcing those tribes under 
 your dominion, you should educate them for rational self- 
 governent, and then restore their independence. The 
 children of one God possess the same Divine attributes 
 of Immortality and liberty : compared with these common 
 characteristics, all differences are utterly insignificant, 
 and in your system a distinction between inferior and 
 superior races, should not exist. But you have no faith 
 in your system. In sanctioning the subjugation of less 
 perfectly organised men, you sanction the reign of might 
 over right, and you destroy the principles of unity and 
 equality. I do not blame you: here again your common 
 sense is stronger than your creeds; the former whispers 
 to you that the law of "natural selection" is irresistible, 
 and you propitiate the latter by professing that, in im- 
 posing your rule upon lower races, you extend the empire 
 of "civilisation". But in tacitly applying that law to men 
 and to animals alike, you plainly admit that it is as blind 
 as it is irresistible'. 
 
 'Then there is on this earth', said Subbhuti, 'nothing 
 but gloom and oppression the sword of the conqueror 
 and the cries of the conquered'! 
 
 'The struggle is deplorable', said Attinghausen cheer- 
 fully, 'but it must be accepted as a dictate of nature, 
 for it is the only possible means of uprooting cruelty and 
 
254 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 superstition, and planting in their stead the humanity of 
 the nobler and more gifted races'. 
 
 'This process may be inevitable', said "Wolfram, with 
 a tinge of sadness, 'but it is not without deep shades. 
 It will banish from our globe all variety, all pictu- 
 resqueness. Our civilisation may diffuse many boons, but it 
 destroys not a few charms and beauties. Take as an 
 instance the Red Indian. Nothing equals the grandeur 
 of his eloquence: his metaphors are as lofty as the pri- 
 meval trees of his virgin forests, as clear as the air he 
 breathes, as massive as the rocks he climbs. He is the 
 embodiment of nature in some of her sublimest aspects. 
 His woods will be cut down, his wigwams burnt, and his 
 place will be taken by the vulgar wealth-accumulating 
 settler of the western republic'. 
 
 'Here again', said Humphrey contemptuously, 'is the 
 poet and the artist, whom I vainly imagined to have 
 exhausted his dithyrambics on beauty in the apotheosis 
 of the Greeks. While admiring the Red Indian's "pictu- 
 resqueness", he forgets his serpent-like cunning, his 
 fiendish cruelty, his vile treachery, and many other 
 qualities which render him equally unsafe as a friend 
 and detestable as a foe. Form and appearance are all, 
 matter and principle are trifles this is the modern artist's 
 code. It is simply selling man's birthright for a mess of 
 pottage'. 
 
 'None of us, I am convinced', said Mondoza, 'will be 
 able to suppress a feeling of profound regret at the neces- 
 sity of the natural process on which our friend Wolfram 
 has spoken with so much warmth. The law of selection 
 doubtless operates alike in reference to animals and to 
 men; but while in the one respect nature works blindly 
 and without plan, it is the duty of rational beings to act, 
 in the other respect, with design and with charity. Our 
 object should be, not to exterminate but to spare, not to 
 dominate but to train. This course is prescribed to us 
 by the very law of development. As the European be- 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 255 
 
 lieves the white species to have gradually been evolved 
 from the lowest types, so he may hope that the lower 
 types now existing on our planet will, in the course of 
 time, advance to a higher stage; he may be aware that, 
 for accomplishing this desirable progress, they are not 
 assisted by many of the natural advantages he himself 
 enjoyed in his more favoured climes; but his kindness 
 and intelligence will supply many substitutes to lessen the 
 effects of natural deficiencies; and with that deep and 
 all-pervading sympathy engendered by his new system, 
 he will find expedients for raising even the meanest 
 race to a sense of individuality, self-respect, and liberty. 
 Thus none of the particular gifts and faculties scattered 
 through the varied tribes of men will be lost, and mankind 
 as a whole will be both richer and happier'. 
 
 'Indeed'! exclaimed Attinghausen, with enthusiasm, 
 'that unity of which the Stoics but darkly dreamt, we 
 long to make an indestructible reality. We know, the 
 earth and all the other celestial bodies follow the same 
 laws as the vegetable world; this again has the same 
 kinship with the animal creation, the latest development 
 of which is man. The whole universe, from the most 
 insignificant atom of our small planet to the remotest and 
 largest of the fixed stars, is united by one bond, ruled 
 by one law, by the same mechanical causality, the same 
 combination of substances. Or as Goethe says: 
 
 "Und es ist das ewig Eine, 
 "Das sich vielfach offenbart, 
 "Klein das Grosse, gross das Kleine, 
 "Alles nach der eignen Art". a 
 
 'For all life is finally reduced to the two elementary 
 functions of sensation and motion sensation of pleasure 
 and displeasure, motion of attraction and repulsion. This 
 is our Monism that general law of evolution which teaches 
 true humility, inspires true love, fans true fellowship with 
 every part of nature and every living being. For to us 
 
256 THE DIGNITY OP MAN. 
 
 all creatures are but branches and leaves of one huge 
 tree ; all proceed from the same vigorous but simple root 
 hidden in yet unexplored depths; they are the more 
 perfect the more distant they are from the root and the 
 primordial stem; many wither and die, as is shown by 
 the extinct species and genera of anterior epochs, others 
 are freshly formed with a stronger vitality. Thus the 
 sum of all sentient beings represents to us, not an arti- 
 ficial pedigree, but the living organism of a vast growth, 
 in which each part, however small or obscure, influences, 
 and is influenced by, all the rest'. 
 
 'The distinguished physiologist Du Bois-Reymond', said 
 Humphrey tauntingly, 'has declared, amidst general ap- 
 plause, that those "pedigrees" of phylogenesis have, in 
 the eyes of men of sicence, about as much value as, in 
 the eyes of critical historians, attaches to the genealogies 
 of Homer's heroes'.* 
 
 'Surely', replied Attinghausen, 'extraordinary importance 
 is, in this point, to be attributed to the opinion of a 
 scholar who, meekly applying himself to science in forma 
 pauperis, has faithlessly abandoned its highest problems 
 the connection of force and matter and the nature of 
 human consciousness as for ever unfathomable, and 
 has thus proved how little he is imbued with the youthful 
 spirit of the new era, in spite of his constant pro- 
 testations of sincere adherence to the doctrine of evo- 
 lution. 11 But let me continue. Christianity may teach 
 all those virtues of sympathy and humility to which I 
 have referred, but the fundamental principle on which it 
 rests makes their exercise impossible. The being who 
 is proclaimed the sovereign lord of creation and deemed 
 totally different in his nature to everything else that 
 breathes, cannot know true modesty, true charity, true 
 affection. Just as Copernicus overthrew that "geocentric" 
 pride which declared our diminutive earth to be the 
 centre of the universe, while sun and moon and stars 
 are its lowly attendants; so have Lamarck and Darwin 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 257 
 
 demolished that "anthropocentric" pride which made man 
 fancy that he was not only the centre of all terrestrial 
 life hut the sole aim and object of the universe. Kant 
 is indeed right in affirming that "man cannot think too 
 highly of himself, but he should conceive this lofty idea 
 only in order to raise the standard of his duties and 
 aspirations, not to foster a haughtiness that estranges 
 him from the rest of the creation by assuming the position 
 of a heaven-born master'. 
 
 'Our Maimonides', interrupted Rabbi Gideon, 'has said 
 the same thing many centuries ago in distinct opposition 
 to Aristotle'.* 
 
 'Your Maimonides', replied Attinghausen, 'repeated only 
 what Epicurus whom you abhor as the arch-apostate 
 had said before him much more clearly. Yet even this 
 does not rise to the height of our convictions. With us 
 the "general kinship" of earlier philosophers is no fine 
 metaphor, but a literal truth; we are by consanguinity 
 related to all beings that fill earth, sky and water. All have 
 sprung from the same origin, pursue their appointed or 
 necessary course, and when they have fulfilled the object 
 of their existence, return to the primeval elements. Nay, 
 all matter is endowed with life. This great and elevating 
 thought, divined by Democritus, Giordano Bruno, Spinoza 
 and Leibniz, is by Monism made a reality. The Psalmist's 
 words, "Let every thing that hath hreath, praise the Lord", 
 receive an expansion which he could not have foreseen, 
 and invite all nature to a grand hymn extolling Life and 
 creative Power. But the object of man's existence is 
 the exertion of all his innate abilities in such a manner 
 that, when he relapses into dust, he may leave behind 
 him, in his works, the germs of a fuller perfection and 
 a purer felicity. For surely, the laws that have hitherto 
 operated, will continue to operate. We shall be the 
 progenitors of a race in every way better fitted to at- 
 tain a perfection and a felicity which we are not even 
 able to conceive. An eternity lies behind us, an eternity 
 
258 THE DIGNITY OP MAN. 
 
 stretches before us; and as the one was, so the other 
 will be, change and progress'. 
 
 'This is really unintelligible confusion' ! cried Humphrey, 
 alarmed at the impression Attinghausen had evidently 
 made on some of his hearers. 'You aver that nature 
 works mechanically by physical and chemical forces and, 
 you insist, aimlessly and planlessly ; you must, therefore, 
 exclude both free-will and systematic advancement; and 
 yet you speak of a "development" to which you can con- 
 tribute yourself, and you speak of extending the reign of 
 morality and happiness. It is simply self-deception if it is 
 not something much more reprehensible'. 
 
 'I confess', said Attinghausen with a melancholy very 
 unusual in him, 'we are in this point guilty of an incon- 
 sistency we are unable to overcome. Even we, who so 
 strongly proclaim an unconditional monism, are in the 
 meshes of a dualism which we theoretically condemn. 
 In physics we are realists, in ethics idealists. As regards 
 the former, we acknowledge nothing but a fierce and 
 selfish struggle for existence; as regards the latter, we 
 demand, and endeavour to practise, entire abnegation of 
 self. In the one sphere we feel our absolute dependence, 
 in the other, though we must deny free-will, we think we 
 can, if not rule, at least direct.* I have often reflected on 
 this blamable weakness ; yet, though my reasoning censures 
 the self-contradiction, I cannot avoid it in my actions'. 
 
 'You have pronounced your own sentence', cried Hum- 
 phrey with an air of triumph, 'you stand convicted by 
 your own testimony. You rebelliously labour to stifle the 
 voice of conscience, but this voice, though still and small, 
 is more powerful than the noisy proclamations of your 
 perverted intellect. You sinfully strive to extinguish in 
 your heart the Divine spark, but against your will it is 
 fanned into a hallowing flame. The consistent materialist, 
 who recognises merely the ruthless play of physical forces, 
 can know no other morality than that of the beast of 
 prey; and yet you are compelled, as if by an invisible 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 259 
 
 agency, to avow that not fear should rule men but reason, 
 nay to advocate even devotion to general purposes. Like 
 Balaam, the wicked, you mean to curse, and you are 
 constrained to bless. You try, like Jonah, to flee from 
 God's presence, but you cannot escape Him: if you take 
 the wings of the morning and make your bed in hell, 
 even there you are grasped by His avenging hand. You 
 must obey Him. And shall I tell you what it is that 
 saves you ? It is the echoes, faint and distant it may be, 
 of your childhood, when, the Book of God opened before 
 you, you sat at your mother's knee listening to her pious 
 exposition of the words of life and seeing in the kindling 
 glow of her eyes the seal of their Divine truth. But 
 beware, beware! Do not try God's long-suffering too far! 
 There may be, nay there are, among your votaries not 
 a few who extend that law of selfishness which you assume 
 in nature, to the domain of ethics; who, proud of being 
 consistent in their monism, admit no other goal than self- 
 advancement, and no other restraint than the sword of 
 justice; who say, "Good and evil deeds result from man's 
 nature, to which he owes obedience; a responsibility such 
 as the moral or penal code imposes upon us, does not 
 exist" ; who carry the "war of all against all" into society, 
 and, to attain their ends shrink from no treachery or 
 crime, because they fear no Judge whose all-searching 
 eye penetrates into the hidden motives of all deeds, and 
 who, though perchance delaying retribution, is sure to 
 crush the evil-doer. Pleasure and luxury, and hoards of gold 
 which procure them, are their idols. Right, honour, high 
 aims, nobleness of soul all are swallowed up in the 
 same gulf of baseness. You will be appalled by the powers 
 of mischief you . have conjured up in destroying both 
 revealed and natural religion, and you will be utterly 
 impotent to allay their fury or to redress their ravages. 
 Like the magician's pupil, you will be unable to check 
 the demon you have put in motion and who threatens to 
 drown you in the rising waves'. 
 
260 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 'You are greatly mistaken', said Attingbausen, who had 
 long recovered his usual buoyancy and confidence, 'if 
 you think to frighten us by this awful picture of communism 
 or social democracy those bugbears of the weak and 
 the timid. I do not deny that within the monistic or 
 materialistic schools there may arise some monsters like 
 Schiller's Franz Moor with his coarse and fiendish falla- 
 cies, or some coldly calculating egotists like Octave Feuillet's 
 "Monsieur de Camors" with his subtler and more refined 
 sophistries. But what religion or philosophy has been 
 able wholly to eradicate such repulsive or dangerous 
 abnormities? It is only malice or stupidity that can con- 
 found two things so totally different as the scientific 
 materialism and the materialism of life. Surely, Christia- 
 nity has been tried and found wanting. History teaches 
 us, more strikingly perhaps than it teaches anything else, 
 that morality increases in the exact proportion as the 
 influence of the Church decreases; for the ages of the 
 strongest Christian faith were the ages of the darkest 
 barbarity ; and within the last three centuries of scepticism 
 mankind has made incomparably greater progress than 
 in all the preceding fifteen centuries of belief. Try for 
 once fairly and honestly our views of the universe and 
 our canon of morals and duties. I am certain of the 
 result. The partial failures in our midst I attribute to 
 those very echoes to which you have so pathetically 
 alluded: associated as they are with the holy bonds of 
 filial love, they retain their hold upon our hearts to con- 
 fuse our reasoning and to dim our intellect; we cannot, 
 perhaps we will not, silence them for they are clear to 
 us and yet they are our bane. Begin in the earliest 
 and tenderest childhood a purely rational training kept 
 scrupulously free from transcendent mythologies and 
 dazzling tales of miracle; allow the young mind to imbibe 
 no notion antagonistic to reason, no conception disregard- 
 ing the inseperability of cause and effect, and you will 
 soon perceive the beneficence of our theory. You smile 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 261 
 
 compassionately when you think of untutored tribes like 
 those of the Sahara, who see in the most common occurrence 
 the direct working of some secret power, and to whom 
 the supernatural is the ordinary law of nature. a Yet your 
 methods of education seem chiefly to aim at destroying 
 in your children the sense of causality, which is the only 
 safeguard against superstition. Till you have altered your 
 systems, 1 little heed those well-worn paraphernalia of 
 terror you have interspersed in your sombre warnings 
 I little heed those "sulphurous and tormenting flames" 
 which your all-loving Judge holds in readiness for His 
 children in all eternity; and I adhere to the conviction 
 that "an injurious truth is preferable to a useful error; 
 for truth is able to heal the wound it may inflict" '. b 
 
 From the moment that the doctrine of Monism had 
 begun to be discussed, Asho-raoco had listened with 
 rapt attention; he then fell into a deep reverie, from 
 which he was only roused by the energy with which 
 Attinghausen had delivered his last observations; and 
 when no one replied, he said with firmness, which, however, 
 did not conceal his inward emotion: 
 
 'I am now deeply convinced that the world with all its 
 forces is one, and that therefore the Creator and Ruler 
 of the world must also be one. Ormuzd or call him 
 Jahveh, Allah, Brahma, or by any of the significant names 
 which he bestows upon himself Ormuzd is the Eternal, 
 the Omnipotent; he existed before all time, and rules in 
 all stars and heavens. There is none besides him, and 
 Ahriman is a shadow, a symbol, devised by poor mortals 
 struggling with their fears, misfortunes and infirmities'. 4 
 
 'I hope', said Humphrey, 'that you will not, together 
 with the error, discard the truth also. Ahriman, that is 
 Satan, is no mere symbol or shadow, but a dread reality. 
 He is in every place where men work and strive. But he 
 is not, as you imagined, a Creator or Ruler, but simply 
 the Tempter subjected to God's unconditional dominion 
 
262 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 and compelled, however unwillingly, to promote His wise 
 and paternal designs. Without temptation there would 
 be no virtue, without danger no victory. Satan is indis- 
 pensable in the economy of the moral world'. 
 
 'If Ormuzd or Jahveh', replied Asho-raoco, 'is the Good, 
 the Pure and the Merciful, I can with difficulty believe 
 that He, having created men weak and prone to sin, does 
 not fortify, rather than tempt them, in the laborious con- 
 tests of their lives. Ahriman or Satan is in our hearts ; 
 he is the serpent in our path, which our dauntless resolve 
 must ever be ready to crush. But let me tell you what 
 I have learnt besides from your wise controversy. I see 
 that Ormuzd has endowed the world with the wonderful 
 laws by which it is, from the creation, governed with un- 
 changeable necessity. The stars, including even the 
 majestic Tistrya, which you call Sirius, possess no power 
 and influence of their own; they are creatures like men, 
 and complete for ever their appointed courses. The 
 astrologer's art is vanity and deceit; it must cease to 
 exercise its mischievous interference in all phases of the 
 Parsee's life from his birth to his death; and the obnox- 
 ious delusion must be converted into the sublime science 
 of astronomy, which, more than any other knowledge, 
 praises the Creator's grandeur and glory. a We may still 
 remember with veneration the Amshaspands, Fravashis, 
 Yazatas, and the many other divinities and angels, spirits 
 and genii mentioned in our holy books; we may still 
 strengthen ourselves in our detestation of vice and depra- 
 vity by recalling the Kharfesters and Daevas, the Drujas 
 and Pairikas, and the other powers of evil our ancestors 
 dreaded ; b and we may still, in beholding the blaze of the 
 fire, the fittest and most perfect emblem of the beneficent 
 Sun and of Divine illumination, feel a stronger impulse 
 to strive after purity and enlightenment: but our adoration 
 and our awe belong to Ahura-mazda alone, the Lord of 
 the sun and the fire, the Preserver of the universe, the 
 Source of all blessings, invisible and devoid of all human 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 263 
 
 attributes, to be worshipped without image or likeness, 
 searching the hearts as the sun penetrates into the re- 
 motest recess of the abyss'. 
 
 'The bulk of your people', said Humphrey, 'have no 
 such notions ; they are real fire worshippers ; to them the 
 sun and the flame are not emblems, but powerful gods; 
 they are sunk and, by the nature of your creed, must 
 remain sunk, in gross idolatry'. 
 
 'I trust not', replied Asho-raoco fervently. 'No religious 
 symbol whatever is safe from the abuse of the illiterate 
 or narrow-minded; the image worship prevalent in some 
 of the Christian Churches seems hardly distinguishable 
 from fetichism; but education and, if need be, the sup- 
 pression of the dangerous emblems, will check the super- 
 stitious infatuations'.* 
 
 'The principles you have enunciated', said Arvada- 
 Kalama mockingly, 'sound indeed very simple; but not 
 quite so simple are the precepts of your Vendidad- Sade 
 with its innumerable rites and interminable ceremonies, 
 the complete practice of which would absorb the Parsee's 
 whole time and attention'. 
 
 'This may to a certain extent be true', said Asho- 
 raoco with evident concern, 'and as yet I see no remedy. 
 However, in its essence, no religion on earth is plainer 
 and simpler; for its entire sum is embraced in the three 
 words : Hookhte, Homute, and Vuruste, that is, Purity of 
 Action, Purity of Speech, and Purity of Thought. In a 
 thousand forms and repetitions the one maxim is enjoined: 
 "Everything that is praiseworthy is united in the pure 
 man by pure and good thought, speech, and action". b In 
 a preserved fragment of the Kliorda-Avesta we read: 
 
 "Zarathustra enquired of Ahura-mazda: 'Celestial, pure 
 and most holy Lord, Creator of the worlds endowed with 
 bodies! Which is the word that expresses all that is good, 
 all that has its origin in purity'? Ahura-mazda answered 
 him: 'The prayer Ashem-vohu, Zarathustra'. Then asked 
 Zarathustra : ' Which is the prayer Ashem-vohu that in grandeur, 
 excellence and beauty is equivalent to all that is between 
 
264 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 heaven and earth, this earth itself, those luminaries and all 
 the good and pure creations of Mazda'? And Ahura-mazda 
 replied: 'That, pure Zarathustra, in which men renounce 
 all evil thoughts, words, and works'". a 
 
 'Nay, our three Paradises have no higher names than 
 those three significant words, as we are taught by many 
 revelations like the following: 
 
 "Zarathustra asked Ahura-mazda: 'Celestial, pure and 
 most holy Lord, Creator of all the worlds endowed with 
 bodies ! When a pure man dies, where does, in the night 
 of his death, his soul reside'? Ahura-mazda replied: 'It sits 
 down close to his head, repeating the Gatha Ustavaiti, praying 
 for salvation and saying, Happy is the man who has been 
 a happiness for every one. In that night the soul enjoys 
 as much felicity as is possessed by the whole world of 
 living creatures . . . Then the pure man's soul advances the 
 first step and arrives in the paradise Homute; it proceeds 
 a second step and reaches the paradise Hookhte; and then a 
 third step, when it penetrates into the paradise Vuruste ; while 
 the fourth step brings it to the boundless realm of Light"'. b 
 
 'We feel ourselves supported by an inward feeling of 
 union with all the faithful ; for this holy KostV (touching 
 his girdle reverentially), 'which makes us members of the 
 community of the Pure, is the symbol of the spiritual 
 bond which unites us all and causes us to participate in 
 the merit of the good works that are done by the pious 
 anywhere: our chief duties are love of truth and alms- 
 giving, and our chief means of atonement good works, 
 especially the killing of noxious animals, repentance and 
 paitita or confession'. 
 
 'Even if all this were the casej', said Movayyid-eddin 
 defiantly, 'you bave shown an utter incapacity of setting 
 forth your doctrines with any power or beauty inspiring 
 the believers with a holy enthusiasm. In all your numerous 
 and dreary Yeshts there is not a single Prayer breathing 
 the fire and sublimity which pervade nearly every part 
 of the Koran'. 
 
 'By that Truth', said the Parsee bitterly, 'which we 
 prize so bigbly and you value so lightly, I am compelled 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 265 
 
 to admit the justice of your taunt! The calm soberness 
 of our lawgiver could utter no such oracles as were 
 suggested by the epileptic frenzy of yours. Yet in wisdom, 
 in elevation, and in purity, our Teshts yield the palm to 
 no religious composition of any creed, and they have, 
 during nearly double as many centuries as your Suras 
 exist, edified a community now indeed small in numbers, 
 but no less earnest and pious than it was in the ancient 
 days of Persian dominion and splendour'. 
 
 'Can you favour us', said "Wolfram, 'with one or two 
 authentic specimens of your Prayers' ? 
 
 'I do not hesitate', said the dastoor, 'to comply with 
 your request; for our ancestors required for their worship 
 no temple made by hands ; a temple of Ormuzd is here, 
 and everywhere, as far as the heavens extend'. 
 
 And then, rising, he recited with a slow and solemn 
 voice: 
 
 "In the name of God. I praise and glorify Thee, Ormuzd, 
 the refulgent, majestic, omniscient Creator, Performer of 
 deeds, Lord of lords, Prince of princes, Protector of all 
 creatures, Provider of our daily sustenance, the mighty, good, 
 primeval, forgiving, affectionate, wise, and pure Preserver! 
 May Thy just rule be without end! ... I repent all my 
 sins with patet. For all the evil thoughts, words, and deeds, 
 which I have thought, spoken, and done in the world; for 
 all the trespasses I have committed from the weakness of 
 my nature ; for all sinful thoughts, words, and deeds, temporal 
 or spiritual, earthly or celestial, I implore, Lord, Thy 
 forgiveness, and repent of them with the three Words". a 
 
 'This is the introduction to our morning devotions. 
 Let me add one general hymn of praise and thanks- 
 giving: 
 
 "In the name of God, the Dispenser, the Pardoner, the 
 Benignant. Praise be to the name of Ormuzd, the God 
 who ever was, ever is, and ever will be, the Celestial among 
 the celestials, the Source of all power . . . 
 
 With all my strength I give my thanks to the august 
 Lord who creates and destroys . . . Offering and praise be 
 bestowed on that Master, the Accomplisher of good deeds, 
 who made man greater than all earthly beings, and by 
 
266 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 investing him with the gift of speech appointed him their 
 ruler and governor, and enabled him to wage war against 
 the daevas. 
 
 Praised be the omniscience of the Lord who through the 
 holy Zartusht has sent peace to the creatures, the bright 
 science of the Law, wisdom and direction for all beings 
 the science of sciences . . . 
 
 Everything that is good I accept on Thy command, 
 Lord, and accomplish it in thought, speech, and act. I believe 
 in the pure Law and seek pardon for my sins by every 
 good deed . . .1 preserve pure within myself the six powers: 
 Thought, Speech, Deed, Memory, Mind, Reason . . . 
 
 I enter upon the brilliant path of Paradise: may the awful 
 terrors of hell not befall me! May I pass the bridge Cinvat 
 and reach Paradise rich in fragrance, joy, and splendour"' ! a 
 
 'No one', said Wolfram when Asho-raoco had sat down, 
 'will deny to these supplications the praise of fervour and 
 purity, but they cannot claim the merit of art, either in con- 
 ception or in diction. Moreover, they betray too clearly the 
 polytheistic background, and Ormuzd is scarcely anything 
 else than the "lord of hosts", whether these hosts are 
 angels or stars. In order to reconcile your traditional 
 prayers with the principles of Monism, in which, I am 
 delighted to hear, you express your concurrence, you 
 would be obliged to allegorise them with a dexterous arti- 
 ficiality incompatible with your strict truthfulness. You will, 
 therefore, bave to proceed some steps further onward, 
 if you desire completely to harmonise your confessions 
 with your convictions'. 
 
 'Alas, alas'! exclaimed Asho-raoco with unconcealed 
 pain, 'scarcely have I, after long and anxious search, 
 solved one dark problem, when my peace of mind is again 
 disturbed by a difficulty hardly less grave and harrowing. 
 But the mercy of Ahura-inazda will, in its own good time, 
 send me again help and light.' 
 
 'You have passed very rapidly', said Rabbi Gideon after 
 a short pause, turning to Attinghausen and Wolfram, 
 'over the intimate affinity which your hypothesis compels 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 267 
 
 you to assume between men and animals. I admire an 
 adroitness which so prudently conceals the weak points 
 of a glittering armour'. 
 
 'The differences between man and beast', said Atting- 
 hausen, 'are even according to our theory sufficiently 
 important to satisfy ordinary human pride. Man has 
 language, which not merely conveys but creates thought. 
 He has the ability to utilise experience by transforming 
 individual observations into general notions, and of thus 
 progressing. Having learnt the value and use of fire, he 
 invents implements to serve him as mechanical aids, and thus 
 infinitely multiplies his natural powers. He is conscious 
 of his close connection with all creation, and is therefore 
 prompted to sympathy, which grows into benevolence and 
 affection. He realises the distinction between right and 
 wrong, and subdues his passions in order to follow the 
 dictates of that standard. He seeks and loves truth for 
 its own sake, and is eager for its diffusion. He not merely 
 beholds the material objects, but imagines their ideal 
 perfection or their prototypes, and conceives the beautiful. 
 Is this not enough? Man has speech, science, charity, 
 reason, morality, truth, and art'. 
 
 'And laughter', added Humphrey sarcastically. 
 
 'But you must, in return, grant me some concessions', 
 continued Attinghausen composedly. 'The animals, from 
 the state-organising republican ant and monarchical bee, 
 to the wondrous architects who build "homes without 
 hands" and the "half-reasoning elephant", possess to a 
 certain extent even the gifts I have mentioned in common 
 with men, language alone excepted'. 
 
 ^This is simply the operation of blind instinct', said 
 Berghorn decisively; 'that is, the operation of a certain 
 sum of impulses and faculties which God imparted to 
 each species of animals when He first created them, and 
 which form the unfailing and inevitable canon of their lives'. 
 
 'I was prepared for this time-honoured objection', said 
 Attinghausen with a certain satisfaction. 'No term has 
 
268 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 been more sadly abused or has caused greater confusion 
 than that of instinct. By pronouncing this word in connec- 
 tion with the most remarkable manifestations of animal 
 I'.fe, you seem to believe that you have explained them. 
 It would be needless to dilate on the thousand astonishing 
 facts which have lately been either discovered or verified 
 and which fully justify us in assuming an "intellectual 
 life" of animals; it is even unnecessary to do more than 
 allude to those most surprising of all analogous pheno- 
 mena the organisation of the slave or Amazon states of 
 the red and fair ants, a and the habits of the white ants or 
 Termites which have indeed been partially observed more 
 than a hundred years ago, but were by unscientific gene- 
 rations either scouted as fabulous or slighted as incon- 
 clusive. Yet when we watch the subtle strategy with 
 which the European red or fair ants lure their intended 
 victims, a smaller black variety, to a battle field most 
 advantageous to themselves, and then dispatch a sufficient 
 force into their enemies' defenceless tenements to carry 
 off their larvae; when we notice how, after the hotly 
 contested engagement, which invariably results in favour 
 of the larger aggressors, those larvae are taken into the 
 settlements of the latter, carefully brought up and then, 
 as black slaves, forced to perform all the labours of the 
 community such as building, collecting of food, rearing 
 of children nay even forced afterwards to accompany 
 and to support their masters in the predatory expeditions 
 against their own tribe and then to train the plundered 
 black youth to the same service of bondage which had 
 been imposed upon themselves; or when we examine the 
 habitation of such an ant colony with its thousand apart- 
 ments conveniently connected by a labyrinth of meandering 
 passages, corridors and stairs; when we see the young 
 brood tended by affectionate nurses who, in fine summer 
 weather, gently take their charges from the nurseries into 
 the open air, and carry them back at the first sign of 
 chilliness; when we find that these diminutive insects, 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 269 
 
 virtually devote themselves to agriculture and cattle 
 breeding with the object of securing a constant supply of 
 their chief dainty, the honied juice drawn, like milk from 
 the cow, from two tiny tubes in the back of the aphis, a 
 and that, for the same purpose, they sometimes, when a 
 branch of a shrub peopled by these precious insects 
 withers, cautiously remove them to a fresh twig, and 
 sometimes, instead of constructing, as they usually do, 
 covered walks from their dwellings to the shrub, transfer 
 the pigmy cattle, together with the small plant on 
 which they live, into their own homes, where they assign 
 to them separate stables: I say, when we consider these 
 and similar facts b without prejudice or partiality, we cannot 
 but conclude that what we contemptuously call instinct, 
 is as decidedly an action of mind as any performed by 
 man, and that the difference is merely one of degree'. 
 
 'Granting even', said Humphrey, undaunted, 'that all 
 those operations have an apparent design, they are doubt- 
 less performed without consciousness'. 
 
 'Surely', added Panini, 'free-will is the privilege of man 
 alone, or as our great poet expresses it: 
 
 "Lo maggior don, die Dio per sua larghezza 
 
 "Fesse creando, e alia sua bontate 
 
 "Piu conforinato, e quel ch'ei piu apprezza, 
 
 "Fu della volonta la libertate, 
 
 "Di che le creature intelligent! 
 
 "E tutte e sole furo e son dotate"'. d 
 'I am, of course, unable to prove the reverse', replied 
 Attinghausen, shrugging his shoulders at Panini's quota- 
 tion, and addressing Humphrey, 'but are not all agreed, 
 from Plato to our time, that the highest creations of 
 poetry and music, are produced in a certain "holy frenzy 71 , 
 which to some extent precludes consciousness? Or do you 
 really believe that the thousand allusions that have been 
 discovered in "Faust", or the thousand beauties that have 
 been pointed out in "Don Giovanni", were, at the time of 
 production, clearly present to the minds of Goethe and 
 Mozart? Goethe at least has distinctly affirmed that they 
 
270 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 were not. The Greeks designated the prophet by mantis 
 or one seized with a mad ecstasy'. 
 
 'And the Hebrews', added Gregovius, 'by meshugga, 
 which means the same'. a 
 
 'You are, I am sure', rejoined Humphrey, 'fully 
 aware of the very imperfect and halting nature of this 
 analogy ; and I proceed therefore to observe that the ant, 
 as any other of your ingenious prodigies, does and works 
 at present as it has clone and worked from the beginning 
 of creation, and will continue to do so to the end of time. 
 They are incapable of progress, which you have yourself 
 admitted to be an exclusive characteristic of man'. 
 
 'It is man's characteristic', replied Attinghausen, 'with 
 that reservation which I have stipulated with respect to all 
 distinctions. As the creatures are developed physically, 
 in accordance with the all-pervading law of evolution, so 
 we find, pari passu, a change and development in their 
 faculties. It is erroneous to assert that the beavers build 
 their water palaces, the swallows their nests, the bees 
 their honeycombs everywhere and at all times exactly as 
 they built them two or three thousand years ago. Obser- 
 vation teaches us that all these structures are subjected 
 to many and essential modifications in conformity with the 
 varied localities and the available resources. The animals, 
 following the powerful impulse of self-preservation, and 
 stimulated by the hard struggle for life, readily adapt 
 themselves to new conditions by new designs and expe- 
 dients. Among men and animals alike, necessity is the 
 mother of invention, and knowledge 'is power. b Again, 
 animals, especially dogs, acquire by training and practice 
 new accomplishments; nightingales, finches and other 
 birds of song learn by imitation new melodies; a young 
 linnet or wren, which has never heard the song of its 
 parents or of other individuals of the sames pecies, imitates 
 any bird it hears and is able to imitate, even a lark or 
 a thrush: innate, therefore, is only the organ of singing; 
 its use must be taught by experience.* 1 How is it, there- 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 271 
 
 fore, possible to assume an instinct working with inevi- 
 table spontaneousness and remaining for ever unchange- 
 able? Even as regards the ants we are able to point 
 out a progress. There are still extant some species 
 which, exhibiting a more elementary organisation, are 
 strangers to any kind of division of labour, just as at 
 present the Bushman co-exists with the Caucasian. Those 
 species afford, a welcome corroboration of the naturalist's 
 conviction that all our ants are the developed descendants 
 of a rude and primary species which became extinct 
 perhaps as early as the cretaceous period and was utterly 
 unfitted for that wonderful economy of life which impresses 
 upon the principal varieties of our ants the stamp of 
 civilisation. The progress thus demonstrated involves a 
 difference hardly less marked than that noticeable between 
 savage society in the stone epoch and European society 
 in this century. In a word, a hard and fast line of 
 demarcation between instinct and reason cannot possibly 
 be drawn by those who are candid with themselves and 
 just to animals. At what part of that immense and un- 
 broken line which extends from the lowest form of worms 
 up to man, the gift which you call instinct rose to a 
 degree of intelligence sufficient to be called reason, it is 
 impossible to determine. The advance was imperceptibly 
 gradual. There is, at every point, only a difference of 
 intensity, not of kind, whether in feeling and volition, or 
 in reflecting, judging and arguing. Animals may con- 
 stantly be seen to pause, deliberate, and resolve. Similarly 
 to men, they feel pleasure and pain, happiness and misery, 
 terror and suspicion, attachment and aversion, affection 
 and jealousy, desire of emulation and love of praise; they 
 possess the faculties of wonder and curiosity, of attention 
 and imitation; they have memory and imagination, as is 
 shown in dreaming ; they have even in a certain manner the 
 perception of beauty, and a conscience or the moral sense 
 of distinguishing between right and wrong. The orang 
 and the chimpanzee build platforms on which they sleep, 
 
272 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 and crack a native fruit resembling the walnut with a stone. 
 The dog expresses a multiplicity of emotions by different 
 modes of barking. a The polar dogs, whenever they come 
 to thin ice, do not continue to draw the sledge in a 
 compact body, but diverge and separate, so that their 
 weight may be more evenly distributed. But why do I 
 begin to adduce illustrations which I can never exhaust, 
 as they are practically unlimited? The more the habits 
 of any particular animal are studied by a naturalist, the 
 more he attributes to reason and the less to untaught 
 instincts. b All creatures possessing a nervous system 
 possess a soul, and consequently intellectual life'. c 
 
 'I shall return to this question of soul presently', said 
 Humphrey with some uneasiness; 'at present I will only 
 urge that superiority of language, which your generosity 
 is pleased unreservedly to allow to man in contra- 
 distinction to animals. Nor do I owe you particular 
 thanks for this gracious concession. We can rely upon 
 the explicit testimony of one of our greatest authorities 
 in comparative philology. Max Miiller observes that 
 though the raw material of language appertains to nature, 
 its form, or that by which language only becomes language, 
 appertains to the mind; that the science of language is 
 but subordinately a natural, and pre-eminently a mental 
 or historical science; nay he concludes clearly I have 
 been careful to mark his very words : "I am convinced 
 that the science of language alone will still enable us to 
 meet the Darwinian theory of evolution with the deter- 
 mined command of 'Stop' ! and sharply to draw the boun- 
 dary which separates mind from matter, man from animal". d 
 Can your .fancies receive a severer blow' ? 
 
 *I am really sorry', said Attinghausen, 'to find myseli 
 in opposition to a scholar so accomplished and so amiable. 
 But an absolute idealist, though he may occasional!} 
 touch the outskirts of natural science, can never penetrate 
 into its sanctuary. The feeble view you have quoted 
 evokes the pity and contempt of all resolute enquirers. 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 273 
 
 I appeal to our venerable Gregovius who, with the zeal 
 and freshness of youth, has applied the new principles 
 to the science of philology, of which he is an acknow- 
 ledged master'. 
 
 'I am led to believe', said Gregovious cautiously, 'that 
 Hobbes' epigram, "Man has reason because he has speech" 
 liomo animal rationale quia orationale,needs at present 
 a material modification. The earliest men had probably 
 no articulate speech, though, as all admit, they were 
 endowed with reason. The distinction of "matter" and 
 "mind", can, I am afraid, be as little upheld with respect 
 to language as with respect to any other manifestation 
 of life. In all cases alike, both advance simultaneously 
 and inseperably. Thus we know that language, like man's 
 physical organisation, is a growth and a development. 
 Its first beginnings were a few coarse sounds sufficient 
 to designate the most common and the most necessary 
 objects.* Very gradually these terms were increased in 
 number and refined in character; and many ages were 
 required before speech advanced to a structure capable 
 of conveying with even tolerable precision a connected 
 narrative or an abstract thought. Trustworthy witnesses 
 of this slow course are the languages as they now exist 
 on our globe, from the crude and elementary utterances 
 of some savage tribes to the grace, richness, and accuracy 
 of the Indo-Germanic idioms; and the same advance 
 towards a combined flexibility and strength, a blended 
 fulness and clearness, is being continued without interruption 
 simply as a part of universal evolution 7 . 
 
 'To whatever side we turn', said Attinghausen approv- 
 ingly, 'from whatever aspect we regard the history of 
 man, we meet the same laws of unity and progress'. 
 
 'But I firmly believe', said Humphrey, confident of the 
 irresistible force of his new objection, 'I am convinced that 
 here your law of unity or monism utterly breaks down. 
 You cannot represent the languages of the earth in your 
 favourite form of a ramified tree; for many of them are 
 
 T 
 
274 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 in every respect in articulation and phraseology, in in- 
 flexion and syntax so entirely different from the rest 
 that they cannot possibly have sprung up from the same 
 root. One of your own authorities declares, that no 
 linguist is able to conceive a type which can have 
 given birth at once to the Indo-Germanic and Chinese, 
 the Shemitic and Hottentot languages.* You are, there- 
 fore, compelled to allow, that speech was not communi- 
 cated by men to men, but was, as a precious gift, granted 
 to all by God'. 
 
 'Do not entangle yourself in your own subtlety', replied 
 Attinghausen. 'I have admitted that language is the most 
 specific of human characteristics, and I am therefore 
 ready to concede that it was, in different centres, worked 
 out differently and independently, because the families of 
 men were scattered at a time when the means of verbal 
 expression had not yet proceeded beyond the earliest 
 and most elementary stages of articulation, that is, at a 
 time, when there did not yet exist a language fitted to 
 become the parent of a multiplicity of dialects. But 
 how can you, from your Biblical point of view, explain 
 that total divergence between certain groups of idioms, 
 which is undeniable ? Did God teach Adam an Arian or a 
 Shemitic, a Chinese or Turanian language? Or did He 
 teach him all, leaving his descendants to make their 
 choice at pleasure? No, you require one primitive tongue 
 "the whole earth was of one language and of one speech" . 
 and therefore there should be a substantial uniformity 
 of all languages. How do you solve the difficulty? B} 
 the curious myth of the Tower of Babel and the "con- 
 fusion of tongues". Thus you convert "God's gracious 
 gift" into a chastisement and a curse. You are bound 
 to acknowledge a patent fact, and you account for it b) 
 a miracle exhibiting your deity as meanly envious anc 
 revengeful. We acknowledge the same fact, but, in ordei 
 to account for it, we modify our theory, while remaining 
 true to our general principles'. 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 275 
 
 'Nor do we admit', added Gregovius, 'a "confusion of 
 tongues". The number of distinct classes is few; the 
 members of the same class bear a close affinity and 
 display, from the simplest to the most perfect structure, 
 a progress or evolution which is strictly systematic, and 
 which comparative and historical philology, though a 
 science of recent date, is in most cases able to point out 
 and to elucidate ; and we cannot survey the three separate 
 types to which the whole variety of languages has been 
 reduced,* without perceiving how completely and how ad- 
 mirably they represent the entire range of physiological 
 and linguistic possibilities. In a word, the languages did 
 not originate miraculously, nor are they consummate 
 works of art, but natural organisms which, in conformity 
 with more general laws, necessarily arise, grow, decay, 
 and die off. They disclose the same series of phenomena 
 which we are wont to understand by the term "life" ; 
 new species are formed by gradual differentiation and by 
 the survival of the more perfect orders in the struggle 
 for existence; and we are grateful to find that, in treating 
 the study of language as a natural science, we are able 
 to give no mean confirmation and support to the dis- 
 coveries of Lamarck, Oken, and Darwin'. b 
 
 'Do we require', said Rabbi Gideon, evidently anxious 
 to change the subject, 'the uncertain analogies of living 
 and extinct languages? We have the science of skull- 
 measuring, which palpably proves man's incomparable 
 superiority over animals ; and it has led one of the greatest 
 authorities to the conclusion that "a progressive develop- 
 ment of the Ape can never result in Man; but that, on 
 the contrary, this very development results in the large 
 chasm subsisting between Man and Ape"'. c 
 
 'How is it possible', said Attinghausen smiling, 'to 
 dignify the harmless play of craniometry by the name 
 of science! The subject has unfortunately been seized 
 upon by dilettanti, who deemed themselves justified in 
 framing the weightiest conclusions on their nap-hazard 
 
276 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 observations. It is true, the general formation of the 
 skull corresponds, on the whole, with the development of 
 the brain it encloses, and the inner area of the one ap- 
 proximately shows the outer structure of the other. Care- 
 ful measurements and descriptions are, therefore, valuable, 
 yet only when not restricted to the perfect skulls of men 
 and a few other mammals, but employed as the empirical 
 basis of a comparative and organic craniology. Now, 
 with regard to men, the facts are in some respects sur- 
 prising. The anthropological studies of the Novara Ex- 
 pedition have proved, that the Javans, although, next to 
 the Chinese, the most intellectual of the tribes submitted 
 to examination, have the smallest heads, while the low 
 Nicobares and Australians, have the largest.* The average 
 cranium of the Polynesian is larger than that of the 
 Frenchman. Some of the most illustrious men of genius, 
 as Newton, Lessing, Voltaire and Frederick the Great, 
 had comparatively small skulls. It appears, therefore, 
 that the volume of the cranial cavity is no safe criterion 
 of intellectual endowment; and our theory is in no manner 
 affected by the circumstance that the difference between 
 a Gorilla's and a man's skull is indeed immense, being 
 more than five times larger than the difference between 
 the skulls of the various races of mankind. b By far more 
 decisive is the relative mass and weight of brains and 
 here our hypothesis finds a strong corrob oration. It is 
 true that the lightest brain of a sound adult man, which 
 has ever been examined, weighed at least one kilogramme, 
 while the brain of a Gorilla probably never reached more 
 than two thirds of this weight. But there have been men 
 whose brain weighed more than two kilogrammes, so that, 
 in this important respect, the difference between man 
 and man is greater than between man and Gorilla'. d 
 
 'This point is no doubt important', said Mondoza, 'but 
 it can scarcely be regarded as decisive ; for some of the 
 smallest animals are most intelligent, while some of the 
 most bulky are the reverse. There should be means of 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 277 
 
 proving systematically the connection between man and 
 the inferior creation'. 
 
 Attinghausen did not require more than this hint. 
 Speaking with evident relish and, from his habit of lec- 
 turing to large classes of students, unconsciously lapsing 
 into the professorial tone and manner, he said: 
 
 'Man belongs to the group of Mammals called Dis- 
 coplacentalia and comprising the five divisions of Rodents, 
 Insectivora, Bats, Monkeys, and Apes prosimiae and 
 simiae. Nearest to man are the true Apes, and among 
 these again the Catarrhinae a or the "narrow-nosed" apes 
 of the old world as the tailed Pavian and above all the 
 famous family of the tailless, manlike apes, or Anthropoids, 
 viz. the Gibbon and the Orang of eastern Asia, the 
 Chimpanzee and the Gorilla of tropical Africa. b The 
 old division between the Ape and Man, or between 
 Quadrumana and Bimana, is according to our present 
 knowledge absolutely untenable; for the true Apes also 
 have, like man, two hands and two feet. c Scientific 
 zoology cannot help assigning to Man a place within the 
 order of true Apes. For, he continued, growing more 
 and more didactic, "whatever system of organs we study, 
 we obtain the same result viz. that the structural differences 
 which separate Man from the highest tailless Apes, the 
 Gorilla and the Chimpanzee, are not so great as those 
 which separate the Gorilla from the lower tailed Apes". 
 This cardinal fact established by Huxley through a method 
 of demonstration which, for perspicuity, completeness and 
 cogency, may well be called exemplary, d is now recognised 
 as the firm foundation of higher physiology. Consequently, 
 the human race has been gradually developed from the 
 true Apes. 6 But we have another striking proof, or rather 
 an ocular demonstration. In observing the development 
 of the human individual from its first beginning, we notice 
 for a long time not the least difference from the rest of 
 the mammals. In the one case, as in the others, the 
 ovum, about one-tenth of a line in diameter, is a simple 
 
278 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 cell, which by repeated divisions becomes a globular 
 cluster of many small cells having the appearance of a 
 blackberry or mulberry, the so-called morula, from which 
 the germ or embryo is formed. This passes through a 
 long series of changes, transformations and developments 
 exactly corresponding, as I have shown yesterday, with 
 the systematic division in classes, orders, families, genera, 
 and species. Now and this is most noteworthy it is 
 only at a very late stage, in fact but shortly before birth 
 and after the differences of the ape embryo from that of 
 the other mammals have long been conspicuous, that the 
 human embryo becomes distinguishable from that of the 
 highest tailless ape by those divergencies which, after 
 birth, gradually grow more decided. Yet the resemblances 
 remain permanently both numerous and marked. The 
 catarrhine ape, like man, has all the fingers of the hands 
 and all the toes of the feet provided with nails, not with 
 claws; both have the nostrils turned downward, not out- 
 wardly, or placed at the sides, and the partition that 
 separates the two apertures is, in the one case as in the 
 other, narrow and thin; both have, what is most charac- 
 teristic, thirty-two teeth and not, like the other Apes, 
 thirty-six viz. in each jaw four incisors, two canines, 
 and ten molars. We are, therefore, justified in looking, 
 as we have done, for man's immediate ancestors among 
 that group of true Apes, which is still the most common 
 in the Old "World and is known under the name of catar- 
 rJiinae] and among these the choice remains between 
 Gorilla, Chimpanzee or some distinct, as yet undiscovered 
 species of Anthropoids. On the other hand, the differences 
 between these man-like apes and the ape-like men the 
 Papuas, Hottentots, and Australian negroes are not 
 sufficiently great to permit the zoologist to classify both 
 as two distinct orders, that is, to exclude Man from the 
 order of Ape or simia. It would be a palpable incon- 
 gruity, of which no man of science should in our days 
 be guilty, to combine in one order the Pavian and the 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 279 
 
 Gorilla, which dift'er from each other much more widely 
 than the Gorilla does from the Papua, and yet to up- 
 hold the separation of Man and Ape. Call this idea 
 odious and repulsive; you must familiarise yourselves 
 with facts however unwelcome. Zoology is fortunately 
 in a position to settle this momentous branch of man's 
 pedigree with exceptional confidence. A new and in- 
 teresting proof has been furnished by the comparative 
 measurements which the learned members of the Austrian 
 Novara Expedition instituted of the bodies of the various 
 races, and which led them to the conclusion that "Man's 
 resemblance with the Ape is by no means confined to 
 this or that tribe, but is so distributed that each race is 
 more or less provided with some particular inheritance of 
 this relationship, of which we Europeans can certainly 
 not claim exemption'".* 
 
 'May heaven arm me with patience'! Humphrey burst 
 forth, no longer able to control his indignation. 'But I 
 cannot listen to blasphemous absurdities. You forget 
 that we are not your pupils and that we refuse to ac- 
 cept your ex cathedra disputations as oracles. It does 
 not require your "science", in which you shroud yourself 
 with the mysteriousness of an Egyptian priest or Eleu- 
 sinian hierophant it does not require your wisdom which 
 is of yesterday and may wither in a night, to perceive 
 the vast difference between the Gorilla of our Zoological 
 Gardens and even the lowest type of man a difference 
 indisputably and infinitely larger than that between the 
 Pavian and the Gorilla. The chasm is immense, and 
 not only justifies but demands the retention of the old 
 and well-founded separation of Quadrumana and Bimana. 
 Not all the magic wonders of the dissecting room will 
 shake the evidence of our senses, on which we are re- 
 solved to rely as heretofore, "dilettanti" though we are. 
 Moreover, the most erudite naturalists, who made this 
 subject their special study and even went so far as to 
 describe the connection between men and the animal 
 
280 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 kingdom as "a desideratum of science", declared that 
 "every positive progress we have achieved in the field 
 of pre-historic anthropology, has removed us farther and 
 farther from the proofs and vestiges of such a connection".* 
 All the fossil human skulls that have been found, are 
 absolutely like the crania of men now living; some of 
 them are in size and development even superior to the 
 latter; while none exhibit a lower type. Fossil skulls 
 of apes have not yet been discovered. Thus the line of 
 demarcation between Man and Ape remains strong and 
 unmistakable; and the descent of the one from the other 
 is not a doctrine of science, but the wanton assumption 
 of a distempered fancy'. 
 
 'I regret', said Attinghausen ? evidently anxious to soothe 
 susceptibilities as much as he possibly could with consis- 
 tency, 'that I have given rise to a misconception. I 
 could, of course, not intend to say that man is descended 
 from any of the species of Apes at present found on 
 our planet. His sire must have belonged to a much 
 more perfect genus which became extinct many eras 
 since, after it had fulfilled its appointed end of calling 
 into life, by the law of natural selection, a being higher 
 than itself an ape-like man, probably a woolly-haired, 
 dark "Longhead". b It is true, no petrified remains of 
 such a being have hitherto been met with; nor do we 
 as yet possess any clue as to the time and locality of 
 its existence; but palaeontology is a comparatively young 
 science, and the evolution, necessarily a very slow process, 
 probably took place as far back as the pliocene, if not 
 the miocene, epoch and, what enhances the difficulty still 
 more, it probably took place on that tropical Continent 
 of Lemuria, which stretched, in the south of Asia, from 
 India to Africa, and was, many ages ago, submerged in 
 the Indian Ocean'. c 
 
 'Surely', said Humphrey with a peal of ironical laughter, 
 'on such terms you are safe: an extinct type of Man-ape, 
 an incalculably remote epoch of geology, and an engulfed 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 281 
 
 Continent on these solid foundations build up whatever 
 "scientific" system you please'! 
 
 'Pardon me', said Attinghausen with some hesitation, 
 'your sarcasm, though to some extent justified, does not 
 touch my theories. The phenomena of phylogenesis can, 
 from their nature, not be demonstrated with exactness, 
 as they lie beyond observation and experiment. That 
 biological discipline is a science leaning for support in 
 a great measure on history and philosophy. Its object is 
 the explanation of processes accomplished in the course 
 of indefinite periods previous to the origin of the human 
 race. But the very same applies to geology, to which 
 no one has ventured to dispute the rank of a science. 
 As I have before frankly conceded that other causes of 
 evolution may in future be discovered in addition to, or 
 even in the place of, those pointed out by Darwin and 
 others, so I readily concede now that continued research 
 may lead us although at present I do not consider it 
 probable to abandon the Ape in favour of some other 
 animal as the progenitor of man. But this uncertainty 
 in details can never invalidate the doctrine of evolution 
 in its principles. These are for ever impregnably es- 
 tablished, for they alone disclose the causal connection 
 between all biological facts, exhibit man's nature in 
 its unity, and allow an harmonious conception of the 
 universe. We may err in determining the genealogical 
 ramifications, but the genealogy itself is equally evident 
 and incontestable, for it infuses life into a system hitherto 
 mechanically conglomerated out of a dry nomenclature. Yet 
 we are at every moment ready to modify our special 
 conjectures, and though, I think, we shall not easily be 
 induced to leave the track we are now following, we teach 
 no unalterable dogmas, but cling to our old motto: Dies 
 diem docet\ 
 
 'The conclusions we draw are not so aerial as you seem 
 to suppose', said Wolfram. 'Fossil remains of vertebrates 
 identical with the genera now peopling the earth, have 
 
282 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 in no case been dicovered; and yet those ancient types 
 are undoubtedly the progenitors of the later, though very 
 different forms. You may ridicule some of our inferences 
 as the suggestions of "fancy". But do not underrate the 
 value of this faculty even in science. It would be difficult 
 to decide how much of the marvellous calculations of a 
 Newton was, in the last instance, due to the soaring 
 flight of imagination. He created a science of optics by 
 the bold hypothesis of the emanation of light, which is 
 now superseded by another bold hypothesis Young's 
 and Helmholtz' undulation theory constructed on the 
 undemonstrable ether of light. Accurate knowledge or 
 observation must indeed precede, but it remains tied to 
 the earth till fancy lends it wings; it remains dead, till 
 fancy gives it life. Yet it must be the fancy of genius, 
 that is, the mystic union of the calmest reason and an 
 apparently uncontrolled impulse a union whose offspring 
 is not fanciful arbitrariness, but truthful reality. Goethe 
 was at once an eminent poet and a prophetic discoverer 
 in natural science, 8 and he owed his twofold triumphs 
 to the same heavenly gift of fancy. b Will you permit 
 me to read to you a version of one of his compositions, 
 for which he repeatedly expressed a great predilection? 
 I mean "Meine Gottin", written in a free rhythm ap- 
 proaching the ancient lyrics. 
 
 MY GODDESS. 
 
 "Which of Immortals 
 Shall win highest praises? 
 With none I argue, 
 But I bestow the palm 
 On the ever variable, 
 Eternally novel, 
 Wondrous daughter of Jove, 
 The child of his bosom- 
 On fantasy. 
 
 For to her he 
 Granted freely 
 All the caprices 
 
 That else to himself 
 He is wont to reserve, 
 And has his delight 
 In her folly. 
 
 Whether with chaplets of roses 
 Wreathed and with lilies, 
 She roams through flowery vales, 
 Commands the birds of summer, 
 And with bee-like lips 
 Sucks from blossoms 
 Light-nourishing dew: 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 283 
 
 Or whether again, 
 With streaming hair 
 And frowning look, 
 She sweeps through the wind 
 Round mountain cliffs, 
 And in thousand hues, 
 Like morning and eve, 
 Ever changing 
 As Luna's face, 
 Appears to us mortals. 
 
 All of us, rise! 
 Praise the Father, 
 The ancient, the great, 
 Who deigned to ally 
 A spouse so fair, 
 Unfading for ever, 
 With mortal man. 
 
 For to us alone 
 He chose to link her 
 By heavenly bond, 
 And solemnly bid her, 
 In joy and in sorrow, 
 A faithful spouse, 
 Never to part. 
 
 All the other 
 Pitiful tribes 
 
 Of the rich and teeming, 
 Life-bearing earth 
 
 Move and feed 
 
 In the gloomy enjoyment 
 
 And the dismal pain 
 
 Of their narrow lives, 
 
 Bound by the moment, 
 
 Bent in the yoke 
 
 Of poor necessity. 
 
 But to us, rejoice! 
 He was pleased to grant 
 His nimblest daughter, 
 His own, his cherished. 
 Speak to her tenderly 
 As to a bride! 
 Leave her the dear wife's 
 Bank in the house! 
 
 And let old Wisdom, 
 The mother-in-law, 
 Beware not to hurt 
 The delicate child! 
 
 Yet I know her sister, 
 The elder, the graver, 
 My calm companion. 
 Oh! let her not sooner 
 Than sweet life itself 
 Turn away from me, 
 The noble inspirer, 
 The consoler Hope'". 
 
 'If it were not for the pleasure you have given us', 
 said Mondoza with ill- feigned severity, when Wolfram 
 had concluded, *I ought strongly to protest against the 
 introduction of this poem at the present stage of our dis- 
 cussion; for it irregularly anticipates a future phase of 
 our culture, which, I trust, we shall ere long have an 
 opportunity of considering 7 . 
 
 'Allow me to dissent from the drift of this observation', 
 answered Wolfram politely. 'The history of general lite- 
 rature proves that Poetry commonly gave birth to Science. 
 The literature of the Greeks, the most normal and the most 
 perfect we possess, affords ample illustrations. At first, 
 Poetry reigned supreme; then it allied itself with Philosophy i 
 the Ionic speculations being almost without exception ex- 
 pounded in verse; and it was only at a very advanced 
 
284 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 period that Poetry and Science separated and each went 
 its own way yet not so that the severance was made 
 complete. From the tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides 
 we are able to cull a string of maxims embodying the 
 chief tenets of nearly every philosophic system that had 
 till then arisen. If I correctly understand the goal to 
 which our excellent host desires to lead our conver- 
 sations the harmonious blending and co-operation of 
 all human faculties as the strong basis of human hap- 
 piness I may be pardoned for having, even at this point, 
 alluded to the connection indissolubly subsisting between 
 the gifts of Reason and Imagination, which are too often 
 regarded as opposite poles. Indeed of the very highest 
 importance seems to me the poet's warning: 
 
 "Let old Wisdom, 
 "The mother-in-law, 
 "Beware not to hurt 
 "The delicate child'" ! a 
 
 'I believe', said Melville with his usual concentration, 
 'that the divergencies of opinion, to which expression 
 has just been given, involve a most important question of 
 philosphy the question of the relative value of the analytical 
 and synthetical mode of reasoning. Some enquirers favour 
 exclusively the one, and some exclusively the other with 
 equal detriment to truth. Both forms are alike indispen- 
 sable, as they are designed for mutual completion and control. 
 Mere analysis or induction, being essentially empirical, 
 is halting and torpid; mere synthesis or generalisation, 
 being mainly transcendental, is blind and wandering. It 
 is not the accuracy of detail attempted by the one, nor 
 the comprehensiveness of principle aimed at by the other, 
 but the combination of both, or the union of discipline 
 and liberty, which engenders true science. The only 
 correct and fruitful process seems to be this: first to 
 "dissolve" a subject into its component parts, and then 
 "to combine" these constituents again, freely and in- 
 dependently, by the bond of a common idea which 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 285 
 
 process is at least as much subjective as objective. It 
 is, therefore, impossible to blame our zealous friend 
 Attinghausen for his synthetic generalisations, because 
 these, as all must admit, are the real end of research; 
 they may be framed prematurely, rashly, or fantastically, 
 but they are inevitable. Nor do I believe that our friend 
 errs in any of these three directions; for the materials 
 with which he operates have been accumulated during 
 generations; the steps by which he advances are on the 
 whole gradual and safe; and the conclusions are derived 
 from facts in most instances as well ascertained as any 
 upon which a philosophical science can be built. But 
 he exposes his arguments to the hostile charge of being 
 both premature, rash, and fantastical, through technical 
 inaccuracies in his terminology and through occasional 
 bounds in his reasoning: the former are not important, 
 and the latter are not real, yet both combined impart 
 to his theory the appearance, not of science, but of 
 imagination, and they retard its more general adoption, 
 because they leave it uncertain whether he does not cleave 
 to that exploded form of materialism, which starts from 
 the corpuscular atoms of Democritus. This is a striking 
 instance of the necessity of a severely logical training at 
 present so sadly neglected'. 
 
 'You are no doubt correct', said Wolfram, 'if you do 
 not mean that "strait-laced" logic which impedes, instead 
 of regulating, the movements of the mind; but recommend 
 that wholesome method which, avoiding empty formulas, 
 exercises the mind in concluding boldly, yet solidly, on 
 facts and observations in a word that method which, at 
 the right point, exchanges analysis for synthesis and thus 
 creates a general proposition. Where that right point 
 lies, can, of course, not be defined mechanically, but 
 must, in each case, be determined by the innermost 
 nature of the subject. This is our main difficulty; and, 
 in the last instance, therefore, we remain conceal it as 
 you may in the dominion of individual judgment or 
 
286 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 intuition, which is the human form of instinct. Toilsomely 
 and laboriously genius climbs the mountain heights of 
 knowledge and thence takes a daring flight into the 
 empyrean of Truth. He may fail; but his failure will 
 deter no successor who is satisfied with the proudly simple 
 epitaph: "Magnis tamen excidit ausis"'. 
 
 'This I admit', rejoined Melville, 'but it is just because 
 that supreme element is unavoidably uncertain, and 
 synthesis must ever be more or less hypothetical, that we 
 should most earnestly qualify our intellect for cautiousness 
 and precision of argumentation up to the utmost limits 
 of our technical faculties'. 
 
 'However discreetly you may advocate deduction and 
 hypothesis', said Gregovius, 'we cannot help looking upon 
 those expedients with the strongest mistrust if we consider 
 the mischief they have caused, and not least in Biblical 
 criticism'. 
 
 'They are generally denounced by those', said Berghorn 
 in a manner as if he had been personally attacked, 'who 
 are weighed down by their dull and inert Geistlosigkeit'. 
 In his vehemence, the English term did not readily oc- 
 cur to him. 
 
 'I will not speak', continued Gregovius, smiling, 'of the 
 baseless reveries of the Middle Ages, when alchemists 
 strove to evolve the homunculus from their retorts, and 
 the philosopher's stone from their visionary recipes; but 
 will only refer to the hollow constructions and abstruse 
 unrealities of Hegel's and Schelling's "philosophy of 
 nature" or "absolute idealism", which, elaborated as if 
 Bacon and Gassendi, Hobbes and Locke had never lived, 
 could not fail to produce a new and mystical scholasticism 
 starting from the paradoxical principle of ontology or the 
 identity of "thinking" and "being", and even attempting 
 by dialectic artifices to weave imaginary facts which were 
 regarded as the only legitimate materials of science'. 
 
 'Your objection', said Mondoza, 'just as it is, implies, 
 I believe, its own refutation. The synthesis to which you 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 287 
 
 allude was "premature". It was about that time that 
 Schiller wrote the remarkable distich entitled "Naturalist 
 and Metaphysician" N aturforscher und Transcendental- 
 Philosoph : 
 
 "Let there be feud between you! the alliance comes yet 
 
 too early: 
 "Truth can only be found, if you diverge in the search".* 
 
 'Hegel and Schelling, like the medieval speculators, 
 working on insufficient and onesided data, reared systems 
 that were necessarily frail and fanciful. Since then the 
 zeal of a thousand able enquirers has gathered a stupendous 
 mass of precise facts not only permitting but imperatively 
 demanding the light of deduction and general principles 
 to prevent it from falling into chaos; and hence a living 
 naturalist was justified in expressing the hope that, in all 
 those points where the zoologist comes into contact with 
 the metaphysician, this contact will lead, not to a hostile 
 repulsion, but to a useful amalgamation. 11 If Kant, 
 Schiller's contemporary, succeeded in escaping from the 
 pitfalls of empty abstractions, and in accomplishing a 
 fruitful synthesis, it is because his attention was, in a great 
 measure, directed upon two great realities the human 
 mind itself and the mechanism of the universe, that is, 
 on the instrument and the chief object of our researches; 
 he argued on experience and observation, and, with their 
 aid, his marvellous intuition anticipated the system of 
 Laplace and the doctrine of Lamarck. Leading ideas or 
 theories are indispensable in our time when, the materials 
 having vastly accumulated, the necessary division of labour 
 threatens to destroy not merely the insight into the organic 
 connection of all sciences, but even the perception of any 
 single of the sciences as a whole. Although, to promote 
 any branch, we must be specialists, we should avoid being 
 specialists only, but should feel ourselves members of the uni- 
 versitas literarum. No number of specialities, however per- 
 fect and valuable individually, makes up living scholarship. 
 This is impossible without a great and common principle 
 
288 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 pervading all like a vivifying breath: else, instead of 
 knowledge wide and humble, we shall have learning narrow 
 and vain. We must generalise and combine even at the 
 risk of committing, in particular disciplines, errors at which 
 the specialist may smile. The human mind cannot pass 
 beyond its natural boundaries, yet it should never lose 
 sight of its highest aims'. 
 
 'Our opponents', said Attinghausen, with a glance oi 
 gratitude at the host, 'our opponents, who have a horror 
 of our conclusions, would fain keep us breathlessly in the 
 bondservice of delving and digging; they understand 
 perfectly the wisdom of Mephistopheles : 
 
 "Wer will was Lebendig's erkennen und beschreiben. 
 "Sucht erst den Geist herauszutreiben; 
 "Dann hat er die Theile in seiner Hand; 
 "Fehrt leider nur das geistige Band"'. a 
 
 'Even specialists', said Wolfram, 'should be thankful to 
 philosophers ; for it is wonderful to observe, when once a 
 new and great principle begins to diffuse its rays, what 
 a surprising abundance of fresh materials before unnoticed 
 starts into unexpected light; and how strongly men are 
 urged to look for proofs in directions till then disregarded. 
 This has received a signal corroboration from the uncommon 
 eagerness which has been displayed in every department 
 of natural science since the torch of Evolution and Monism 
 has illumined the horizon; and it is not too much to 
 contend that in exact details also the last twenty years 
 have been productive in a degree utterly unknown at any 
 previous period. Never before has any class of animals 
 been studied with so much zeal and success, or been so 
 fully understood in its importance and significance, as 
 the lowest microscopic organisms, the Protists, Monera, 
 and Infusoria, have of late been examined. Thus synthesis, 
 properly carried out, is so far from fostering recklessness 
 or superficiality, that it eminently subserves the acquisition 
 of minute and solid information'. 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 289 
 
 'Even we have felt this impulse', said Gregovius; 'for 
 since we have adopted the potent principle of develop- 
 ment, the Scriptures and all auxiliary sciences which in any 
 way contribute to their illustration, have been searched 
 with such zest and diligence that, even with respect to 
 mere accuracy and copiousness of learning, Buxtorf, 
 Yitringa and Carpzov would not deny us their approval'. 
 
 'From all that has just been said', observed Mondoza 
 after a short reflection, 'I believe we are justified in con- 
 sidering that method of deduction which has resulted in 
 the doctrines of Monism not only as exempt from the 
 charge of fanciful arbitrariness, but as perfectly legitimate 
 and in the true sense scientific. No mean proof of the 
 correctness of the laws of natural selection and the struggle 
 for life is the universality of their application. They hold 
 good no more decidedly in the physical world than in the 
 sphere of the mind. Force succumbs to thought, however 
 fierce or protracted the strife. The stronger and healthier 
 ideas which we are wont to call truth, and for which those 
 who first proclaimed them may have suffered persecution 
 and death, always prevail finally over prejudice and error. 
 The grander and nobler sentiments, which we call morals, 
 ultimately assert their superior vitality in a warfare, 
 which at times might appear hopeless, against selfishness 
 and meanness. And it is these victories of truth and 
 morality, and not the rise and decay of empires, which 
 form the real landmarks of history: the ideas of a Plato 
 or Spinoza continue, and will ever continue, to influence 
 men's innermost lives ; and if in a history written on right 
 principles, great conquerors are remembered, it is because 
 their ambitious expeditions helped to diffuse the ideas of 
 philosophy and the discoveries of science. The most 
 comforting and most elevating feature of the new doctrines 
 is the uniform progress they proclaim. 
 
 'And are these doctrines, as is so often maintained, 
 quite devoid of poetry? Are they indeed low, material, 
 
 u 
 
290 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 and earthy? A poet's eye and temperament might perhaps 
 detect in them elements of beauty rivalling even the cosmic 
 splendours of the ancients. The Greeks endowed nature 
 with life and sympathy. But when the modern naturalist 
 sees in the oak not the life of one dryad but as many 
 stirring lives as it contains cells; when he sees in the 
 noble stag not an animal sacred to Artemis but a creature 
 with a gentle soul that can attach itself to our own 
 does he not lend to nature life, grace and sympathy 
 in a much higher spirit than the Greek? I believe, he is 
 almost realising the poet's conception of Nature: 
 
 "Life she received from the Fable, the Schoolmen have 
 
 rendered her soulless, 
 "Reason imparts her anew breath and the vigour of life". a 
 
 'And when, yielding to this disposition of mind, he 
 becomes aware that there is not a creature on this planet, 
 not a planet in our solar system, not a system in the 
 myriads of suns, which does not, in its minutest parts, obey 
 the same laws upon which he himself acts is there no poetry, 
 no sublimity, no idealism in this expansion of his humble 
 self to the infinitude of the universe ? Nor is this a vague or 
 impalpable abstraction ; it has the plastic unity and limita- 
 tion of Art; it can be felt, conceived, and expressed with 
 equal distinctness and power ; and if we learn to regulate 
 our lives accordingly, we cannot but be free, tranquil, high- 
 souled, and happy'. 
 
 'Not unjustly therefore', added Attinghausen, greatly 
 pleased, 'we may affirm, that the Monism which spon- 
 taneously results from the theory of evolution, is the long- 
 sought and much-desired system that harmonises the 
 dualistic views hitherto arrayed against each other in 
 implacable antagonism: it avoids the one-sidedness of 
 a coarse materialism, no less than an empty spiritualism; 
 it unites a theoretic realism and a practical idealism; 
 and it blends the sciences of nature and of philosophy 
 into one all-comprehensive and organic science'. b 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 291 
 
 'But do not forget', said Humphrey with bitter and 
 taunting sarcasm, 'that choicest offspring of your precious 
 Monism the Ape-Man 7 . 
 
 'I am far from forgetting him', said Attinghausen, 
 generously trying to conceal or to moderate his victory; 
 'and I look upon him with mingled pride and humility. 
 I do not know whether, in our time, many finer sentences 
 have been written than those with which Huxley concludes 
 his principal Essay I have committed them to memory: 
 
 ''Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with so extra- 
 ordinary a series of gradation as the Primates leading us 
 insensibly from the crown and summit of the animal creation 
 down to creatures* from which there is but a step, as it 
 seems, to the lowest, smallest, and least intelligent of the 
 placental Mammalia. It is as if Nature herself had foreseen 
 the arrogance of man, and with Roman severity had provided 
 that his intellect, by its very triumph, should call into 
 prominence the slaves admonishing the conqueror that he 
 is but dust"'. b 
 
 'Not all of him is mortal dust', said Abington solemnly; 
 'his Divine part is imperishable'. 
 
 'And if he be "the conqueror" over the lower creation', 
 added Canon Mortimer, 'he cannot forget, in the words 
 of Ecclesiastes as rendered by our host: "A high one 
 watches over a high one, and a Highest one over these"'. 
 
 'Untouched by the changeful speculations of the moment', 
 added Rabbi Gideon, 'are these three eternal truths: 
 there is a God; we have a Soul; and this soul is immortal. 
 Nor is it difficult to set these great points at rest for 
 ever, and to place them in security against all cavils of 
 sceptics and abject materialists'. 
 
 'The discussion of these important questions', said 
 Mondoza, 'which, with your leave, we will postpone till 
 to-morrow, will form at once a complement and a test of 
 the Monistic doctrines which have engaged us the last 
 two evenings. It will at the same time afford to our 
 conservative friends a great opportunity for recovering 
 the ground they may seem to have lost, if it does not 
 
292 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 entirely change the issue of the contest. Meanwhile we 
 may all rest assured in the conviction that, whosoever 
 were our first progenitors, the value and the true aims 
 of our lives remain precisely the same: no accident of 
 birth can rob us of our zeal for knowledge, of our enjoy- 
 ment of the beautiful, of the consciousness of our dignity, 
 or of our strong sense of duty. Nay, universal sympathy 
 as a constituent of human character and human happiness 
 is enforced by Monism with so much greater power and 
 significance than it was taught even by Stoicism, that it 
 almost assumes the value of a new element. There 
 can surely be no disgrace in having gained these heights, 
 not through, but in spite of, our ancestry, if the Roman 
 poet is right: 
 
 "Nam genus et proavos et quae non fecimus ipsi, 
 "Vix ea nostra voco'". 
 
 Humphrey, Gideon and some others were by no means 
 satisfied with this moderate estimate of Monism; but as they 
 could, at the moment, discover no tangible point of attack, 
 they reluctantly joined the groups that for some time 
 remained engaged in private interchange of views. 
 
VII. GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 
 
 As the topics of the ensuing enquiries had been distinctly 
 agreed upon, many of those who intended taking part in 
 the discussion, devoted the morning to the study of the 
 chief works treating on those subjects, and some arrived in 
 the evening at Cordova Lodge strongly armed with notes 
 and extracts which they hoped to make useful. The 
 eagerness which all displayed of shortening the preliminary 
 conversations, proved that they expected and desired a 
 pitched battle; and they were, therefore, well content 
 when Canon Mortimer, not long after he had entered the 
 room, began: 
 
 'It seems to me, to say the least, an unwarranted 
 exaggeration, even from the standpoint of science, to 
 describe the whole teaching of the Church as consisting of 
 undemonstrated dogmas. The cardinal point, the existence 
 of a personal God, apart from its being an axiom of our 
 reason and an instinctive demand of our nature, and 
 therefore universally adopted, apart from its constant 
 manifestation through our inner experience, and apart 
 from its absolute necessity as a bond of union connecting 
 all things visible and invisible I say, the existence of a 
 personal God, even irrespective of intuition and faith, 
 can be established by proofs as cogent as any that are 
 deemed sufficient in questions of science and history 7 . 
 
 'If you allude', said Hermes, 'to the four well-known 
 proofs which have found a place in Christian dogmatics, 
 you will, in our days, not find many, outside of theological 
 Colleges, willing to pronounce them satisfactory. They 
 move all, without exception, in a vicious circle, tacitly 
 assuming what they profess to substantiate. It is, for 
 
294 GOD, SOUL, IMMOBTALITY. 
 
 instance, inconceivable that any discipline except divinity 
 would have suffered for a moment the ontological argument 
 of your Archbishop Anselm, who contends that, as the 
 idea of a most perfect Being eo ipso includes the quality of 
 existence, a most perfect Being or a God exists; he 
 thus places the conclusion into the first premises, and 
 virtually declares: as there is a God, God exists'. 
 
 'There is some force in this objection', rejoined Mortimer 
 slowly; 'but certainly, the cosmological proof, as framed 
 by the high philosophical authorities of Leibniz and Wolf, 
 is unassailable : the infinite variety of accidental objects 
 necessarily claims an absolute Author ; an effect points to 
 a cause, this again to a remoter cause, and so onward 
 till we arrive at a Being that has no cause, but bears 
 the reason of His existence in Himself, and is the First 
 Cause of all possible things'. 
 
 'This again', said Attinghausen somewhat impatiently, 
 as if wished to get once for all rid of an unprofitable 
 subject, 'is nothing but putting the cart before the horse 
 in spite of your philosophical authorities. You simply 
 assume that, because there is variety, there must be unity, 
 and because there is accident, there must be necessity. 
 You conceive the cosmos as a whole, or a unity, and 
 therefore postulate an individual Author. You have in 
 your mind the idea of the absolute, and you transfer it, 
 without proof or reason, to the world. But how, if we 
 deny that there are "accidental" things in the world and, 
 on the contrary, affirm that everything exists according 
 to necessary and immutable laws? Then the pantheist, 
 turning the argument against yourself, may justly maintain 
 that, because there prevails in the universe an eternally 
 established order, the forces that produce or constitute 
 it, are that which is absolutely necessary, has the reason 
 of existence in itself, and is the ultimate cause of all 
 possibility or accident. The cosmological proof leads 
 up to a First Cause, but by no means imperatively to a 
 personal or intelligent one not imperatively to a God'. 
 
GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 295 
 
 'I think', said Wolfram, 'very little can be urged against 
 this line of reasoning which, like every truly logical deduc- 
 tion, confirms the conceptions of pantheism. "If each of 
 the things in the world has its reason in another thing, 
 and so on indefinitely, we do not obtain the idea of a 
 cause whose effect is the world, but of a substance, the 
 accidents of which are the individual objects in the world; 
 we obtain no God, but a universe resting on itself and 
 remaining unaltered in the constant change of things 
 visible"'.* 
 
 'I cannot see', said Mortimer with some confidence, 
 'that the regularity of the laws of nature is incompatible 
 with the belief in a ruling Providence. We insist indeed 
 that those laws have no absolute necessity; but in affirming 
 this we do not mean to assert that they are changeable 
 and subject to arbitrariness. "When eternal Wisdom 
 fixed them in the beginning, it surveyed their totality and 
 made among them such a choice, that all work in harmony; 
 and it is this harmony which man, with his limited powers, 
 strives to disclose. Constancy of the laws is far from 
 equivalent with their necessity?* 
 
 'This distinction', said Attinghausen with a shrug of 
 the shoulders, 'is much too subtle for a layman's intellect. 
 Whether the Creator abdicates in order to leave the 
 throne for all times to "constancy", calmly looking at the 
 horrible mischief perpetually wrought by His natural laws, 
 or whether from the first "necessity" dominates the same 
 laws of nature, is practically of little consequence. The 
 second alternative seems certainly more religious'. 
 
 'May I be allowed', said Hermes, 'to remind you of a 
 fine passage in Pliny, which, I believe, will satisfy our 
 friend Attinghausen himself? Pliny writes in the beginning 
 of his Natural History: 
 
 "The world and whatever that may be which we otherwise 
 call the heavens, in the vault of which everything lives, 
 must be conceived by us as a deity, and regarded as eternal, 
 boundless, both uncreated and imperishable . . . This being 
 
296 GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 
 
 is sacred as well as eternal and boundless; it is all in all, 
 or rather it is itself the all ; infinite, yet appearing to be 
 finite; in all things obeying settled laws, yet seeming to 
 be lawless ; without and within embracing all things in 
 itself; the work of original nature, and at the same time 
 itself nature"'. a 
 
 'This is not bad', said Attinghausen with a far less 
 decided approval than had been anticipated; 'yet it is 
 impossible to know what heresies may be hidden in the 
 word "deity" or numen'* 
 
 "You need not be uneasy', said Berghorn sarcastically; 
 'Pliny reproduces the atheism of Epicurus, though he veils 
 it by Stoic inconsistencies'. 
 
 'Can there be', resumed Mortimer hesitatingly, 'any 
 serious difficulty in accepting the third or pliysico-theolo- 
 gical proof? 
 
 'By all that is good and true' ! exclaimed Attinghausen, 
 'it requires the wilful blindness of orthodoxy to find in 
 this world of ours an excellence, harmony and fitness so 
 consummate that we needs must attribute it to a perfect and 
 loving Creator. A few days ago I have severely censured 
 the Stoics for preposterously attempting a "theodicy", 
 which Christian teachers have eagerly adopted and diligently 
 enlarged. I may ask again, where is that excellence, 
 harmony and fitness in the thousand evils that surround 
 us? in the interminable and ruthless destruction carried 
 on by all creatures against all ? in the numberless beings 
 which are called forth only to encounter a merciless and 
 fatal struggle without accomplishing the object of their 
 existence? in the base and wretched passions, which even 
 the Bible and the Church declare to be innate and in- 
 eradicable, and to engender temporal wretchedness and 
 eternal damnation ? If you, therefore, consider that the 
 fitness the world exhibits justifies you in supposing a good 
 Creator and Ruler, we must be allowed to assume another 
 Creator and Ruler to whom we can refer the manifold 
 unfitness found in the world, and especially that most 
 
GOD, SOUL, IMMOETALITY. 297 
 
 incongruous of all creations Man. We are thus driven 
 to Parseeism ; for the very Satan of the Christians, though 
 he be "like a roaring lion", is insufficient, since he is in 
 some way subordinate to God, whereas the second or 
 evil Creator is at least as powerful as the first'.* 
 
 'Must we then indeed', said Asho-raoco in deep medi- 
 tation, 'either believe in Ahriman or renounce Ahura- 
 mazda also'? 
 
 'Even heathen writers', said Humphrey, 'recognised and 
 extolled the wonderful perfection of earth and heaven 
 and the no less wonderful adaptation of every creature 
 to the purposes of its life, and were thus irresistibly led 
 to the acknowledgment of an all-wise creative Intelligence. 
 Citations are unnecessary; Cicero alone has expressed 
 this view in a hundred passages with inexhaustible elo- 
 quence and enthusiasm. 11 But if you do not believe the 
 ancients, you will believe Kant who observed: "Whosoever 
 reflectingly surveys the order that rules nature, is seized 
 with astonishment at a wisdom of which he had no con- 
 ception"; 6 and you will believe Goethe who declared: 
 "In contemplating the structure of the universe, we cannot 
 resist the conclusion that the whole is founded upon a 
 distinct idea". d And let me adduce one instance derived 
 from recent observation I mean the remarkable pheno- 
 menon of the so-called "sympathetic colours of animals", 
 that is, the resemblance of their chromatic appearance 
 with that of their usual surroundings; thus beetles settling 
 on leaves are commonly green; insects feeding on the 
 bark of trees, grey or brown; nocturnal butterflies, of a 
 spotted grey; medusae and fishes living on the surface of 
 the sea, glassy and transparent; quadrupeds like gazelles, 
 inhabiting sandy districts, yellow or yellowish-brown ; the 
 polar animals of the snow regions, white. Thus the 
 creatures are at once better fitted to escape the notice 
 of their enemies, and to approach their own prey un- 
 observed, than they would be if their colours were 
 conspicuously different from those of their abodes 
 
298 GOD, SOUL, IMMOETALITY. 
 
 which is manifestly a beneficent provision and intelligent 
 design'. 
 
 'This form of "beneficent provision and intelligent 
 design", said Attinghausen with a slight admixture of 
 anger, 'is another of the exploded fallacies, yet it still 
 remains one upon which ecclesiastics are fond to descant 
 with wearisome sameness, and for the support of which 
 by public Lectures and elaborate Treatises large endow- 
 ments have been made. a No one will deny that the Cre- 
 ation, as we now behold it, is imposing to such a degree 
 that our intellect often finds it indeed difficult to disavow 
 the impression of a directly creative and intelligent Cause. 
 But we should not forget that we see before us, con- 
 centrated in a single picture, the infinite effects of natural 
 forces that have incessantly operated during many millions 
 of years: no wonder, therefore, if that picture in its 
 totality sometimes appears to us stupendous and over- 
 whelming. As regards your recent observation, it has 
 been disposed of by researches still more recent, which 
 have transformed it into a striking corrob oration of "the 
 struggle for existence" : for the animals happening to 
 possess those sympathetic colours survived and transmitted 
 the same favourable tints to their descendants ; while the 
 rest, not enjoying this advantage, gradually succumbed. 
 And with respect to the question in general, what are 
 the facts? In spite of the marvellous mechanism of the 
 heavens, our planet is subject to convulsions and a wanton 
 rage of the elements that often in an instant destroy 
 thousands of men, demolish their laborious works, and 
 convert blooming districts into wastes and deserts. It is 
 true, we find a large number of creatures organised with 
 complete and often surprising fitness. But without en- 
 quiring how many unsuccessful attempts nature made 
 before that fitness was reached for we find not a few 
 useless or rudimentary organs, eyes that do not see, 
 wings that do not fly, teeth that never cut through the 
 gums, muscles that do not move b , and without, therefore, 
 
GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 299 
 
 arguing that the fitness apparently arises, not from the 
 design of an unfailing Intelligence, but from the working 
 of chance finally resulting in permanence and vitality, 
 we may ask, is that much-praised appropriateness general? 
 Moths are irresistibly attracted by the flame and burnt. 
 Flies, though possessing eyes of wonderful structure, are 
 unable to see the spider's web and are fatally entangled. 
 Spiders themselves, though remarkably organised for 
 capturing flies, are insufficiently armed against their own 
 enemies. The camel is often killed by eating poisonous 
 herbs which it has not the instinct to distinguish. Similar 
 examples will occur to you all indefinitely, though a few, 
 nay a single one, would be enough to establish the fact 
 that organic creations were produced, not by the wisdom 
 of a beneficent Artificer, but by the fortuitous concurrence 
 of mechanical causes acting with necessity. The faculty 
 of admiration is a precious boon fraught both with en- 
 joyment and profit, Yet it should not blind us. While 
 gratefully acknowledging man's physical, mental and moral 
 gifts, we should not overlook his grave deficiencies; for 
 he is not in all respects adapted to the existence into 
 which he has been called. The earth is rich and beau- 
 tiful, but it is not in every manner, and certainly not in 
 every part, a suitable abode of man. 3 It proves no har- 
 mony of design that myriads of sentient creatures cannot 
 live without preying upon other myriads of sentient crea- 
 tures. I know you find even in this sad fact a wonderful 
 scheme assigning to each tribe its special duties in the 
 economy of nature: thus the swallow and the nighthawk, 
 the woodpecker and chicadee, the warbler and flycatcher, 
 the blackbird and crow, the snipe and woodcock, have 
 "the duty" of devouring countless insects and thus to be, 
 respectively, "the guardians" of the atmosphere, of the 
 trunks and the foliage of trees, of the surface of the soil 
 and the subsoil, all of which would be hopelessly infested 
 or injured without those voracious protectors. You palliate 
 the general warfare on the plea of necessity : the offspring 
 
300 GOD, SOUL, IMMOETALITY. 
 
 of one couple of mice, if left unmolested, would in a few 
 years cover the whole face of the earth, and the offspring 
 of one couple of slowly propagating elephants would, at 
 the lowest computation, within five hundred years increase 
 to the number of fifteen millions of individuals. But that 
 necessity results from some palpable faults and deficiencies 
 in consequence of which all nature is filled with tragical 
 struggles and fearful agonies. In a perfect world each or- 
 S\ ganic creature would have its own useful object of existence 
 v^ \ and all would live together at least in peace, if not foi 
 A Mmutual support; as it is, vast numbers are only born t( 
 ^J be as soon as possible deprived of their noxious lives 
 as else all nature would perish, or at least men, in youi 
 eyes the chief objects of creation, could not exist. a The 
 argument of teleological fitness breaks down at ever 
 point'. 
 
 'I am curious to know', said Humphrey, covering hi 
 retreat with Parthian arrows, 'how in one of the example 
 referred to you account for the singular fact that som< 
 of the polar animals, as the northern fox, the ptarmigar 
 and the snow-hare, in the summer, when the snow ha 
 partially melted, always lose their white colour and be 
 come grey or brown? And as regards the struggle carrie< 
 on in nature, fanatic prejudice only can deny that it i 
 one of the most striking evidences of a superior wisdom 
 for "without it, without the uncertainty of existence an 
 the possibility of destruction, the organisms would b 
 robbed of the mightiest incentive to exertion, robbed c 
 the feeling of their own strength, which is the very sourc 
 of enjoyment and delight". Moreover, that struggle, whic 
 never yet has destroyed a single species of animals, ho^ 
 ever fatal it may be to individuals, is ordained in cor 
 sequence of the primeval curse, which on account of man' 
 sin has been laid upon Nature also; while man's warfai 
 with the animals and the elements is intended to shiel 
 him from indolence and apathy, from haughtiness an 
 self-sufficiency, and is, there-fore, in the hand of God, a 
 
GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 301 
 
 effectual means of training and education at once for a 
 more energetic and a more lowly life. Does this not 
 show that the alleged planlessness in the world does 
 not disturb the harmony of religious and teleological con- 
 ceptions, but that it belongs to them as the shadow be- 
 longs to the picture'? 4 
 
 As Attinghausen did not reply, as was expected, but 
 looked, with raised eye-brows and firmly closed lips, into 
 vacancy, as if the matter did not concern him at all, 
 Canon Mortimer, summoning fresh confidence, said: 
 
 'I will not urge these points further, but I am certain, 
 the fourth and chief proof of a Divine Ruler, which the 
 great Kant himself has put forward, is logically un- 
 impeachable. He justly designated it the moral demon- 
 stration; for starting from the axiom that practical reason 
 demands a perfect accordance of our thoughts and acts 
 with the law of morality, and that this accordance, in 
 conjunction with true felicity, constitutes the sovereign '^ 
 good after which we strive and are bound to strive, and />" 
 moreover rightly affirming that the sovereign good as just 
 defined viz. the combination of morality and happiness- 
 can only be conceived as attainable if we at the same */ 
 time conceive a Being that embodies it in all perfection, .. 
 he concludes with irrefragable consistency that there / 
 must be such a Being, that is, that there exists a God ''* 
 who, if there is in the lives of men a disproportion be- 
 tween the two factors, is able to remedy it in a future 
 world'. 
 
 'We ought really to be grateful to you', said Atting- 
 hausen laughing, 'for stating the subtle argument with 
 such clearness, since, so stated, it is almost its own re- 
 futation. From beginning to end it is a menial process 
 without any necessary existence in reality. The great 
 and noble-minded philosopher had formed in his intellect 
 the idea of a highest good composed of virtue and hap- 
 piness, and he set forth this idea as if it were a reality, 
 and called it God. Thus he created his God and, as is 
 
302 GOD, SOUL, IMMOETALITY. 
 
 usual in similar operations, he created Him after his 
 own image. The mistake he made is hardly less striking 
 than that involved in his "volition argument", which de- 
 clares: "I will the good, God is the good, and by virtue 
 of my will I grasp the belief in God" which is virtually 
 faith, not argument. Yet beyond this you will never be 
 able to pass. a I admit that "the conviction of an all- 
 seeing Deity has had a potent influence on the advance- 
 ment of morality"; 13 but we can accept nothing as con- 
 viction without adequate proofs, which you are unable to 
 produce, and instead of which you must be satisfied with 
 those "aparts" which our excellent Canon, at the be- 
 ginning of his remarks, dismissed as subordinate satisfied 
 with a God who is "an axiom of our reason and an in- 
 stinctive demand of our nature, a constant revelation of 
 our inner experience and a universal bond of union". 
 And fortunately such a God is eminently fitted to make 
 men both happy and upright, because, being an emanation 
 from themselves alone, He is readily obeyed as the Lawgiver 
 and Judge; whereas history teaches but too plainly how 
 little influence over the hearts and actions of men is 
 exercised by a transcendent God of fear, wielding the 
 awful rod of wrath and chastisement'. 
 
 'Even so I see no need of dissension', said the Canon 
 suavely. 'May not the world have purposely been so 
 framed by God that there are, and that there can be, 
 no positive proofs in all such questions? The prob- 
 lems of the exact sciences are ultimately solved in such 
 a manner as to compel men's assent, whatever their degree 
 of piety: would such a belief, in matters relating to re- 
 ligious life, be desirable? Forced upon the mind, it would 
 be without any moral value. As it is, every man has the 
 free choice according to his inclination, and the right 
 decision is accounted to him as a merit'. 
 
 'This is excellent theology' ! exclaimed "Wolfram. 
 
 'And let me add another consideration', continued the 
 Canon. 'The doubts which assail our minds with respect to 
 
GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 303 
 
 heavenly things, are experienced by us as a painful want; but 
 this very privation makes us in our innermost hearts feel the 
 reality of that which is the object of our doubts; and 
 thus our apparent distance from God often reveals the 
 stars of a deeper faith than are visible in the glare of 
 a supposed knowledge attained by reason'. 
 
 'This, I think', said Movayyid-eddin, 'must also have 
 been the opinion of the author of the Arabic work Ni- 
 yaristan, who addresses Allah: "If Thou pleasest, delight 
 me by Thy presence, or if Thou preferrest, let me sigh 
 through Thy absence"'.* 
 
 'It seems to me', said Abington with great seriousness, 
 'a signal triumph of truth that the man who has perhaps 
 inflicted deeper wounds on Christianity than any other 
 scholar within the present century I say, I consider it 
 a noteworthy triumph of truth that Strauss in his last 
 work, though betraying Christ even more heartlessly than 
 ever before, felt at least constrained to recognise in the 
 world a supreme Intelligence and virtually returned to 
 the fold of monotheism'. 
 
 'I am extremely glad', said Attinghausen with eagerness, 
 'that you have reminded us of this new form of "mo- 
 notheism". It is needless for me to express the respect 
 and gratitude I entertain for Strauss not only for having 
 clearly proved the whole of the Gospel narrative to be 
 a tissue of idle myths, but especially for having brought 
 the study of the Bible into close connection with natural 
 science, and especially with Darwinism. b How great, 
 therefore, is my astonishment at his recent theory devoid 
 both of his usual acumen and his characteristic soberness 
 of judgment! The God he proclaims is "the law-governed 
 Universe invested with life and reason". This Universe 
 possesses indeed all the chief and obnoxious criteria of 
 a positive faith: it involves a theodicy interpreting all 
 the terrible evils of the world as instruments for main- 
 taining general harmony ; d it is "rational and good" and 
 "the primary Source of all that is rational and good"; 
 
304 GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 
 
 it is that on which men feel their absolute dependent 
 and to which they submit with loving confidence; it i 
 exclusive, dogmatic, . and violently fanatical ; any attacl 
 ventured against its majesty is both absurd and " blas- 
 phemous" ; a nay this Universe enforces the same piefr 
 which the believer of the old style claims for his God 
 since it is impossible to tolerate in any man a denial o 
 the feeling of dependence. Yet in spite of all this, w< 
 are startled by such phrases as: "The Universe is orde: 
 and law" which sounds, not like a personality, but lik( 
 an abstraction; or: "The Universe is no elementary powe] 
 to which we must bend with mute resignation" whicl 
 seems to assign to man a certain freedom; or lastly 
 "The Universe admits no cultus or worship, since it ii 
 unable to fulfil any human wish or satisfy any humai 
 want"; the notion of Divine service being altogether "* 
 low anthropopathism". What, therefore, is the relatioi 
 between Strauss' doctrine and that of the Church? H( 
 looks upon the world not as the work of an absolutely 
 rational and good individuality, but as the "manufactory' 
 Werkstatte of all that is rational and good; not a* 
 designed ~by a highest reason but for the highest reason. 1 
 How is this to be understood? There is no rational ar- 
 tificer but a "manufactory" of the rational: whence does 
 Reason come if there is no prototype of Reason? Yet the 
 world is "designed" for the highest reason designed b} 
 whom or by what? This would require a designer, thai 
 is, one who conceives the design. How does Strauss 
 extricate himself from this dilemma? By an expediem 
 which would do honour to any Scholastic casuist anc 
 which is indeed borrowed from another system. Thai 
 distinction, he says, "results from the narrowness and in- 
 completeness of our human understanding; in reality the 
 Universe is at once cause and effect, at once extrinsic 
 and intrinsic". In a word, the Universe has reason be- 
 cause it is identical with a rational Author who does not 
 exist ! c This is the wisdom of the wise if they perforce 
 
GOD, SOUL. IMMOETALITY. 305 
 
 will not give up metaphysics, and the piety of the pious 
 if they want perforce to have a religion over and above 
 ethics, philosophy and science! Strauss seemed on the 
 very point of piloting his way successfully from a monistic 
 idealism to a scientific monism, when he was unfortu- 
 nately shipwrecked by the Siren songs of transcendental 
 speculation 7 . 
 
 'Not a single day', said Humphrey with undisguisedal 
 anger for "the Universe" of Strauss had been publicly 
 hailed by him as a "conversion" /not a single day could 
 a community ruled on your principles exist or be secure. 
 Anarchy would shake society to its very centre; all the 
 frenzied passions of evil, let loose without check or restraint, 
 would bring back chaos; and a barbarism would be re- 
 established more fiendish and more shockingly cruel than 
 any that, in former ages, spread ruin and desolation, be- 
 cause it would fight with the terribly efficient weapons 
 of civilisation'. 
 
 'Your alarm', said Attinghausen with uncommon calm- 
 ness, 'is proved by experience to be groundless. Atheistic 
 states have existed and flourished for thousands of years. 
 The Chinese, Tartars, Mongols, and Tibetans have in 
 their languages no word to express the idea of God, and 
 the Japanese have no belief in a God in your sense; yet 
 China is one of the oldest and Japan one of the best 
 regulated commonwealths on earth. The question is not 
 new. It has been made famous by the controversy which, 
 in the last century, was carried on by Bayle and Voltaire. 
 Bayle affirmed the possible stability of atheistic polities, 
 Yoltaire denied it. At that time the subject could only 
 be argued theoretically, and Yoltaire maintained that the 
 nations referred to could with as little justice be called 
 atheists as they could be called Anti-Cartesians, since 
 they have no more heard of God than they have heard 
 of Descartes, and, like children, are neither atheists nor 
 deists. a But since then a flood of light has been thrown 
 upon the East and its religions, and assertions like those 
 
306 GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 
 
 of Voltaire sound at present paradoxical. Buddha was 
 deeply imbued with the large pantheon of Brahmanism, 
 yet he ignored a deity and was practically an atheist; 
 and the many millions who, from his age to ours, have 
 followed his views, are above all other men distinguished 
 by law-abiding integrity and gentle peacefulness. The 
 argument of despair is, therefore, as futile as it is un- 
 necessary; it leads, moreover, to the inevitable corollary, 
 that the worldly authorities or the guardians of public 
 safety, are bound to enforce the belief in God by perse- 
 cution, imprisonment and torture, in fact to stamp hetero- 
 doxy as a civil crime, and the sceptic as an outlaw.* 
 
 'But I must make one additional remark', he continued 
 with great earnestness. 'You call the monists perpetually 
 atheists and think you have thereby branded us with the 
 darkest ignominy as pernicious and execrable monsters. 
 The word has an ominous sound to timid souls, just as 
 not long since the word Republican had. But Buddha 
 could not glory more in the name of "Great Mendicant" 
 than we glory in the name of Atheists, if the term is 
 understood to involve rejection of your God. Yet we 
 solemnly protest against the charge that we are without 
 a God, or that we are believers in "Nothing". We are 
 neither Atheists nor Nihilists. Our God is no personal 
 Being, that is, He is not finite, limited, human-like. He 
 is all in all. He is to us Duty, Devotion, Fidelity unto 
 death. We can live and die for this God; for He is one 
 with ourselves. He is our Reason, our Conscience, our 
 Charity. He is our Law and our Liberty; but as the 
 freest republics have the severest laws, so He exacts from 
 us the strictest submission and self-control. He is not 
 a negation, but an active principle that at every moment 
 impels us to shun what is mean and contemptible, and to 
 perform what is righteous and beneficial. He is not an 
 empty abstraction, because He is the sum of all qualities 
 which experience and wisdom have taught us to be pure 
 and noble. And He is not cheerless or saddening, for 
 
GOD, SOUL, IMMOKTALITY. 307 
 
 He is our Hope and our Faith our hope of the ultimate 
 reign of truth and goodness, and our faith in His power 
 to establish on earth that happy dominion. Our God is 
 like your God in all that contributes to elevation and 
 tranquillity; but He is entirely within us to warn, to 
 direct, and to encourage. He is, in fact, that "unknown 
 God" who "is not far from every one of us"'! 
 
 'This is very fine and beautiful', said Movayyid-eddin, 
 shaking his head doubtingly, 'but I cannot quite see that 
 it is religion. We are taught that religion is a faith 
 existing from all eternity and lasting to the end of time 
 unchanged; and as far as I know, our Jewish and Christian 
 friends agree on this point with us Mohammedans. As 
 they believe that the Law and the Logos were with God 
 from all ages, so we believe that the Koran existed, and 
 was treasured up in heaven, before the world was created, 
 and will remain our unerring guide to the cessation of 
 all things. But if I understand our learned naturalist 
 rightly, everyone makes his religion for himself, and alters 
 it whensoever and howsoever he pleases. This seems to 
 me most questionable and dangerous. Our sect has re- 
 jected the greatest part of the oral traditions for no other 
 reason than because they appeared to us to modify the 
 teaching of the eternal Book'. 
 
 'Justly', said Panini, 'our poet exhorts: 
 
 "Non prendano i inortali il voto a ciancia; 
 "Siate fideli"'! 
 
 'True', said Wolfram, 'but he adds: 
 
 "Ed a cio far non bieci 
 
 "Come fu Jepte alia sua prima mancia"'. a 
 
 'The Mussulman shames the Christian', said Humphrey 
 eagerly; 'there must be a binding law this is the true 
 meaning of religion, and its proper essence is Authority 
 or rather Divine authority, or, as Kant expresses it, the 
 recognition of our duties as Divine commandments 
 accedat Verbum ad elementum et fit sacramentum, says 
 St. Augustine : for this alone is constant amidst universal 
 
308 GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 
 
 fluctuation, certain amidst general uncertainty, "the fixed 
 pole in the fugitive phenomena of the moment"'. 
 
 'This would be admirable', said Wolfram, 'if man re- 
 mained unchanged. But Havre* ^s? everything is in a 
 state of flux. The only thing unchangeable is change.* 
 As the whole of organic nature is one unbroken process 
 of metamorphosis, so is the mind of man. While we 
 speak, we are changed. The thought that struck us 
 yesterday as unassailable, appears to us doubtful to-day; 
 the object we admire to-day as exquisite, may leave us 
 indifferent to-morrow. We are like the shadow of a tree, 
 thrown upon a running stream. The precepts that warmed 
 the hearts and inspired the moral energies of our ancestors, 
 may have no meaning for us and may fall upon our ears as 
 a dead language. If in their stead other rules have been 
 discovered which so warm and inspire us, they are our 
 religion yet only so long as they produce the same be- 
 neficent effects ; when they have ceased to do so, or, in 
 other words, when we have materially changed, they must 
 be changed likewise. A fearful responsibility is incurred 
 by legislators who pledge future generations to institutions 
 they deem expedient for their own, States that were ruled 
 by unalterable laws stagnated and soon decayed. Com- 
 munities which accepted an unalterable code of religion, 
 lapsed into superstition, hypocrisy, and wickedness: the 
 words remained, but each worshipper associated with them 
 a special meaning; and while uniformity was professed, 
 a confusing diversity prevailed. This is eminently the case 
 in our own time. The Judaism of the present Jews is not 
 the Judaism of Shammai or the compilers of the Talmud, 
 and the Christianity of the present Christians is not the 
 Christianity of a Jerome or a Luther, though the received 
 rites and formulas are in the main identical. This incessant 
 shifting and modifying are the terms on which alone the 
 ancient creeds can be preserved at all, and to which we 
 happily owe the existence of many enlightened men who 
 still call themselves Jews and Christians. Admit, there- 
 
GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 309 
 
 fore, in theory what you cannot help practising, though 
 you practise it often unconsciously; and by making your 
 words conformable to your acts, relieve your consciences 
 from the burden of insincerity. Our religions have been 
 brought to us from the Eastern lands of immobility ; free 
 them from the defects of their origin and thus secure 
 for them a new life. Do not be afraid there is "a fixed 
 pole in the fugitive phenomena of the moment": it is 
 man's moral and intellectual nature. Not all of you are 
 perhaps familiar with the beautiful little poem of Goethe 
 bearing on this subject; anticipating the turn our dis- 
 cussion has taken, I have this morning tried to translate 
 it into English blank verse I could not attempt the 
 rhymes , and I beg your permission to read to you the 
 imperfect version. It is the poem: "Dauer im Wechsel" or 
 
 PERMANENCE IN CHANGE. 
 
 "Cannot, oh! this vernal blessing 
 Tarry e'en a single hour? 
 Lo! a shower of tender blossoms 
 Falls by zephyr's gentle breeze. 
 Will this foliage still delight me, 
 That affords us grateful shade? 
 Soon it shall lie seared and withered, 
 Scattered by autumnal blasts. 
 
 Dost thou wish the fruits to gather? 
 Quickly seize thy rightful share! 
 These begin e'en now to ripen, 
 Those appear to bud and swell: 
 Instantly by every rainfall 
 Is the lovely valley changed; 
 Nor, alas! in the same river 
 Dost thou swim a second time. 
 
 And thyself! What firm and rocklike 
 Struck thy wond'ring gaze before 
 Walls thou seest and stately mansions 
 Ever with a varying eye. 
 
310 GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Vanished is the lip that truly 
 Found the kiss a healing balm, 
 Grone the foot that on the mountain 
 With the chamois dared to vie. 
 
 And the hand that, kind and ready, 
 Lavished gifts of charity, 
 And the frame, the limbs so stalwart, 
 Are no longer what they were. 
 And what, in their stead, at present 
 Calls itself by thy old name, 
 Came in silence like a wavelet, 
 And so hastens to its goal. 
 
 Let the end and the beginning 
 As a whole be closely joined! 
 Let thy own self move more swiftly 
 Than the things that round thee move! 
 Praise the favour of the Muses, 
 Who will grant thee changeless boons: 
 Wealth of high thoughts in thy bosom, 
 Form and beauty in thy mind". 
 
 'This is our only safety', concluded Wolfram: 'follow 
 the poet's wise counsel and in forestalling the flight of 
 time and its changes, guard what is imperishable and 
 all-sufficient 
 
 "Den Gehalt in deinem Busen 
 "Und die Form in deinem Geist"'. a 
 
 'This is excellent', said Attinghausen cheerfully, 'as far 
 as it goes ; but it does not go far enough. The laws to 
 which you have referred apply to the inorganic as well 
 as to the organic world. There exists nowhere inert 
 matter or a quiescent substance remaining unchanged. 
 All is in constant motion, every rock, every grain of 
 sand, every particle of metal; and that motion is the 
 force or soul of the substance. The difference between 
 organic and inorganic nature is not absolute, but only 
 one of degree. The motion may, in every instant, be 
 infinitesimal and utterly imperceptible, yet it is carried 
 
GOD, SOUL, IMMOKTALITY. 311 
 
 on irresistibly and after longer intervals manifests itself 
 in changes often astounding. The great geological epochs 
 with their prodigiously varied formations have not, as was 
 long believed, been caused by violent and periodical 
 revolutions of mysterious origin, but by the slow and calm 
 operation of matter continued uninterruptedly through 
 thousands of millenniums.* "The mighty masses of the 
 Alpine mountain chains are nothing but hardened sea 
 mud". The phosphorus united with chalk in the (bone, 
 appears dead, and yet it is the same which, combined in 
 the brain with fat and other matter, co-operates in the 
 production of thought. There is neither matter without 
 mind, nor mind without matter, but only that which is 
 both at once. The separation of the two exists not in 
 nature nor in the objects; it is an artificial operation of the 
 human intellect and a mischievous one; for in the separa- 
 tion, neither the one nor the other is properly understood. 11 
 All manifestations of the soul invariably depend on 
 parts of the animal body, which form the "soul apparatus'" 
 on the organs of the senses, the nerves and muscles, 
 or, in the lower animals, on the cell groups or even individual 
 cells. For this law extends to the very polypes, which, 
 destitute of any nervous system, perform the functions of 
 the soul sensation, will, movement -by means of a single 
 cell, the exterior of which is nerve, while the inner half 
 is muscle; so that, as the whole skin is the seat bf the 
 soul, the remarkable result follows that, if, for instance, 
 a hydra-polype is cut into any number of pieces, as many 
 perfect polypes are, within a few weeks, developed from 
 these fragments. There is absolutely no function without 
 an organ, no organ without a function. If parts of the brain 
 of a man or an animal decay or are taken out successful 
 experiments have been made with several animals , a cer- 
 tain set of impressions or conceptions vanishes. A dog, 
 a portion of whose brain had been removed, no longer 
 recognised the bowl in which he had been accustomed 
 to get his milk ; yet after some time, his memory, attaching 
 
312 GOD, SOUL, IMMOETALITY. 
 
 itself to some of the remaining sections of the organ, 
 was gradually revived. Whereas the deterioration, or even 
 the loss, of limbs not directly connected with the brain, 
 as of the arm or leg, does riot affect the intellectual life, 
 greater or smaller injuries of the brain, nay even a slight 
 pressure, disturb the functions of thought, or cause their 
 total cessation. An officer of the Prussian army had been 
 wounded in the head, and been badly cured. He fell 
 into utter obtuseness and became a common labourer. 
 Many years afterwards, his head was by an accident again 
 damaged. This time lie had the good fortune of being 
 attended in the hospital by the celebrated Grafe, who 
 found that, in consequence of the previous unskilful 
 treatment, the injured bone had formed an excrescence 
 which pressed on the brain. Grafe was able to remove 
 the abnormal growth, when the officer at once recovered 
 his intelligence and the remembrance of his professional 
 career, which he had entirely lost. a Gall's phrenology may, 
 in its detailed application, be difficult or even questionable; 
 but that it rests on a sound basis, is manifest from the 
 conformation of the brain itself, which, in the two symme- 
 trical hemispheres, and in the lobes pointing to other 
 subdivisions, obviously betrays a systematic constitution 
 of parts meant to serve as the organs for different func- 
 tions; indeed certain parts have, with sufficient clearness, 
 been "recognised as the seats of distinct faculties, whether 
 mechanical or intellectual; and as our monistic physiology 
 advances, the important doctrine of Gall, now unduly 
 neglected, will be cultivated with a new zest. In a word, 
 we cling to the irrefutable conclusion, that no mental 
 function is possible without a physical substratum'. 
 
 'Pray, moderate your triumphant confidence'! said 
 Humphrey ; 'you will not find it easy to overcome a per- 
 plexity created by your own "exact observations". You 
 suppose, it may be justly, that the human organism is 
 constantly subjected to a change of matter in such a 
 way that it is more than once completely renewed in the 
 
GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 313 
 
 course of our lives perhaps once in seven years, the brain 
 probably even more often on account of its greater activity. 
 Now if man's memory, reflection and mental acquirements 
 are tied to his brain substance, how does it happen that 
 he retains his full knowledge even after an entirely new 
 substance has taken the place of the old one in which 
 that knowledge is supposed to have been imprinted? how 
 does it, above all, happen that it is just the earliest 
 impressions which are the most permanent and remain 
 freshest up to old age, after the brain must have repeatedly 
 and thoroughly changed? Do the new atoms receive the 
 experiences of the defunct ones as a sacred bequest? 
 How, then, can you account for the identity of consciousness 
 and personality, which, as a matter of fact, is virtually 
 preserved from the earliest to the latest years of life ? 
 Your coarse materialism is scattered to the winds by this 
 single difficulty'.* 
 
 'I admit', said Attinghausen laughing, 'the objection is 
 cleverly devised; but it might easily be removed even by 
 those who advance it, if it were in their interest to do so. 
 Starting from the safe principle of explaining the unknown 
 by the known, we simply say that as, on the one hand, 
 the permanent identity of consciousness, and, on the other 
 hand, the intimate connection of mental functions with 
 the brain and nervous system, are undoubted facts, it 
 follows that the change of matter in the human organism, 
 which is also an undoubted fact, must proceed in such 
 a mode as not to interfere with the impressions previously 
 stamped on the brain, whether that change is not so 
 complete as is generally supposed, or the very gradual 
 substitution of the atoms does not efface their original 
 configuration, especially if the first impressions were strong 
 and deep. This much is certain that our bodily substance 
 is always reproduced in precisely the same shape which 
 it possessed from the beginning, so that even scars and 
 slight injuries in the skin are invariably so replaced by 
 the newly formed matter. We are not ashamed to confess 
 
314 GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 
 
 that this is one of the points enveloped in a veil of 
 mystery, which we are as yet unable to lift. We are 
 still ignorant of the manner in which magnetism is allied 
 with steel and iron, or electricity with other bodies; yet 
 our ignorance in this respect does not mislead us into 
 declaring such alliances to be deceptions, or into supposing 
 that magnetism and electricity exist apart from the steel 
 and apart from the electric substances. Why, then, should 
 we reason differently in the analogous instance of brain 
 and mental function, and. denying the close connection 
 of both, assume a mind apart from matter and thus 
 attribute to man two distinct and essentially different 
 natures? Yet we ought not to overlook', he added with 
 a melancholy smile, 'that man really forgets a good deal. 
 I have heard men who had been first-rate classical scholars 
 in their College period, complain that ten or fifteen years 
 afterwards they could not read a Greek tragedy without 
 great effort ; a and musicians who do not constantly practise 
 on their instrument, soon lose the skill of execution, the 
 character of which is partly technical and partly intellectual. 
 Nor should we overlook that, intellectually and morally, we 
 are apt to change during our lives so essentially that there 
 is some ground for the contention that two men are rarely 
 so dissimilar to each other as the same man is to himself 
 in two extreme periods of his existence: this may be an 
 exaggeration, but our theory does not require so large 
 a concession'. 
 
 'You seem', said Abington, 'to be yourself aware of 
 the weakness of your plea ; instead, therefore, -of replying 
 to it, I may venture a general observation. It will ever 
 remain an axiom of common sense that neither "matter" 
 nor "force" is able to think, but that man thinks. For 
 some time we have heard comparatively little of the "free 
 phosphorus" of the brain to which a conspicuous part had 
 long been assigned in the operations of the mind. Yet 
 it appears true that these operations' are in some special 
 manner associated with a cerebral function or a molecular 
 
GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 315 
 
 working of the brain. But in acknowledging this, we must 
 guard against the great error of identifying both actions. 
 When the telegraph speaks, an electro -chemical process 
 is carried on ; but what it speaks is entirely independent 
 of this process, and is determined by a distinct intelligence. 
 In the same manner, the brain is the instrument of the 
 mind, not the mind itself. When an organ is played, its 
 sound-producing parts are moved in a certain complicated 
 manner; but the fugue that is played is not the work of 
 the organ, and only in a limited sense the work of the 
 executing artist, but rather that of the creating composer. 
 Thus the material brain is merely the apparatus mani- 
 pulated and worked by the mind, which is distinct from 
 that mechanical contrivance 
 
 ""But the soul is not the body": and the breath is not 
 
 the flute; 
 "Both together make the music: either marred and all is mute"'. a 
 
 *As you judiciously admit', said Attinghausen with satis- 
 faction, 'the close relation between thought and the molecular 
 action of the brain, I have only to reply that the impelling 
 agent of this action that is, the sender of your telegraphic 
 despatch or your musical executant is in most cases an 
 outward impression, and in some instances the will, a 
 reminiscence, or an association of ideas. That the brain 
 is so induced or obliged to operate, is perceived by everyone 
 who observes himself impartially; but how it performs 
 this work, is a part of that problem of consciousness, 
 which constitutes our most difficult task. All elementary 
 forces have hitherto proved inexplicable; we know nothing 
 of the inner nature of gravity, hardness, electricity, pro- 
 pulsion; and we are well aware that, in saying the mind 
 produces thought, we are only putting obscure words 
 for an obscure idea. Yet it does not behove us to despair 
 of an ultimate solution ; for, as Darwin justly observes, "it is 
 those who know little, and not those who know much, 
 who so positively assert that this or that problem will 
 never be solved by science"'. b 
 
316 GOD, SOUL, IMMOETALITY. 
 
 'This then', said Rabbi Gideon after a short interval, 
 'is the worthy crowning-stone of your noble edifice! 
 Compared to your whims and freaks, the quadruple mind 
 or soul of the Epicureans is soberness itself. Your "soul" 
 is an agglomeration of cells, or rather the sum of the 
 "souls" that animate those cells; hence it would follow that, 
 the bulkier a creature, the more large-souled it must be, 
 and men would have less intelligence than the stupid 
 rhinoceros. And where do you find the room for "the 
 reason" of your tiny idols, the ants, with their scanty 
 number of living compartments 7 ? 
 
 'It is easy enough', said Attinghausen, good-humouredly 
 joining in the general laughter, 'to ridicule an hypothesis 
 which must sound strange to those who cannot be acquainted 
 with the wonderful revelations of morphology and biology. 
 There is, of course, a distinction to be made between the 
 vital and the mental functions; the seat of the latter is 
 the brain, the structure of which in the ant is indeed 
 remarkable; and remembering the diversified instincts and 
 faculties of this insect, and considering that its central 
 ganglia are not so large as the quarter of a small pin's 
 head, we must confess that "the brain of the ant is one 
 of the most marvellous atoms of matter in the world, 
 perhaps more marvellous than the brain of man". a Stated 
 with greater precision, our law of biology is this : A cell 
 consists of small particles which we call plastidules; but 
 these are composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and 
 nitrogen, and are each endowed with a separate soul 
 which is the aggregate or product of the powers possessed 
 by the chemical atoms. We have not reached this 
 hypothesis at a bound, but have been pressed towards it 
 step by step ; and while each successive stage was small, 
 we are ourselves surprised at the final result, which, just 
 because it was forced upon us by logical necessity, we 
 consider impregnable'. 
 
 'Your preposterous revelations', said Humphrey, greatly 
 irritated, 'are not alone rejected by the educated in general, 
 
GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 317 
 
 but have been repudiated and satirised by no less an authority 
 than Virchow, the very discoverer of "cellular pathology'', 
 a theory which wilful enthusiasts grasp and indefinitely 
 enlarge, even after Virchow himself has partially abandoned 
 it as untenable. It was of no avail that he protested 
 against their extravagant application of his doctrine they 
 persistently continue to build upon it their aerial castles. 
 How, the mind asks in amazement, can you, by summing 
 up carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, get a soul? 
 What are your criteria? You idly play with empty words. 
 "If we declare attraction and repulsion to be phenomena 
 of the mind or of the soul, we simply throw the soul out 
 of the window, and the soul ceases to be soul". a It is futile 
 to point out the transition of inorganic into organic matter 
 or the connection between the material and the spiritual 
 world; and it is ridiculous to attribute to the lowest 
 animals psychical qualities not clearly discoverable in the 
 highest. The momentous principle of Harvey, Omne 
 vivum ex ovo, though subject to a few exceptions, still 
 preserves its general truth. b It is surely no edifying 
 spectacle to see rival schools of naturalists assail, nay 
 abuse each other publicly on a fundamental question 
 which should command unanimity. Scarcely has one of 
 the oracles propounded a "Pangenesis-hypothesis", when 
 another confronts it with an hypothesis of the "Perigenesis 
 of the Plastidule", which, like the former, modestly aims 
 at "explaining the whole of the phenomena of organic 
 development by elementary processes strictly mechanical, 
 physical and chemical"; and now the strife is raging 
 between the "gemmulae" of the one and the plastidules 
 or molecules of the other; and one party is fighting for the 
 promiscuous diffusion of the germs of life, and another for 
 their "undulating generation". c But even these scandals 
 are providential, for they open the eyes of an unbiassed 
 public to the pernicious effects of the "impregnable" 
 results of physical science, and to the recklessness of 
 which we should be guilty were we to give up, in favour 
 
318 GOD, SOUL, IMMOETALITY. 
 
 of such hallucinations, truths and doctrines that have been 
 the strength, the comfort, and the glory of so many 
 generations'. 
 
 'In the interests of liberty itself, said Abington earnestly, 
 'it is desirable that the boundless license of hazardous 
 teaching should be checked. The reasonable freedom we 
 now happily enjoy must be endangered if carried to a 
 point which society might feel compelled to characterise 
 as dangerous. "Try to picture to yourselves what shape 
 the doctrine of evolution is likely to take in the head of a 
 socialist! I sincerely hope that it may not bring us all the 
 terrors which similar theories have really called forth in 
 a neighbouring country". a The right of free enquiry must 
 indeed be conceded to science yet only to true science; 
 for that true science which is based on safe facts, can 
 never be in conflict with that true religion which flows 
 from the holy depths of human nature'. 
 
 'The most precious boons', added Berghorn, 'have been 
 forfeited by excess; and it is a wicked excess on the 
 part of men of science who, knowing the utter uncertainty 
 of their surmises, insist on imparting them to our youth 
 as authoritative dogmas with the undisguised object of 
 undermining the teaching of Christianity and putting in 
 its place the insane superstition of the miraculous power 
 of atoms and molecules'. 
 
 'Are we indeed', said Attinghausen, staring at the 
 speaker, 'to fetter the liberty of ... 
 
 'The indulgence of society', interrupted Gideon, 'has its 
 limits. The Law of Sinai is older than the law of evolution, 
 and it is Divine. The blasphemies which are constantly 
 uttered without punishment or atonement, must call down 
 fearful retribution on godless nations. Duty and expediency 
 alike demand that they should be suppressed, and that 
 those by whom they are taught should be removed from 
 academical chairs they abuse and degrade'. 
 
 'Are we then to understand', said Attinghausen, turning 
 mechanically from one speaker to another, 'that' . . . 
 
GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 319 
 
 'Not even the Hebrew prophets', interrupted Panini, 
 'those staunch champions of liberty, though they would 
 perhaps not, like Moses in the desert, have stoned the 
 blasphemer to death I say, not even the Hebrew prophets 
 would have tolerated the unblushing denial of the Lord 
 of earth and heaven. They could not have listened without 
 indignation to the folly of placing the animals, which they 
 described as mere "flesh and not spirit",* on a level with 
 men, who were deemed worthy to receive the holy re- 
 velations of the Eternal'. 
 
 '0 ye of little faith' ! said Canon Mortimer rebukingly ; 
 'are you afraid that God cannot plead His own cause, 
 fight His own battle? Let Him be served by every one 
 according to his lights. For indeed, indeed, even those 
 whom you accuse of having deserted Him, glorify His 
 name by searching and unfolding the wonders of His 
 works. They entertain new thoughts as we are bidden 
 to welcome strangers and thereby some of them have 
 entertained angels unawares'. 
 
 'With golden letters', said Melville, 'we should publicly 
 and conspicuously engrave the words of Spinoza explaining 
 the object of one of his chief Treatises, which is intended to 
 show "that the liberty of philosophising may not only be 
 allowed without danger to piety and to the commonwealth, 
 but that it can only be destroyed together with the peace 
 of the commonwealth and piety itself ". b This sentence 
 is a precious treasure, a great work in itself. 
 
 Gregovius, Hermes, Wolfram and Subbhuti were about 
 to speak, but Attinghausen anticipated them and said 
 calmly but with a raised voice, turning to Humphrey and 
 those who had joined in his protests: 
 
 'I despise your threats and alarms I am accustomed to 
 them. You cannot, fortunately, restore your noble institu- 
 tions of the inquisition, torture and stake, of excommunication 
 and public cursing. But it seems, you have not yet been 
 taught wisdom by awful experience. You speak of modera- 
 tion, of a discreet renouncement of personal opinions and 
 
320 GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 
 
 favourite theories. 3 By heaven'! he continued with a 
 vehement stamp of his right foot, 'this is tantamount to 
 a cowardly desertion of all progress; for all new 
 ideas are at first, and often for a long time, personal 
 opinions of the discoverers. You bid us distinguish between 
 established facts and speculation, and require us to teach 
 the one, but cautiously to keep back the other. How 
 many facts are "established", that is, universally acknow- 
 ledged, in any division of science or literature ? By your 
 rule, theology and history, philology and philosophy, could 
 hardly be taught, and astronomy and geology only 
 descriptively or empirically. By far the largest portion 
 of our knowledge is speculative, from the alphabet, of 
 the origin of which we know nothing certain, to the Biblical 
 Records, about the composition and date of which no 
 two scholars agree. Only with the utmost reserve and 
 restriction can we at all speak of an objective science; 
 for none can dispense with conjectures, and we must hold 
 with Kant, that any branch of knowledge includes only as 
 much undisputed truth as it includes mathematics. There 
 is, as our philosophical friend Melville has explained, no 
 dogmatic science, because there is no infallible synthesis. 
 Even the so-called exact sciences, as physics, optics, or 
 chemistry, are, to a great extent, a fabric of suppositions 
 framed and demolished in rapid succession, or upheld 
 and contested by antagonistic schools. You tell us that 
 we may devote ourselves to the investigation of problems, 
 but must not, as teachers, diffuse the solution we have 
 found till it has been fully ratified by the learned world. 
 This is an impossibility and would virtually exclude the 
 bulk of the people from all scientific information. You 
 exhort us not to attach any weight to conclusions obtained 
 by deduction or analogy. You can hardly be in earnest, 
 and we have yesterday agreed that synthesis and generali- 
 sation are indispensable. All your counsels are the 
 suggestions of a craven alarm and therefore worthless. 
 They convert the republic of letters into a police des- 
 
GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 321 
 
 potism. Like all tyrants, you are afraid of liberty. We 
 contend that without liberty no truth is safe, and with 
 liberty no error dangerous. The great authority of Virchow 
 you invoke is a lamentable proof of retrogression. The 
 distinguished man to whom science and its disciples owe 
 a large debt of gratitude, has of late become faithless 
 to his own important discoveries. By enunciating the 
 principle, Omnis cellula e cellula, he bid fair to rival the repu- 
 tation even of Harvey, though this maxim is no less liable 
 to exceptions than that of Omne vivum ex ovo. But now, 
 evidently, like Baer, overtaken by the quietism of advancing 
 years, he prefers the safety of the beaten track to the bold 
 hazards of the pioneer. But truly chimerical and ridi- 
 culous are the apprehensions of communism you associate 
 with the theory of evolution. This theory is, on the 
 contrary, the best antidote against the insane ideas and 
 utopian objects of socialism ; for it proclaims the constant 
 and necessary inequality of individuals, separation of 
 organs, and division of labour in every variety of gradation; 
 in a word, it shows that, in spite of an original equality 
 and unity of organisation, the most striking differences 
 prevail. For from the earliest stages, the conditions of 
 existence are unequal, and accordingly also its results or 
 successes. But Darwinism in particular, with its principles 
 of "selection" and the exclusive survival, in the struggle 
 for life, of the privileged few, is essentially aristocratic 
 in character, and certainly not socialistic. 4 But why do 
 I enter on this point at all? What concern has science 
 with vague insinuations and cowardly denouncements ? 
 What concern with political parties and passions? Its 
 sole object is to seek the truth and to teach it. 
 
 'I repeat therefore plainly, that we do not consider the 
 soul as the enigmatical emanation of a mystic force, but 
 as the combined result of the mechanical performances 
 of the various organs, just as the life and power of a 
 state are the total result of the co-operating energies of 
 all its members ; b while we regard the organs themselves 
 
 Y 
 
322 GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 
 
 as the sum of many microscopic organisms, or individuals, 
 which we call cells. These, therefore, are the elementary 
 unit, "the physical basis of life" the Plasson or Bio- 
 plasson , and their form, combination, and division of 
 labour, determine the structure and functions of each 
 organ. a They are no dead automata moved from without, 
 but are animated by intrinsic or chemical forces of 
 affinity. The sympathy and antipathy of atoms, the 
 attraction and repulsion of molecules, the motion and 
 sensation of cells and organisms, the production of thought 
 and consciousness these are but different stages of the 
 universal process of physiological development or of true 
 Monism. 
 
 'The soul, therefore, is not a simple, but an extremely 
 complex power, and, being the aggregate of the vital 
 energies garnered up in the protoplasms, it is inseparably 
 allied with the protoplasm body. If all the living particles 
 properly perform their duties, the body is in health; if a 
 part of them accomplish their appointed tasks imperfectly, 
 the body is in disease ; and if their harmonious action 
 is essentially disturbed, death ensues. Each cell that 
 is, each citizen of the great polity has, to some extent, 
 an independent life with respect to nutrition and to pro- 
 pagation by division, and each possesses a certain degree 
 of sensibility, which, in the most perfect cells, those of 
 the brain, is heightened into consciousness. All this 
 applies alike to men and to animals, and' . . . 
 
 'How then', interrupted Berghorn with decision, and 
 speaking with undisguised contempt, 'how are we to define 
 consciousness? Human consciousness is the intensified 
 sensibility of the albuminous and viscous molecules forming 
 the microscopic cell substance or the protoplasm. You 
 know that, when Plato was praised for the definition, 
 "Man is a two-legged, featherless animal", Diogenes brought 
 into his school a plucked cock saying, "This is Plato's 
 man", upon which the philosopher improved the definition 
 by adding "with broad flat nails " . I am aware', he continue d 
 
GOD, SOUL, IMMOETALITY. 323 
 
 looking superciliously at Attinghausen, 'you also have 
 an improvement in reserve. Is it possible that a republican 
 proud of his courage should flinch from expressing his 
 convictions? Has your temerity found its limits at last? 
 For why did you not tell us clearly, what you have else- 
 where whispered, that you do not stop at the "cell-soul". 
 Even this is to you an entity far too advanced to form 
 the primeval germ of man. You go backward and find 
 a w plastidule-soul", and you proceed yet farther towards 
 nothing and you discover the "atom-soul". Let me see: 
 your plastidule-soul is the active factor of the protoplastic 
 molecules and is distinguished from the inorganic molecule- 
 soul, you are positive, by the possession of memory, while 
 your atom-soul is a centre of power representing the last 
 elementary factors of all physical and chemical processes, 
 and, you are equally positive, is endowed with "a constant 
 soul", or with sensation and motion ; and then you finally 
 arrive, of course, at your archi-demiurgos of carbon with 
 its associates. 1 Holy shades of Moses and Isaiah, of 
 Aeschylus and Shakespeare, of Aristotle and Kant ! The 
 constant atom- soul is the fountain-head of your wisdom 
 and your sublimity. That is your Mind, your Deity. 
 But the poet is right', he concluded with a gloomy frown 
 at Attinghausen '"Every one resembles the god he com- 
 prehends"'. 
 
 'Through the nervous system', continued Attinghausen, 
 unruffled, and as if he were lecturing, 'which is composed 
 of comparatively few but large and star-like cells through 
 the nervous system, I say, the whole life of the soul and 
 the mind is necessarily carried on. Up to this point all 
 is clear and pretty certain' . . . 
 
 'Clear and certain' ! interrupted Arvada-Kalama in 
 amazement. 
 
 'Fables, dreams and cobwebs' ! added Rabbi Gideon. 
 
 'But', continued Attinghausen meditatingly and more 
 slowly, 'the brain cells have not only the function of con- 
 veying the impressions received through the sense nerves 
 
324 GOD, SOUL, IMMOETALITY. 
 
 from without, and of . thus causing the motion of the 
 muscle nerves, but upon them devolves, besides, the high 
 task of producing perceptions, that is, of assisting in the 
 operations of intelligence, reason and consciousness. 
 I have before admitted that the origin of perceptions and 
 of consciousness in the brain is still wrapt in mystery as 
 impenetrable as it was two or three thousand years ago. 
 But I believe that our researches have opened a path 
 which will ultimately lead us to the sunny heights of 
 knowledge. We have learnt that the brain cells, which 
 form the central government of the organic common- 
 wealth, are the more firmly and closely united, that is, 
 they endow the brain with the greater dominion, the 
 more perfectly the creature is organised. The very next 
 generation may bring the full solution of the momentous 
 problem. For psychology is no longer studied as a 
 transcendental, but as a natural science ; and the phenomena 
 of the mind are examined on the same principles as the 
 phenomena of the cosmos. Nor are enquirers now satisfied 
 with analysing the superior intellect of civilised adults, but 
 they trace the soul from the earliest stages, whether of 
 the child or the savage, in its gradual and progressive 
 development. It is by this method that the aim will 
 infallibly be reached. But what idea do you form of the 
 soul', continued Attinghausen, suddenly turning to Berghorn 
 and looking him intrepidly and fully into the face. 'Does 
 your soul originate at the moment of conception, at any 
 definite period during the growth of the embryo, or at 
 the time of birth? Is each man's soul a new creation on 
 the part of God, or is it transmitted by the parents? 
 On the former questions you can give no answer at all, 
 and to the latter you can only reply by the old and 
 confused ecclesiastical controversy of Creatianism and 
 Traducianism.* In the one case as in the other, it is 
 dogmatism which decides, or the supposed teaching of 
 your traditional books, and not observation or logical 
 reasoning. The souls of an Aeschylus and a Shakespeare, 
 
GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 325 
 
 of an Aristotle and a Kant, were at first also weak and 
 powerless; by slow degrees only they grew and increased 
 to that vigour which enabled them to embrace with their 
 thoughts earth and heaven and as they grew and increased 
 in strength after birth, so also before birth during unnum- 
 bered aeons. In order to comprehend this last process, 
 the naturalist dispassionately compares the psychic powers 
 of animals with those of man, and examines the bodily 
 organs on which those powers depend and by these two 
 operations he raises psychology into an exact science, 
 which will in future probably bear the name of "cellular 
 psychology". In surveying the entire scale of mental 
 energies from the Infusoria and those lower creatures 
 which are devoid of even the simplest kind of nervous 
 system, the corals, polypes and sponges, up to the dog 
 and the elephant, we are encouraged by a welcome ray 
 of light which partially illumines the darkness. For we 
 are now guided by the very remarkable facts that the 
 various sense organs of animals the nerves of motion 
 and sensation, and the muscles are at first merely separate 
 parts of their irritable outer skin; a that the cells which 
 compose this soul apparatus, are fundamentally identical 
 with those of which the other organs of the animal body 
 likewise consist; and that the division of the original micro- 
 scopic egg-cell into numerous cells, which involves the 
 division of labour between the different organs, is at 
 present indeed accomplished within a few days, but that 
 it is only a rapid repetition, through inheritance, of an 
 historical process which occupied many millions of years, 
 and in the course of which the cells, in the struggle 
 of development, gradually acquired, through adaptation, 
 varied forms fitted for the varied functions of life. Thus 
 the brain was, in these unlimited periods, made more and 
 more perfect, and with the brain the faculties of perception, 
 thought, and consciousness. 5 Inseparable from the form 
 and structure of the organ is its function. In this sense 
 we must understand the important principle that the 
 
326 GOD, SOUL, IMMOETALITY. 
 
 so-called innate ideas are the effects, through inheritance, 
 of experiences actually made; or, in other words, that 
 our supposed knowledge a priori is really knowledge 
 gained empirically or a posteriori.* But since, as I have 
 observed, the other organs are, in their constitution, not 
 materially different from the brain, they are, in some 
 animals, capable of movement even after the individuals have 
 been deprived of their heads. The brain, as the central 
 power, possesses indeed the highest and intensest form 
 of life, but not exclusively the whole sum of life ; the 
 cell-souls are subordinate to the brain-soul, yet they 
 preserve some measure of independence^ The organ of 
 the central soul is the aggregate of the cerebral soul- 
 cells ; the organ of every individual cell-soul is the substance 
 of the cells themselves, the protoplasm and the cell- 
 nucleus, or a part of it'. 
 
 'All this', said Hermes quickly, to anticipate other 
 speakers who evidently desired to make a stronger protest, 
 'all this may be ingenious; but does there exist in all 
 nature anything like that assumed double life'? 
 
 'A few years ago', said Wolfram, 'I had the good 
 fortune to meet with and observe in the Atlantic near the 
 Canary islands one of those wonderful animal polities 
 known under the name of Siphonophora, and most frequently 
 found in and near the straits of Messina. Picture and 
 description fail to furnish an idea of the exquisite beauty 
 of this phenomenon. It might be compared to a large 
 floating flower stalk, the variegated leaves and blossoms 
 of which, tastefully shaped and delicately tinted, appear 
 to be skilfully formed of cut crystal to a flower stalk 
 which, however, at the same time has body and soul, 
 graceful movement, sensation and consciousness. Each 
 branch of the stalk is properly a distinct medusa-like 
 animal; but the members of this society have, by division 
 of labour, assumed very various shapes; for some perform 
 exclusively the movements of swimming for the whole, 
 others as exclusively, and likewise for the entire community, 
 
GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 327 
 
 the reception and digestion of food, others again the 
 public defence or the maturation of ova. While thus each 
 part of this intricate organism is engaged on its own special 
 task, it is yet imperatively linked to the whole, detached from 
 which it must perish, since each is only fitted for one of 
 the many vital functions. Side by side with individual 
 volition, rules a central soul to which all must obey'. a 
 
 'I could not have found a better illustration', said 
 Attinghausen, gratified. 'It proves incontestably that the 
 one soul of an apparently simple animal may, in reality, 
 be compounded of very numerous different souls. I am 
 fully aware that the theory of the "cell-soul" is yet far 
 from being generally accepted and is opposed even by 
 some of the ablest naturalists; but, taken in conduction 
 with the doctrine of Lamarck and Darwin, it is "an equally 
 necessary and important consequence of the monistic 
 conception of nature". This, view has recently received 
 a strong corroboration from the researches of Huxley and 
 Gegenbaur with respect to the relation of the vertebral 
 column and the skull researches which, modifying and 
 correcting those of Goethe and Oken, have clearly demon- 
 strated the existence of a primary cartilaginous cranium 
 formed by nine or ten vertebrae, such as is still approxi- 
 mately found in some fishes, as the Selachia, the roaches 
 and sharks. b These great discoveries not only exhibit 
 anew the most intimate anatomical connection between the 
 lowest and highest vertebrates, but also the virtual identity 
 of the external bones with the receptacle of the important 
 brain substance or soul organ. Thus the theory of evolu- 
 tion has by comparative anatomy been subjected to a 
 crucial test, from which it has issued most successfully; 
 and I have, therefore, a right to ask again : how do you 
 define the soul? To us life is only a special form of 
 mechanical force applied to elementary cells, only a special 
 kind of motion operating by chemical changes under 
 singular conditions. What is it in your view? I am 
 curious to have an intelligible definition'. 
 
328 GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 
 
 read in the Koran', said Movayyid-eddin reveren- 
 tially: "They ask each other about the soul; tell them, 
 God has reserved the knowledge of it to Himself; He 
 has left us but little light "; a and in one of his grandest 
 utterances the Prophet says: "When the heavens shall be 
 shattered and the stars dispersed, when the seas shall 
 mingle their waters and the sepulchres be overthrown, 
 then the soul shall see the picture of its whole life"'. b 
 
 'The soul', said Berghorn confidently, 'is a peculiar 
 gazeous substance'. 
 
 'How is that possible' ! cried Humphrey ; 'it is a breath 
 immaterial and imponderable "like the luminous ether"'. 
 
 'We know', said Gideon, 'it is an afflatus constituting 
 our resemblance with God'. 
 
 'It is', said Abington, 'the subtlest essence that can 
 be conceived as being akin to the Divine soul of the 
 world'. 
 
 'You give me a difficult choice', said Attinghausen, 
 laughing loudly ; 'but begging you to suppose that I under- 
 stand your exact meaning for why should I avow my 
 obtuseness ? , I may say, that, in spite of the divergencies, 
 your definitions seem all to agree in the evident desire 
 of making it possible or probable for the soul to exist 
 independently of the body which it may temporarily in- 
 habit like "an hostelry", and then leave in order to con- 
 tinue its existence elsewhere ; c in a word, they are all 
 framed with a view to the theory of Immortality. This 
 fact is enough to deprive them of all value. Science 
 demands an examination of notions on their own intrinsic 
 merits; but you are anxious to establish a favourite 
 doctrine, and you fashion your soul accordingly'. 4 
 
 'But our Avesta declares', said Asho-raoco earnestly: 
 '"What is man's most precious boon? Immortality is the 
 desire of the soul of the pure"; and Ahura-Mazda will 
 grant it in abundance'. 6 
 
 'We confess', said Movayyid-eddin with fervour, 'that 
 we could not bear the troubles of this life, were we not 
 
GOD, SOUL, IMMORTALITY. 329 
 
 certain of eternal delights in another. Justly says our 
 Prophet: "The life in the world is but idle play, the 
 eternal abode is the true life"'. 3 
 
 'And our sages say', added Rabbi Gideon: '"This world 
 resembles the entrance hall to the next." b In a year of 
 famine, king Monobas expended all the wealth he had 
 inherited from his predecessors to relieve the poor. Up- 
 braided by his family as a heedless prodigal, he said: 
 "My ancestors laid up treasures in a place where they 
 are liable to be lost, I lay up treasures in a place where 
 they cannot be touched; my ancestors gathered possessions 
 which are unproductive, I gather possessions which bear 
 fruit; they acquired gold, I win souls; they collected for 
 others, I collect for myself; they garnered up for the 
 earth, I garner up for heaven"'. 
 
 'I believe', continued Movayyid-eddin, 'all nations of 
 the world have clung to this hope as the strongest safe- 
 guard of religion. You have tried to demolish the proofs 
 of the existence of God may Allah forgive you! as you 
 say, you believe in some God ; what objections can you 
 possibly raise against those arguments in favour of Im- 
 mortality which have ever been held incontestable both 
 by philosophers and Imams'? 
 
 'It is a great and important subject', said Mondoza, 
 replying instead of Attinghausen, 'and its consideration 
 will require all our energies. May I, therefore, suggest 
 that we postpone the discussion till to-morrow? The 
 questions of God and Immortality are so closely connected 
 that the value of the arguments with respect to both 
 must be weighed together. But as regards the soul, I 
 believe, I may, even after what we have heard to-night, 
 repeat my conviction, that the monistic conception is 
 neither derogatory to our dignity nor devoid of a certain 
 poetic elevation if we are content to find our dignity 
 in the faculty of limitless progress, and are able to dis- 
 cover poetry in a sentiment that links, us both to the 
 lowest living creature and the most distant sun. But 
 
330 GOD, SOUL, IMMOBTALITY. 
 
 our final estimate must depend on the probable extent 
 of man's individual life, and I am certain that we are 
 all prepared it may be each in a different way to ap- 
 proach this cardinal question with a calm confidence'. 
 
 For a long time private conversations were continued 
 with a general harmony, since so far either side believed 
 itself to have the right of claiming the victory. 
 
Till. IMMORTALITY. 
 
 'You have been directly appealed to', said Mondoza to 
 Attinghausen the next evening, when most of the guests 
 had assembled, 'and I am sure you will not attempt to 
 escape from a contest you have yourself provoked, although 
 the numbers seem to be ominously against you and your 
 few partisans'. 
 
 'It is a task of no small difficulty', said Attinghausen with 
 some hesitation, 'which you have so unexpectedly thrown 
 upon me. I am not versed in metaphysical speculation 
 I consider it an unpardonable waste of time and 
 strength and, with one recent exception which I regret, 
 it is very, very long since the arguments for and against 
 Immortality have seriously engaged my attention not 
 in fact since that memorable epoch which divides youth 
 from manhood, when', he added musingly, 'a fierce inward 
 struggle shattered, not without many a bitter pang, the 
 chains of early impressions and forced the gates of liberty: 
 I say, though I feel my incompetence, I do not shrink 
 from the enterprise, trusting that my "few partisans" will 
 support me with their learning and sagacity'. 
 
 'I am really curious to hear', said Movayyid-eddin, his 
 dark eyes flashing anger, 'what your joint efforts can 
 effect against the dispensation of Allah and the infallible 
 promises of His messengers'. 
 
 'You seem to feel strongly on the subject', said Mon- 
 doza soothingly, 'and as the arguments you have demanded 
 may entail upon us some mental exertion, I think we 
 should feel fortified and refreshed if you would kindly 
 give us a glimpse of that heaven to which you are looking 
 forward so hopefully? I ask this favour because I know 
 
332 ' J F^ IMMORTALITY. 
 
 that a man of your erudition will not offer us a fancy 
 picture, and that a Shiite of your strictness will not mix 
 up the utterances of Mohammed with the later adorn- 
 ments of tradition. I am certain, all would be grateful 
 for an authentic description, as far as possible in the 
 very words of the Koran'. 
 
 'Nothing can be more pleasing to me', said Movayyid- 
 eddin, brightening. 'But where am I to begin' ? he added 
 with some perplexity. 
 
 'Pray, tell us first', rejoined Mondoza, 'who they are 
 that will enter Paradise'. 
 
 'The Koran is very explicit on this point', said Mo- 
 vayyid-eddin, evidently relieved by the idea that he had 
 not to find the thread of his remarks himself. 'Heaven 
 is opened to the faithful who obey God and His prophet, 
 ever think in fear of the account they will have to render 
 to Him, and gather fortitude in misfortune from the ex- 
 pectation of seeing His glory; to those who are ever 
 patient, truthful, pious and benevolent, who give alms both 
 in happiness and adversity, and who, controlling their 
 passion, pardon offences; to those who show gratitude 
 for the mercy of God and the love of their parents, who 
 join true repentance with faith and good works, are strict 
 in their prayers and devoutly read the Divine Book; to 
 those who fall fighting for God's truth, are among the 
 first to leave their country in entering upon a holy war, 
 and especially to those who sacrifice their property and 
 shed their blood for the defence of Islam. All these are 
 received into Paradise; nay more, by their merit they effect 
 the salvation of their parents, their wives, and their children'. 
 
 'All this is no doubt very good', said Gideon lightly; 
 'for it was suggested to Mohammed by his Jewish teachers. 
 But your heaven, scarcely large enough for Moslems, shuts 
 its portals against all other fellow-men'. 
 
 'I am surprised', replied Movayyid-eddin, 'to find so 
 learned a Rabbi share so vulgar a misconception. But 
 alas! prejudice blinds even the eyes of the wise. For 
 

 
 the honour of my faith, I will quote literally a few sen- 
 tences from the Koran in refutation of that charge. 
 
 "Certainly Mussulmans, Jews, Christians and Sabaeans, 
 who believe in God and a last judgment, and act right- 
 eously, will receive their recompense; they will be exempt 
 from fears and punishments. 4 
 
 We have given the Book of the Law to Moses; it is in 
 its light that the Hebrews must walk: do not doubt that 
 you will meet in heaven the leader of the Israelites. 15 
 
 We have made Jesus and his mother the admiration of 
 the world; we have removed them to an abode where peace 
 reigns and pure water flows. c 
 
 If the Jews had faith and feared the Lord, we should 
 efface their sins; we should introduce them to the gardens 
 of delight. The observance of the Pentateuch, the Gospel 
 and the Divine precepts would procure them the enjoyment 
 of every boon. There are among them some who walk in 
 the right path. d 
 
 The Christians shall be judged by the Gospels; those who 
 judge them differently are prevaricators. 6 
 
 God could have united you all under one religion; but 
 He desired to try whether you would be faithful to the 
 diversity of your commandments. Strive zealously to do 
 what is right, and if you return to Him, He will point out 
 to you your errors"'/ 
 
 'Do not omit', said Humphrey sharply, 'the most im- 
 portant of all sayings bearing on the subject that verse 
 in the third Sura which declares distinctly: "Whosoever 
 follows any other religion than Islam, shall not be ac- 
 cepted and shall, in the next world, be among those that 
 perish" \e 
 
 'Alas' ! said Movayyid-eddin, sadly, 'this verse has proved 
 a grievous misfortune to our religion, if not to man- 
 kind; for it was seized upon by over-zealous ulemahs to 
 sanction their bigotry. They purposely overlooked as our 
 Christian friend here has done, though not purposely, 
 I am sure the beautiful words immediately preceding, 
 which leave no doubt: 
 
 "Do they demand another religion than that of God? 
 All that is in heaven and on earth offers Him homage, 
 
334 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 whether spontaneously or by compulsion. You will all appear 
 before Him. Say: 'We believe in God, in that which He 
 has revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob and to the 
 twelve tribes. We believe in the holy books which Moses, 
 Jesus and the prophets have received from heaven. We 
 make no difference between them. We are Moslems'".* 
 
 'Do these words not prove that all who believe in 
 Abraham, Moses and Christ are included among the Mos- 
 lems'? Against idolaters alone the Koran is pitiless. b "When, 
 therefore, shall we cease to hear the old accusation that 
 our prophet regards the Islam as the only true faith and 
 condemns all other creeds as noxious perversities? So 
 far from haughtily despising his predecessors, he again 
 and again declares in the strongest terms that they were 
 his masters and superiors whom all are bound to honour 
 and revere. A few more of his numerous utterances on 
 this point will be sufficient to convince the impartial. 
 
 "Signs and books were the proofs of the mission of those 
 prophets who have preceded thee: we have sent thee 
 the Koran in order to remind men of the doctrines they 
 have received, and to impress them on their memory. 
 
 Abraham was neither Jew nor Christian: he was a true 
 believer, a Moslem, a worshipper of one God. d 
 
 We have sent the Pentateuch for man's direction and 
 enlightenment. The prophets who followed afterwards used 
 that Book for the judgment of the Hebrews . . . After the 
 prophets we sent Jesus, the son of Mary, in order to con- 
 firm the Pentateuch. We have given him the Gospel, which 
 is the torch of faith, and puts the seal to the truth of the 
 ancient Scriptures, instructing and illumining the Godfearing. 6 
 
 The covenant we have concluded with the prophets, with 
 thee, with Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus, is inviolable/ 
 
 God has given to David the Book and Wisdom; He 
 taught him what He pleased.^ 
 
 We invested Jesus, the son of Mary, with the ministry 
 of Messenger; we gave him the Gospel; and we put inta 
 the hearts of his disciples piety and compassion. 11 
 
 The angel said to Mary: God has chosen thee; he has 
 purified thee; thou art the elect of all women . . . Thy son 
 will teach the Scriptures and wisdom, the Pentateuch and 
 the Gospel . . . Divine miracles will testify his mission. 1 
 
IMMOETALITT. 335 
 
 Jesus said to the Jews again and again: I am the Mes- 
 senger of God; I come to confirm the tr^uth of the Pentateuch 
 which has been given before me, and to announce to you 
 the happy advent of the prophet who shall follow me, and 
 whose name is Mohammed" '. a 
 
 'In recalling these sentences', continued Movayyid-eddin, 
 'I feel justly proud of our prophet's high-minded toleration, 
 and my reverence is enhanced when I remember that not 
 even that toleration ever tempted him to imperil the main 
 pillars of Islam, which are that God is one and that He 
 is a Spirit. For in spite of his great veneration for Christ, 
 he declared: "Those who say that the son of Mary is 
 God, are infidels"; or "Do not say that there is a trinity 
 in God, He is one . . . He is self-sufficient"; and he 
 narrated that God asked Jesus whether be and bis mother 
 had ordered men to worship them as gods, upon wbicb 
 Jesus answered: "Ob Lord, could I have enjoined upon 
 them a blasphemy? If I were guilty of tbis, would it be 
 unknown to Tbee"'? b 
 
 'Yet your prophet's sublime toleration', said Humphrey 
 with acrimony, 'did not prevent him from waging and 
 commanding the most terrible and the most ruthless 
 wars for tbe propagation of bis artfully agglomerated 
 creed'. 
 
 'Our annals', said Asho-raoco with bitter irony, 'bear 
 witness to tbe Mussulmans' "toleration". Like a scourge 
 of Ahriman and tbe fiendish daevas, their frenzied legions 
 swept over tbe fair plains of Persia, they burnt, massacred 
 and pillaged, destroyed our fire-temples or degraded 
 them into mosques, and brandished tbe terror of their 
 merciless swords over Zoroaster's pious followers, till of 
 tbe many millions a remnant was left, wbicb a child 
 might count, and wbicb either sought an unsafe shelter 
 in the mountain fastnesses of tbeir own beloved country, 
 or went out to distant lands to find a borne of exiles. 
 Not even tbe lapse of so many centuries has appeased 
 our burning hatred of tbe invaders wbo converted our 
 
336 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 ancient abodes, like all lands cursed by their presence, 
 into haunts of superstition, vice, and wretchedness. The 
 baneful effects of the conquest are notorious: while the 
 Greek historians extolled the proverbial truthfulness of 
 their Persian contemporaries, modern writers denounce 
 the Persians of our own times as "a nation of liars". 
 Happy ourselves under the blessed and beneficent sway 
 of England, we might perhaps be inclined to greater 
 leniency, did we not constantly receive the most heart- 
 rending accounts of the cruel extortion, injustice and 
 ignominy which our brethren in Persia, insultingly styled 
 "Gabres", are suffering at the hands of their inhuman 
 masters 7 .* 
 
 'Yet these misfortunes', said Humphrey in a somewhat 
 subdued tone, 'were only a just retribution for the im- 
 placable hostility the Parsees opposed to the spread of 
 the Gospel'. 
 
 'Woe, woe' ! exclaimed Movayyid-eddin, deeply pained. 
 'How unspeakably great are man's weakness and infa- 
 tuation ! The Prophet's noble spirit was soon lost among 
 his unintelligent followers; in their admiration for his 
 valour some European scholars say, he was by nature 
 timid and cowardly, but this I deny', he added, his eyes 
 darting fire 'in their admiration for his courage and 
 military genius, they forgot that those wars were, against 
 his will and inclination, forced upon him by the fierce 
 spirit of his countrymen, and that he could not evade 
 them without endangering his holy mission of rescuing so 
 many savage tribes from a state of horrid barbarism and 
 base fetichism, and of sowing the seeds of a civilisation 
 which was to reform a large part of the inhabited globe'. 
 
 'I am afraid', said Canon Mortimer, 'this view of the 
 matter is prompted by respect for your prophet and the 
 benevolence of your own heart'. 
 
 'Pardon me', replied Movayyid-eddin, 'it is no hazardous 
 assertion, but Mohammed's plain and express command. 
 Not in his spirit, as you may infer from the sayings on 
 
IMMORTALITY. 337 
 
 Christ and Mary I have quoted, were the fearful feuds in 
 later centuries carried on between Moslems and Christians 
 and ever most deeply deplored by the devoutest believers 
 among ourselves. He enjoins indeed, "Fight bravely 
 against your enemies in the war undertaken for religion" ; 
 but he adds, "Do not be the first to attack, for God 
 hates aggressors, and let all enmity cease against those 
 who abandon their idols".* More clearly still he says, 
 "Commit no violence against any men on account of their 
 religion" ; b "The prophet's office is confined to instruction 
 and preaching"; and "Tell to those who have received 
 the Scriptures and to the blind, 'Embrace Islam and 
 you will be enlightened'; if they are obstinate, you are 
 only charged to preach to them the truth". Nay he 
 enjoins, "Bid the faithful pardon the infidels"; and he 
 lays down the general rule, "Do not use compulsion to 
 make unbelievers adopt Islam". d Is greater distinctness 
 possible? Yet the pure gold of the Prophet's commands 
 has, from an ea.rly age, been hidden by the thick rust 
 of Sunnite additions and fictions. Of the extent of these 
 corruptions you may form an idea from the fact that 
 Bockhari, travelling from land to land, gathered from the 
 learned Mussulmans no less than 600,000 traditions, of 
 which scarcely 4,000 were ascertained to be authentic'. 6 
 
 'Christians', said Attinghausen almost fiercely, 'have 
 every reason to be cautious in their censure. Have they 
 never baptised with blood, rather than with water? Did 
 not Charlemagne, did not the Spaniards in America, make 
 terrible conversions with the sword ? Were crusades against 
 heretics never heard of in the Christian Church? Were 
 the Inquisition and auto da fes ever heard of in any other 
 Church? How wonderfully keen-sighted positive religions 
 are in discovering the motes in their rivals' eyes'! 
 
 'From your remarks', said Humphrey, turning to Mo- 
 vayyid-eddin, without heeding Attinghausen's outburst, 'I 
 think I may conclude that you belong to the reforming 
 Wahabites: but supposing even that these succeed in 
 
 z 
 
338 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 returning to the point where your religion was left by 
 Mohammed, they would only repeat the same weary 
 circle of errors and misdeeds which mark the history of 
 Islam, as they shape their creed and their action on 
 the same fallacious authority, the Koran. Indeed, as 
 regards savage destructiveness and bloodthirsty lust of 
 conquest, the early "Wahabites differ in nothing from the 
 earliest adherents of Mohammed'. 
 
 *I do not deny', replied Movayyid-eddin with great 
 composure, 'that we owe a large debt of gratitude to 
 Abd el Wahab, who, himself an Arab Bedouin, tried to 
 restore the pristine character of a religion which was founded 
 by an Arab for Arabs, but which has, in many respects, 
 been misunderstood, perverted and falsified by so many 
 alien races, and especially the Turks. For though these 
 also profess to follow the Koran, they practise merely 
 the dead ceremonials, while neglecting the weightier duties, 
 and indulge in a luxury that was abhorred by the Prophet 
 and has so deplorably weakened the Mohammedan rule 
 and power. He who rigorously prohibited all intoxicating 
 beverages and made the Moslems models of temperance, 
 surely did not sanction those numerous forms of self- 
 indulgence which have proved infinitely more enervating, 
 and are much more despicable, than even an excessive 
 enjoyment of wine; a and he who constantly declared that 
 he was a man like all other mortals, b surely did not 
 authorise the worship of himself and of the countless 
 "saints" created by blind superstition, and fancied to 
 possess, at the throne of God, the power of mediation, to be 
 secured by wild and frantic invocations at their graves. In 
 re-establishing, therefore, the simple and national doctrine 
 of Mohammed, Abd el Wahab has, I believe, not only 
 infused new life into Islam, but has made it a religion that 
 can be adopted and practised by the enlightened of all 
 nations'. 
 
 'Excellent, excellent'! cried Rabbi Gideon sarcasti- 
 cally. 'A new founder of a "universal religion"! Let us 
 
IMMORTALITY. 339 
 
 at once procure copies of the Wahabite Catechism and 
 teach it to our children'! 
 
 'Do not ridicule the Wahabite Catechism' ! said Movayyid- 
 eddin with a fiery glance. 'If it were possible for men 
 to conform their lives to its commandments, they would 
 be holy as angels'. 
 
 'May we hear the chief tenets of that creed'? said 
 "Wolfram, evidently much interested. 
 
 'With pleasure', replied Movayyid-eddin. 'We learn it, 
 of course, by heart in our childhood and repeat it con- 
 stantly. I shall omit the questions and give the answers 
 abridged. 
 
 "There are three foundations of faith: the knowledge of 
 the Lord, of His religion, and of His Prophet. 
 
 1. The Lord is God, by whose grace and mercy I grow 
 up. I know Him from the signs of His omnipotence and 
 from the marvellous works of Creation. He has given me life 
 that I might worship Him. His will is Unity, that is, He 
 demands that He alone shall be adored and none else besides 
 Him. This adoration is proved by firm attachment to the 
 faith, by almsgiving, vows and sacrifices, resignation, fear, 
 hope, love, awe, humility, and fervent prayer, by fasting the 
 Ramadhan, and by the pilgrimage to Grod's holy House. 
 
 2. Religion consists in submission to the Almighty. It 
 is divided into the three branches of Islam, of faith, and 
 of good deeds. These last are comprised in the single 
 command: 'Worship God as if He were manifest before thy 
 eyes; and though thou canst not see Him, know that He 
 sees thee'. 
 
 3. The Prophet is Mohammed, the son of Abdallah, whose 
 race ascends as far as Ismail, the son of Ibrahim. He is a 
 Messenger whom we do not worship, and a prophet whom 
 we must not contradict; for men and spirits have been 
 commanded to obey him. If thou art asked, 'Has he been 
 sent to a particular class of men'? answer, 'No, he has been 
 sent to all mankind'. No prophet succeeds him, for after 
 him comes the last day he is the seal of all prophets".* 
 
 'This is the whole sum of our creed', concluded 
 Movayyid-eddin, 'and it is concisely conveyed in the one 
 verse of our holy Book: "To be justified, it is not enough 
 to turn the face to the east and the west; it is necessary 
 
340 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 to believe in God, in the day of judgment, the angels, 
 the Koran, and the prophets. We must, for the love of 
 God, assist our neighbours, the orphans, the poor, the 
 travellers, the prisoners, and those who ask for help. 
 We must pray, keep our promises, and bear adversity 
 and the ills of war with patience. These are the obliga- 
 tions of the true believers'". 3 
 
 'You are proud of the simplicity of your faith', said 
 Berghorn, severely; 'but this simplicity is its greatest blot. 
 Mohammed makes life and religion too easy. The devotion 
 to God, which he demands, is poor, empty and hollow. 
 The duties he imposes upon men in the name of Allah, 
 are aimed too low. He recommends some virtues taken 
 at random from the canon of morality, the complete 
 organism of which he entirely ignores. The means by 
 which he endeavours to bring his votaries nearer to God 
 are external and ineffectual ordinances of ascetism and 
 diet, enforced prayers for every day and every part of 
 the day, fasting, ablutions, pilgrimages, almsgiving, and 
 warfare against infidels. All these precepts might be 
 scrupulously carried out without raising the Moslem 
 beyond the sphere of natural pride and callousness, of 
 frivolity and sensualism. Of a deep and earnest sanctifi- 
 cation, such as is provided for in the religion of the Bible, 
 of the terrible strength and despotism of sin and temptation, 
 of the necessity for inward atonement and redemption in 
 a word, for all that tends to spiritualise our nature and 
 to assimilate it to the Divine standard, Mohammed had 
 not the faintest idea'. b 
 
 *I know', said Movayyid-eddin, with sadness, 'that this 
 is your usual estimate of our religion; and of what avail 
 would it be if I were to quote to you a hundred verses 
 from the Koran and a hundred passages from the works 
 of our philosophers, plainly and positively contradicting 
 every single charge and objection you have brought 
 forward? You would continue to reiterate the same 
 charges and objections, simply because you think that 
 
IMMORTALITY. 341 
 
 you can prove the excellence of Christianity most strikingly 
 by contrasting it with the alleged blemishes of Moham- 
 medanism. But I still hope though almost against 
 hope that a spirit of justice will yet come upon the 
 votaries of a religion of love'. 
 
 'They have treated Judaism no better', said Rabbi Gideon 
 gloomily, turning to Movayyid-eddin : 'in order to be able 
 to point out a progress in the scheme of salvation, they 
 have pourtrayed the God of the Old Testament as a God 
 of implacable revenge and stern vindictiveness that God 
 who proclaimed Himself through Moses as "the Lord God 
 merciful and gracious, longsuffering in goodness and truth", 
 and who is described with these attributes of mercy by 
 every Hebrew prophet and sacred writer'. 
 
 C I admit', said Wolfram, unwilling to follow the last 
 speakers into the by-paths they had taken, 'I readily 
 admit that the religion of the Wahabites appears to be 
 strictly identical with that of the Koran and the earliest 
 traditions infinitely more dignified and more rational than 
 that which we generally consider to be Mohammedanism, 
 and that, if carried out in its spirit, it might effect a 
 beneficent regeneration of the Mussulman races. I am 
 therefore, sincerely glad to think that, in spite of bloody 
 wars and violent persecutions, its adherents are at present 
 counted by millions, spreading from Mecca and Medinah 
 to the Persian Gulf. Yet the expectation of seeing it 
 diffused as the religion of the world can only raise a 
 smile; for it involves the adoption of the Koran with its 
 multitudinous commands, fables and fallacies, its sanction 
 of slavery, polygamy and the debasing position of women. 
 Is there indeed no means', he continued thoughtfully, 
 'to win the hundred and seventy millions of Mohammedans 
 to a freer and a higher religion? For let us not indulge 
 in illusions: it is possible that Turkey, in view of European 
 ambitions and jealousies, may prove unable to prolong its 
 existence as a theocratic commonwealth; but even if her 
 political position should be reduced to insignificance, the 
 
342 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 vitality of Islam would thereby be as little affected as 
 the vitality of Judaism has been affected by the cessation 
 of the Jewish polity, or that of Catholicism by the dissolu- 
 tion of the Papal States. The proselytising exertions of 
 Christianity have hitherto signally failed; and Islam, 
 however strongly divided by rival sects, retains an undis- 
 puted hold not only upon the masses but on the most 
 cultivated : how is a progress towards enlightenment ever 
 to be hoped for'? 
 
 'Exclusively', saidGregovius, 'through the same instrumen- 
 tality to which Christianity owes all its progress through 
 historical criticism, which, being the art of separating 
 truth and fiction, is the chemistry of the ideal sciences. 
 No phenomenon of civilisation can be truly comprehended 
 unless we trace it to its origin and then follow the course 
 of its growth and changes step by step. Now historical 
 criticism which is also a doctrine of evolution has shown 
 that the Hebrew Scriptures were composed, not by 
 infallible prophets, but by very fallible mortals; and that 
 many portions were not even written by those who pro- 
 fessed, or were by tradition asserted, to be their authors. 
 Exactly the same lessons have been taught by criticism 
 with respect to the New Testament; and not before the 
 Mohammedan scholars perceive that Mohammed, in calKng 
 the Biblical writers inspired prophets, shared the chief er- 
 rors of his time and of his masters, and that he was "the 
 seal of prophets" in no other sense than Moses and Paul 
 were "prophets" I say, not before Mohammedan scholars 
 acquire this insight, will a genuine advance among the 
 nations of Islam be possible. It is true, Mohammed 
 desired only to be regarded as a man, but as one who by 
 his extraordinary gifts and privileges was lifted high above 
 his species. Like the Hebrew and Christian teachers, he 
 delivered his laws and injunctions as infallible and unalter- 
 able revelations communicated to him verbally by God or 
 His angel; and in claiming to be the last and greatest 
 of Divine messengers, he engaged his devotees upon a blind 
 
IMMORTALITY. 343 
 
 submission to Ms person and the letter of his Koran. 
 But why should not Islamism, as once in the time of its 
 youthful freshness, be roused to a spirit of research and 
 enquiry? There was a period in its history when the 
 highest problems of the nature and attributes of God, of 
 predestination and free-will, of the relative value of faith 
 and good works, were examined with much liberty; when 
 the Mutazila, a school of freethinkers, boldly disclosed 
 the weak points of the Koran and attempted to devise 
 remedies and supports; and when, under the influence of 
 Greek science, the Caliph Mamun went so far as to raise 
 the view that the Koran is created into a state dogma. 
 But too soon afterwards the opposite opinion, that the 
 Koran is uncreated, that is, is absolutely Divine, obtained 
 supremacy, and since then the nations of Islam have 
 been doomed to stagnation and spiritual death. Why 
 should not Mohammedan scholars, as a first step, go back 
 to the intelligent conception of Mamun, and then impar- 
 tially analyse, as European scholars have done, the com- 
 ponent parts of the Koran, ascertain the historical occa- 
 sion of each division, and especially investigate the elements 
 and notions adopted by Mohammed from Jewish and 
 Christian masters or sources, not unfrequently with strange 
 perversions? This is the 'only way of improvement and 
 deliverance. Aid may also arise from a circumstance 
 which many would perhaps regard with concern. Victory of 
 arms and possession of power were deemed the first and 
 highest credentials of the Divine truth of Islam; defeat and 
 loss of territory may rouse the Mussulmans' reflection and 
 open his mind to a wholesome scepticism. Mohammedan 
 science in the Middle Ages our worthy friend Movayyid- 
 eddin will forgive me was indeed neither very profound 
 nor very original; yet it evinced no mean aptitude for 
 philosophical speculation and even for historical research ; 
 and why should not these faculties, fanned and fed by 
 the now lively intercourse with the West, be successfully 
 exercised so as to bring the many millions of Mohammedans 
 
344 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 into intellectual affinity with the highest forms of modern 
 culture? I believe I can discover in the distant horizon 
 isolated harbingers of this Eastern dawn ; and I will only 
 add that all these observations apply, mutatis mutandis, 
 also to the Buddhist, the Parsee, and the Hindoo Scrip- 
 tures and races'. 
 
 'May these beautiful hopes be realised'! said Mondoza; 
 f and may then the fine qualities which signalise the East 
 charity, hospitality and social kindness, uncomplaining 
 patience and resignation become general among every 
 people ! But it is really time, after this almost too erratic 
 digression I offered you one finger and you ungenerously 
 seized the whole hand to return to the Mohammedan 
 heaven, into which, I rejoice to think, our friend Movayyid- 
 eddin admits the good and pious men of all creeds'. 
 
 'Well', said Movayyid-eddin, 'when the elect appear at 
 the gates of Paradise I beg you to remember that I am 
 employing the language of our holy Book which defies 
 "historical criticism" an angel receives them with the 
 words: "This is the Paradise, the inheritance of which 
 your heart has procured for you". They are then led before 
 the throne of the Omnipotent, who addresses to them the 
 question: "Is this not a veritable resurrection"? Upon 
 which they repeat incessantly: "Glory be to God"! and 
 in return they are greeted by angels exclaiming: "Peace 
 be with you"! Gradually they are able to examine the 
 abode they have entered, and they become aware that it 
 equals in extent heaven and earth; they behold lovely 
 gardens watered by limpid streams which cool their feet ; 
 they see exquisite fruits growing on majestic trees, and 
 think: "these are the fruits which nourished us on earth": 
 but when, by Allah's gracious permission, they taste them, 
 they feel assured that, though there is an outward re- 
 semblance, the earth bears nothing like their deliciousness. 
 They find prepared for their use silk garments and golden 
 bracelets and, near sparkling fountains and under the 
 shade of ever fresh foliage, beautiful couches, on which 
 
IMMOBTALITY. 345 
 
 they may repose by the side of their purified and black- 
 eyed wives radiant in a complexion "of the colour of 
 ostrich eggs". a There they are reverentially served with 
 fruit and, in golden goblets, with the clearest water "which 
 does not intoxicate nor obscure reason". In a word? 
 they find everything that can delight the mind and gratify 
 the eye. They have indeed entered an abode of supreme 
 magnificence. But as true felicity is peace, God vouch- 
 safes to them a blessing more precious than all I have 
 described, for He promises: "I shall banish envy and 
 every evil feeling from their hearts, and they shall be 
 inspired with brotherly benevolence towards each other ". b 
 And this unspeakable rest and joyous tranquillity, tenderly 
 guarded by God's beneficence, is their lot in all eternity. 
 Is such a Paradise not worth striving for by a life of 
 piety or a patriotic death in defence of our faith'? 
 
 'I have no doubt', said Attinghausen hurriedly, 'it serves 
 a good purpose, for it makes you brave soldiers, and the 
 Turks fought indeed wonderfully against those northern 
 "deliverers", the Muscovites I mean', he added, correcting 
 himself, 'your Paradise serves a good purpose, if real good 
 can ever come of a childish superstition; and I will not 
 enquire whether you have not passed too discreetly over 
 those black-eyed houris that crowd your Elysium. d But 
 let me acquit myself of the unwelcome task with which 
 I have been burdened, for it haunts and distresses me. And 
 yet I really think, the subject may be dismissed with a few 
 words. For nearly all the arguments brought forward in 
 favour of a life in heaven are deduced from the undeniable 
 wretchedness of our life on earth'. 
 
 'This may be the perverse pessimist's morbid fancy', 
 said Berghorn sternly. 
 
 'Allow me to explain my meaning', said Attinghausen, 
 trying to avoid a personal conflict with Berghorn. 'In 
 the first place, it is usually contended: man suffers so 
 much in this life that there must be another to afford 
 him compensation. Why "must" ? You answer : on account 
 
346 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 of God's goodness, who cannot have created beings in His 
 image merely for trouble and misery. See how you move, 
 from the beginning, in a deceptive circle. You try to 
 prove the problem of Immortality by the unproved assump- 
 tion of a God. You next admit that on earth many good 
 men are unhappy and many wicked men prosperous; 
 therefore, you conclude, there must be an existence to 
 redress these painful anomalies. Why "must"? You reply: 
 God's justice demands it. Your error is the same as 
 before, and the only result of your first two arguments 
 is an acknowledgment of the prevalence of misery and 
 crying injustice on earth which certainly lends no 
 support to the hypothesis of a ruling Deity or Providence. 
 Again, you say mournfully, that in the brief span of life 
 allotted to man, he cannot possibly mature his innate 
 faculties and needs, therefore, eternity for their full 
 development and the acquisition of complete knowledge. 
 It is amazing! That men who are proud of their reason 
 should indulge in such a chain of absurdities! Who can 
 assert that man's mind does not reach on earth all the 
 perfection of which it is capable? Nay, we know from 
 experience that most men are in their old age even 
 unable to maintain themselves on the intellectual height 
 they had attained in the years of their vigour, and that 
 not a few feel their mental faculties decay and return to 
 the weakness of childhood: where, then, is that progress 
 for which eternity is deemed necessary? Do not object 
 to me that there are aged men preserving to the last 
 their full power and elasticity of mind. I do not deny it, 
 and I am rejoiced to see some such here among us. But 
 they are enviable exceptions. Yet, ask even these privi- 
 leged favourites of fate, and they will probably tell you 
 how many fair blossoms of earlier years have withered 
 they will tell you that the powers of old age are not 
 those of youth and manhood, that especially the wings of 
 Divine fancy grow heavier and heavier, and that much 
 of the apparent strength is due to the long habit and 
 
IMMORTALITY. 347 
 
 practice in the use of the faculties, and still more to the 
 stores of experience and information laid up in the years 
 of plenty. As a rule, the vigour of the mind diminishes 
 with that of the body, and when the latter ceases, the 
 former ceases also'. 
 
 'But you recollect', interrupted Humphrey, that 'Goethe, 
 whose authority is in your eyes canonical, said a few years 
 before his death: "The conviction of a continued life arises 
 within me from the notion of activity ; for if I am restlessly 
 active up to my end, Nature is bound to assign to me 
 another form of existence, if the present one is no longer 
 suitable for my mind."' 
 
 'True', replied Attinghausen pointedly, 'but Goethe has 
 been well answered by a theologian who recognised no 
 canonical authority, and who justly observed that the 
 words "Nature is bound" are very strange in the mouth 
 of one who above all men was aware that Nature knows 
 no duties, but only laws, and that man is obliged quietly 
 to submit to these laws. "What Nature", continues 
 Strauss, "owed him for his restless activity, that is, what 
 resulted from it according to natural laws, was abundantly 
 enjoyed by him during his life in the wholesome 
 feeling of his strength, in the cheering consciousness of 
 his intellectual progress, and in the admiration of all 
 his nobler contemporaries". 8 Behind that argument 
 lingers, besides, the old assumption, so difficult to dispel, 
 of a thoughtful design in all that concerns man and nature. 
 I now come to the next proof. Let me see. I cannot 
 remember ... Is there really no other? And on such hollow 
 grounds' . . . 
 
 'You conveniently forget the most important one', said 
 Humphrey, 'probably because even you cannot find the 
 heart to question its force'. 
 
 'What is it' ? asked Attinghausen eagerly. 
 
 'It is the moral necessity of the belief in Immortality', 
 replied Humphrey; 'I mean the absolute necessity of 
 that belief for checking man's unbridled passions and 
 
348 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 preventing society from being torn asunder by crime and 
 iniquity'. 
 
 'Oh, certainly' ! said Attinghausen, laughing merrily. 'How 
 could I ever forget your fondly cherished hell with its dear 
 unquenchable flames and eternal tortures ! It ought really 
 to have occur ed to me in mentioning the second "proof" ; 
 for I always admired for its amusing ingenuity a vindication 
 of God's justice propounded, I believe, by the Rabbins 
 and Mohammedans, and amounting to this: the wicked 
 man receives on earth all the reward he deserves for his 
 few good actions, and the pious man all the punishment 
 he merits for his few sins, in order that the former may 
 hereafter endure uninterrupted agony, and the other enjoy 
 uninterrupted bliss that is, the one gets ready payment, 
 the other an uncertain bond. You deem hell indispensable 
 to keep the bad in terror: whether it is fiction or not, 
 is a matter of indifference, as long as the fiction is useful. 
 But let us be candid: has it achieved the expected result? 
 Has that place of unending anguish, upon the description 
 of which you have exhausted all the powers of an extra- 
 vagant imagination, prevented malice and bloodshed and 
 every atrocious misdeed ? You degrade a tenet of religion 
 into an ineffectual measure of police'. 
 
 'It may perhaps be desirable to remember', said Grego- 
 vius, 'that, as Biblical researches have proved, the belief 
 in Immortality was during long epochs unknown to the 
 Israelites, whom their legislators tried to guide exclusively 
 by earthly promises and threats, and that it was just 
 during those epochs that their commonwealth flourished, 
 while it subsequently grew feeble, unenergetic, and 
 hierarchical'. 
 
 'This is by no means so certain', said Humphrey, 'as 
 a misleading rationalism is wont to assert with astonishing 
 boldness'. 
 
 'Though our Prophet', said Movayyid-eddin, 'with that 
 loving compassion which distinguished him, has not often 
 alluded to hell, he could yet not avoid reminding unbelieving 
 
IMMORTALITY. 349 
 
 evildoers that, groaning under the burden of their crimes 
 and overwhelmed with curses, laden with fetters and 
 clothed in pitch, they shall be hurled into the eternal 
 flames, where, to allay their thirst, boiling water will 
 be given to them'.* 
 
 'Horrible, horrible'! exclaimed Wolfram. 
 
 'All the vast communities', said Subbhuti cheerfully, 
 'that are governed by the precepts of Buddha and Con- 
 fucius, strongly confirm the truth that men can restrain 
 their passions and wicked inclinations without being har- 
 rowed by the alleged agonies of another world'. 
 
 'Yet', said Canon Mortimer, 'we should not forget that 
 the thought of utter extinction after death makes this life 
 of such supreme and exclusive value that not many will 
 be ready to risk it even for the highest and most glorious 
 ends for liberty and truth, and that this convulsive 
 clinging to life must engender a low and despicable self- 
 ishness. I am indeed aware that not a few, though un- 
 happily harbouring that thought, have yet nobly sacrificed 
 themselves for a great cause; but it almost seems that, 
 in acting thus, they were guided by their hearts, not by 
 their principles. 1 * Moreover, it can hardly be denied that 
 the elevating belief of Immortality is a blessed comfort 
 to those who, in their affliction and sorrow, yearn after 
 a reunion with the loved ones they have lost'. 
 
 'This I readily admit', said Attinghausen in a gentler 
 tone, 'and I should be delighted if we were allowed to foster 
 hopes inspired by feelings so truly human and so tenderly 
 affectionate. Those hopes are, perhaps, the sublimest 
 creation of poetic fancy ever ventured by mankind, and 
 they possess just that kind or degree of truth which 
 pervades all poetry but no more. For alas! implacable 
 science can, in the whole of the wide universe, find as 
 little room for a heaven as for a hell. It has searched 
 space and has discovered no celestial empyrean; it has 
 explored the earth, and has found in its depths and 
 abysses no possible abode for the shades of a Sheol or 
 
350 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Gehenna; it has in fact destroyed the distinction of above 
 and below. The longing for another life must indeed 
 be deeply planted in the human breast, as it is met with, 
 in the most varied forms, among nearly all nations and 
 tribes of the world; but neither the strength nor the uni- 
 versality of a feeling is a guarantee of its truth, a and the 
 belief in Immortality is only the necessary complement 
 of the belief in God. Agitated by the consciousness of 
 his frailty and helplessness, man has devised supports 
 which have proved broken reeds'. 
 
 'But it cannot be imagined', rejoined Mortimer, 'that 
 an organism so wonderfully contrived as that of man, 
 should be devoid of a soul, and that this soul should not 
 have a separate existence'. 
 
 *Let me answer you', said Attinghausen, 'by an illus- 
 tration which has been employed before, but which, in a 
 modified form, will bear repetition. Suppose a savage 
 who has never seen a watch, finds one that is going. He 
 listens and hears the ticking, he looks and sees the hands 
 slowly advancing. He naturally thinks, there must be in 
 the little instrument something that causes the sound and 
 the motion; he succeeds in opening it and beholds with 
 wonder a number of wheels propelling and propelled; he 
 turns the object round and round and looks intently at 
 every part, but he can nowhere discover that something 
 the power or being that produces the .astonishing 
 effects. Determined to satisfy his curiosity, he takes a 
 stone and breaks the watch to pieces. It no longer 
 moves; wheels, dial and hands, lie before him in confused 
 disorder, and he concludes that the spirit which animated 
 the singular contrivance, had been in it unseen, but has 
 now escaped and dwells in some other place, from whence 
 it may perhaps return to impart to the shattered frag- 
 ments a new life. He is fully satisfied with this reasoning, 
 for he knows that the metal of the wheels is in itself 
 motionless, and he knows that spirits are invisible; and 
 it might perhaps be as difficult to convince him that the 
 
IMMORTALITY. 351 
 
 movement was caused by the simplest laws of mechanics, 
 as it is to convince many of our theological friends that 
 human life is the product of the forces inherent in the 
 organs of our body'. 
 
 'I accept this illustration', said Humphrey triumphantly, 
 'in so far as it shows that there must have been an arti- 
 ficer who, by his intelligence and skill, so arranged the 
 component parts of the watch as to produce the nice and 
 regular movements at which the savage marvels, just 
 as there must be a Creator who, by His wisdom, has 
 framed our body and endowed it with life, though this 
 escapes under the knife of the barbarous anatomist'. 
 
 'I was prepared for this inference', rejoined Attinghausen 
 calmly, 'and it is fully invalidated by what I have said 
 a few days ago about the successive stages of evolution. 
 But you will not be able so easily to rebut my inference 
 that, if remarkable organisation is employed as an argument, 
 the higher animals also must have immortal souls'. 
 
 'How self-assurance perverts the judgment'! rejoined 
 Humphrey. 'Animals possess no individuality; but that 
 which has not advanced to the value of a person cannot 
 prolong its being as a person ; for a survival without the 
 remembrance of a former self would be equally aimless 
 and worthless. Moreover and this I add in spite of your 
 effusions to the contrary animals develop during life 
 their instincts perfectly, men their gifts and abilities very 
 imperfectly; the former, therefore, do not^ require a second 
 existence, whereas the latter do. Is it so difficult to rebut 
 your incontrovertible objections'? 
 
 'You prove everything to your own satisfaction', replied 
 Attinghausen, 'by dexterously smuggling in some unproved 
 assertion: for the whole problem turns on the question 
 whether consciousness remains after death; and in quietly 
 assuming that it does as far as man is concerned, you 
 easily establish a distinction between the limited existence 
 of animals and the unlimited and progressive existence 
 of man. I am not sure whether you desire more to delude 
 
352 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 yourselves or others. Give up at last these hopeless 
 efforts and confess that "that which is so closely and so 
 completely tied to the bodily organ, can, after this has 
 perished, as little continue to exist as the centre of a 
 circle remains after its circumference has been dissolved".* 
 You desire to be .immortal, and therefore you decree a 
 soul, and for this soul you decree a heaven. Are these 
 the acts of men''? 
 
 'But nearly all you have hitherto said', remarked Mo- 
 vayyid-eddin with renewed zeal, 'relates to the practical 
 or religious grounds of Immortality; you have not touched 
 upon those much stronger philosophical reasons which 
 are derived from the nature of the human soul'. 
 
 'Every one of those "philosophical reasons'", exclaimed 
 Attinghausen, 'has been scattered to the winds by the 
 twenty-six strict arguments set forth by Lucretius against 
 Immortality'. b 
 
 'Twenty-six arguments against Immortality' ! cried Mo- 
 vayyid-eddin in amazement. 'The very number shows 
 that the poet must have considered each of them in- 
 dividually feeble and inconclusive'. 
 
 'The frivolous pleas of the Epicureans', said Berghorn, 
 'have even in ancient times been thoroughly and strik- 
 ingly refuted by Plutarch, who allowed his antagonists 
 no escape or refuge'. 
 
 'The objections of Plutarch', observed Hermes, 'are not 
 those of the naturalist or philosopher but of the theologian, 
 and it is very remarkable how entirely they coincide with 
 those remonstrances of modern apologists, which we have 
 just discussed. There is indeed nothing new under the sun'. c 
 
 'It really seems so', said Attinghausen with zest, 'for 
 the twenty-six scientific arguments of Lucretius comprise 
 almost everything that has been, or that can be, urged 
 on our side of the question; but it is their particular 
 merit to have pointed out, with a clearness and force 
 unsurpassed even by physiologists of our time, the indis- 
 soluble connection between the organs and their functions 
 
IMMORTALITY. 353 
 
 that is, the impossibility of the latter existing without 
 the former, or the impossibility of the soul existing apart 
 from the body: a though I admit that some of the other 
 arguments are not of equal cogency. b 
 
 'You admit so much', said Movayyid-eddin, somewhat 
 relieved; 'but in order to arrive at just conclusions, we 
 must weigh the philosophical reasonings on the other side 
 of the question, and above all those that have been so 
 sagaciously and so beautifully expounded by Plato in his 
 Phaedo'. 
 
 'This is just what I dreaded', sighed Attinghausen, 
 with a slight shudder. 
 
 'I have studied that admirable work', continued Mo- 
 vayyid-eddin, 'again and again, both in the Greek text 
 and in our Arabic translations, and I have written a 
 Commentary on it in ten volumes, which I could send 
 you: do you read Arabic'? 
 
 'No, no', cried Attinghausen, 'I do not! To me Plato's 
 original is quite enough. I remember how I tortured 
 my poor brain at school ridiculous to force such a book 
 on boys of sixteen or seventeen, and that simultaneously 
 with the poem of Lucretius : I suppose as an antidote to 
 the poison how I tortured my brain to understand the 
 author's subtleties, and I can honestly say that nothing 
 has ever shaken my trust in all philosophies and creeds so 
 much as those casuistries when I had at last mastered 
 them. I have lately read the Dialogue again, as I was 
 curious to see how Plato's arguments would impress me 
 in the light of the cellular theory; but by the dog! to 
 use Socrates' own fine oath they all appeared to me 
 sophistical, except those which struck me as laughably 
 fantastical'. 
 
 'I think', said Hermes pleadingly, 'you are too severe 
 and do not make sufficient allowance for' . . . 
 
 'I mean to make no allowance whatever', replied Atting- 
 hausen with determination, 'but desire the opinions which 
 by courtesy are called proofs to be examined on their 
 
 AA 
 
354 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 own merits; for we are here to search for absolute 
 truth'. 
 
 'But those reasons', said Movayyid-eddin with great 
 warmth, 'bear the most rigid examination and will always 
 remain firm rocks for the Imam and the sage to build 
 upon. First, Socrates reminds his friends of the ancient 
 saying X6yo$ that the souls of departed men exist in 
 Hades, "and return hither again and are produced 
 yiyvovTcu from the dead" ; and from this fact he justly 
 infers that they are not extinguished by death, "since 
 surely they could not be produced again if they did not 
 exist "'. a 
 
 'A marvellous argumentation' ! exclaimed Attinghausen. 
 'You start with a "saying", then, under your hands, you 
 change it into a "fact" and next you infer exactly that 
 from which you started: for if we admit that the souls 
 exist in Hades, we admit that they exist after death, 
 and the proof is superfluous. But what kind of existence 
 do the souls lead in the lower world according to the 
 poets' "saying"? It may be satisfactory to feeble and 
 sleepy souls, but it is hateful to energetic and fiery ones 
 like that of Achilles, who, as Homer describes it, groans 
 in Elysium and would rather be a hired labourer to the 
 poorest man on earth, than rule over all the bloodless 
 shadows of Styx. But the chief legerdemain of the ar- 
 gument consists in calmly assuming that the souls of men 
 return and are reproduced in other men. A person who 
 believes that without proof, will believe anything, and it 
 would be a mockery to appeal to him with reasons'. 
 
 'Plato', rejoined Movayyid-eddin, 'has anticipated this 
 objection, and answered it acutely by referring to a law 
 of nature which you will be the last to deny. All things 
 that are generated, he says, whether men, animals or 
 plants, are so produced yiyvsrai that "contraries arise 
 from contraries" ; b for instance, the smaller from the 
 greater and the greater from the smaller, the stronger 
 from the weaker and the weaker from the stronger; and 
 
IMMORTALITY. 355 
 
 this production is constantly reciprocal: now, the con- 
 trary of life is death; therefore life produces death, and 
 death produces life that is, the soul is immortal. The 
 proof is admirable'. 
 
 'Admirable indeed'! echoed Attinghausen ironically. 
 'There are in that chain of reasoning more faults than 
 it has links. The fundamental fallacy is this that, if the 
 soul is immortal, it can never be subjected to "the pro- 
 duction of the contrary"; it cannot be "revived",* as it 
 never dies ; its very essence would be unbroken continuity 
 of life. The question would not be whether the soul 
 exists or does not exist, but whether it exists in the body 
 or carries on its life in some other abode. Thus, in 
 trying to prove Immortality, the philosopher abandons it 
 at the outset or takes it in a sense which destroys its 
 inherent meaning. But behold still further the conjuror's 
 feats at work! Look closely or else you are deceived in 
 a trice. Before your eyes he employs the same term 
 "production" y/yvsra/ in two significations entirely dif- 
 ferent, either of them being, moreover, utterly opposed to 
 common usage. At first it means simply generation, and 
 afterwards simply change: the larger tree is not pro- 
 duced by the smaller one but becomes larger by growing; 
 the smaller candle is not produced by the larger one but 
 becomes smaller by burning or cutting. Nor is this 
 change, or transition of contraries into contraries, ne- 
 cessarily reciprocal. What remains of a piece of wood 
 after being burnt is ashes, but the ashes do not, on their 
 part, become a tree; what remains of the candle when 
 it is burnt down, is perhaps a portion of the wick, which does 
 not become a candle. Thus life changes into death, but 
 death does not necessarily change into life. There exists 
 in logical argument no more perplexing trick than the 
 insidious infusion of new meanings into old terms : whole 
 systems of philosophy have been perverted by this dis- 
 ingenuous ingenuity as we may yet have an opportunity 
 of showing by a prominent example'. 
 
356 IMMOETALITY. 
 
 'But', rejoined Movayyid-eddin, 'does not, to quote 
 Plato's clear and pertinent illustration, waking produce 
 sleeping and sleeping produce waking'? 
 
 'By no means', replied Attinghausen, 'there is a transition 
 from one into the other, but no production. Waking 
 produces weariness, yet weariness does not produce waking. 
 Sleeping produces renewal of strength, yet renewal of 
 strength does not produce sleeping. And see how dim 
 and fluctuating your definitions are! We may suppose 
 that waking is essentially identical with living, as the 
 main attribute of both is conscious activity; and yet at 
 one time you assume its contrary to be sleep, at another 
 death just as it suits your argument, or your fancy'. 
 
 'I think', said Movayyid-eddin pertinaciously, 'you are 
 overthrowing the very principles you have often and most 
 strongly advocated. You admit that there is in nature 
 "a constant revolving as it were in a circle";* for if not, 
 that would happen which Socrates pointed out as the in- 
 evitable consequence, namely, that at length all things 
 would have the same form and be in the same state, and 
 more especially that at length all living beings would be 
 absorbed in death and entirely disappear. There must, 
 therefore, be a revival of the dead'. 
 
 'It is really difficult', replied Attinghausen laughing, 'to 
 treat such oddities seriously. But I see your drift. We 
 admit indeed a constantly revolving change in nature, no 
 single particle of which we believe ever to be lost. But 
 we hold that each particle is endowed with force or life, 
 and that, therefore, the preservation of a particle involves 
 the preservation of soul; we are, therefore, in no fear of 
 seeing some day all nature collapse into one mass of 
 lifeless monotony. But your expedient would not be 
 effectual long. I will not lay much weight on the in- 
 consistency that, on the one hand, Socrates considers 
 the souls to be in Hades, and yet to be urgently re- 
 quired on earth to prevent it from becoming utterly 
 devoid of life; but you should not forget that, as according 
 
IMMORTALITY. 357 
 
 to one of his conceits, many human souls, as a punishment 
 for their vices or crimes, pass into the bodies of ani- 
 mals, the number of souls available for human bodies 
 must in the course of time be alarmingly diminished, 
 unless new souls are constantly created simultaneously 
 with the bodies. But if this is the case, what need is 
 there to dread that human life, if not recruited from 
 Hades, will disappear from the earth? And I must add 
 that the elect of Plato's Elysium are almost as few in 
 number as the elect of the Christian heaven; for it is 
 only "those who have studied philosophy rightly, and 
 departed from this life perfectly ipure", that can hope 
 "to pass into the rank of the gods" ; the souls of the 
 rest migrate into the bodies of asses and mules, of wolves, 
 hawks and kites, or, if they have been distinguished by 
 temperance and justice practised from habit, without the 
 aid of philosophy, into the bodies of "civilised and peace- 
 able kinds of animals", such as bees, wasps and ants; 
 while a small number of these may again be united to 
 the human species. a A curious compound of Egyptian, 
 Hindoo, and Pythagorean whimsicalities'! 
 
 Here Abington, fearing lest the cause he had at heart 
 should suffer in the Mohammedan's hand, interposed 
 and said: 
 
 'We must indeed deplore Plato's inability to shake 
 off the notion of transmigration, which had become dear 
 to him on account of the wisdom of those from whom 
 he had borrowed it. Yet even that notion influenced 
 his mind beneficially, for it helped him indirectly to de- 
 velop that theory of Ideas, which is for ever associated 
 with his name, and from which his chief argument in 
 favour of Immortality is also derived'. 
 
 'Whatever truth that theory may possess', replied 
 Attinghausen, anxious to maintain his ground against 
 the new and more formidable opponent, 'its extrava- 
 gances become glaringly manifest when applied to the 
 doctrine we are discussing. For as it compelled Plato 
 
358 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 to assume a state of existence previous to birth, during 
 which man's mind imbibed the ideas or abstract types 
 of all objects and conceptions of which we realise on 
 earth only the imperfect images, he was led to conclude 
 that all our knowledge is only reminiscence, and that, as 
 it was obtained by the soul before the body was framed, a 
 so it will be preserved after the body is dissolved and 
 is, therefore, imperishable, like the soul itself. You have 
 truly said that this doctrine is Plato's principal support ; it 
 is this which both he and his friends incessantly affirm 
 to be incontestable, and on which he throws the whole 
 weight of the final conclusion. But how does he prove 
 that reminiscence? He offers some illustrations. When 
 a man sees a lyre, he "remembers" its owner; or when 
 he sees an acquaintance, he "remembers" this person's 
 friend. Again, when he sees two stones which "aim" 
 at being equal b but fall short of being so, he is reminded 
 of perfect or abstract equality,* 5 which he finds actually 
 nowhere on earth, and the notion of which he can, there- 
 fore, only have acquired in some preceding existence; or 
 in Socrates' own words: "It is necessary that we must 
 have known abstract equality before the time when, on 
 first seeing equal things, we perceived that they all aimed 
 at resembling equality, but failed in doing so". d It surely 
 needs little penetration to discover the strange errors of 
 these deductions. The philosopher had before confounded 
 production and change, what is he doing now ? Can being 
 reminded of a certain individual on seeing his lyre, or 
 of one friend on seeing another, be called reminiscence ? 
 Certainly not. It is simply association of ideas. In both 
 cases the person who is so reminded really knows, or is 
 at least in some way familiar with, the owner of the 
 lyre and the absent friend; but no one has ever remem- 
 bered a former condition of existence, or any period 
 anterior to his birth when he possessed the notion of 
 abstract equality or any other idea: it is a conjecture, 
 a mere fancy. Man, helpless and ignorant at his birth, 
 
IMMORTALITY. 359 
 
 acquires his notions, apart from instruction, very gradually 
 through the senses by experience, and through the mental 
 operations of comparison and inference ; and he then, on 
 the one hand, ungratefully degrades the senses as obnox- 
 ious hindrances, and on the other hand, unduly exalts 
 his intellect and tries to vindicate for it eternity and 
 immortality. "With all its just claims to our respect, 
 Plato's idealism has caused infinite mischief in imparting 
 an appearance of beauty and elevation to some of the 
 strangest of human eccentricities and superstitions. But the 
 days of idealism in any form are numbered, and a sober 
 realism will henceforth shield the common sense and 
 sound judgment of mankind'. 
 
 'Yet our sages', said Eabbi Gideon with a strong em- 
 phasis, 'are of Plato's opinion that all knowledge is re- 
 miniscence, and they tell us that at the moment a child 
 is born, an angel places his fore-finger on the infant's 
 mouth: the touch causes the soul suddenly to forget what it 
 had learnt in heaven; and the depression on our upper 
 lip is the mark left by the angel's finger. Philo justly 
 adopted Plato's doctrine of pre-existence ; the Talmud 
 assures us that all souls were produced at the time of 
 Creation, and that the Messiah connot appear before all, 
 leaving their original abode in heaven, have passed into 
 human bodies; and it is more than probable that the 
 Bible itself sanctions that doctrine in the words of the 
 Book of Jeremiah: "Before I formed thee in the womb, 
 I knew thee, and before thou earnest forth out of the 
 womb I sanctified thee". a 
 
 'Are there many more of such "arguments" for Immor- 
 tality'? asked Subbhuti with some impatience. 
 
 'Fortunately not', replied Attinghausen with growing 
 buoyancy; 'for, properly speaking, Plato considers the 
 two whims I mean opinions of the "pre-existence of 
 the soul" and the inevitable "production of contraries 
 from contraries", if taken together, as amply conclusive: 
 the soul exists before; when it enters life, it can have 
 
360 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 bee*n produced from nothing else than death, and it must 
 be so produced by necessity; therefore it abides also 
 after death. a This is the ratiocination as evolved from 
 the confusion of two pairs of terms. 
 
 'Plato, however, adds a few other supports which, I 
 think, can be very briefly disposed of. With an elaborate 
 fulness and reiteration proving the weight he attaches to 
 it, he dwells on a syllogism which, I believe, must have 
 delighted his sophistical antagonists. A contrary,^ he says, 
 can never become a contrary to itself, neither that which 
 is in us, nor that which is in nature. Thus, for instance, 
 snow can never admit the idea of heat, but when heat 
 approaches, one of two things necessarily happens either 
 the snow must flee and withdraw, or it must perish. In 
 the same manner, he argues, the soul, which is the body's 
 principle of life, never admits its contrary death, that is, 
 it is immortal. b In the same manner? we ask with as- 
 tonishment. Does not the example of the snow and heat 
 present an alternative, whereas the application to the 
 soul and death categorically assumes one possibility only? 
 As the snow may perish through the approach of heat, 
 so the soul this is the clear analogy may perish through 
 the approach of death: whether the snow becomes hot or 
 perishes by the heat, in other words, whether the soul 
 becomes death or perishes in death, this is a subtle dis- 
 tinction over which school dialecticians may wrangle; 
 practically it is worthless'. 
 
 'Yet I believe', said Canon Mortimer, 'there is some 
 force in the argument that only what is compounded can 
 be scattered and dissolved; and as the soul is perfectly 
 simple, it must for ever remain in a state of changeless 
 existence'. d 
 
 'Here again', replied Attinghausen briskly, 'Socrates 
 exhibits himself as an accomplished prestigiator. He 
 starts from abstract notions, such as beauty and justice, 
 and easily causes his young friends to admit that those 
 ideas are eternal and unvarying. But then, by a sudden 
 
IMMORTALITY. 361 
 
 manipulation, he makes the abstract synonymous with the 
 invisible, and hence concludes that the soul, being invi- 
 sible, is eternal and immortal. 4 It is really wonderful 
 how readily people believe what is agreeable to them. 
 On this principle, all the invisible gases would be un- 
 changeable, yet nothing is so volatile and changeable. 
 
 'All that Socrates says on the subject besides, signifies 
 very little that the soul has dominion over the body 
 and is therefore divine; that not even the body is dis- 
 solved immediately after death and if embalmed lasts 
 "an incredible length of time", and that, therefore, the 
 soul, which is infinitely superior to the body, cannot so 
 easily be dispersed or destroyed. "Far from it", he 
 exclaims; "but if the soul is separated in a pure state 
 taking nothing of the body with it, does it not rather 
 depart to that which resembles itself, the invisible, the 
 divine, the immortal and wise? and on its arrival there, 
 is not its lot to be happy, free from error, ignorance, 
 fears, wild passions and all the other evils to which 
 human nature is subject? and does it not in truth pass 
 the rest of the time with the gods" ? All this, and much 
 more in the same strain, befits the rhetorician rather 
 than the philosopher. Indeed one of the hearers, by no 
 means satisfied, advances an illustration which, in my 
 opinion, admirably settles the whole question: when a 
 lyre, he says, which is visible and corporeal, is broken, 
 the invisible and indwelling harmony vanishes with it and 
 subsists nowhere. But Socrates has that talisman ready, 
 to whom all his friends devoutly pay unconditional hom- 
 age: the two cases, he urges, are not parallel; for the 
 harmony was only formed after the completion of the 
 lyre, whereas the soul existed before the creation of the 
 body ; though, therefore, he concludes, the harmony perishes 
 with the instrument, the human soul need not disappear 
 with the body. b To the metaphysician that ghostly goblin 
 of pre-existence of the soul is indeed an invaluable auxi- 
 liary; for it frightens reason, logic and science into 
 
362 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 precipitate flight. Therefore, I have finished and Heaven 
 be praised'! 
 
 'You have not finished', said Movayyid-eddin, 'and 
 cannot yet be released from your pledge. There is another 
 powerful argument set forth by Plato in a different work. 
 That which is self-moved, he says in substance, or has 
 the principle of motion in itself, moves eternally ; whereas 
 that which, though moving something else, is moved itself 
 by some external cause, necessarily ceases to move when 
 that cause is withdrawn. Now a principle from its very 
 nature has no beginning, as it cannot owe its origin to 
 anything else; but if it has no beginning, it can have 
 no end; for if it were once extinguished, it would never 
 be restored either by anything else or through itself. 
 But the soul has the power of self-motion, or is moved 
 by an interior force belonging to itself; it is, therefore, 
 both without a beginning and without an end it is eternal 
 and immortal'. 1 
 
 'Excellent, excellent'! cried Attinghausen, rather moodily; 
 'an argument quite to the ulemah's heart. But it proves 
 unfortunately a little too much; for the souls of animals, 
 being likewise "self-moved", must also be eternal and 
 immortal you cannot get rid of the unpleasant company. 1 * 
 Besides', he continued in his usual spirits, 'I really do 
 not see why you take the trouble of devising or citing 
 proofs if more even than you want to prove is perpetually 
 assumed in your premises; for if I were certain that the 
 soul of man or animal is "self-moved", I could not deny 
 its immortality. But that is just the cardinal question: 
 does the soul possess "motion", that is life, in itself, or 
 is this life only acquired in connection with certain organs, 
 and ceases when the organs are destroyed or dissolved? 
 You might be a little less technical in form, if you were 
 a little more logical in matter'. 
 
 'You have every reason', said Humphrey, 'not to be 
 too critical as regards logic. One of the usual arguments 
 on your side runs thus: nothing is sensible of pain, 
 
IMMORTALITY. 363 
 
 which is not also liable to disease ; but whatever is liable 
 to disease must be liable to death; now the soul is 
 sensible to pain, therefore it is liable to perish. a It is 
 mere sophistry, but you do not, of course, see the beam 
 in your own eye'. 
 
 'Do not play with dangerous weapons' ! replied Atting- 
 hausen. 'The syllogism you have quoted is as effectual 
 as it is compact. If the soul were something incorporeal 
 apart from the body, we should not even be subject to 
 fatigue, much less to death; whereas experience teaches 
 that the greater the activity of the brain is, the more in- 
 tense must be the sleep, in order to restore the cerebral 
 matter by an increased influx of blood'. 
 
 'You will never be able', said Abington after a short 
 pause, 'to banish from the sanctuary of the human heart 
 that intuitive certainty of an immortal life, which is 
 something infinitely more real and positive than the mere 
 feeling or desire which you have before admitted to exist. 
 Supposing even what I cannot grant that every argument 
 adduced by Plato is as untenable as cold rationalism 
 asserts, he is invincible in that appeal to our higher 
 nature, with which he concludes his memorable Dialogue. 
 He is confident and this confidence of a high-souled 
 heathen outweighs all the scepticism of reason that, if 
 we have but sufficiently purified ourselves by philosophy 
 let me say instead, purified ourselves by faith in God and 
 His Redemption ,we shall live without bodies throughout 
 all future time and shall arrive at habitations more beau- 
 tiful than human words can describe ; and appropriately 
 crowning his eloquent address, he adds: "That the 
 soul is immortal, appears to me most fitting to be be- 
 lieved, and worthy the hazard for one who is convinced 
 of this truth; for the hazard is noble, and it is right that 
 we should allure ourselves with those hopes as with en- 
 chantments". 1 ' Even a man of St. Paul's indomitable 
 strength of character declared that he and his fellow- 
 
364 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 workers would be guilty of folly in exposing themselves 
 to constant dangers for their faith instead of indulging 
 in the pleasures of the world, if there were no resur- 
 rection of the dead'. a 
 
 'Resurrection' ! exclaimed Attinghausen', bewildered, as 
 if he could not realise the import of the word. 
 
 'Yes, indeed', said Movayyid-eddin; 'our Prophet says 
 beautifully: "Sterile fields bursting forth in the germs of 
 fertility, and producing life-sustaining harvests this is a 
 striking image of the resurrection" '. b 
 
 'And even philosophers like Kant and Mendelssohn', 
 continued Abington placidly, 'affirmed that without a 
 personal immortality all precepts of ethics are deprived 
 of their natural basis and prop'. c 
 
 'You remind me opportunely', said Rabbi Gideon, 'of 
 Moses Mendelssohn, the very mention of whose name is 
 a joy to the heart, and raises the soul to the heights of 
 peace and purity. Not he, but the wise Athenian is 
 honoured by the appellation he bears of the "modern 
 Socrates"; and this name is especially suitable on account 
 of the success with which he improved and enlarged the 
 Socratic arguments of Immortality. His "Phaedon" is 
 a worthy counterpart of Plato's work, and while he equals 
 his pagan predecessor in natural elevation of mind, he 
 greatly surpasses him in true knowledge and depth'. 
 
 'Do not injure your illustrious co-religionist', said 
 Wolfram calmly, 'by an indiscriminate praise which he 
 would have been the first to repudiate. And yet exag- 
 geration even seems to me in this instance almost par- 
 donable. For who can help feeling a glow of admiration 
 for the man who, in every line he wrote, impresses upon 
 us the devout earnestness with which he approached all 
 great questions of humanity; for the thinker to whom these 
 were indeed questions of life and death; who pursued 
 his enquiries with a trembling heart, because the result 
 determined in his eyes the value and dignity of existence, 
 and who yet, in his sacred love of truth, dared not influence 
 
IMMORTALITY. 365 
 
 the result by bias or partiality ? I have still another cause 
 for revering the name', continued Wolfram with visible 
 emotion. 'I was intimate with Moses Mendelssohn's gifted 
 grand-son during nearly the whole of his short life, and 
 the memory of this sweet friendship is the dearest treasure 
 of my old age. Felix Mendelssohn was the most perfect 
 man I have ever known ; he combined the fire of the East 
 with the clear "dry light" of the West; the exquisite 
 sensitiveness of the artist with the solid perseverance of 
 the scholar; the light-heartedness of the child with the 
 matured wisdom of the philosopher. Yet neither admira- 
 tion for the sire nor affection for the descendant must 
 dim my judgment; our love of truth, kindled perhaps 
 by Lessing's Jewish contemporary, is not less strong 
 and, I trust, not less pure, and it compels me to 
 declare that I can hardly attribute any importance to 
 the additions he made to the reasonings of his Greek 
 predecessor'. 
 
 'They always appeared to me conclusive', replied Gideon, 
 evidently in a great conflict of feelings. 'His great argu- 
 ment in the first Dialogue is briefly this' . . . 
 
 'I know', interrupted Wolfram, 'and I must say that 
 I was seldom more deeply pained than by the feeble 
 inconsistency it displays. The premises are admirable: 
 all our notions originate in an impression of the senses;* 
 nothing in nature is completely destroyed, but there is a 
 perpetual transition ; the body is in process of gradual decay, 
 and together with the body the soul decays ; "this grows 
 weaker, feels anomalously, thinks wrongly, and frequently 
 acts so as to provoke displeasure from itself ". b And what 
 is it that follows from these propositions with inevitable 
 cogency ? That, when the body is dissolved, the soul is no 
 longer able to think or to form notions, since the instru- 
 ments of reflection no longer exist; that is, that it peri- 
 shes as soul. But what are Mendelssohn's conclusions? 
 That the soul is immortal and, after the dissolution of 
 the body, strives as before after happiness, that is, after 
 
366 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 wisdom, virtue and truth. How does he consider this 
 practicable ? He clings to the idea that a total destruction 
 in the world is impossible and inconceivable. But can 
 the soul still operate after it has been deprived of the 
 organs of thought? Well, he replies, the proposition that 
 our notions arise from impressions of the senses is merely 
 deduced "from the experience we are making in this life" ; 
 but, he continues, "what right have we to extend this 
 experience beyond the limits of our present existence, 
 and absolutely to deny nature the power of letting the 
 soul think apart from this body and its organs" ? a and he 
 concludes with the illustration: "If a child in its mother's 
 womb could think, would it be persuaded that, detached 
 from its root, it was destined to enjoy in the free air the 
 delicious light of the sun" ? The reader asks in astonish- 
 ment: why did the author trouble himself with setting 
 forth a series of premises all derived from experience, 
 if he finally denounces and rejects experience as "the 
 blindness of idiots" ? b Nay what need has he at all of 
 proofs of Immortality if he bases them on the assumption 
 of an existence "extending beyond the limits of the present 
 life" ? The excellence of his intentions shields him from 
 being judged with severity and his concluding apostrophe 
 to the heavenly joy felt by the soul in the contemplation 
 of the Deity is indeed most beautiful ; yet we cannot 
 help recognising that his mind, though possessing elasticity 
 and delicacy, was seriously wanting in energy: it resembled 
 the mind of Maimonides, not that of Spinoza'. 
 
 'He once said wittily', interrupted Attinghausen, 'that Pope 
 was a philosopher among poets, and a poet among philo- 
 sophers; similarly his own position might be described 
 with reference to philosophers and Rabbis'. 
 
 'He could not summon', continued Wolfram, smiling, 
 'sufficient determination to abandon the traditional view 
 that the soul is something separate over and above 
 the powers of the body: this was the source of all his 
 errors. 
 
IMMORTALITY. 367 
 
 *But the second Part of his Phaedon', rejoined Gideon 
 with increased decision, 'has generally been acknowledged as 
 a model of close reasoning, and the last Part, independently 
 of its valuable matter, is one of the finest compositions 
 in German literature 7 . 
 
 'In the second conversation', replied Wolfram, 'Mendels- 
 sohn approaches the truth indeed several times very nearly; 
 but that fatal defect of mental irresolution to which I 
 have alluded, prevents him from grasping it. He states 
 the bolder view with clearness, but only in order to make 
 a strained attempt at proving it erroneous. He calmly 
 considers the possibility that "sensation in animals and even 
 reason in men are nothing but qualities of the compound 
 body, which, from their nature, cannot outlast the organi- 
 sation of which they are inseparable".* But instead of 
 firmly pursuing this plain and even track, and drawing 
 the obvious inference that "the soul" is the sum of the 
 forces possessed by all the organs, he arrives, by a path 
 which he himself repeatedly describes as thorny and 
 circuitous, at the conclusion that there must be one single 
 "substance" which, simple and uncompounded itself, unites 
 all individual faculties, all knowledge, desires, passions 
 and inclinations, and that this substance is the soul. Yet 
 he reaches this result not by the gradual steps of his 
 laborious argumentation, but by a sudden and hazardous 
 bound, and by loosely assuming that "all conceptions and 
 propensities of our mind are so intimately connected and 
 blended that they must necessarily exist somewhere in 
 undivided unity ". b This is one of the grounds why I 
 cannot admit the reasoning of the second Part to be 
 faultless, and another is, that this reasoning is devoid of 
 unity. The author offers the fitting illustration that, as 
 symmetry is produced by a certain mode in the composition 
 of the parts, the symmetry of an edifice can no longer 
 exist when the stones are torn asunder and crushed to 
 dust the application of which to the soul is evident . 
 But though again so near the truth, his centrifugal mind 
 
368 IMMOBTALITT. 
 
 carries him, in the opposite direction, to the principle 
 that "without reference to the Simple, that is, to sentient 
 and thinking beings, it is impossible to ascribe to the 
 Compound either beauty, order, symmetry, or perfection; 
 nay these attributes can, without that reference, not even 
 be conbined to form a whole ". a But this new consideration, 
 by a not uncommon mistake, shifts the point of view from 
 the work to the artificer. Returning to the example 
 properly introduced by our friend Attinghausen, we must 
 indeed say that, when a watch is dashed to pieces, the 
 intelligence that produced it is thereby unaffected, and 
 that the idea of an instrument for the indication of time 
 continues to live in the minds of the artificers. But that 
 particular watch has for ever lost its "soul". For this 
 resulted exclusively from a manner of composition, which 
 has been broken up. The mind of the architect, or the 
 idea of symmetry in the minds of architects, may outlive 
 many edifices; yet when the stones of one particular 
 structure are reduced to fragments, the symmetry of this 
 structure is for ever destroyed. Thus, when a man dies 
 and is dissolved into atoms, his individual life is lost, 
 though the idea of humanity may continue to exist in 
 the cosmos'. 
 
 'Permit me to add', said Hermes, 'that so early a 
 philosopher as Thales attributed to the magnet a "soul"; 
 yet we know that, when this mineral is pulverised, it loses 
 this soul or power of attraction, which it possessed only 
 through a certain, as it were organic, arrangement of its 
 component parts'. 
 
 'We should unpardonably inflict weariness upon oui 
 friends', said Gideon, who had not expected Wolfram tc 
 enter into so full a criticism, 'were we to follow the philo- 
 sopher through the skilful intricacies of his deductions 
 that these are, in their result, substantially correct, canno. 
 be rendered doubtful by hairsplitting perversions inspired 
 by the foregone conclusions of unbelief. Mendelssohr 
 himself declared that "although none of his arguments 
 
IMMORTALITY. 369 
 
 taken singly, may involve a supreme degree of certainty, 
 yet, if considered together, they carry conviction with 
 such triumphant force as to scatter all doubts and impart 
 to us a perfect tranquillity"; and then he admitted that 
 "more than a high measure of probability was not required 
 to countenance the supposition that a better life is reserved 
 for the virtuous"'. 8 
 
 'As if Mendelssohn felt', continued Wolfram, deeming a 
 reply to Gideon's remarks needless, 'that, at best, the 
 arguments in the first two divisions of his book proved 
 the existence of the soul, but not its permanence or 
 immortality, he added a third Part, which indeed, as a 
 literary composition and as the expression of a fervid and 
 exalted philanthropy, deserves all the enthusiastic praise 
 it has called forth, but is in reality nothing more than 
 declamation, and leaves all the great problems exactly 
 on the point where they had been two or three thousand 
 years before. It combines the fallacies and exaggerations 
 of the theologian, the eudaemonist, and the unconditional 
 champion of design in nature. Man, the writer urges, deve- 
 lops during his life the most remarkable gifts and qualities, 
 which cannot possibly be lost after his death, and which 
 he must not only preserve but unfold still further, although 
 the soul, detached from the body, its natural instrument, 
 will certainly be subjected to very different laws from 
 those it follows on earth. What notions of the plan of 
 Creation, he asks, are presupposed by the contrary 
 opinion, since the whole universe has been produced in 
 order that there may exist rational beings able to advance 
 from stage to stage to the highest perfection ? b Only by 
 adhering to Immortality can our faith in God's mercy 
 and justice be saved, since, if we consider the course of 
 the world in itself vice victorious, misdeeds crowned, 
 innocence persecuted, happiness and misfortune scattered 
 at random to the good and the bad ,"we are sometimes 
 tempted to believe that men's destinies are ordained by 
 a Cause delighting in evil". c But if we survey a man's 
 
 BB 
 
370 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 lot during the whole extent of eternity, we shall admire 
 and adore the heavenly Ruler's wisdom and beneficence, 
 for we shall find that the pious receive their rewards, 
 while the wicked learn that crime is not the path to 
 happiness.* The author is so strong in his reliance that 
 he proposes the rule that whatever, if true, would bestow 
 upon the human race comfort and advantage, or is indis- 
 pensable for its happiness, is on this account alone pre- 
 sumably true. b 
 
 'In reading these generous effusions, we do not inhale 
 the fresh breezes of the eighteenth century. They are the 
 hereditary traditions of bygone ages. Moses Mendelssohn's 
 world is essentially the world of the Old Testament and 
 the Rabbins, although he surrounded it with a halo partly 
 of Greek beauty and partly of modern humanism'. 
 
 A short pause ensued, as the listeners seemed to have 
 been very variously affected by the last part of the conver- 
 sation. At length Panini, whose natural gentleness was 
 severely tried by Wolfram's criticisms of his favourite 
 author, resumed the main subject and said with an 
 evident effort: 
 
 'All attacks on the belief of Immortality are unavailing. 
 They have spent their force. In times of unhappy scep- 
 ticism they enjoyed a momentary triumph to be followed 
 by a more signal repulse. We need only turn to the 
 pure and profound utterances of the Wisdom of Solomon. 
 In them we find the whole subject condensed and vie wed in 
 all its aspects. There is the description of the unbeliever's 
 reckless mockery, who says to himself: Our life is short 
 and full of troubles; it is a faint spark, which being 
 extinguished, our body is turned into ashes and our spirit 
 vanishes as the soft air; it passes away tracelessly like a 
 cloud or a shadow, and is dispersed like a mist, for no 
 one has ever returned from the grave. Is not this precisely 
 the language of our present materialists? And might not 
 such unfortunate persons write on the gates of Death the 
 
IMMORTALITY. 371 
 
 famous words of our great poet: "Lasciate ogni speranza, 
 voi clie entrate" ? a of that poet who was sure that death 
 is "the soul's eclipse, not the soul's extinction"? 11 But I 
 proceed. The wise moralist then sketches the awful con- 
 sequences of such mischievous views. Those who hold 
 them proclaim : Let us plunge into every worldly pleasure 
 and voluptuousness; "let us oppress the poor righteous 
 man, let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the gray 
 hairs of the aged; let our strength be the law of justice, 
 and let us lie in wait for the righteous, let us"' . . . 
 
 'By all the holy lives that have been led without the 
 aid of your superstitions', "Wolfram burst forth with a 
 startling energy, 'by the shadows of all beloved friends 
 I have followed to the grave as their last resting place, 
 I bid you check your slanderous indictment ! If your fabled 
 heaven and hell existed, those friends would now be 
 ministering angels, while churlish priests lie howling. 
 Denounce opinions you cannot comprehend, but beware 
 of aspersing lives that are above the calumny even of 
 saintly theologians'! 
 
 'I was simply quoting from the Wisdom of Solomon', 
 said the excellent Panini, almost trembling, for he was a 
 timid and peace-loving man. 'It could surely not be my 
 intention to offend or to insult. And yet', he continued, 
 borrowing courage from the purity and ardour of his 
 convictions, 'I know that salvation is in that faith alone 
 which men proudly following their own light wantonly 
 reject: 
 
 "Quel Sol, che pria d'amor mi scaldo il petto, 
 "Di bella verita m'avea scoverto, 
 "Provando et riprovando, il dolce aspettoV 
 
 'And again I echo the Wisdom of Solomon: "As for 
 the mysteries of God, they knew them not, neither hoped 
 they for the wages of righteousness, nor discerned a reward 
 for blameless souls ; for God created man to be immortal, 
 and made him to be an image of His own eternity ". d 
 Even the wavering reflections of Ecclesiastes reach at 
 
372 IMMOETALITY. 
 
 last the firm conviction of Immortality; and thus the 
 remarkable Book, in exhibiting faith as impregnable by 
 the subtlest doubt, is one of its strongest and most 
 valuable supports'. 8 
 
 'Go on', said Attinghausen, 'fortifying yourselves with 
 confused utterances anxiously gleaned from semi-barbarism ! 
 Go on placing yourselves consciously in direct opposition 
 to the innermost spirit of the age you presume to instruct 
 and to guide! Your dualistic hypothesis continues to 
 regard the force associated with the substance of the 
 soul as a special and mystic power totally independent 
 of chemical agencies and untouched by the mechanics of 
 atoms. You thus postulate a metaphysical spectre which, 
 exempt from all ordinary laws of existence, acts and rules 
 with its own perplexing arbitrariness. The consequences 
 of this infatuation will not tarry to make themselves felt, 
 and you will have to bear them with regret and dismay. 
 Even now some of you may be alarmed at the shocking 
 effects of a belief in a supernatural world of spirits, 
 when they reflect on the scandal of a Slade, a Louise 
 Lateau or a Virgin of Marpingen an abuse, which in 
 our own days has ensnared both the uneducated and the 
 educated, even a Wallace and a Zollner; but you will be 
 impotent against delusion and imposture alike; for your 
 theories engender the one in the weak and foster the 
 other in the unscrupulous'. 
 
 'What have you to offer us as a substitute'? asked 
 Humphrey sneeringly. 
 
 'Truth and its strength', replied Attinghausen firmly. 
 'We reject that principle of retribution, which is in reality 
 a principle of fear and barter, and rely on that unfading 
 canon of right and justice, of love and charity, which is 
 written in our hearts and consciences written in all 
 hearts and all consciences alike. "I am immortal", 
 says Fichte, "by the resolve I take to obey the precepts 
 of reason". If we know and practise our duty, we are on 
 earth leading a life of eternity. The light of the imperishable 
 
IMMOETALITY. 373 
 
 heavens shines in every pure mind. We are determined 
 actively and strenuously to carry on the work bequeathed 
 to us by the past, and then to leave it to be continued 
 by the unnumbered generations that will follow. We 
 delight in the idea that one day a higher spirit, which 
 we have helped to nourish, will rule on this earth, and, 
 far surpassing our own labours, will approach the solution 
 of the problems now engaging us with faculties infinitely 
 stronger and more perfect; and that, when we have 
 passed away in death and oblivion, better, wiser and 
 happier beings will occupy our places, the forerunners of 
 yet nobler and more exalted types. This is our only and 
 our true immortality or in the poet's words: 
 
 "Death is a terror to you? You desire an immortal existence? 
 "Live in the Whole ! When yourself long will have gone, it 
 remains".* 
 
 'Goethe was wont to call this briefly "being resigned 
 in the Whole ", b and Riickert says similarly: 
 
 "Vernichtung weht dich an, so lang du Einzles bist; 
 "0 fiihl' im Ganzen dich, das unvernichtbar isf'. 
 
 'Indeed'! exclaimed Wolfram, as if inspired; 'over the 
 thundering cataract that scatters its drops in constant 
 change with the rapidity of the lightning flash over the 
 cataract stands in majestic calmness the rainbow which 
 is mirrored in each drop : thus the light of mankind falls 
 upon the race, unconcerned at the perpetual change of 
 individuals. Nature looks calmly at the profuse destruction 
 of men, because she knows that their true being is guarded 
 in the species. Other leaves bud forth in spring instead 
 of those which the autumn has thrown withered at our 
 feet, but it is the same vital strength of the tree, which 
 calls forth both alike. 6 
 
 "Ich bin ein Blatt des Baums, der ewig neue tragt; 
 "Heil mir! Es bleibt mem Stamm, wenn mich der Wind 
 verschlagtf".' d 
 
 'The thought of actual eternity', continued Attinghausen, 
 'would be terrible to me. Pliny says, The yearning for 
 
374 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 immortality "spoils nature's choicest boon, death"; and 
 my greatest comfort is the Roman poet's trust, Mors 
 ultima liena rerum esf. 9 - 
 
 <I am afraid', said Mondoza with great deliberation, 
 'that we cannot hope even approximately to arrive at 
 unanimity on this momentous question. We have done, 
 I believe, a service to each other by the unreserved 
 statement of arguments on both sides. For the rest, we 
 must at present agree to disagree. Let us be content 
 with the alternative as expressed by a gifted living poet: 
 
 "Ask the rush if it suspects 
 "Whence and how the stream that floats it had a rise, and 
 
 where and how 
 "Falls or flows on still! What answer makes the rush except 
 
 that now 
 
 "Certainly it flows and is, and, no less certain than itself, 
 u ls the everyway external stream that now through shoal 
 
 and shelf 
 "Floats it onward, leaves it may be wrecked at last, or 
 
 lands on shore, 
 "There to root again and grow and flourish stable evermore". b 
 
 'I may at some future time, when our enquiries are 
 more advanced, have occasion to offer a few remarks on 
 the influence the belief in Immortality exercises on our 
 conduct and our happiness'. 
 
 'Permit me' said Abington, who found it impossible to 
 leave the great and sacred question in such uncertainty, 
 'to add one word in conclusion. I address myself to those 
 nobler feelings which our realistic friends betray almost 
 against their will, nay at which they seem to blush. They 
 have acknowledged the existence and the power of the 
 human conscience as an agent of morality. If they are 
 logical, this one concession is sufficient to compel their 
 recognition of those elevated doctrines which they so 
 persistently reject. For if you admit the dominion of 
 conscience in man, you are obliged also to admit con- 
 science as the supreme power in the world ; for would it 
 not be absurd to follow conscience if it were not the 
 
IMMORTALITY. 375 
 
 highest of all tribunals? But recognising conscience as 
 the highest tribunal in the world, is nothing else than 
 acknowledging God; for God is both love and justice. Again, 
 according to history, the time of Christ's life, and still 
 more the time of his death, was the moment when con- 
 science or as you say devotion to the general weal- 
 unfolded among men its fullest blossoms; it is hence im- 
 possible to doubt the divinity and mission of Christ. And 
 lastly, in order to devote yourselves to the general weal 
 with energy and confidence, you must be convinced that 
 you are able to achieve your object. Now the highest 
 object of general value is the perfect cultivation of man's 
 moral individuality ; and as this can only be accomplished 
 in eternity, it is evident that the belief of Immortality 
 also is a necessary consequence of your admission in 
 favour of the power of conscience'.* 
 
 After the very first sentences of Abington's speech, 
 Attinghausen gave unmistakable signs of restlessness, 
 while most of the others evinced a polite, though rather 
 passive attention, with the exception of Humphrey and 
 Gideon, by whom the argument seemed to be greatly 
 relished till at last, after the mention of Christ's life 
 and death, Humphrey was the only interested listener. 
 
 When Abington had finished, Mondoza barely succeeded 
 in anticipating and checking Attinghausen, who had al- 
 ready risen to reply, and said: 
 
 'The vastness, depth and paramount importance of the 
 subject are manifest from the almost endless variety of 
 reasonings it allows, all connecting the soul of man with 
 the soul of the universe. Yet though each of these de- 
 monstrations may possess profound truth and significance 
 for some minds, and may, therefore, fully satisfy them, 
 none, I believe, has yet been brought forward which bears 
 a rigidly logical and objective examination, and I am 
 afraid, that which has just been so earnestly propounded, 
 forms no exception to this remark. For it would, for 
 instance, be difficult to answer the possible query of an 
 
376 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 opponent if I have a conscience, does it follow that the 
 power which produces earthquakes and tornadoes, tigers 
 and poisonous snakes, has a conscience? We should not 
 rest in considering the problem again and again and from 
 every side ; but at present, I repeat, we must be satisfied 
 with being in agreement with ourselves, and not despair 
 if we find it impossible to agree with others. Let us but 
 courageously pursue our path the guide may appear 
 where we least expected him'. 
 
 All seemed, on the whole, satisfied with this provisional 
 decision; and if Attinghausen found it difficult wholly to 
 suppress a look of triumph, his theological antagonists 
 met it with an air of sublime disregard and confidence, 
 quasi re lene gesta. 
 
IX. PANTHEISM. 
 
 To the surprise of many of the guests, Melville had, 
 in the preceding nights, taken comparatively little part 
 in the discussion of subjects which, it was believed, pos- 
 sessed for him a particular interest, and on which his 
 deep thought and knowledge were able to throw so much 
 light. Yet he had followed each turn of the conversation 
 most intently, and, when the next evening, the assembled 
 friends were seated, he began: 
 
 'Like our zealous naturalists, I am convinced that 
 Monism alone avoids the two preposterous extremes of 
 either endowing the universe, as the hyper spiritualists do, 
 with a superhuman and ghostlike clairvoyance, or re- 
 ducing it, as the materialists do, into a dead machine 
 or huge manufactory. But it must be a true and full 
 Monism. The confusion prevailing in these subjects is 
 manifest from the fact that, although all materialists 
 alike assume with Democritus and Descartes an entirely 
 inert matter in the cosmos, a part of them are atheists, 
 while others virtually recognise a Deity whose power moves 
 the world from without'. 
 
 4 I do not see quite clearly', said Wolfram, 'what Monism 
 you mean, unless it be that which has been at the foundation 
 of our whole discussion'. 
 
 'I mean the Monism of Spinoza', replied Melville, 'a 
 conception which does not lead to materialism but to 
 idealism; not to pessimism but to a bright and well- 
 founded optimism'. 
 
 'I must confess', said Wolfram, 'that the much-praised 
 unity, consistency and clearness of Spinoza's system have, 
 on a careful study of his works, become to me very 
 
378 PANTHEISM. 
 
 doubtful. I do not at present speak of his ethics, which 
 are all that is purest, noblest and holiest ever felt 
 by a human heart, ever revealed by a human mind. I 
 speak of his Pantheism, which I am often unable to 
 distinguish from a misty Theism. I know that much of 
 this vagueness is attributable to the cautiousness with 
 which his fanatical age compelled him to convey his 
 thoughts. While he, therefore, used the traditional terms, 
 he invested them with an entirely new meaning.* The 
 word "God" especially was employed by him in a manner 
 which almost baffles our efforts of deciding with dis- 
 tinctness whether he conceived the Deity as a personal 
 being or an abstract idea; and indeed opposite schools 
 have in support of their views quoted the very same pro- 
 positions'. 
 
 l l should think', rejoined Melville, 'that there is not a 
 single one of his utterances which leaves any doubt that, in 
 his opinion, the world is no lifeless mechanism subsisting 
 under the compulsion of a blind necessity, but an organism 
 endowed with reason and reflection. In the second Book 
 of his Ethics he teaches expressly : "Reflection is an at- 
 tribute of God, or God is a reflecting thing Cogitatio 
 attributum Dei est, sive Dem est res cogitans"'. 
 
 'True', replied Wolfram, 'but in the very next Pro- 
 position he declares: "Extension is an attribute of God, 
 or God is an extended thing Extensio attributum Dei 
 est, sive Deus est res extensa". And even in that former 
 sentence, what is the meaning of "a reflecting thing"? 
 Does such a thing at all deserve the designation "God", 
 if language is to preserve any significance? Moreover, 
 I need not remind you how constantly Spinoza argues 
 that God has neither "will" nor "intellect" b , and it suf- 
 fices to keep in mind the one sentence, "That eternal 
 and infinite entity which we call God or Nature, acts 
 with the same necessity as it exists"'. 
 
 'But', replied Melville, 'he expresses the fundamental 
 principle of his system unambiguously and pithily in the 
 
PANTHEISM. 379 
 
 famous passage: "The laws of nature, by which everything 
 happens and is determined, are nothing else than the 
 eternal decrees of God, which invariably involve im- 
 mutable truth and necessity; whether we therefore say, 
 everything happens by the laws of nature, or everything 
 is ordained by God's council and direction, we say the 
 same thing". How can God's spiritual nature be described 
 more clearly'? 
 
 'I find in that passage', said Wolfram, 'nothing but a 
 dark play with words. By the terms "council and 
 direction of God" we cannot possibly understand anything 
 else than the self-conscious and free action of a rational 
 and personal being: how can this be identical with the 
 laws of nature to which Spinoza constantly attributes 
 necessity working aimlessly and purposely? But overlook- 
 ing this contradiction, and assuming that he supposes 
 "God" to be immanent in Nature and invests Nature, 
 in the manner of the Stoics, with a rational soul: what 
 kind of a God would this be? Would He be able and 
 this is for us the most important point to exercise the 
 functions of a Providence? The sequel of the passage 
 quoted by you gives the reply: "Since the power of all 
 natural things is nothing else than the power of God 
 Himself, by which alone everything is done and determined, 
 it follows that all which man, who is likewise a part of 
 Nature, procures for his subsistence or which Nature 
 supplies to him, is procured and supplied solely by the 
 Divine power". Here we have suddenly a third factor, 
 Man; and all three God, Nature, and Man are es- 
 sentially one : Man is his own power, his own Providence, 
 his own God. This is the only intelligible kernel of 
 Spinozism, however mysteriously it may be enveloped in 
 a double and triple shell'. 
 
 'Half of Spinoza's writings might be quoted', said Hermes 
 with great vivacity, 'and yet we should evolve nothing 
 but the same obscurities and inconsistencies. The prin- 
 cipal fault lies in his one-sided application of the synthetic 
 
380 PANTHEISM. 
 
 method detached from the safe ground of experience and 
 observation. Exclusively relying on the strength of his 
 logic, he was in many of the chief questions unahle to 
 reach the truth. Under his hands all tangible matter 
 seemed to vanish; and there remained to him in the end 
 "only an artificial network of empty relations, which 
 indeed offer no resistance to the experiments of reasoning, 
 but afford no knowledge of reality".* He remained partially 
 in the bonds of Scholasticism. He worked with abstract 
 formulas, combined them freely, and drew from them 
 conclusions, as if they were geometrical axioms. But 
 his definitions of Causa sui, Substance, Attribute, Modus 
 and God, with which he operated so confidently, were 
 hazy assumptions, and hence his system, in spite of its 
 apparent and iron-like compactness, is built on sand and 
 crumbles away under a firm touch. b Yet even if the 
 foundations were sound, the method applied could yield 
 no profitable result, as the variety of nature and life 
 mocks the methodical rigour of geometrical deductions. 
 These can only again and again reproduce themselves 
 and never create anything new. The great truths the 
 system includes are derived from those experiences which, 
 contrary to its design, it accepts and inductively utilises. 
 It deserves therefore admiration, strange as it may seem, 
 not on account of its unity, which is disturbed by a 
 frequent relapse from the higher Pantheism into the 
 common individualism, nor on account of its logical 
 severity, which is its gravest defect, but for those single 
 and intuitive flashes of genius which suddenly illumine 
 old and obscure problems, and the vivid force of which 
 nothing can impair. One illustration will suffice. Spinoza 
 expresses the idea, most important for practical morality, 
 that an affection of the mind cannot be checked or 
 silenced by mere reflection or by the simple knowledge of 
 what is right, but only by another and stronger affection, 
 whence it follows that impressions and passions cannot 
 be conquered unless the principles of right be transformed 
 
PANTHEISM. 381 
 
 into motives or impulses and thus made active agencies. 
 By a happy intuition, therefore, Spinoza avoided the 
 great and fatal error of idealism, which fancies that 
 the formal notions of the understanding essentially in- 
 fluence our actions. But this is, as I have observed, only a 
 flash of light; the requirements of his system lead him con- 
 stantly into that very error ; a and the whole of the fifth 
 Book of his Ethics is based on the assumption that the 
 mind, by knowledge and intelligence, has power over the 
 affections'. 5 
 
 'Spinoza's greatness', said Attinghausen with zeal, 'is 
 to me inviolable, and not merely respect but reverence 
 is due to the man who, with an independence of thought 
 truly heroic, released philosophy from the chains of 
 religious belief, banished from benighted minds the delusion 
 of teleological design in nature, demolished the fallacy 
 of free-will which he proved to be only a form of natural 
 necessity,* 1 had the courage to treat and analyse our 
 feelings and actions not as moral or spiritual, but simply 
 as mechanical forces, just as he "treated mathematical 
 lines, planes and bodies," and thus to change the science 
 of ethics into one of physics, 6 and honestly proclaimed 
 the principles of utility and self-preservation to be the main- 
 springs of our conduct; so that, as a grand result, ra- 
 tional man requires no laws of authority, and needs 
 nothing but a stimulating knowledge of what is true and 
 expedient to prepare for himself and others a blessed 
 life. Yet no name, however illustrious and honoured, 
 must dazzle or awe us. It was a daring hazard in 
 Spinoza's time even to modify the God of the Bible or 
 to assign to the eternal Substance, however guardedly, 
 the functions of the Deity. But the God of the Bible 
 can be saved by no modification; and the universal 
 Substance possesses no intelligence capable of a guiding 
 influence over men's destinies. Who can associate a clear 
 meaning with the propositions that God and the world, 
 the creating and the created Nature, are identical, God 
 
382 PANTHEISM. 
 
 or unity being the same as Nature or the world, only 
 viewed in the multiplicity of His individual and visible 
 forms? As the whole is not larger than the sum of its 
 parts, nor different from them in quality, "God" can be 
 no more spiritual than universal Nature. Or do, in the 
 manner of the human body and its organs, the parts in 
 their combination possess a life or soul not possessed by 
 the parts in themselves? But this is contrary to the 
 system, which declares all things to be simply modifi- 
 cations of the one Substance. However, there is no 
 uniformity in these notions. At one time God and Nature 
 are taken as equivalents ; at another time it is described 
 as an egregious error to identify both. a And though 
 Spinoza perpetually refers to that Substance, he affords 
 us but a scanty insight into its essence. For of the in- 
 finite number of attributes he ascribes to it, he singles 
 out, empirically and almost arbitrarily, two only, those 
 of thought and extension, merely because they are most 
 familiar to man and most accessible to his intellect from 
 observation and self-scrutiny. 15 Spinoza's God therefore, 
 unlike Nature and her infinite variety, is bare and poor. 
 The playful compound "God-Nature" was useful as a 
 transition and as a means of training. At present we 
 must say either God or Nature, and must in both cases 
 understand the same viz. the unbending necessity of the 
 immutable laws which rule all existence. There is in the 
 whole wide universe, there is in all the intricate and 
 entangled destinies of individuals and of nations, not the 
 faintest trace discoverable of a personal, wise or bene- 
 ficent Intelligence guiding with a conscious purpose. 
 Consistency forces us inexorably to an atheistic mate- 
 rialism which you may denounce as blind and base, but 
 which, even if it had no other merits than those of honesty 
 and manliness, would be an elevating and ennobling force 
 arming us for vanquishing the dangers and difficulties of life, 
 which it does not shrink from disclosing and facing. We 
 despise and scorn a Monism which plays hide and seek 
 
PANTHEISM. 
 
 with the Deity, and is therefore a concealed Dualism; we 
 have constructed one which diffuses the same life through 
 the entire cosmos a life engendered mechanically by 
 physico-chemical processes, and through the same agencies 
 preserved and extinguished. Spinoza's concealed Dualism 
 appears indeed sometimes open and undisguised: for 
 although he declares the physical world and the totality 
 of souls or spirits to be virtually identical, since both 
 are modi of the same Substance ; and although he admits, 
 for the same reason, that every idea corresponds with 
 some corporeal matter, and conversely, and that therefore 
 no spiritual process is conceivable without an analogous 
 material one, the soul being nothing but the idea of the 
 body I say, in spite of all this, he asserts, in the manner 
 of Descartes, that all that is corporeal must be solely 
 explained from corporeal causes, and all that is spiritual 
 solely from spiritual reasons, so that neither the body is 
 able to make the mind think, nor the mind able to make 
 the body move or rest: body and mind are indeed in a 
 certain strange and enigmatical parallelism, but they 
 have no connection and exercise no mutual influence. 4 
 This clearly involves an abandonment of the monistic 
 principle, which takes mind and body, matter and force, 
 to be inseparable; and in point of fact, the theory in- 
 cludes a double Dualism in the world the Dualism of 
 Substance and its modi, and in God that of extension 
 and thought'. b 
 
 'I believe', said Mondoza with earnestness, 'impartiality 
 compels us to acknowledge that there is in Spinoza's 
 system a large residue of vagueness and mysticism. Plain 
 reason will never be able to understand how Nature can 
 be at once creator and creature, or "the cause of itself. " c 
 But this very defect leads us to the cardinal feature 
 which has made the system the foundation of modern 
 thought the principle of the unity of all existence, which 
 no previous enquirer had applied to Nature with equal 
 strictness and universality. By virtue of that unity, mind 
 
384 PANTHEISM. 
 
 and matter are blended into one notion, and for mind 
 the philosopher knows no other designation than the old 
 and venerable term God God the only conceivable Sub- 
 stance, infinite, including all things finite and producing 
 them from the very constitution of its nature, existing 
 with necessity and through itself, absolutely independent, 
 indivisible, eternal, and free. Whether God works in the 
 Substance or works upon or through it, is frequently 
 left ambiguous, but He is certainly co-extensive with the 
 universal Substance. With no less justice, therefore, 
 than Spinoza's theory has been called a Pantheism, it 
 might be described as a grand formal or immanent Mo- 
 notheism; and such a scheme came fitly from a thinker 
 of the race of Isaiah, Micah, and Habakkuk. Absolute 
 unity, at least in plan and design, is the keystone of his 
 conceptions. And though these may be mingled some 
 will say alloyed with realism, they undoubtedly kindled 
 in his mind all that is purifying and ennobling in a 
 monotheistic creed. For viewed as a whole, they reveal 
 to us the following four gradations of increasing signifi- 
 cance. 
 
 'Starting from the notions of good and evil, of useful 
 and injurious, Spinoza declares that to be good and useful, 
 which upholds and strengthens our real being. But our 
 real being is thought or knowledge, for this alone makes 
 us free, that is, inspires us with the will and the power 
 victoriously to resist the irrational emotions which disturb 
 our reasonable resolutions and actions. Now the highest 
 knowledge is the knowledge of God, and the highest duty 
 is to love Him: the second stage is, therefore, "the in- 
 tellectual love" of God. This love is the parent of all 
 happiness, the source of all joy of the soul, or its highest 
 bliss. And such joy, lastly, spontaneously engenders the 
 conviction of a complete harmony of all creation, a har- 
 mony uniting our own being with that of God, the Eternal 
 and the Infinite, through imperturbable tranquillity of 
 mind. While no monotheistic religion has propounded an 
 
PANTHEISM. 385 
 
 ethical aim of greater loftiness, none is so safe from the 
 dangers of superstition. For Spinoza's edifice is not 
 reared in the ethereal heights of faith, but on the solid 
 rocks of thought and knowledge, which are at every 
 moment near and ready to correct that mystical residue 
 which I deplore. Reflection, Love, Joy, Harmony 
 Cogitatio, Amor, Laetitia, Harmonia this is the true 
 angels' ladder that reaches to the gates of heaven'. 
 
 'There is really', said Humphrey, 'nothing remarkable 
 in the final end of "harmony"; it is simply the Christian's 
 union with God through the Redeemer'. 
 
 'It is the "peace" of the Old Testament and the Tal- 
 mud', said Rabbi Gideon with equal indifference.* 
 
 'It is essentially the Stoic's apatheia\ said Hermes. 
 
 'Or the Epicurean's ataraxia', added Attinghausen with 
 equal satisfaction. 
 
 'It is the poet's aesthetic disposition', said Wolfram 
 musingly. 
 
 'It is surely', said Subbhuti with great eagerness, 
 'nothing but the Buddhist's Nirwana, and the proof is, 
 that we have likewise four stages of the dhyana leading 
 up to supreme perfection. He who seriously aspires to that 
 beatitude, seats himself under a tree, in complete solitude, 
 cross-legged and in upright position, his mind free from 
 worldly desires and evil propensities, and his heart full 
 of compassion towards all creatures. He fixes his thoughts 
 upon the one point of his salvation, and, exercising his 
 reason and judgment, while being refreshed and exhilarated 
 in every part of his body, he feels in this first con- 
 templation, in this victory . over vice and sin, a pleasure 
 like that experienced by a sick man regaining his health, 
 by a prisoner or slave recovering his liberty after a long 
 bondage, or by a traveller at last reaching a safe resting- 
 place after a journey beset with dangers. Then he over- 
 comes the restraints of reason and judgment and is 
 penetrated with that calm joy and gladness which results 
 from pure meditation. This is the second dhyana. He 
 
 CO 
 
386 PANTHEISM. 
 
 next attains indifference even to this intellectual joy and 
 gladness, or a complete freedom from satisfaction no less 
 than from dissatisfaction, accompanied by a tranquil hap- 
 piness which is diffused through his whole frame as the 
 water that nourishes the lotus pervades and saturates 
 every part of the plant from the root to the petals. In 
 the fourth and last stage, he is delivered from all emotions 
 and all attachment to sensual objects, and loses even 
 the recollection of his indifference; he knows neither 
 delight nor sorrow, he rises to purity and illumination, 
 which envelope him like an ample garment. Then he 
 becomes endowed with those marvellous powers which I 
 have before described to you; a the four chief kinds of 
 evil anger, love of life, ignorance, and doubt are for 
 ever subdued; he has annulled the repetitions of existence; 
 his work is done ; he is as near Nirwdna as it is possible 
 to be for one who is not a Buddha; or, as the sacred 
 book Lalita-vistara expresses it, "he is a spirit self-col- 
 lected, perfect, cleansed from all stain and exempt from 
 all vice, enlightened, active, fit for every task, resolute, 
 raised to impassiveness". When our Sakyamuni had 
 arrived at this degree, he said to his pupils: "Now I 
 know all, I have acquired the full disposal of everything 
 that can be fathomed by the highest science; I am 
 without desires, I long for nothing, I am delivered from 
 all feelings of egotism, personality, pride, obstinacy, and 
 
 'I would fain be just to the doctrines of Buddhism', 
 replied Mondoza, with gentleness, 'and I trust I shall be 
 able to convince you of my sincerity; but while admitting 
 the great spiritual elevation of your four dhydnasRea- 
 soning, Meditation, Indifference, Impassibility I am bound 
 to enquire what is their origin and what their effect. 
 Their origin is isolation from the world, and their effect 
 is to render that estrangement complete. For after the 
 fourth dhydna the saint or Bhagavat rises into boundless 
 space, and farther and farther into the regions where 
 
PANTHEISM. 387 
 
 nothing exists; and as even here some conception might 
 yet linger, namely the conception that nothing exists, he 
 finally advances to the last sphere, the world without 
 forms, where no idea remains, not even that of the ab- 
 sence of all ideas. Of what avail, then, is your con- 
 templation, your harmony? It may be sublime, but it is 
 empty. This I believe to be the chief test of any system 
 of thought or religion: we are born for action, and that 
 system is the most salutary, which, while stimulating our 
 practical energies, best protects our purity and repose. 
 Measured by this test, Buddhism is fatally deficient, 
 while Spinozism is the most perfect theory hitherto devised. 
 You flee from the world and its labours ; Spinoza encourages 
 men to live in the world both usefully and nobly. You 
 try to escape from yourselves; Spinoza trains men to 
 entertain a holy communion with themselves resulting in in- 
 creasing self-knowledge. Therefore you have no public 
 life, while some of Spinoza's finest deductions are political : 
 strenuously asserting as a citizen that liberty which he 
 renounces as an individual, he knows how to blend order 
 and freedom, the legitimate powers of authority and the 
 inalienable rights of the people. And if we consider his 
 teaching from that point of view which most closely con- 
 cerns our investigation, I may confidently ask, is it not 
 full of joy and happiness? A main principle of his ethics 
 affirms that "joyousness" (laetitia) marks the transition 
 to a higher degree of perfection, because it supports and 
 augments our power of action: to keep sadness aloof is, 
 therefore, with him not a precept of well-being but of 
 moral duty; and as we can master sadness only by en- 
 hancing our strength of intellect, which, on its part, 
 depends on the vigour of the body, joyousness is finally 
 the emanation of a mens sana in corpore sano\ and being 
 thus one of our highest aims, it is identified with the 
 "good", as sadness is identified with "evil". a Hence follow 
 the beautiful maxims : "The more cheerful we are, the 
 more fully do we participate in the Divine nature"; and 
 
388 PANTHEISM. 
 
 "Happiness is tranquillity of the soul arising from a clear 
 knowledge of God". a Let Spinoza be his own witness. 
 He displayed a serenity undimmed by privation, a placid 
 composure cloudless under the persecution of unscrupulous 
 fanatics, a generous benevolence unchanged under stinging 
 injustice, and a constant elevation to the sunny heights 
 of reflection, which cast their radiance over every concern 
 of daily existence. In simplicity of habits and greatness 
 of aim, in purity of mind and singleness of purpose, he 
 equalled Marcus Aurelius; in completeness of character 
 and calmness of soul he surpassed him; for he needed 
 not that incessant self-exhortation, and was not disturbed 
 by that "restless yearning for something beyond", which 
 some of the great Emperor's warmest admirers have acknow- 
 ledged to be defects. His life is the strongest argument for 
 his system; and this system is well calculated to lead 
 all candid followers to similar perfection of character and 
 happiness 7 . 
 
 'An angelic philosopher, indeed'! cried Humphrey 
 ironically. 'Could he discover no better pastime than 
 throwing helpless flies into a spider's web, to gloat over 
 the cruel struggle? Like the Stoics, from whom he borrowed 
 more than is generally supposed, he absolved men from 
 every duty and consideration towards animals, merely 
 because the nature of both is essentially different ; b and 
 like the Stoics, he bluntly declared, "Pity, in a man who 
 lives according to reason, is objectionable and inex- 
 pedient' . 
 
 'Granting', said Panini with more decision than usual, 
 'the justice of all the praise that has been bestowed upon 
 Spinoza's system, 1 think I have a right to transfer that 
 praise, in a great measure, to the Hebrew Scriptures. 
 "You have yourself described Spinoza's doctrine as a 
 monotheism. However this may be, you will admit that 
 its central sun is "the intellectual love of God" ; for it is 
 this idea that imparts light and warmth to his cold and 
 cheerless contemplations, and kindles that joy which 
 
PANTHEISM. 389 
 
 beautifies life and accompanies true felicity. Now I 
 contend that the God who is so loved and produces these 
 blessed effects, is not the God of Spinoza, who is "an 
 extended thing", but the living God of Israel, whom the 
 philosopher had learnt to adore in his youth, whom he 
 was unable to uproot from his heart, and who, consciously 
 or unconsciously, illumined and brightened his riper man- 
 hood. If he had never known this God, or if he had 
 not continued to feel His power and His paternal Provi- 
 dence, he could on no account have conceived a vivifying 
 "intellectual love", but would have sunk into that abyss 
 of despondency and pessimism, which is the bane and 
 the retribution of all pantheistic heresies. There rang 
 in his ears for he treasured the Scriptures throughout 
 life the words of the Psalmists, "Drawing near to God 
 is joy to me", and, "One day in Thy courts is better than 
 a thousand"; and there vibrated through his heart the 
 utterances of the prophets, "By repentance and rest shall 
 ye be saved, in tranquillity and confidence shall be your 
 strength", and, "Walk in the path of goodness and you 
 shall find repose for your souls"; till he was urged to 
 exclaim, "Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous" ! a Prom these 
 perennial sources he drew his inspirations of inward peace, 
 of unity with the Eternal, and of joy in God: for his 
 intellectual love of God is nothing else than the sterile 
 pleasure in philosophy, impotent even to raise the sage 
 above his own poor self, and utterly unavailing as a support 
 for struggling mankind. b His only elements of truth and 
 soundness he borrowed from that faith which he ungrate- 
 fully deserted*. 
 
 'He eagerly searched the New Testament 7 , said 
 Humphrey, 'and there he found: "The fruit of the Spirit 
 is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, faith, meekness, 
 temperance'. This was the text of all his dissertations. 
 If he was "God-intoxicated", he took his incentives from 
 those words of St. Paul and St. John, which he constantly 
 quoted, "In Him we live and move and have our being", 
 
390 PANTHEISM. 
 
 and, "Hereby know that we dwell in Him and He in 
 us, because He has given us of His spirit".* Nay, I am 
 confident that, though he unhappily did not join the Church 
 of Christ after he had been banished from the Synagogue, 
 he was in his heart a Christian, as his most intimate 
 friends distinctly affirmed. b For in a remarkable letter, 
 to quote one instance out of very many, he declared that 
 "without that eternal Son of God, that is, without that 
 eternal Wisdom, which : though appearing in all things 
 and especially in the human mind, is most clearly of all 
 manifested in Christ Jesus, nobody is able to attain a 
 state of beatitude or salvation". In fact, he frequently 
 used language which would befit a Christian Father'. 
 
 'Surely', said Rabbi Gideon with pointed irony, 'this cannot 
 be denied by anyone who remembers the conclusion of your 
 quotation: "When the Christians affirm that God has 
 assumed the nature of a man, this, to confess the truth, 
 does not appear to me less paradoxical than if someone 
 were to tell me that the circle has assumed the nature 
 of the square". d But I must add with respect to that much 
 overrated apostate that, besides the Hebrew Sciptures, 
 the mines from which he derived all that is profitable in 
 his theories, were the Talmud and those Jewish philoso- 
 phers whose works he continued to study, but whose names 
 he never mentioned, though he occasionally sneered at 
 their opinions. The Rabbins, like the Old Testament and 
 the Apocrypha, offer many fine sentences in praise of joy 
 and cheerfulness. Not as if, with Greek levity, they 
 forgot the seriousness of life; for they founded all their 
 institutions on the principles, "Rejoice with trembling", 
 and, "Blessed is the man who feareth always" ; f and they 
 advised that we should, in times of happiness, remind 
 ourselves by voluntary sacrifices of the possibility of 
 sudden and overwhelming reverses ; nor did they refuse 
 their approval of the sombre picture drawn by the wise 
 Sirach of the miseries and hardships of human life; h nay, 
 in view of these heavy trials, they declared, "When man 
 
PANTHEISM. 391 
 
 is born, he is entered in the Book of Death, and when 
 he dies, in the Book of Life";* they left us this lament: 
 "Weep for him who loses, not for him who departs; he 
 departs to rest, we remain for grief" ; b and the words of 
 David, "Our days on the earth are as a shadow" 6 , they 
 explained to mean that our days are not like the shadow 
 of a tree or a tower, which lasts and is repeated, but 
 like the shadow of a bird which flies by neither bird 
 nor shadow remaining. But it is just on this account 
 that they invited, though in a very different sense 
 from that of the skeleton in the banquets of the Egyptians, 
 "Hasten and eat, hasten and drink, this life is like a 
 wedding day"; d they were sure that the Deity does not 
 dwell on a sad face; 6 they reckoned "the stripes of the 
 Pharisees", like the crimes of the cunning evildoer, among 
 the misfortunes of the world ; f strongly insisted upon 
 joyousness of heart during worship and prayer ;" declared 
 hymns of praise the noblest form of devotion ; h regarded 
 the Sabbath as the choicest boon, since it blesses the 
 pious with "a new soul" breathing the peace and serenity 
 of Paradise; and specially appointed various festivals of 
 joy; 1 for they justly held that under the influence of 
 cheerfulness the soul more readily opens itself and rises 
 to a piety of pure love, untouched by hope of reward. k 
 All this we find clearly reflected in Spinoza's writings. 
 But his ecstatic admirers will be obliged still more to tone 
 down the eulogies of his originality, when they learn that, 
 both with respect to his notion of God and of Creation, 
 he adopted almost literally some of the most striking 
 ideas of Maimonides, Gersonides, and especially' of Creskas; 
 that his chief conception, the intellectual love of God, 
 corresponding to Maimonides' "fourth perfection", 1 which 
 alone redeems his teaching from dreary inertness, was 
 taken from the Kabbalah, whose "Adam Kadnion" or 
 "First Creature", the sum total of all ideas, he repro- 
 duced in his "Infinite Intellect" ; and that, in fact, he is 
 virtually a Jewish philosopher, partly appropriating, partly 
 
392 PANTHEISM. 
 
 unfolding the views of his learned co-religionists who 
 had preceded him.' a 
 
 *I regret', said Mondoza, evidently not quite without a 
 certain agitation, 'that I must contradict my worthy friend. 
 Considerable industry, acumen and learning have been 
 lavished on the task of proving Spinoza's indebtedness 
 to Jewish thinkers; 6 but I believe, all these efforts have 
 only served to exhibit his singular greatness and originality 
 in a stronger light. He was, of course, familiar with the 
 philosophical literature of his people, and could not fail 
 occasionally to use a term or phrase impressed upon his 
 mind from early youth, or even to adopt a subordinate 
 idea. Indeed, with that comprehensiveness which is the 
 criterion of genius, he gathered the materials for his 
 edifice from all ages and all nations from Zeno and 
 Epicurus, from Descartes, Hobbes and Bacon, from that 
 Platonism which prevailed in the fifteenth and sixteenth 
 century and combined Neoplatonic and Christian prin- 
 ciples , and that Aristotelian physicism which, in the same 
 ages, was elaborated into a kind of naturalistic meta- 
 physics, and above all from the gifted Giordano Bruno, who 
 united the chief ideas of these two schools and who treated 
 copiously of "the Unity of all Existence", of the "universal 
 Substance" and its "infinite Attributes", of God as "the 
 immanent principle", and of many other points of primary 
 importance in Spinoza's doctrine : d yet the plan and style 
 of that edifice are his own grand conception; and he 
 blends the heterogeneous materials, in most cases greatly 
 improved, so skilfully and independently with his own 
 cardinal thought of the absolute Substance, that there is 
 no trace of incongruity, and the whole possesses the form 
 and value of an entirely original production. A truth in 
 Spinoza's mind was not, as it eminently was in the 
 minds of the Jewish philosophers of the Middle Ages, a 
 fine pebble sparkling unproductively in the sand, but a grain 
 put into fruitful soil. He admitted that some Jewish 
 writers have, "as if through a mist", seen the truth "that 
 
PANTHEISM. 393 
 
 God, God's Intellect, and the things comprehended by 
 His Intellect, are one and the same thing" ; a yet they 
 had not the faculty or the courage to dissipate that mist. 
 From their writings many views and speculations of 
 undoubted depth and excellence might easily be collected; 
 but they remained isolated and proved powerless to break 
 down the prison walls of dogma and tradition. We may 
 thus understand why Spinoza found it difficult to preserve 
 his usual calmness of temper when he spoke of his 
 philosophical co-religionists: Maimonides and his followers 
 he described as "peripatetics indulging in a farrago of 
 distinctions unworthy of notice", b and the Kabbalists as 
 "triflers at whose insanity he was amazed". He was 
 naturally apprehensive lest their occasional truths should 
 countenance and support the radical errors with which 
 these truths were associated. How, then, is it possible to 
 stamp Spinoza as a "Jewish philosopher" ! If his views were 
 Jewish, why was he excommunicated and execrated ? and 
 yet at the time of his expulsion from the Synagogue, 
 he had not yet departed so fundamentally from the tenets 
 of his ancestors as when he wrote his principal work, 
 the Ethics, in which all the borrowed elements were, by 
 elimination or adaptation, more completely harmonised 
 with his own inexorable principles. A cursory or biassed 
 comparison may discover apparent similarities, but a more 
 accurate examination shows the entire absence of a deeper 
 affinity. It seems almost superfluous to point out the 
 thorough differences, and nothing but the respect I enter- 
 tain for the zeal and learning of my Rabbinical friend 
 could induce me to add that the God of Maimonides is 
 a personal Intelligence, the God of Spinoza a being 
 without will and reason, and identical with Nature ; that 
 Maimonides teaches a creation of the world in time by 
 God's free resolve, Spinoza an eternal Substance which 
 is its own cause; that the former counts liberty of will 
 among the axiomatic truths requiring no proof, while the 
 latter denies it; that the one postulates design and fitness 
 
394 PANTHEISM. 
 
 in the world, while the other rejects them categorically.* 
 But need I refer to individual points ? The Jewish thinkers 
 are beforehand determined to ward off as untrue any 
 conclusions of philosophy opposed to their revealed religion, 
 and they can therefore hardly be called philosophers; 
 Spinoza's sole lawgiver is speculation, whose authority is 
 to him absolute and final, and he has hence not only 
 become the regenerator of philosophy but also one of the 
 first champions of a sound criticism rationally applying 
 to the Sciptures the ordinary canons of interpretation. 11 
 Yet I hail with sincere delight the strenuous exertions 
 made by our pious friends towards claiming or reclaiming 
 Spinoza. Those efforts seem to prove not only that the 
 old hatred has happily died away and is being replaced 
 by a secret sentiment of pride, but that even orthodoxy 
 feels that the time has come for repeating that process 
 which, during the last two thousand years, has been so 
 often accomplished the process of reconciling, by con- 
 cessions and modifications, the teaching of the Bible with 
 the advancing spirit of the age'. 
 
 Mondoza paused and expected a reply from Gideon or 
 Panini, but neither of them answered both seemed absorbed 
 in their thoughts. 
 
 After a short interval, Melville said with his usual 
 imperturbability : 
 
 'I readily acknowledge the great weight of some of the 
 objections that have this evening been urged against 
 the system of Spinoza: yet, whether it is rigorously 
 consistent or not, whether it is a pure development of 
 Descartes' doctrine or includes a hidden admixture 
 of more ancient notions, it will ever remain a wonderful 
 attempt at spiritualising Nature by entwining her laws 
 with the necessity of the Divine Being or the inherent 
 Cause of the world. 6 This is a Monism thoroughly congenial 
 to me; and the mystical element it involves seems even to 
 possess a charm of its own. As it leaves the notion of the 
 
PANTHEISM. 395 
 
 Deity intact, and merges the world in His essence, it 
 creates a sublimity and unity which satisfy both the 
 aspirations of the heart and the legitimate demands of 
 the intellect; and it calls forth our admiration in the 
 same degree as we are able to fathom its depths'. 
 
 'Spinoza's doctrines', said Abington with even more 
 than his ordinary emphasis, 'imply the great redeeming 
 feature that they nourish the feeling of absolute dependence 
 on the Deity with an earnestness which stamps them as 
 truly religious. However, they are tainted by that egotism 
 which has indeed been praised as rational soberness, but 
 which poisons all morality at its source. They establish self- 
 preservation and utility as the sole principles of action; 
 and holding "desire" to be man's innermost nature, they 
 leave no room for sacrifice and devotion.* They are, 
 from beginning to end, a tissue of mere rules of prudence. 
 The same selfishness which debases the morality of the 
 Stoics, destroys that of Spinoza, because both alike are 
 emanations of an abstract pantheism. But Spinoza proceeds 
 considerably farther than his heathen predecessors in decla- 
 ring self-preservation to be man's supreme duty to which 
 everything else must yield unconditionally; whence it 
 follows that no chivalry, no death for our country or for 
 truth is justifiable a worthy seal of the gospel of egotism' ! b 
 
 'As I have been directly attacked', said Attinghausen 
 with great zest, *I am ready for defence. First I can 
 quote some striking sentences from Spinoza's Ethics which 
 not even a Christian's theosophic speculation can misunder- 
 stand or depreciate. I will lay no stress on his demand 
 that we should strive after virtue for its own sake, c since 
 he makes no distinction between virtue and pleasure. But 
 he defines "compassion" to be "charity" or "love" which so 
 affects us that we delight in another's happiness and mourn 
 for another's woe. d Can you still uphold your reproach 
 of egotism? But this is not enough. The philosopher says: 
 "The good which the virtuous desires for himself, he 
 wishes to secure to others also, and his wish is the stronger, 
 
396 PANTHEISM. 
 
 the more he has advanced in the knowledge of God;"' 
 "The eagerness of doing good, which results from oui 
 living under the guidance of reason, this I call piety"; 1 
 "Whosoever submits to the direction of reason, endeavours 
 as much as he possibly can, to requite another's hatred, 
 anger or contempt with charity and generosity"/ Bui 
 supposing even, that Spinoza introduced into his Ethics 
 the principle of egotism, or of "self-preservation", he 
 only did openly and ingenuously what men generally 
 conceal either from others or from themselves; and I 
 think it both more honourable and more brave candidly 
 to avow a principle upon which we invariably act. As 
 reason, said Spinoza, demands nothing against nature, it 
 demands also that everyone should love himself, seek his 
 advantage as far as it is really expedient, and seize any- 
 thing that can lead him to greater perfection; in fact, 
 that he should try by every means to preserve his own 
 self. "This rule", he concluded, "is surely as incontest- 
 able as the proposition that the whole is greater than 
 the part". Like the Stoics, he contended that men who 
 in this sense are led by reason, desire no more strongly 
 that they themselves, than they desire that others, should 
 be just, faithful and upright; and he was convinced that 
 the principle requiring everyone to be intent on his own 
 interests his true interests is the foundation of godly 
 virtue and piety. d But against the charge of a cowardly 
 love of life at the call of country or truth, I need not 
 surely defend Spinoza. Every page of his writings breathes 
 a high-souled heroism which he confirmed in his own 
 life. He speaks of self-preservation as the highest duty 
 only in opposition to suicide; 6 and so far is he from at- 
 taching to life supreme importance that he condemns as 
 immoral even the attempt to escape death from the 
 hands of a murderer by telling an untruth f . Consciously 
 or unconsciously, we shall always strive to make our 
 morality contribute to our worldly well-being. If this 
 is selfishness, it is human nature, which you cannot alter'. 
 
PANTHEISM. 397 
 
 'It is human nature unregenerated', replied Abington. 
 'The fathomless and insatiable gulf of Spinoza's Sub- 
 stance swallows up all individuality. It admits only a 
 dreary monotony of indistinguishable existences working, 
 not for nor even through themselves, but for the sake 
 of a whole which is held together by irresistible necessity. 
 The vaunted "One and All" is a mere shadow. In such 
 a theory there is no room for the two great ideas which 
 alone impel men to acts of true morality, the ideas 
 of uncalculating self-sacrifice and of Divine authority. 
 Spinoza's "love" or "charity" is simply a sentiment of 
 "mirth attended by the idea of an external cause" which 
 it is desired to preserve, not for the sake of the beloved 
 object, but for the sake of maintaining that mirth. a And 
 as love and charity, so are gratitude, benevolence and 
 those noble virtues of which Spinoza speaks so frequently 
 and so beautifully, nothing more than means for the pro- 
 tection of man's own pleasure ; nay that "intellectual love 
 of God", so often praised as sublime, is only man's own 
 sovereign delight which flows from knowledge and merges 
 in this knowledge the restless desire for any other delight. 
 The philosopher inculcates an active humanity, but chiefly 
 on the principles that nothing is so useful to man as 
 man "man is to man a God" ,and that the more perfect 
 and powerful our fellow-men are, the more can they con- 
 tribute to make ourselves more powerful and perfect, 
 and consequently more happy. This is the kernel of his 
 ethical code: the good is to be done because it is 
 useful. b He is thus quite unable to avoid inextricable 
 contradictions. He denies all liberty of will, and yet he 
 affirms that his Ethics aim at exhibiting an exemplar, 
 by the imitation of which men might improve in every 
 virtue: can a willow ever become a vine, even if the 
 finest specimen of a vine is placed before it as a model? 
 That concession to free-will shows, to modify a line of 
 Horace, "You may expel common sense with a pitchfork, 
 it will ever come back". Spinoza acknowledges a God 
 
398 PANTHEISM. 
 
 who is good, yet has neither intellect nor will. Hence 
 he naturally concludes, on the one hand, that there 
 exists no e\jl in the world, since that which we call so 
 cannot be associated with an essential attribute of God ; 
 and on the other hand, that the world has been created 
 and exists without any plan or design. But is there 
 indeed nothing positively bad in the world? Spinoza 
 answers categorically: No; not even Nero's matricide can 
 be brought into relation with God, and was, in so far, 
 no crime. 3 The things, he says sweepingly, are not more 
 or less perfect from pleasing or offending man's mind, or 
 from being in conformity with his nature or not ; b for "good" 
 and "bad" are nothing absolute in the things considered 
 by themselves, but merely modes of thought or conceptions 
 formed by comparison. Again, if God, the world, or 
 the Substance acts without design, and man is nothing 
 else than a variety of the Substance, how is it possible 
 to ascribe to man the faculty of acting with design? 
 Yet this Spinoza does. All these and many similar 
 aberrations in thought and morality are inevitable 
 unless we admit a living and personal God, who, self- 
 conscious and free, is the eternal principle of right and 
 rules the universe by the purposes of His wisdom. Human 
 logic, proud of its infallibility, is entangled in its own 
 nets and is at last compelled to the humiliating avowal 
 of its impotence. It aspires to build its tower into heaven, 
 and the result is a confusion of tongues'. 
 
 'Say rather', cried Attinghausen, 'the confusion arose 
 because Spinoza's logic was not faultless. Had he been 
 consistent, he would have seen that, as God is without 
 will and intellect and therefore totally indifferent to the 
 evils of the world, it is impossible to uphold an optimism 
 which is the most fruitful source of his errors. For to 
 the question, why God did not create men so as to make 
 them readily follow reason and instinctively shun sin and 
 crime, he could only answer by a conceit which would 
 have done honour to the subtle Duns Scotus or the 
 
PANTHEISM. 391) 
 
 angelic Thomas Aquinas: God had the materials for 
 producing everything from the highest to the lowest de- 
 gree of perfection;* and as regards nature, he simply 
 denies, in defiance of "all experience, that it produces 
 anything that is defective 5 which paradox he would 
 probably not have hazarded, had he thought it worth his 
 while to test his abstractions by observation and the 
 exact study of nature. Let me remind you of another fine 
 instance of his dialectic skill, one that relates to a very 
 important doctrine of his system. God, he says, loves 
 Himself with an infinite spiritual love ; the soul's spiritual 
 love of God is God's own love, by which He loves Himself; 
 whence it follows that God, in as much as He loves 
 Himself, loves men, and that consequently God's love of 
 men and the soul's spiritual love of God are one and 
 the same. c Has this not the true Scholastic ring? And 
 yet the meaning is very simple if we remember that, 
 according to Spinoza, God's perception is not different 
 from the perceptions of the souls, as it is merely the 
 compound or aggregate of the latter. d If thus two different 
 names are bestowed upon the same thing, and are then 
 identified, it is easy to give to a real identity the appearance 
 of a reciprocity. But I must say once more, these are riddles 
 which do not repay the trouble of solution; for Spinoza 
 finally assumes a separate perception besides that of the 
 human soul 6 a necessary consequence of his fluctuating 
 notion of God. This is the just retribution of that philoso- 
 phic haughtiness which loftily starts from general principles, 
 instead of humbly beginning with a patient examination 
 of details. Allusion has before been made to Spinoza's 
 unfortunate habit of employing common words in a new 
 and unusual sense. This is another cause of the many 
 obscurities and the comparative sterility of his system. 
 It imparts a shadowy vagueness to not a few propositions, 
 and lends to others a fictitious significance. Thus there is 
 great point in the sentence, "The knowledge of good and 
 evil is only an emanation of cheerfulness or sadness, in 
 
400 PANTHEISM. 
 
 so far as we are conscious of it"; but it derives this 
 poignancy only from our naturally understanding the 
 words good and evil as that which is morally noble or 
 obnoxious, whereas Spinoza takes them also as cheer- 
 fulness and sadness, so that in reality the sentence is a 
 tautology.* An elevated sound has the aphorism : "Whoever 
 knows himself and his emotions fully and distinctly, knows 
 God; and it is this love of God which should above all 
 fill the soul;" b yet it is nothing more than an enunciation 
 of formal logic without a distinct reality, as it simply 
 states: the thinker loves thinking and philosophy best. 
 Thus the author finally proceeds to frame apophthegms 
 which those who take the words in their current meaning, 
 cannot consider otherwise than paradoxical : for instance, 
 "He who loves God, cannot desire that God should love 
 him in return "; which, however, has only the simple and 
 insignificant sense that true knowlege is aware that the 
 inanimate Substance possesses no affections, and is there- 
 fore incapable of love. And lastly, he concludes the 
 proud structure of his Ethics with the epigram: "Hap- 
 piness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself"/ 1 
 This utterance has called forth the highest admiration 
 and has been praised as sublime; and yet, with regard 
 to Spinoza's terminology, it is again merely a tautological 
 expression, since he takes throughout joyfulness and virtue 
 as identical. We should be disposed to look indulgently 
 on this artful abuse of language, if it had not caused, and 
 if it were not still causing, immense mischief. Spinoza's 
 teaching is extolled for having "spiritualised matter", and 
 having vindicated for the universe a divine principle : but 
 divested of its hollow mystifications, it is an ordinary 
 and godless materialism, which admits no higher spiritual 
 element than human intelligence, and which is distinguished 
 from that modern materialism which we profess by nothing 
 except its fluctuations and inconsistencies. It has paved 
 the way to the truth, which it approaches more closely 
 than its metaphysical adherents are willing to avow'. 
 
PANTHEISM. 401 
 
 'It can never be allowed', said Melville calmly, but very 
 determinedly, 'that the ideal Pantheism of Spinoza has 
 any essential community with the inert and deadening 
 materialism of our days. If both systems were separated 
 by nothing else, the belief in Immortality taught by 
 Spinoza would alone suffice to indicate the immeasurable 
 chasm'. 
 
 'You could not have given into my hands a more ef- 
 fective weapon', rejoined Attinghausen. 'For, indeed, of 
 all the wonderful exploits of Spinoza's logic none is so 
 astounding as the dexterity with which he manages to 
 distil the dogma of Immortality out of his Substance 
 without reason and will, and out of his soul which "is 
 able to conceive images, or to remember the past, only 
 while its body exists".* He says literally: "There is in 
 God necessarily a perception expressing the essence of 
 this or that human body under the form of eternity", 
 and therefore "can the human soul not wholly perish 
 with the body, but something remains of it which is 
 eternal". 6 What does this signify? The soul can indeed 
 conceive nothing without its body, but it can penetrate 
 into the "essence" of bodies, independently of their 
 existence in time; and as this "essence", which is also 
 exempt from all relations of time, coincides with the 
 Substance and its attributes, which are eternal, the soul 
 likewise is eternal and immortal. The soul's Immortality 
 consists, therefore, in the adequate comprehension of 
 those eternal things which are equivalent to God, and 
 which secure imperishable existence to the soul that 
 fathoms them. It is, like all the other notions of Spinoza, 
 simply an abstraction of thought; it is philosophical know- 
 ledge, not real permanence ; it is a part of that specula- 
 tive truth which, existing by itself, is imagined apart 
 from actual existence; it is surely not the "Immortality" 
 of religion in the sense which men are wont to connect 
 with that term; it involves no perpetuity of the soul, no 
 individual life in another world with the promise of 
 
 DD 
 
402 PANTHEISM. 
 
 compensation for trials suffered, or the hope of reunion 
 with the departed souls of our heloved. Nor does Spinoza 
 clearly affirm that the soul is immortal; he merely hints 
 that it cannot "wholly" be destroyed with the body, and 
 that "something" remains, which is eternal. What is 
 this "something"? It is not the soul itself, but its "essence", 
 or its intelligence and knowledge. It is a daring and 
 questionable sleight of hand; for it leads consistently 
 to the conclusion, assumed by the Stoics also, that the 
 "intelligent" souls only, that is the souls of the wise, 
 are immortal, but not those of other men, a since the in- 
 telligent soul only is a part of Grod; b and it compels the 
 inference that the essence of the body also is imperishable, 
 as according to Spinoza extension is no less an eternal 
 attribute of the Substance than thinking, since both are 
 parallel and differ only in conception. Moreover, he 
 attempts no real proof whatever of the assertion that 
 the essence of the soul is a knowledge capable of existing 
 without the body. And lastly, his propositions regarding 
 Immortality are an inorganic appendage to his system, 
 for the completeness of which, as he himself declares, it 
 is unnecessary. You are welcome to such an Immorta- 
 lity, as you were welcome to an impalpable God, who is 
 no more than the sum of all human souls : d both the one 
 and the other are devoid of all personality'. 6 
 
 'Deep wisdom', said Abington calmly, 'and fortifying 
 truth lie in the idea of the absolute unity of the human 
 soul and Divine Intelligence; for this idea expands the 
 individual into the Infinite, and rouses within him the 
 feelings of awe and adoration, which are the mainsprings 
 of all that is noble and holy. That idea has, therefore, 
 been adopted with equal fervour by Schleiermacher and 
 Hegel, and by all who feel, or desire their mind to be, 
 at one with that of the Universe'. 
 
 'These pathetic oracles', rejoined Attinghausen im- 
 patiently, 'I can only meet with the unpathetic fact, that 
 for Spinoza the sentiments of awe and adoration, or of 
 
PANTHEISM. 403 
 
 respect for any superhuman authority, did not at all 
 exist. His supreme principle was intellectual, not moral ; 
 and in his political theories especially he entirely ignores 
 ethics and religion as practical agencies'. 
 
 'I believe', said Mondoza, 'we have arrived at the point 
 where we may safely draw a conclusion with reference 
 to the chief end of our discussion. We shall hardly be 
 able to deny that, among all the varied endowments of 
 man, Spinoza assigns to a single one the intellect an 
 almost exclusive dominion, and allows to the rest to 
 morality, religion, the feelings, aesthetics a legitimate 
 right only in so far as they flow from that ruling prin- 
 ciple or can be subordinated to it. That absolute unity, 
 or Monism, which he strives to establish in the material 
 world, he endeavours to construct also in the world of 
 the mind: with the universal and eternal Substance cor- 
 responds the all-comprising and all-directing Intellect. 
 It is a rigorism of reason exceeding that of the Stoics. 
 The danger of this onesidedness seems to be increased 
 by the circumstance that Spinoza, fearlessly consistent in 
 this respect, constitutes self-preservation and utility as 
 the chief motives of human action. But the danger 
 vanishes if we remember that, in reality, it is not simply 
 the intellect to which Spinoza attributs the highest rank, 
 but "the intellectual love of God", that is, in his language, 
 the innermost and enthusiastic delight in knowledge and 
 enquiry, study and research, in a word the irrepressible 
 and unconquerable yearning for Truth. The "intellect", 
 so taken, is not an abstract and theoretical faculty, but 
 a living and powerful motive; it leads not to a passive quies- 
 cence, but, as the whole universe and all mankind are the 
 objects of knowledge, to an energetic participation in all the 
 manifold interests of society. Spinoza's doctrine furnishes 
 us, therefore, with a new and most important element of 
 happiness the search of truth for its own sake, since truth 
 is identical with joy, and joy with virtue. In thus mingling 
 all essential notions into one, the system partially remedies 
 
404 PANTHEISM. 
 
 the defect which undoubtedly attaches to its fundamental 
 design; for it combines the intellectualism of Aristotle 
 and the Stoa with the dignified eudaemonism of Epi- 
 curus, and creates a serene felicity of combined reflection 
 and gladness. It considers meditation imperfect, unless 
 it engenders a glow of joy; and it considers joy imperfect, 
 unless it pervades all our faculties alike, and thus holds 
 them in equipoise. This "waveless calm of the soul" is 
 Spinoza's consummation of bliss'. 
 
 'Granting', interrupted Canon Mortimer, 'that such a 
 doctrine might satisfy the sage, is it suitable for the mul- 
 titude or even the generality of men? Can we suppose these 
 to be so swayed by a passion for thought and knowledge, 
 that it grows into an active impulse of virtuous conduct' ? 
 
 'This may be doubtful', replied Mondoza; 'but here 
 fortunately enters, as an auxiliary and a rescuer, that very 
 principle of the system which, at first sight, is almost 
 repulsive and has been branded as its great blot the 
 undisguised principle of egotism. Teaching us to regard 
 every boon and advancement of our fellow-men as a 
 boon and advancement for ourselves, it encourges all 
 works of love, charity and beneficence, with a view of 
 securing both to the community and to every individual 
 the utmost possible power and happiness, since through 
 these we increase our own. The motive is not elevated, 
 but it is judicious, because it is derived from a propensity 
 or defect of human nature, which seems ineradicable. 
 It is indeed egotism, but an enlightened one. It does 
 not for a moment renounce the intellect as the governing 
 lawgiver; it is a step, though only a first step, in the 
 right direction; it may prove, and in many cases does 
 prove, "a schoolmaster to bring" or train men to the 
 true and pure intellectual joy; and where it has nol 
 this effect, it produces at least all the pradieal results 
 of an exalted morality. Thus Spinoza, in his seclusior 
 and solitude, worked out a theory which, wonderfully 
 uniting the highest and the meanest instincts the Divine 
 
PANTHEISM. 405 
 
 and the human, the ideal and the selfish renders it pos- 
 sible to the refined and the gifted to live as philosophers, 
 and to the worldly and unintellectual to attain a morality 
 of prudence useful to others no less than themselves, and 
 at the same time serving as an efficient medium of self-im- 
 provement. How mighty a force that love of truth is, 
 Spinoza proved both as a young man when he defied the 
 threats and resisted the allurements of his co-religionists, 
 and towards the close of his life when he declined the 
 honourable offer of an academical chair made to him by 
 a Christian prince, because he would neither compromise 
 his convictions nor in any way evade the spirit of his 
 pledges. In him Truth had all the strength of an ele- 
 mentary power. This is the grand aim and example he 
 has bequeathed to mankind'. 
 
 Although the subject had greatly taxed the attention 
 of some, the friends were not yet inclined to conclude 
 the discussion for the evening. Enjoying the delicious 
 coolness of the air, they partook of refreshments on the 
 terrace, and then, either sitting in groups or walking in 
 pairs, conversed on Spinoza and his system with great 
 vivacity. The host was rejoiced to see side by side 
 Humphrey with Rabbi Gideon, and Melville with Atting- 
 hausen; while he remarked with concern that the Orientals 
 kept, as usual, apart from each other in mutual distrust 
 or antipathy, He felt that a full opportunity should be 
 given to them to state their views and doubts on a 
 question which appeared to be so closely connected with 
 some of their principal tenets. He was, therefore, much 
 gratified when Arvada-Kalama, soon after the guests had 
 re-assembled, began, in immediate continuation of the 
 previous controversy: 
 
 'I sincerely believe, that the system of the Eastern 
 thinker for was not Spinoza a Hebrew? virtually coin- 
 cides with the highest or Yedanta form of our Hindoo 
 speculations. Like him, we start from one all-embracing 
 
406 PANTHEISM. 
 
 existence; like him, we define this one reality indifferently 
 as "knowledge" or "God"; and like him, we strive after 
 supreme felicity through "entity, thought, and joy", which 
 three, however as is also the case in his theory are 
 only one, "the existent joy-thought"'. 
 
 'But how do you arrive at this "existent joy-thought"'? 
 said Asho-raoco ironically. 'By subtleties and fancies 
 infinitely stranger than those that have just been exposed. 
 As "knowledge" is with you "the one and the all", there 
 is no object of knowledge, for there is nothing left that 
 can be known. God, filling the universe with his omni- 
 presence and omniscience, and yet, as you believe, unable 
 to create out of nothing, creates the world out of him- 
 self. This is your first great fallacy: your god is the 
 material as well as the efficient cause of the universe, both 
 creator and nature, doer and deed. a And what is the world? 
 An aggregate of souls with limited capacities, such as the 
 souls of men. But how can an omnipotent and omnipresent 
 God produce anything limited and finite? You answer: the 
 soul of man is indeed God, or infinite like God, but man 
 is ignorant of this fact. Without asking how you can 
 assume that to be a fact which you Imow not to be a fact, 
 I insist that, by a single artifice, you dethrone your 
 knowledge and set up in its place ignorance (adjuana). 
 You are for a moment disconcerted and think that, if it were 
 not for this fatal ignorance, the woeful world would not 
 exist; for there would be nothing except God and God- 
 like souls. But if ignorance is the cause of the world, 
 it must be an energy or a power, a prakriti or sakti; 
 and as energy and power belong to none but the one 
 God, ignorance is a force with divine attributes, through 
 the influence of which "souls which are God do not know 
 that they are so". But this is not enough; it is that 
 ignorance which causes the world to seem real, which in 
 fact is no reality, but an illusion or maya, that is, deceit 
 or jugglery; and hence maya is elevated into a supreme 
 goddess and made the wife of Brahma the Creator'! 
 
PANTHEISM. 407 
 
 'This mythological excrescence of later dreamers', said 
 Arvada-Kalama, 'is quite foreign to the genuine Vedantin 
 philosophy, which is complete and consistent in itself.* 
 
 'Yet it now forms undeniably part of the popular 
 creed', rejoined Asho-raoco; 'nay.it is one of its es- 
 sential dogmas. As, therefore, the universe is the joint 
 result of the all-pervading Soul and of Ignorance strange 
 couple! . . . 
 
 'Not stranger', interrupted Arvada-Kalama, 'than your 
 dual Lords of light and darkness with their legions of 
 attendant demons'. 
 
 'And as the Soul is the Substance 1 , continued the 
 Parsee with composure, 'it follows that Ignorance must 
 be identical with the sum total of the attributes or 
 qualities, of which you assume three pure cognition, 
 lively emotion, and inertness, engendering, severally, hap- 
 piness, pain, and indifference. Your happiness, therefore, 
 if it is not "fettered", as you call it, by the two other 
 qualities, is the offspring of dark ignorance, whereas that 
 of Spinoza is the child of bright intelligence. Your hap- 
 piness, akin to illusion, lulls you into a brooding lethargy ; 
 his happiness, akin to love and joy, urges him to a buoyant 
 activity. Your world is a phantasmagoria of your 
 own deception, his world is an eternal creation. Your 
 whole doctrine, when tried and sifted, crumbles like a 
 well sunk in loose sand. How can you presume that both 
 systems are analogous? They are as opposite as Ormuzd 
 and Ahriman, whose mysteries have never touched your 
 soul as opposite as the unity of mankind taught by the 
 wise Hebrew and the detestable distinction of castes 
 forced by Hindoo pundits upon their own people'. b 
 
 'You cannot abhor the curse of castes more deeply 
 than I do', said Arvada-Kalama in a milder tone; 'yet 
 while rejecting the errors and superstitions of the Vedanta, 
 I retain that part of its teaching which, in essential ac- 
 cordance with Spinoza, declares that "Ananda or felicity 
 is Bralime, since all beings are produced from pleasure; 
 
408 PANTHEISM. 
 
 when born, they live by joy; they tend towards happiness; 
 they pass into felicity"'.* 
 
 'A much greater affinity', said Gregovius, 'can, I believe, 
 be pointed out between the ethics of Spinoza and the 
 system of Confucius'. 
 
 'How is it possible', cried Humphrey, 'to speak of a 
 system where we have nothing but a mass of incongruous 
 and disconnected aphorisms'! 
 
 'However grave the faults of Spinoza may be', added 
 Berghorn, 'he was at least penetrated with a deep longing 
 for the Divine and the Infinite; but the teaching of Con- 
 fucius is a dry and trivial morality that has no other aim 
 than cold expediency and is destitute both of a God and 
 a heaven. It has thrown no new light upon any of the 
 higher questions; it has given no impulse whatever to 
 religion'. 
 
 'Neither the one reproach nor the other', said Gregovius, 
 'seems to me justified by a more accurate acquaintance 
 with Confucius' authentic writings, especially the Ta-Hio 
 and the Tchong-Yong. These works are as remarkable 
 for their close reasoning as for their elevation of thought ; 
 and if, while satisfying our profounder nature, they are 
 at the same time eminently practical if, while pointing 
 to heaven, they try to secure to men a paradise on 
 earth ,that is surely no fault or defect'. 
 
 'This is the very conviction at which I arrived', said 
 Subbhuti, 'when I studied the great man's precepts during 
 my stay in China; and it has exercised upon my mind 
 a more powerful influence than I dare to confess to 
 myself. 
 
 'It is easy', said Berghorn positively, 'to venture as- 
 sertions or to indulge in effusions of sentiment. Con- 
 fucius' shallow doctrine, I repeat, has little of true morality, 
 and nothing whatever of religion'. 
 
 'Well, let us see', said Gregovius with his usual cheer- 
 fulness. 'What does Confucius propose to teach? The 
 Ta-Hio, that is, the Sublime Science. What does he 
 
PANTHEISM. 409 
 
 consider to be the foundations of this Science? "The 
 restoration of celestial virtue in its original purity and 
 perfection within ourselves, all-embracing charity, and the 
 steadfast perseverance in the highest good"'. 
 
 'But it would be important to know', said Berghorn, 
 frowning, 'what he exactly understands by "the highest 
 good"'. 
 
 'Thus much is certain', said Gregovius, 'that it is not the 
 Cyrenaic's "pleasure", nor the vulgar Epicurean's eudae- 
 monism. But what is it positively? You will perhaps be 
 able to form an idea if I describe to you what Confucius 
 regards to be the result of the "steadfast perseverance 
 in the highest good". He who is able to persevere in 
 the highest good, he says, "has attained firmness of 
 character: he who has attained firmness of character, 
 possesses clearness of intellect and purity of heart: he 
 who has acquired clearness of intellect and purity of 
 heart, has tranquillity of mind and peace of soul : he who 
 has secured tranquillity of mind and peace of soul, is 
 enabled to reflect with precision: and he who is enabled 
 to reflect with precision, is capable of attaining his final 
 object, which consists in achieving by serious thought a 
 satisfactory result of meditation". So far Confucius. Now, 
 I may ask, what kind of "highest good" can that be 
 which bears such fruits? which engenders firmness of 
 character, clearnes of intellect and purity of heart, tran- 
 quillity of mind and peace of soul, precision and energy 
 of thought? The answer cannot be doubtful if we consider, 
 besides, the two other foundations of the sublime Science 
 before mentioned the restoration, within ourselves, of 
 the celestial virtue in its original purity (for the Chinese 
 sage considers men to be created in moral perfection), 
 and all-embracing charity.* The highest boon can only 
 be true virtue producing inward felicity a virtue which 
 ennobles life, and a felicity which is not deemed complete 
 unless it tries, by sympathy and benevolence, to create 
 the same happy condition for others also. It is true, 
 
410 PANTHEISM. 
 
 Confucius does not use the word God, but is not the idea 
 Divine? Is it not as pure and elevated as that of any 
 Kingdom of God established on earth by love and peace' ? 
 
 'But how can man', replied Humphrey sharply, 'establish 
 a Kingdom of God on earth without a Divine prototype ? 
 Sinful man, however high he rises, can only reach a sinful 
 humanity. Supposing even that Confucius is right in his 
 pagan assumption that man is born pure, he admits that 
 this purity is lost after birth and must be regained by 
 toilsome efforts : but what is the true and eternal standard 
 of righteousness ? what incentive is there for striving after 
 perfection? and who is the judge to decide whether it 
 has been attained or not'? 
 
 'I am not bound', said Gregovius, 'to defend more than 
 I have affirmed. I desired to call attention to the analogies 
 between the doctrines of Confucius and Spinoza: in both, 
 philosophy tends mainly to ethics ; both draw within the 
 circle of their enquiry the state, although that of Confucius 
 is essentially patriarchal in organisation;* 1 and both regard 
 virtue as knowledge or the result of intellectual labour. 
 For making goodness a reality in the world, men require 
 intelligence and energy, knowledge and resolution. 5 The 
 ideal of original purity, which is implanted in the human 
 soul, is for Confucius and for the millions who adhere 
 to him in truth a deity full of life, power and majesty, 
 and works in them the same effects as the personal God 
 in other millions. He writes: 
 
 "The divine spirit inherent in the spirit of man produces 
 in us the celestial virtue by its blissful superabundance. 
 Although we do not behold that spirit, it makes itself 
 inwardly felt; although we do not hear it, we yet perceive 
 its voice; for it is eternally and inseparably united with 
 all men. It imparts to all the faculty of improving, gaining 
 intelligence, and becoming more perfect, and it causes everyone 
 to stimulate himself and others to the scrupulous performance 
 of duty". c 
 
 '"Celestial virtue" ming-te is, therefore, to Confucius 
 what to his great rival Lao-tse is the "godly virtue" 
 
PANTHEISM. 411 
 
 tao-te: it dwells only in hearts that are pure, stainless 
 and pious. a None of his precepts is without the sanctity 
 of religion, none without the deep and strong conviction 
 of a holy will which vibrates in the minds of men and 
 shapes their destinies. That he did not confine his thoughts 
 to the visible world is evident from the worship of ancestors 
 which he strongly upheld and which is inconceivable 
 without the belief in the permanence of souls. Permit me 
 only to point out in addition that the one chain of reasoning 
 I have quoted sufficiently proves how much the memory 
 of the great man is wronged by those translators and 
 popularisers who offer to the public nothing but detached 
 and desultory fragments'. 
 
 'I am much afraid', said Abington, 'that in that theory 
 lurks the Stoic's and Spinoza's pride which, elated by 
 "knowledge", has one law for the sage and another for 
 the meaner man'. 
 
 'Allow me to differ', replied Gregovius deferentially. 
 'Confucius declares that the Tao as conceived by the wise 
 is indeed transcendently mysterious and etherial, but that 
 "all men, even those of limited intelligence, may have 
 knowledge of the Tao; while to fathom it completely, 
 even the wisdom of the most highly gifted is insufficient". 1 * 
 This, you will admit, is neither exclusiveness nor arrogance; 
 and with unfeigned humility Confucius again and again 
 confesses that he has never been able perfectly to fulfil 
 a single one of the chief duties. He was fond of quoting 
 the verse from the Book of Songs, "Over the silk garment 
 embroidered with bright flowers, I wear a simple robe" : 
 like this, he said, should be the Tao of the wise an 
 illumined virtue not manifested by the loud boast of 
 high-sounding words. d To him all men were equals : "From 
 the Emperor down to his lowest subject, self-improvement 
 is the task incumbent on all alike; it is the fundamental 
 requirement of all'". 6 
 
 'Confucius goes even farther', said Subbhuti with fervour; 
 'his heart embraced the whole world. He refers to the 
 
412 PANTHEISM. 
 
 old wise kings who strove to raise a universal empire 
 of peace and felicity by fanning anew the flame of celestial 
 virtue ; they began, he says, with ruling their own feudal 
 kingdom in accordance with their principles of enlighten- 
 ment; therefore they gave to their families the fullest 
 harmony; to attain this end they tried to make them- 
 selves more noble and perfect; hence they endeavoured 
 to acquire a pure and upright heart; this they laboured 
 to secure by truthful and pure intentions; for which 
 purpose they aimed at reaching the highest possible 
 knowledge which enables the mind to explore the things 
 in their innermost and spiritual essence and their dominant 
 ideas. As models of such a general reign of happiness 
 he set forth the government of the Emperors Shun and 
 Wu-wang, who realised the golden age on earth'. a 
 
 'But nevertheless', protested Gideon, 'Confucius' morality, 
 because destitute of any higher motive, is cold and bare'. 
 
 'Cold and selfish', echoed Humphrey. 
 
 'It is the morality of Hillel, the morality of Chris V, replied 
 Gregovius; 'for like them Confucius taught: "What we 
 do not wish others to do to us, that we should not do 
 to others"; and "What you dislike to be commanded 
 by your superiors, that do not command your inferiors". 
 This he called the plain and infallible rule of right 
 conduct. b It is the canon propounded by nearly all 
 civilised nations. 6 "Humanity, that is man" was Confucius' 
 pithy apophtegm'. d 
 
 'Selfish you call the doctrine of the Chinese sage'? 
 exclaimed Subbhuti. 'It is ever the same meaningless 
 charge. He who has attained eternal truth, enjoins 
 Confucius, is not content with improving himself, but tries 
 to make others perfect; and he only who combines the 
 one task with the other, possesses virtue such as corresponds 
 with our higher nature'. 6 
 
 'To the worldly-minded', said Asho-raoco, who had 
 intently followed the speakers, 'truth and truthfulness are 
 not of -such paramount sanctity as they are to Confucius, 
 
PANTHEISM. 413 
 
 who declares that "only he who is thoroughly true in 
 himself has the Tao and is penetrated with the Tao; for 
 eternal truth is the Tao of heaven, and inward truth is the 
 Tao, or the Divine, in man". a And still more pregnantly 
 he says, "Untruth is unreality ". b Is it a reproach that, 
 in demanding purity of soul, he does not forget the common 
 duties of life and thus incites and trains his votaries to 
 energetic action'? 
 
 'And as regards the "coldness or barrenness" of his 
 maxims', continued Gregovius, 'this may be admitted if 
 it means absence of miracles, myths and legends, or ab- 
 sence of obscurely recondite and metaphysical speculations. 
 Confucius offered the simple, transparent truth which leads 
 to virtue. He firmly disdained all accessories which might 
 dim the clearness or imperil the vigour of mental or moral 
 perception. "I desire to give light", he said, "not 
 brilliancy"'. 
 
 'This is an admirable principle', said Attinghausen with 
 keen satisfaction. 'But did Confucius remain quite faithful 
 to it, and am I righty informed that he established a 
 difference between sage and sainV? 
 
 'Certainly', said Gregovius, smiling. 'He distinguished 
 between the wise man who teaches the natural duties, 
 and the holy man who reveals the eternal truths'. d 
 
 'Alas, alas'! said Attinghausen, greatly disappointed. 
 'The weakness of man ! Actually the mischievous contrast 
 of natural and revealed religion! That even a Confucius 
 could go so lamentably astray ! For where the saint is, the 
 mystic is not far'. 
 
 'I do not know', said Gregovius, trying hard to be 
 serious, 'whether you allude to Confucius' doctrine of a 
 Messiah or of a Trinity'. 
 
 'A Chinese Messiah and Trinity'! exclaimed Atting- 
 hausen in amazement. 
 
 'Well', replied Gregovius genially, 'the term Messiah 
 is, of course, not Chinese, but that of Trinity is. In his 
 Tchong-yong Confucius says: "The Tao, as known by the 
 
414 PANTHEISM. 
 
 saint, is of infinite sublimity far removed from us, far 
 far away in heaven. But", he continues, "we are waiting 
 for that man, the holy one, who will one day be sent 
 to us", and who, absolutely perfect, will disclose to us 
 the Tao with infallibility and in all its completeness'.* 
 
 'Even the distant heathens', said Abington earnestly, 
 'nourished the vague expectation or prophecy that, in due 
 time, there would arise in the west a holy Ruler, Teacher 
 and Saviour of men; and readily did the three kings of 
 the East follow the star that guided them to Bethlehem. 
 Most memorable are the words employed by Lao-tse, 
 Confucius' elder contemporary, with respect to the holy 
 one: "He bears the dust of the world and yet is called 
 lord of lords; he bears the misery of the world and yet 
 is called king of the whole world'". b 
 
 'However this may be', said Gregovius quietly, 'the 
 belief in the advent of a perfect Saint disarms at least 
 those who stigmatise Confucius' teaching as commonplace 
 and trite; for that belief raises it into the sphere of the 
 ideal, and the expected Saint may be taken as the exemplar 
 who is to the follower of Confucius the embodiment of 
 all perfection of mind and heart, and the exalted standard 
 by which he measures everything human and earthly'. 
 
 'Did Confucius', enquired Attinghausen, 'conceive this 
 Saint as a supernatural being'? 
 
 'I should hardly think so', replied Gregovius; 'for he 
 says that "the testimony of the Saint who is to come 
 after a hundred generations, is as unerring as the testimony 
 of the Divine mind immanent in the human intellect". 
 The Saint is, therefore, only an absolutely sinless man'. c 
 
 'Such a man', rejoined Attinghausen, 'is a fiction, and 
 postulating one like him, leads inevitably to superstition 
 and enthusiastic reverie'. 
 
 'This cannot well be denied', observed Gregovius; 'for 
 the saint who has reached the complete wisdom of the 
 Tao, Confucius contends, is able to predict the whole 
 future, since his knowledge is equal to that of God'. d 
 
PANTHEISM. 415 
 
 'This aberration', said Attinghausen with an air of 
 triumph, 'is the deserved punishment for extravagant 
 assumptions. But now', he added more reverently, 'I 
 am curious to learu the nature of the Chinese Trinity'. 
 
 Whatever it is', said Abington with earnestness, 'whether 
 it be elevated or not, it bears at least witness, like many 
 other pagan theories of the Trinity, to the patent fact that 
 "the reflecting mind of man, in a certain stage of its 
 progress, must necessarily arrive at the conception and 
 development of that idea"'. a 
 
 'The Persian Avesta also', added Humphrey eagerly, 
 'often invokes and praises together Ahura-Mazda, Mithra, 
 and the holy Craosha, evidently forming a kind of Trinity, 
 though it was perhaps only comprehended as in a dark 
 image ; b for Craosha is probably the soul of Ahura-Mazda, 
 that is, the Holy Ghost'. c 
 
 'This is new to me', said Asho-raoco pensively, 'and 
 I have never heard or read of it. True, true', he continued, 
 lowering his voice, 'there are in our holy Books some 
 remarkable passages where Ahura-Mazda is addressed in 
 the plural and yet seems to be conceived as one person. 
 Should it really be so? No, no', he added resolutely, 
 'I cling to that unity which has at last dawned upon my 
 struggling mind: should I now thoughtlessly exchange it 
 for a trinity' ? 
 
 'The ancient Babylonians likewise', continued Humphrey 
 rapidly, 'included in their large Pantheon the three leading 
 gods Anu, Bel, and Hea, a trinity representing the deity 
 under a threefold aspect Anu, the god of heaven and 
 father of the gods; Bel, the god of the earth; and Hea, 
 the god of the ocean and of the forces of nature ; d though 
 the heathen confusion and arbitrariness are manifested in 
 the fact that subsequently Bel was raised from the second 
 to the first rank. I need not remind you that the Egyptians, 
 besides cherishing a primitive monotheism, entertained 
 no less clearly the idea of a divine trias, which appears 
 under the most varied forms, and that, as one old document 
 
416 PANTHEISM. 
 
 declares, "Three were the beginning of the gods Amon, 
 Ra, and Ptah", or Amon, Ptah, and Kneph, that is, God 
 the Father, the Creator or Logos, and the Divine Spirit. a 
 Moreover 7 . . . 
 
 'What is, I ask again', interrupted Attinghausen impa- 
 tiently, 'the nature of the Chinese Trinity'? 
 
 'Well', resumed Gregovius placidly, 'Confucius teaches : 
 "Only the saint, who has on earth received the knowledge 
 of eternal truth, obtains the faculty of comprehending his 
 Divine nature in its innermost depths ; but if he has gained 
 that faculty, he will also be able to comprehend the Divine 
 nature of mankind in general and to penetrate into the true 
 character of all creatures. When he has advanced to this 
 stage, he acquires the power of assisting heaven and earth 
 in their glorious and all-beneficent works; and then he may be 
 said to form, together with heaven and earth, the Trinity". b 
 
 'Hence the Trinity of Confucius consists of the trans- 
 cendental Deity who is enthroned in heaven and has created 
 the world; the immanent Deity who appears visible or 
 rules on earth and in nature ; and the holy ideal of human 
 dignity and perfection'. 
 
 'I am somewhat relieved', said Attinghausen; 'it is at 
 least not more abstruse than might be expected in any 
 venturesome roamings into the visionary realms of trans- 
 cendency and immanency'. 6 
 
 'Confucius could not essentially err', said Melville, 
 'as he was thoroughly imbued with the principles of a 
 sound pantheism, which constitutes his strongest affinity 
 with Spinoza. I do not remember his exact words, but 
 pantheistic ideas pervade all his profounder writings'. 
 
 'True', said Subbhuti with zeal ; 'in a remarkable passage 
 of the Tchong-yong he says: 
 
 "As the numberless beings that grow up on the earth 
 simultaneously without injuring or disturbing one another, 
 have their prototypes in the heavenly bodies which simul- 
 taneously move in their orbits without ever being brought 
 into confusion, so also the power and virtue inherent in the 
 creatures are emanations from the superabundance of the 
 one mighty power and virtue by which all is created, 
 
PANTHEISM. 417 
 
 endowed with life, and led onward towards its final purpose. 
 And it is this that invests heaven and earth with an aspect 
 so truly sublime"'.* 
 
 'This is indeed your dear Pantheism', said Attinghausen, 
 'refulgent in the roseate hues of your no less dear Optimism, 
 though distorted by the Procrustean principle of design'. 
 
 'We may well overlook the one theoretical mistake', 
 rejoined Melville ; 'for in a life of eager action the sage 
 of Confucius preserves purity and tastes constant joy. 
 "Penetrating into his heart with a searching eye, he finds 
 nothing that can cause him pain or grief, for he feels 
 himself free from all baseness in his pursuits, aspirations 
 and intentions". He needs neither blush before himself 
 nor others, for he is true in word and deed. He is fortified 
 by the inspiring thought that he is one with Sublime 
 Truth, the incomparable Tao of heaven and earth, which, 
 uncreated and imperishable, is unfathomable and infinite 
 in majesty and wisdom, itself unchangeable yet the cause 
 of all change, the Source and Preserver of all beings. b 
 The Tao is the jewel he carries in his bosom from his 
 birth ; he has the duty to preserve it in its brilliancy and 
 to make it shine in all the radiance of its light and 
 beauty, so as to illumine his own soul and to warm the 
 hearts of his fellow-men. If he succeeds, his Tao becomes 
 the celestial virtue, the ming-te, which strives to bestow 
 upon all mankind peace, righteousness and felicity; and 
 he has gained the road to the highest perfection. Beautiful 
 goal, transforming earth into heaven'! 
 
 No one felt inclined to speak after these earnest words, 
 to which Melville's manner imparted a religious solemnity, 
 and which seemed so well to reflect the ethical elevation 
 of his own noble Pantheism; and as the hour was unusually 
 late, the friends dispersed soon afterwards, Wolfram alone 
 remaining for some time longer in close conversation with 
 the host. 
 
 EE 
 
X. PESSIMISM. 
 
 WHEN the company met again the next evening, it was 
 long before they were able to collect their thoughts for 
 a systematic discussion. That morning's papers had 
 reported a whole budget of terrible catastrophes a 
 colliery explosion in the north of England, a railway 
 accident in the Midland Counties, and a tornado in the 
 East, all attended with a frightful loss of life. Atting- 
 hausen seemed, therefore, to be in harmony with the 
 prevailing mood, when he said in a lugubrious tone of 
 voice : 
 
 'Alas, alas, we poor mortals! We ever remain the 
 sport of blind chance and cruel elements. But this is 
 not the worst. We appear to be doomed to the hopeless 
 lot of the Danaids: the sieve of our knowledge is being 
 constantly filled, yet it is never full. Errors that were 
 deemed to have been thoroughly uprooted, grow up again 
 with a ranker luxuriance, though perhaps in a modified 
 form; and we have to begin anew the old weary round 
 of toilsome labour'. 
 
 'I wonder', said Berghorn tartly, 'what this dreary 
 threnody portends, and what doleful idea it is meant to 
 herald'. 
 
 'I cannot help', continued Attinghausen with the same 
 melancholy, which he made comical efforts to sustain, 
 'I cannot help deploring the wilfulness of men who, 
 undeterred by the luckless fate of a host of Icarian 
 adventurers, persist in reckless flights into the impalpable 
 ether of metaphysics, and thereby threaten to consign 
 even our fine and healthy Pessimism to a fathomless grave'. 
 
PESSIMISM. 419 
 
 'Pessimism'! cried Berghorn sarcastically. '"Das ist des 
 Pudel's Kern" ! It is a principle as false as it is per- 
 nicious'. 
 
 'Optimism, I maintain', replied Attinghausen, now with 
 his usual buoyancy, 'is a principle as wicked as it is 
 perverse;* for it is callously blind and deaf to the horrible 
 misery that surrounds us, and it constantly feeds that 
 hideous monster selfishness, against which you have 
 struggled for thousands of years in vain. You have tried 
 your eudaeinonistic philosophies and have failed; you have 
 tried your supernatural theologies and have signally failed : 
 that hydra is as rampant and as bristling with vitality 
 as ever. Pessimism is the torch of lolaus that burns 
 out the poisonous serpents at the root'. 
 
 'I am happy to perceive', said Mondoza cheerfully, 'that, 
 for once, you are not too proud to betray your nobleness 
 of aim. This chief end of self-conquest places you into 
 essential agreement with your opponents, and we can, 
 therefore, follow the contest without anxiety'. 
 
 'I am afraid', answered Attinghausen, 'our differences 
 are radical. We do not consider self-denial the aim but 
 the means. For we contend that man must begin with 
 extirpating all love of self, and then he will be sure to 
 find and to obey a code of pure morality. But you begin 
 with enjoining upon men what you believe to be a code 
 of pure morality by which you expect to train them 
 ultimately to self-denial. Your enterprise is a priori as 
 hopeless as history has proved it to be. As your code 
 sets forth "happiness" as man's supreme object, it is 
 pervaded by that very egotism which it is meant to 
 eradicate. Whether your happiness be that of the Epi- 
 curean, the Christian, or the Spinozist, that is, whether 
 it be expected in this world or in another, whether it be 
 sought in delights of the body or of the intellect, your 
 morality is sapped at its foundation: for striving after 
 happiness in whatever form is pitiful and despicable 
 egotism'. 
 
420 PESSIMISM. 
 
 'But the Christian', said Abington, 'is taught above all 
 resignation, which is the very opposite of self-assertion'. 
 
 'This is true', replied Attinghausen quickly, 'it is the 
 very opposite of selfishness it is the other extreme which 
 proves the utter hollowness of your eudaemonistic dreams. 
 After having moved heaven and earth to foster your 
 precious self, you finally abandon it as absolutely worthless. 
 Cured of the vain illusions of the world, you throw away, 
 in the bitterness of your heart, that for the sake of which 
 you fancied the whole world was created. You deny the 
 lord you professed to serve, and in disgust and anger you 
 turn away from the deceitful idol'. 8 
 
 'Christian resignation', rejoined Abington, 'has in it 
 nothing of bitterness, disgust or anger. It renounces 
 freely, nay cheerfully, the boons withheld by an all-wise 
 Providence, but it is ready at any moment gratefully to 
 accept those which its beneficence may be disposed to 
 grant. But I wonder that you to whom nature's law is 
 supreme, do not see that it is in direct contradiction to 
 your Pessimism: for nature teaches that every creature 
 strives not only after self-preservation but after enjoyment, 
 or as one of your favourite poets says: "Was lebt, will 
 sich erfreun". Why, then, do you so persistently revolt 
 against her benign ordinances'? 
 
 'I might retort', answered Attinghausen eagerly, 'by 
 saying, I greatly wonder that you who so systematically 
 debase nature's law as opposed to the regenerated spirit, 
 so strongly urge me to cleave to it when I attempt to 
 rise above the selfishness of its lessons. But I deny your 
 premises. It is quite fitting in a convivial song to say 
 that "all that lives is bent on enjoying life". But that 
 is a poetical license. Look at the reality', continued 
 Attinghausen, relapsing into a tone of dismal lamentation, 
 which caused no little hilarity, and speaking with a 
 tentativeness and hesitation quite foreign to him; 'where- 
 ver you turn, you see gloom, agony, and despair; . . . 
 nature in arms against man, and man arrayed against 
 
PESSIMISM. 421 
 
 rapacious beasts and . . . and against his fellow-men; the 
 heart of poor mortals torn asunder by fierce passions ; the 
 needy groaning under their misery and the rich unfit for the 
 Kingdom of Heaven ... I mean unfit by the thousand ills 
 of body and mind to enjoy their wealth; not a beam of 
 gladness anywhere, not a single ray of ... not a single 
 ray' . . .* 
 
 'Really', interrupted Canon Mortimer, with the merriest 
 peal of laughter, 'it is impossible to remain serious in 
 hearing this dirge from your lips. If I have ever had 
 the good fortune to see keen enjoyment, I have witnessed 
 it in the zest with which you attack and try to overwhelm 
 your luckless opponents, in the relish with which you 
 expound your theories of protoplastic cells and of absolute 
 Monism, your ontogenesis and phylogenesis nay your 
 very Pessimism, in which you revel with the hearty delight 
 of an intellectual Epicurean. No wonder that your 
 enthusiastic praise of Pessimism excuse the remark : 
 is singularly strained and forced. For once you are 
 deserted by your usual flow and readiness of language. 
 Pessimism is obviously not natural to you ; it is an adopted 
 principle against which the hopeful elasticity of your 
 practical character constantly reacts; and you enjoy life 
 it may be to your great regret and grief as thoroughly 
 as I wish all men may enjoy it'. 
 
 'Did I ever admit', replied Attinghausen with his ordinary 
 vivacity, 'that Pessimism was comfortless? Have I not 
 repeatedly declared that it is compatible with considerable 
 and real cheerfulness? Yet I affirm that there is no 
 salvation except in Schopenhauers "Negation of life" 
 VerneinungzumLeben. This voluntary removal, through 
 the power of our "will", of a world which exists only as 
 our "conception", can alone rescue us from that demon 
 of egotism which permits us neither rest nor happiness'. 
 
 'You have betrayed yourself, cried Humphrey trium- 
 phantly, 'you have revealed the glaring sophistry of your 
 creed. You reject or "negative" the world, and for what 
 
422 PESSIMISM. 
 
 object? To attain "rest and happiness". Who does not 
 see that this is the coarsest egotism or, as you are pleased 
 to call it, "individual eudaemonism" ? You are weary of 
 the evils and troubles which, you believe, fill the world, 
 and instead of trying to remedy them or at least sharing 
 them courageously with your fellow-men, you banish, in 
 your idea, the world from existence and retire to the 
 silent solitude you have created, in order to enjoy "rest 
 and happiness" for yourself, unconcerned at the wretched- 
 ness of all other men. And this you describe magnilo- 
 quently as burning out the roots of egotism with the 
 torch of loalaus! I shudder when I imagine to myself 
 the awful desolation amidst which your mind has chosen 
 to take up its abode it is not Chaos, out of which a 
 world may be produced; it is the ,dead, empty, and 
 absolute Nothing'. 
 
 'I must repeat', said Attinghausen with decision, 'spare 
 your compassion! It is true, there is left to us, when we 
 have arrived at our aim, no will, no conception, no world. 
 Before us, as the last object of all virtue and holiness, 
 remains only the Nothing; into this are dissolved "these 
 worlds, so real to men, with all their suns and milky 
 ways, Time and Space, Subject and Object". But we 
 have heroically conquered all repugnance to being merged 
 in the Nothing, for we have conquered our nature, which 
 prompts us to a fatal and selfish "desire of life" Wille 
 zum Leben. When we have thus far advanced, and are only 
 awaiting the disappearance both of our body and of the 
 last trace of our will, then, "instead of the restless urging 
 and pressing, instead of the incessant change from wish 
 to fear and from joy to grief, instead of the never satisfied 
 and never extinguished hope, out of which man's life- 
 dream is woven, there arises within us that peace which 
 surpasses all human understanding, that total calm of the 
 mind, that deep tranquillity with unshaken confidence and 
 cheerfulness, the very reflex of which in a face, such as 
 is pourtrayed by Raphael or Correggio, is itself a complete 
 
PESSIMISM. 423 
 
 and sure gospel: knowledge alone has remained; the will 
 has vanished". 11 From these celestial heights we look down 
 with pity and with sorrow upon our infatuated fellow-men, 
 who prefer remaining in a woeful and incurable conflict 
 with an ungovernable world'. 
 
 'As far as your opinions have any truth or meaning*, 
 said Berghorn dogmatically, 'they are borrowed partly 
 from Stoicism and partly from Christianity, whether you 
 are conscious of your dependence on sources you despise 
 or not. But they imply so much that is deceptive, absurd 
 and dangerous, that it is indeed an amazing phenomenon 
 how a theory intensifying all the follies of Buddhism, 
 could obtain acceptance among rational Europeans'. 
 
 Subbhuti, who from the beginning had followed this 
 conversation with the deepest attention, desired to speak, 
 but Berghorn did not afford him the opportunity, and 
 continued in a severer tone: 
 
 'Carried out with consistency, Pessimism must lead to 
 suicide not, as with the Stoics, in single cases as excep- 
 tions, but as the ordinary rule, and almost as a moral 
 duty, since Nihilists consider life, under all circumstances, 
 an unendurable burden. Shrinking from such iniquity by 
 virtue of their small remnant of sound sense, they declare 
 self-destruction inadmissible, not for ethical, but for meta- 
 physical reasons, with which I should be sorry to trouble 
 you. b But I beg you to remember that, as they deem 
 the negation of life through the will to be the highest 
 perfection, they regard every suffering, misfortune and 
 self-castigation, every insult, ill-usage and oppression, in 
 a word, everything that impels men to that negation, as 
 a blessing and a solid gain, and, on the other hand, every 
 pleasure or comfort as a sad misfortune, since it tends to 
 link them to this miserable life. Morality and virtue 
 are important to them only in so far as they form inter- 
 mediate stages between the unqualified affirmation of 
 the will in favour of life and its negation in the contrary 
 direction. What results from these eccentric premises? 
 
424 PESSIMISM. 
 
 Plainly this, that we can show to our fellow-man no greater 
 love and affection than inflicting upon him every pos- 
 sible torture and anguish, since we thereby bring him 
 nearer to his true salvation, whereas it is fiendish malice 
 and cruelty to show him any kindness, to help him out of 
 difficulties, or to protect him against injustice and ignominy, 
 since we thereby lure him away from the blessed path 
 of deliverance, which leads through trials, and thus make 
 him miss the true object of existence. Men are to be 
 envied for their misfortunes. Active morality is a mis- 
 chievous evil, because it hinders the recovery of the pa- 
 tient who is suffering from attachment to the world; the 
 noblest heroism is displayed by those who, unmindful of 
 the curses they bring upon themselves from their blind 
 and ungrateful brethren, heap upon them every con- 
 ceivable agony and disgrace ; and one of the greatest 
 benefactors of mankind is the despot who inflicts upon 
 thousands of his subj ects the most exquisite cruelties. These 
 are the logical consequences of your much extolled Pes- 
 simism.* I do not know whether anything more imbecile 
 or more baleful has ever sprung from a human brain'. 
 
 'In the first place', replied Attinghausen resolutely, 
 'allow me to observe that, theoretically, very similar 
 "dangers" might be deduced from your own religious 
 views. You look upon nothing as more meritorious 
 than martyrdom, and upon nothing as more profitable 
 for salvation than self-mortifying privations; and yet 
 charity and benevolence are the highest virtues to 
 you as they are to us; and none of you will think of 
 persecuting your co-religionists from benevolence, or of 
 being heedless of their distress from charity'. 
 
 'The two cases are utterly dissimilar', interrupted Gideon. 
 'The Talmud speaks indeed frequently of the value of 
 trials. "Sufferings", it says, "are the salt that wards off 
 corruption" b . Rabbi Simeon observed: "The three most 
 precious boons God granted to Israel the Law, the holy 
 Land, and the bliss of the future life - are the fruits of mis- 
 
PESSIMISM. 425 
 
 fortune".* And consistently with this idea, the Rabbins 
 view happiness as a questionable, if not an injurious gift. 
 "He who passes forty days without discomfort", they de- 
 clare, "has received his full share in the world". b Rabbi 
 Eliezer was lying on his bed of sickness, excruciated by 
 pain. While all the friends and disciples who visited 
 him, were overwhelmed with grief, Rabbi Akiva alone 
 smiled serenely and happily. The sufferer asked him in 
 surprise whether he felt no compassion j upon which the 
 thoughtful Rabbi replied: "When thou \ast properous 
 in everything, when thou hadst corn and wine, oil and 
 honey in abundance, I was uneasy on thy account and 
 thought thou hadst already enjoyed thy world: now, 
 seeing thee in agony, my apprehension vanishes and I 
 am full of gladness". The learned and wise Rabbi 
 Chanina lived in the greatest poverty. One day his wife 
 said to him: "Thou art pious and righteous, and wilt 
 surely be blessed in the next world; pray to God that 
 He might give thee a part of thy reward at once". The 
 Rabbi, reluctantly yielding to his wife's importunities, 
 addressed to God a fervent supplication. When he had 
 finished, he saw a massive piece of gold, evidently a leg 
 belonging to a golden table, descend from on high. He 
 took it, but felt his heart disquieted and saddened. His 
 tormenting thoughts pursued him till late in the night, 
 when he, at last exhausted, fell asleep. In his dream he 
 was transferred to the magnificient Palace of heaven 
 and, like all saints assembled in its halls, he was sitting 
 at a golden table; but he soon found that this table 
 was unsteady and tottering, for it wanted one leg. He 
 then remembered the saying of our sages: "Man cannot 
 partake of two feasts; he cannot enjoy the happiness 
 both of earth and of heaven". He awoke alarmed, and 
 implored God that He would take back His gift, and 
 the prayer was granted. d These and many similar tales 
 prove that our forefathers considered terrestrial happiness 
 a misfortune, because it imperils the hopes of Paradise. 
 
426 PESSIMISM. 
 
 They originated in times of persecution, calamity a 
 servitude ; a but the ideas underlying the stories took de 
 root and remained essentially unchanged. b Most interest! 
 in this respect is a passage in a letter of Maimonid 
 addressed to one of his disciples. "Know", he wroi 
 "that all the greatness and all the prosperity enjoyed 1 
 the Jews in our time is, in my opinion, no happinef 
 and no complete or desirable boon; indeed, by the li 
 of God! it is no small evil. c For the truly happy mi 
 is he who finds his delight in fulfilling the Divine precep 
 and all his human obligations, and keeps aloof from tl 
 thoughts of the multitude ". d But all these views of tl 
 importance of trials as means of moral training cann< 
 be injurious to the votaries of a creed which teach< 
 them to regard all that happens as sent by an all-wis 
 God and Father acting in pursuance of His own inscn 
 table plans, and to carry out, unconditionally and unmu] 
 muringly, the commandments of charity and beneficent 
 enjoined by a Divine and unchangeable Law. We d 
 not presume to be a Providence to our fellow-men; w 
 perform our nearest duties from day to day in sincerit 
 of heart, and leave the rest to the Euler of the world 
 
 'Pray', said Mondoza, 'let us not lose the thread c 
 our argument through the copiousness of the worth 
 Rabbi's learning. Berghorn's sagacity has clearly pointe< 
 out a fatal consequence of Schopenhauer's Pessimism 
 Attinghausen believes he can rebut this charge and begai 
 by affirming that a similar inference might be drawi 
 from the tenets of some positive religions; this Rabb 
 Gideon denies, as far as Judaism is concerned; may w( 
 now ask our zealous Attinghausen to continue his cham- 
 pionship of Nihilism'? 
 
 1 Well', said Attinghausen, manifestly not quite pleased 
 with Mondoza's recapitulation of the argument, 'I con- 
 fess, we shall be compelled to abandon Pessimism in the 
 form in which it has been conceived by our master, and 
 adopt it in the modification most acutely and convincingly 
 
PESSIMISM. 427 
 
 worked out by his great pupil, our new apostle, Eduard 
 von Hartmann'. 
 
 'By whom' ? exclaimed Berghorn ]n' a thundering voice that 
 made even Attinghausen start back. 'Do you mean to bring 
 forward in this society of sober men the insanities of 
 "the Philosophy of the Unconscious"? Do you profess 
 to understand the meaning of an unconscious Absolute, 
 one of whose modes of manifestation is consciousness? 
 an Unconscious which performs acts of the will by which, 
 as if by sorcery, it is at any moment able to destroy 
 matter and to call it again into existence? an Un- 
 conscious which is a spirit serving as "the common bond 
 of the world and as the principle of unity pervading its 
 plan of creation"? an Unconscious that not only pos- 
 sesses "reason and intelligence" but is endowed with "a 
 clearsighted wisdom infinitely superior to any conceivable 
 consciousness"? Do you really dare to insult our reason 
 and outrage our common sense so far as to introduce 
 such a medley of confused and frivolous puerility'? 
 
 'The contradictions you have pointed out', replied 
 Attinghausen undauntedly, 'are the weak and deplorable 
 features in Hartmann's theory. But why did so gifted 
 a man fall into such incredible errors? Simply because 
 and this is it that prompted my lament in the begin- 
 ning because he was not satisfied with an honest and 
 mechanical, but needs must have a "spiritual" Pessimism; 
 and anyone chasing such a hollow phantom, cannot fail 
 to be lured into tangled woods and treacherous moras- 
 ses. A few days ago I referred to Strauss who, after 
 having rejected the Bible and its God, elevated his "living 
 and intelligent Universe" to a Gospel no less fanatical and 
 to a metaphysical being no less etherial than those which 
 he had abandoned after a life-time of study and reflection, 
 but which partially clung to him as a remnant of the 
 old Adam. Hence he simply substituted a new faith for 
 the old faith, which we desire to replace by a new know- 
 ledge* Nay Schopenhauer himself, though starting with 
 
428 PESSIMISM. 
 
 the distinct declaration that he trusts to experience and 
 observation alone, at once proceeds to the important 
 assumption that man and the world, or the microcosm 
 and the macrocosm, are by the principle of Monism 
 identical in nature, and that hence, as man has will and 
 conception, the world also is throughout will and con- 
 ception, from which fundamental dogma follow all the 
 metaphysical oddities of his system.* Hartmann also 
 begins like a sensible man with stating that all specu- 
 lation is false, which is not in agreement with empirical 
 research^ but then, decoyed by the aurora borealis oi 
 idealism glittering in the distant heavens, he flies through 
 infinitude on the Pegasus of his transcendentalism and 
 discovers the Unconscious. Heedless of the conspicuous 
 failures of Hegel, Fichte and Schelling, he indulges in 
 the farrago of an abstruse phraseology which has no 
 more reality than the over-refining dialectics of Scholastic 
 mysticism. He has once more attempted to vindicate for 
 men a false position of aristocracy so flattering to their 
 pride; but his transparent casuistries may help to bring 
 scholars nearer to that humbler but more creditable condition 
 which makes them plain working citizens of a republican 
 cosmos ruled by a common and mechanical necessity'. 
 
 'But what is his modification of Schopenhauer's doctrine, to 
 which you have alluded' ? asked Subbhuti, in evident anxiety. 
 
 'Well', replied Attinghausen, 'he adheres to Pessimism as 
 firmly as his predecessor did. Both reflection and experience 
 have more and more convinced him that life in every 
 form is made up of torments, and that the pursuit oi 
 happiness is as idle as it is foolish. But he has partially 
 detected those defects of Schopenhauer's theory, which 
 have been censured already ; he saw that Pessimism, in that 
 shape, tended to egotism and weakened the instincts oi 
 morality inherent in mankind. b Yet the principal task 
 and strength of Pessimism, as I have said, is the complete 
 uprooting of selfishness. How, therefore, is this great 
 end to be attained? Only by absolute self-denial inten- 
 
PESSIMISM. 429 
 
 sified into a complete indifference to life and death, to 
 happiness and misery. For it is selfishness to save our- 
 selves by the negation of life and by withdrawing from 
 the general arena, while all the time we are "allowing the 
 mad fools' dance of common life go on as it can and 
 may". a What indeed can the separate deliverance of an 
 individual avail, when he knows that all others remain 
 in the hell of existence, out of which they find no means 
 of escape ? We must accustom ourselves, says the energetic 
 apostle of the new doctrine, and I believe justly, to ac- 
 knowledge that death is not preferable to life, nor life 
 preferable to death; that all endeavours to rise against 
 the iron destinies of fate are only a futile shaking of the 
 bars of that dungeon in which we, like our fellow-prisoners, 
 have been confined without any action of our own ; that we 
 must, therefore, not selfishly expect to be rescued from 
 distress by death and annihilation, but must bear with equa- 
 nimity the idea that, in the place of our destroyed self, 
 another self will appear, doomed to endure the same agonies; 
 since "our consciousness, in spite of the change of brains, 
 continues to hope and to suffer, just as the spectrum of a 
 cascade continues to shine in the same colours in spite of 
 the change of the water-drops". And then he exclaims with 
 a fine pathos : "What does it matter whether I slightly acce- 
 lerate the falling of a drop in a cataract ? what does it matter 
 whether a leaf is torn from the tree of humanity a little be- 
 fore the autumn, as the wind at all times blows off vast num- 
 bers of fresh leaves and the tree germinates ever anew'"? b 
 'Better and better 7 ! cried Humphrey in his most sati- 
 rical manner. 'Your advanced Pessimist deems this life 
 so entirely worthless as not even to deserve the trouble 
 of being cast away ; and yet, as it is immediately replaced 
 by another life as wretched and worthless as itself, it 
 has a Buddhistic sort of immortality. Your triumph of 
 unselfishness consists in feeling and sharing the tortures 
 that will be endured by your substitutes during all future 
 ages; and you are able to be charitable without being 
 

 430 PESSIMISM. 
 
 harassed by remorse, as a fellow-man's life or death is 
 a matter of utter indifference : for this is the great pro- 
 gress you have made that now your negation of life i* 
 no longer personal but embraces all mankind! Horrible 
 monstrosity ! Is it credible that erudition, industry and tnt 
 highest culture should be wasted on theories surpassing 
 the worst extravagances of the East'? 
 
 'I believe', said Canon Mortimer, serenely, 'that ever 
 these labours are not fruitless. Pursued as they are wit! 
 the purest zeal and singleness of purpose, they cannot 
 in the extended and varied fields they explore, fail tc 
 discover many precious gems which were not the primary 
 objects of their search. Now it has struck me as mosi 
 remarkable that the originator of modern Pessimism should 
 in his own manner, have evolved from his very peculiai 
 system all the specific doctrines of Christianity : and this 
 I take to be no mean proof of their imperishable truth 
 if they are understood in the right spirit, as universal 
 symbols. Thus Schopenhauer contends that a man's 
 character can indeed never change partially, and is com- 
 pelled to execute the dictates of the will with the con- 
 sistency of a law of nature ; but that the whole man, or his 
 character in its totality, may be completely transformed 
 by a radical alteration in his intellectual vision, seizing 
 him suddenly and without any effort on his part with irre- 
 sistible force. What else is this wonderful revolution bu1 
 that which the Christian Church has most aptly called 
 regeneration or new Urth? and what else is that fresl 
 light bursting upon the mind spontaneously but what wt 
 call the operation of grace? In this sense, renewal of birtl 
 and operation of grace coincide with free-will, whict 
 Schopenhauer, therefore, like Malebranche, calls u t 
 mystery", and which he so decidedly declares to con- 
 stitute man's main superiority over animals that he defines 
 necessity as the dominion of nature, liberty as the domi- 
 nion of grace. The redemption of the natural man devoid 
 of all faculty of righteousness and delivered up to perdi- 
 
PESSIMISM. 431 
 
 tion, is wrought, so teaches Christianity also, by turning 
 away from the world and by inward revival ; for beneath 
 our ordinary self there is another self which appears and 
 acts only after we have shaken off the world. But still 
 more: Adam, says the philosopher, typifies the idea of 
 men in their unity, and corresponds, therefore, with the 
 affirmation of the will in favour of life; consequently 
 Adam's sin, which we have inherited, makes us all partici- 
 pators of suffering and spiritual death; whereas grace or 
 salvation, that is, the negation of the will with respect 
 to life, typifies the incarnate God, "who, free from all 
 sin, that is, from all desire of life, cannot have a body 
 like ourselves but, born of the pure virgin, has only an 
 apparitional body." To this must be added that, as 
 Schopenhauer, like St. Augustine and other Fathers, 
 attributes to men an original disposition to wickedness, 
 he regards all their works as imperfect and tainted with 
 sin, and thinks salvation only possible through a faith 
 unalloyed by calculating egotism. Thus he is in full 
 agreement with Luther who demands that, after faith has 
 taken root, good works should proceed from it as its 
 natural fruits, without claiming merit or reward. In advan- 
 cing therefore, successively, from justice to love, then to 
 a complete removal of selfishness, and finally to indifference 
 or resignation, Schopenhauer's teaching includes all the 
 chief tenets which form the kernel of Christianity the 
 tenets of original sin, the operation of grace, regenerating 
 birth, justification by faith, and redemption, provided that 
 Christ is conceived as a general emblem of men's deliver- 
 ance from a life of worldliness'. a 
 
 'On these terms', said Attinghausen, with a burst of 
 laughter, 'even I might call myself a Christian. I know 
 that Schopenhauer, in a moment of weakness, wrote the 
 strange and fatal words that his ethics are indeed in 
 their terminology new and unprecedented, but by no means 
 in their nature, as they fully harmonise with the peculiar dog- 
 mas of Christianity, in which all the essential points of his 
 
432 PESSIMISM. 
 
 
 system are clearly involved. But I am afraid, the slightest 
 touch reduces Schopenhauer's Christianity to dust. He con- 
 siders it possible on the one condition only that "the Jewish 
 dogma" on which the Gospels are based, be given up. And 
 what is that fundamental doctrine? That "man is the work 
 of another", that is, that he is created by God; whereas, in 
 truth, he is "the work of his own will". I know that you are 
 indignant at this view, but Schopenhauer insists upon it 
 with a vehemence to which he is otherwise a stranger. 
 He avers that the opinion of man being created by God 
 entangles all theologies and philosophies in the greatest 
 contradictions and absurdities; that it is the soil which 
 brought forth the "revolting" doctrine of predestination; 
 that it fastens the guilt of the distress and misery which 
 abound in the world upon God as their cruel author; 
 and that it stamps man's responsibility as a preposterous 
 paradox. "What", he asks, "should we think of a watch- 
 maker who is angry with his watch for not keeping 
 correct time"? and, in general, he declares that philo- 
 sophy busies itself only with the world and leaves 
 the gods in peace, but expects, in return, to be left 
 alone by them. He acknowledges, in a certain sense, 
 the "One and All" of Pantheism, since he pronounces 
 the will as the essence and centre of the universe; but 
 he is very careful not, like Spinoza, to call that "One 
 and All" God, and expressly declines to represent the 
 world as a theophany, since he condemns it as radically 
 bad and productive of nothing but trouble, distress, mutual 
 strife, and self-laceration. And lastly, the Christian 
 expects after his renouncement of life another world more 
 glorious and magnificent than anything the human eye has 
 ever seen on this earth; but what is the Pessimist's goal? 
 The empty Nothing, that is, an absolute negation; for 
 not even that positive element, whatever it is, that may 
 be included in ecstasy, illumination, or union with God, 
 can be recognised by the philosopher, since it is not 
 knowledge which can be communicated,* In a word, 
 
\tfrf / 
 
 ^^ins^-D^^/ 
 
 PESSIMISM. ^a? W *V433 
 
 Schopenhauer's Christianity must be considered as no 
 more than an ingenious play with significant terms, to 
 which he assigns meanings they never bear in Christian 
 dogmatics. Nevertheless, I am most sincerely grateful 
 to our amiable Canon for trying to penetrate into the 
 nature of a system so essentially different from his own, 
 and for endeavouring, as is his praiseworthy habit, to 
 discover affinities, rather than divergencies. This and 
 not abuse or denouncement', he added with an aggressive 
 glance at Berghorn and Humphrey, 'is the way of promoting 
 truth and peace'. 
 
 *I cordially echo this sentiment', said Mondoza, turning 
 to Attinghausen, 'and I am sure you are willing to act 
 upon it yourself. There are', he continued, 'few earnest 
 men in our time who have not candidly striven to under- 
 stand, and to do justice to the principles of Pessimism.* 
 Alas! there exists and there happens in the world but 
 too much that countenances and supports them. Only 
 levity can close itself against the thousand ills by which 
 we are assailed against the sorrows endured by our fellow- 
 men, against the painful and unsatisfied yearnings of our 
 own hearts. Yet at the very moment we are threatened 
 with distressing despondency or despair, we hear within us a 
 voice whose whisperings we cannot stifle a voice encou- 
 raging, reviving, fortifying ; it is the voice of human nature 
 in its health and vigour; the voice which bids us suffer, 
 work, and hope; which calls us away from the sights of 
 affliction and woe to the hardly less numerous scenes of 
 joy and beauty and goodness; which urges us to toil on 
 in spite of all unfathomed mysteries, to love even if our 
 love is rejected, to cling to life with all its confusion and 
 burdens, to cling to our fellow-men with all their failings 
 and errors. Shall we shut our ears to that voice? 
 Shall we say proudly, its counsels are illogical, unphilo- 
 sophical; they are against all reason and experience; they 
 advise a cowardly flight when victory is in our grasp? 
 Say so, if it so pleases you: but as long as your reason 
 
434 PESSIMISM. 
 
 is sound and your heart fresh as it came from the hand 
 of nature, the same voice will repeat the same words 
 louder and louder, till you obey it even against your will. 
 The struggle is fruitless; hope is indestructible. With 
 deep truth the poet lets the Evil one declare: 
 
 "That which resists the empty Nothing, 
 
 "This something, this coarse, rough-grained world, 
 
 "However much I have attempted, 
 
 "I knew not how to do it harm. 
 
 "Spite waves and tempests, earthquakes, fire, 
 
 "Unchanged and safe are sea and land! 
 
 "And those damned things, the brood of beast and man, 
 
 "Are ever proof 'gainst my attacks. 
 
 "How many, ere this, have I buried! 
 
 "And ever circulates a new, fresh blood"* 
 
 'Yes, "Immer circulirt ein neues frisches Blut". The 
 words of Ecclesiastes, from which we started in our 
 discussions, assume, at this stage, a new and more preg- 
 nant truth: "He has also set worldliness in their heart, 
 without which man cannot understand the works that God 
 does, from beginning to end". It is simply "worldliness" 
 the strong 'love of the world which sustains us, which 
 whets our understanding, stimulates our action. For in 
 advising men to yield to the persuasive voice of nature, I do 
 not advise them to betray their intellect. I approve of no 
 theodicy; I would not even, like Spinoza, pave the way 
 to one by the dogmatic assertion that there exists in the 
 world nothing that is bad and obnoxious, and that we 
 consider some things so merely because we "see them 
 blurred, mutilated and confused" ; b for this would compel 
 me, as it compelled Spinoza and the Stoics, to console 
 myself in sufferings with the idea of a necessity which 
 keeps all things in an infinite concatenation of causes. 6 
 The device is dangerous and the support is frail. There 
 are many things in life and in nature which the unbiassed 
 mind is bound to pronounce to be worse and more 
 obnoxious, the more clearly it contemplates them; and 
 it is a poor consolation to us in our trials that we must 
 
PESSIMISM. 435 
 
 he miserable. We will rather adhere to the great philo- 
 sopher's fine and fruitful idea that gladness, by increasing 
 man's power, leads him to higher perfection. That which 
 produces such effect, must be natural, must be true. We 
 disavow the Pessimist's reproach that eveiy principle of 
 eudaemonism is egotistical : it is a mere sophism. If we 
 strive to attain by cheerfulness greater strength for being 
 useful to others, is this egotism? To call it so, is no less 
 singular than the assertion of some thinkers that a good 
 deed which we perform readily and willingly, is less meri- 
 torious than one we carry out with repugnance and self- 
 conquest. These refinements are either morbid or artifi- 
 cial. Is it a moral offence to feel pleasure in being able 
 to give pleasure to our fellow-men, to work for them, and 
 to relieve their griefs? Those who do not shrink from 
 such a contention, have left the path of common reason 
 and strayed into abstruseness or affectation. The men 
 who have become the guides of the world, though perhaps 
 pervaded by a certain sympathetic sadness at evils they 
 see and cannot remedy, have ever fanned the hope and 
 joyousness of life, whether their eye was more directed 
 to the outward world and its experience, or to their own 
 genius and its revelations'. 
 
 'There is a frame of mind', said Wolfram, 'which can 
 hardly be called otherwise than pessimist, and which 
 yet involves, I believe, a high degree of nobleness and 
 moral dignity: it is the impression which is often forced 
 upon our feelings and reflections, that the phenomena of 
 nature, the deeds of men, and the events of the world do not 
 harmonise with those notions of perfection, goodness and 
 beneficence, which are strongly rooted in our soul, and which 
 form our invariable standard of judgment. This incongruity 
 calls forth a regretful mourning of our spirit at being placed 
 in a world full of dark anomalies. Yet as the sadness 
 flows from the depths of our divine reason, it is essentially 
 ethical; and though painfully reminding us of our limits 
 and fetters, it keeps alive the image of ideal perfection'. 
 
436 PESSIMISM. 
 
 'So taken', said Abington eagerly, 'even Pessimism is 
 not without its pre-ordained advantage. For the conscious- 
 ness that the empirical world is an abnormal or fallen 
 one, is logically inseparable from the conviction that there 
 exists a normal condition of things beyond the boundaries 
 of experience. But the notion of a supreme and unalterable 
 canon is nothing else than the notion of the Deity, or 
 the true foundation of religion. Even the most distorted 
 systems of philosophic thought must ultimately bear testi- 
 mony to the peerless value of religious truth'. 
 
 'This is very fine', said Attinghausen with some warmth, 
 'but of what use is it to the poor husbandman who sees 
 his crops, the labour and hope of a year, in one short 
 hour destroyed by a terrible hailstorm what comfort is 
 it to him to be told that such a hailstorm does not 
 properly belong to the true essence of nature, but is a 
 mere oddity and irregular whim, since in reality nature 
 is perfect and beneficent? Will this idea calm and console 
 him when he hears his children cry for bread? Such 
 refinements may be charming in the pulpit as an adornment 
 of eloquence, but they do not stand the rough usage of 
 daily life. And then', continued Attinghausen with greater 
 hesitation, 'I cannot exactly see that the Pessimist doctrines 
 are in any way injurious or paralysing. As a matter of fact, 
 Pessimists are often men of remarkable activity; and what 
 is still more important, they adopt their vfews, as a rule, 
 simply from temperament and not from philosophical 
 conviction; they would unconsciously act on the very same 
 principles, even if Schopenhauer and others had never 
 expounded and inculcated them'. 
 
 'There is no doubt some truth in these remarks', replied 
 Mondoza; 'and I am, of course, very far from desiring 
 that the teaching of your opinions should in the least be 
 checked or restrained. On the contrary, I think the more 
 fully they are explained, the sooner and the more com- 
 pletely will their fallacies be refuted. Yet I cannot help 
 thinking that, in the mean time, they are causing con- 
 
PESSIMISM. 437 
 
 siderable mischief. Tour life is one of uncommon energy 
 and, deny it as you may, of uncommon enjoyment: your 
 noble zeal for science is your safeguard. But there exist 
 thousands who are not shielded by such a master passion, 
 but who, weak and listless, are easily swayed by views 
 which cannot but confirm them in a brooding apathy. 
 It is utterly impossible to imagine that men who, by an 
 operation of the will, have reduced the world to nothing, 
 can have the same powerful incentives to action as those 
 who look upon the world as an inexhaustible mine promising 
 abundant rewards to their industry, or as a vast deposi- 
 tory of materials to be fashioned by their skill. For your 
 Nihilism is only a philosophical theory forced upon you, 
 in spite of your buoyant temperament, by a trenchant 
 logic as straightforward and fearless as your character. 
 But for many others it is a practical canon adopted 
 because they find it congenial to their nature, and grasped 
 with increased tenacity because they hear it praised and 
 supported by men of ability and fame. To the latter 
 class, I am compelled to conclude, Pessimism is a disastrous 
 bane not only deadening their resolution, but falsifying their 
 judgment, because in spreading over the horizon an unnatural 
 darkness, it unfits them for healthful vision. But I repeat, 
 there is some light in the world; the rays may be rare 
 and chequered, but they are not the less cheering, and 
 we should train ourselves so as to enjoy them fully. There 
 is beauty to charm the eye, magnanimity to elevate the 
 soul, kindness to touch the heart, truth to kindle the 
 intellect; there are the works of genius and the deeds of 
 heroism; there are Nature and Art, Science and Literature; 
 there are even occasional intervals of unclouded happiness, 
 and there may be now and then an improvement in our 
 own inner selves, that fills us with a pure joy.* It is just 
 as much exaggeration and onesidedness to see only 
 shadows as it is to see only the bright tints of sunshine. 
 Unflinching logic is excellent in its place in the exact 
 sciences. But human life is no mathematical problem, 
 
438 PESSIMISM. 
 
 and the human organisation is no mere mechanism: both 
 into the one and the other enter influences and forces 
 disturbing the rigour of methodical reasoning. The com- 
 plexity of both can only be understood by judgment, which 
 is logic in concrete application; and judgment tells us 
 that, neither revelling in a light-headed Optimism nor 
 fretting in an ungrateful Pessimism, we should keep a 
 middle course in consonance with actual facts. For 
 supposing happiness to be the centre, then the undeniable 
 sufferings of life supply the centrifugal force, while human 
 nature, such as we find it, furnishes the centripetal gravi- 
 tation, preventing us from being carried away into the 
 emptiness of despair. This is no dogma, but, as I have 
 tried to point out, the dictate of man's constitution itself. 
 There is no grief so overwhelming from which we do not 
 gradually recover either by our innate elasticity or by 
 consolations we succeed in discovering; and as daily 
 experience proves that these conquests over misfortune 
 are decided and rapid in the same proportion as we are 
 sound and strong in body and mind, the inference is 
 incontestable that gloom and despondency are results of 
 morbidness and weakness, that is, that they are abnormal 
 conditions'. 
 
 'But what is it', asked Attinghausen, rather perplexed, 
 'that is to uphold man and keep him in that middle 
 course you have described'? 
 
 'The sense of duty', said Mondoza firmly. 'You have 
 yourselves, in the course of the remarks with which you 
 favoured us a few days ago, affirmed that the moral 
 qualities in man are the regular development of the social 
 instincts of duty in animals, and you have emphatically 
 dwelt on your favourite illustrations of bees and ants. If your 
 idea is divested of the peculiar form in which you present 
 it, we may, I think, adopt it as essentially correct. So 
 much is certain that in man, as long as he is true to 
 his nature, the sense of duty has the strength and force 
 of an instinct, and, directed by his reason, is capable of 
 
PESSIMISM. 439 
 
 maintaining him, if not in a constant exuberance of spirits, 
 at least in a state of calm serenity which, I believe, is 
 the nearest approach to happiness attainable by mortals'. 
 
 'It is impossible to see', said Humphrey with suppressed 
 irritation, 'how a cold sense of duty is able to produce that 
 which can issue only from our union with a supreme 
 Love and Perfection. I fear, the proposed remedy for 
 the fancied evils of the world is the heretical justification 
 by works so congenial to most men's pride and venal 
 selfishness'. 
 
 'I must beg your pardon', replied Mondoza, 'I speak 
 of no Justification, for I have no knowledge of a Fall 
 or hereditary sin; nor do I even speak of good works 
 as such, that is, of works mainly prompted by the belief 
 of their meritoriousness. In comparing the sense of duty 
 to an instinct, I think I have made my meaning suf- 
 ficiently clear. We should try to be useful simply be- 
 cause we cannot help being so. We may propose to 
 ourselves special aims, yet not their achievement, but the 
 pursuit itself should be our chief care and object. Grateful 
 for the boon of life, and opening our hearts to the sor- 
 rows that surround us, we should do with all our might 
 whatever devolves upon us or comes into our way as- 
 suage a grief or dispel a superstition, protect the oppressed 
 or guide the erring. We should thus indeed try to be 
 "all things to all men", that we "might by all means 
 save some"; but, forgetting our own selves in our work, 
 we should not stop anxiously to examine the results. 
 Neither elated by success nor discouraged by failure, we 
 should continue to labour simply from a sense of duty 
 as the bee continues, simply from instinct, to prepare 
 the honey it leaves to others. As Goethe's Minstrel 
 says: 
 
 "Ich singe, wie der Vogel singt, 
 "Der in den Zweigen wohnet, 
 "Das Lied, das aus der Kehle dringt, 
 "1st Lohn, der reichlich lohnet"; 
 
440 PESSIMISM. 
 
 so should we all say, whether we are engaged in humble 
 avocations and in a narrow sphere, or whether we are 
 endowed for elucidating high truths and creating noble 
 works of beauty. Such principles, I believe, are free both 
 from pride and from venal selfishness ; they seem effectual 
 in warding off that depressing melancholy which is at 
 once the parent and the offspring of Pessimism ; and while 
 tending to diminish the sum of human misery, they allow 
 us to see and to enjoy whatever the world offers of 
 pleasure and delight'. 
 
 'This is an impossibility', said Humphrey with increasing 
 decision. 'You expect men to toil incessantly without 
 the stimulus of ambition and self-advancement, without 
 the impulse of pity and compassion, and without the sup- 
 port of a belief in God and Immortality. The demand is 
 not ideal, but utopian'. 
 
 'Not more so', rejoined Mondoza, 'than Christ's precept 
 that if a man takes away our coat, we should let him 
 have our cloak also exemplifying an abnegation of self 
 almost superhuman and yet justly enjoined as our ideal, 
 not utopian, aim. Allow me, however, to observe that, 
 although I would fain, as far as possible, wean men from 
 requiring the incentives of ambition and self-advancement, 
 I have not alluded to the other aids you mention. Let 
 the Stoic condemn pity as a perturbation of his apafheia, 
 let Spinoza reject it as a diminution of our strength- 
 imparting cheerfulness, or as an obstacle to our calmness 
 of judgment, I believe we shall never banish it from 
 our hearts, and as it is made a leading principle in 
 Buddha's doctrine', . . . 
 
 'You are right', interrupted Subbhuti, who had been 
 listening with the closest attention, 'our Gautama enjoins 
 upon us to feel the misery of others as our own, and at 
 seeing a fellow-creature in misfortune to say tat twamasi 
 "that thou art thyself". 
 
 'Even the advocates of Pessimism', continued Mondoza, 
 'acknowledge compassion as a ruling principle, and all 
 
PESSIMISM. 441 
 
 the efforts that have been made to stamp it as egotism 
 are as futile as the efforts made to fasten the same stigma 
 on gladness. I neither believe that true pity destroys 
 true tranquillity for if this consists in an equilibrium 
 of our powers, it cannot be imperilled by a feeling which 
 is essential to our nature ; nor do I believe that pity 
 diminishes our faculties of action, into which, on the con- 
 trary, as experience shows, it generally instils additional 
 energy. I speak, allow me to add, of "true" pity and 
 ''true" tranquillity for even the former must be held 
 under the control of reason, without which it becomes 
 mischievous; and even the latter must bear a superficial 
 emotion without being stirred in its depths, that is, 
 without losing for a moment the clear perception of the 
 relative value of all earthly things. And as regards the 
 two remaining "supports" pointed out, I avow for why 
 should I not be frank? I do not attach to them supreme 
 importance. We have seen men live happily and virtu- 
 ously without a belief in God and Immortality, and we 
 have seen others, with the words God and Immortality 
 on their lips, disgracing humanity nay disgracing hu- 
 manity "for the greater glory of God" and for the sake 
 of winning eternal bliss in another world. If the two 
 beliefs could be proved, all would be compelled to accept 
 them unconditionally as truths. But we have listened 
 for two evenings to the main arguments that can be ad- 
 duced in their favour; these arguments appeared to 
 some conclusive, to others utterly insufficient; and the 
 estimate of their weight seems, therefore, to be largely 
 influenced by individual idiosyncrasies. It is for this 
 reason that I would deprecate fanaticism on either side. 
 A pure Theism and an ideal Immortality cannot even 
 by the most determined atheist be classed among those 
 dangerous superstitions against which he feels bound 
 to wage a war of life and death: for even he I mean 
 the temperate and intellectual atheist recognises, in some 
 form, a universal Intelligence and an all-balancing 
 
442 PESSIMISM. 
 
 Eternity. These tenets will ever remain the strength and 
 solace of myriads of elevated minds and ardent souls, 
 simply because they rouse holy chords in their own nature ; 
 and they should, therefore, be respected. But even they 
 might forfeit the privilege of toleration if their votaries 
 refuse to extend it to other convictions, or if they presume 
 to claim unassailable certainty; in a word, if they aspire 
 to the sanction of fixed dogmas. For we have unfortu- 
 nately found even enlightened theists capable of a fana- 
 ticism little less fierce than that displayed by adherents 
 of the positive creeds. Let then the questions of God 
 and Immortality remain open beliefs to be adopted by 
 those who feel that they exalt their lives and fortify 
 their hearts. But let these believers not be irritated by 
 occasional opposition ; let them, on the contrary, welcome 
 it as a salutary warning against bigoted self-sufficiency 
 as an opportune reminder of the necessity they share 
 with all men of examining their belief in order to pre- 
 vent it from becoming an unprofitable formula. There 
 remains, therefore, besides pity and compassion, that is, 
 besides sympathy deep yet rational, only the sense of duty 
 which, not depending on the fluctuations of metaphysical 
 argument, is capable of securing a moral, a useful, a 
 dignified, and, as far as it is possible, a cheerful life 7 . 
 
 *I cannot be silent any longer', said Subbhuti after a 
 short pause, allowing the fullest scope to his natural 
 vivacity. 'I have come to Europe to find rest in my 
 uneasiness, and clearness in my harassing doubts; and 
 these discussions are my only trust. Many of you have 
 yesterday and to-day touched upon various points which 
 affect the very centre of my creed the creed of unnum- 
 bered millions of earnest men; but I confess that, though 
 I see some faint glimmerings of relief, I feel very far 
 from the broad daylight of truth. You have made some 
 concessions which raise my hopes; yet these hopes seem 
 to vanish like delusions when I attempt to grasp them. 
 
PESSIMISM. 443 
 
 To begin with our worthy host's last remark, we agree 
 with him in so far that we acknowledge no God* . . . 
 
 'Allow me to interrupt you', said Mondoza politely; 
 'I did not venture so absolute an opinion on this point; 
 I have merely placed it among the open problems'. 
 
 'Exactly so', replied Subbhuti quickly ; 'we also abstain 
 from attacking the notion of a deity, we simply leave it 
 aside, because it is superfluous in our system ; we do not 
 require it for our salvation'.* 
 
 'You do not want it indeed'! cried Arvada-Kalama; 
 'you have borrowed nearly all the ancient gods of the 
 Hindoos, and have created a pantheon more crowded 
 and more confused than any we have ever read of. 
 
 'This is unfortunately true to some extent', replied 
 Subbhuti with unmistakable pain, 'but it is denounced by 
 our noblest minds as a deplorable aberration, and we are 
 now making every effort to devise a remedy. Alas, alas, 
 how frail is man! Our great Sakyamuni ignored even 
 the Brahman's Universal Spirit supposed to produce all 
 things by emanation and to re-absorb them after endless 
 changes. He thus delivered us finally from the horrid 
 circle of new births and transmigrations, and enabled 
 the pious at once to pass into the blissful peace of the 
 Nirwdna. And yet many of his followers, utterly unable to 
 maintain themselves in the heights to which he had borne 
 them, sank so low as to worship him whose lessons they 
 distorted. Raising Buddha into a god, they gathered 
 his relics and adored them superstitiously in the shrines 
 of the countless stupas built wherever they supposed 
 he had dwelt. b With sorrow I find in the "Daily Manual 
 of the Shaman" the following verses prescribed to be 
 said on bowing down before Buddha: 
 
 "King of the Law, thou most exalted Lord! 
 "Unequalled through the Threefold World, 
 "Teacher and Gruide of men and gods! 
 "Our loving Father and of all that breathes! 
 "I bow myself in lowest reverence and pray, 
 
444 PESSIMISM. 
 
 "That thou would'st soon destroy 
 "The power of my former works. 
 "To set forth all thy praise, 
 "Unbounded Time would not suffice".* 
 
 'Yet so far I can comprehend and even partially pardon 
 the unfortunate mistake; for I believe, the very same 
 error has been committed by the Christians who, im- 
 pressed with the sublime purity of their Founder, first 
 made him an ideal of perfection and then a god'. 
 
 'You cannot, of course, be expected to fathom the 
 Christian scheme of redemption', said Abington, with 
 kindness; 'yet even for you the day of Pentecost may come'. 
 
 'We are not incapable', replied Subbhuti, 'of under- 
 standing and appreciating what is really beautiful and 
 intelligible in your faith. For we believe that Buddha, 
 like Christ, moved by profound compassion at men's misery, 
 left the glory of heaven in order to bring them salvation. 
 His earthly birth was attended with signs and wonders. 
 As an infant, he received the homage of sages and kings 
 who came from afar. He was tempted and he conquered. 
 All this can easily be explained from Gautama's actual 
 life ; for, reared in a royal palace and resisting its pomps 
 and allurements, he chose poverty and exile to redeem us 
 by the depth of his love and the power of his noble 
 example. Yet even these apparently harmless allegories 
 proved most dangerous, for they opened the door to 
 fancy and fiction; and just as many a Christian saint, if 
 closely examined, is really some familiar Greek or Teuton 
 god in disguise, so unhappily my co-religionists associated 
 with Buddha the effete and impotent gods of the old 
 Hindoos. I can never remember, without a bitter pang, 
 that famous stupa in Ceylon, erected only three or four 
 centuries after his death, where a gorgeous shrine enclosed 
 a golden statue of Sakyamuni in a sitting posture, with 
 Brahma on one side holding over him a silver umbrella, 
 and Qakra or Indra on the other side anointing him 
 from his shell king of men and gods. b True, it is only 
 
PESSIMISM. 445 
 
 the unintelligent among us who assign to him such a 
 supernatural position, and even they address their prayers 
 not to him but to those privileged mortals who by their 
 piety have won a high place in heaven, yet not the 
 highest rank, such as has been attained by Buddha who, 
 in his absolute indifference and impassiveness, in his 
 utter negation and self-abstraction, is unconcerned at 
 human wishes and supplications'. 
 
 'This is the wonderful god of Epicurus', said Berghorn 
 disdainfully. 
 
 'He is adorable', continued Subbhuti with vivacity, 
 'just because he declines for himself all honours and 
 powers that may not be procured by any other man. 
 It is impossible to think without rapture of the magni- 
 ficent speech he addressed to the occupants of heaven, 
 when he was about to descend on earth for the ac- 
 complishment of his grand mission. That speech alone 
 is sufficient to dispel the grave misconceptions which, to 
 my great distress, I find prevailing even among the most 
 learned and most well-meaning scholars of the West'. 
 
 'What is that speech', asked Wolfram eagerly, 'and 
 what is its authority'? 
 
 'It is contained', replied Subbhuti, 'in one of the most 
 revered of our sacred books in the Lalitd-vistara 
 which we believe to have been written by Ananda himself, 
 Gautama's near kinsman. We learn it, of course, by 
 heart, and it will give me great pleasure, with your per- 
 mission, to quote from it a few sentences. 
 
 'The Bodhisattva, sitting on his throne, first reminded 
 his hearers of the eight hundred "manifest gates" or 
 main precepts of the Law, and then, in the course of a 
 solemn exhortation, he said: 
 
 "Every noble and pure delight, born of the mind and 
 the heart, is the fruit of a virtuous deed. Therefore be 
 heedful in your actions . . . Desire is fleeting and in- 
 constant, it resembles a dream, a mirage, an illusion, the 
 lightning, the froth . . . Faithful to instruction, morality 
 
446 PESSIMISM. 
 
 and almsgiving, keep yourselves in perfect patience and 
 sanctity. Live in a spirit of mutual benevolence and help- 
 fulness . . . All that you see in me of uncommon power, 
 of knowledge and strength, is produced by the exercise of 
 virtue . . . But it is not by maxims nor by words or pro- 
 testations that the rules of virtue are reached. You must 
 acquire them by action: act as you speak; this should 
 be the invariable end of your efforts. There is no recompense 
 for those who act well; but those who do not act well, 
 accomplish nothing. Shun pride, haughtiness and arrogance. 
 Ever gentle and strictly adhering to the right path, pursue 
 steadily the road to the Ninvdna . . . Scatter the mists of 
 ignorance with the lamp of wisdom . . . But why need I 
 say more? The Law abounds with reason and purity". a 
 
 'You will see yourselves how closely 'these injunctions 
 approach the principles recommended by our good host 
 in his last and some of his previous remarks for they 
 aim at virtue flowing from enlightenment; at intellectual 
 joy or love; unceasing activity from a sense of duty 
 without expectation of reward; and finally, at complete 
 tranquillity of heart and mind. You will, therefore, ad- 
 mit the great injustice of the reproaches commonly raised 
 against our creed the reproaches of sterile apathy and 
 self-seeking egotism; but I beg you above all to notice 
 that the Bodhisattva's splendid privileges are simply the 
 result of virtuous deeds, and hence attainable by any- 
 one through the fulfilment of the Law, which is Reason 
 and Purity'. 
 
 S I own', said Mondoza, 'I am deeply gratified at these 
 well-founded observations; for it is, I believe, to the ad- 
 mirable principles you bave pointed out that Buddhism 
 is indebted for its marvellous success and vitality. Yet, 
 though we travel together a large portion of the road, 
 we separate at a cross-path and arrive at different, nay 
 almost opposite goals. Your way leads to the seclusion of 
 forests and vihdras, ours to tbe teeming abodes of men 
 and their labours; yours to mortification of the flesh, 
 ours to a rational enjoyment; yours to the desolation of 
 celibacy, ours to the beneficent influences of cheerful 
 
PESSIMISM. 447 
 
 family life. Each step in advance should, I think, tend to a 
 more marked individuality; but the close of your pro- 
 gress is utter extinction. We value no peace which is 
 equivalent or akin to inaction; you are indifferent to the 
 price at which you purchase peace, were the price required 
 even the whole world and your own existence'. 
 
 'I suppose', said Suhbhuti, with a slight irritation, 'you 
 allude to our Nirwana. Now it is indeed most remarkable 
 to consider the strange meanings which have been at- 
 tributed to that term by the scholars of Europe. Some 
 have defined it "the apotheosis of the human soul", 
 or a communion with God, or an absorption of the 
 individual soul by the Divine essence, as a drop is ab- 
 sorbed in the ocean which notions, coinciding as they 
 do with those of the Vedanta and of Sufism, are pal- 
 pably erroneous, as we have no God or Divine essence. 
 Others have taken Nirwana to be a kind of immortality, 
 which is equally impossible, since we believe that the 
 souls of men disappear at death, as lights vanish when 
 they are blown out, or as the star-like sparks emitted 
 from a heated bar of iron that is hammered, are scattered 
 everywhere, are lost and have no further place of being. 
 But the great majority have declared Nirwana to be 
 simply annihilation, or the Nothing, or an eternal sleep, 
 and have therefore identified Buddhism with Nihilism, 
 which is grossly false, as the sage, after having passed 
 through those four dhyanas or contemplations which 1 
 have attempted to describe to you, acquires by the Nir- 
 wana, while continuing to live, the most extraordinary 
 gifts and powers. What view remains, therefore, as the 
 only possible one? The Nirwana is essentially that which 
 I here, within the last few days, have heard explained 
 by various other names that which is the salvation of 
 the Cynic and Stoic, the Jew and the Christian, the 
 Epicurean and the Pantheist namely, a perfect and 
 unutterable tranquillity for ever imperturbable, including 
 exemption from all pain and uneasiness, and deliverance 
 
448 PESSIMISM. 
 
 from the terrible law of transmigration. It is our "City 
 of Peace". All misconceptions on this point have arisen 
 from overlooking the distinction invariaWy made by our 
 sutras between "the Nirvana" ard "the complete Nirwana" : 
 the latter is indeed death or annihilation, which has been 
 wrongly imputed to the former also. That which is 
 destroyed by the simple Nirwana is not life or conscious- 
 ness, but desire, sorrow, sin, and selfishness. Let me, in 
 confirmation, add that, besides the dhyanas, we have 
 another matchless kind of meditation, the bhavana, in five 
 degrees benevolence towards all beings, which comprises 
 forgiveness of injuries received from possible enemies; 
 sympathy with every misfortune and misery; joyful interest 
 in every boon and happiness ; disdain of the body and all 
 its wants; and lastly, indifference, the source of an un- 
 changeable calmness.* This, I believe, is sufficiently 
 clear'. b 
 
 'I may admit your opinions so far', replied Mondoza, 
 'but you are aware that the fourth dhyana and fifth 
 bhavana are not the final stages previous to reaching the 
 Nirwana, but that they are followed by the so-called "four 
 regions of the world without form", which prove my con- 
 tention that, though the Nirwana may not be actual an- 
 nihilation, it is the complete suspension of thought and 
 will. For after the last dhyana, the saint or Rahat enters 
 into the infinitude of space, next into infinitude of in- 
 telligence, then into that region where nothing exists, 
 and finally into that where there is no longer any idea, 
 not even the idea that there is none. c Can such a con- 
 dition of mind engender a practical activity? The perfect 
 Rahat may be a part, at best an indistinguishable part, 
 of universal existence, but he has ceased to be a unit of 
 individual life. d His powers may not be destroyed, but 
 they are paralysed; they are unavailable and valueless 
 both for the saint himself and for others. Our "intel- 
 lectual love of God" quickens every energy; your Nir- 
 wana is living death'. 
 
PESSIMISM. 449 
 
 'But pray', rejoined Subbhuti with diminished confidence, 
 'consider the real state of the Raljat, which a holy book 
 describes thus: "He has renounced existence . . . Like the 
 bird emerging from the egg, he, has broken his shell . . . 
 He has made himself master, of the elements of life";* 
 and the Rabat himself declares: "I have no wish to 
 live, I have no wish to die; desire is extinct". Does 
 this not almost literally coincide with the teaching of 
 your chief Pessimist philosopher and his now celebrated 
 pupil Hartmann, who find so many admirers'? 
 
 'The resemblance', replied Mondoza, 'is undeniable, but 
 it does not extend to identity. It is true that modern 
 Pessimism, like your ancient Buddhism, attempts the 
 negation of the world by an act of the will; but since it 
 admits pity and compassion as legitimate impulses, it is com- 
 patible with a very considerable amount of beneficent work'. 
 
 'But we also', said Subbhuti eagerly, 'reckon pity and 
 compassion among the chief precepts of morality'. 
 
 'Undoubtedly', replied Mondoza, 'but they reveal, and 
 are associated with, a very peculiar feature of your creed. 
 The degree of perfection which you consider the higher 
 one spiritually, is in truth the lower one morally; for he 
 whom the four dhyanas have only enabled to pass through 
 the preparatory stages of the Nirwana, may by his zeal 
 and endowments effectually assist his fellow-men; whereas 
 he who has actually attained the supreme state, nay a 
 Buddha himself, is by his absolute detachment from every 
 thought and action precluded from all deeds of benevolence, 
 and even from listening to the entreaties of the distressed. 
 I am sure, you will not reply, that the Buddha's utter 
 impassiveness is really a higher perfection than the Bha- 
 gavat's active kindness; for this would be advocating 
 selfishness, which, I know, you detest as the source of 
 every vice and wrong, and which, in fact, similar to our 
 Pessimists, you mean to overcome by taking refuge in 
 a condition of negative existence. A doctrine which 
 finally leads to a result so disastrous to humanity, must 
 
 GG 
 
450 PESSIMISM. 
 
 be fundamentally erroneous. Pursue your ideas one step 
 farther. Suppose that, as you cannot but wish, all the 
 adherents of Gautama were to aspire to the eminence 
 of Buddhaship, what would be the consequence? Your 
 sect would vanish within one generation. You must, 
 therefore, be aware that the distinction between priest 
 and layman is also radically false. History has taught 
 us this, in clear and often painful lessons, by the theo- 
 cracy of the Hebrews who were, theoretically, meant to 
 be a nation of priests, and by the hierarchy of the 
 Christians who were, theoretically, meant to be brothers 
 in Christ both of which systems proved fatal to freedom 
 and enlightenment'. 
 
 'This is but too true', said Wolfram, greatly interested. 
 'Take, on the other hand, the example of the Greeks who, 
 by avoiding that noxious distinction for they had no spe- 
 cial class or caste of priesthood , were unimpeded in 
 advancing to that fulness and brightness of culture which 
 are still our wonder and admiration'. 3 
 
 '"What then', asked Subbhuti in a tone of sadness and 
 depression, 'do you desire us to do? Our religion has 
 not prevented us from increasing and exercising influence 
 in large territories; it cannot, therefore, have the effects 
 you so gloomily describe'. 
 
 'It has not had these effects', replied Wolfram, 'simply 
 because it is but partially carried out, and because its 
 rigour is resisted by the sound instincts of the masses. The 
 number of those who, as priests or saints, submit to your 
 twelve frightful rules of ascetism and self-castigation, is 
 infinitesimal compared to your vast populations^ You 
 are yourself a striking example: trained for the vihdra 
 and in every way endowed to adorn it, your better impulses 
 revolted against unnatural restrictions and a deadening 
 ceremonial. The awakening power you have felt in yourself 
 it is your duty to rouse in others and thus to originate 
 a reform of immeasurably larger scope and importance 
 than that which you have inaugurated in your island'. 
 
PESSIMISM. 451 
 
 'But you do not advise us', rejoined Subbhuti with a 
 trembling voice, 'to close the vihdras and to abolish the 
 priesthood? Will not always teachers of the people be 
 required' ? 
 
 'I would not advise', answered Wolfram, 'to abolish 
 the priesthood, but to close the vihdras. Teachers, to 
 instruct with profit in the duties of life, must themselves 
 know life with all its difficulties and temptations, must 
 themselves have wrestled with those errors and sins which 
 ever assault us in the world. Virtue consists in choosing 
 what is right in a conflict of duties: this conflict can 
 never be completely felt by those who, in suppressing 
 some of our noblest feelings and affections, are strangers 
 to the holiest of domestic and social ties. You will now 
 fully understand the words our host has repeatedly im- 
 pressed upon us, that "worldliness" also, that is, a sense 
 of worldly duties and enjoyments, has been planted in our 
 hearts. The neglect of this weighty truth is the secret 
 of the failure of Buddhism. For Buddhism, I grieve to 
 think, has hitherto been a lamentable failure. With its 
 grand doctrines of morality, with its absence, in its ori- 
 ginal form, of all elements of superstition and mysticism, 
 with its avoidance of all national and sectarian exclu- 
 siveness, it might have regenerated the world. What 
 has it achieved? You say, it has exercised influence over 
 wide territories. Was it, and is it, the influence that 
 should be swayed by three or four hundred millions of 
 people, that is, at least one fourth of the whole human 
 race? Your enemies say: "Buddhism, worn out by time, 
 as all error is worn out, holds in sterile apathy the nations 
 it has lulled to sleep".* There seems to be but too 
 much truth in this accusation. Why have you not been able 
 to found or rule powerful states? Why, in spite of over- 
 whelming numbers, have you for thousands of years sub- 
 mitted to the most cruel despotisms and have never made 
 your weight felt in reforming abuses and corruption, or 
 enforcing political laws of any practical value ? Why have 
 
452 PESSIMISM. 
 
 you constantly moved in the narrowest circle of monoto- 
 nous avocations, and have never risen to the cultivation 
 of science and art? Why have you in all these respects 
 been inferior even to the Brahmans whose tenets you 
 disdain? Because the highest aim of sanctity you have 
 proposed to yourselves, the Nirwana, draws you away 
 from life, closes your eyes to Nature and her operations, 
 and enthrals your energies. Learn to prize as the highest 
 aim of sanctity that unwearied and self-denying activit) 
 which your Master has inculcated in a thousand beau- 
 tiful and touching forms, but which he unfortunate!) 
 defeated by two fatal errors in the chain of his con- 
 clusions. Because life is full of distress and sorrow, ii 
 follows, not that we should withdraw from it, but thai 
 we should as brethren help one another to bear its 
 burdens; and because life abounds with troubles anc 
 cares, it follows not, that we should wilfully enhance thes( 
 miseries by harassing austerities and terrible self-tortures 
 but that we should relieve and embellish our existenc< 
 by every means in consonance with reason and upright 
 ness. Your principles may be manly, even heroic, bu 
 they are not wise. A grand, a magnificent task lie; 
 before you', continued the venerable Wolfram with rising 
 enthusiasm, 'I know you are free from a vulgar am 
 vain ambition; but to stir up so many millions of fellow 
 men from a degrading torpor, is worth the life-long toil o 
 the earnest and the high-minded. There must be among yoi 
 large numbers of zealous men who feel like yourself. See] 
 strength in union. Begin with your beautiful island o 
 Ceylon. When I visited it in my early travels, I learn 
 to admire the gentleness of the population and the pa 
 tience of the priesthood. Try there to establish a secur 
 home for enlightenment, for toleration, for every excellenc 
 of the heart, for every accomplishment of the mind. Eeceiv 
 into your community all who are willing to join you QJ 
 these terms, to whatever race, to whatever nation the 
 may belong. Let the persuasion of truth be your weapor 
 
PESSIMISM. 453 
 
 In a word, make your three hundred millions of souls 
 the large nucleus of a world-wide religion of humanity, 
 such as has been the dream and yearning of the best 
 men of all ages such as your own Buddha meant to 
 create'. 
 
 Only when he had stopped, Wolfram felt that his zeal 
 had unconsciously carried him too far in ignoring sus- 
 ceptibilities. He was indeed gratified at the deep im- 
 pression he had evidently made on Subbhuti; but he could 
 not fail to notice with some regret the no less manifest 
 displeasure of several others. Before he was able to 
 offer an apology, Arvada-Kalama observed with vehe- 
 mence: 
 
 'Atheists should continue to infest with their base pre- 
 sence the fairest lands of the fairest Continent! God be 
 praised for having mercifully driven them at least from 
 the sacred boundaries of India'! 
 
 'Disbelievers in immortal bliss', said Movayyid-eddin, 
 'should by Allah and His prophet be allowed still further 
 to desecrate the earth by their blasphemies ! infidels who 
 have as little knowledge of a soul as they have of a God, 
 swear upon their five khandas, and admit nothing besides;* 
 who insist that if these constituents of man are broken 
 up, he ceases to be in the same way as a cloud ceases 
 to be when its particles are scattered in the shower; to 
 whom, in fact, man is merely "a machine or a piece of 
 curious mosaic", a being "empty and unreal", a "mass, 
 a cluster, a name", a "heap, a collection of atoms, an 
 accumulation, an aggregation, a congeries, and nothing 
 more"'! b 
 
 'Pantheists, I am certain', said Abington with emphasis, 
 'cannot be expected or desired to possess any command- 
 ing influence over the destinies of men Pantheists who, 
 bolder and more paradoxical than even Spinoza, assign 
 existence to the "unity of the Substance" alone, and 
 establish no distinction between man on the one hand, 
 and the animals and inorganic nature on the other. 
 
454 PESSIMISM. 
 
 'Pessimists', said Berghorn sternly, 'who transform the 
 earth into one horrid graveyard, and deny the beauties 
 of Creation and of the moral world because their barren 
 minds and inert souls cannot perceive them, are the dead 
 branches of the tree of mankind, doomed to be shivered 
 by the first blast. "When the luminous rays of the smile 
 of Buddha", so they rave, "penetrate through the clouds", 
 heaven is fabled to resound with this hymn: "All is 
 transitory, all is misery, all is void, all is without sub- 
 stance" which far surpasses in dismal desolation the 
 Preacher's vanity .of vanities.'* 
 
 'Blind fatalists', chimed in Rabbi Gideon, 'who deny 
 free-will on account of their puerile theory of the "conca- 
 tination of causes", b are the predestined slaves, not 
 the masters or guides of the world.' 
 
 'Sophistical sceptics', said Panini for even he gathered 
 courage for a strong expression of opinion 'to whom 
 nothing has reality, not even the notion of the supreme 
 good and of duty, c are surely incapable to spread on earth 
 the Messianic reign of universal virtue and knowledge'. 
 
 'Crude and degraded materialists,' added Humphrey, 
 'who confound body and soul, matter and mind, can only 
 bring perdition on mankind. d They can never reach the 
 idea of spirit, they merely know lifeless phenomena linked 
 together in monotonous succession of antecedents and 
 consequents. Sin loses its poignancy; logic and history 
 alike demonstrate, as inevitable results, a dreary void and 
 an unutterable despondency' 6 . 
 
 'I really cannot endure this any longer', interrupted 
 Attinghausen with no gentle stamp of his right foot, and 
 then rising menacingly. 'Learn at least to be just, if you 
 cannot be magnanimous. The other evening the wort 
 of a Christian missionary was quoted here; the extract 
 made me curious to read the book, and though the author 
 is by no means friendly to Buddhism, he has the honesty 
 to admit the passage struck me as a naturalist parti- 
 cularly that, in spite of the materialism of his system, 
 
PESSIMISM. 455 
 
 Buddha acknowledges an ethical power of all-pervading in- 
 fluence, both in relation to the individual and the economy 
 of the world; that this power, though not allied to any 
 intelligence, unfailingly benefits those who seek the right 
 way, and acts with as much regularity as any other law 
 of nature. "The dew drop is formed, the heart is tran- 
 quillised, and the practice of virtue is rewarded, through 
 the instrumentality of causes that are alike in the manner 
 of their operation".* In my eyes, there can be for Buddha 
 no higher praise or recommendation'. 
 
 'It is a grand merit in a religion', said Humphrey 
 satirically, 'to acknowledge an ethical power unallied 
 to intelligence! How gigantic a practical force such a 
 "power" is likely to be ! You might as well maintain that 
 the Buddhists acknowledge Immortality, because they hold 
 the fantastical belief that when a man dies, his whole 
 karma, that is, the aggregate of all his actions, interests 
 and obligations, is transferred intact to another man who 
 is in every way his successor and continues his life : 
 instinctively clinging to existence in some form, they devise 
 one as preposterous as it is unjust, since every man enjoys 
 or suffers the consequences, not of his own deeds, but 
 those of his presumed predecessors in his own and all 
 anterior generations. This strange expedient borrowed 
 and slightly modified by our modern Pessimists b merges 
 the person of the present in his connections with the 
 endless past and future; it is the utter obliteration of 
 individuality. Indeed, atheism, materialism, complete 
 extinction of existence, and fatalism are indissolubly united 
 the first being the poisonous root that produces the 
 rest; while atheism, in its turn, necessarily grows up where 
 man's personality is so lamentably misunderstood. It is 
 difficult to speak with calmness of the haughty arrogance 
 of dreamers who boast that they are men because they 
 rely upon themselves alone, and taunt the Christians as 
 children for imploring God's paternal aid d . A fearful 
 awakening will come in the day of judgment' ! 
 
456 PESSIMISM. 
 
 'There can hardly be a doubt', observed Abington, evidently 
 anxious to prevent a still stronger outburst of Humphrey's 
 indignation, 'that Buddhism will be the inheritance of 
 Christianity. All the phases in the world's history point 
 to this issue as inevitable. It would be most unfair to 
 deny the many beautiful features in the Buddhist's creed; 
 but it is vitiated by a radical defect it starts from man 
 and tries to raise him by degrees to the Divine. Yain 
 endeavour, delusive hope! The only effectual scheme is 
 that of Christianity, which starts from God and lets Him 
 graciously descend to man. Hence the Buddhist's pride, 
 the Christian's humility ; hence, on the one side, a constant 
 progress towards self-infatuation, and on the other side, 
 a gradual approach to self- conquest. Without the feeling 
 of unqualified dependence no religious impulse is con- 
 ceivable, and the Buddhist knows no Being on whom he 
 can feel absolutely dependent. He falls therefore necessarily 
 into the Stoic's grievous mistake of confounding himself 
 with his ideal or exemplar, and thus feeds the flame of his 
 conceit. He does not say, like the Christian, I will strive 
 after the perfection of God through His kindness and 
 mercy, although I am born a sinner; but he boldlly declares, 
 I will be a Buddha through the force of my infallible 
 devotions and contemplations. He considers his virtue 
 all-powerful, his merit unlimited he is his own deity, he is 
 both a man and a potential god. With us, one God only 
 and one Christ only are possible; he admits an indefinite 
 number of Buddhas. a We believe that "except a man 
 be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven"; b 
 he dreads and abhors nothing so strongly as a new birth. 
 The most deplorable result of these errors is his utter 
 inability to understand the beauty and loftiness of the 
 Christian's relation to God as his loving and beloved 
 Father. This is indeed the innermost kernel of the 
 difference ; for it closely touches the idea of Redemption. 
 The Buddhist, like ourselves, is imbued with the conscious- 
 ness of trespass and guilt; but how does he overcome 
 
PESSIMISM. 457 
 
 the pang and humiliation of this feeling? Simply by his 
 flight into unconsciousness, into his Nirwana, into Nothing; 
 and this refuge he hopes to reach by the unaided exer- 
 tions of his own frail humanity. He is agitated by a 
 most legitimate sentiment, but instead of satisfying its 
 yearnings, he extinguishes its existence; he is pervaded 
 by a religious impulse, but he fetters it by the operation 
 of a stubborn will and a cold understanding; he begins 
 with an inward avowal of lowliness, and he ends with the 
 haughtiest self-sufficiency. Wanton and blind, he smothers 
 the Divine spark instead of fanning it carefully and reverenti- 
 ally. But how does the Christian act? Oppressed by a sense 
 of sinfulness, which he is unable to subdue and unwilling 
 to silence, he turns to the boundless love of an all- 
 merciful Father and is sure of His compassion and for- 
 giveness; for he is in God and God in him, and he deems 
 it his highest privilege to call himself His child. Moved 
 by a salutary, yet bitter, feeling, we replace it by another 
 no less strong but more blissful; seized by a sentiment 
 of religion, we foster it with our heart, while we bid our 
 intellect keep aloof from a sphere in which it owns no 
 dominion; and proceeding from the knowledge of our 
 unworthiness, we arrive at a union with God, in which 
 our own will is completely obliterated. But such a union 
 is only possible, if God is distinctly conceived as a personal 
 Being capable of loving and being loved, of giving and 
 taking; and such a God is only accessible to man's 
 faculties, if he realises Him in a human form and likeness 
 visibly embodying His whole perfection and goodness; 
 and hence it follows that the Christian faith alone can 
 truly and fully deliver us from guilt and the overwhelming 
 consciousness of guilt that the Christian faith alone can 
 secure that Salvation and Eedemption so ardently longed 
 for by the Buddhists also. Gautama has sown and watered, 
 the harvest belongs to Christ 7 . 
 
 'I cannot vie with you', said Subbhuti deliberately but 
 firmly, 'in subtlety of argument ; but I believe I have now, 
 
458 PESSIMISM. 
 
 thanks to these meetings, gained a clearness of principle, 
 which enables me to discover the errors of other creeds 
 as well as those of my own. Your reasoning seems to 
 amount to this, that Christianity is a religion of sentiment 
 or of the heart, Buddhism a religion of the self-dependent 
 intellect; and that, therefore, the former is not merely the 
 superior but the only true religion. Allow me, I pray, most 
 decidedly to question this conclusion. When I reflect on 
 the superstitions, the intolerance, and the carnage, which 
 have been engendered by your positive creeds all based 
 on the degradation of reason, I can surely not be tempted 
 to follow a track so ghastly and bloodstained. I honestly 
 add that I have read, with equal horror, the hardly less 
 atrocious misdeeds which, at the end of the last century, 
 were perpetrated by men who established the worship of 
 Reason. Yet I remain steadfast in the conviction that 
 the intellect is man's safest guide and must be left in 
 unrestricted freedom. What was done in highly cultured 
 France was done by a reason which for many ages had 
 been held in chains by a religion declaring "absurdity" 
 to be the test of religious truth, and which, at last breaking 
 its fetters with uncontrollable fury, raged like a bondman 
 suddenly released to unwonted liberty'. 
 
 'Quite so', muttered Attinghausen, highly gratified ; 
 
 "Vo dem Sklaven, wenn er die Kette bricht, 
 "Vor dem freien Menschen erzittert nicht"'. 
 
 'It was a wild dream', continued Subbhuti, 'but it was 
 fortunately as short. Reason may stray, but it cannot 
 stray far; it may be dimmed and obscured, but it can 
 never be extinguished, and soon regains its native clearness 
 and brightness. No wiser words has Buddha spoken than 
 these: "All that is in harmony with reason and the circum- 
 stances generally, must be considered in harmony with 
 truth and be taken as the canon of our actions".* Philo- 
 sophy and religion are identical; if there is a difference, 
 it is this that the one devises the rules of conduct, the other 
 helps to carry them out. I begin to see that we have failed, 
 
PESSIMISM. 459 
 
 not because we have followed reason too much, but because 
 we have not followed it sufficiently and rightly. It has 
 taught us to subdue passion, and we, mistaking its direc- 
 tions, have endeavoured to stifle emotion; we were afraid 
 of the blast and have excluded the air. We were pained 
 to see the world imperfect, and we removed it altogether 
 out of sight, till, making a vain effort of blending "to 
 be" and "not to be", we arrived at an indefinite and 
 ambiguous condition which is neither existence nor Nothing. 
 We felt our own wretchedness and that of our fellow-men, 
 and we fled instead of resisting or aiding." But these 
 I believe to have been our chief, if not our only errors. 
 All the other charges that have been so freely levelled 
 against us, I hold to be so many praises, for they are 
 charges against reason and experience. We do not shrink 
 from the confession of Atheism, because the intellect does 
 not sanction a personal Deity with human attributes ; nor 
 of Pantheism and Materialism, because the whole world 
 with all its systems is one and indivisble; nor of disbelief 
 in Immortality, because a soul cannot possibly exist apart 
 from matter; nor of Pessimism, because we consider it 
 sinful to ignore the horrid miseries of mankind; nor of 
 Scepticism, because we have seen the mischief of traditional 
 faiths upheld without examination; nor even of Fatalism, if this 
 means a deep conviction of the immutable order of nature 
 and the necessity of her laws. But I indignantly repel the 
 imputation that we are destitute of the ideas of a supreme 
 good and of duty. We assuredly have both; but we 
 have hitherto made the great mistake of separating the 
 one from the other, and have thus failed to realise either. 
 Our supreme good is peace of mind, and our idea of 
 duty our dharma which is incessantly inculcated, is* 
 compassion or charity ; but instead of seeking tranquillity 
 through benevolent deeds, we unfitted ourselves for the 
 latter in the same measure as we approached the former. 
 I now see that we need not, nay must not, turn away 
 from the world and the sweetness of social communion; 
 
460 PESSIMISM. 
 
 that the "City of Peace" may re-echo with the inspiriting 
 sounds of life and action, of zeal and emulation; that it 
 is not desecrated j but hallowed, by admitting within its 
 boundaries every pursuit that can enlarge the mind and 
 elevate the soul; that it is a Temple of Buddha the more 
 glorious the greater scope it affords us for the exercise of 
 those wonderful injunctions of wisdom and kindness, which 
 he has bequeathed to us for ever. This must henceforth 
 be our Nirwana'. 
 
 'We hear perpetually', said Humphrey almost in anger, 
 'Buddha's moral commandments lauded to the skies; but 
 I positively affirm that they are tainted by all the faults 
 and defects which disfigure every pagan creed'. 
 
 'Would it be asking too much', said Mondoza, who had 
 heard Subbhuti's remarks with manifest satisfaction, 'if 
 I begged you to give us a few specimens of Buddhistic 
 ethics, such as cannot fail to occur to your well-stored 
 memory' ? 
 
 'How is it possible', replied Subbhuti with enthusiasm, 
 'to begin, and how to end? The night would not be sufficient 
 to touch upon the merest heads. I must content myself 
 with citing a few precepts almost at random. Christian 
 missionaries have often explained to me the admirable 
 "Sermon on the Mount", and in self-defence I was forced 
 to adduce, verse by verse, corresponding sentences from 
 our own holy books. I could easily do the same now, 
 but I dislike this mode of rivalry; the parallels can never 
 be exact, as the foundations of the two religions are so 
 entirely different. Let, therefore, our moral statutes, 
 framed as they are without regard to a Creator or to 
 any recompense, be judged on their own merits. 
 
 'You are aware that the principal object of the Buddhist's 
 moral exertions is to deliver himself, by "the Method" or 
 "the Way" of salvation, from the torments of human 
 existence and their unhappy causes, the passions and 
 desires. This object is expounded to him in the "Four 
 Sublime Truths", which are recognised by all Buddhists 
 
PESSIMISM. 461 
 
 alike as the starting point of their creed, because they 
 were taught by Sakyamuni to his first disciples after six 
 years of severe contemplation, and because it was through 
 them that he became a Buddha.* Now that Method or 
 Way consists of the following eight parts: 1. The right 
 view or the correct faith ; 2. the right will or the purity 
 of intentions; 3. the right language or perfect truthfulness; 
 4. the right purpose or honourable conduct; 5. right actions 
 or a religious life; 6. right application of the mind to the 
 precepts of the Law; 7. right and faithful memory; and 
 8. right meditation leading to holy tranquillity of mind. b 
 
 'Another summary of our faith is this: "Scrupulously 
 avoiding all wicked actions ; reverently performing all 
 virtuous ones ; purifying our intention from all selfish ends 
 this is the doctrine of all the Buddhas"; c to which I 
 join a similar maxim which proves that our system is not 
 one of gloom and despondency: "Without complaint, 
 without envy, continuing in the practice of the Precepts ; 
 knowing the way to moderate appetite; ever joyous, without 
 any weight of care; fixed yet ever advancing in virtue 
 this is the doctrine of all the Buddhas". d Few can com- 
 prehend the intensity of the festive joy felt and displayed 
 by the faithful, unless they have been present at one of 
 our public recitations of the sutras, or at the performance 
 of the ceremonies of the pirit.* For Buddha said: "A 
 man in the practice of his religious duties is like one 
 eating honey, which is sweet throughout; the rules taught 
 in my sutras are altogether a fountain of pleasure"/ 
 
 'Next in importance to the "Four Sublime Truths" are 
 the "Five Aversions" or "Eepugnances" deemed obligatory 
 on all men, viz. not to kill, not to steal, not to commit 
 adultery, not to lie, and not to be intoxicated.* 
 
 'To these must be added the six "Transcendent Virtues" 
 or paramitds, which "enable men to pass to the other 
 shore", and which are : almsgiving, charity, purity, patience, 
 courage, and wisdom shown in contemplation and science. 11 
 The most important of them is charity, which has in our 
 
462 PESSIMISM. 
 
 eyes almost a character of holiness, for Buddha said that 
 it leads to the perfect maturity of the personal being, 
 and in order to exemplify its universality, he once so 
 relates the legend gave up his body to a famished tigress 
 who had no strength left to suckle her whelps. He held 
 in slight esteem the man who exercises charity from a 
 feeling of obligation or of partiality,* and he praised bene- 
 factions especially if bestowed, not from our superfluity, 
 but from the produce of our labour: thus we are told 
 that an illustrious king of Ceylon worked daily in a 
 plantation and gave his wages to the poor. 
 
 'I cannot help smiling when I hear again and again 
 Christian teachers and writers taunt us with selfishness. 
 What are the grounds of this charge? The idea of "eternal 
 salvation", it is contended, after which Buddhists strive 
 with all their might, makes their morality narrow and 
 egotistical. h But what creed does not propose the same 
 end ? In this point all religions are agreed, however they 
 differ in defining the nature of eternal salvation, and in 
 so far we are neither more nor less selfish than Jews or 
 Christians. But our salvation does not include the glories 
 of a heaven and the delights of a Paradise, but consists 
 simply in a perfect calm of the soul acquired by our 
 own most laborious endeavours; and in this respect, our 
 religion, I believe, is the only one that is not selfish. 
 The celebrated "Sutra of the forty-two Sections" begins 
 thus : "When Buddha had arrived at complete enlighten- 
 ment, he thought within himself, The perfect Rest, which 
 results from the extinction of Desire, this is the highest 
 conquest of self". c But I can expect to dispel this monstrous 
 prejudice as little as I can another with which it is 
 generally coupled and which reproaches us with super- 
 cilious pride. Yet next to selfishness, pride is the vice 
 against which Buddha inveighed most earnestly. Once 
 he was requested by a royal friend to silence his Brah- 
 manic adversaries by a miracle, but he replied: "Great 
 King, I do not teach my disciples the Law, saying, Go 
 
PESSIMISM. 463 
 
 and perform wonders before the world, but I tell them, 
 Live quietly, concealing your good deeds, and not hiding 
 your faults". Penetrated with these feelings, he instituted 
 Confession, commanding all the faithful at certain longer 
 intervals, and the priests twice every month, a to avow 
 openly before the Chief of the Assembly their errors and 
 sins; and powerful monarchs have submitted to this rule, 
 because Buddha insisted that atonement was unattainable 
 without public self-humiliation. b 
 
 'As there are no limits to charity, so there are none 
 to brotherly love or sympathy. For Buddha has come 
 into the world to deliver all men. Community of woe 
 was to him the common bond of affection. His great 
 heart was not satisfied with healing the wounds of his 
 Indian countrymen, but burnt to save the human race. 
 When taunted by the Brahmans for having converted, 
 and received among his immediate followers, a beggarly 
 member of one of the lowest classes, he replied: "My 
 Law is a Law of grace for all". To him there was no 
 difference between prince and slave. He has for ever 
 broken down not only the hateful barriers of caste, but 
 also those of race. In comprehensiveness of creed and 
 sympathy he yields neither to the Hebrew prophets nor 
 to Christ and his most enlightened disciples. 6 Nay and 
 this is a point to which, I know, you attach very great 
 importance he has also abolished the degrading differences 
 in the position of the sexes; he made woman the equal 
 of man, and endowed her with exactly the same religious 
 privileges as he enjoys, so that she may even attain the 
 dignity of a Buddha. d I have read with admiration of 
 Hebrew prophetesses who inspired national armies by 
 their poetic fire and were consulted by Kings on account 
 of their wisdom and knowledge of the Law; and I have 
 read with some surprise the injunction of Christian 
 apostles, "Let the woman learn in silence with all sub- 
 jection"; but I could not help being gratified when I com- 
 pared this with Buddha's large-minded ordinances breathing 
 
464 PESSIMISM. 
 
 respect and touching tenderness for the weaker sex. For 
 by another strange misconception, Buddha is supposed 
 to have extinguished all domestic affections, all the joys 
 of family and home. He enforced indeed the celibacy 
 of monks and priests': Subbhuti paused a moment and 
 then added in a calm, low voice, 'perhaps wrongly' ; and 
 after another short interval of reflection, he continued: 
 'But no one has ever evinced a more pious veneration 
 for his parents, no one has ever enjoined more strongly 
 the duty of filial gratitude. In a solemn exhortation to 
 his pupils, he said: "Father and mother are for the child 
 Brahma himself, the spiritual teacher himself, the sacri- 
 ficial flame itself, and the domestic fire itself" ; a and he 
 included in the children's obligations not merely physi- 
 cal care and material support, but also, when necessary, 
 the communication of any truth or knowledge they may 
 have acquired. 
 
 'Allow me now to add a few miscellaneous maxims and 
 precepts, just as they happen to strike my memory. 
 
 "Buddha, addressing the priests, declared: 'Say to your- 
 self I am placed in this sinful world, let me then be as 
 the spotless lily, unsoiled by the mud in which it grows'". b 
 
 "As the bee collects honey and departs without having 
 injured the flower, so let the sage dwell and work on earth". c 
 
 "Flies discover sores, bees flowers, good men virtues, bad 
 men faults". d 
 
 "Religious observances are mere rafts to carry over the 
 treasure". 6 
 
 "Among the twelve difficult things of the world, which 
 constitute piety, are : to bear insult without anger ; to move 
 in the world without setting our heart on it ; not to despise 
 the ignorant; thoroughly to extirpate self-love; to be good 
 and at the same time learned and clever; to see the hidden 
 principle in the professions of religion; to save men by 
 converting them; to be sound in heart and life"/ 
 
 "Earthly honours and possessions are like dust motes in 
 the sunbeam". 
 
 "What is goodness? First and foremost, it is the agree- 
 ment of the will with conscience or with reason". h 
 
PESSIMISM. 465 
 
 "As sound belongs to the drum, and the .shadow to the 
 substance, so in the end misery will certainly overtake the 
 evildoer".* 
 
 "A virtuous man cannot be hurt; the misery another 
 would inflict falls back upon himself . b 
 
 "The three poisons which corrupt the heart covetousness, 
 anger, and delusion, and the five dark mists which envelop 
 it envy, passion, sloth, vacillation, and unbelief thoroughly 
 prevent a man from attaining supreme reason". 
 
 "The pious are like wood that floats down the running 
 stream without touching either the left or the right bank". d 
 
 "Never tire of self-scrutiny". 6 
 
 'Of "the Shaman's Daily Manual", prescribing the 
 prayers to be repeated on every occasion that can possibly 
 arise during the day, I will only quote two or three short 
 extracts, and beg you to notice that the worshipper's 
 supplications are offered not for himself alone, but for 
 all mankind. On awaking in the morning be says: 
 
 "I pray that every breathing thing 
 "May wake to saving wisdom vast 
 "As wide and boundless universe". 
 
 'On getting out of bed: 
 
 "Oh! let me pray that every living soul 
 "May gain complete release of mind and self, 
 "And so in perfect rest abide unmoved". 
 
 'On binding on the sash: 
 
 "I pray that every living soul may closely bind 
 "Each virtuous principle around himself, 
 "And never losen it or let it go". f 
 
 'But I am afraid', continued Subbbuti, 'that I have already 
 tried your patience far too long; I hope you will forgive 
 me, and I will only observe in conclusion that Buddha, 
 similar to the great Stoic teachers, was averse to specu- 
 lation as unprofitable, because it tends to make man forget 
 his cbief task of considering the cardinal question of Life 
 and Death. "I devote myself entirely to moral culture", 
 he declared, "that I may arrive at the highest condition 
 of Rest"; and he contended that "to feed one good man 
 
 HH 
 
466 PESSIMISM. 
 
 is infinitely greater in point of merit than to enter into 
 discussions about heaven and earth, spirits and demons, 
 such as ordinarily occupy men"'. a 
 
 Then, after a brief pause, Subbhuti said gently and 
 with an almost imploring look at several of the company : 
 
 'Is this a creed deserving that contempt and abuse 
 with which it is still too frequently assailed by Christian 
 scholars? Is this "a system hideous, irrational, revolting 
 to the best instincts of humanity" ; b a system "humiliating, 
 cheerless, man-marring, soul-crushing"; in fact one that 
 "manifests throughout the most palpable ignorance as to 
 the essential principles of morality", or, as one of your 
 popular Orientalists expresses it, "a religion made for a 
 madhouse" ? d With all deference to the learning of these 
 men, I cannot help thinking that their judgment is as 
 shallow as it is uncharitable. Seated on the high throne 
 of Christian infallibility, they hurl down their imperial 
 thunderbolts upon all other creeds, and you, captivated 
 by the jingle of the fine words in which they know how 
 to clothe their anathemas, accept without examination 
 any fallacy flattering to your prejudices'. 
 
 'Your uncontrolled anger', replied Humphrey with the 
 stubborn determination of one fighting pro aris et focis 
 it may be observed that Subbhuti had pronounced the 
 whole of his speech with the utmost calmness, 'your 
 impotent rage befits the weakness of your cause. With 
 the completest justice has your morality been stigmatised by 
 searching scholars; for it is throughout built on the quick- 
 sand of ignorance, nay for the most part on the marshy 
 soil of superstition. The Buddhist's vaunted readiness of 
 pardoning injuries rests on his preposterous belief in 
 transmigration, or, what amounts to the same, in the 
 transference of his karma; for he has been taught to 
 consider any violence or insult he may suffer as the punish- 
 ment for some sin he or his fancied alter ago has committed 
 in one of the anterior existences. Can he claim any 
 merit for indulgence which he virtually practises towards 
 
PESSIMISM. 467 
 
 himself? And is his alleged meekness anything else than that 
 cowardly submission which encourges the baneful oppres- 
 sions of Eastern despotism? 3 From the same despicable 
 cause flows his much praised fortitude in avoiding self- 
 destruction, for it is prompted by his puerile dread of a 
 new birth, or of an existence more miserable and agonising 
 than that from which he is anxious to escape. His tole- 
 ration arises, as has been remarked before, from his 
 incapacity for distinguishing between right and wrong, and 
 from his indifference to the truth'. b 
 
 Must now', muttered Attinghausen, 'he has been blamed 
 for his excessive earnestness or "uncontrolled anger"'. 
 
 'He has the terms for supreme good and duty', con- 
 tinued Humphrey as before, 'but not the realities; these 
 are only possible where there is a God as the fountain 
 and standard of both: where there is none, man is his 
 own partial and biassed judge the summum bonum is 
 no more than an empty phantom, and duty no more than 
 a hollow obedience to a categorical code of bare pru- 
 dence, without heart and without conscience.* 5 And where 
 Buddha is not fatally wrong, he is paradoxically onesided. 
 He notices merely the physical evils of disease, old age 
 and death, and overlooks the greater sufferings of the 
 soul. In his eyes, the body with its weaknesses and 
 passions is man's sole enemy that requires to be curbed by 
 cruel self-mortification; and therefore, though classifying 
 the vices with great subtlety, he warns against them 
 merely as impediments to the attainment of the Nirwana, 
 and not on account of their inherent obnoxiousness. d And 
 again, by fretfully bemoaning human life as wholly com- 
 posed of wretchedness, he falsifies even duty, nay that 
 filial affection on which so much stress has been laid; 
 for the Buddhist can love his parents only if he forgets 
 that they are the authors of his woes and miseries. There 
 are other features equally objectionable, as, for instance, 
 Gautama's silly contests with his Brahmanic rivals in 
 performing miracles'. 6 
 
468 PESSIMISM. 
 
 'As if Moses', murmured Attinghausen, 'did not en- 
 gage in similar rivalries with Egyptian magicians'! 
 
 'But after all that has been said', continued Humphrey, 
 collecting his full energy, 'details are unnecessary, and 
 I can sum up the pith of Buddhism in very few words. 
 It makes man lower than the lowest creature that moves, 
 a being weak and drooping ; it reduces him to an animal 
 in hybernation, enchains the functions of body and mind, 
 and causes sentient existence to become non-sentient ; a 
 while in its long tissue of absurd contradictions it is "a 
 spiritualism without a soul, a virtue without duty, a mo- 
 rality without freedom, a charity without love, and a 
 world without Nature and without God'". b 
 
 Evidently displeased at the tone of Humphrey's ob- 
 servations, Abington began to speak before Subbhuti 
 could reply, and said with that deep absorption in his 
 subject, which was peculiar to him: 
 
 'I believe that every Christian is anxious to do justice 
 to the many fine qualities that distinguish the Buddhists 
 to their patience and forbearance, their complete toleration, 
 and their employment of instruction and example only 
 for the diffusion of an ardently loved faith, c their re- 
 nouncement of rewards of piety and their brave resistance 
 to thoughts of self-destruction in the midst of miseries 
 aggravated by imagination. These and other excellent 
 features we readily and cheerfully acknowledge. Yet all 
 this is merely striving after natural perfection it is not 
 religion ; for this is inconceivable without the ideas of God 
 and Immortality. I must go farther still. The ultimate 
 roots of all religion are the feelings of awe and veneration, 
 of sin and guilt. These are experiences of the heart, and 
 the heart alone can solve its own problems. Just as 
 reason does not suffer fancy to rule in the sphere of 
 formal logic, it must not usurp the right of dictating 
 laws in the domain of the feelings. It may reduce the 
 emotions to clear principles, but it can never suppress 
 them or aspire to take their place. To have overlooked 
 
PESSIMISM. 469 
 
 this point, is the central fault of Buddhism. It vainly 
 endeavours to effect by abstract thought what is only 
 accessible to pious sentiment or intuition. Unless you 
 imbue yourself with this obvious truth, you may, urged 
 on by daily observation, lay aside this or that individual 
 error, but you will lapse anew into other and perhaps 
 graver fallacies. A right notion of the world and its 
 fulness, of its life, beauty and variety, seems to dawn 
 upon your conviction; but that reason of which you are 
 so proud will again and again toss you on the sea of 
 doubt, sorrow and despair; you will find no sure haven 
 of rest so long as you disdain our beacon of safety. For 
 Love is life's innermost strength; but it is not in the stony 
 soil and chilly atmosphere of the intellect that its tender 
 blossoms thrive'. 
 
 'There is, I am sure', said Mondoza, 'no one among us, 
 who was not rejoiced to hear the welcome and thoughtful 
 concessions of our Buddhist guest, admitting the necessity 
 of a new Nirwana. They seem to me almost like a first 
 step in the realisation of our friend Wolfram's sanguine 
 hope of making Buddhism the starting point of a common 
 religion of reason and humanity. But to secure genuine 
 progress towards this supreme end, we must guard against 
 all misunderstandings that can possibly be avoided. We 
 may easily comprehend our worthy Subbhuti's indignation 
 at the unjust estimates of Buddhism he constantly meets 
 with; but his indignation I trust he will pardon me seems, 
 like those estimates, to exceed the limits of moderation. 
 The objections of European scholars are chiefly directed 
 against the Buddhists' intangible speculations, not against 
 their morality. One of those who has judged most bitterly 
 of the former, affirms with regard to the latter that 
 it breathes "a singular greatness of character, an almost 
 perfect purity, a boundless charity", and that it engenders 
 "a life of heroism which never for^a moment is faithless 
 to itself" ; while he speaks of Buddha with an enthusiasm 
 which can hardly be surpassed by his most zealous votaries, 
 
470 PESSIMISM. 
 
 describing his individuality not only as "most grand", bu1 
 as "perfect, since his life, as far as we know it, is without 
 the slightest stain, without any fault whatever" in fad 
 calling Buddha "after Christ the sublimest and noblest 
 figure in history", the influence of whose ethics or 
 individuals as well as on nations is "immense and mosl 
 auspicious"*. Another writer went even farther, and aftei 
 long and patient studies of Buddhism, characterised il 
 as "one of the most wonderful movements of the human 
 mind in the direction of Spiritual Truth". b The aiir 
 which Buddha proposed to himself deserves indeed no' 
 only our highest admiration, but our most serious atten- 
 tion. In its essence, it was eminently practical. Buddha 
 desired to be a guide to happiness; he wished to brin 
 to men deliverance from all sufferings, all passions, al 
 sins; to break the yoke of worldly care, ignorance, am 
 depravity ; and to banish for ever unrest, fear and anxiety 
 The numberless adherents he has won among the mos 
 varied tribes, and the many centuries he has swayed thei: 
 hearts, are strong witnesses of the intrinsic value of his doc 
 trine. We must admit that the means he employed partialb 
 defeated their own object. The dhyanas and the succeeding 
 contemplations are in reality not deliverances, but nev 
 fetters not the less strong because entirely spiritual; am 
 the final Mrwana is not moral indifference, but virtually 
 moral death. Moreover, the unhappy separation from life 
 engendered a playful yet dangerous scepticism whicl 
 declared all objects to be empty semblance and delusioi 
 without real existence, similar to the mirage of the desert 
 and which, more and more exaggerated by Gautama's sue 
 cessors, helped to intensify the fundamental fault o 
 apathy. 6 And lastly, doctrine and practice are disfigure< 
 by numerous superstitions which Buddha himself partiall; 
 occasioned, such as the harassing belief in demons an< 
 spirits, the most mischievous faith in the miracles of magic 
 and the confidence in supernatural powers attainable b; 
 meditation and piety. d 
 
PESSIMISM. 471 
 
 'But having said this, I think I have exhausted the 
 main defects of Buddhism, and I can cordially do homage 
 to its true grandeur. I accept the new Nirwana of 
 our honoured friend Subbhuti as a constituent of an 
 harmonious character. For if I understand it right, it 
 combines the earnest morality of the Stoics with the 
 unrestricted science of the modern Monists, and applies 
 both the one and the other to a life of activity in state and 
 society. The stages by which it might be reached seem 
 to be these: detachment from worldly boons by the 
 knowledge of their insignificance; attachment to our 
 fellow-men from sympathetic pity for their sufferings 
 and struggles; zealous exertion for their benefit from 
 affection and benevolence; and finally, contentment through 
 the consciousness of discharging these duties in unselfish 
 purity of motives. What, then, in one word, is this 
 Buddhistic element? Let me call it EELIGION. You are 
 startled? Yet, I believe, you were prepared for this issue. 
 If we can establish it, were it only as a probability, we 
 need not regret having devoted to the consideration of 
 Buddhism so much time. Most of you will say, it is a 
 cold and inadequate notion of religion. I am afraid, it 
 is the only one possible in our age to honest men who 
 disdain self-deception. We must accustom ourselves to a 
 religion aiming simply at that "natural perfection" which 
 fervid believers so strongly denounce as insufficient. I am 
 unable to discover a single metaphysical principle capable of 
 holding all men together in common harmony and concord. 
 Even the ideas of God and Immortality, as I have before felt 
 bound to admit, cannot be relied upon as universal bonds. 
 After the failure of so many creeds, it seems desirable, 
 nay it appears to me an imperative duty, to try in sincerity 
 of mind the efficacy of a theory of life unaided by trans- 
 cendental suppositions. All will, perhaps, find to their 
 surprise that Reason, the stone which the builders of 
 creeds have rejected, is the only safe foundation of religion; 
 and that the edifice erected on this foundation, with its 
 
472 PESSIMISM. 
 
 four stories of Knowledge, Compassion, Benevolence, anc 
 Contentment, affords room for all men and all nations t< 
 live together in happiness and in peace. But pray, d< 
 not mistake me. This new Nirwana is only one side o 
 the complex character we are endeavouring to construct 
 Some other features have already been pointed out, an< 
 there remain a few more of no less importance to b 
 unfolded. Till we have had an opportunity of discussin; 
 these remaining elements, I beg you to suspend you 
 judgment on the proposed idea of Religion'. 
 
 It was only the speaker's concluding appeal whic 
 averted the outbreak of a terrible tempest. Even as i 
 was, the low murmurings-of distant thunder rolled omir 
 ously through the assembly. However, in the cours 
 of a lively conversation on general topics, adroitly starte 
 by Mondoza and eagerly supported by Wolfram, Hermc 
 and Attinghausen, who were anxious to assist him in h 
 manifest tactics, the menacing agitation gradually subside 
 and, long before the guests parted, gave way to the usu* 
 spirit of genial cheerfulness. 
 
XL IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 THE expectation of a final encounter leading to a definite 
 result caused, the next evening, an early and unusually 
 numerous attendance at Cordova Lodge. The commotion 
 raised by Mondoza's last speech, though it had for the 
 moment been allayed under the influence of his persuasive- 
 ness, seemed in the interval to have even been intensified, 
 and it was reflected on every face in an expression either 
 of triumph, concern, or anxiety. All seemed desirous to 
 speak, but, as if by tacit agreement, they yielded the pre- 
 cedence to Abington who, they felt, must have been most 
 deeply pained. "With a seriousness almost pathetic he said : 
 
 'The more I reflect on the "new Nirwana" explained 
 by our kind host, the greater is my astonishment that 
 a man of his depth and earnestness should rest satisfied 
 with a notion so bare, so inconsistent, and he will forgive 
 me so superficial. From the proud self-sufficiency of 
 Knowledge he proposes to advance to the feebleness of 
 Compassion and the lukewarmness of Benevolence, in 
 order to reach a frigid Contentment neither blessing the heart 
 nor blessed with the rapture of a higher enthusiasm. This 
 kindling flame can only be fanned by the all-powerful 
 and all-pervading sentiment of our complete and absolute 
 dependence on a living and personal Prototype of love 
 and holiness on a Being whose miraculous working in our 
 soul converts the dim twilight of human knowledge into 
 the radiance of heavenly conviction ; compassion and bene- 
 volence into the ardour of affection and charity; and a 
 passive contentment into the inward glow of joyousness. 
 The new Nirwana, similar to the old, is essentially a sad, 
 or at least regretful, resignation ; whereas true religion, the 
 
474 IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 religion of Christ, is the brightness of blithe buoyancy 
 and serene happiness'. 
 
 'No system', said Humphrey, unable to restrain his 
 irritation any longer, 'can claim the dignity of a religion, 
 which does not take into account our inborn conscious- 
 ness of guilt and sin. But how is this possible without 
 an eternal Standard of purity and without an unfailing 
 Judge of transgression'? 
 
 'It is by hope and fear alone', interrupted Berghorn. 
 'that man's nature can be directed and controlled; but 
 if a spurious philosophy deprives him, by a dictatorial 
 decree, both of his God and his Immortality, and makes 
 his intellect at once his own ruler and his own reward, 
 he is inevitably driven along a career of temerarious reck- 
 lessness, till, lashed by the Satanic promptings of ac 
 insane pride, he is finally hurled into the fathomless gulJ 
 of moral perdition'. 
 
 'And is a religion', said Avada-Kalama zealously, 'at 
 all conceivable without a visible worship, and especially 
 without prayer? There exists none which does not include 
 the two main elements of Deity and devotion. I kno\v 
 well', he added with a derisive glance at Subbhuti, 
 'that some sects fancied they could dispense with the one 
 or the other, or with both; but such communities either 
 collapsed after an existence most brief and languishing, 01 
 they paid the penalty of their presumption and blasphemj 
 by being forced into the other extreme of a senseless 
 multitude of gods and rites. The new Nirwana, as little 
 as that of Buddha, can avoid degenerating into the 
 grossest and most degrading superstition'. 
 
 Panini and Movayyid-eddin nodded assent, and Canon 
 Mortimer declared Divine worship, and particularly pul- 
 pit instruction, to be highly desirable. 
 
 'The most essential component of religion', said Eabbi 
 Gideon with emphasis, 'is faith. As man is wonderfully 
 and mysteriously compounded of body and mind, so the 
 Universe consists of things visible and invisible; but the 
 
IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 475 
 
 invisible world, which every sound intellect instinctively 
 feels to be both more momentous and more real, cannot 
 be reached by reason or knowledge, but by belief alone. 
 Without faith, therefore, man's strongest yearnings remain 
 unsatisfied; he has no religion; he needs must be wretched. 
 Moreover, as your Goethe pertinently remarks, the only 
 legitimate as well as the grandest and profoundest theme in 
 the history of the world and of man, the theme to which all 
 others are subservient, is the burning conflict between dis- 
 belief and belief; the epochs in which belief prevails, are 
 glorious, heartstirring, and fruitful both for contemporaneous 
 and later generations ; while all those periods in which dis- 
 belief, in whatever form, asserts a questionable triumph, 
 though they may transitorily boast of a fictitious brilliancy, 
 are lost to posterity, as no one is willing to waste his 
 attention upon empty shadows.* Dissociated from the 
 truths revealed by faith, all human enlightenment and 
 learning are worthless dross and dangerous deceit stony 
 shells without a kernel'. 
 
 'The radical defect in the proposed conception', said 
 Wolfram, 'is' . . . 
 
 'Et tu Brute 1 ? whispered Mondoza, smiling. 
 
 'Is the absence, of that element', continued Wolfram, 
 looking benignantly at Mondoza, 'which alone uplifts man 
 from earth to heaven and thus creates a religion the 
 absence of Fancy. The eighteenth century was fertile 
 in the most valuable enquiries into the history of 
 religious creeds, and yet proved utterly unable to grasp 
 the essence of religious elevation. And why? Because, 
 in its ponderous and grovelling rationalism, it lacked or dis- 
 dained the magic wings of Imagination. Trusting ex- 
 clusively to the soberness of a dissolvent logic, it 
 destroyed old faiths, but could build up no new one. 
 Because the Encyclopaedists, like their kindred pre- 
 decessors and followers, failed to pay due regard to 
 Fancy, they sadly misunderstood Religion, which is the 
 joint offspring of the heart and of Imagination. 11 Bene- 
 
476 IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 volence and Contentment are excellent and sensible 
 companions, but they are no divinely inspiring guides'. 
 
 'Victory, victory'! exclaimed Humphrey; 'truth finally 
 vindicates its irresistible force over the most recalcitrant 
 hearts and minds'. 
 
 'No religioD, I believe', said Hermes, 'can possess true 
 grandeur and loftiness unless it starts from Plato's Ideas. 
 Beyond heaven's vault, and in imperishable splendour and 
 beauty, reside those Ideas, the exemplars of all beings 
 and all objects. The highest and that which comprises 
 all the rest, is the one that is called the Good or God. 
 It is in the realm of Ideas what the sun is in the material 
 world the creative principle of all things. Behind the 
 cosmos as it appears to us, there is a sublimer original, 
 of which that cosmos is but a faint reflex. It is this 
 view to which the deeper minds of all times have re- 
 turned, though in the most diversified shapes. In a con- 
 tinuous gradation, steadily proceeding from the imperfect 
 to the more perfect, Love or Wisdom rises from the 
 beauty of one or two objects to the beauty of all; from 
 the beauty of the body to that of the soul; hence to the 
 beauty of men's pursuits; from the beauty of these pursuits 
 to that of science or knowledge; till at length it arrives 
 at that matchless form which is Beauty in the abstract, 
 or the Beautiful itself. Living in contemplation of this 
 unfading Radiance, which is undimmed by any earthly 
 blemish, fosters true wisdom and true virtue, and trains 
 us for immortality, the final aim of Eros this is pure, 
 exalted, and blissful Religion.'* 
 
 'How terrible an array of indictments' ! said Mondoza, 
 after a short pause. 'But I must gird my loins for the 
 defence, undismayed by the melancholy fact that attacks 
 have been levelled against my poor Nirwana even from 
 several quarters which I had good reason to consider 
 friendly. When I survey your objections, I think one 
 circumstance is most satisfactory and encouraging they 
 all point out omissions, not errors. The four stages I 
 
IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 477 
 
 have described are not censured in themselves, but they 
 are regarded as insufficient to constitute a Religion. 
 This is everything I desire. For I attempted no more 
 than to set forth a few broad principles about which we 
 can all agree, no more than to prepare a common ground 
 where all may meet. The hopelessness of a specific uni- 
 formity is amply clear to the psychologist even in- 
 dependently of the sad lessons of history. Let everyone 
 superadd to those common principles whatever accessory 
 his individuality may besides require for their completion. 
 Yet care should be taken lest the addition mar the 
 fundamental ingredients; and I am afraid that most of 
 the elements that have been insisted upon are questionable, 
 if not perilous. Enthusiasm is obnoxious when allowed to 
 have a decisive voice in framing notions. Faith may 
 lull our reason into a false security and blunt our energies. 
 Fancy I need only remind you of the numerous de- 
 scriptions of heaven and hell may convert the sober 
 earnestness of religion into play both extravagant and 
 mischievous. Plato's Ideas I beg you to remember his 
 doctrines of pre-existence and transmigration may lead 
 to labyrinthine tracks which no human intellect can 
 pursue with safety. However, I do not wholly reject even 
 these elements, provided they are kept within legitimate 
 boundaries. Enthusiasm is invaluable in stimulating 
 active morality and the desire of helping in all works of 
 improvement. Faith alone can shield us from despondency 
 and despair, yet not the faith in abstruse dogmas im- 
 posed upon us from without by a tyrannical tradition, 
 but the unshaken belief in realities implanted in our 
 minds and ever putting forth fresh buds of hope the be- 
 lief in a holy Intelligence changeless amidst perpetual 
 change and exempt from all influence of time and space, 
 in our Liberty and Free Will, in Virtue practised from 
 singleness of purpose and rewarding the heart with joy 
 and happiness, in the final triumph of Right over Might, 
 and in our constant progress towards the sanctuary of 
 
478 IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 Truth. 4 Let Fancy, charming and delighting, rule in the 
 domain of Art, yet even here not with an unbridled 
 license ; for Art, the offspring of the wonderful union 
 of the Real and the Possible, is the eternally Necessary : 
 detached from the firm ground of reality, it soars errati- 
 cally in romantic vagaries. And lastly, the Platonic 
 theory of Ideas may be made as beneficent as it is ele- 
 vating, if we change it into an honest and intelligible 
 Idealism which refrains from assigning to those abstrac- 
 tions a separate and distinct existence; for, in fact, Plato's 
 Ideas, evolved from Socratic notions, are, like these, 
 derived from actual experience^ and although Plato 
 shrinks from making this admission in explicit terms, it is 
 unmistakably involved in his latest and ripest work, 
 the Laws, which permits to the Ideas hardly any prac- 
 tical influence in the organisation of the commonwealth 
 or in the political and social existence of individuals'. 
 
 'This is a most significant circumstance', interrupted 
 Humphrey, whose manner had alternately expressed assent 
 and displeasure. 'After having spent the greatest part 
 of his days and all the fire of his passionate zeal upon 
 the elaboration of visionary abstractions, which he boldly 
 invested with a living, if not a creative force, the philosopher 
 felt at last compelled to cast them aside as the idle 
 offspring of a playful ingenuity, to return to personal 
 deities not merely "a holy Intelligence" , and to uphold 
 the dominion of a God who is the author of everything good 
 and the good only, of a God who has brought forth all things 
 and beings, who exercises a benevolent and special Pro- 
 vidence over men whom he cherishes as His most precious 
 possession, who rules the world in justice, and who must 
 be regarded as the all- wise framer and eternal parent of the 
 Ideas themselves'. 5 
 
 'But do not forget', said Attinghausen, 'that although 
 Plato in his later years grew excessively pious, the more 
 matured experience he had gained forced from him the 
 avowal that man has been devised as the plaything of 
 
IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 479 
 
 the deity, and that human affairs are too insignificant 
 and worthless to deserve any serious attention.* 1 He 
 despondingly gave up his earlier structure of the Republic, 
 reared on the glittering pedestals of philosophy and meta- 
 physics, and declared that such a fabric would require 
 for citizens gods and the progeny of gods. b He had lost 
 all confidence in human nature and the stability of the 
 world. He saw everywhere so much perversity, injustice 
 and misery that amazing as it must appear to us he, 
 the divine, Olympian Plato, could find no other explanation 
 of this shocking confusion than by assuming, in utter 
 contradiction to his entire system, an evil soul or genius 
 of the world, constantly engaged in fierce struggles with 
 its good or godly spirit. d Nay he proclaimed that, while 
 men disagreed on all other matters, they were unanimous 
 on the one point that death was preferable to life. 6 Thus 
 the magnificent Idealist finally condescended to confess 
 himself a consistent Pessimist a normal progress inevi- 
 tably accomplished by every clear and candid mind'. 
 
 'Say rather,' rejoined Humphrey with eagerness, 'the 
 heathen naturally passed from the mists of superstition 
 to the utter darkness of despair. Indeed, Plato's inner 
 life not only confirms but crowns my view of the hollow 
 fallacy of Greek joyousness. It implies a glorious triumph 
 of Revelation, as it supplies the strongest possible foil 
 to the brightness of the Christian's life'. 
 
 Abington and Hermes seemed ready to speak, but 
 they courteously gave way to Mondoza, who said: 
 
 'Pray, allow me to finish my remarks, before you enter 
 into this question, the importance of which for our main 
 investigation is indeed obvious. I prize the element of Faith 
 most highly, because I believe that it virtually includes the 
 rest of the components I have alluded to. For Faith is 
 Enthusiasm; Faith rises from the palpable objects into 
 the ethereal spheres of Beauty and Art; and Faith perceives 
 in the dim rays of reality the vivid splendours of the 
 Ideal: it inspires us with confident trust in progress, in 
 
480 IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 refinement, and in goodness. Goethe seized the very core 
 and marrow of Schiller's greatness of character when he 
 wrote of him: 
 
 "His cheek now "burnt in deeper, brighter glow 
 "Of that fair youth which ne'er deserts our hearts, 
 "Of that brave strength which, earlier or later, 
 "Prevails in wrestling with this stubborn world, 
 "Of that firm Faith which, great yet rising still, 
 "Now boldly onward moves, now meekly waits, 
 "That Truth and Right may work and grow and thrive 
 "And noble deeds may have their day at last". 
 
 'But it must be the inward Faith I have described 
 it should not be confounded with Authority; it is the 
 sweet and tranquil harmony of the soul, not the harshnes; 
 of sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Yet in that quie 
 harmony is an invincible power which moves mountain 
 and conquers the world, which is indestructible thoughou 
 all eternity, because it is the concentrated power of th 
 divinest instincts of our nature. The striving to attain t 
 the height of this nature, whether we accompany th 
 effort by words or not, is our worship, our prayer; an- 
 the ever present consciousness of our remaining im 
 measurably below our standard, induces a humility n 
 less sincere and profound than the most contrite feelin 
 of guilt and sin. Thus, I think, we secure the valuabl 
 essence of the positive religions, while excluding thei 
 alloy and avoiding their dangers. We are satisfied wit 
 building up an ideal of virtue and happiness for ou] 
 selves, without attempting to force it upon future genen 
 tions and altered times. We refrain from raising 01 
 limited intelligence, it may be our contracted sympathie 
 into an unchangeable canon. We simply consider ourselv< 
 to have arrived at one of the many stages on a road whk 
 is practically endless'. 
 
 'Do not be deceived', said Movayyid-eddin ferventl 
 'Free-thinkers or acute philosophers may, under certa 
 circumstances, contribute much towards bringing obsole 
 forms of religion into discredit; and if they possess ar 
 
IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 481 
 
 bition and a talent for organisation, they may even 
 succeed in establishing a sect which keeps together during 
 their life-time: but a new and well-conceived religious 
 structure is alone possible through that genuine not 
 your Faith which is the enthusiastic devotion to truths 
 recognised by the votary, not as the product of human 
 reflection, but of Divine revelation. Only as God's special 
 messengers, as the almost passive instruments of a super- 
 natural Power, could Moses, Christ and Mohammed have 
 become the founders of religions which defy the vicis- 
 situdes of numberless ages ; only as the direct inspiration 
 of the Almighty, could the documents which bear their 
 names wield so mighty an influence over men's minds; 
 and the systems they propounded owe the largest part 
 of their vitality, not to an absolute toleration such as 
 you advocate, but to that strong and decided particularism 
 which they imply and enjoin'. 
 
 'It is just on account of these awful facts which I do 
 not dispute', replied Mondoza, 'that we shrink from fixing 
 our views in stagnant formulas. Who is there that re- 
 members the horrors prompted by the fanatical ex- 
 clusiveness of former religions, and would yet rashly risk 
 the reponsibility of framing a new one with the pretence 
 of a higher authority? We are sure we cannot go far 
 astray in following the united directions of reason, 
 nature and history; and if our issues are more limited and 
 more modest, and if, renouncing a high-wrought beatitude, 
 we desire no more than a calm and uniform Contentment, 
 we are at least safe from terrible outrages, errors and 
 crimes. Moreover, we are eschewing what has hitherto 
 been the bane of the world. Every positive religion, while 
 uniting its own adherents, has caused a separation and 
 estrangement from the rest of mankind; nay, split into 
 numerous sects, each has called forth within its own 
 sphere a dislike and an hostility the intensity of which was 
 often in inverse ratio to the amount of disagreement : but 
 we are trying to diffuse principles which, derived from our 
 
 ii 
 
482 IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 common struggles and aspirations, shall bind together all 
 men by the same strong ties of fellowship. And while 
 former theologies were but too frequently in open or 
 secret antagonism with other pursuits and manifestations of 
 the intellect, we are endeavouring to design a theory which 
 has nothing to fear from research, but on the contrary 
 shall grow stronger and fuller with every advancement 
 of true philosophy and sound science. 
 
 'And what are those principles? what are the main 
 features of this theory as they have been evolved from 
 our discussions? They are these: the Stoic's unshaken 
 Fortitude through the dominion of reason; the Hebrew's or 
 Christian's Peace through the union of the soul with the 
 Eternal; the Epicurean's fearless Freedom through the con- 
 quest of superstitious fears and beliefs ; the Monist's deep 
 and vivid Sympathy with every creature and all Creation ; 
 Spinoza's Intellectual Love of God, that is, the Love oi 
 Truth for its own sake, with the serene clearness it 
 engenders; the Buddhist's humble Resignation, Com- 
 passion and unselfish Benevolence ; and lastly, the Greek's 
 Idealism and Refinement manifested in Beauty and Art, 
 Whether we are conscious of it or not, whether we avow 
 it or not, these are the chief ingredients of our presenl 
 civilisation, which correspond with man's principal faculties 
 and instincts. a The physiologist is familiar with the 
 notion of eucrasy signifying such a well-proportioned 
 mixture of qualities in bodies as to constitute health anc 
 soundness. Now the combination of all the ingredients 
 I have summarised forms that eucrasy or "harmony Oj 
 character which is the perfection of culture; and he ap 
 proaches nearest to it who unites most of the elements 
 But parallel to this culture is our happiness, and h' 
 who succeeds in imbuing himself with the qualities w 
 have one by one ascertained to be essential, and whc 
 besides, diffuses over all the cheering hues of a rations 
 Optimism born of that faith in human goodness and pro 
 gress which I have attempted to describe, has found an< 
 
IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 483 
 
 may secure that enjoyment of life the conditions of which 
 we desired to discover. But whether his lot be enjoy- 
 ment or not, he will be satisfied if, at the end of his 
 days, he can in all candour say that he has striven to 
 deserve the epitaph: 
 
 "His life was gentle and the elements 
 
 "So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up 
 
 "And say to all the world, This was a man"'. a 
 
 *I think that very little can be objected to this con- 
 clusion', said Wolfram with evident satisfaction. 'The 
 Greeks were rally aware that both the beauty of our 
 character and the reality of our happiness depend 
 on the normal and equal development of all powers. 
 They praised Homer and Plato as two "all-harmonious 
 minds ". b Indeed in Plato they found their ideal of a 
 perfect individuality almost realised. For as a philosopher 
 he blended the boldest flight with the nicest acumen, the 
 faculty of abstract and dialectic enquiry with the freshness 
 of artistic creation, and enthusiasm with tranquillity of 
 mind; while as a man he combined severity of moral prin- 
 ciples with a keen susceptibility for the beautiful, nobleness 
 and elevation with delicacy of feeling, and dignity with 
 grace. The requirements which he enforced in theory, were 
 actually incorporated in his own person; and as it has been 
 said of Schiller that he was not a poet but a poem, so 
 Plato might be described as not a philosopher but a 
 philosophy, this term being taken in its most comprehensive 
 sense. The celestial joyfulness of his nature, a consequence 
 of the alliance of intellectual brightness and free fancy, is 
 animatingly reflected in all his works a few sad utterances 
 extorted by bitter experience were like fugitive clouds which 
 the sun of his cheerfulness quickly scattered ; and by a 
 happy instinct the Greeks associated him with Apollo, the 
 god of light and gladness, of moral beauty and harmony. 
 And as if we were to be assured', continued Wolfram 
 emphatically, 'that a sterling eucrasy is'possible in our time 
 
484 IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 no less than in that of Aeschylus or Pericles, we see 
 it personified in our worthy host, who thoroughly blends 
 the culture of the East, of Greece, and the scientific 
 West, who' . . . 
 
 l l must protest against' . . . interrupted Mondoza. 
 
 'Who amalgamates', continued Wolfram more deter- 
 minedly, 'a sober realism and a lofty idealism, joins the 
 clearest judgment with the most warm-hearted sympathies, 
 Stoic simplicity with refinement and taste, well-balanced 
 repose with energy of thought and action, who' . . . 
 
 'I cannot allow you to add a single word more', said 
 Mondoza with firmness. 'There should be a limit even 
 to the prejudiced bias of friendship. Keeping my eyes 
 fixed on the distant goal, I am content if I do not 
 miss or lose the right path, though even this, alas! is 
 extremely difficult'. 
 
 'Wonderful indeed', said Hermes, 'was the idiosyncrasy 
 of Plato ; but let us not forget the perhaps even greater 
 perfection of his immortal master a nature more homely 
 and less aristocratic both in thought and manners, but 
 not less sublime or less manysided. I do not know 
 whether the whole of Greek literature includes a more 
 remarkable delineation of an eminent man than Xeno- 
 phon's portraiture of Socrates at the end of the "Memora- 
 bilia", suggested by long and close intercourse. Those, 
 he says, who have known Socrates, never cease to regret 
 his death, since he contributed in the highest degree to 
 their advancement in virtue. He was so pious that he 
 did nothing without the sanction of the gods; so just that 
 he wronged no man even in a trifling matter, but was 
 of service, in the most important concerns, to all who 
 enjoyed his society; so temperate that he never preferred 
 pleasure to duty; so wise that he did not err in distin- 
 guishing better from worse and needed no counsel from 
 others, but was self-sufiicient for all such decisions; 
 able to explain and settle the subtlest questions by 
 argument, able also to discern the disposition of men, 
 
IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 485 
 
 to confute the misguided and to lead them back to 
 uprightness and honour; in fact, "he seemed to be such 
 as the best and happiest of men should be"'. a 
 
 'I do not hesitate to admit', said Abington, 'that this 
 is a fine and noble description, and that in all the Books 
 of the Bible no picture of our Saviour is found, 
 which exhibits the features of His Divine spirit and life 
 in such coherence and completeness. 5 However, the New 
 Testament reveals to us incidentally traits of Christ, 
 which our mind spontaneously combines into a figure of 
 such grand proportions that every other character in 
 history, however complete it may seem, is only the dim 
 shadow of this prototype of all harmony of him who, the 
 image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature, 
 at once perfect God and perfect Man, the heir of all things 
 yet having not where to lay his head, d the tempted mortal 
 and the sinless spirit, 6 died for the salvation of the world, 
 but did not seek his own glory ; f who went about doing 
 good and healing all that were oppressed; who, when 
 reviled reviled not again, and when suffering threatened 
 not,e a High-priest "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate 
 from sinners, and made higher than the heavens ". h He 
 is the eternal model of every moral and spiritual perfection, 
 and all the efforts of earnest minds, I firmly believe, 
 have no other aim than humbly to imitate his example. 
 In this sense I heartily approve of the eucrasy of character 
 constructed by our host with so much care and thought- 
 fulness'. 
 
 After Humphrey and Berghorn had signified their 
 assent to Abington's remarks, though with not a few 
 provisoes and qualifications, Canon Mortimer said cheer- 
 fully: 
 
 'I am strongly convinced that the complex culture which 
 has resulted from our discussions, thoroughly coincides 
 with the spirit of true and catholic Christianity. For 
 we are taught that God "at sundry times and in divers 
 manners spake in time past unto the fathers", before 
 
486 IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 He ordained His Son to bring redemption to mankind; 1 
 and we may devoutly presume that He continues so to 
 speak to His children even after He has placed His Son 
 at the right hand of His glory. For all men and all 
 nations, St. Paul explains, are one body consisting of 
 many members, yet all ruled by the same God and the 
 same Spirit; and as the foot cannot say that it is not 
 of the body because it is not the hand, or as the ear 
 cannot say that it is not of the body because it is not the 
 eye, so we should beware of affirming that Zeno has not the 
 Spirit because he is not Christ, or that Spinoza is not 
 an apostle of God because he is not St. John. In fact, 
 by venturing such a denial, we should wantonly destroy 
 that fulness, unity and symmetry which St. Paul, in the 
 remarkable passage I have alluded to, sets forth as solely 
 possible by maintaining a heaven-appointed variety. For, 
 he asks, if the whole body were an eye, where would be 
 the hearing? or if the whole body were hearing, where 
 would be the smelling? So we might ask, if our whole 
 being were faith, where would be knowledge? if our 
 whole life were election by grace, where would be energy 
 and action ? or if our soul were wrapt up in the invisible 
 Kingdom of Heaven, where would be art and beauty? 
 If all functions were absorbed by one member, there 
 would be no body. But God has set every member in 
 the body as it pleased Him, and as the eye cannot say 
 to the hand, I have no need of thee, nor the head to 
 the feet, I have no need of you, so the Christian must 
 not reject the aid of the Stoic, nor the Stoic the aid of 
 the Christian; the Hebrew cannot dispense with the 
 graces of the Greek, nor the Greek with the earnestness 
 and elevation of the Hebrew. "There should be no 
 schism in the body, but the members should have the 
 same care one for another". The Church has room for 
 all pursuits, all truths, all enthusiasms, arid the Christian 
 is a mere fragment of humanity so long as he excludes 
 ven one of them from his creed and his life'. b 
 
IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 487 
 
 'I believe', said Panini calmly and deliberately, 'there 
 is in these observations much that must commend itself 
 to every unprejudiced mind. Harmony of character is 
 the final aim of all self-training, and therefore of all 
 religion. The Preacher, whose singular work was the 
 starting-point of these conversations, in finally summing 
 up his varied reflections, and endeavouring to define "the 
 whole man", considers him to be one "who fears God and 
 keeps His commandments". But what are God's precepts? 
 It is in the Prophets that we must look for the answer, 
 and Micah has plainly given it as a guidance for all times 
 and nations: "The Lord has shown thee, O man, what 
 is good, and what does He require of thee but to do justice 
 and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God"'? a 
 
 Gregovius confirmed this view by quoting some additional 
 passages from the Old Testament, b after which Panini 
 continued: 
 
 'Justice, Charity, and Humility are the elements of 
 an harmonious mind, and they suffice both for true piety 
 and true happiness. Yet I willingly allow that they 
 require extraneous additions and complements. That 
 independence of thought which animated Spinoza, if kept 
 within legitimate bounds, can help us to distinguish the 
 gold of revelation from the dross of tradition; the general 
 sympathy instilled by Monism, if divested of its fantastical 
 excesses and not pressed to monstrous consequences, 
 may gladden the heart with a new and deeper glow ; and 
 above all, those innate cravings of our nature, beauty 
 and art, must be satisfied not merely for the outward 
 adornment of our existence, but for the purification and 
 ennoblement of our souls. Taking Hebraism, Hellenic 
 culture, and Natural Science as the three chief branches 
 of civilisation, we might not inappropriately apply to them 
 the words of Ecclesiastes : "Two are better than one . . . 
 For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow ; but woe to 
 the single one that falls, for he has not another to help 
 him up; ... and a threefold cord is not quickly broken"'. 6 
 
488 IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 'I confess*, said Rabbi Gideon with an unusual cau- 
 tiousness of manner, 'I am neither so "catholic" as our 
 indulgent Canon, nor so exclusively enchained by the 
 teaching of the Prophets, or so enamoured of Greek art, 
 as the last speaker, who seems in danger of lapsing into 
 a bare theism. But I am prepared to avow that Judaism 
 may admit nearly all the suggested ingredients of moral and 
 mental education without in the least compromising that 
 strongly specific character which has resulted from the com- 
 bined injunctions of Moses, the Prophets, and the Rabbins. 
 Indeed our sages have repeatedly delineated human perfec- 
 tion with a copiousness of distinctive traits, which yields 
 to no other system or fusion of systems. The truly 
 righteous man, they say, does not persecute his persecu- 
 tors, bears injuries in silence, and is meek under reproof, 
 resigned and hopeful under sufferings. He studies the 
 Law diligently, even admidst the greatest privations, with 
 no worldly object, but exclusively in order to diffuse and 
 practise it ; and he tries by zeal and concentration to 
 penetrate into its depths and masteries. He is intent 
 upon self-improvement and aids others in their search for 
 knowledge and truth. He deems intercourse with the 
 wise more precious than all earthly treasures, and engages 
 as little as possible in the pursuits of commerce. He loves 
 God, that is, he lives so that by his actions God's name may 
 be sanctified; and he loves his fellow-men, that is, he readily 
 assists them in bearing their burdens. He shuns vice 
 and sin with every effort of moral energy. He is urbane 
 in manners and gentle in conversation, peace-loving and 
 peace-spreading, judging every one from the most favourable 
 side. He is modest, humble and patient, content with 
 his lot, simple in habits and temperate in all enjoyments. 
 He is free from that vain ambition which aspires to outward 
 distinctions, but without desiring it he wins honour, 
 authority and dominion.* Any one who combines these 
 qualities, or only the most important of them, possesses, 
 I believe, a harmony of character that may well vie with 
 
IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 489 
 
 that of Socrates or Plato. We have no need to go for 
 our exemplars beyond the circle of our own sacred 
 writings, and we think that these are in full agreement 
 with all that is valuable and profitable in any other 
 literature, or in any philosophy or science'. 
 
 'I should not be displeased with our host's eucrasy\ said 
 Attinghausen, who found it impossible to suppress a pro- 
 voking smile of irony at Gideon's concluding sentences, 'if 
 I could overcome my misgivings on two points: I distrust 
 the deceptive allurements of Optimism, and I dread the 
 frolics and gambols of Idealism. If we could reasonably 
 repose confidence in men's good sense and discretion, we 
 should have little to fear even from these two insinuating 
 Sirens. But in the light of our long and painful experience, 
 such a confidence would be utter foolishness. Optimists 
 will go on busying themselves with their airy castle of 
 a theodicy and proving, to their heart's content, that they 
 are living in the very best of all possible worlds; and idealists 
 will go on evolving from the empyrean of their intellectual 
 sublimity wonderful paragons of human excellence. How- 
 ever, we may well take the hazard, provided that we 
 cling to our Monism without faltering and without com- 
 promise to that Monism which is the rampart and bul- 
 wark of the future. For after all, to be candid, nobody 
 is even tolerably consistent either in Pessimism or 
 Materialism. We are, one and all, weak and pitiable 
 creatures' ! 
 
 'The very two principles you shun', said Melville, 'render 
 our host's construction acceptable to my mind. It secures, 
 moreover, that inward peace and liberty which arise from 
 the absence of superstitious fancies and terrors; and it 
 opens a noble and an endless career of progress by 
 assigning a conspicuous rank and function to Truth. 
 I have within the last few days carefully weighed the 
 objections that have been pointed out to the supposed 
 spiritualism of Spinoza's Substance and Attributes, and 
 have examined his ambiguities in now identifying and 
 
490 IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 now contrasting God and Nature; and I cannot help 
 acknowledging the weight of those criticisms. I am, 
 therefore, the more satisfied with a harmony of character, 
 all the elements of which are derived from reason and 
 observation, without allowing sway to the uncertain 
 admixture of transcendental speculation'. 
 
 l l cannot hut be rejoiced', said Mondoza, addressing 
 those who had spoken, 'at the amicable reception you have 
 accorded to my proposed eucrasy. You could not have 
 met my remarks in a spirit of greater fairness. Each of you 
 has, with a self-denial I know how to appreciate, waived 
 one or more elements of perfect culture hitherto deemed 
 by him indispensable. You will find yourselves amply 
 rewarded for the sacrifice by the happy feeling of a 
 closer kinship and a much stronger sympathy with the 
 rest of your fellow-men. Yet you will, I believe, hardly 
 require any important sacrifice; for with those constituents 
 which we have adopted in common as leaders anc 
 guardians, no principle of tradition or metaphysics car 
 be dangerous, if intelligently and honestly subjected tc 
 that control. Uniformity of- thought is neither possibk 
 nor desirable; in a rational variety lies our best hope o: 
 further advance and enlightenment. If doubts or suspicion* 
 as to the sufficiency of the features agreed upon should 
 ever assail us and we are all, as our friend Attinghauser 
 reminds us, weak mortals let us fight them down b} 
 those arguments which have at present guided our con- 
 viction or compelled our assent; let no experience how 
 ever perplexing, no trial however distressing, no nev 
 discovery of any kind however startling, make us waver ii 
 our unreserved allegiance to Reason, Truth, Faith, anc 
 Charity the unchanging stars in our often perilous voyage 
 And what is the common bond of the diversified elements 
 and the stimulating force to set them in motion ? I repeat 
 it is the sense of duty, an impulse irresistible as love 
 stronger than death. And the only true happiness in th< 
 world's gift is that which springs up, free and unsought 
 
IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 491 
 
 by the wayside of duty. Courage, therefore, courage! 
 Onward in the path of concord, of universal union'! 
 
 'Deeply gratified as I am', said Abington after a short 
 pause, 'at the substantial concurrence of views we have 
 reached, I should be reluctant to proclaim peace where 
 there is no peace. You have assumed Plato's Idealism 
 as an important factor in a perfect character, and though 
 you have judiciously modified that notion, the serious 
 question remains whether the doctrines of Plato, in any 
 form, can be admitted as components in a happy and 
 religious life. The popular misconceptions that prevail, 
 and the indiscriminate eulogies that are constantly lavished, 
 on that dazzling and enticing system, render vigilance 
 doubly imperative'. 
 
 'I find it difficult to believe', said Hermes, 'that the 
 Christian can feel any real antagonism to Plato who, 
 similarly to the Bible, enjoins that man's highest aim is 
 "resembling God as much as possible", and that "this 
 resemblance consists in becoming just and holy with 
 wisdom"'.* 
 
 'True', replied Abington ; 'but how does the philosopher 
 characterise that resemblance? As "a flight". For since, 
 according to his theories, the evil can never cease in the 
 world, because there must be something that is opposed 
 to the good, he sees no other way of rescue or safety 
 than "to fly hence thither as quickly as possible" ; b that 
 is, he advises men, not to fight resolutely and patiently 
 in order to conquer and remove the evil and so to assist 
 in realising the Divine schemes, but to withdraw from this 
 phantom world of instability and grievous defects to the 
 world of pure Ideas, to the calm heights of reflection 
 and theoretical knowledge, and thus to strengthen that 
 lofty presumption of the mind which leads to a fatal 
 alienation from the common struggles of our brethren. 
 Christianity, on the other hand, introduces the new and 
 vivifying principle of a practical life, which it puts in the 
 
492 IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 place of the intellectual element, and which destroys th 
 pride of knowledge. Active charity takes the supreme rani 
 and manifests itself in all individual virtues. Plato's sys 
 tern involves an irreconcilable contradiction between ide; 
 and reality; it is an enigmatical Dualism. But Christi 
 anity assures us that the Creation was from the begin 
 ning so designed as to embody the highest perfectior 
 without any residue whatever of an ungodly and invincibl 
 necessity of nature a . It does not invite us to an ascetic an< 
 contemplative escape from the world, but to an assiduou 
 and beneficial energy. It makes no difference between th 
 higher erudition attainable only by the scholar and phi 
 losopher, and the unconscious existence or the mere opining 
 of the multitude. It guarantees to all alike the priceles 
 and indefeasible boon of inward liberty. Yet it is Plato' 
 great merit that, leaving the contrast unharmonised, h 
 did not pass beyond his Dualism, and that, untempted b; 
 monistic propensities, he did not succumb to Pantheism 
 
 'Let us not swerve from the main point', said Hermes 
 'the fact remains that Plato assigns to man the nobl 
 task of striving after similitude with the Deity. Goc 
 he says, is never and in no respect unjust, and that ma- 
 resembles Him most who has attained the highest possibL 
 degree of justice. This he regards as the test of huma. 
 excellence the test of wisdom and virtue.' b 
 
 'The value of this doctrine', rejoined Abington, 'de 
 pends chiefly on Plato's conception of God. Now, takin; 
 even the most lenient view, we are compelled to affirr 
 that his notion of the Deity constantly wavered be 
 tween an abstract idea and a personal Being. For while 
 in some of his writings, he represents God simply a 
 synonymous with the absolute Good, or the highest of hi 
 Ideas, he speaks of Him, in other works, as of a livinj 
 and self-conscious Creator and Ruler, as the Father o 
 the universe, whom it is difficult to find, and whom, whe^ 
 He has been found, it is impossible to explain to all. 
 Moreover, the latter opinion, it must be owned, forms n- 
 
IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 493 
 
 organic link of his system, but is, on the contrary, foreign, 
 if not opposed, to its main principles ; it is , in fact, 
 simply an expedient adaptation of traditional tenets. 
 Plato seems never to have seriously attempted to fix the 
 relation between God and the absolute Good ; and he leaves 
 it uncertain whether both are in the mutual position of 
 Creator and creature, or whether they have no connection 
 whatever, but possess a parallel and independent existence. 
 A god so vague and indefinite is practically unavailing 
 as a monitor and exemplar. Man's resemblance to him 
 is very far from identical with that reflexion of the Di- 
 vine image in the affairs of the world, with that open yet 
 unassuming glorification of God, which Christianity pro- 
 poses as one of our principal aims. Only a Deity that 
 fashions and acts, can guide man in his moral conduct. 
 An ethical likeness with an incorporeal abstraction is an 
 impossibility ; and yet nothing but such an abstraction can 
 result from Plato's speculations'. 
 
 'While I fully admit the correctness of this view', said 
 Hermes, '1 contend that the lack of rigorous consistency 
 in Plato's opinions does not impair their practical utility. 
 Are the readers of his works ever impressed with a 
 passive contemplativeness or dreamy quietism? Do they 
 not rather feel the breath of life and action with such force 
 that knowledge and deed seem almost to be equivalent? 
 Man, directed by the Idea of the Good, should labour 
 to imitate God's world-producing and world-governing ac- 
 tivity: this is doubtless Plato's real doctrine apart from 
 its theoretical fluctuations. It is virtually the Christian 
 teaching; for Christianity also conceives man as a free 
 organ of God, destined to realise the Divine ideas'. 
 
 'This cannot be denied', answered Abington; 'but no 
 ancient philosophy was able to point out the actual so- 
 lution of this paramount task; it was only the life of 
 Christ, which perfectly elucidated the design of the King- 
 dom of God, and that life alone is capable of serving as an 
 unfailing pattern and model. It should, moreover, not be 
 
494 IDEAITSM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 forgotten that the whole of antiquity remained in th 
 enthralling consciousness of a slavish dependence on N? 
 ture ; whereas Christianity, breaking through the barriei 
 of Nature's laws, shows us the archetype of absolute fret 
 clom in God's unlimited omnipotence'. 
 
 'I cannot enter into this wide question', said Herme 
 with a slight sign of impatience, 'but returning to Plat- 
 I may remind you of a few remarkable coincidences b< 
 tween his principles and those of the Bible, which pro 1 * 
 that the ancient world included the strong germs of tl 
 highest truths. In opposition to the sophist Protagora 
 Plato contended that not man but God is the measu] 
 of all things. a The objects are not simply such as th( 
 appear to man; they are therefore not given up to h 
 personal arbitrariness, but ought to be estimated 
 their relation to God, that is, they must be known ai 
 fixed in their necessary attributes and innermost essenc 
 Again, Plato cherishes and enforces that virtue which 
 commonly designated as specifically Christian, and even ; 
 distinctive between Christianity and Paganism the virti 
 of humility, which you, though in a certain respect u 
 justly, have denied to the Stoics: like the Bible, he us 
 the term "lowly" ranswog not in a contemptuous but 
 that spiritual sense which describes man's true depe 
 dence on God'. 
 
 *I readily concede', said Abington, 'that "we find he 
 something thoroughly kindred to the Christian notion 
 humility, which is in fact anticipated". 11 And gladly < 
 I yield another point. Although Plato, in common wi 
 all antiquity, makes, not charity, but justice the found 
 tion of a moral life, he yet extols Eros, or Love, as tt 
 power which unties the wings of the soul and enab] 
 it to rise into the heavenly spheres, its home. T] 
 evidently approaches the Christian conception of lo 1 
 which closely connects the Divine and the human. Ho 
 ever, Plato's Eros is essentially wisdom and knowledge ; a 
 this, like so many other instances, proves that even 1 
 
IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 495 
 
 purest ideas are only remote prophecies pointing to Christ, 
 or isolated traits which could not yet be combined into 
 a complete system of ethics'. 
 
 'Moreover', continued Hermes, without heeding Abing- 
 ton's depreciating conclusion, 'Plato condemns suicide, since 
 every man is placed by God at a post which he is bound 
 to maintain till he is relieved; he attributes therefore, 
 like the Scriptures, to each person a mission or moral ob- 
 ject of life to be made subservient to the promotion of 
 the general weal. Hence he looks upon the individual 
 as an image of the state, and upon the state as an en- 
 larged individual whereas Christianity entirely neglects 
 the idea of the state'. 
 
 'But why'? interrupted Abington. 'Because from the 
 Christian point of view the state is not the realisation 
 of the supreme good, but only one of the forms in which 
 the supreme good, the Kingdom of God, that embraces 
 all boons, is imperfectly embodied.* Therefore I regard as 
 fully justified what might perhaps appear to some as 
 an omission or fault in our host's eucrasy namely, that 
 he did not propose political life and patriotism as special 
 elements, but evidently subordinated them to all -com- 
 prising sympathy or love. For from the highest philo- 
 sophical no less than from the Christian standpoint, the 
 political community is only an elementary stage, or a 
 means of training for the universal union of men; while 
 the feeling of nationality is a onesidedness to be merged 
 in a genuine and ardent cosmopolitanism. Yet Plato, 
 although in framing his polity he was guided by the right 
 idea of a communion in a higher life or of a unity crea- 
 ted by reason an idea analogous to the Christian Kingdom 
 of God , shared and exaggerated a questionable principle 
 of antiquity by almost completely sacrificing the particular 
 interests of the individual to the requirements of the state ; 
 and, recommending community of property and women, 
 he utterly ruined social and domestic life though he 
 himself subsequently recognised the perniciousness of these 
 
 
496 IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 monstrous proposals*. By the Redemption, on the other 
 hand, everyone is fitted to become a peculiar Temple of God 
 in his own individuality when this has been transfigured by 
 the influence of Love. Not a rigid and general idea rules, 
 but the living and personal God. And besides substitu- 
 ting the dominion of freedom for that of necessity, the 
 Christian scheme proclaims, with no uncertain sound, the 
 law of equality. All enjoy the same civil rights, which 
 are expanded to rights of humanity; and these are not 
 based on exclusive gifts or qualities possessed only by 
 the elect few, but on the common and imperishable 
 dignity of human nature. While, therefore, Plato ranges 
 the bulk of men engaged in commerce, trades or handi- 
 crafts, far beneath the governing and military orders, we 
 allow no opposition between a superior and a vulgar exis- 
 tence, because the life of the whole of mankind in what- 
 ever sphere is uniformly ordained for a glorious end or- 
 dained equally to ennoble every pursuit and to lead all 
 believers alike to a relationship with God. "The wisdom oj 
 the ancients, even when at the summit of pre-eminence, was 
 unable to lift up the class of artisans from its degrada- 
 tion; whereas the elevated and Divine life which Christi- 
 anity has prepared for all without distinction, proceeded 
 from the workshop of the carpenter'". 3 
 
 *I will not', rejoined Hermes, 'at present urge that the 
 Stoics, long before Christ, rejected slavery, established 
 the equality of all men, and gave the example of a large- 
 minded cosmopolitanism ; but returning to the chief point 
 from which we have again strayed, I contend that Plato's 
 system really involves that harmony of powers which, as we 
 have agreed, is the object of all culture in producing a 
 condition at once complete and happy. In his dialogue 
 of Philebus he arrives at the conclusion that neither 
 a life of mere intellect is eligible, nor a life of mere 
 pleasure, but a third one superior to either namely, an 
 existence mixed of both. b It is this combination of mental 
 and sensuous qualities which constituted the beauty of 
 
IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 497 
 
 the Greek character and stamped it for all times as the 
 pattern of a consummate humanity'. 
 
 'From this point of view' , said Wolfram with all the 
 fervour of his enthusiasm, 'I am ready to undertake 
 the championship even of Plato's Ideas, which have 
 here been attacked and disparaged from various sides. 
 The plastic mind of the most accomplished of all Hellenics 
 could not remain satisfied with conceiving abstract virtues 
 and qualities; it spontaneously invested them with well-de- 
 fined and individual forms; it brought them before the 
 mental vision in clear outlines ; and thus the notions grew 
 into Ideas which, framed before all time and enduring 
 throughout all eternity, have a changeless existence in the 
 realms of the immortals. Plato's aesthetic instincts com- 
 prehended body and soul in an inseparable unity ; is it sur- 
 prising that finally, lost in the contemplation of the images 
 his intellect had fashioned, he believed in their reality and 
 raised them to th e rank of creators ? Every true artist is 
 a Pygmalion; the life which he infused into his work is 
 breathed back to him with an intenser force'. 
 
 'But I may ask', said Rabbi Gideon, with a mildness 
 of remonstrance proving that he also had been strongly 
 influenced by the spirit of conciliation prevailing in the 
 company, 'is Art really an indispensable element in an 
 harmonious character or a joyous life? Does not Plato 
 himself earnestly warn against its perilous seductions, 
 and does not history impressively teach that the very 
 periods when the fine arts flourished most were marked 
 by the greatest moral and political degeneracy? The 
 attractions of the beautiful may perhaps in pure hands 
 serve praiseworthy aims; but it is not incompatible with 
 their nature that, in perverse hands, they may have the 
 contrary effect and by their soul-stirring power promote 
 error and insincerity, vice and debasement. As taste con- 
 templates the form alone and not the matter it enshrines, 
 the mind ultimately acquires the fatal tendency to 
 neglect all reality and to sacrifice to an enticing garb 
 
 KK 
 
498 IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 even right and morality.* Only such art or beauty of 
 form as we admire in the Psalms, the Prophets or the 
 Book of Job, is beneficial and ennobling, because it is 
 allied to truth and sublimity, and therefore it at once 
 enlightens, fortifies and elevates; or as Shakespeare ex- 
 presses it, 
 
 "Oh! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem 
 "By that sweet ornament which truth doth give"; 
 
 and a more recent poet, 
 
 "Beauty is truth, truth beauty that is all 
 "Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know"'. b 
 
 'Alas' ! replied Wolfram, 'if we consulted History only 
 and abided by her verdict whether we scan the golden 
 age of Pericles or Augustus, of the Medici or Louis XIV , 
 Art would be doomed, and we should be compelled to 
 confess with sorrow that refinement is hostile to liberty, 
 and that beauty founds her dominion on the ruin of the 
 manly virtues and of that energy of character which is 
 the incentive to all high deeds and the source of power and 
 progress. It was such discouraging experiences whicl: 
 misled Plato an artistic nature if ever the world pro- 
 duced one to take the beautiful as identical with the 
 true and the good, to deny to it all independent value 
 and to banish from his Republic every kind of art excepi 
 the moralising, nay to suffer nothing even of lyrical poetry 
 but hymns in praise of gods and heroes, and of musi( 
 only the Doric and Phrygian lays which are characterisec 
 by severity and vehemence 7 . 6 
 
 'Should the doubts and apprehensions of such a man' 
 rejoined Gideon, 'not impose upon us the duty of th< 
 utmost carefulness in the estimate of Art' ? 
 
 'Not even the most illustrious authority should overawt 
 our judgment', replied "Wolfram. 'Conclusions such a 
 were reached by Plato must have been derived fron 
 premises radically erroneous, and we need not go far t< 
 discover them. The beautiful is the innermost amalga 
 
IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 499 
 
 mation of form and idea. But Plato, although indeed a 
 great artist, was pre-eminently a philosopher. There- 
 fore his poetic disposition was in constant and strong conflict 
 with his faculty of abstraction. The idea had to him 
 paramount importance, whereas he deemed the concrete 
 individualisation a disturbing accessory. Nay he traced 
 all artistic production to a sort of frenzy which, unlike 
 philosophy, is withdrawn from logical discipline and inca- 
 pable of being converted into knowledge, since it cannot 
 proceed beyond dark conceits and is devoid not only of 
 correct notions but even of clear consciousness. So 
 gross a misconception of the nature of genuine Fancy 
 which combines the most lucid thought with an inspiring 
 enthusiasm, and the plainest reality with an unfettered 
 flight into the wide spheres of the invisible inevitably 
 resulted in an unreasonable depreciation of the effects of 
 true Art. Hence Plato could go so far as contemptuously 
 to describe Art as a worthless and hollow imitation of the 
 fugitive shadow of things without their permanent essence, 
 as a futile and dangerous play affording merely pleasure 
 and diversion, not any instruction or advantage, flattering 
 the worst prejudices and passions of the multitude, and 
 perverting the character by hypocrisy and simulation ; and 
 he, the free Greek, could demand the strictest supervision 
 of all aesthetic creations by officers of the state, not only in 
 order to protect the people from injurious influences but 
 also to prevent innovations.* How far is all this from 
 the truth and from our convictions with respect to Art, 
 and especially to the Drama, as one of the most effectual 
 means of popular and moral training'! 
 
 'I cannot but be highly pleased', said Gideon, 'at these 
 admissions, which testify to a praiseworthy impartiality 
 in one so fervently Hellenic in his sympathies. But what 
 are the grounds on which so important a part in our 
 culture is continually assigned to Aesthetics and Art 
 assigned with such confidence that G oethe even ventured 
 the aphorism: "He who possesses Science and Art, has 
 
500 IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 Religion; he who does not possess these two, let him have 
 Religion"'?* 
 
 'This question', replied Wolfram with great zest, 'is as 
 large as it is important, and whoever desires to study il 
 thoroughly, and to have it finally answered, must be referred 
 to Schiller's prose writings, and especially to his ripest 
 work, the "Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man'' 
 perhaps the crown and choicest jewel of the whole oj 
 German literature. b 
 
 'In one word, Art or the Beautiful is the magic bone 
 which unites man's sensual and intellectual qualities 
 prevents the one from being favoured at the expense o 
 the others, and alone renders an harmonious developmen 
 and co-operation of all his powers possible. Without the 
 aesthetic faculty there can be no eucrasy of character sucl 
 as was attained by the best of the Greeks, to whon 
 sensuality was never merely sensuality, nor reason mereb 
 reason, but who blended simplicity and severe morals, matte: 
 and mind, earth and heaven. And this ideal the intimat< 
 fusion of nature and refinement may well be attained b; 
 us likewise: "Denn die Sonne Homer's, siehe, sie lachel 
 auch uns"'. c 
 
 'I am quite content with this view 7 , said Attinghausei 
 cheerfully, 'and it implies a great consolation. True, i 
 seems at first sight to clash with that law of division o, 
 labour which pervades the whole world and which we nov 
 consider as a chief test of civilisation. In living creatures,! 
 determines the degree of perfection to which they have risen 
 I need only allude again to the remarkable polity of th< 
 bees with the three estates of ruling queen, the aristocracy 
 of pleasure-loving drones, and the democracy of th( 
 working multitude, each class with clearly defined func 
 tions and duties; or to the still more astonishing com 
 monwealth of white ants or termites comprising wingec 
 males and female 5 *, wingless workers and soldiers, al 
 very differently organised. And so among ourselves th< 
 completest division of labour prevails in all branches o 
 
IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 501 
 
 industry and science, and is one of the principal causes 
 of our extraordinary progress. How, then, can we over- 
 come an apparently irreconcilable dilemma? Only by 
 limiting himself to a single and restricted sphere, can 
 the individual in our time hope to excel; and yet that 
 limitation tends to destroy the harmony of his powers 
 and of his character. Must he, in order to be faithful 
 to his duty, renounce that humanity which is his highest 
 goal? He is saved by Art, which is at every moment 
 able to restore his harmony. The strictest specialist may 
 escape to the regions of liberty by imparting to his con- 
 ceptions or writings beauty of form, by exchanging his 
 solitude for a society governed by taste, or by surrendering 
 himself to the charms of poetry, painting or music, which 
 above all make him feel the totality of his endowments. 
 "Amidst the terrible empire of the elementary forces, 
 and amidst the holy empire of Jaw, the aesthetic instinct 
 imperceptibly builds up a third and serene realm of 
 play and appearance, which removes all chains of out- 
 ward conditions, and exempts man from every compul- 
 sion both in the physical and moral spheres".* Idealism 
 and realism, philosophy and natural science, are happily 
 balanced in our aesthetic temperament. And in this respect 
 also the momentous doctrine of Evolution offers us the most 
 comforting hopes. For we know at present that, by adapta- 
 tion and inheritance, our senses of colour and sound have 
 even within historical times astonishingly advanced, and we 
 may therefore expect that, by attention and thoughtful 
 exercise, they will be brought to a still higher perfection, 
 and thus help incalculably to enhance our proficiency in 
 music and the plastic arts. b Yet all this', continued Atting- 
 hausen in a tone of solemnity he rarely assumed, 'must not 
 blind us against the terrible warnings of history that the 
 splendid culture of the ancients became an easy prey of bar- 
 barous hordes, and was followed by the darkest ignorance 
 and bigotry, because it was mainly founded on aesthetics and 
 speculation. The only safe basis of civilisation is Science, 
 
502 IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 which, on the one hand, by forcing nature into its service 
 secures our superiority over brute strength, and on the 
 other hand, by sharpening the sense of physical causality, 
 most effectually wards off superstition. Art regulates the 
 symmetry, but not the solidity, of the structure. With 
 the gods of Greece the beautiful has not disappeared 
 from the world neither the faculty of appreciation nor the 
 creative power, but only the unsubstantial fabric of Fancy, 
 which was unable to resist the overwhelming flood of Time. 
 Man, the Artist, lives and improves and will substitute 
 for that edifice a new and more perfect work, which 
 shall be like Nature eternaP. a 
 
 After a short silence Mondoza observed with great 
 deliberation: 
 
 'When I reflect on all that has this evening been said 
 by the different speakers, I am rejoiced at an amount 
 of agreement for which I could hardly have hoped even 
 a few days ago, and I shall remember these conversa- 
 tions with pleasure and gratitude. Yet I confess', he 
 continued, turning to the Orientals, 'my satisfaction is 
 seriously alloyed by seeing you, my Eastern friends, 
 withhold from our communion, and still more by seeing 
 you keep apart from each other in your old distrust and 
 antagonism. None of you has offered any remark on 
 our much discussed eucrasy: does it touch no sympathetic 
 cord in your hearts? Deep indeed would be our regret 
 and pain at this exclusion. We should consider our 
 covenant most incomplete without your adhesion. For 
 to us you are not mere numbers, but fellow-men, brethren. 
 It is not because the creeds you represent include upwards 
 of nine hundred millions of souls, while the Jews and 
 Christians of all shades count not even half that amount 
 I say, it is not this fact which makes us anxious to 
 welcome you in our midst; but we feel a profound 
 sympathy with you as men who, like ourselves, have 
 eagerly searched for truths to enlighten the struggling 
 
IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 503 
 
 mind, to satisfy the yearning soul. You may have strayed 
 in the difficult pursuit, as we have strayed: are you less 
 courageous to avow past errors, or less disposed to attempt 
 a different and more promising road 7 ? 
 
 A protracted silence ensued. Subbhuti was desirous 
 to answer, but a natural feeling of deference to his seniors 
 caused him to hesitate; yet when he saw that neither 
 Asho-raoco nor Movayyid-eddin was prepared to speak, 
 he said at last with all his peculiar fervour: 
 
 'I can indeed see no difficulty in accepting your theories. 
 The new Nirwana you have sketched is essentially the 
 Buddhistic doctrine with those qualifications which I have 
 acknowledged as indispensable Benevolence must be exhi- 
 bited in the deeds of an active life, and the dreamlike 
 impassiveness of our final stage of contemplation must be 
 changed into quiet yet stimiilating Contentment; while the 
 eucrasy you have framed is in no single feature opposed 
 to that Nirwana, nay it is its natural sequel and comple- 
 ment. We Buddhists are, therefore, heartily willing to 
 join you, if you can guarantee to us that toleration which 
 we prize most highly, and of which, in spite of our present 
 concurrence, all of us shall, sooner or later, surely be in 
 need. Nor do we Buddhists stand aloof, in a spirit of 
 hostility, from the followers of other Eastern faiths; on the 
 contrary, though relying solely on the persuasive power 
 of truth, we deem it our highest felicity to win proselytes; 
 and we shall, therefore, gladly hold out the hand of 
 brotherhood to all who do not disdain to grasp it'. 
 
 Another pause followed. The remaining Orientals 
 seemed engaged in an inward conflict which did not 
 allow them to give utterance to their thoughts. After 
 a brief interval Gregovius said: 
 
 'Our discussions here have providentially been shared 
 by four Eastern scholars who are all in reality Reformers. 
 For each of you', he continued, addressing Movayyid-eddin 
 and the others, 'has laboured to deliver his creed from 
 an oppressive mass of fabulous traditions and to restore 
 
504 IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 it to its pristine purity. Advance one decided step 
 farther. Investigate your Scriptures. You are amply 
 prepared by your learning and fully qualified by your 
 penetration to enter into your holy Books as successful 
 critics ; and if you pursue these researches with the single- 
 minded object of fathoming the truth and adhering to it, 
 and if you, besides, remember the almost hopeless 
 uncertainty prevailing with respect to the lives, motives 
 and idiosyncrasies of the founders of your sects, you 
 must soon admit that the idea of inspiration is utterly 
 untenable. But from the moment that this conviction 
 dawns upon your minds, you have broken the chains of 
 bondage, you have regained your liberty, you are men. 
 You need not turn away from Books venerable by antiquity 
 and dear from long association; but you should not allow 
 them to be your tyrants. Be benefited by their wisdom, 
 but beware of being ensnared by dictates which mock 
 your reason. Then you will approach each other ir 
 confidence, and will fearlessly embrace the intelligible 
 principles upon which we have agreed'. 
 
 Gregovius had scarcely finished, when the young Arvada- 
 Kalama, with a generous impulse,' advanced towards 
 Subbhuti and, seizing his hand, said to him: 
 
 'I am ashamed of my stubbornness and perversity 
 Having, like the rest of the Brahmo-Somadsh, renouncec 
 the sacredness and binding force of the traditions 
 Canon of the Hindoos, the rejection of which by tin 
 Buddhists was the main cause of our mutual enmity 0] 
 rather of the Hindoos' enmity, for the Buddhists ever offeree 
 to us the readiest conciliation, I ought to have detectec 
 the many points of affinity which unite our community 
 with yours, had not the impressions of my early educa 
 tion, uneffaced even by the thought and long struggles o 
 maturer years, unfortunately blinded my judgment and helc 
 me in the chains of most irrational prejudices, while ' 
 proudly fancied I had risen to complete freedom. I ma; 
 plead another excuse. With the strongest indignatioi 
 
IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 505 
 
 we have stigmatised and discarded the Sankhya doctrine 
 that action is only the consequence of false notions, 
 wherefore the enlightened sage does not act at all. To 
 this pernicious teaching we saw you cling with all your 
 unconquerable tenacity; for improving upon the Hindoo 
 philosophers, Gautama declared that the wise man is he 
 who avoids the three cardinal mistakes of having a liking 
 for a thing and acting accordingly, or of having a dislike 
 for a thing and acting accordingly, or of being stupidly 
 indifferent and thereupon acting, instead of being intelli- 
 gently indifferent and not acting at all. a But now that 
 you have abandoned your sterile and obnoxious Mrwana 
 and have declared energetic action a primary condition 
 of a virtuous and pious life, I feel myself riveted to you by 
 a new and strong sympathy and am most willing to share 
 your labours in the great task of regenerating the creeds 
 of our Eastern fellow-men. True', he continued pensively, 
 and with less ardour and decision, 'there are two points 
 which seem to separate us as by a wide gulf your 
 disbelief in a personal Ruler of the world and in the 
 eternal permanence of the individual soul. But should 
 it be impossible to reconcile a clear Theism with a noble 
 Pantheism? and should I be justified in refusing the offer 
 of peace and brotherhood on account of dogmas which 
 still command so little unanimity that candid enquiry 
 results merely in the counsel to agree to disagree? Let 
 me rather impress upon my mind more and more deeply the 
 frequent admonition of Hindoo sages the lesson I vainly 
 thought I had mastered: "To consider, 'Is this man one of 
 ourselves or an alien'? is the thought of little-minded 
 persons; to the liberally disposed the whole earth is of kin." ' b 
 'I see the rays of my dearest hopes illuminate the horizon' ! 
 exclaimed the venerable Wolfram with enthusiasm. 'The 
 old feuds and hatreds will disappear and give way to indelible 
 friendship and harmony. As far as the earth extends, 
 there will be no other rivalry than that of knowledge 
 and charity. For you 7 , he continued, addressing Asho- 
 
506 IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 raoco, 'you cannot desire that the Sun, which remains 
 your emblem of all that is good and happy, shall look 
 any longer upon strife and enmity between creatures who 
 have all one Father, whom you call Ahura-mazda. You 
 have renounced the evil Ahriman, renounce also the 
 darkest of his works rancour and pride. We are most 
 eager to win you, though you are' at present among the 
 smallest sects under heaven, because our civilisation owes 
 you a large debt of gratitude for having insisted upon 
 a Divine worship without images and without temples, 
 and because we prize your qualities of zeal and industry, 
 which may be destined to stir up the lethargy of the 
 East, as a little leaven raises the whole lump'. 
 
 'I will not, I can not resist this appeal', said Asho- 
 raoco, deeply moved. 'We are conscious of having yet 
 a high mission to fulfil, and we shall be faithful to the 
 call. We feel gratified when you designate us the 
 Anglo-Saxons of Asia, and we shall strive to deserve so 
 honourable a title. We shall give an example of energy and 
 enterprise that cannot be without influence on the millions 
 that surround us. "Long sleep, man, does not behove thee". 
 says our Vendidad. a For activity is the very essence oi 
 Ahura's creation; yet it must not be limited to worldly 
 pursuits; it should above all be displayed in the spheres 
 of the mind. Following the advice of the learned Grego- 
 vius, whose writings we esteem and study, we shall search 
 our holy Books ; indeed we have begun to do so and have 
 already gained some new and important light. We will, 
 with intrepid fortitude, examine the Avesta and the later 
 compositions, in order to ascertain whether the numerous 
 ceremonials which now constantly engage our attention, 
 are really divine duties, and whether religion precludes 
 us from cultivating freely all branches of science. Noi 
 shall we shrink openly to profess and diligently to diffuse 
 the 4ruth, which is to us, as it was to our ancestors, the 
 supreme commandment. I can, therefore, feel no reluctance 
 in associating with ingenuous Hindoos and Buddhists oi 
 
IDEALISM AKD THE GOAL. 507 
 
 sincere followers of Confucius, and I hope, in unison 
 with them, to promote the glorious aim which our worthy 
 friend "Wolfram has marked out for us with such noble 
 earnestness. But I will also prove to him', he continued 
 with a stronger emphasis, 'that Ahura-mazda's true disciples 
 are free from rancour and pride'. 
 
 And advancing to Movayyid-eddin, he said: 
 'Let the unhappy past be forgotten. The votaries of 
 Mohammed have seized blooming lands once graced and 
 hallowed by the footsteps of Zoroaster, and the Parsees 
 are strangers on the soil of Cyrus and Darius, or have 
 sought a shelter on distant shores. But if we in openness 
 and candour adopt the principles which our excellent 
 host has combined in his eucrasy, and above all adhere 
 to the general sympathy involved in that Monism which 
 has been so fully explained to us, we annul the distinction 
 between native and stranger, between Mussulman and 
 Parsee we have a home wherever we find men, wherever 
 the Sun sends his beneficent beams; the earth is one 
 house, all nations are one family. Then you may con- 
 tinue to possess our rich and beautiful countries, yet 
 only on condition that you accept the vow which has been 
 taken by the Buddhist, the Hindoo and the Parsee the 
 vow of strenuous effort in all good and useful works. 
 Indolence has been the bane of the Mohammedan world ; 
 a great future may yet lie before you if you summon up 
 courage to shake oft 7 this serpent which, coiled round 
 your enfeebled limbs, fetters all motion and development. 
 And as we mean to study the Avesta, so you should 
 explore your Koran, not for slavish interpretation, but in 
 order to penetrate into its origin and thus to fix the true 
 degree of its authority. Then that fierce and demon-like 
 fanaticism will vanish, which still sometimes breaks forth, 
 like the spark from the inert flint, and causes terrible 
 devastation. Free men like ourselves, you will enter upon 
 the new career that has been traced out for all alike. 
 Thus we gladly hail you as valued auxiliaries'. 
 
508 IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 Movayyid-eddin had listened with calm dignity, and 
 when Asho-raoco had finished, he rose and, his noble 
 features lit up by the concentrated fire of his eyes, said : 
 
 'The discussions in which I have been privileged to 
 participate have not fallen on a barren ground. From 
 the beginning though I strove to conceal the fact from 
 myself they have stirred up the very depths of my soul 
 and mind. They found the soil well prepared. For many 
 years I have subjected the Sunnite traditions to a severe 
 scrutiny, and I discovered in most cases their utter worth- 
 lessness. In the course of these researches I was often 
 astonished at the striking affinity between those legends 
 and many narratives of the Koran itself, so that I was 
 unable to draw a distinct line of demarcation between 
 the two as regards their spirit and credibility. I confess 
 with deep humiliation that I have hitherto lacked the mental 
 and still more the moral energy to deduce from these 
 startling facts the legitimate and almost irresistible con- 
 clusions. Nothing will ever weaken my veneration for 
 our Prophet, nothing will ever shake my reverence for 
 the exquisite precepts of morality enjoined by the Koran; 
 but I begin to see that there are other ways of salvation 
 besides those through Mohammed and his Book, and that 
 there are other domains of thought and enquiry besides 
 those of religion. This firm persuasion I shall carefully 
 cherish. The freedom of mind born of these conversations 
 enables, nay compels me more and more to widen the circle 
 of my sympathies, and cordially to accept the hand of 
 concord and goodwill, which you extend to me. Amal- 
 gamation of creeds and union of races shall henceforth 
 be inscribed on my banner, as they are on yours. I trust 
 I shall secure at least a moderate share of success by 
 trying to develop, wherever I can, that harmony of cha- 
 racter which comprises all the elements of a pure and 
 happy humanity; and I shall fortify myself by the nume- 
 rous and high-souled utterances of our great poets anc 
 philosophers, such as these: 
 
IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. , 509 
 
 "All spirits have sprung from one light, all are akin; 
 "That one light they reflect in infinite shades . . . 
 "It is 7 only and You that engender all sects ; 
 "This / and You are the children of folly: 
 "When / and You and separate being vanish, 
 "We shall no more be tied by Church or Hosque"'. a 
 
 'Won't we have a jubilation at the Dinner to-morrow' ! 
 burst forth Attinghausen, who had all the while shown 
 signs of the utmost excitement, which he could now no 
 longer control. 'We shall make them drink wine jollily 
 all round, the Mohammedan included. For we must 
 duly celebrate the enthronment of our Monism' '. 
 
 'And of our host's new Nirwana? added Subbbuti. 
 
 'And particularly of his fine Eucrasy\ broke in Hermes. 
 
 'You have accepted, Gentlemen, and I expect you with 
 the ladies', said Mondoza. 
 
 As he saw the four Orientals standing side by side, and 
 the other guests joining each other promiscuously and 
 engaging in hearty and unrestrained conversation, he 
 said almost spontaneously to himself, passing his band 
 over bis forehead: 
 
 'Is this a dream? May it one day come true'! 
 
 'It is a grand Vision', said Canon Mortimer, who bad 
 overheard Mondoza's exclamation. 
 
 'It heralds', added Rabbi Gideon, with a trembling voice, 
 'the approach of the time predicted by our prophets 
 when "the Lord shall be One and His name One"; and 
 when "He shall bless tbe nations saying, Blessed be 
 Egypt My people, and Assyria tbe work of My hands, 
 and Israel My inheritance"' 5 . 
 
 'You must indeed all come to-morrow', said Wolfram 
 eagerly, 'and I trust the ladies will be numerously re- 
 presented; for we require tbeir opinions on very weighty 
 matters. I am in tbe secret and our amiable host will 
 forgive me for divulging it: it is to be a real Symposion; 
 for we shall analyse the element of elements, which bas 
 unaccountably been forgotten in all our former discussions 
 
510 IDEALISM AND THE GOAL. 
 
 the element that is the very atmosphere in which all th( 
 rest breathe and have their being' . . . 
 
 'What on earth do you refer to? exclaimed Atting 
 hausen. 
 
 'We shall define that Power', continued Wolfram witl 
 fervour, 'which inspires our youth, supports our ripe] 
 years, and brightens our old age' . . . 
 
 'What do you mean'? was the general and impatien 
 enquiry. 
 
 'That Power', Wolfram went on with rising enthu 
 siasm, 'which uplifts earth to heaven and brings dowi 
 heaven to earth; weds soul to soul and affection t( 
 affection ; creates a Divine harmony of mind and a heart 
 kindling happiness ; and makes us "live at once a doublec 
 life and a halved life" a all-fearing, all-conquering, un 
 dying LOVE. 
 
NOTES. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 P. 11. a Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet, Vetus in Novo patet. 
 
 P. 20. a Viz. Buddha's Discourses (Sutras), the 'Discipline' or code of 
 morals (Vinaya), and the metaphysics (Abhidharnia). 
 
 P. 20. b The gastras, karikds, tikas, etc. 
 
 P. 21. a Buddhism had nowhere out of India taken earlier roots than 
 in Ceylon, where it was introduced B. C. 316; but the study of the 
 sacred writings had of late been somewhat neglected. 
 
 P. 21. b Travelling, respectively, in the years 399 414 and 629645. 
 
 P. 22. a The earliest and simplest doctrine is that of the 'Little Ve- 
 hicle'; five or six centuries after Buddha, was compiled the 'Great 
 Vehicle', a renewal enlarged by subtle speculations; and lastly followed 
 the period of Mysticism with its gross idolatry and absurd sorcery. 
 
 P. 22. b Buddhism was publicly adopted in China as a state religion 
 A. D. 61 or 65 by the Emperor Ming-ti. The first Buddhist missionary 
 appeared in China B. C. 217. 
 
 P. 22. c 'The Buddhist Canon in China, as it was settled between the 
 years 67 and 1285 A. D., includes 1440 distinct works, comprising 5586 
 books. But these form only a fractional part of the entire Buddhist 
 literature which is spread throughout the Empire' (8. Beal, A Catena 
 of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese, Preface; comp. p. 2). 
 
 P. 23. a Buddhism 'is now professed', wrote Spence Hardy in 1866, 'at 
 the lowest computation, by three hundred millions of the human race' 
 (Legends and Theories of the Buddhists, Pref.) ; Vassilief (Le Bouddisme, 
 trad, par La Comme p. VI) gives three hundred and forty millions, or 
 at least one fourth of the whole human race. It prevails in the lands 
 from Cashmere to the eastern confines of China, and from Ceylon to the 
 north of Tibet. It is met with also in Tartary, Mongolia, Russia and 
 Sweden. The most recent estimates count 115 millions of Evangelical, 
 195 millions of Roman Catholic, and 86 millions of Greek Christians, or 
 about 396 millions in all. 
 
 P. 23. b 'Of late years there have been evidences of a growing dis- 
 position to receive as truth only the words spoken by Buddha, and to 
 reject all comments, glosses, and explanations' (Hardy 1. c. p. 218). 
 
 P. 23. c See Hardy 1. c. pp. 216, 217, 220. 
 
4 NOTES [pp. 2426]. 
 
 P. 24. a The name Asho-raoco is mentioned in the Khorda-Avesta 
 (XXIX. 97; Spiegel. Avesta, III. 127) among the famous sages whose 
 Fravashi or tutelary genius is glorified. 
 
 P. 24. b The seventy-two threads of the girdle cord correspond with 
 the seventy-two chapters of the Yac.na. In tying the four knots, the 
 Parsee says: 1. There is only one God; 2. The law of Zoroaster is true; 
 3. Zoroaster is the true prophet of God; and 4. Perform good actions 
 and abstain from evil ones, or, I am resolved to do what is good (comp. 
 Spiegel, Avesta, II. pp. xxi, xlix; III. p. 5). 
 
 P. 25. a The number of Parsees in India is stated to be about 150,000, 
 and that of the Parsees in the Persian provinces of Fars and Kerman 
 no more than 7000 or 8000. The census of 1851 brought out the sur- 
 prising fact that the Parsee males in Bombay numbered 68,754, and the 
 females only 41,790, the proportion being nearly seven to four. A still 
 more noteworthy feature disclosed by that census was this that, of the 
 aggregate Parsee population of 110,544 counted in Bombay, no less than 
 61,298, or more than one half, were set down as 'merchants, bankers 
 and brokers', 11,028 as 'writers and accountants', and 1,535 as 'money 
 changers and assayers' which figures strikingly exhibit the commercial 
 bias of the community. The number of 'labourers' was only 41 (comp. 
 Dosabhoy Framjee, The Parsees, 1858, pp. 31. 52 56). 
 
 P. 25. b An instance of Parsee adaptation to Hindooism is the ela- 
 borate ceremony of mooktads performed at the end of each year in 
 honour of the dead; whereas the Parsee Scriptures only require that the 
 last ten days of the year should be spent in acts of charity, prayers, and 
 freedom from worldly pursuits. Again, the law of Zoroaster permits no 
 boy or girl to marry before having attained the fifteenth year; but by 
 their long contact with the Hindoos, who consider it a disgrace for a 
 girl to remain unmarried after her ninth year, the Parsees have been imbued 
 with the same idea, and are anxious to many their daughters at this 
 early age. 
 
 P. 25. c The first objects aimed at by the 'Eahnumai Mazdiasna', i. e. 
 Religious Reform Association, were the prevention of absurdly early 
 marriages and the amalgamation of the two sects of the Shensoys and 
 the far less numerous Kudmis, who differ in no essential point of faith 
 or ritual, but merely in a trivial question of chronology, the former placing 
 the era of Jezdezird, the last king of ancient Persian monarchy, one 
 month earlier than the latter: the consequence of this dispute is the 
 difference of a month in the celebration of the festivals, and its chief 
 importance 'arises from the fact that a Parsee when he prays has to 
 repeat the year, month and day on which he offers his petition' (comp. 
 Dosabhoy Framjee 1. c. pp. 5660, 7678, 274279). 
 
 P. 26. a Comp. Spiegel, Avesta, II. pp. Ixxv Ixxxiii; Dosabhoy Framjee 
 1. c. pp. 242 246, where the titles of the twenty-one original noosk are 
 given both in Zend and Pehlvi. 
 
NOTES [pp. 3539]. 5 
 
 P. 35. a The Pr&djna paramita, i. e. th^ transcendent science, be- 
 longing to the Abhidharma, the third division of the Tripitaka; see 
 supra Notes p. 3 [P. 20 a ]. 
 
 P. 35. b VIII. 15; comp. n. 24; HI. 12, 13; V. 17, 19; VI. 7; IX. 
 79; XI. 710. 
 
 P. 35. C VH. 14; comp. II. 111. 
 
 P. 35. d Buddha is considered to have been born in B. C. 623 and to 
 have died 543, in his eightieth year. 
 
 P. 36. a All these views have been upheld by different scholars, though 
 it is right to add that 'the fifteen fragments and interpolations' are an 
 inference rather than an expressed opinion. On these and all other 
 points of criticism we must refer the reader to the third Part of our 
 'Bible Studies', which will contain a full exposition of the Book of Ec- 
 clesiastes, if life and strength be spared. 
 
 P. 36. b So Wilson in Journ. of Roy. Asiat. Soc. XVI, Art. 13, a chief 
 argument being the fluctuating statements of Buddha's date, which vary 
 from 2420 to 453 B. C.; comp. Spence Hardy } Legends and Theories 
 of the Buddhists, pp. xxxv, 63, 78, 79, 187, 188; also Vassilief, Le 
 Bouddisme, traduit par La Comme, p. 8, who says, though in a somewhat 
 different sense, 'Boudda, on peut dire, n'est pas une personne; c'est aussi 
 un terme on un dogme; . . . ce meme personnage tourne au my the'; 
 comp. p. 9. 
 
 P. 37. a ni. 1921; comp. IX. 5, 10. 
 
 P. 37. b XII. 7. 
 
 P. 37. C H. 14, 15; HI. 19; VIE. 15; VIII. 10, 14; IX. 2, 3, 11, 12. 
 
 P. 38. a VHI. 12, 13; XII. 14; comp. VII. 26; X. 8; XI. 9, 'know 
 thou that for all this God will bring thee into judgment'. 
 
 P. 38. b ll. 13; comp. VII. 11, 12, 19; VIII. 1, 5; IX. 1618, X. 
 2, 10, 12; XH. 11. 
 
 P. 38. C I. 18; comp. vers. 13, 16, 17. 
 
 P. 38. d II. 1416; comp. VI. 8. 
 
 P. 38. e Comp. Aufrecht, Bliithen aus Hindustan, p. 16. 
 
 P. 39. a Comp. Burnouf, Lotus de la bonne Loi, pp. 781 796 ('les 
 dix forces d'un Buddha', securing to him the honorary title of Dagabala), 
 818820; Beal, Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese, p. 191, 
 translation of the 'Sutra of the Forty-two Sections'; Spence Hardy, 'Le- 
 gends and Theories of the Buddhists, pp. 42, 178, 179. The sankhya 
 philosophy of the Hindoos teaches, that power, as derived from know- 
 ledge, is eight-fold: shrinking into a minute form or enlarging to a gi- 
 gantic body, unlimited reach of organs and irresistible will (for inst., 
 sinking into the earth as easily as in water), etc.; see Colebrooke, Essays 
 on the Eeligion and Philosophy of the Hindus, pp. 158, 159, ed. 1858 j 
 see pp. 232 (as soon as that knowledge is attained, past sin is annulled, 
 and future offence precluded), 236 ('the pitris, or shades of progenitors, 
 may be called up by a simple act of the will'). 
 
6 NOTES [pp. 3965]. 
 
 P. 39. b Comp. Koran, XCVI. 4, 5, 'God has taught men how to use 
 the pen; He has put into their minds a ray of science'. 
 
 P. 40. a III. 11. 
 
 P. 59. a Comp. Plessner, Jiidisch-mosaischer Religionsunterricht, p. 102 
 note. 
 
 P. 60. a Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, I. i. 8487, 'Study is like 
 the heaven's glorious sun . . . Small have continual plodders ever won Save 
 base authority from others' books'; 58, 'Ay, that is study's godlike recompense'. 
 
 P. 60. b Virg. Georg. II. 490; comp. Pers. III. 66, Discite . . . et causas 
 cognoscite rerum. 
 
 P. 62. a Comp. Schiller's poems 'Die Gotter Griechenlands', 'Die 
 Kiinstler', etc. 
 
 P. 63. a 'AKySeeg, fia.Ka.psi;, ps7a eoovre, etc. 
 
 P. 63. b AXo} pporoi, II. XXTT. 76; XXIV. 525; Odyss. XI. 19; XII. 
 341; XV. 408; also oifw/Bo/, II. XIII. 569; Od. IV. 197; or Wjyvo/, II. 
 XVII. 445. 
 
 P. 63 c Horn. II. XVII. 446, 447, Ou fj.sv yap rl irov sanv oi'ZvpwTspov 
 avtyoi; IlavTwv, Zoaa rs ya7av SKI nvei'st TS KOCI epirei; Odyss. XVIII. 130 
 135, Q&sv aifibvoTepov yaia rpsfai av^tpu>7roio K. T. X.; comp. II. XXIV. 
 525, 526, *l<; yap eVs/cXcouavTO ^eo) e/Xo2a* fipoToTfft Zueiv a^vvf^svoi^ avroi 
 slai; 531, 532, T H/ $e KB TWV "kvyp&v $uy, XW^TOV s7]Ks, Ka/ 
 sir} $r6va $7av t&yKe. 
 
 P. 63. d Has. Op. et Di. 157-184; comp. also vers. 79 92, "AXXa Is 
 fjivpla \vypa KO.T av^pMTrovg akakyrai, IIXs/Tj fJ.sv yap yaTa 
 
 P. 64. a Comp. Spence Hardy, Legends and Theories of the Buddhists, 
 pp. 16, 159. 
 
 P. 64. Theogn, 425 428, Ilavrcov psv (Jirj (f>vvai iirix&ovi'otaiv apiarw . . . 
 4>uvra $oiru<; wKtara itvkai; 'A'ftao Kspyjaai K. T. X.; comp. Sext. Empir. 
 Hypotyp. HI. 24, . 231; also Bacchylides, Fr. 2, ^varoiyt ^ $vvat 
 <j>epiffTov, My$ as\i'ov npoa&eiv <j)syyo<; K. T. X.; and infra the quotations 
 from Sophocles and Euripides. 
 
 P. 65. a Jer. XX. 1418; Job III. 122; X. 18, 19; Eccl. IV. 2, 3; 
 VII. 1, etc. 
 
 P. 65. b Herod. V. 4; Sbrab. XI. xi. 8, p. 519; Mela II. 2. 
 
 P. 65. c Ewrip. Cresphont. Fr. 452 (Nauck), "E$st yap -qft&f ayXXoyov 
 7ro/ou/*e'vov, Tov <f>vvra ^rpyvsfv si<; Za sp^srai KaKa, Tov ^u ^VOVT KK} 
 TTOVCOV TTSffay/i/yov Xaipovrai; sv^fjiovvrat; SKTTS 'ftnsiv ^o'jttwv; Clem. Alex. Strom. 
 HI. p. 432, ed. Sylburg; comp. Gic. Tusc. I. 48, 115, where these verses 
 are rendered in Latin. 
 
 P. 65. d Apdaavri nc&sTv, rpiyspwv ^tu^o^ ra$s <f>uvst ; Aesch. Coeph. 313, 
 314; comp. Agam. 1564, nc&etv TOV spfcvra, ^/u/i/ov. yap. 
 
 P. 65. e Aesch. Agam. 1327 1329, 'Ico pporeta irpaypar, evrv^ovvra 
 p.sv ^Kia rig v Tps'^sisv, si ^ U(7Tixor, BoXar? vypwyffcov oiroyyoi; taksasv 
 K. r. X. 
 
NOTES [pp. 6568]. 7 
 
 P. 65. f Aesch. Fr. 343, 'fl? oy &;*/ ^avarov e-firtvai Pporot, "Ouirap 
 pupa ruv TroXXwv KUKUV; comp. Prom. 103105, ... TO -ny? 
 
 P. 65. f Soph. Oed. Col. 1225 1227, M^ $\>vai TOV anavra viita Xoyov, 
 TO S 5 , eirst </>v>7, fir/vat Kal&sv o^evjrsp yitei, TroXy Ssvrapov, co rcf^iara. 
 
 P. 65. h Soph. Fr. 860,^11 ^VTJTOV avfyxwv KOI ra\aiirupov y/vo$, 'fl; 
 oyJe'v sffftev TrX^v <JKia7$ eoiKoreg, Eapoq irsptaaov *ffj$ avaorpu(f>ufjisvoi. 
 
 P. 65. 1 op&. Ant. 461, 462, at Se TOW %pwov Upo&ev ^avoy/*c, Kepboi; 
 avr eyw Xs'yco,- Aj. 125, 126, 'O^ow ya^o T^ca? oy^sv ovra? XXo TrX^v Ef&wX' 
 Saomap Z&fjLev 17 /cou^iyv cr/f/av. 
 
 P. 66. a Eurip. Hippol. 207, Atox^v Se pporoiaiv avay/n?; Supplic. 549, 
 550, 'AXX' w ftaTcxtoi, yvwTs Tav^WTrcov KOCKU, 7raXa/<7j&co&' ^wv o /S/o$ AC. T. X. 
 
 P. 66. ^ Eurip. Fr. 813, lx OVTe 5 pvpiuv x^ KCCKWV. 
 
 P. 66. c Eurip. Hippol. 189 197, Hag S'oSy^o? /S'o$ av^coffcov Koi* 
 eyn TTOVCOV avairavffi$ K. r. X. 
 
 P. 66. d Comp. Clem. Alex. Strom. III. p. 432, ed. Sylburg; Stob. Eel. 
 phys. I. 2, p. 8. ed Meineke, the fine hymn of Cleanthes, 'AXXa Zsy . . . 
 'Av^0co7roy pvw airatpoavvys affo Xuy^?, "Hv av, irarsp, OK&ayov ^vyfii; TTO, 
 o? e Kvpyyat rvupyi; K. T. X. 
 
 P. 66. e Find. Pyth. HE. 3638; VIII. 135, 136, 'Rvaiupoi, rl %s rig; rt 
 Xw TIS; GKiat; ovap y Av>puiro<;; comp. Nem. VI. 1 11. Shakesp. Macbeth, V. 
 'Life is but a walking shadow' etc.; Tempest, IV. i. 156, 157, 'We are 
 such stuff as dreams are made on' etc.; Bang Lear, III. iv. Ill 113, 
 'Is man no more than this? . . . unaccomodated man is no more but such 
 a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art'. 
 
 P. 66. f Find. Frg. 205 Bergk., 'Oners ^eog avbp} wppa irspty, Hpo&e 
 jtisXa/vav Kap^iav saTv^sXt^ev. 
 
 P. 66. S0v oe ^ e0 i <fn\wy enT^v^ffKsi veo?. 
 
 P. 66. h Herod. I. 31; comp. Cic. Tusc. I. 47, . 113. 
 
 P. 66. * Cic. Tusc. I. 47, 114, petiverunt mercedem . . . quod esset 
 optumum homini; Plut. Consol. ad Apollon. c. 14 (who mentions the 
 seventh instead of the third day); comp. Horn. Hymn. Apoll. 295 
 299 (II. 117121, ed. Baumeister); Strabo, IX. iii. 9, p. 421; Pausan. 
 IX. xxxvii. 3. 
 
 P. 66. k Plut. 1. c. 
 
 P. 67. a Wisd. IV. 10, 13, 14. 
 
 P. 68. a Herod. VII. 46, o JJLSV &VTO; nofoepyt; soyffiy? ryj<; ZOOTJI; Kara(j>v^ 
 atpsTcoraTT] TU av^pWTrw ysyova, 6 & &go$ yXw/cuv y*ya? TOV a/cova <j)^9vspo^ iv 
 avru evpicfKerat e'cov. 
 
 P. 68. b Ib. I. 32, liriffTapevov fie TO ^stov nav s'ov <f>^ovspov re KOU Tapa- 
 %ca8$ K. T. X.; III. 40 (Amasis addressing Polycrates), ^fto; Se ae oat. /wyaXa* 
 evTV%iat oy/f apeffKOvyi, eirtyTaft.evu) TO ^sTov co$ eon <ffovep6v K. T. X.; VII. 
 10, opSi; TO. ImspexovTa %uet co KspavvoT o ^o? oy^s ea ^avra^sa^ai . . . 
 fyikeei yap o ^505 Ta vireps'^ovrot iravra xutkvstv . . . w yap ia tfrpoveeiv 
 o ^o; aXXov 17 acovriv. 
 
8 NOTES [pp. 68, 69]. 
 
 P. 68. c Ib. I. 5. TTJV av^pUTrrji^v wv 3mstafjt.svQ(; ev$ai/Jt.ovb]v ou^a/ia e'v 
 TWTW j&cevouaav K. r. X.; 32, o&Vcc wv, cc Kpo7as, irav sari av&puirog uvpfopy, . .. 
 GKQTTSSIV s 3^077 ffavToj ^Tj/zaro^ T^V TeXsuT^v, /cvj ttiTojSriUBTai, 7roXXo?j/ yap 
 $y vno$sa/; oX/Sov o &so irp<>ppi&v$ avsarps^s; 207 (Croesus to Cyrus), 
 s/ Ss eyvuKtzg, on av&pwirog Kai av sl<; . . . SKSIVQ irpwrov [Ji.o&e, w KVK\QI; TWV 
 av&puirrjiuv sari irpyyfJiaTcov K. r. X.; comp. Soph. Oed. B,. 1527 1529, 
 "Stars &v^rov OVT sKsivrjv ryv reXsyra/av /S?7v 5 H/ispv /f. T. X.; Eurip. Suppl. 
 269, 270, TWV ya/> ev fiporoii; QVK SUTIV ovdsv S/ rs'Xou? r&au/ioyovv; Ovz'd, 
 Metam. III. 135 137, dicique beatus Ante obitum nemo etc.; Plut. 
 Mar. c. 45, OVK sari vovv I'^ovroj av^poi; STI ry Tv%y KHSTSVSIV eavrov. 
 
 P. 68. d Comp. Plat. Eep. II. 18, p. 379, ou/coOv aya&o's oys ^eog . . . 
 Kai TWV ftev aya^wv ouev aXXov ahioiTeoy, TWV ^e KKKUV XX' TT Se? 
 CijTerv T curia, XX' ou TOV ^-eov; etc. 
 
 P. 68. e Comp. /SaZZ. Jug. 104, ignari rerum humanarum, quae fluxae 
 et mobiles in advorsa semper mutantur; Liv. XXX. 30, maximae cuique 
 fortunae minime credendum est . . . Simul parta et sperata decora unius 
 horae fortuna evertere potest; 31, humanae infirmitatis memini et vim 
 fortunae reputo et omnia quaecumque agimus subjecta esse mille casibus 
 scio ; Valer. Max. VI. ix. 7 ext., caduca nimium et fragilia puerilibusque 
 consentanea crepundiis sunt ista quae vires atque opes humanae vocan- 
 tur etc.; Curt. IV. 14 (53), breves et mutabiles vices rerum sunt et 
 fortuna nunquam simpliciter indulget; V. 8 (25), equidem (Darius) quam 
 versabilis fortuna sit, documentum ipse sum ; Sen. Epist. 91, . 10, om- 
 nium istarum civitatum etc.; 101, . 1, omnis dies, omnis hora quam 
 nihil simus ostendit et . . . admonet fragilitatis oblitos; Agam. 928, 
 nulla longi temporis felicitas; Plant. Cistell. I. iii. 46, Ut sunt humana, 
 nihil est perpetuum datum; Terent. Hecyr. III. iii. 46, fortuna, ut 
 nunquam perpetuo es data; Eunuch. II. ii. 45, Omnium rerum, heus, 
 vicissitude est; HOT. Od. IV. vii. 17, Quis scit an adjiciant etc.; I. xi. 
 8, carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero; Sat. II. vi. 97, Vive 
 memor, quam sis aevi brevis; Ovid, Ex Pont. IV. iii. 35, 36, Omnia sunt 
 hominum tenui pendentia filo, Et subito casu quae valuere ruunt ; Trist. 
 III. vii. 41, 42, Nempe dat id cuicunque h'bet fortuna rapitque, Irus et 
 est subito, qui modo Croesus erat; P. Syr. Sentent. 347, Levis est fortuna, 
 cito reposcit quae dedit. 
 
 P. 68. f Horn. II. vi. 146 149, On? irep ^>yXXwv yBvey, TO/T? ^ } avtipuv 
 K. T. X. etc.; comp. M. Aurel. X. 34. 
 
 P. 69. a lsa. xl. 68; comp. Ps. cii. 12; ciii. 15 18; Job xiv. 2; 
 Sir. xiv. 18; James I. 10, 11; 1 Pet. I. 24, 25, etc. 
 
 P. 69. b Emped. ap. Clem. Alex. Strom. III. p. 432, T Ii TTOTTO/ 
 ^viyTwv y/vo, w ^yaavoXjSov, Otuv g eptiwv SK TS ffTova^wv sysvsa^e. 
 
 P. 69. c Plat. Phaed. c. 9, p. 64 A, oaoi Tvy%avovaiv op^twi; 
 <j)t\oaQ<l>j<x$ . . . oy&ev XXo avroi sirirrj^evovffiv y ociro^tvr;aKstv re xai 
 
 P. 69. d Coloss. m. 3; comp. II. 20; Bom. VI. 2; Gal. II. 20, 'I am 
 crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live', etc.; 1 Cor. XV. 31, 'I die daily'. 
 
NOTES [pp. 7072]. 9 
 
 P. 70. a Comp. Virg. Aen. vi. 731, 732, quantum non noxia corpora 
 tardant Terrenique hebetant artus moribundaque membra; etc. 
 
 P. 70. b Comp. Cic. Tusc. I. 31, . 75, referring to a corresponding 
 remark of Plato (Phaed. c. 12, p. 67 D, TO ^taXsny^a auro TOUTO tan TWV 
 '///.oj9 (/>>, Xuaj KO.} %wpi<j[jLQi; ^vxys onro aco/daro?), 'tota enim philosophorum 
 vita . . . commentatio mortis est : nam quid aliud agimus, cum a voluptate, 
 id est a corpore . . . sevocamus animum, nisi animum . . . secum esse 
 cogimus; secernere autem a corpore animum ecquidnam aliud est mori 
 discere'? etc.; comp. also Plato, Theaet. c. 25, p. 176 B, 'We must strive 
 as speedily as we can to flee hence thither (1AM* hstas); this flight 
 consists in the utmost possible resemblance to God' (<pvfrj $s opoiuaii; 
 ,ew K. T. X.); Senec. Ad Marc. c. 23, inde est quod Platon exclamat: 
 sapientis animum totum in mortem prominere, hoc velle, hoc meditari, 
 hac semper cupidine ferri in exteriora tendentem. 
 
 P. 70. c With much better reason Humphrey might have adduced a 
 preceding passage in Plato's Phaedo, where Socrates admits that the 
 superiority of death over life is the only truth universally accepted by 
 all men alike (c. 6, p. 62 A, TOWTO J/.QVOV TWV aXXcov TTVTCOV 7rXovv sort 
 K. r. X.); but he probably supposed that it must also be understood in 
 the sense explained by Canon Mortimer; and it is indeed to be taken 
 in connection with the doctrine of Immortality, as the context proves. 
 
 P. 70. d Plat. Axioch. 8 ; comp. Wolf in loc. 
 
 P. 71. a Viz. Horn. II. xiv. 446. 447; xxiv. 525, 526; Eurip. Fr. 
 Cresphont., supra Notes p. 6 [P. 65 c ]. He adds Horn. Od. xv. 244 246, 
 stating that Amphiaraus, though dearly loved by Zeus and Apollo, 'did 
 not reach the threshold of old age' (QV$ "KSTQ yypaoi; oi/dov), and leaving 
 it to be inferred that the best gift of their favour was his early death. 
 
 P. 71. b The writer expresses this idea quaintly (I. c. . 9): 'Should 
 a person not pay, as a debt, his life rather quickly, Nature, like a 
 usurer, comes forward and takes as a pledge from one his eye-sight, 
 from another his hearing, and frequently both ; and should he still delay, 
 she brings on a paralysis or a mutilation or distortion of limbs', etc. 
 
 P. 71. c L. c. . 7, Trapa ocKapij Stsfpa^a TOV j8/ov. 
 
 P. 71. d Plato's contemporary, the sophist Alcidamas, wrote a pan- 
 egyric on Death 'consisting of an enumeration of human ills' (Gic. Tusc. 
 I. 48, . 116, quae constat ex enumeratione humanorum malorum). 
 
 P. 72. a Sir. xl. 2830. 
 
 P. 72. b Comp. Diog. Laert. VI. i. 6, 13. According to some an- 
 cient authorities, they bore the name of Cynics from the gymnasium 
 Cynosarges, where Antisthenes delivered his discourses. Diogenes himself 
 said that he was called dog because 'he fawned upon those who gave 
 him anything, barked at those who gave him nothing, and bit the wicked' 
 (ibid. VI. ii. 6, 60); which is, of course, no explanation of the origin 
 of the name but a witty or sarcastic interpretation of it. The same ap- 
 plies to the remark that Antisthenes, who by his severity repelled many 
 
10 NOTES [pp. 7275]. 
 
 pupils, was 'a dog biting people's minds with sharp sayings' (&<JTS Sa/cs2v 
 KpetMip p-fjpaoN; ib. VI. i. 10, 19). 
 
 P. 72. c Ib. VI. ii. 11, 77, A/oysvT??, Zavog yo'vo?, ovptxviog re KVUV, in 
 a poem of Cercidas. 
 
 P. 72. d Ib. . 32, 38. 
 
 P. 73. a On the meaning of these names see Eug. Burnouf, Introductior 
 a 1'histoire du Buddhisme Indien, pp. 70, 71, 74, 77, 155; Le Lotus d( 
 la bonne Loi, pp. 287, 781 296; etc. 
 
 P. 73. b Comp. Max Mutter, Buddhism and Buddhist Pilgrims, p. 49 
 
 P. 73. c Comp. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, Le Bouddha et sa Religion 
 p. 88; see infra Chapt. X. 
 
 P. 73. d See Journ. of Eoy. Asiat. Soc. XIX. 407 sqq. 
 
 P. 74. a See Spence Hardy, Legends and Theories of the Buddhists 
 pp. vi, viii (referring to the antagonism between the missionaries am 
 the Buddhist priests in Ceylon), xxxiv (Farrar, Bampton Lectures) 
 xli (Schlagintweit, Buddhists in Tibet), xlviii; Vassilief, Le Boud 
 disme, trad, par La Comme, p. 82. 
 
 P. 74. b Comp. Diog. Laert. VI. ii. 2, 6, 2224, 3234, 36, 4t 
 58, 61, 69, etc. 
 
 P. 74. c 1 Cor. III. 16, OVK o^ars or/ vaog ^sov ears K. r. X.; VI. Ii 
 TJ OVK oftaTs on TO pupa vpwv vtxog TOV e'v vjtiv ay/ou ffvev/*aTO fartv K. r. X 
 2 Cor. VI. 16; John II. 21; Eph. II. 21, 22; comp. Shakesp. Hamlei 
 I. iii. 12; etc. 
 
 P. 74. d Plato, Phaedo, c. 6, p. 62 B, co? sv TIVI $pov<f)x eV/zsv oi v 
 ^OCOTTO/; Cratyl. c. 17, p. 400 B, KOI yap a^iia. rtvst; Qaaiv avro elvai rr, 
 yvxtfi;, co? rs^apfievys e'v TW vvv irapovrf; which designation was choser 
 wg ^'IKY,V ^^OUJT?? Tijt; $vffl<;; compare the long diatribe against the body i: 
 Plato, Phaed. cc. 9 sqq.; also Senec. Epist. 65, 1622, corpus ho 
 animi pondus ac poena est etc.; Sext. Empiric. Hypotyp. III. 24, 230 
 Clem. Alex. Strom. III. p. 433, ed. Sylburg; etc. 
 
 . P. 74. e Comp. Epictet. Enchir. I. 19, ^yx/ov el pasrafrv veKpiv; Senet 
 Epist. 120, 17, at nos corpus tarn putre sortiti; M. Aurel. VI. 41; et< 
 
 P. 74. f Comp. Spence Hardy 1. c. p. xxxvi. 
 
 P. 74. S Diog. Laert. VI. ii. 6, 72, 73. 
 
 P. 75. a Ib. VI. i. 4, 7, 8 (opu <jov $ia TOU T^^COVO? -nyv </>/Xo^o|/v 
 ii. 4, 6, 2426, 40, 41, 53, 58. 
 
 P- 75. b Ib. VI. ii. 1, 6, 20, 56. 
 
 P. 75. c Ib. VI. i. 4, 3, naviiyv jaaXXov 17 Tya^/ijv, was a saying < 
 Antisthenes. 
 
 P. 75. d Ib. VI. ii. 6, 35, rovg TrXs/arow? eksys irapa. 
 
 P. 75. e Xuxparris paivopevos P. 75. f Ib. VI. ii. 8. 
 
 P. 75. S Ib. VI. ii. 6, 63. 
 
 P. 75. h Ib. 38, slu^-si Ss \sysiv rag rpayiKag apag avrw 
 sivai youv "Airdkig, o//co^, irarpi^g sarspfjiJLsvo^ nTco^o^ ffXav^Tiy?, |8/ov 
 
r,, 
 
 NOTES [pp. 7685]. 
 
 P. 76. a Comp. on the other hand, M. Aur. X. 8, -elvui rr,v 
 ra ffVKys irotovyav, TOV $e xwa TO. KWO;. . . . TOV e av^puirov r 
 
 P. 77. a ShaTcesp. Loves Labour's Lost, I. i. 810, 31, 32, 72, 73, 
 152, 153; comp. 1. 25, 'The mind shall banquet, though the body pine'. 
 
 P. 78. a D. L. I. c. VI. ii. 6, 37, 72; comp. Lucian, Cynicus, passim. 
 
 P. 78. b Senec. De Tranq. Anim. c. 8, 5, si quis de felicitate Diogenis 
 dubitat etc. 
 
 P. 78. c Diog. Laert. 1. c. 71. 
 
 P. 78. d Ibid. 44; they hence called the stomach 'the charybdis of 
 life', ibid. 51. 
 
 P. 79. a Ib. 58. P. 79. b Ib. 55, 56. 
 
 P. 79. c Ib. VI. i. 10, 19, MTO 0/Xofro/a$. 
 
 P. 79. d IZ>. VI. ii. 11, 76, 77. Diogenes is supposed to have lived 
 from B. C. 414 to 324. 
 
 P. 79. e Ib. VI. i. 5, 1114. Avrapmi TTJV apsrr,v K. r. X. 
 sv TOI/; avrcav avakuroi/; \oyiy /JLOI<;. 
 
 P. 79. f Ib. VI. i. 9; ii. 6, 12, 71, 80. Antisthenes was so prolific 
 
 a writer that Timon called him 'the universal chatterer* 
 
 , ib. VI. i. 9, 18). 
 P. 80. a Aristot. Polit. I. 25. P. 80. b Di. La. VII. ii. 6, 29. 
 P. 80. c Ib. VI. ii. 6, 10, 11, 43, 75, 78, TijpaoKei KOI ^a\K^ wro 
 , XX ffov OUT/ KuSo? o iras alwv, A/oysvs?, Kc&eke'i. Mouvo? sire} fiiQTat; 
 
 ^av s^si^ai; QvaroTg, K<XI Zwrji; oJftov sXa^yOorarav. 
 P. 82. a Comp. Senec. Ad Helv. c. 8, duo quae pulcherrima sunt se- 
 quentur, natura communis et propria virtus; . . . undecunque ex aequo 
 ad coelum erigitur acies etc. 
 
 P. 82. b Comp. Diog. Laert. VI. ii. 6, 43, psra Xaipwvsiav au 
 rpoi; <I>/Xr7rov, KOU apurq'&eli; ri/; S"T], KaraaTCOTro?, 
 ) see also Epictet. Disp. I. 24, TOUTS'OT/V o?b$ ^s7 
 P. 83. a Aexipgy^at %st avrov cc$ ovov, KUI S//3ojttevov Qikai 
 
 wg irarspa iravruv, cog S?X^ov,- Epictet. Disp. III. 22, p. 315 
 ed. Wolf. 
 
 P. 84. a Comp. also the beautiful passage ibid. c. 24, 'Did Diogenes 
 
 love no one, he who was of such gentleness and humanity that for the 
 
 common weal of mankind he cheerfully took upon himself so many toils 
 
 and sufferings? But how did he love? As it behoved the minister of 
 
 Zeus at the same time yearning for the welfare of men and obedient 
 
 to the behests of God. Therefore to him every land was his country' etc. 
 
 P. 84. b Comp. Epictet. Enchirid. c. 24, 4, 'If you train others to 
 
 be good and honourable citizens, are you not useful to your country'? 
 
 P. 85. a 'Ayou $g pea Zsu, KOU av ye TJ IlsTrpwfJisvT}. E/ ravry To7$ &ffO/ ^>/Xov, 
 
 ravry yevfa^-w ; comp. Enchirid. c. 53. 
 
 P. 85. b Epictet. Disp. III. 22; comp. H. 19; IV. 8. The value and 
 importance of this grand discourse of Epictetus have often been ack- 
 nowledged. 'One feels as it were a frenzy of virtue and of piety, in 
 
12 NOTES [pp. 8588]. 
 
 which the plenitude of a great heart tumultuously precipitates a torrer 
 of holy thoughts' (M. Martha, quoted by Farrar, Seekers after G-oc 
 p. 255). See also Wieland, Nachlass des Diogenes von Sinope, Vorbericb 
 des Herausgebers, vol. xix, ed. Leipzig 1839. 
 
 P. 85. c lsai. LIL 13 LIII. 12; 1 Pet. H. 2125, etc. etc. Comj 
 Lucan, Pharsal. II. 306 313, where Cato says: '0 utinam coelique dei 
 Erebique liceret Hoc caput in cunctas damnatum exponere poenas; . . 
 Hie redimat sanguis populos, hac caede luatur, Quidquid Romani meruerur 
 pendere mores'. 
 
 P. 86. a Cic. Nat. Deor. I. 13, 32, atque etiam Antisthenes in eo libi 
 qui Physicus inscribitur, populares deos multos, naturalem unum ess 
 dicens etc. 
 
 P. 87. a Comp. Cic. De Fin. III. 22, 74, verum admirabilis composit: 
 disciplinae incredibilisque me rerum ordo traxit, quern, per deos in 
 mortales! nonne miraris? . . . quid non sic aliud ex alio nectitur ut, 
 unam literam moveris, labent omnia? Nee tamen quicquam est, quc 
 moveri possit. 
 
 P. 87. b Zenodotus praised Zeno for having taught 'a manly doctrin 
 (Dioff. Laert. VII. i. 26, 30, apasva yap Xo'yov svpsg; comp. Cic. Tus 
 III. 10, 22, forti et ut ita dicam virili utuntur ratione atque sententi; 
 
 P. 87. c Dioff. Laert. VI. ii. 4, 27, civSpag pey ot^a/iou, TrcwSa? g 
 AaKsStxiftovt ; but comp. ibid. VI. 59: returning from Sparta to Athei 
 he said he came SK rrji; otv^pwviTibog sic, rrjv yvvaiKioviTiv. 
 
 P. 87. d Ut verear ne homini nihil sit non malum aliud, certe i 
 nihil bonum aliud potius. 
 
 P. 87. e A malis igitur mors abducit, non a bonis, verum si quaerimi 
 
 P. 87. f Haec quidem vita mors est quam lamentari possem si liber< 
 
 P. 87. % The work alluded to is the lost treatise ; De Consolation 
 written by Cicero, in imitation of Grantor's Hspi Tre-Aou?, after the dea 
 of his daughter Tullia, B. C. 45; comp. Tusc. I. 26, 31, 34, 6 
 76, 83. 
 
 P. 88. a Senec. Ad Marc. 11, 1, quid opus est partes deflere, tc 
 flebilis vita est; 22, 1, felicissimis mors optanda est; Here. fur. 4( 
 Quemcunque miserum videris, hominem scias; comp. Ad Marc. 11, 
 Quid est homo? quodlibet quassum vas et quodlibet fragile jactat 
 19, 5, Mors dolorum omnium exsolutio est et finis; and esp. Epist 
 91, etc. 
 
 P. 88. b M. Aur. E/$ eauro'v, VIII. 19, au ovv Kpo/; TI; TO ffieo&cu; 
 si ave%sTat 7] svvoia. 
 
 P. 88. c M. Aur. loco citato XII. 27, K7rvos KOU CTTTO^O; / 
 
 P. 88. d Ib. H. 17. P. 88. e Ib. V. 10. 
 
 P. 88. f Ib. V. 33. otve&vpiaots a$ />TO$; comp. III. 3; VI. i 
 
 VIII. 24, 07ro2oy <joi (frcu'vsTat TO Xoufff^-J, s'kaiov, //ow?, pvjcoe, v$wp yXo/wc 
 TO/OVTOV TTV fJispog TOW j8/ou KOU nav viroKei'fJievQV ; XI. 
 
NOTES pp. [88-91]. 13 
 
 lav 77^77 (77 ^UX7) airo\v^vai %sy TOW awparoi;, KUI yroi yfisy^fffvai, 
 iJYai, 77 yvpfisivai ; XII. 5; etc. 
 
 P. 88. * PUn. Nat. Hist. VII. 19 or 18. 
 
 P. 89. a Very characteristic was the wish, which Diogenes is said to 
 have expressed, to be buried lying on his face, because, he was certain, 
 everything in Greece would soon be turned upside down (Diog. Laert. 
 VII. ii. 6, 31, 32). 
 
 P. 89. b The wise man, this was the usual complaint, finds nowhere 
 a state which satisfies him; see e. g. Senec. De Otio, cc. 7, 8, 'e lege 
 Chrysippi vivere otioso licet, non dico ut otium patiatur, sed ut eligat . . . 
 Negant nostri sapientem ad quamlibet rempublicam accessurum ... Si 
 percensere singulas voluero, nullam inveniam, quae sapientem aut quam 
 sapiens pati possit'; De Tranq. Anim. I. 10, 'promptus, compositus sequor 
 Zenona, Cleanthem, Chrysippum, quorum tamen nemo ad rempublicam 
 accessit et nemo non misit'; and even M. Aurel. IX. 29, co$ SVTS\TJ %s Kai 
 ra irokiTiKa ravra KOI, oferai, <f>ikoyv(f>u$ TtpaKTiKa a'&pcairia, j&cywv 
 psora; IV. 3. 
 
 P. 89. c Bruno Bauer, Christus und die Caesaren, p. 23; comp. Zeller, 
 Vortrage und Abhandlungen, I. 82, 97 (ed. 1865). 
 
 P. 89. d Senec. De Provid. c. 5, 9, ignis aurum probat, miseria fortes 
 viros; comp. Sir. II. 5, or/ sv irvpi SoKipaZeTat XP V S> Ka " av^puwot SSKTQ} 
 s'v KafjLivu rairstvuaeui; ; 1 Cor. III. 13; 1 Pet. I. 6, 7; also Ovid, Trist. 
 I. v. 25, 'Scilicet ut fulvum spectatur in ignibus aurum', etc. 
 
 P. 89. e Matt. V. 4, 1012; VII. 13; X. 38, 39; comp. Luke VI. 
 2023; 2 Tim. III. 12, 'all that will live godly in Christ shaU suffer 
 persecution'. 
 
 P. 89. f Sen. De Provid. cc. 1, 5, 6 ; 3, 3; Epist. 67, 14 (see 
 Luke VI. 2426; Rom. V. 3, 4; 1 Cor. XI. 32; Hebr. XII. 511; 
 James I. 2, 3; Kev. III. 19; also Ps. XCIV. 12; Prov. HI. 11, 12; 
 Job V. 17; and Isai. X. 5; Hab. I. 12.); comp. Sen. De Provid. c. 2, 
 4, marcet sine adversario virtus; c. 4, 3, 4, miserum te judico, 
 quod nunquam fuisti miser: G-audent magni viri aliquando rebus ad- 
 versis non aliter quam fortes milites bellis: calamitas virtutis occasio 
 est; etc. 
 
 P. 90. a Comp. Bible Studies, II. pp. 308322. 
 
 P. 90. b Senec. De Tranquill. Anim. c. 4, 4. 
 
 P. 90. c Senec. De Ira, H. 31, 7. Comp. Rom. XII. 4, 5; 1 Cor. 
 VI. 15; XII. 12 27, where Paul very elaborately carries out the same 
 simile (KO&omsp yap TO aoo/ia sv s'ar/v Kai ^3X77 TroXXa e%et K. r. X. . . . 'E 
 av stiry 6 irovi;, QTI OUK sljjii ysip K. T. X). An eastern poet writes : 'Oh, ye 
 that are born of woman! Are you not all members of one body? Is 
 ever one limb in pain without the whole body feeling discomfort? If 
 men's woes do not touch thee, you must not bear the name of man' 
 (Ruckert, Erbauliches und Beschauliches aus dem Morgenland, I. 141). 
 
 P. 91. a Senec. Epist. 95, 51, 52. 
 
14 NOTES [pp. 9193]. 
 
 P. 91. b Senec. De Otio, c. 4, 31. 
 
 P. 91. c Senec. Epist. 68, 2. 
 
 P. 91. d De Hemed. c. 8. Comp. Sen. De Vit. Beat. c. 20, 5, pa 
 triam meam esse mundum sciam et praesides deos; Ad Helv. c. 9, 7 
 omnem locum sapient! viro patriam esse; Epist. 102, 21, patria es 
 illi quodcunque suprema et universa circuitu suo cingit, hoc omne cor 
 vexum intra quod jacent maria cum terris, etc. 
 
 P. 91. e M. Aurel. VI. 36. P. 91. f M. Aurel. IX. 13. 
 
 P. 91. 8 M. Aurel. XL 8. 
 
 P. 91. M. Aur. X. 21, X/yco ouv ru> Koafjiu Zri aot avvspw, based upo 
 the words of Euripides, 'E^oa ph opfipov ya7a, and'E/sa Se 6 aspvog afar, 
 (comp. Arist. Eth. Nic. VIII. 1, 'Epav [isv tftfipw yaTav ^pav^siuav). 
 
 P. 91. * M. Aur. IV. 23. 
 
 P. 91. k M Aur. XII. 26. Comp. M. Aur. H. 1; III. 16; IV. 4 
 VI. 44, 54 ('that which is not good for the hive is not good for tl 
 bee', TO ru> apyvsi py avfji<f>spQv, olds ry fteXiayy ffvpfa'psi) ; VII. 9; VII 
 34, 59 ('men are created for each other; therefore, teach them c 
 bear with them') ; IX. 9, ('you will more easily find an earthy substanc 
 unconnected with any other earthy substance, than a man entirely di i 
 sociated from men'); X. 6 ('I am intimately connected with parts th? 
 are of the same kind with myself), 15; XI. 18; Epict. Disp. I. 9, et 
 
 P. 91. ] Cic. Legg. I. 7, . 23, ut jam universus hie mundus ur 
 ci vitas sit communis deorum atque hominum existimanda; Nat. Deor. I 
 62, 154, est enim mundus quasi communis deorum atque hominiu 
 domus aut urbs utrorumque; De Fin. III. 19, 64, mundum autei 
 censent regi numine deorum, . . . et unumquemque nostrum ejus mum 
 esse partem, ex quo illud natura consequi ut communem utilitatem nostrs 
 anteponamus; ibid. 63, ex hoc nascitur ut etiam communis hominiu 
 inter homines naturalis sit commendatio, ut oporteat hominem ab homir 
 ob id ipsum quod homo sit non alienum videri. 
 
 P. 92. a Plut. De Alex. Virt. s. Fortit. I. 6, KO,} M $ KO\V 
 TOV . . . Z^vcovo? sig sv TOVTO UVVTSIVSI Ks<j>a\aiov, tva 
 
 rag av^oco7roy f t ywf/.s'&a ^r^ra.^ KO.} itokiraq, sJq e fiiog y KCU 
 aye'kTji; yvvvofjuv vopw KOIVU crvvrpefo/Jisvirji; comp. John X. 16, 'and the] 
 shall be one fold and one shepherd' (/*/ Tro^cviy, sic, irot^v). We can hei 
 only refer to the antagonism of this saying of Christ with other declar. 
 tions in which he limits his mission to the Jews; see infra ch. IV. 
 
 P. 92. b Plut. Adv. Stoic, c. 22, o/' Kara, ryv oiKOVftevyv <TO$O/. 
 
 P. 92. c Eccl. I. 18; comp. VII. 16, 'Be not righteous over much, n< 
 show thyself wise'. 
 
 P. 92. d 2 Cor. VTI. 10, TJ yap Kara ^sov XUTTT? K. r. X. 
 
 P. 92. e Pope, Essay on Man, II. 101104. 
 
 P. 93. a Epict. Enchir. c. 12, 1, Kpsiaaov $e TOV iraffia KUKQV slvai 
 as 
 
NOTES [pp. 93-96]. 15 
 
 P. 93. b Enchir. cc. 3, 18, 26; Disp. III. 8, o v'tog air&avs- TI ^ 
 
 o v/o 
 
 P. 93. c Enchir. C. 16, irpoaaxe PSVTOI, /JLTJ KOI facc^sv 
 
 P. 93. d Enchir. c. 33, 10. 
 
 P. 93. e Lactant. Instit. VI. xiv. 710, propositum arrogans et quasi 
 furiosum, . . . se putant mederi, et eniti posse contra vim rationemque 
 naturae. 
 
 P. 93. f Shakesp. Macbeth, IV. iii. 219221. 
 
 P. 93. Eurip. Orest. 140, 27ya., aTya, Xenrov wos; comp. Diog. Laert. 
 Vn. v. 4, 172. 
 
 P. 94. a Comp. Koran, Sur. XLIH init., and Wahl in loc. The 
 'Preserved Table' (J^A-o. -H ^yJ\) is also caUed 'The Mother of the 
 Book' (i^lXXJl 1), being the supposed source of the Koran; Ruckert, 
 Erbauliches und Beschauliches aus dem Morgenland, I. 155. See G. Weil, 
 Mohammed der Prophet, p. 399; A. Sprenger, Leben und Lehre des 
 Mohammed, n. 308 ; Barth. St. Hilaire, Mahomet et le Goran, pp. 206 
 208, 'Je ne nie pas que le fatalisme ne puisse etre repandu dans les 
 populations mohametans; mais ce n'est pas leur livre reh'gieux qui le 
 leur impose . . . On peut douter d'ailleurs, que le fatalisme aille aussi 
 loin qu'on le dit, meme dans ces ames fletries' etc. Like the Moham- 
 medans, the Hindoos advise: 'Man should not be remiss in his labours; 
 the success of a work depends both on fate and man's efforts' ; and more 
 decidedly: 'Weaklings laud fate, not man's labour; while heroes van- 
 quish fate by unceasing exertion' (comp. 0. BohtUngk, Indische Spriiche, 
 pp. 83, 88). 
 
 P. 94. b Joseph. Ant. XIIT. v. 9, Travrcov TT^V eipappevyv Kvptav . . . a} 
 fttfisv 6 fjiij Kar eWvi;? i^^ov av^owffo/? airavra ; but comp. XVIII. i. 5, 
 sir} ftsv t3u Karaknre'iv <f)ike7 TO. Travrcx. 
 
 P. 94. c Antiqq. XHT. v. 9. 
 
 P. 95. a Comp. Bell. Jud. II. viii. 14, 'The Pharisees ascribe all to 
 fate and to God, and yet maintain that our actions, whether right or 
 wrong, are mainly in our power, although fate co-operates (/Joij^rv) in 
 every one of them' a vague compromise, or, as he himself says in another 
 passage (Ant. XVIII. i. 3), a Kpaan; which simply enunciates the dif- 
 ficulty without elucidating it. 
 
 P. 95. b Deut. XXX. 15, 19; comp. XI. 2628; Gen. IV. 7; Isai. 
 LVI. 4; LXVI. 3, etc. See Bible Studies, I. 118. 
 
 P. 95. c Talm Berach. 33 b , D'Dtf fWPD ^H D^Dff H-Q ^DD. 
 
 P. 95. d Yalk. Shim. Job 894. P. 95. e Deut. V. 26 (29). 
 
 P. 95. f Sir. XV. 1120; comp. XVII. 6, 7. 
 
 P. 96. a Sir. XVI. 15; 2 Sam. XXIV. 1; 1 Chr. XXI. 1; Isa. VL 
 10; see infra. 
 
 P. 96. b See P. v. Bohlen, Die Spriiche des Bhartriharis, Aus dem 
 Sanskrit metrisch ubertragen, p. 62. This faculty of the flamingo of 
 
16 NOTES [pp. 96, 97]. 
 
 sucking the milk out of the water, is often referred to, so e. g. also ir 
 the Indian saying, 'In the study of grammar, it is advisable to pass bj 
 what is unimportant and only to attend to what in essential, as tht 
 flamingo draws the milk from the water' (0. Bohtlingk, Indischt 
 Spriiche, p. 6). 
 
 P. 96. c Dioff. Laert. VII. i. 19, 23. More humerous are the Arabic 
 poet's lines: 'I do drink wine, as every wise man does, And readily th( 
 Lord grants me His pardon: From aye He knew that I would wine im 
 bibe; Hence if I did not drink, God would be ignorant' (Omar Chiam 
 in GKinsburg's Geist des Orients, p. 193). Seneca has the aphorism 
 'Nemo fit fato nocens' (Oedip. 1019); and writes, 'Erras si existima 
 nobiscum vitia nasci; supervenerunt, ingesta sunt' (Ep. 94, 55). Plu 
 tarch (De Stoic. Eepugn. c. 34), by confounding the natural event 
 with the actions of men, easily convicts Chrysippus of absurdity; bt 
 this teacher clearly says that 'God punishes vice' (1. c. c. 35; comp. 4( 
 47, 'without our own free consent auvyKaTa^eru^ we neither act nc 
 take any resolution'); comp. Pint. De Placit. philos. I. 27, 28, 'Fate i 
 a predestined concatenation of causes, in which the free will of man 
 also included, so that some things happen by Fate, and others without it 
 
 P. 96. d With regard to the inanimate creation, they regarded Fal 
 (eipexpfjLevy), by which all things were called into existence, as 'the coi 
 nected (sipopsvy) cause or the reason that regulates the world' (Dio. 
 Laert. VII. i. 74, alria TCOV o'vrwv stpofjt.svTr], 7 X6yo V ov o /co'ff/*o $tei 
 aysrcxt) which notion they frequently developed with great minutenes 
 
 P. 96. e Sen. De Prov. c. 5, 6, 'a volente feretis quidquid petieritis . 
 Nihil cogor, nihil patior invitus, nee servio Deo sed adsentior'; Epis 
 74, 20, 'placeat homini quidquid deo placuit'; 96, 2; 107, 9 1 
 'malus miles est qui imperatorem gemens sequitur; . . . hie est magni 
 animus qui se deo tradidit' etc.; which sentiment is similar to that 
 Christ's prayer, 'Not as I will, but as Thou wilt' (Matt. XXVI. 39; com 
 John V. 30; VI. 38; 1 Mace. III. 60, 'nevertheless, as the will of Gc 
 is in heaven, so let Him do') ; and it is thus expressed by M. Aurelii 
 (TV. 34): 'Willingly give thyself up to fate, allowing her to spin tl 
 thread into whatever thing she pleases' ; and by Epictetus (Enchir. c. 8 
 'Do not ask that things may happen as you wish, but wish them to 1 
 exactly as they happen, and thy life will pass cheerfully'; which princip 
 he seems to have deduced from some verses attributed to Cleanthes: '! 
 guide me, Oh Zeus and thou Fate (y IIsTr/jw/ie'vij), whither I am order 
 by you to go (el pi ^/aTeray^svoc) ; I will follow you without hesitati 
 (oKvo$); but if I refused, I should be a coward, and yet should not t 
 less be compelled to follow' (Enchir. c. 43, 1 ; comp. 2, 'Him I c 
 wise, who readily yields to necessity Zarit; SavdyKy ffvyKsx&pyKev xakcag- 
 for he understands the divine counsels'). 
 
 P. 97. a Disp. I. 17, and the preceding words, 'Man, thou hast 
 nature a will that cannot be hindered or compelled (xpoatpsuiv . 
 
NOTES [pp. 97, 98]. 17 
 
 . . . *} ayavay/cauTov); who can hinder thee from assenting to 
 what is true? who can compel thee to accept what is false'? Comp. I. 
 29; in. 7, 22; IV. 1; Enchir. cc. 1, 14, forts olv fas&tpis e7vat /JovXara/, 
 
 fJ.f,T8 S\8TU Tl fJll/JTS <f>8VySTU Tl TUV ilf XXo/. 
 
 P. 97. b M. Aur. V. 10, egsffTi pot py$sv irpaaastv napa TOV epov &*ov 
 Koi Sai/jLovu K. r. X. 
 
 P. 97. c Aescli. Frgm. 151 (Nauck); Flut. Adv. Stoic, c. 14, 0ao$ /^v 
 aiTtav $vet fipOTQli;, "Gray KaKUuat b&fjia irafjarffav ^sky; Soph. Antig 1 . 620 
 624, To KUKW SoKeTv TTOT e'a^Xov T' l/i/isy OTW $psva$ 0so ays/ TT/JOS orav, 
 and Schol. Zoc., "Orav o Saiftcav av&pt nopovvy KUKO., Tov voSv ejS'ka^e 
 xp&Tov tj> jSoyXevsra/; FeW. Paferc. II. 118, 'ita se res habet, ut plerumque 
 fortunam mutaturus deus consilia corrumpat efficiatque, quod miserrimum 
 est, ut quod acciderit, etiam merito accidisse videatur et casuw in culpam 
 transeat'; and the proverbial saying, 'Quos perdere vult deus, dementat 
 prius'. All this nearly coincides with the Biblical doctrine of God's 
 'hardening of man's heart' (comp. Bible Studies, I. pp. 118, 119). Like 
 Maimonides, the Protestant Church teaches : 'Quod Dominus cor Pharaonis 
 indurat ... id poena est antecedentium ipsius peccatorum' (Form. Con- 
 cord, sol. decl. XI. 820, in De Wette, Dogmatik der Protest. Kirche, 
 61 b ). An ancient writer remarks on that doctrine: 'This surpasses in- 
 deed all notions of absurdity and blasphemy (aroma and Syy^^ara) ! How 
 could we still call the gods givers of good and not rather givers of 
 evil? How can they still hate and detest vice'? (Plut. 1. c.) 
 
 P. 97. d Exod. xx. 5; xxxiv. 7, etc.; comp. Theogn. 731742, pr$i 
 r O'TTiyju Harpoi; Tff^X/a< irate} ysvonro KUKOV; Curt. VII. 5 (23), nunc 
 culpam majorum posteri lucre; Hor. Od. III. vi. 1, Delicta majorum 
 immeritus lues, Eomane, etc. 
 
 P. 97. e They maintained that 'the substance and matter exist only 
 through the quality' (T^V ph ovatav KOI ryv Z\r,v vQearavai T% TTO/OTJJJ/), 
 but made the qualities themselves again substances and bodies (Plut. 
 Adv. Stoicos, c. 50; comp. ibid., 'the primary substance is without quality, 
 not because it is devoid of any quality, but because it combines in itself 
 all qualities'); and they held, that 'matter receives motion and form 
 through reason which is immanent in it (6 Xoyo? evwrrapxwv), as by its own 
 power it is unable to move or take any form' (Plut. 1. c. c. 34). 
 
 P. 97. f Sen. Ep. 41, 1, 2, non sunt ad coelum elevandae manus, . . . 
 prope est a te deus, tecum est, intus est, . . . bonus vir sine deo nemo 
 est, etc. Comp., however, Epist. 95, 37 40, deum colit qui novit . . . 
 Primus est deorum cultus deos credere, etc,; see infra, ch. IV. 
 
 P. 98. a The physico-theological, the ontological, and the teleblogical. 
 Comp. Epict. Disp. I. 6, 16, etc. See infra ch. VII. 
 
 P. 98. b Comp. Sen. Ad Marc. c. 25, 1, Integer ille nihilque in 
 terris relinquens sui fugit et totus excessit paulumque supra nos com- 
 moratus, dum expurgatur et inhaerentia vitia situmque omnem mortalis 
 aevi excutit, deinde ad excelsa sublatus inter felices currit animas; 
 
18 NOTES [pp. 98100]. 
 
 Lactant. Instit. VII. 7, Esse inferos Zeno stoicus docuit, et sedes piorum ab 
 impiis esse discretas, et illos quidem quietas ac delectabiles incolere regiones, 
 hos vero luere poenas in tenebrosis locis atque in coeni voraginibus hor- 
 rendis; comp. also Virg. Aen. VI. 735 751. 
 
 P. 99. a Diog. Laert. VII.- i. 52, 53, TO 6/*oXoyoy/zevw rf/ <f)v?ei Cvyv, 
 OTtsp sffTi KO.T apsTTjv Z'(jv; again, TO Kara Xoyov CTJV op^&g ysve&at To7g 
 Kara <f>v<7iv; and conversely, 7crov sari TO KO.T apsTrjg Zyv TW KO.T sftTreipiav 
 TCOV (f)v<jei avfifeuvwrtev Zyv . . . fJLspr t yap staiv ai Jifisrtpou <f>vcrsig ryg TOU 
 oXov; M. Aur. VII. 11, TU \oyiKU ww 17 airy irpat;ig Kara, (frueiv sari KI 
 Kara Xo'yov; luven. XIV. 321, Nunquam aliud Natura, aliud Sapientia 
 dicit; Plut. De Stoic. Bepugn. c. 9, ov yap earn a\\ug . . . sirslStsTv . . . 
 girt rag apsrat; ol$ eVJ evSaiftoviav XX' 17 TTO r-fjt; KQivr,t; <f)Vffsw<; KUI jro 
 rf,<; TOU Koupov $ioiKi;vsic$ ; <7tc, De Fin. IV. 6, 8, 17, 19, 21, 22, 14, 
 19, 47, 54, 5961. 
 
 P. 99. b Diog. Laert. VII. i. 54, 91, S^a/cT^v TS slvai alrijv K. T. X. 
 
 P. 99. c Ibid. VII. i. 60; ii. 1. 
 
 P. 99. d As the philosophers Posidonius and Panaetius. 
 
 P. 99. e Diog. Laert. VII. i. 26, 30, Tav apsretv ^y^c, aya^ 
 K. T. X.; 53, 89, e'v airy (TTJ apsryi) sJvai ryv sv^aiftoviav ; 65, 127, 
 T3 stvai alryv irpo<; sv^atfJLOVi'av ; 128, %psiav sTvai Kai vytsiag Ka} layyoq 
 KOU xopyyias; comp. Gic. De Fin. V. 27 29, 79 83 ; Acad. post. I. 
 10; Parad. II, 'In quo virtus sit, ei nihil deesse ad beate vivendum'. 
 
 P. 99. f KaTOp^oofJLara; Diog. Laert. VII. i. 53, 89, rr,v TS aperqv Sta'&eaiv 
 sJvai o/ioXoyou/iV7/v . . . eVe} y <f>vatg a<f>op[jia<; %!$ca<7iv a^tauTp^Qvi;; Plut. De 
 Stoic. Repugn. C. 11, TOV vo/xov TroXXa TO^ (f)av\oig aTrayopsvsiv., irpouTaTTsiv 
 $e infisv, ov yap ^vvarai Karop^ovv. 
 
 P. 99 & Diog. Laert. VII. i. 54, q^ovTjov^ av^psia, StKaioyvvrj, ew<f>po<jvvri 
 (comp. Wisd. VIII. 7); /ieyaXo^y^/ ? syKpaTsia, KapTspla, ay%tvoia, su/?ouX/a. 
 
 P. 99. h James II. 8, vo/^ov ... jgaa/Xwo'v , comp. 1 Cor. XIII. ; Bom. 
 XIII. 8 10, n\-f;pw[JL<x ouv vo'/^ou 17 ayaTry; Gal. V. 14; Col. Ill, 14, T^V 
 ayanyv, o SUTIV avv^sofiQi; ryji; TS\SIOT^TQI;; 1 Tim. I. 5. 
 
 P. 99. i Plut. De Stoic. Eepugn. cc. 7, 27; Diog. Laert. VII. i. 65, 
 125, Tag Se apsTag \syovatv avTa/coXovSi-eTv aXX^Xa/?, /<} TOV /*/av |'^OVT 
 xaaag s'xsiv; comp. Gic. Acad. Pr. II. 43, 44, 132136. 
 
 P. 99. k Diog. Laert. VII. i. 55, TO aya^o'v sari TO TS\SIOV KO.TO. <f>vytv 
 \oyiKov: reason is very frequently called TO ^ys^ov/K-o'v; in M. Aur. V. 26, 
 27, TO yyepoviKov KOI TO Kvptsvov, (comp. Cic. Nat. Deor. II. 11, 29, 
 principatus); and it is denned by Epictetus (Disp. IV. 7) as that faculty 
 'which uses all other faculties and tries them, and selects and rejects'. 
 
 P. 100. a Diog. Laert. VII. i. 31 (o TTJV eWn^ojv Te'Xo? emuv), 33; II. 
 2; III. 1; comp. I. 66, 129, 'the common school learning (T eyKUKkia 
 pa'&waTa) is also useful'. The statement, therefore, that the Stoics 
 rejected the syKw\tog nailela, must be received with reserve (comp. Plut. 
 De Stoic. Eepugn. c. 24). It is indeed true that later Stoics evinced a 
 certain contempt for theoretical knowledge ; comp. Senec. Epist. 88, 36, 
 
NOTES [p. 100]. 19 
 
 37, 'tantum itaque ex illis (artibus) retineas quantum necessarium est . . . 
 Plus scire velle quam sit satis, intemperantiae genus est. Quid? quod ista 
 liberalium artium consectatio molestos, verbosos, intempestivos, sibi placentes 
 facit', and so on to the end of the letter; also Ep. 45; 48, 11, 'quantum 
 potes ergo, reduc te ab istis exceptionibus et praescriptionibus philoso- 
 phorum'; 49, 5 9; 95, 13, 'The wisdom of the ancients taught 
 merely what we should do and avoid, and then men were by far better; 
 since we have scholars, we have no good men, ... we are instructed 
 how to argue, not how to live' (docemur disputare, non vivere); 108, 
 12, 'hoc preme, hoc onera, relictis ambiguitatibus et syllogismis et 
 cavillationibus, et ceteris acuminis inriti ludicris' ; Epict. Disp. I. 26 ; 
 III. 21; Frgm. 175; M. Aur. I. 17; II. 2 (afes ra /3//?X/, (tr^eri ait Si), 
 3 (rqv J /3//2X/CCV Ztyav ptyov); HI. 14; IV. 30, etc. 
 
 P. 100. b Noteworthy is a remark of Epictetus, which is a sufficient 
 reply to a difficulty often raised with respect to the fifth commandment. 
 'The duties,' he observes, 'are generally in consonance with the circum- 
 stances. As regards the father, duty commands to take care of him, to 
 yield to him in all matters, to bear calmly his abuse or violence. But 
 the father is perhaps a bad man. Are you, by the bonds of nature, 
 tied to a good father? No, simply to & father' (Epict. Enchir. c. 30, 
 [17] rt o2v vrpts aya&ov jrarspa (frvjst wKsiw'&yi;; aXXa irpoi; jrarspa). 
 
 P. 100. c Diog. Laert. VII. i. 21, 28, 6062, 64, o </>/Xos aXXog e'yco; 
 comp. Cic. De Fin. III. 17, 21. In the course of some beautiful 
 remarks on friendship, Seneca writes : 'For what object do I secure a 
 friend? That I may have someone for whom I can die, one whom I can 
 follow into exile, for whose welfare I can offer and sacrifice myself 
 (Epist. 9, 10). 
 
 P. 100. d M. Aur. IV. 3, ' Ava^wp^asi; avroTg ZyTovytv, . . . oXov e 
 roDro /S/wr/Kwrarov e'anv; comp. IX. 9. Retirement is considered ad- 
 missible in the one case only when a man thinks he must give up all 
 hope of remaining faithful to virtue amidst the temptations of the world 
 (M. Aur. X. 8, e'av $s oua^y Zrt SK-XIKTSIS KI ov irspixparsT^ jrA/ ^appocv 
 sit; yccv/av r/va OTTOV KpaTr/usn;). With respect to such a contingency, 
 Seneca writes tersely: 'Conceal yourself in leisure, but conceal that leisure 
 itself; you will act thus, not indeed by the Stoics' precept, but by their 
 example' (Epist. 68, 1 sqq.). 
 
 P. 100. e Diog. Laert. VIII. i. 64, 121, 123 (KOIVUVIK^ yap fyvvsi Koii 
 irpaKTiKts); M. Aur. HI. 5 (xai ffoX/r;/cou), 7; IV. 3, 24; V. 1; IX. 16, 
 oy/c ev Kelast XX' svepysix TO rw XoywoD Cwou KOCKQV KCXI aya&ov; etc.; comp. 
 Sen. De Otio, d. 2, Zenon ait: accedet ad rempublicam sapiens, nisi 
 quid impedierit (see, however, supra Notes p. 13 [P. 89 b ]). Marriage was 
 explicitly recommended by the great Eoman Stoic C. Musonius Eufus, 
 the master of Epictetus; comp. Epict. Disp. III. 7, 
 ^eov os$en, yove'wv siripit.ef&ai K. r. X. 
 
20 NOTES [pp. 100, 101]. 
 
 P. 100. f See supra Notes p. 13 [P. 90 C ], especially the passage from 
 Senec. De Ira, II. 31, 7; also Bible Studies, II. p. 321. 
 
 P. 100. All these traits are distinctly mentioned by ancient writers ; 
 comp. Diog. Laert. VII. i. 4, 12, 14, 16, 19, 2426, 64, 3 (alMjpuv 
 
 $s w$ npog rrjv Kuv//oyv avai<y%WTiav), 13, 15 (OV^STTOTS e^auvw^Ty, ov$s ra 
 19, 22, 23, 24, 27 (neivfjv l&aeicet K. r. X.), 28 (iravrat; 
 . . . TV? JS^VO'TTJT/), 30, 117 122; V. 2 (fy^yvat a%tTava; 
 but Juven. XIII. 121, Stoica dogmata ... A Cynicis tunica distantia); 
 JSpict. Enchir. CC. 33, 7 (ra. mpi TO aco^ta fJ.s%pt r-fjs xpei'a; yikijs na- 
 pa\afjL^avs K. r. X.), 47; Cic. De Fin. III. 20, 68 (Cynicorum autem 
 rationem atque vitam alii cadere in sapientiam dicunt . . . alii nullo 
 modo); V. 28, 64; De Divin. II. 63, 129; Parad. V, VI, etc. 
 
 P. 100. h Diog. Laert. VII. i. 68, 135, sv TS etveu &BOV Ka} vovv *ai 
 sifjLapfJLsvr t v KOU A/a 7roXXa? rs srspat; ovopaaiaii; irpoaovofJ.aZsv'&ai. 
 
 P. 100. i Diog. Laert. VII. i. 72, 147, 0sov TS sJvai ftSov, a^avarov, 
 
 OV, TiksiQV, . . . ItpOVOTjTlKW KOOfJiOV TS KOU. TCOV SV KQa/AU, Hy s7vat fASVTQl 
 
 . . . KOI wuirsp narspa KOLVTWV; ibid. 70, 137, og $y a<f>- 
 <JTI Ka.} aysvvTjTo; K. T. \.; comp. Arat. Phaenom.^2 4, 'Full of 
 Zeus are all paths, all abodes of men, full is also the sea' etc. (psarai %s 
 Aio$ iraa/xi fjisv ayvial K. T. A.); Plut. Adv. Stoic, c. 31, 'Zeus is the be- 
 ginning, Zeus is the middle, from Zeus everything has proceeded' (Zsu? 
 apyy, Zsu? peaaa, Aioi; $SK Kavra TSTVKTCCI), which recalls the words of 
 St. John, 'I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first 
 and the last' (Rev. XXII. 13, syco TO 'X$ KOU TO , 6 np&TOi; KOU o 
 sayaTQ!;, r, apxy KOU TO TsXo?, ed. Tischendorf; comp. I. 8, 11, 17; II. 8; 
 XXI. 6; also Isai. XLI. 4; XLIV. 6; XL VIII. 12); ibid. c. 32, ou yap 
 a^i-avaTOV KOU [taKapiw fjiovov aXXa KOU 0/Xav^oco7rov KOU KI^SJJ.QVIKQV KOU oo<f)s- 
 X//^ov . . . TOV rsov; Id. De Stoic. Repugn, c. 38, quoting Antipater of 
 Tarsus, ^eov TO/VUV voou/^sv wav paKapiov Ka} a^^a^Tov KOU SVTTOITJTIKOV 
 a'A/3co7rcov. Chrysippus (1. c.) considers the fire of Zeus alone as un- 
 created and eternal, but the other gods as created and perishable. 
 
 P. 101. a Diog. Laert. VII. i. 64, 123, TOV ffo</>oy o^ev ^av/ta&iv TOO: 
 &O/COUVTCOV Tra^a^o'&ov; comp. Hor. Ep. I. vi. 1, Nil admirari prope res 
 est una etc. 
 
 P. 101. b Diog. Laert. VII. i. 63; comp. Cic. Tusc. III. 11, 24 
 25; IV. 6, 11, 12. Cicero calls the four chief perturbations voluptaj 
 or laetitia, cupiditas or libido, aegritudo, and metus; comp. the same 
 notions in Virg. Aen. VI. 733, Hinc metuunt cupiuntque, dolentqtu 
 gaudentque; and Hor. Ep. I. vi. 12, G-audeat an doleat, cupiat metuatve 
 quid ad rem? See also Senec. Epist. 75, 14; Augustin, Civit. Dei, IX. 5 
 
 P. 101. c Thus Seneca (De Clem. II. 4, 5) recommends 'dementia' 
 but objects to 'misericordia', which he describes as a 'vitium pusilli animi 
 and 'aegritudo animi ob alienarum miseriarum speciem', whereas the wisv 
 man must above all maintain serenity of mind (serena ejus mens est ne< 
 quicquam incidere potest quod illam obducat). 
 
NOTES [p. 101]. 21 
 
 P. 101. d Dioff. Laert. VII. i. 64, 117, S/a TO av>ffTccrov e7var slvat SI 
 Koii aXXov affa^-iy TOV ^aSXov, e'v Taw Xeyd^vov T aK\r t pu> KCU ctTpsirrw; 
 comp. also Jlf. 4wr. V. 26. 
 
 P. 101. e 4>avraff//, visa animi. 
 
 P. 101. f Whereas others often remain under the sway of their first 
 impressions even after time has elapsed sufficient to argue about their 
 real nature and effects. This thoughtful definition of the ana^sia and 
 its true operation is set forth in a fragment of the fifth Book of the 
 Discourses of Epictetus, preserved by Gellius (Noct. Att. XIX. 1). 
 
 P. 101. % Diog. Laert. VII. i. 26, 30, ar/jsVrou . . . sXsu^/a;; comp. 
 Cic. Tusc. IV. 6, 11. The much misunderstood anc&eia of the Stoics 
 is by Seneca (Epist. 19, 1 3) discussed very explicitly: it is difficult, 
 he says, to avoid ambiguity in rendering that term by a single word, as 
 for instance by 'impatientia' or 'animus impatiens', which might convey 
 just the opposite sense to that intended; and he, therefore, proposes 'in- 
 volnerabilis animus', or the paraphrase 'animus extra omnem patientiam 
 positus', since the quality can justly be attributed only to a man 'qui 
 respuat omnis mali sensum'; for the Stoic sage 'vincit quidem incommodum 
 omne, sed sentit', whereas the 'impatiens' in the ordinary meaning 'ne 
 sentit quidem'; comp. also M. Aur. XL 18, oa airc&sl<x ToDro O/KS/O'TS/JOV, 
 TOffoy-np KO.I 6vvdfj.si. 
 
 P. 101. h Diog. Laert. VH. i. 64, 121, 122; ii. 6 ; vi. 2, TOV afyw 
 a&ofaarov elvai; Cic. Tusc. IV. 16, 36, sapientem omnia recte facere; 
 M.. Aur. III. 9, rqv virQ\7]TTTiK^v SvvafJLiv ffsfiov, sv ravTf] TO irav K. T. X., 
 11; VEIL 13, 26; and frequently in Epictetus (Disp. I. 1; H. 18; HI. 
 3, etc.; Enchir. cc. 1, 5, 6, 19, 20, 42, 45). 
 
 P. 101. i Diog. Laert. VII. i. 19, 18, 21, 28, 24; comp. Cic. Parad 
 Prooem. . 2, Cato perfectus . . . Stoicus . . . in ea est haeresi quae 
 nullum sequitur florem orationis neque dilatat argumentum; Senec. 
 Epist. 115, 1, 2, nimis anxium esse te circa verba et compositionem 
 nolo, habes majora quae cures etc.; M. Aur. III. 5, pf/re Kop^ei'a TT/V 
 Stdvoiav ffou /caXXcoff/Csrw, pyre iro\\vppTJfj.ccv ; and similar precepts are 
 given by Epictetus with respect to speaking (Enchir. c. "33, 2, atuiiTf 
 TO ffoXu sffTw, T] XaXs/J^co Ta avay/ca^a KOI $i oX/ywv). 
 
 P. 101. k Senec. Epist. 75, 5. 
 
 P. 101. ^ Diog. Laert. VII. i. 59, TO /caXov aya^ov slvai K. r. X.; Epictet. 
 Disp. IV. 11; comp. Cic. Parad. I. 6 15, etc. Hence the Stoic sage 
 holds that even objects like the extended jaws of an infuriated animal 
 or the furrowed cheeks of the aged, though not beautiful in them- 
 selves, derive beauty and interest if intelligently regarded in con- 
 nection with the whole economy of nature (M. Aur. III. 21, S/ TO Tofc 
 fyvaii y/vo^ts'vo/i; eVa/foXoiAsrv K. T. X.); comp. VI. 36. 
 
 P. 101. ni Diog. Laert. VII. i. 60, 63, aXoyo? eirapaii;; comp. Stob. 
 Eel. II. 6, p. 174, (p. 48 ed. Meineke), ^ov^v 2e. slvat sTrapatv ^vyf,<; 
 Xoyw K. T. \.j which definition is very similar to that given by the 
 
22 NOTES [pp. 101104]. 
 
 Stoics of 7ra^o in general, as in Diog. Laert. VII. i. 63, 110, sari 
 auro TO jra^os Kara Zyvcava TJ a'Xoyoj KOI irapa (frvariv $v%rt<; Kivyeii; TJ 
 irXsovaftuaa; Stobaeus 1. c. p. 166 (p. 47 ed. Meineke), wa^o^ slval 
 
 (JHXVIV. 
 
 P. 101. n Comp. Sen. Ep. 23, 3, 4, disce gaudere . . . nisi forte 
 tu judicas eum gaudere qui ridet etc.; Epict, Enchir. c. 32, 4, ys'Xco? 
 fj.i] TroXu? fcrrto, fJirfis siri TroXXo? 1 ;, (JLTJ^S avsipsvot;. 
 
 P. 102. a Jto'o^. Laert. VII. i. 55, faifnvypaTa %s rr,v rs %apav KOU rr,v 
 ev^povuvyv KOI ra Kapankaatex, 57, 63, 115, 116; see also M. Aur. VI. 
 7; VHI. 26; XII. 29. 
 
 P. 102. b Cicero (De Fin. III. 22, 75, 76) says of the 'persona 
 sapientis Stoici' : 'Quam gravis vero, quam magnifica, quam constans' ! 
 He then enumerates the names and epithets which that sage deserves in 
 spite of ignorant sneers the names of king and master of the people 
 (magister populi), and the epithets of rich, beautiful, free, invincible; 
 and sums up: 'Quod si ita est, ut neque quisquam nisi bonus vir et omnes 
 boni beati sint, quid philosophia magis colendum aut quid est virtute 
 divinius' ? 
 
 P. 102. c This description of Seneca's wise man, it may be psycho- 
 logically instructive to mention, has been furnished by a divine eminently 
 generous and charitable, and especially so in his estimate of Seneca's 
 life and writings (Farrar, Seekers after God, pp. 328 330; comp. 
 pp. 160 166). But Seneca, both as a man and an author, has often 
 been very severely judged from the time of G-ellius (Noct. Att. XII. 2, 
 'ineptus et insubidus homo') down to our own, but has found at least as many, 
 and we believe successful defenders. In spite of some grave faults and 
 errors, the character and life of Seneca are lasting monuments of human 
 nobleness, from which no disparagement, however vigorous or pointed, 
 can materially detract. 
 
 P. 103. a Viz. justitia, fortitude, temperantia, prudentia; frugalitas, 
 continentia, tolerantia, liberalitas, comitas, humanitas, providentia, elegantia, 
 magnanimitas, decus; pondus, gravitas ; gratia, auctoritas; animus amabilis, 
 venerabilis. 
 
 P. 103. b Et ut fas sit vidisse tacitus precetur. 
 
 P. 103. c Sen. Epist. 115, 37. 
 
 P. 103. ^Diog. Laert. VII. i. 7, 9, 26, 1012, & rs ro7 s Xonrofc 
 
 ovra roT^ Xoyo/ o"ig /sXe'ysro; ib. c. 29, Antipater 
 of Sidon declared that Zeno had found a path to heaven, not like Her- 
 cules, by toilsome labours, but by virtue alone. 
 
 P. 103. e Sen. De Constant, c. 7, 1, ceterum hie ipse M. Cato . . . 
 vereor ne supra nostrum exemplar sit. 
 
 P. 104. a Ibid. c. 19, 4, esse aliquem, in quern nihil fortuna possit, 
 'republica est generis humani. 
 
 P. 104. b M. Aur. I. 16. 
 
NOTES [pp. 104, 105]. 23 
 
 P. 104. c M. Aur. VI. 30; comp. III. 46; V. 5; X. 1; Epict. Enchir. 
 c. 48, etc. 
 
 P. 104. d Comp. Pint. De absurd. Stoic. Opinion, cc. 1 4, o Zreofiro; 
 usirap ef a^ocfJLavTt'vrjg vfa]$ litauTuv rq$ caro&si'as K3%a\KsvfJL8VQ$ K. r. X. ; 
 Adv. Stoic, c. 8, etc. See Senec. Epist. 75, 4, 'concordet sermo cum 
 vita'; 64, . 4, 'quid cessas, fortuna? congredere, paratus sum'; Vit. 
 Beat, cc, 17, 18; especially the fine passage in Epist. 26, 6, 'nihil est 
 adhuc quod aut rebus aut verbis exhibuimus . . . Non timide itaque 
 componamur ad ilium diem quo . . . de me judicatures sum utrum loquar 
 fortia an sentiam . . . Accipio conditionem, non reformido judicium'; nor 
 was Seneca found wanting in his last hour. 
 
 P. 104. e See Epict. Disp. II. 9, 19; III. 7, 'we say what is beautiful 
 and do what is base' ; Gell. Noct. Att. XVII. 1 9, Epictetus blamed many 
 of his followers for being avsv TOW npamiv, psxpt TOU \sfstv, Juven. II. 
 65, ironically designating as 'Stoicidae' those who, while declaiming 
 against effeminacy, conspicuously exhibit it in their own appearance; 
 Lucian, De Morte Peregrini, cc. 23, 24; Athen. XIII. 15, p. 363, cc 
 arooaKs;, epnopot \ypov Ao'ycov viroKpirr}ps$ K. T. X. Comp. Rom. II. 17 
 29, 'He is not a Jew who is one outwardly' etc. 
 
 P. 104. f Mahabhdrata HI. 13445, rendered by J. Muir in 'Religious and 
 Moral Sentiments from Indian writers', p. 12; comp. p. 27, 'The man whose 
 heart melts with pity to all creatures, has knowledge, and gains final 
 liberation; which are not attained by matted hair, ashes, and the garb 
 of a mendicant' (from Vriddha Chanakya XV. 1). 
 
 P. 105. a Diog. Laert. VII. i. 60, 64, 65, 101, 120125, 127, 
 TWV ao(f)u>v J TTavra slvat, $e$uiKsvai yap aurofy TtavTskfj ejiovviav TOV vo'/^ov. 
 Hdvrat; rs TOV; a<f>pwas [jiahea&ai. -Iffoc TO, apapTr;fJ.aTa } 'for the man who 
 is a hundred stadia from Canobus and the man who is only one, are 
 both equally not in Canobus'; or 'a stick must either be straight or 
 crooked' (comp. Epict. Enchir. c. 29, 7, eva, as %si av^-pwirov TJ y^ov 
 17 KO.KW itvai}- and with another illustration, 'he who is one cubit under 
 water drowns no less than he who is five hundred fathoms' (Plut. Adv. 
 Stoic, c. 10; comp. cc. 6, 7; De Stoic. Repugn, c. 13). TLdvra TO. aya&a. 
 fact eJvai . . . KOI {JLT/TS aveovv /tyrs eV/raavy $s%ee'>ai. Comp. Cic. Tusc. 
 
 II. 12, 18, 29, 42; HI. 5, 10; IV. 24, 54; De Fin. IV. 9, 21; 
 Acad. pr. II. 43, 133; Parad. IV (omnem stultum insanire); De Orat. 
 
 III. 18, 65; Pro Murena, 29, 30, 6063; Hor. Sat. I. iii. 9698 
 (quis paria esse fere placuit peccata etc.), 115 142 (si dives, qui sapiens 
 est, Et sutor bonus et solus formosus et est rex, etc.); Stob. Eel. H. 6, 
 p. 218 (p. 60 ed. Meineke); Athen. IV. 51 55; especially Plutarch, 
 De Stoicorum Repugnantiis, and Adversus Stoicos, passim; e. g. 'there 
 is no absurdity so great which the Stoics have not maintained or at- 
 tempted' (Adv. Stoic, c. 31); etc. 
 
 P. 105. b 1 Cor. I. 23, feveviv %s pupiav. 
 
24 NOTES [pp. 105-107]. 
 
 P. 105. c 1 Cor. I. 26, or/ TO fiwpw TOU *&sov aQtfxxrspov TWV 
 eari K. r. X. Cicero called the paradoxes 'Socratica longeque verissima' 
 (Parad. Prooem. 4, III, V, VI). 
 
 P. 105. d Schiller, Weisheit und Klugheit, in the 'Votivtafeln'. 
 
 P. 105. e Neander, Vorlesungen iiber die Geschichte der christlichen 
 Ethik, 1864, p. 49. 
 
 P. 105. * Plut. De Stoic. Eepugn. c. 17, / rqv vnspfiokyv TOV TS p.s- 
 ys^ov/; KOU TOU /caXXou? irkaafJiacn SoKOvpsv fyoia X/ye/v. 
 
 P. 105. % Epict. Enchir. C. 22, o/' KaraysXwvrs's aou TO nporspov, ovrot as 
 Zyrspov ^avpaaovrai; comp. c. 22, 'If you want to be a philosopher, you 
 must be prepared to be laughed at and mocked' (; KaTays\a&r l aofjLsvo<; K. r. X.); 
 also c. 13, si xpOKfyai &sXj, Mro/ttl/MV SVSKIX TWV eVcTos avoTjTO? <> KOI 
 
 P. 106. a Matth. V. 21, 22, 27, 28, 31, 32, 3842; XVIII. 20; 2 Cor. 
 
 VI. 10, C0 /*7jSsV SXOVT5S */ 7rVTa KTs';(OVT5 ; 1 John III. 15, 7T 
 
 /f/awv TOV SffX(/)ov auTou a-A^coTroACTdvo^ early; James II. 10, jtratyy $e sv 
 evij yeyovsv mxvrwv evo^o; (comp. Matth. V. 19). 
 
 P. 106. b Matth. XIX. 2125, 'It is easier for a camel' etc.; VI. 19 
 21 ; Mark X. 21 25; Luke VI. 20, 24, 'woe unto you that are rich' etc.; 
 XII. 33; XVI. 19 sqq.; XVIII. 2225; Acts II. 44, 45; IV. 34, 35; 
 1 Tim. VI. 9, 10 'love of money is the root of all evil' (but comp. vers. 
 17 19); James VI. 1 sqq., ; Ye rich men, weep and howl for your 
 miseries that shall come upon you' etc, Comp. Sir. XIII. 24, 'Riches are 
 good to him that has no sin'; Plat. Legg. V. 12, p. 742 E, 'To be very 
 rich and at the same time good is impossible'; Origen, Contr. Cels. VI. 17. 
 
 P. 106. c Soph. Antig. 449 470, 2o/ tie! o/cw vvv pupa Spuiea 
 ri /j.wpw ftccpiav o<^X/0vcavco. 
 
 P. 106. d Diog. Laert. VII. i. 28, 66, 33, 131. 
 
 P. 106. e Plut. De Stoic. Eepugn. c. 22. 
 
 P. 106. f Diog. Laert. VII. vii. 12, 188, KOI TOU? affo^avovra? 
 
 P. 106. % Diog. Laert. VII. i. 75; comp. Cic. Divin. I. 3, 6, 33, 38, 
 5, 6, 10, 72, 82; II. 19, 48, 49, 44, 100, 101. 
 
 P. 107. a Diog. Laert. VII. i. 75, KOU pyv pavTiKyv vfysaravat Kuaav 
 (fxxfflv, 77 KOU yrpcivotav eivai K. r. X. 
 
 P. 107. b Plut. De Stoic. Eepugn. c. 13; comp. Adv. Stoic, cc. 25, 
 26: /*o'vov ayc&o'v, but not rskog, according to Chrysippus. 
 
 P. 107. c Diog. Laert. VII. i. 64, 121, 'Hpa&s&Tjg HSVTOI / 'A V^"/o? 
 avtaot, (fxxui ra ay-aprr^ara. M. Aurelius was accustomed to visit all 
 trespasses with lighter punishments than those fixed by the law, although 
 he sometimes remained inexorable in the case of great and reckless 
 criminals (Capitolin. M. Anton. Philos. c. 24). 
 
 P. 107. d Senec. Vit. Beat. c. 21, 2, ista debere contemni, non ne 
 habeat, sed ne sollicitus habeat; non abigit ilia a se, sed abeuntia securus 
 prosequitur; etc. Comp. Epist. 5, etc. 
 
NOTES [pp. 107, 108]. 25 
 
 > 
 
 P. 107. e Sen. De Benef. II. 35, 2, deinde alia via ad consuetudinem 
 redeunt. 
 
 P. 107. f Pint. Adv. Stoic, c. 20. 
 
 P. 107. 8 Eurip. Frgm. 884 (Nauck), 'Eirst ri 8 fipoToliffi ir\yv Svo7v 
 jstovov, AypiiTpQs aKrfjs KOI Tro/zaro? l%pr,%!>w; comp. Plut. De Stoic. Repugn, 
 cc. 20, 21; also Athen. IV. 52, 53, apTo$ ice&apis s7$ sKaTspu,, mriipmv 
 &<XTO$, with respect to the Pythagoreans. 
 
 P. 107. h Pers. II. 5355, sapiens . . . Porticus insomnis quibus et 
 detonsa juventas Invigilat, siliquis et grandi pasta polenta; Senec. Epist. 
 
 18, 10; 21, 10; 110, 18, 20, disce parvo esse contentus, et illam 
 vocem magnus atque animosus exclama: habemus aquam, habemus po- 
 lentam, Jovi ipsi controversiam de felicitate faciamus. 
 
 P. 107. * M. Aur. I. 6, TO a/f/^co7roSo$ KO.} Sopas eir&virij<reu } Kai oaa TOI- 
 avTa rijt; 'EXXifv/K^ ayuyfji; e%QfjLeva. 
 
 P. 107. k Epictet. Enchir. c. 15, TOTS ov /AO'VOV avpiroTTis TCOV ^suv say, 
 aXXa Kai cvvdpxuv K. T. X. 
 
 P. 108. a Sen. Epist. 5, 16. 
 
 P. 108. b Diog. Laert. VII. i. 64, 121, 123, 129; VII. 12, 187; 
 comp. Cic. Offic. I. 35, 128; Fin. in. 20, 67. 
 
 P. 108. c Diog. Laert. VII. i. 72, 147, 148, Ko/vwg ra Kai TO ftipos 
 avTov TO SrijKQV S/a TTOVTCOV, o TroXXa?? Kpoyr,yopiaii; irpoaovofJi.aZsTai Kara rat; 
 SvvdfJLsti;, K. r. X.,- and olui'av $s >sov ZTJVCOV psv fyrpi TOV oXov /coff/itov KCU 
 TQV ovpavov; ibid. 70, 139 143, sva TOV KO'U^COV slvai KOI TOVTOV neirspas- 
 
 jEtSVOV. TOV OXOV KQ7JJLOV CwOV OVT KOU 8fl\(/V%QV KUl Xoy//COV. -"E^C^U^OV 5, CC 
 
 i^t k oy in rf,<; TjfJisTspas V y X^ SKSI^SV Q\>3r,<; aTroaTrau^aro^; comp. 156, 
 T^V e TWV oXwv (fyv-ffl-j) a^^a^rov, yg fjispri eJvai T? sv To7<; &OK;; Senec. 
 Ad Helv. c. 8, 14, animus contemplator admiratione mundi, pars ejus 
 magnificentissima; M. Aur. V. 27, the Saipuv, whom every man has in 
 himself as his guardian and guide, is a detached portion (7roWj/*a) of 
 Zeus, and this is his intelligence and reason (o sKayrw vow? KOU Xo'yo?); 
 comp. II. 4; IV. 40, sv aov TOV /coa^tov, fjs.iav ovalav Kat &v%qv fjitav STTB^OV; 
 VII. 9, K-oj/io? rs yap sJq s airavTwv, KU} Qsot; si<; $ia iravTuv, K. T. X.; VIII. 
 7 (17 TOU in&p&mv $v<Ji$) pepoi; surl rqs K0ivf]$ fyvaswq, us TJ TOV ^yXXoy 
 ^vj/ r-fjz TOU ^UTOW tyvusui;; IX. 28, i<p sKaarov Qpftx -fj TOV oXoy Sidvoia; 
 XII. 2, 26, o' sKauTw vou$ ^so /c< SKS^SV sppv^Ks ; Plut. De Stoic. Repugn, 
 c. 9, TO avvs^su^ai pix Swapst TOV /coy/zov sva OVT } mTrapaaftsvov (but 
 Adv. Stoic, c. 30. TO Ss ?rv WTT airstpiai; avpiuTQv). Therefore the animals 
 also, and even the plants, are regarded as liable to certain duties and 
 obligations (Diog. Laert. VII. i. 62, opay^ai yap Kai:} TOVTUV viz. <f>VTa 
 and Ka'&rjKWTa), while the heavenly bodies are gods (M. Aur. VIII. 
 
 19, KO,} 6 iyX/o spsJ . . . KOI oi XO/TTO/ ^so/; Plut. De Stoic. Repugn. 
 c. 38). 'The world', say the Stoics, 'is a town, and the stars are its 
 citizens', or 'the sun became an animate being by its moisture having 
 changed into intellectual fire' (Plut. Adv. Stoic, cc. 34, 46, Toy yy^oy 
 
 it$ nvp vospov). To deride the Stoics, Plutarch (1. c. c. 30) 
 
26 NOTES [pp. 108, 109]. 
 
 endeavours to prove that their definition of 'the universe' (TO TTV) applie 
 equally to 'the nothing' (TO JKTJ^S'V), but forgets that, even if they contem 
 that the universve is no part, they say that it has parts, which the; 
 do not predicate of the nothing. Even many of their physical obsei 
 vations are not so preposterous as they are made to appear in refutation 
 not always fair and ingenuous (1. c. cc. 35 50). 
 
 P. 108. d T^v TT^WTTJV Z\r,v, Diog. Laert. VII. i. 76. 
 
 P. 108. e Dioff Laert. VII. i. 68, 'the active principle' (JTO/OUV), that if 
 Reason or God, exists in 'the passive principle' (Traaxov), that is, Mattel 
 and 'being eternal and permeating all Matter, produces everything'; Uric 
 137, the world is God himself (avrov rs TOV &sov) . . . absorbing a 
 substance in himself and then reproducing it from himself (avaX/a/ccov . . 
 KOI ?raX/v e' eavTov yevvcov); ibid. 141, the world is perishable becaus 
 its parts are perishable ; Plut. De Stoic. Repugn, c. 39, TOV A/ auscr^c 
 av sl$ auTov SafetVTtt Karavakuav] ; Adv. Stoic, c. 30, TO TTOCV . . . y.'r t i 
 elvcu [J.T,T otyujfov. Hence immortality and eternity are attribute 
 to none of the numerous gods except to Zeus alone, who absorbs all th 
 others (Plut. Adv. Stoic, c. 31, elq ov iravras KaTonedJcritQwri TOV? a'XXous' 
 for these will disappear in the fire, being fusible like wax or tin (TTJ/CTOL 
 uiynep Krjpi'vovg 77 KctTTiTspivovg ovTa$): in this respect men differ from th 
 gods in as much as men are mortal (^VTJTO/), and the gods not morte 
 but perishable (^aproi). Comp. the fine passage in Virgil's Aenei 
 describing the Stoic's 'anima mundi' (VI. 724 751): 'Principle coelur 
 ac terras camposque liquentis . . . Spiritus intus alit, totamque infus 
 per artus Mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet. Inde hominur 
 pecudumque genus' etc.; see also Georg. IV. 221 227, where the poe 
 states that view, without adopting it, 'deum namque ire per omnes Tei 
 rasque tractusque maris coelumque ^profundum . . . Scilicet haec rede 
 deinde ac resoluta referri Omnia' etc.; and Lactant. Instit. I. 5. 
 
 P. 108. f n / ocoTo? ^s6g; Diog. Laert. VII. i. 70, 139, 142; comj 
 Cic. Acad. pr. II. 41, 126, Zenoni et reliquis fere Stoicis aether videtu 
 summus deus, mente praeditus, qua omnia regantur. 
 
 P. 108. 8" Plut. Adv. Stoic, c. 48, TOV ^sov . . . <7<i/*a vospov KOI vovv s 
 
 lik'fj 7TOIOVVTS/;. 
 
 P. 108. h Comp. Senec. Ludus, c. 8, 'nee cor nee caput habet'; an< 
 ibid, 'quomodo potest (Stoicus deus) rotundus esse'? 
 
 P. 109. a Sen. Ad Helv. c. 8, 3, ille quisquis formator universi fur 
 sive deus . . . potens omnium, sive . . . ratio . . . operum artifex, sive divinu 
 spiritus . . . sive fatum et . . . causaruin series; comp. Nat. Quaest. II. 4 
 where the same subject is treated even more explicitly: to Jupiter ever 
 name is suitable Ruler and Guardian of the universe, Soul and Spirit c 
 the world, its Lord and Creator, Fate, Providence, Nature, World. Som 
 of the definitions are very distinct and instructive. God is Fate becaus 
 he is 'causa causarum'; he is Nature, because 'ex eo nata sunt omnia 
 cujus spiritu vivimus'; the World, because 'ipse est hoc quod vides totuir 
 
NOTES [pp. 109, 110]. 27 
 
 partibus suis inditus, et se sustinens et sua'. See also De Ofcio, c. 4, 31, 
 where the various problems are succinctly stated, 'unum sit hoc quod 
 maria terrasque . . . complectitur, an multa ejusmodi corpora deus spar- 
 serit, . . . deus desidens opus suum spectet an tractet; utrumne ex- 
 trinsecus illi circumfusus sit, an toti inditus', etc.; Plut. De Placitis 
 Philosoph. I. 7. 
 
 P. 109. b M. Aur. II. 3, ra. ruv eu>v irpwoiat; fjayra- ra ny; rvffit; OVK 
 avev (ftvffsux; y ffuy/cXcojew?, . . . irpo78Tt $3 xai TO avayKatov Ktxi ru oXw /COJJKW 
 avp $sp ov, ou fjispoi; el VI. 44; VII. 75, an obscure passage; IX. 28; X. 
 6; XI. 18, si ft,?] arofios, (f>vyi$ TJ TO. oXa SioiKwaa; XII. 14, TJTO/ 
 eifJt.apfji.hTri KUI aKapafiaroi; ra!;i$, yj irpwota /Xa//iO, 17 <f>vpfs.o<; 
 comp. Epictet. Disp. I. 12; Plut. De Stoic. Kepugn. c. 34, TJ Koevij 
 Kixt o Kon<><; rrj$ <j>v<jew$ Xoyo^ siii.apfj.3vr, KOU Trpovoia, KOI Zsvt; gyres; etc. 
 
 P. 109. c M. Aurel. VI. 44, spot %e sari OKS^K; its pi TOW <7u^t</)//30V 
 VII. 3, %pi) oJy iv TOVTOH; svfjievu/; JJLSV KOI [JLTJ Kara^pvarrofjisyov 
 
 P. 110. *Doff. Laert. VII. i. 63, 84, 110, nyv ^vj^v elvai 
 156, 157; M. Aur. V. 13, /cara^^<rsra/ TTV {Jispvg spiv Kara /isra^cX^v si<; 
 fJt-spoi; TI TOV KWfMv . . . KOI Tj$r] elq airsipov ; ibid. c. 23; comp. Cic. Tusc. 
 I. 9, 19; De Fin. IV. 5, 12. Chrysippus, however, characterises 
 the soul as a 'breath (nvsvpa) consisting of the lighter parts of nature' 
 (Plut. De Stoic. Kepugn. c. 41; De Placit. Philos. IV. 37, mnpa 
 ^spfji6v). On the sKirvpuris or 7re/?/oSo; of the Stoics comp. Origen, Contr. 
 Cels. IV. 68, pp. 208, 209, ed. Spencer; Plut. Adv. Stoic, c. 31 ; De 
 Placit. Philos. IV. 7, r^v J layers pay i!>v%riv, oia sari nsp} TOV/; ao<f)ovg KOI 
 psxpi r-fji; sKirvpujew/;; whereas the souls of the uneducated avaibsvTwv 
 mingle with the earthly substances. 
 
 P. 110. b Epict. Disp. III. 13, et$ ra </>/X Kai avyysvfj, sit; ra aroiysia. 
 
 P. 110. c Plut. Adv. Stoic, c. 36, Zrav olv sKKVpwpii; ysvyrai, pivov . . . 
 roy A/a . . . ava%upe7v STT'I T^v Tr/jo'vo/av, elra O/JLOV ynoftffovf e'ff/ fJ.ia<; TTJ; 
 rov al^tspo/; ovaiag $iars\s'tv a/JLtfrorspov/;. 
 
 P. 110. 4>avTa/a and afo^yyti;, the former being defined as 
 ev tivxy rovTe'ynv aXXo/coa/^, the latter as TO rs a(f> -riysfiioviK 
 eici ra<; ala^ast; ^KOV; Dioff. Laert. VII. i. 36, 37, 49 54; comp. 
 C. 67; Plut. Adv. Stoic. C. 47, fyavrayia yap ri; TJ svvoia eyri, (fravray/a 
 Se rvnuyii; ev dv^y K. r. X.; and recollections are 'permanent and du- 
 rable impressions' (//ov/'/^ou^ nal y^sriKa; rvTruysi;). 
 
 P. 110. e Diog. Laert. VII. i. 37, 54, TOV o^ov Xoyov Kprrqpiov ano- 
 XS/TTOVJ/V. 
 
 P. 110. f Plut. De Placit. Philos. IV. 811, 'The Stoics contend that, 
 when a man is born, the intellectual part of his soul is like a clean 
 sheet of paper on which he has to write his thoughts' (e%si TO ^-/S^OV/ATOV 
 fJLspoz Tf t $ \i>v^g y uynep fo.pTr\^ evgpyuv affoypa^njv, K. r. X.); 'the first mode 
 of this writing down is through the senses' (c. 11). Comp. Epict. Enchir. 
 c. 45, 'thus it will not happen to you that the inner (subjective) con- 
 viction yon gain be anything else than the palpable (objective) or sensual 
 
28 NOTES [pp. 110112]. 
 
 perception' (XXcov /tsv (f>avTaaia$ KaTakyjrTiKas X/-t/3avs/v, aXkot; Ss auy- 
 KixTaTi^tsa^ai) ; Cic. Acad. post. I. 11, 42, ex quo Zeno sensibus etiam 
 fidem tribuebat, quod . . . comprehensio facta sensibus et vera esse illi 
 et fidelis videbatur, . . . unde postea notiones rerum in animis im- 
 primerentur etc. 
 
 P. 110. S Diog. Laert. VII. i. 68, 70, 136, 142, the present world 
 came into existence when its substance was, by the action of the air, 
 changed from fire into moisture, after which, its denser parts coa- 
 gulating, the earth was formed, while its thinner portions became 
 air etc. 
 
 P. 110. h Comp. M. Aur. II. 3, 9, 11, 16; IV. 40, 45; VI. 38; IX. 
 1, 9; XII. 26, etc. See Cic. Nat. Deor. II. 22, 57, 58, naturam 
 ignem esse artificiosum ad gignendum progredientem via; III. 14, 35; 
 Senec. De Prov. c. 5, 9, non potest artifex mutare materiam; hoc 
 passa est; quaedam separari a quibusdam non possunt, cohaerent, in- 
 dividua sunt etc.; Plut. De Stoic. Repugn. c. 41. 
 
 P. 111. a Eccl. III. 18, 14; comp. I. 5, 6. 
 
 P. 111. b Diog. Laert. VII. i. 66, 130; comp. VII. v. 4, 7; Cic, 
 De Fin. III. 18, '60, 61; IV. 20, 56; Senec. De Provid. c. 6, 
 7 9, ante omnia cavi ne quis vos teneret invitos; patet exitus, . . . 
 ideo ex omnibus rebus quas esse vobis necessarias volui, nihil feci fa- 
 cilius quam mori; Phoen. 151, 152, Eripere vitam nemo non homini potest 
 At nemo mortem; mille ad hanc aditus patent; Epist. 70, 15 18 
 hoc est unum quod de vita non possumus queri: neminem tenet, etc.: 
 also Virg. Aen. VI. 126, 127, facilis descensus Averno; Noctes atqut 
 dies patet atri janua Ditis. 
 
 P. 112. a Talm. Avod. Zar. 18 a. Comp. Mos. Mendelssohn, Phaedon 
 p. 177 (Gesammelte Werke, vol. II, ed. Leipz. 1843), 'you are sent hen 
 to make yourselves more perfect by promoting truth; you may, there- 
 fore, if it cannot be protected otherwise, promote it even at the prict 
 of your lives. If tyranny threatens ruin to your country, if justice is ir 
 danger of being suppressed . . . die, in order to preserve to mankind 
 these precious means of felicity' etc. 
 
 P. 112. b Farrar, Seekers after God, p. 49. On such and similar mis 
 representations see Plut. Adv. Stoic, cc. 4, 8, 11; Cic. De Fin. 18, 60 
 61, saepe officium est sapientis desciscere a vita cum sit beatissimus, s 
 id opportune facere possit. 
 
 P. 112. c M, . Aur. X. 8, KUV ph sir avruv pavstv Svvy, fisvs, e'av %s afa&i 
 ZTI sKitiitTsiz, . . . air&t ^app&v 8i$ ywv/av riva . . . TJ xai iravTonrayiv s& 
 TQV j8/oy, pij opyi&fjisvoi;. 
 
 P. 112. EvXoyo e'laycoy^ or simply e'ayy^; and in Latin exitus, or ex 
 cessus e vita (Cic. De Fin. III. 18, 60, 61); while the act is expressed b? 
 s^aysrj TOW C>jv eavrov, or merely edysiv eavrov (Plut. Adv. Stoic, cc. 11, 33) 
 and in Latin abire or exire. Another and frequent paraphrase is 'the doo] 
 is open,' or 'God has opened the door 5 ; comp. Epictet. Disp. III. 8, rq 
 
NOTES [pp. 112, 113]. 29 
 
 aot ijvot&v, Srav trot {iij iroiy (when life does not please you); ibid. c. 13, 
 TO ava/fXTfT/KOV yriftaivst (viz. Grod), TTyv ^vpav r t vut;3 KO.} Xs'ys/ 001, 8p%w ; 
 I. 24, 25; II. 1; Senec. De Provid. c. 6, 7, patet exitus; Epist. 26, 
 10, liberum ostium habes; 91, 15, placet, pare; non placet, quacumque 
 vis exi. 
 
 P. 112. e See Senec. De Prov. c. 6, 7, si pugnare non vultis, licet 
 fugere. 
 
 P. 113. a Sen. Epist. 24, 22 26: after quoting the saying of 
 Epicurus, 'Ridiculum est currere ad mortem taedio vitae, cum genere 
 vitae, ut currendum ad mortem esset, effeceris', he continues, 'Confirmabis 
 animum vel ad mortis vel ad vitae patientiam . . . ne nimis amemus 
 vitam et ne nimis oderimus, etiam cum ratio suadet finire; sed non 
 temere nee cum procursu capiendus est impetus; vir fortis ac sapiens 
 non fugere debet e vita sed exire', and much more to the same effect 
 and with similar moderation. 
 
 P. 113. b Epict. Disp. I. 9; III. 26; comp. M. Aurel. III. 5, where 
 he admonishes himself to act like a man 'waiting for the signal that 
 shall summon him from life; V. 33; Plato, Phaedo, cc. 5, 6; Shakesp. 
 Hamlet, V. 2, 'the readiness is all' (Cymbeline, III. 4, 'against self- 
 slaughter There is a prohibition so divine' etc.). Hindoo authorities 
 prescribe : 'Let the hermit not long for death, let him not long for life, 
 but let him await his appointed time, as a servant awaits the command 
 of his master' or 'as a hired servant expects his wages' (Manu VI. 45 ; 
 Mahdbhdrata VII. 9829). 
 
 P. 113. c Senec. De Tranquill c. 10, 4, nihil tarn acerbum est in 
 quo non aequus animus solatium inveniat; comp. Ovid, Ex Pont. IV. 
 iv. 5, 6, Nil adeo fortuna gravis miserabile fecit, Ut minuant nulla gaudia 
 parte malum. Comp. the speech of Friar Lawrence to Borneo, with the 
 refrain, 'there art thou happy' (Shakesp. Rom. and Jul. III. iii. 137 140). 
 
 P. 113. d Epict. Enchir. C. 18, o, TI yap av TOUTCOV caro^ai'vy, eV spot 
 scfrtv do<f>s\T]'&rivai air ayrou; comp. Rom. VIH. 28, oToa/zsv $s Zn ro7$ aya- 
 TTCOJ/V TOV ^teov Travra crvvapysl slg aya&ov. 
 
 P. 113. e Hor. Od. II. i. 23, 24, 'Et cuncta terrarum subacta Praeter 
 atrocem animum Catonis'; I. xii. 35, 36, 'Catonis Nobile letum'; Virg. 
 Aen. VIII. 670, 'Secretosque pios, his dantem jura Catonem'; Cic. De 
 Offic. I. 31, 112, 'Catoni cum incredibilem tribuisset natura gravitatem . . . 
 moriundum potius quam tyranni vultus aspiciendus fuit'; Pro Muren. 
 cc. 29, 31, 60, 64, 'finxit enim te ipsa natura ad honestatem, gravi- 
 tatem ... ad omnes denique virtutes magnum hominem et excelsum', 
 etc.; comp. Tusc. Disp. I. 30, 74, 'quum vero causam justam (for self- 
 destruction) deus ipse dederit, ut tune Socrati, nunc Catoni' etc.; Lucan, 
 Pharsal. II. 380 391, 'Hi mores, haec duri immota Catonis Secta fuit, . . . 
 Nee sibi sed toti genitum se credere mundo . . . Urbi pater, Urbique 
 maritus; Justitiae cultor, rigidi servator honesti, In commune bonus'. 
 Seneca is inexhaustible in his praises of Cato, whom he recommends as 
 
30 NOTES [pp. 113117]. 
 
 a 'custos' and 'paedagogus' (Epist. 11, 10; 25, 6), and whom he 
 considers to have passed even beyond the Stoic ideal (Const. Sap. c. 7, 
 1; De Tranquill. c. 7, 5; esp. Epist. 67, 13; 104, 2933, etc.). 
 'Neque Cato post libertatem, nee libertas post Catonem', became a cur- 
 rent saying. 
 
 P. 114. a Comp. Senec. De Benef. II. 20, 2, with respect to Brutus, 
 'existimavit civitatem in priorem formam posse revocari amissis pristinis 
 moribus, . . . ubi viderat tot millia hominum pugnantia, non an servirent 
 sed utri'; and similarly of Cato in Epist. 14, 12, 13. 
 P. 114. b Luc. Phars. I. 128. 
 P. 114. c Tac. Ann. XIV. 57; XYI. 22. 
 
 P. 114. d About Persius see -infra. As to Juvenal, it is enough to 
 refer to the truly Stoic lines 356 366 of the tenth Satire; comp. also 
 XIV. 308320. 
 
 P. 114. e Hor. Od. II. iii. 18, see supra Notes p. 23 [P. 105 a ]. 
 F. 114. f Wordsworth's Poems dedicated to National Independence, 
 Part I, Sonnet XVI. 
 
 P. 115. a Tschong-yong, ch. 10 (p. 72 of Plaenckner's Translation). 
 P. 115. b See supra p. 37. 
 P. 115. c Eccl. VIII. 17; comp. XL 5. 
 
 P. 115. d Senec. Here. Fur. 463, 464, 'Quemcunque miserum videris, 
 hominem scias', and, 'Quemcunque fortem videris, miserum negas'. Comp. 
 Gie. Epist. ad Famil. V. xxi. 5, 'praeter culpam et peccatum . . . homini 
 accidere nihil posse, quod sit horribile aut pertimescendum' ; Tusc. Disp. 
 III. 16, 34, 'malum nullum esse nisi culpam, culpam autem nullam esse, 
 quum id quod ab homine non potuerit praestari, evenerit'. 
 
 P. 115. e So M. Aurel. II. 11. This cardinal question has of course 
 much engaged the Stoics' attention, and it is elaborately and eloquently 
 discussed by Seneca in his Treatise "De Providentia" (see espec. c. 5, 
 e.g. 6, 7, scio omnia certa et in aeterum dicta lege decurrere . . . causa 
 pendet ex causa . . . fortiter omne patiendum est, quia non ut putamus 
 accidunt cuncta . . . grande solatium est cum universe rapi etc.); comp. 
 also Pint. De Stoic. Eepugn. cc. 18, 35. 
 P. 116. a Eccl. IV. 6; V. 9, 11. 
 P. 116. b IV. 17; V. 1; XI. 1; comp. V. 5, 6. 
 P. 116. c VH. 3; XII. 12, 13; comp. VII. 4, 8, 9. 
 P. 117. a See M. Aur. V. 8; comp. Senec. Epist. 74, 20, nihil in- 
 dignetur sibi accidere, sciatque ilia ipsa, quibus laedi videtur, ad con- 
 servationem universi pertinere, et ex iis esse quae cursum mundi offi- 
 ciumque consummant, 96, 1, solet fieri; hoc parum est, debuit fieri, 
 decernuntur ista, non accidunt. 
 
 P. 117. b Panini had before his eyes views like the following of 
 Seneca: 'We are not at liberty to be free from trials, but our mind is 
 at liberty to rise above them and to make them even a source of genuine 
 joy' (Const. Sap. c. 19, 3); or, 'Good men suffer . . . but they suffer 
 
NOTES [pp. 117123]. 31 
 
 willingly; they are not drawn along by Fortune, but follow her with 
 equal step' (De Provid. c. 5, 4; comp. Epist. 74, 20); or of Epictetus: 
 'Disease is an impediment to the body, but not to the will, unless the 
 will itself chooses' (Enchir. c. 9) all which passages, however, refer to 
 the power of the human will to resist the decrees of Fate (see supra 
 Notes p. 16 [P. 96 e ]). 
 
 P. 118. a This idea is no doubt implied in the comic poet's exaggerated 
 taunt: 'You drink but water, And so must be a worthless citizen 
 ('AXua/rfX^ si ry iro\et jr/vccv /?); For so you wrong the farmer and 
 the merchant' etc. (Athen. IV. 55, p. 163). 
 
 P. 118. b Pint. De Stoic. Kepugn. c. 5. 
 
 P. 119. a Dioff. Laert. VI. i. 5, 12. 
 
 P. 119. b Schiller, Freund und Feind, in the 'Votivtafeln'. 
 
 P. 122. a Origen, In Joann. II. 10; Hieron. In Esaiam XI., 'Stoici 
 nostro dogmati in plerisque concordant' ; comp. J. C. F. Meyer, Doctrina 
 Stoicorum ethica cum Christiana comparatur, Getting. 1823, 28 sqq.; 
 v. Baur, Seneca und Paulus, in 'Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftl. Theologie', 
 I. Jena 1858, and 'Drei Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der alten 
 Philosophie' ; etc. 
 
 P. 122. b Hieron. De Script. Eccl. c. 12; Augustin, De Civit. Dei, 
 VI. 10, 11; comp. Senec. Frgm. 41; Lactant. Instit. I. v. 28, 'et quam 
 multa alia (Seneca) de Deo nostris similia locutus est'! Amadee Fleury, 
 Saint-Paul et Seneque, Recherches sur le Paganisme, Paris 1853; Charles 
 Aubertin, Seneque et Saint-Paul, Etude sur les rapports supposes entre 
 le philosophe et 1'Apotre, Paris 1862. 
 
 P. 122. c Comp. Tertull. De Anima, c. 20, 'saepe noster'; Apol. c. 12. 
 
 P. 122. d So Brucker, Hist. Crit. phil. II. p. 532, 'multo iUustrior 
 facta est secta stoica, ex quo subdolo conatu Christianorum vitulis arandi 
 occasionem nacta est'; p. 561, 'surrepsisse formulas et systemati suo 
 subdola imitatione adtemperasse'. 
 
 P. 122. e Acts XVIII. 1217. At that time, A. D. 54, St. Paul had 
 only written the two Epistles to the Thessalonians (see Conybeare and 
 Howson, St. Paul, vol. I, ch. XII). 
 
 P. 122. f Comp. Augustin, Epist. 153, 'Seneca, cujus etiam quaedam 
 ad Paulum Apostolum leguntur epistolae'; see L. Ann. Senec. Opera, ed. 
 Haase, III. 476481. 
 
 P. 123. a Augustin, Civit. Dei, VI. 11, 'hie (Seneca) inter alias . . . 
 superstitiones reprehendit etiam sacramenta Judaeorum, et maxime sab- 
 bata . . . Cum interim usque eo sceleratissimae gentis consuetudo in- 
 valuit' etc.; comp. Senec. Frgm. 41, 42. 
 
 P. 123. b See Talm. Avod. Zar. 10; Sanhedr. 91 a; Midr. Rabb. Gen. 
 67, 3; 75, 3; Levit. 3, etc. Comp. Rappoport, Erech Millin, sub 
 Antoninus, pp. 123 sqq.; Jost, Gesch. der Israeliten, IV. 97 sqq.; Cassel 
 in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclop. IE. xxvii. pp. 16 20; Gratz, Gesch. 
 IV. 542544, note 43; Frankel, Darke Mishnah, p. 192; A. Bodek, 
 
32 NOTES [pp. 123, 124]. 
 
 M. Aurel. Antonin. als Freund und Zeitgenosse des Rabbi Jehuda ha- 
 Nasi, 1868; Hamburger, Eeal-Encycl. II. 63 65, etc. 
 
 P. 123. c Comp. Hamburger 1. c. p. 64, 'In solchen Lehren hat sich 
 der Bruch mit dem Heidenthum und seiner Lehre von Fatum voll- 
 zogen und die Annahrung an das Judenthum war eine vollendete 
 Thatsache'. 
 
 P. 123. d Diog. Laert. VII. i. 26, 30, si &j irarpa Qoburoa; c. 27, 
 31; Athen. XIII. 15, p. 563, Zijvwva TOV 3>o/yj*a; Cic. De Finib. IV. 
 20, 56, Poenulus; Joseph. Vit. c. 2, yp&fjiriv . . . ry Qaptaai'wv a'tpsasi 
 KaTatfoXou5re2v ? 77 Kapair\rifft6$ sari ry nap "EXXTjov Srw/'/cvy \iyofj.svy. The 
 Stoic Antipater was a native of Tyre, Posidonius of Syria (comp. 
 Heinze, Die Lehre vom Legos, p. 238). The inaccuracy and vagueness 
 in the Eabbi's argumentation will be easily accounted for by his 
 special bias. 
 
 P. 123. e Epict. Disp. IV. 7, slra viro pavias fisv bvvarai rig OUTCO ;- 
 ra&Tjvai npog ravra KCU vno f&ovf, eo; o/ FaX/X2b/. There is no reason to 
 suspect the genuineness of this passage ; comp. Matt. XXVI. 69, KOI ov 
 rjc&a psra 'ITJJOU TOV FaX/Xa/ou. 
 
 P. 123. f See 8. Nili Tractatus et Epistolae, Bom. 1673; 'God' was 
 always substituted for 'gods', 'Paul' for 'Socrates', etc. 
 
 P. 124. a Other contemporary martyrs were the bishops Polycarp oi 
 Smyrna and Pothinus of Lyons, the one in his eighty-sixth, the other 
 in his ninetieth year. Comp. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. IV. 11, 12, 15; V. 1. 
 5, etc. 
 
 P. 124. M. Aur. XI. 3, TO $s ero//4ov TOUTO fva TTO I^IK^I; Kpiusui; epxy- 
 rat, ny Kara ibikyv TTapdra^iv, un; 01 XpiGTtavw, aXXa XeXoy/a/isvwg KCX. 
 ut;, . . . arpaycfOMi; ('without tragic show'); comp. X. 8, e&i row /S/oi 
 yiZyuvos, i. e. calmly. It is impossible to assign to the words Karc 
 Kaparaijiv the favourable sense 'by mere direction of the ecclesiastica' 
 authorities' (so Jablonski, De Miraculo Legionis Fulminatricis, in Opusc 
 IV. pp. 20 22), as they are in antithesis not only to euro tducqs xpiyscc; 
 but also to \e\oy tfffJLsvwi; K. r. X. 
 
 P. 124. c So Mommsen, Eomische Geschichte, 5th ed. 1869, III. 445 
 554, 555 ('leere doch perfide Phrasenheuchelei', 'terminologische: 
 Geplapper', 'hohle Begriffe', 'gross maulige und langweilige Pharisaer' 
 'Prinzipiennan'' etc.); expressing, in terms equally choice and dignified 
 his no less bitter contempt for Cicero, the friend of the republic, an( 
 for Persius, the youthful and severe Stoic. Similarly also Mommsen' 
 follower, H. Schiller, in his 'Geschichte des Eomischen Kaiserreich 
 unter Nero', Berlin 1872. That vocabulary of abuse has for the greates 
 part been borrowed or imitated from Plutarch and Lucian; comp. fo 
 instance, Plut. Adv. Stoic, c. 20, 'what giddiness is this' ! '(rl<; o TX/yyo 
 OVTO/;); Lucian, De Morte Peregr. cc. 3, 5, 'commonplace and trivic 
 chatter about virtue' (TO, avvfay ravra KOI SK rpi&ov ryv apsr^v snifioov- 
 ; 'noisy chatterers' (/Soovvr^ or KSK payers/;), etc. How different is th 
 
NOTES [p. 124]. 33 
 
 estimate of the Stoics formed by Gibbon and even by Merivale! As 
 regards Cicero, it is sufficient to refer to the eulogy of Pliny, who quotes 
 also the high praise bestowed upon him by his political enemy Caesar 
 (Plin. Nat. Hist. VII. 30 or 31, 'quo te, M. Tulli, piaculo taceam, quove 
 maxume excellentem insigni praedicem'? etc.). Persius needs no other 
 apology than his second Satire (comp. vers. 71 75, 'Quin damus id 
 Superis, de magna quod dare lance Non possit magni Messalae lippa 
 propago: Compositum jus fasque animo, sanctosque recessus Mentis, et 
 incoctum generosum pectus honesto'; again, III. 60, 66 73, 'Est aliquid 
 quo tendis et in quo dirigis arcum ? . . Discite, o miseri, et causas cog- 
 noscite rerum? Quid sumus et quidnam victuri gignimur' etc; and the 
 pathetic and noble confessions of the fifth Satire addressed to his Stoic 
 master Annaeus Cornutus, esp. vers. 19 7, 'Libert ate opus est' etc. 
 On Seneca see supra Notes p. 22 [P. 102 C ]. Epictetus is by Gellius 
 (Noct. Att. I. 2) called 'Stoicorum maximus', 'venerandus senex', etc. And 
 M. Aurelius is by Niebuhr described as the most delightful character in 
 history; comp. Eutrop. VIII. 12 14, 'quern mirari facilius quis quam 
 laudare possit'; and so Suidas sub Ma/jKO?, concluding o^svo; Xoyov TOII; TOV 
 a'sbpzz ccpsraT/; |/7oy^svoy. 
 
 P. 124. d Tertull. Apolog. c. 5, 'si literae M. Aurelii gravissimi Im- 
 peratoris requirantur, quibus illam Germanicam sitim Christianorum forte 
 militum precationtbus impetrato imbri discussam contestatur'; and after 
 Apollinaris and Tertullian, Euseb. Hist. Eccl. V. 5, T^V /' elyrjs TO napa- 
 oov jrsjroir t K'j7av Xsyscova, oiKstav TW ysyovor/ irp^q TOV /3aavXe'eo si\rj(f)svai 
 irpoer;yvpiav Ks/jayvo/3oXov Ty 'Pcc/ta/ccv s'fiwXi^7jav <j>uvy. Comp., however, 
 JuL Capitolinus, M. Anton, philos. c. 24; Dion Cass. LXXI. 8 10: 
 the former attributes the deliverance to the prayer of the Emperor (fulmen 
 de caelo precibus suis contra hostium machinamentum extorsit suis 
 pluvia impetrata, cum siti laborarent), the latter to the incantations of 
 the Egyptian Anuphis (c. 8, 'Apvovtytv nva /-cay&v A/yuTrr/ov auvovra TW 
 HnlapKu aXXoi/j ri rrjoa; Sa/j&cova? KOI TOV f Ep^v TOV cteptov ZTI /iX/7T pay- 
 yetvsi'atg riy'tv sTTiKaU-aa&xi KO.} %1 alruv TOV ojtfipw trt&utmta&tu ; on the name 
 Anuphis meaning 'benefactor' see Jablonski 1. c. pp. 29 33). The Christian 
 colouring of the tradition is invalidated by the Antonine column (now 
 in the Piazza Colonna at Kome), by the commemorative coins which 
 represent Jupiter hurling his lightning on prostrate barbarians, and by 
 pictures showing the Emperor in the attitude of prayer and the army 
 collecting the falling rain in their helmets. Modifications in such tra- 
 ditions are natural: the Antonine column exhibits no trace of lightning 
 (not mentioned by Tertullian either), and on the silver coin Mercury 
 (in harmony with the account of Dion Cassius) is pictured with a bowl 
 in the one hand and his caduceus in the other, so that the honour of 
 the rescue was not attributed to Jupiter Pluvius alone (comp. Jablonski 
 1. c. pp. 10, 13, 14, and in general pp. 337, and the works there 
 quoted on pp. 4, 5). 
 
34 NOTES [pp. 124, 125]. 
 
 P. 124. e Comp. Dion Cass. LXXI. 9, s<f> o? Karair^aysvra 
 iff^vpwt; rwg rs Xp/ar/avovs Kara. oy/ia rtprjaai, . . . \sysTai s K 
 riva irsp] TOUTWV given rov MapKw. The letter is usually printed after 
 Justin's Apology. 
 
 P. 124. f Comp. Dion Cass. LV. 23, KOI TO SwSsVarov TO s 
 TO Kspavvofopov, while Eusebius 1. c. renders fulminatrix by 
 see Em. Forster, M. Aurel. Vita et Philosoph., Eastadii, 1869, p. 20. 
 
 P. 124. % Scaliger, Animadverss. ad Euseb. Chronic., pp. 222, 223, and 
 after him Salmasius and others. 
 
 P. 124. h Justin was executed in Borne A. D. 166; the persecution in 
 Asia Minor (Smyrna) took place in 167; the war against the Quadi in 
 174, and the persecution in Gaul (Lyons and Vienne) in 177; comp. 
 Euseb. Hist. Eccl. V. 1. 
 
 P. 125. a 'Si quis aliquid fecerit, quo leves hominum animi superstitione 
 numinis terrentur, divus Marcus hujusmodi homines in insulam relegari 
 rescripsit' (Digest, 48, 19, 30, from Modestius). Whether this rescript 
 refers to the Christians exclusively, is, of course, uncertain. In general 
 M. Aurelius did not favour innovations (comp. Medit. I. 16). 
 
 P. 125. b Comp. his charges against Christianity collected from the 
 Beply of Origen, in Theod. Keim, Celsus' Wahres Wort; alteste Streit- 
 schrift antiker Weltanschauung gegen das Christenthum etc. Zurich 
 1873. 
 
 P. 125. c Comp. Sueton. Claud, c. 25, Judaeos impulsore Chresto assiduo 
 tumultuantes Boma expulit. 
 
 P. 125. d Comp. Arnob. Adv. Nation. I. 13, 'Christianorum causa mala 
 omnia dii inferunt', 24, 'Jacent antiquae derisui cerimoniae et sacrorum 
 quondam veterrimi ritus religionum novarum superstitionibus occiderunt, 
 et merito humanum genus tot miseriarum angustiis premitur', etc. 
 
 P. 125. e Euseb. Hist. Eccl. V. 1 ; Augustin, Civ. Dei, II. 3, 'Pluvia dent, 
 causa Christiani . . . clades quibus . . . genus humanum oportet affligi, causa 
 accidere nominis Christiani'. Comp. Tertull. Apol. c. 2, 'Christianum 
 hominem omnium scelerum reum, deorum, imperatorum, legum, morum, na- 
 turae totius inimicum existimas'; Orig. Contr. Gels. V. 63, a'XXo* XXov ^/~ 
 Sau^aXov rs Kai Gatftova /ca/cw^ ir\a6/ji.evQi K. r. X; Plin. Epist. X. 97, 'flagitis 
 cohaerentia nomini'; 'nihil aliud inveni quam superstitionem pravam et 
 immodicam'; 'superstitionis istius contagio'; Tacit. Ann. XV. 44, 'quo* 
 per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos appellabat'; 'odio humani generic 
 convicti sunt'; 'exitiabilis superstitio'; Sueton. Nero, c. 16, 'Christiani 
 genus hominum superstitionis novae et maleficae'; also Lucian, De Mort( 
 Peregrin, cc. 11 16: Christ is called a magician who introduced ne^ 
 mysteries (c. 11), or 'the crucified sophist' (c. 13, avsa/coXoff/j/A/vov SKSIVO: 
 <7o0/ffT^v). The opinions of heathen authors about the Jews see Comm. or 
 Lev. II. pp. Ill 113; M. Joel, Die Angriffe des Heidenthums gegei 
 Juden und Christen in den ersten Jahrhunderten der romischen Casaren 
 1879. 
 
NOTES [pp. 125127]. 35 
 
 P. 125. f Comp. J. H. Bryant, The mutual influence etc. London 
 1866; I. Dowrif, Du Stoicisme et du Christianisme consideres dans leurs 
 rapports, leur difference et 1'influence qu'ils ont exercee sur les moem^ 
 Paris 1863. 
 
 P. 1 25. % In his speech to the Alexandrians, after the battle of Actium, 
 Augustus, in stating his reasons for treating the town with clemency, 
 mentions a regard for his philosopher Areus; and to him Livia, after 
 the death of her sonDrusus, also turned for consolation (Dion Cass. LI. 16, 
 "Apuw TOV jroX/TTfv, TTOU ^/Xoffo^oSvr/ Ta } OVVQVTI oi g^prjro; Senec. Ad 
 Marc. c. 4, 2, 'consolatori se Areo, philosopho viri sui, praebuit, et 
 multum earn rem profuisse sibi confessa est'). The Cynic Demetrius en- 
 couraged Thrasea while suffering a violent death; another philosopher 
 preached fortitude to Julius Canus. Comp. Br. Bauer, Christus und 
 die Caesaren, pp. 22, 23. 
 
 P. 126. a See Lucian, De Morte Peregrini, cc. 11 13, 15, 23, 33, 36, 
 39, 40; comp. Gellius, Noct. Att. VIII. 3; XII, 11, where Grellius calls 
 Peregrinus 'virum gravem atque constantem', whom he often heard in 
 Athens 'multa dicere utiliter et honeste', thus giving a very different 
 idea of his character than Lucian's parody; Tertull. De Pallio; Keim, 
 Celsus' Wahres Wort, pp. 143151; Zeller, Vortrageund Abhandlungen, 
 II. 173 188; J. Bernays, Lucian und die Kyniker, mit einer Ueber- 
 setzung der Schrift Lucian's tiber das Lebensende des Peregrinus, 
 1879. 
 
 P. 126. b See Comm. on Levit. II. pp. 375377. It must, however, 
 be admitted that the N. T. allows matrimony (monogamy) even to spi- 
 ritual teachers (1 Cor. IX. 5; 1 Tim. II. 11, 12; IV. 3; Tit. I. 6), nay that 
 Paul's much quoted recommendations of celibacy (in 1 Cor. VII.) may, 
 at least partially, have been prompted by the difficulties of the times, 
 which fell heaviest on the married (comp. ibid. ver. 26, / ryv sviyrw- 
 aav avay/o;v). Nor was the renunciation of the world originally in the 
 Hebrew character, although a beginning was made in the institution of 
 Nazarites (Num. VI. 1 21) as illustrated by the examples of Samson 
 and the Bechabites (Judg. XIII. 27. 1214; Jerem. XXXV. 110), 
 and of an hereditary priesthood without landed or other independent 
 property. 
 
 P. 127. a See Bible Stud. II. pp. 242247. 
 
 P. 127. b Zeno and Cleanthes declined to become citizens of Athens, 
 in order, as they said, "not to deny their proper country" (Plut. De 
 Stoic. Bepugn. c. 4); comp. Sen. De Moribus, 43, 'patria est ubicunque 
 bene est; illud enim per quod bene est non in loco sed in homine 
 est'; etc. 
 
 P. 127. c See Bible Stud. II. pp. 6369. 
 
 P. 127. d Ibid. p. 108. 
 
 P. 127. e See Bruno Bauer, 1. c. p. 274. 
 
 P. 127. f See Bible Studies, 1. c. note f . 
 
36 NOTES [pp. 127, 128]. 
 
 P. 127. & We transcribe the following passages with sincere pleasure: 
 'The redeemed spirits of those great martyrs Polycarp and Justin would 
 have been the first to welcome this holiest of the heathen M. Aurelius 
 into the presence of a Saviour whose Church he persecuted, but to 
 whose indwelling Spirit his virtues were due' (Farrar, 1. c. p. 300). 
 'A soul more fitted by virtue and chastity and self-denial to enter into the 
 eternal peace (than that of M. Aur.), never passed into the presence of its 
 heavenly Father' (id. p. 302). Comp. also pp. 321, 322, speaking of the 
 heathen: 'God was their God as well as ours . . . His spirit was with 
 them, dwelling in them . . .And more than all, our Saviour was their 
 Saviour too; . . . through his righteousness their poor merits were 
 accepted, their inward sicknesses were healed'. 
 
 P. 128. a Talm. Avod. Zar. 10 b ; Midr. Eabb. Levit. 3, 3, DUOIB^ 
 j^D EW3 ND; see supra Notes p. 31 [P. 123 b ]. 
 
 P. 128. b Matt. XV. 2226; Mark VII. 26, 27. 
 
 P. 128. c Matt. X. 5, 6; XV. 24; comp. John IV. 22; Acts III. 25 
 26; XIII. 46. With these clear utterances it is difficult to reconcil< 
 passages like John IV. 4 10, X. 16 ('there shall be one fold and om 
 shepherd'); Matt. VIII. 11; XXIV. 14 ('the gospel shall be preached . . 
 unto all nations'); XXVI. 13; XXVIII. 19; Mark XVI. 15 ('preacl 
 the gospel to every creature'); also Matt. XXI. 43. To regard thos 
 utterances as 'temporary exceptions' and to trace them to 'the particula 
 rism of the first three gospels' (De Wette, Bibl. Dogm. 250), seems ; 
 weak and doubtful expedient. 
 
 P. 128. d Acts XV. 16, 17; comp. Amos IX. 11,, 12. The words c 
 Amos are in Acts quoted after the Septuagint, Zicwc, av 'sKfy-nrjywjiv < 
 KaTockotTTot TU>V av^ocofTttv TOV Kvptw, reading DIN rP"}Nt^ 'IKH'?.' 1^? 
 niJTVIN; whereas the Masoretic text has, more suitably to the context c 
 the passage, D11N rYHNtf TIN IBh^ ]ytb. 
 
 P. 128. e Matt. V. 18. See Comm. on Levit. pp. 113121. 
 
 P. 128. ^ In Tarsus were born the Stoics Chrysippus, Antipater, th 
 younger Zeno, Athenodorus, Archidemus; Cleanthes was a native c 
 Assus in Asia Minor. 
 
 P. 128. & Comp. Acts XVII. 28: the words Tou yap KOU ysvog sip. 
 (effftev), are indeed exactly found so in the Phaenomena. of Arati 
 (ver. 5), and the preceding words sv avrw yap %u>pev KBI /c/vou/ie^a < 
 effpev, correspond, in their general tenour, with the preceding words i 
 the same poem, navTy %e A/o? Ksxpyjfts'&a KO.VTSC, (ver. 4; comp. Hor, 
 Od. III. 48, 'Travrss $s ^tsoov xT/oy<7 av^owTro/); but in the famous hym 
 of the Stoic Cleanthes also the identical idea is embodied in an ii 
 vocation, ' ao-j yap yivo<; eapsv (Stob. Eel. phys. I. 2, p. 8 ed. Meinekc 
 see Virg. Aen. VI. 728, Inde hominum pecudumque genus etc.); al. 
 1 Corinth. XV. 33, the trimeter &\*ipwen 77^77 xP r i a ^ o^t/X/a/ KUKKI (a 
 cording to Jerome taken from Menander, according to modern critics - 
 Grotius, Meineke and others from that poet's 'Thais)'; Tit. I. 12, i: 
 
NOTES [pp. 128132]. 37 
 
 1 Tim. II. 11, 12 (comp. Soph. Ajax 293, Yvvai, yuv/|} Koajuov 17 a/y^ 
 Menand. ap. Stob. Floril. HE. p. 51, ed. Meineke, Ta Isvrsp alii rr t v 
 yyvaZica $st Xs'yv, T^v S^ys/zov/av TWV oXwv TOV a'tip s^stv). 
 
 P. 128. h Gal. HI. 28; Eph. II. 14; IV. 6, 'One God and Father of 
 all' etc., 25; comp. Bom. in. 29, 30; IX. 23 sqq.; XV. 8, 9; 1 Cor. 
 XII. 13; Col. III. 11; 1 Tim. II. 4; VI. 2; Tit. II. 11; in. 4; 1 Pet. 
 III. 7. See Bible Studies, II. p. 94. 
 
 P. 128. i Acts XIII. 46, 47 (comp. Isai. XLH. 6; XLIX. 6); Bom. XV. 
 8, 9. 
 
 P. 129. a Comp. M. Aurel. IV. 4, oisv yap IK row fjuj$evo<; ep^srai, usirsp 
 prfi e!$ TO oi/c ov fatipjprmtl Pers. Sat. III. 84, 'De nihilo nihil, in nihilum 
 nil posse reverti'; like Anaxagoras, Epicurus (see infra, ch. V), and 
 others; comp. Philo, De Incorruptib. Mundi, c. 2, etc. 
 
 P. 129. b Col. II. 8, fiks-KiTa py TH; ssrui fyta 6 auXaywywy S/ rij$ 
 <f>t\<37Q<f>ia<; Kat wrji; anarq/; K. r. X.; 1 Cor. III. 10, 11, ^w'X/ov yap 
 aXXov o'^s/^ Swvara/ ^rsivai ifapa rov Ksiftsvov, 5$ sariv Xptyrog. 
 
 P. 129. c Compare, for instance, the accounts of the death of martyrs 
 in Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History (V. 1) with the accounts of the death 
 of a Cato, Seneca or Thrasea. See Senec. Ad Marc. c. 19, 'Keep in 
 mind, that the departed suffer no ill; that all that makes the lower 
 world terrible to us, is a fable; there are no rivers of fire; these are the 
 playful fictions of poets who excite us with vain fears'; Epist. 24, 18, 
 'no one is so puerile as to dread Cerberus and the darkness of Hades', etc. 
 This is the view of Seneca the Stoic, as distinct from the popular be- 
 lief or the empty "publica persuasio" (Epist. 117, 6). Still more decided 
 is Epictetus (Disp. III. 13): 'No Hades, no Acheron, no Cocytus' etc.; 
 or (c. 24): 'Shall I no longer exist? You will not exist, but you will be 
 something else of which the world has need'. Though, therefore, Zeno 
 may have admitted abodes like Paradise and Hell (Lactant. Instit. VIE. 
 7; see supra Notes p. 18), his opinions on these points were by later 
 Stoics either abandoned or greatly modified; it seems certainly to have 
 been found impossible entirely to exclude the theories of Plato (see 
 Senec. Ad Marc. c. 25, 1, supra 1. c.), and Socrates ever remained 
 the highest model both of the Cynics and the Stoics. How little con- 
 genial the Christian dogmas must have been to the Stoic philosophers, 
 has been briefly and strongly stated by Zeller (Vortrage, I. 106). 
 
 P. 129. ll yilegaseumut paganum, scripsit Christiane; siut Christianum, 
 paganice. 
 
 P. 130. a Considering the differences pointed out, we would not go so 
 far as to characterise Christianity as 'a metamorphosed Stoicism', or as 
 'Stoicism appearing in a Jewish transformation' (Bruno Bauer 1. c. 
 pp. 13, 15). 
 
 P. 130. b Comp. Neander, Vorlesungen iiber Geschichte der christlichen 
 Ethik, herausgegeben von Erdmann, pp. 29, 30. 
 
 P. 131. a See Chapter IX. P. 132. a Neander 1. c. p. 32. 
 
38 NOTES [pp. 132139]. 
 
 P. 132. b This designation of the Koran, crS-^ c.jUXJl, i. e. the 
 clear or perspicuous book, is used as a formula of solemn protestation 
 (Kor. Sur. XLIII. 1). 
 
 P. 134. a Kom. II. 7, 15; III. 28; IX. 13, 32; XIII. 3; Gal. H. 16; 
 III. 2; Eph. II. 10; Phil. I. 6, etc. Comp. Neander 1. c. p. 48, 'Wir 
 fmden hierin (in Chrysippus' saying, Plut. De Stoic Repugn. c. 11), 
 einen Anklang an die Worte Pauli liber den vo//o? und sein Verhaltniss 
 zur Siinde und zur sittlichen Entwickelung' etc. 
 
 P. 134. b Comp. Neander 1. c. pp. 56, 57. 
 
 P. 135. a Cic. Tusc. Disp. I. 11, 24, adsensio omnis ilia elabitur. 
 Cicero himself says, we should not be too confident, as 'there is in 
 the matter some obscurity' (in his est enim aliqua obscuritas). 
 
 P. 135. b 2 Chr. XVI. 12, D'NEHS ^ HIH^HN #1^"**^ l^ljrtM] 
 
 P. 135. c James V. 14 16. 
 
 P. 135. d Matt. VI. 11, 2634; Eccl. XL 6. And similarly Paul: 
 comp. 2 Thess. III. 10 12, 'if any would not work, neither should IK 
 eat' etc.; 1 Thess. IV. 11; Eph. IV. 28. 
 
 P. 137. a Senec. Vit. Beat. c. 18, 1 (cum vitiis convicium facio, in 
 primis meis facio); Epist. 75, 16; De Ira I. 14 (nemo invenietur qu: 
 se possit absolvere, et innocentem quisque se dicit respiciens testem, nor 
 conscientiam) ; II. 28; etc. Comp. 1 Ki. VIII. 46; Ps. CXLIII. 2 
 Prov. XX. 9; Job IV. 1719; XV. 1416; Eccl. VII. 20,- 2 Chr. VI 
 36; Eom. III. 9, 23; 1 John I. 8, etc.; see Comm. on Levit. I. 250 
 251. 
 
 P. 137. b Comp. Beat, Catena of Buddhist Scriptures, pp. 398409 
 esp. pp. 407, 408: the Preface was written in 1412 A. D. 
 
 P. 137. c Neander 1. c. pp. 44, 45 'Dieses allein ist die wahre s'ova/a 
 avTonpaylat;, in welcher der Mensch nur, indem er dem Antriebe de; 
 gottlichen Willens folgt, nach seinem eigenen Willen sich bestimmt . . 
 So wird dann durch diese wahre Freiheit eben die Unabhangigkei 
 selbst, aus welcher der Mensch nicht heraus kann, eine gewollte, ein< 
 freie, Stoff fur die Bethatigung der sittlichen Freiheit'. 
 
 P. 138. a Schiiler in Goethe's Faust, p. 79, ed. Cotta, 1840. 
 
 B. 138. b Comp. Neander 1. c. pp. 54, 55. 
 
 P. 138. c Philipp. I. 2224; comp. 2 Cor. V. 8, ^appwfuv Si *a 
 e^oK-ou/tsv jttaXXov iK^rj/ji^ffai SK TOW acojwaro^ Ktxt fafojjttfmu irpii; rov Kvptw 
 2 Tim. IV. 6; see also Hebr. VII. 24, roiketmwptx; e'yw av^awo^, ri<; p 
 pvasTcti SK TOV awpaTOi; TOW &yToy rourow; Comp. De Wette, Lehrbucl 
 der christl. Sittenlehre, 262264; Marheineke, System der theolog 
 Moral, pp. 345355. 
 
 P. 139. a Senec. De Prov. c. 6, 3, quare viri boni quaedam dur 
 patiantur? ut alios pati doceant; nati sunt in examplar. 
 
 P. 139. b Lucian, De Morte Peregrini, c. 33. ufyekrjaai /SoyXojaa/ roi 
 %sli;otq avrtfi; K. r. X. 
 
NOTES [pp. 189143]. 39 
 
 P. 139. c Comp. Epictet. Enchir c. 22, ruv Se /8Xiwrv aot 
 
 X OV > "5 ^ ff * T0 '*' * T*ry/<t/vo */f rainy v T^V ^wpav; see also 
 supra p. 84. 
 
 P. 139. d EccL IV. 13; IX. 4, 5; X. 4, 20. 
 
 P. 139. e Comp. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. VIII. 12; ffieron. Adv. Jovin. I. 
 41 ; etc. 'Baptism of fire', that is, self-destruction in the flames, cha- 
 racterises the mystic and fanatical sect of the Greek (Russian) Church 
 known as the 'Morelshikis', i. e. 'those who sacrifice themselves wholly' 
 (so called in contradistinction to the 'Skopzi' or 'those who sacrifice 
 themselves partially', by emasculation). 
 
 P. 139. * Just. Mart. Apol. II. 4; Lactant. Instit. III. 18, 'quo niliil 
 sceleratius fieri potest'; Augustin, Civ. Dei, I. 17 27. Comp. De Wette, 
 Lehrb. der christl. Sittenlehre, 263. 
 
 P. 140. a 1 Sam. XXXI. 4, 5; comp. 2 Sam. I. 9, 10. 
 
 P. 140. b See supra p. 92. 
 
 P. 141. a Plat. Theaet. c. 25, p. 176 A, ovV airo\sa^at ra KUKO. %wa- 
 TOV . . . oyr ev ^soii; aura ftpvy'&at K. r. X. 
 
 P. 141. Plut. Adv. Stoic, c. 13, 17 Ss KUKIO, irptg ra XO/TTCC uvfjarrufjiarei 
 e%st Zpov, yi'varai fjisv yap Kai alrr, irwt; Kara T&V rr,i; <f>v<73wg Xoyov nai . . . 
 WK a^pr/VTai; ylverai irpas ra &X* ovSe yap av Taya^ov r t v; comp. De Stoic. 
 Kepugn. c. 35, also cc. 36, 37; Sext. Empir. Pyrrhon. Hypot. HI. 24, 
 218, the Stoics say, 'God is a breath pervading also what is mis- 
 shaped'. 
 
 P. 141. c Isai. XLV. 7; comp. Am. IH. 6, 'Shall there be evil in the 
 city, and the Lord has not done it'? 
 
 P. 141. d Comp. M.Aur. VI. 1, O&STI KaKux; xoiei, wit pka-rtTSTai rt; II. 
 11, si ri xaK'Sj rp K. r. X.; VIII. 55, ysviKu; fjisv r t KO.KIO. ovSsv fi\anTsi TOV 
 Kfopw; X. 6; XII. 5. 
 
 P. 142. a Comp. Plut. Adv. Stoic, cc. 1419, where the chief ob- 
 jections against the desirability of moral evil in the world are well 
 stated; comp. also c. 33, 'What can be more contrary to the notions 
 of common sense than to suppose that, under the best possible go- 
 vernment of Zeus (TOW A/os w? svi apiara S/O/KOUVTOS), we should be as 
 wretched as possible'? 
 
 P. 142. b Or in Hegel's words, 'Was wirklich ist, 1st verniinftig'. 
 
 P. 143. a Neander 1. c. p. 39, 'ein Hochmuthsschwindel, in welchem 
 sogar behauptet wird, dass selbst Zeus vor dem Guten nichts voraus 
 habe'. 
 
 P. 143. b Plut. De Stoic. Repugn, c. 13? ovru ro7$ y^o?> ?/ ravra 
 npwflKst KUT ov^ev irpoextpsvotg iffo TOW A/o^; c. 33, 'Zeus and the wise 
 man mutually benefit each other, and he who does not yield to the gods 
 in virtue, is not inferior to them in happiness' etc.; where it is, however, 
 added: 'This is very different from the vain pride of Salmoneus, who 
 called himself Zeus simply because he willed to be like Zeus' (Apollod. 
 I. 9, 7, Ifipiyriis %i wv xat rw Ait' ei-ivov&ai ^s'Xccv . . . ^>.^y^v savrw 
 
40 NOTES [p. 143]. 
 
 eJvai A/a K. r. X.; Senec. Epist. 48, 11, 'philosophy promises me to 
 make me equal to God; to this I have been summoned; for this I 
 come; ... so we rise to the stars' (sic itur ad astra); Provid. c. 1, 5, 
 'Between good men and the gods there exists a friendship through the 
 connecting bond of virtue; a friendship I say? nay a relationship and 
 similarity, since the good man differs from God only in respect of time' 
 (quoniam quidem bonus tempore tantum a deo differt); Epist. 41, 4, 
 the sage 'looks upon men from a higher place, from an equal one upon 
 the gods' (ex aequo deos); Epictet. Disp. II. 19, the Stoic 'desires to 
 become a god instead of a man' (^sw el; av^coffou 7rAu/zoDvra ysvsff^ai). 
 
 P. 143. c Comp. Senec. Epist. 11, 8, 'We should select some good 
 man and place him always before our eyes, that we may live as if he 
 always sees us, and act as if he observes all we do; ... we need a 
 guardian and a guide, . . . someone whom we revere and through 
 whose influence even our secret actions are sanctified . . . Select there- 
 fore Cato' etc.; Epist. 25, 5, 6; Epictet. Enchir. c. 33, 1, 'Be- 
 present to yourself a model and example (TVXOV), whom you follow in your 
 life, whether you are alone or among others' (comp. ibid. 12); Disp. 
 II. 18, etc. Perhaps analogous to this advice is the injunction of Seneca: 
 'Put on the mind of some great man' (indue magni viri animum; Epist. 
 67, 17) which bears a remarkable affinity to the admonition of Paul 
 'Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ' (sv^yaao-^s TOV Kupiov 'lr,vwv X/J/JTOV, 
 Bom. XIII. 14; comp. Gal. III. 27, X^JTOV avMaaa^a; also Ephes. IV. 
 24; Col. III. 10). 
 
 P. 143. d Christian teachers admit at least that Christ was "not free 
 from all inward temptation or from all inward allurement to sin", though 
 he never succumbed but remained spotless (comp. Matt. IV. 1 11; 
 Mark I. 13; Luke IV. 113; Hebr. IV. 15, 'we have not an High- 
 priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but 
 was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin' ; etc.) ; so that 
 he was indeed exempt from sin, but not from hereditary sin (De Wette, 
 Lehrb. der christl. Sittenlehre, 49, 50). See infra, the conclusion of 
 this Chapter. 
 
 P. 143. e See supra p. 103. 
 
 P. 143. f See infra Chapter V. Seneca, in his description of the vir 
 bonus, attributes to him 'faciem altiorem quam cerni inter humana con- 
 sue vit', and thinks that whoever sees him, must, 'velut numinis occursu 
 obstupefactus', feel prompted silently to pray to him (see supra p. 1 03) ; 
 comp. also Senec. Epist. 41, 4, 5, 'non subibit te ejus veneratio?. .. 
 Vis istuc divina descendit' etc.; after which Seneca introduces this fine 
 simile of the sun and the good man: 'As the rays of the sun touch 
 the earth, but remain in the heights from whence they are emitted; so 
 a great and holy mind, sent down to us that we may become more 
 closely acquainted with the divine, holds intercourse with us, but clings 
 to its origin' (sed haeret origini suae). Compare Goldsmith's lines: 
 
NOTES [pp. 144147]. 41 
 
 'To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, But all his serious 
 thoughts had rest in heaven. As some tall cliff etc. 
 
 P. 144. a 'Der Reflex, welchen die im Schimmer ihres Lichts sich 
 spiegelnde menschliche Vernunft iiber das Menschliche hinausfallen lasst'. 
 P. 144. b Comp. Xenoph. Apol. 15, ips Sa su psv WK t*Ka<?v 
 ('AffoXXwv), av^acoTTwv Ss jroXXai irpogxpnav Inspfyspsn. 
 
 P. 145. a See F. C. Baur, Das Christliche des Platonismus, pp. 147 
 154, 'In paganism the divine appertains merely to subjective conception, 
 and thus has always the human as its foundation, . . . the reality of 
 the divine is only imagined, figurative, and subjective' (die Eealitat des 
 Gottlichen ist eine bloss eingebildete, bildliche, subjective). 
 
 P. 145. b The whole passage in Dante (Purgatorio, III. 34 37) runs thus : 
 'Matto e chi spera che nostra ragione Possa trascorrer la infinita via, 
 Che tiene una sustanzia in tre persone' 'Foolish is he who hopes that 
 our reason can penetrate the infinite mystery which holds one substance 
 in three persons : be satisfied, human race, with the quid 1 that is, with 
 the demonstration a posteriori, since the proof of propter quod or a 
 priori is impossible to man. 
 
 P. 146. a Luther's Confession of Faith (1829), 'Christus Sohn Maria 
 geboren, in aller Weise und Gestalt ein rechter Mensch, wie ich selbst 
 bin und alle andere'; comp. Graul, Die Unterscheidungslehren der ver- 
 schiedenen christlichen Bekenntnisse, p. 14. 
 
 P. 146. b 'The Son . . . begotten from everlasting of the Father . . . 
 took Man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance' ; 
 comp. also Art. XV, 'Christ in the truth of our nature was made like 
 unto us in all things, sin only excepted'. 
 
 P. 146. c The irspixoopyffi!;. Comp. De Wette, Dogmatik der pro- 
 testantischen Kirche, 64% 64 b . 
 
 P. 146. d Philipp. II. 58 (see on this passage Br. Bauer 1. c. p. 373); 
 comp. John V. 18; X. 33; XIV. 9; XVII. 5; Col. I. 15; Hebr. I. 
 3, etc. 
 
 P. 146. e M. Aur. XII. 27, o yap VTTQ arvfylx TU</>O TU</>6/xavo, iravrwv 
 XaXcTTwraTo?; exhorting the philosopher to show himself 'just, prudent, 
 and godfearing, in simplicity' (</>cXw). 
 
 P. 147. a M, '. Aur. I. 14, tfta^rauiav Xa/Jsiv itoktrttai; /Vovoftou Kara, /fforijra 
 KCLI tarflopiay S/cu/cov/zsyTjij KOI J3a?i\siai; TtfjiwyTji; iravrcav /iaX/ora trft e\iv- 
 ^spt'av TWV apwiJisvuv; Capitolinus, M. Antonin. Philos. c. 12, cum populo 
 autem non aliter egit quam est actum sub civitate libera; Eutrop. VIII. 
 11, hie cum omnibus Eomae aequo jure egit, ad nullam insolentiam 
 elatus imperil fastigio; Suidas sub Ma/j/co^, Tov %s yoSv /S/wr>jy /3/ov sv 
 injyopiy roti; 7roXXo?5 'Pw/,ia/o/$ e{3i'w K. r. X. ; Herodian, I. 2, 3 5, 
 naps'tys %s KO.} roTg apyQfj.svQn; Jawrov eirtstK-f} KOU fAirpiw /3a/X/ K. r. X. 
 P. 147. b M. Aur. .IX. 29, prfis TTJV nXarwvo? TroX/re/av eKirt& . . . 
 
 yap ayrwv TI; fjLSTafiaXkst ; K. r. X.; comp. VIII. 4, or/ oiSev 
 alra. ffonjffoyav, KUV ay 
 
42 NOTES [pp. 147151]. 
 
 P. 147. c Cornp. Winckler, Der Stoicismus eine Wurzel des Christen- 
 thums, pp. 5860. 
 
 P. 148. a M. Aur. V. 33, TT/OT/; Se KOI <x$w$ KI HK-TJ Kae a\r/^,sia '11,00; 
 "OXv/xTTov <X7TO x^ v ? slpvolsl-fj? (Hesiod, Works, ver. 180); comp. IV. 32; 
 V. 10; VII. 1; Plut. Adv. Stoic, cc. 14, 19, 33. 
 
 P. 148. b Eurip. Here. Fur. Ill, 112, sxsex juovov KOU ^->;/za WKTspujriv 
 'Evvv^ccv civsipwv. 
 
 P. 148. c Senec. Epist. 75, 15, adspice quam nullura sit nefas sine 
 exemplo etc.; Ep. 14, 4, 5, that long catalogue of cruelties, 'ferrum 
 circa se et ignes habet et catenas et turbam ferarum, . . . carcerem et 
 cruces et eculeos et uncum et adactum per medium hominem ... 
 stipitem' etc. See the spirited sketch of the 'State of Roman Society' 
 in Farrar's Seekers after God, pp. 36 53. 
 
 P. 148. d 'Avs'xou Ktzi anexov; Epictet. in Gellius, Noct. Att. XV.II 19; 
 Lat. 'Sustine et abstine'. 
 
 P. 149. a Epictet. Disp. III. 24, XX' tyikei, KUII;; wg TOV A<o$ S/*ovov 
 e$s<, afJLa fjisv /o^Ojtcsvog, apex. S' TW ^ew InQTSTaypevQi;; comp. 1 Cor. 
 XV. 10, mpieeoTepov avruv Travrcov sKOTTiaact, OVK eyw 5, XXa r t fo-pi^ TOU 
 ^eoy avv spot ; etc. 
 
 P. 150. a Comp. De Wette, Lehrb. der Christl. Sittenlehi-e, 56, im 
 Christenthum lasst sich ein Umcandelbares und stets Oleiches . . . und 
 ein Bewegliches und Mannigfaltiges . . . unterscheiden', etc. Zeller (Vor- 
 trage und Abhandlungen, II. 70 72), though acknowledging no dogma, 
 no worship, no Scriptures, no mission of Christ, nor even a personal 
 God, thinks he may still call himself a Christian, simply because his 
 'religious life is borne by an historical current which has continued uninter- 
 ruptedly from the beginnings of Christianity to the present time'. But 
 a 'religion' bereft of all those elements is. no development of primitive 
 Christianity, but a perfect transformation. Braasch, a dignitary of the 
 Protestant Church in Jena, declines dogmas that are 'frozen up' and 
 accepts only such which, by metamorphoses organically renewed, preserve 
 their true nature. He distinguishes in each dogma three elements an 
 anthropological, an historical, and a philosophical; and attaches im- 
 portance to the first only, while he declares the other two as indifferent; 
 yet these two alone are distinctively Christian. For instance, in the 
 dogma of hereditary sin, he regards the 'anthropological' experience of 
 man's innate perversity as exclusively essential ; whereas he allows every 
 possible latitude with respect to Adam's disobedience in Paradise and the 
 hereditary effects of his Fall. Yet this is still called by him Christianity 
 and supposed to admit of an ecclesiastical community (comp. A. H. Braasch, 
 1st ein Zusammenwirken inmrhalb unserer evangelisch-protestantischen 
 Kirche moglich? pp. 12, 13, 1820). 
 
 P. 150. b Schiller, Die Braut von Messina; V, p. 467, ed. 1847. 
 
 P. 151. a Neander 1. c. p. 41, 'Das Paradoxe ist das Merkmal des 
 Gottlichen'; 'Eine Eeligion gottlicher Offenbarung muss Paradoxien haben'. 
 
NOTES [pp. 152, 153]. 43 
 
 P. 152. a Senec. Epist. 68, 6, 9, 'de te apud te male existima; 
 nihil damnavi nisi me; . . . non medicus sed aeger hie habitat'; for, he 
 says, all men are in the same hospital (valetudinario). See supra 
 pp. 136, 137. 
 
 P. 152. b Epict. Disp. II. 11, avvtiSyyt; rr^ alrw ao^sveiai; K. r. X. 
 
 P. 152. c Id. Enchir. c. 48. 3, u>$ ex^oov savriv irapafyvkayati KOU 
 sjr/jSoyXov; comp. Disp. II. 1, 'For the purification of the soul and for 
 enabling man to use its powers, he must root out of himself pride (o/V/-) 
 and distrust'; III. 24; IV. 8; also the fine self-exhortation in Enchir. 
 C. 51, ei$ ?ro7ov art xp&vov avaj2ak\f! TO TWV /SsXr/Vrccv a&ovv jjaurov K. T. X.). 
 No less humane than philosophical is his remark in reference to honours 
 obtained by others, when we have obtained none: 'If those honours are 
 a good, you must rejoice that your fellow-man has won them; but if 
 they are no good, you should not complain that they did not fall to 
 your share' (Enchir. c. 25, 1, %aipsiv as $s7, or/ Irujpv avruv eWvos K. T. X.). 
 
 P. 152. d M, '. Aur. X. 1, 8; comp. V. 10, iraaa 77 r^eripo. jyy*ar<W/; 
 fjLera-rtrKTr,, TTOV yap 6 a^arairruT^t;- I. 17, anoXsmsy^ai %s en Toy-row napa 
 TTJV sp^v airiav K. T. X.; etc. 
 
 P. 152. e Epict. Enchir. C. 13, KV So'>7? rig eivai run, 
 comp. ibid. C. 22, ay $s typvv {JLSV /JLTJ o^y;; c. 48, 2. 
 
 P. 152. f Epict. Enchir. c. 11, fjnjbajroTe girt nrfawq stiry 
 ayTo, XX' Zrt 'ATrs^cc^a. 
 
 P. 152. M. Aur. X. 14, X/ys/ & TOWTO oy *ttr&jMtMft9/cmft aXXa 
 rrs&apx&v ft/fan* Koil syvowv ayT^. 
 
 P. 153. a See supra pp. 115, 116. 
 
 P. 153. b M. Aurel. VII. 36, RaetktKW, sv /^sv irparTsiv, KCXK&S $s U 
 James II. 8. 
 
 P. 153. c M. Aur. VII. 22, /^/ov a&puirov, TO (f)t\s~v KOU 
 
 P. 153. VI. 6, aptsroi; T^OOTTO^ Toy ap.vvea'&at TO py s 
 
 P. 153. c XI. 18, en TO svpavsi; aviKTjTov K. T. X. 'Can all antiquity', 
 observes Farrar (1. c. p. 281), 'show anything more close to the spirit 
 of Christian teaching than these nine rules'? See M. Aur. VII. 22, 26; 
 VIII. 29; IX. 20, Toy aXXoy afjLapT^fiaTa eicst $s7 K aTaktmtv ; Capitolin. 
 Vit. M. Aur. Philos. c. 24, aequitatem autem etiam circa captos custo- 
 divit. Comp. Ps. VII. 5; Prov. XX. 22; XXIV. 17, 29; XXV. 21; 
 Job XXXI. 29, 30; Matt. V. 3941, 44; Rom. XII. 17; 1 Thess. V. 
 15; 1 Pet. HI. 9, etc. 
 
 P. 153. f Senec. De Const. Sap. c. 14. 
 
 P. 153. & Comp. Bdhtlingk, Indische Spriiche, p. 111. Similar sen- 
 timents are not rare in Indian writings; e. g. 'What virtue is there 
 in the goodness of the man who is good to his benefactors? he only 
 who is good to those who do him wrong, is called good by the virtuous' ; 
 or, 'Let a man conquer anger with calmness . . . and falsehood with truth'; 
 or, 'Let a man endure reviling with patience; . . . when he is angrily 
 addressed, let him speak kindly, benevolently'; or, 'Hospitality should be 
 
44 NOTES [pp. 154 156]. 
 
 shown even to an enemy when he comes to your house : a tree does not 
 withdraw its shade even from him who comes to cut it down' (comp. 
 J. Muir, Relig. and Moral Sentiments from Indian writers, pp. 24, 25). 
 
 P. 154. a Sutra of the Forty-two Sections, translated by S. Beat, in Catena 
 of Buddhist Scriptures, p. 193; Spence Hardy, Legends and Theories of 
 Buddhists, pp. xl, xli, 212; Vassilief, Le Bouddisme, traduit par La 
 Comme, p. 83, One of the oldest of Buddhistic doctrines is: 'Quatre at- 
 tributs principaux distinguent le disciple de Boudda: il n'outrage pas 
 celui qui 1'outrage, il ne repond pas . . . par 1'accusation a 1'ac- 
 cusation' etc. 
 
 P. 154. b Comp. Spence Hardy 1. c. pp. 212 214. 
 
 P. 154. c Epict. Disp. I. 19, where, however, the point is so put, that 
 rational beings cannot promote their own true interests without aiding 
 those of the whole (v [JLTJ slq TO KO/VGV co^s'X/^cov y). 
 
 P. 154. d Plut. Legg. V. 4, p. 731 E; comp. Clc. De Fin. V. 9. A 
 maxim of Publius Syrus is : 'Malus est vocandus qui sua causa est bonus' 
 (Sentent. 391). 
 
 P. 155. a Epict. Disp. I. 13, OVK avsfy rov a%s\<J)ov rov yavrov, og s%et 
 T&V A/a ff^oyovov K. T. X. ; Enchir. c. 27, yn/^yTjao Zri ov% o \oi%op&v y 
 TVKTUV vfipfai K. r. X. ; c. 42. See Bible Studies, II. p. 320, note b. 
 
 P. 155. b Thus says Pliny (Nat. Hist. VII. 19 or 18), with an almost in- 
 credible misconception: 'Exit hie animi tenor ... in rigorem quendam 
 torvitatemque naturae duram et inflexibilem, adfectusque humanos adimit'; 
 and he even places Diogenes side by side with the misanthrope Timon. 
 
 P. 155. c Senec. De Clement. II. 5, 'nulla secta benignior leniorque 
 est, nulla amantior hominum' etc. Comp. Jos. Simpson, Epicteti Ma- 
 nuale, Praef. pp. xxi, xxii. 
 
 P. 155. d Comp. Eph. VI. 59; Col. III. 22; IV. 1; 1 Tim. VI. 1, 
 2; Tit. II. 9, 10; 1 Pet. II. 18, 19, etc. 
 
 L. 155. e Senec. De Benef. III. 22, 1, servus perpetuus mer- 
 cenarius est. 
 
 P. 155. f Col. IV. 1; Eph. VI. 9. 
 
 P. 155. S Comp. Farrar 1. c. pp. 5153. 
 
 P. 155. h Comp. the analogous term 'your masters according to the 
 flesh' (TO% Kara aapna Kvpioi$) in Eph. VI. 5 and Col. III. 22, which, 
 however, implies a different antithesis. 
 
 P. 155. ' Sen. Epist. 47, vive cum servo clementer, comiter quoque, 
 et in sermonem ilium admitte etc.; De Benef. III. 18 28, corpora ob- 
 noxia sunt et adscripta dominis, mens quidem sui juris, etc. ; De Clement. 
 I. 18; Epict. Disp. I. 13. 
 
 P. 156. a Sen. De Ira III. 14 16, quanto humanius mitem et patrium 
 animum praestare peccantibus, sed illos non persequi sed revocare etc. 
 
 P. 156. b Epict. Disp. I. 18, yct\s-no.hsrj olv $si avrotg; . . . XX s7ov 
 rijv ffXavTjv KOI otist nun; afiiyravTai TUV oc/JLapryftaTuv (comp. II. 22 fin. 
 o?); M. Aur. VIII. 8, ava/a^ro/j KCU ci 
 
NOTES [pp. 153 158]. 45 
 
 irpQ7STi K^gff^tai alruv ; and VI. 27, QVKQVV Sti 
 Te7v; comp. XI. 18. It was also a doctrine of the Cyrenaics (the 
 Hegesiaci) that 'errors ought to be pardoned', since all trespasses arise from 
 a misconception of external circumstances; and that 'we ought not to 
 hate the erring, but teach him better' (Diog. Laert. II. viii. 9, 95) 
 
 P. 156. c Lev. XIX. 17; comp. Prov. XIX. 17; Matt. XVIII. 15175 
 2 Thess. III. 14, 15, 'count him not as an enemy, but admonish him 
 as a brother', etc. 
 
 P. 156. d E. Meier, Morgenlandische Anthologie, p. 154. 
 
 P. 156. e Comp. Zeller, Vortrage, I. p. 98. 
 
 P. 157. & Farrar 1. c. p. 181. 
 
 -P. 157. b See Pressel in Herzog's Eeal-Encyclop. IX. 40, first Ed. 
 
 P. 157. c Epict. Enchir. c. 46, 2; comp. Disp. III. 21 init., 'after 
 digestion show some change in your ruling faculty'; Enchir. c, 49, where, 
 speaking of the subtle and far-famed precepts of Chrysippus, he observes 
 that not their exposition but their application in life is something great 
 (TOUTO TO /xo'vov espvw e'jr/v); the former requires merely a grammarian, 
 the other is the task of the philosopher; also ib. c. 52, 1, 
 avay/c/oraro TOTTO? eVriv e'v <^>/Xo<70</>n: o Tij$ 
 M. Aur. IX. 16. r, apsrrj KCCI K<XKIO, owr e'v irsi^ei, aXXa evspfilcc. Yet it 
 can easily be understood that a man of M. Aurelius' contemplative and 
 sensitive character should compare philosophy to a mother, and the 
 Court to a step-mother: 'repair often to philosophy', he wrote (V. 12), 
 'and seek comfort with her through whom the Court appears bearable 
 to you and you to the Court'. 
 
 P. 158. a M. Aur. XII. 29, airoXaus/v rou >?v, uuvaTrrovra XXo eV aXXw 
 aya^ov, wars prj^s TO /fyja^urarov ^/aanjjaa aTroXs/W/v. 
 
 P. 158. b VIII. 26, stypoyvvr; oc&pcuTrov, TTOW/V rot, i$ia av^ocoTrou, <^/ov 
 $s KV'&PKKOV svvo/a TT/JO? TO o'/Ao</>yXov; comp. Sen. Epist. 27, 3, sola 
 virtus praestat gaudium perpetuum, securum; see John XV. 11. 
 
 P. 158. c VI, 7, svt Tspirov Kcxl TrpoaavaTTavov, TU> affo trpa^sug KOivavticfji; 
 fJLsrafiarjsn ent 7rpatv KonwvtKrjv, awv [tvy/Ay @cou. 
 
 P. 158. d Sen. De Moribus, 44, niliil magnum est in rebus humanis 
 nisi magno animo despicias. 
 
 P. 158. e See Farrar 1. c. pp. 315, 333; but comp. M. Aur. in. 5, 
 
 fa 3 TO <f>ai$p r jY K. T. X. 
 
 P. 158. f Diog. Laert. VII. i. 6, rrj$ rskelat; 
 
 P. 158. g M. Aur. X. 12. KOU (f><xi$pw K<xi 
 
 P. 158. h Sen. Epist. 23, 3, 4, disce gaudere, . . . nisi forte tu 
 judicas eum gaudere qui ridet . . . Mihi crede, verum gaudium res 
 severa est. 
 
 P. 158. } Schiller, Kassandra. Aristotle (Probl. XXX. 1) observes: 
 'all men of great distinction (ireptTToi) are melancholy' comp. Cic. Tusc% 
 Disp. I. 33, 80, omnes ingeniosos melancholicos esse. 
 
 P. 158. k Comp. M. Aur. I. 17. 
 
46 NOTES [p. 159]. 
 
 P. 159. a Plin. Epist. X. 98, conquirendi non sunt . . . Sine auctore 
 vero propositi libelli nullo crimine locum habere debent; nam pessimi 
 exempli, nee nostri seculi est; Tertull. Apol. c. 5, quas (leges) Trajanus 
 ex parte frustratus est, vetando inquiri Christianos; comp. Euseb. Hist. 
 Eccl. IV. 8, 9, 26, mentioning the ordinances of Hadrian and Antoninus 
 in favour of the Christians. 
 
 P. 159. b Comp. Neander, Kirchengeschichte, I. i. pp. 185 sqq., 'ein 
 philosophischer Begriffsfanatismus, der intolerant und verfolgungssuchtig 
 macht'. 
 
 P. 159. c See supra pp. 123, 124. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, in his Apology 
 to the monarch, complains that the pious are night and day perse- 
 cuted throughout Asia by 'new and strange decrees', allowing shameless 
 informers openly to plunder the property of the innocent (Euseb. Hist. 
 Eccl. IV. 26): those edicts could not be unknown to the Emperor, as 
 they could not have been issued by the Proconsuls on their own res- 
 ponsibility. Melito states indeed the indefinite alternative: 'If these 
 things are done by your orders', and 'But if these unheard-of ordinances 
 have not proceeded from you' ; yet this is a form which in any case was 
 suggested by prudence. And Orosius (VII. 15) observes that during the 
 Parthian war the persecutions in Gaul and Asia were carried out 'by 
 the Emperor's order' (praecepto ejus). Yet strict impartiality compels 
 us to allow that, in some cases at least, the Governors and the mob 
 took the law into their own hands. This may not only be inferred 
 from the whole tenour of Eusebius' detailed account of the persecutions 
 in Lyons and Vienne (Hist. Eccl. V. 1), but can be proved by a clear 
 instance. M. Aurelius had written to the Governor of Lyons, in reply 
 to his enquiries, that those recalcitrant Christians who were Roman 
 citizens should simply be beheaded; yet, even after having received this 
 distinct command, the Governor exposed Attalus of Pergamus a second 
 time to the wild beasts. The same account speaks of 'the collective 
 madness of the rabble, the Governors, and the soldiers', and a preceding 
 narrative mentions violent attacks on Christians .'occasioned by in- 
 surrections in the cities' (Euseb. 1. c. Preface to the fifth Book). Ma- 
 turus and Sanctus, after having been shockingly lacerated by wild beasts, 
 and 'red-hot plates of brass having been fastened to the most tender 
 parts of their body', were 'placed upon an iron chair, where their bodies 
 were roasted'. Blandina, 'her whole body having been torn asunder and 
 pierced' by most excruciating tortures, was bound and suspended on a 
 stake, exposed as food to wild beasts, and finally killed by a bull, be- 
 fore which she was cast in a net. Many were confined in dismal and 
 loathsome prisons, where they usually died from suffocation or exhaustion; 
 after which the bodies were cast to the dogs, the remains being burnt 
 and the ashes thrown into the river Rhone amidst taunts at the Christian 
 belief of resurrection. Would it be just to make M. Aurelius an- 
 swerable for such deeds? Could they have been authorised or approved 
 
NOTES [pp. 159, 160]. 47 
 
 by a prince whose only fault as a ruler was perhaps want of firmness 
 and severity, and who showed excessive, if not dangerous clemency even 
 to conspirators and traitors? by a prince who expressly prohibited all 
 gladiatorial fights with sharp weapons, and who did not deem it beneath his 
 dignity to order that cushions should be spread under rope-dancers, to protect 
 them from injury in falling? (Capitol. M. Aur. Phil. c. 12; comp. also 
 Sueton. Nero, c. 12). Some well-weighed and on the whole apologetic 
 remarks are offered by S. Long in the 'Thoughts of the Emperor M. 
 Aur. Anton.' pp. 18 22, concluding simply: 'I add that this is quite 
 certain that Antoninus did not derive any of his ethical principles from 
 a religion of which he knew nothing'! Similarly Zeller (Vortrage, I. 
 105, 106) : 'An christliche Einfliisse auf M. Aurel und seine stoischen 
 Vorganger kann wirklich gar nicht im Ernste gedacht werden'. 
 
 P. 159. d Plin. Epist. x. 97, 'visa est enim res digna consultatione, 
 maxim e propter periclitantium numerum'; then this large number is 
 more fully specified, upon which follows the complaint that the temples 
 of the gods are already nearly desolate, and that purchasers of victims 
 are becoming very rare. As to the close communion of the early 
 Christians (i; KakovfjisvTj ' Ayanri] Xpiariav&v) we have numerous testimonies; 
 for our purpose it is sufficient to refer to those of their opponents Lucian 
 (De Morte Peregrini, c. 13) and Celsus (Grig. Contr. Cels. L 1). 'The 
 Christians', says the latter, 'form secret associations against the ordinances 
 of the law (irapd ra vtvofuv/tsvci) . . . These associations derive their 
 stability from a common danger, and have a strength even beyond that 
 of oaths' (SuvajKsvijv InrspvpKia; comp. VIII. 17, a^avoyj KCU aTfoppTjrov 
 Koivuviai; . . . av^r,fia; Tertull. Apol. c. 24, crimen laesae maxime Bo- 
 manae religionis; Minuc. Fel. Octav. c. 9, sacraria ista taeterrima impiae 
 coitionis adolescunt, . . . occultis se notis et insignibus noscunt et amant 
 mutuo paene antequam noverint etc. 
 
 P. 160. a Comp. Hebr. IX. 35, 'not forsaking the assembling ourselves 
 together'; Acts II. 42, etc. Pliny (Epist. X. 97) assured Trajan indeed 
 that, when they met early in the morning on an appointed day, they 
 were only wont to sing a hymn to Christ revered as God (quasi Deo), 
 to pledge themselves by an oath to refrain from all crimes, especially 
 those against property (ne furta, ne latrocinia, ne adulteria committerent, 
 ne fid em fallerent, ne depositum adpellati abnegarent), and then quietly 
 to disperse; but these favourable remarks are, not improbably, regarded 
 as a later Christian interpolation (comp. Br. Bauer, Christus und die 
 Caesaren, pp. 270 272). 
 
 P. 160. b Plin. 1. c., perseverantes duci jussi; neque enim dubitabam, 
 qualecunque esset quod faterentur. pervicaciam certe et inflexibilem ob- 
 stinationem debere puniri; and so also M. Aur. XI. 3, Kara $i\yv na- 
 potTa&v, supra Notes p. 32 [P. 124 b ]. 
 
 P. 160. c Comp. Farrar 1. c. pp. 299, 321; see Epict. Disp. II. 9, 
 where Jews and Christians are spoken of promiscuously. 
 
48 NOTES [pp. 160, 161]. 
 
 P. 160. d See M. Aur. XL 3, and Gataker in loc.; Lucian, De Morte 
 Peregrin, c. 13, KaraQpovovyt TOV . &vrou KOI SKWT$$ avrovg hci&i&eurn 01 
 TroXXo/; c. 14; Ignat. ap. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. III. 36, 'May I be benefited 
 by those wild beasts that are in readiness for me! . . . Should they 
 perchance be unwilling to devour me, I will force them' etc.; Euseb. 
 1. c. V. 1, 'Blandina hastened with joy and exultation, as if she were 
 invited to a marriage feast, and not about to be cast to wild beasts'; 
 Oriff. Contr. Gels. VIII. 48, 'The Christians are zealous to struggle unto 
 death (jas'x/ 3 ' ^vrou aycov/Co/^svcov), lest they abjure their faith'; comp. 
 Neander, Kirchengeschichte, I. i. pp. 185 sqq., 'Die Art wie manche 
 wirklich schwarmerisch aufgeregte Christen den Tod suchten, konnte 
 ihn (M. Aurel.) nur in seiner Ansicht bestarken.' That the Cynics and 
 Stoics counted among them similar enthusiasts, is probable, and is proved 
 by the example of Peregrinus; see Lucian 1. c. c. 36. However, many 
 who had joined the Christian sect, when accused, so relates the younger 
 Pliny, denied that they ever had been, or at least were then Christians, 
 prayed to the heathen gods, offered incense and wine to the Emperor's 
 image, and cursed Christ (praeterea maledicerent Christo); Plin. Epist 
 X. 97; comp. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. V. 1, referring to apostasies at the 
 threat of torture; etc. 
 
 P. 160. e M. Aur. Medit. VI. 44. 
 
 P. 160. f Ib. XII. 28, fysi oparoi siuiv; comp. II. 11, XX KOI slot &so) 
 KO.I /ie'Xe/ avTo7<; TCOV av^occTrWcov; XII. 36 fin.) <X7r&t ovv fXsw^ KOU yap o 
 
 P. 160. & Ibid. I. 17; comp. Epictet. Enchir. c. 18, Kopa orav pr, 
 a'/a/ov KSKpa.*ffj K. T. X. 
 
 P. 160. h Comp. Capitolin. M. Antonin. Philos. c. 13. Epictetus fur- 
 nishes a religious code of some completeness: there are gods; they govern 
 everything well and justly; man must obey them and willingly bear 
 whatever they send ; 'in any case it is his duty to present libations and 
 holocausts and firstfruit offerings in ancestral manner, with a pure mind 
 and not thoughtlessly, neither scantily nor above his means' (Enchir. 
 
 C. 31, ffTTSV^SIV $1 KO,} ^f'JSlV KCU KTTap^Sa^at KO.ro. TO, TtaTplCC, SKUffTOT! 
 
 irpovTjKsi Ka^apicg K. T. X.); and he gives precise directions as to the mannei 
 of consulting the oracles (ibid. c. 32); comp. also Disp. IH. 21. 
 
 P. 161. a Comp. Tacit. Ann. XV. 44, 'odio generis humani convicti'. 
 similarly with respect to the Jews (Hist. V. 5), 'apud ipsos fides ob- 
 stinata . . . sed adversus omnes alios hostile odium'. 
 
 P. 161. b Matt. XXVII. 24, 'see ye to it'. 
 
 P. 161. c That is, M. Annaeus Novatus. 
 
 P. 161. d Acts XVIII. 1217, 'If it were a matter of wrong, . . . ] 
 should bear with you'; and he 'drove them away, for he cared for nom 
 of these things'. 
 
 P. 161. e Acts XXV. 18, 19, 25; XXVI. 31, 32. 
 
 P. 161. f Comp. Eom. XIII, 17; see Eph. VI. 5; 1 Cor. VII. 1724 
 
NOTES [pp. 161164]. 49 
 
 P. 161. 8" Comp. 1 Cor. VI. 1 6, 'dare any of you, having a matter 
 against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints'? 
 etc. See De Wette, Lehrb. der christl. Sittenl. 60, 'Mit dem Staate, 
 besonders dem heidnischen, trat die christliche Gemeinde in eine natiirliche 
 Reibung, . . . sie trat der heidnischen Wissenschaft und Kunst feindlich 
 entgegen; . . . offenbar wollte sie den heidnischen Staat auflosen' etc.; 
 Zetter, Vortrage, I. pp. 101107, 'It is not the bad but the best and most 
 vigorous Emperors who carried out rigid measures against Christianity . . . 
 Those who wished to see the old Eoman state intact were bound to 
 suppress it'; II. 189214. 
 
 P. 162. a Euseb. Hist. Eccl. IV. 13. The last point is referred 
 to by Tertullian (Apol. c. 5) in stronger terms: 'sicut non palam ab 
 ejusmodi hominibus (i. e. Christianis) poenam dimovit, ita alio modo 
 palam dispersit, adjecta etiam accusatoribus damnatione et quidem te- 
 triore'. It is, however, right to observe that this Rescript is by some 
 attributed to M. Antoninus Pius, by others declared altogether spurious 
 and 'a clumsy forgery'; the arguments adduced for either view seem 
 inadequate and inconclusive. 
 
 P. 162. b M. . Aur. V. 7, T Yjov, u<rov, co (f>i\s Zsv, K. r. X. 
 
 P. 162. c Med. IX. 40, sir a. ou Kpetaaw xpya^tai TO/> BJTI ao/ per e\e\&spia$, 
 r t $ta<f>spe<7 l rcci irpoi; rot, fir] siri ao< fJLsra $ov\siai; KOU rairsiv6rr]TO$ ; 
 
 P. 163. a Comp. Barthelem. Saint-Hilaire, Le Bouddha, p. 289, 'les 
 ceremonies sont demeurees ce qu'elles etaient au debut, aussi faciles que 
 peu couteuses; c'est au coeur et a 1' esprit des fideles que le Bouddhisme 
 pretend exclusivement s'adresser; il dedaigne les pompes exterieures; et 
 le sacrifice ... a completement disparu dans la religion du Tathagata'; 
 p. 297, etc. 
 
 P. 163. b Comp. Spence Hardy, Legends and Theories of the Bud- 
 dhists, pp. xlv, xlvi, xlix, 178, 181, 213216. 
 
 P. 163. c Comp. John XIV. 9, 'he who hath seen me hath seen the 
 Father', etc. 
 
 P. 163. d M. Aur. XII. 28, TOV$ &eou, e' a>v rys ^uva/^sw? CCVTWV SKOUJTQTS 
 xeip&fitxi, SK TQVTUV, oTi T3 sla}, KaTokafJL^dvco KOii a/Soy/fa/. 
 
 P. 163. e Comp. Xen. Mem. I. iv. 19; IV. iii. 13, M avapsvys swi; av 
 T5 poppas TUV ^suiv fSyg, aXX' eapKy uoi rot. epya aurcov opuvrt aefisa^at 
 KOU Tipav TOW? ^rsovg, Aristot. De Mundo, c. 6; Cic. Tusc. I. 28, 29. 
 
 P. 164. a Plut. Adv. Stoic, c. 31, oy&e/x/av, wg affXco? eiire7v, svvotav l-frfj 
 Ktx.} ccKspatw a7ro\s\oiiraai. 
 
 P. 164. b Comp. Medit. I. 6. napa AioyvyTov ... TO airiffTTjTiKW ro7<; VTTO 
 TWV reparevofjievwv KOI yorjrwv itspl enu^uv, KOI itsp} SaiftQvwv airoirQfJLirfjt; Kai 
 TWV TO/OWTCOV Xffyo^t/vo/$, c. 16, TO yiTj ttspl TOU$ ^oi$ $eifft$a7fji.ov, also 
 Senec. Frgm. 3440; Augustin. Civ. Dei, VI. 10. 
 
 P. 164. c Sen. Epist. 115, 5, sed pia et recta voluntate. 
 
 P. 164. ^ Epict. Disp. III. 21, ispai elan at <f)uvai avrat K<X^ aiirat;, 
 comp. the following words, ^e'ya BUT} TO irpaypa, /AUJT/ACOV SUTIV K. r. X. 
 
 D 
 
50 NOTES [pp. 165-175]. 
 
 P. 165. a Eom. II. 14, 15; comp. Bible Stud. H. 311. So many 
 earlier and even recent theologians; e. g. J. Simpson, Epicteti Manuale, 
 Praefat. sub fin, 'adhuc divina in istis relucet et providentia et benignitas, 
 quod in homine a se dilapso imaginem sui non intercidere omnino et 
 aboleri prorsus passus est, sed scintillas quasdam asservavit reliquas' etc. 
 See infra. 
 
 P. 165. b Comp. Farrar, Seekers after God, pp. vii, 333 335. The 
 five best pagans meant are probably, besides the three mentioned in the 
 text, Pythagoras and Plato (see ibid. p. 182). 
 
 P. 166. a Neander, Vorlesungen, p. 34, 'Es war ein Streben iiber die 
 Schranken der alien "Welt hinaus, welches der geschichtlichen Ent- 
 wickeltmg in der Ueberwindung der naturgemassen Aufhebung diesei 
 Schranken voraneilte'. 
 
 P. 167. a See Farrar 1. c. pp. 6, 48, 49, 181, 182, 230, 318320 
 335, 336. 
 
 P. 168. a Farrar 1. c. pp. 222, 331; and Christian writers repeatedlj 
 apply to the Gentiles the words of Paul : 'God left not Himself without 
 witness' among them (Acts XIV. 17); etc. 
 
 P. 168. b Farrar 1. c. p. 257. 
 
 P. 169. a 1 Cor. XII. 4, 6. 
 
 P. 170. a Comp. Plut. Adv. Stoic, c. 26. 
 
 P. 170. b Ps. cxxix. 68. 
 
 P. 171. a Comp. Buckert, Erbauliches und Beschauliches aus den 
 Morgenland, I. 136. 
 
 P. 171. b Isai. LI. 1, 2. 
 
 P. 171. c Jos. Antiq. XVIII. i. 3, uv rs 6 \6yog Kpivag irapslwKsv ayex- 
 
 SrWV STTQVTKl TY/ yyS/Jt.OVl'X K. T. X. 
 
 P. 172. a Exod. XX. 16. 
 
 P. 173. a Comp., however, Brahma Jala Suttana, quoted by Spend 
 Hardy, Leg. and Theor. of Buddh. p. 216. 
 
 P. 175. a Eom. V. 621; 1 Cor. I. 30; XV. 3, 21, 22; Hebr. H. 9 
 comp. Matt. XX. 28; XXVI. 28; John VI. 51; X. 15; XV. 13; Kom 
 m. 2325; VIII. 1, 33, 34; 2 Cor. V. 18, 19; Eph. II. 13; Col. I 
 14, 20; Tit. II. 14; Hebr. IX. 14, 15; X. 10, 28; 1 John I. 7; II. 2 
 1 Pet. II. 21 24; III. 18; etc.; comp. the eleventh of the Thirty-nin> 
 Articles, 'We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit o 
 our Lord' etc.; De Wette, Dogmatik der Protestantischen Kirche, 54 
 56, 71. 
 
 P. 175. b Melanchthon and others endeavoured to lessen the objection 
 by distinguishing between a 'direct' and 'indirect' imputation, and b; 
 other groundless expedients; see De Wette 1. c. 55 l> , 'it is more na 
 tural to found the imputation of hereditary sin upon the actual con 
 sciousness of sin, than to assume a direct imputation of the sin c 
 Adam' which is certainly more 'natural' and more rational, but is i 
 Christian? And similarly Melanchthon ibid., 'peccatum originis non tantur 
 
NOTES [pp. 175, 176]. 51 
 
 esse imputationem sed in ipsa hominum natura caliginem et pra- 
 vitatem', etc.: but man's inherent depravity is also considered as 
 Adam's guilt. 
 
 P. 175. c Bom. XIII. 15, 16. 
 
 P. 175. d Hebr. IX. 22; comp. Lev. XVII. 11; Matt. XXVI. 28; etc. 
 See Comm. on Levit. I. pp. 121 129; II. pp. 2 9. 
 
 P. 175. e Hebr. IX, X, esp. IX. 7, 1214, 1821; Eph. V. 2, 'Christ 
 hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a 
 sweetsmelling savour'; 1 Cor. V, 7, 'our passover' ; John I. 29, 'the Lamb 
 of God', etc. Christ suffered, says the second of the Thirty-nine Articles, 
 'to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins 
 of men'; comp. Artie. XV, 'who by sacrifice of himself once made' etc. 
 
 P. 175. f Comp. Hebr. VII. 2427; VIII. 13; IX. 1114, 24, 25, 
 28; X. 1012, 19, 21. The Catholic Church, in regarding the eucharist 
 'as a sacrifice by which Christ is again and again offered up bloodlessly 
 for the remission of sins, approaches still more closely to the Old 
 Testament in the frequency, but departs from it entirely in the nature, 
 of expiatory sacrifices, as these, except in the one case of extreme po- 
 verty, were never bloodless (Lev. V. 11 13; see Comm. on Lev. I. 
 pp. 253 sqq.). The severity with which the thirty-first of the Thirty- 
 nine Articles stamps these 'Sacrifices of Masses' as 'blasphemous fables 
 and dangerous deceits', may easily be accounted for. 
 
 P. 176. a Bom. HI. 25, /XOJTJ^/OV, V. 9, euro -nfr opyijg, 1 Thess. I. 
 10; 1 Tim. U. 6, avr/Xytpov, 1 John II. 2; IV. 10. Comp. Anselm. 
 Cantab., Cur Deus homo sit? Lib. I. c. 13, 'Nihil minus tolerandum 
 est in rerum ordine, quam ut creatura Creatori debitum honorem auferat, 
 non solvat quod aufert . . . Necesse est ergo, ut aut ablatus honor sol- 
 vatur, aut poena sequatur; alioquin aut sibi ipsi Deus Justus non erit, 
 aut ad utrumque impotens erit; quod nefas est vel cogitare'; see De 
 Wette 1. c. 71 73b: also the second of the Thirty-nine Articles. 
 
 P. 176. b For instance: In what sense could Adam and Eve have 
 been created in the image of God, if they were unable to, resist the 
 first temptation ? Why did the All-merciful expose them to a temptation 
 to which, He knew, they would succumb? Why did He not aid them 
 in resisting a sin which was to be so calamitous to their progeny through 
 all ages? etc. 
 
 P. 176. c Comp. 1 John HI. 16, 'he laid down his life for us, and 
 we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren'; XIII. 15; 1 Pet. II. 
 22, 'leaving us an example' etc. 
 
 P. 176. d Comp. John XVIII. 37, 'To this end was I born, and for 
 this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the 
 truth', etc. 
 
 P. 176. e John VI. 38; comp. III. 16, 17; V. 30; XVLL 4; Matt. 
 XXVI. 39. Hardly correct, therefore, is the remark: 'It is truly Christian 
 to regard every death of self-sacrifice and devotion as a symbol of pro- 
 
52 NOTES [p. 176]. 
 
 pitiation, and to hold before ourselves the death of Christ as an example 
 for imitation' (De Wette 1. c. 73 a ): that which is specifically Christian 
 in Christ's death, it is not in man's power either to choose or to reject 
 (comp. John XII. 25; Matt. X. 39); the death of a Cato or Brutus was 
 not 'Christian'. The view referred to is one of the innumerable instances 
 of the process of 'volatilisation' we have pointed out (see supra p. 182); 
 it is supplemented by an opinion equally vague and colourless: 'The 
 transference of another's suffering may be applied to every death of 
 self-sacrifice, since the sum of human ills may be considered as common 
 to all' ; and it culminates in the almost incredible result that the Biblical 
 conception of reward and punishment is meant merely as 'a fit figure' 
 or image (ein schickliches Bild) to denote the peace and uneasiness of 
 the mind without any reality in fact. De Wette, Bibl. Dogmat. 220, 
 note b; Lehrbuch der Christl. Sittenl. 79. See also supra Notes, 
 p. 42. 
 
 P. 176. f John IV. 34; VI. 38; also X. 17, 18, 'No man taketh my 
 life from me, but I lay it down of myself; Phil. II. 8; Hebr. V. 8. 
 
 P. 176. SMatt. XXVI. 36-44; XXVII. 46, 'Eli, Eli' etc.; Mark 
 XIV. 32 39; Hebr. V. 7, 'he offered up prayers with strong crying 
 and tears'; etc. 
 
 P. 176. h The stricter doctrine seems to be implied in Rom. IX. 11, 
 20 24; XI. 5 7, 'if by grace, then it is no more of works; otherwise 
 grace is no more grace' etc. See Calvin, Institt. III. xxi. 5, 'Prae- 
 destinatio qua Deus alios in spem vitae adoptat, alios adjudicat morti 
 aeternae'; XXII. 8; XXIX. 3, 4; Canon. Dordr. c. 1, art. 9, 'electio 
 facta non ex praevisa fide . . . aut alia aliqua bona qualitate et dis- 
 positione . . . sed ad fidem; Formul. Concord, sol. decl. XI. 821, 'fal- 
 sum est et cum verbo Dei pugnat, cum docetur quod noti sola dei miseri- 
 cordia et unicum sanctissimum Christi meritum, verum etiam aliquid in 
 nobis causa sit electionis divinae . . . Non enim tantum antequam ali- 
 quid boni faceremus, verum etiam priusquam nasceremur . . . elegit nos 
 Deus in Christo'. See on the other hand, De Wette, Dogm. der Prot 
 Kirch. 60 a, 'Gott beschloss, diejenigen, von denen er voraussah, dass 
 sie an Christum glauben wiirden, wirklich selig zu machen oder er- 
 wahlte sie zum ewigen Leben'; Graul, Unterscheidungslehren der ver- 
 schiedenen christlichen Bekenntnisse, pp. 80 82. How the qualifications 
 of the decretum as aeternum, yet not absolutum but ordinatum et re- 
 spectivum, and besides particulare and immutabile, are proved or at least 
 supported, tis aught in the works on Protestant dogmas; see infra. 
 
 P. 176. i Comp. Matt. XX. 16, 'many are called, but few are chosen': 
 XXII. 14; Luke XIII. 2328. 
 
 P. 176. k Comp. Matt. VIII. 8, 'to be cast into the everlasting fire': 
 XIII. 40, 42; XXV. 41, 46, 'everlasting punishment'; Mark III. 29 
 'eternal damnation'; IX. 47, 48, 'to be cast into hell fire, where theii 
 worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched'. 'Christ did not die foi 
 
NOTES [pp. 177, 178]. 53 
 
 all sinners, but only for the elect' (Formula Consensus Helvitica XVI; 
 Graul 1. c. p. 84). Eeimarus says: The Christian theologians consign 
 'nine-tenths' of their fellow-men to eternal flames (See Strauss, Rei- 
 marus und seine Schutzschrift etc., pp. 265, 266). 
 
 P. 177. a In order to silence such uncertainties and fears, some have 
 conveniently recommended: 'Listen to the preaching of the Gospel and 
 believe in it, and then be confident that, if you believe and are in 
 Christ, you are elected' (Conf. Helv. II. c. 10, si credas ac sis in Christo, 
 electum te esse). Nor did the dangerous tendency of the doctrine remain 
 unnoticed; for not a few said that, if they are elected, their salvation 
 was certain ; if they are not elected, they could never obtain it ; in either 
 case their own efforts were superfluous; whence the Lutheran Church 
 considers grace as 'resistible' (comp. Acts VII. 51, 'you do always resist 
 th Holy Ghost'), so that man may annul his election (see infra; comp. 
 the sixteenth of the Thirty-nine Articles; De Wette 1. c. 62, 77 b; 
 Graul 1. c. p. 127): the belief of man's complete dependence for good 
 and for evil cannot but paralyze his energy. Comp. Eom. VI. 1, 15, 
 'shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound'? 
 
 P. 177. b Wisd. II. 24; comp. Eev. XII. 9, etc. 
 
 P. 177. c See Comm. on Levit. II. pp. 301 304. Comp. Spinoza, 
 Epist. 74, 5, 'Patitur ergo divina justitia, ut diabolus homines plerosque 
 (rari quippe boni) impune decipiat, in aeternum cruciandos; at minime, 
 homines misere ab ipso diabolo deceptos et circumductos manere im- 
 punes'. 
 
 P. 177. d 'Fasting and praying' were the Apostles' precept and practice 
 (Acts XTTT. 2, 3; XIV. 23; 1 Cor. VII. 5); and although they seem 
 during Christ's life-time to have abstained from 'mourning', Christ said 
 that the time would come when they should fast (Matt. IX. 14, 15). 
 Comp. however, Matt. XI. 19; Col. H. 16, 17; 1 Tim. IV. 15, 8. 
 
 P. 177. e See Eom. III. 2131; IV. 125; V. 1, 2; X. 911; 
 Gal. V. 5, 6; Hebr. XL; comp. Matt. X. 32; Mark XVI. 16; Luke 
 XH. 8; John III. 15; Acts VIII. 37, etc. 
 
 P. 178. a Comp. Eph. II. 8, 'by grace are you saved through faith, 
 and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any 
 man should boast'; John VI. 44, 65, 'Nobody can come to me, except 
 the Father who has sent me draw him'; Acts XIII. 48, 'As many as 
 were ordained to eternal life believed' (sKivrevaav foot r,<jav Teraypsvoi */? 
 Cw^v a/wwov); see II. 47; Eom. III. 24; IV. 16; 2 Tim. I. 9; Tit. HI. 
 4, 5, etc. 
 
 P. 178. b Eom. VII. 1425; see 2 Cor. HI. 5, 'not that we are sufficient 
 of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves' etc. (1 Cor. n. 14); 
 John XV. 5, 'without me you can do nothing'; Phil. II. 13, 'God it is 
 who worketh in you both to will and to do'; and in this sense the Apostle 
 exhorts, 'work out your own salvation'; comp. Gen. VI. 5; VIII. 21; 
 Jer. XVII. 9; Ps. LI. 7. This is the orthodox doctrine of Augustine 
 
54 NOTES [p. 178]. 
 
 and Luther; comp. Form. Concord, sol. decl. II. 656, 'Credimus quod 
 hominis non renati intellectus, cor et voluntas, in rebus spiritualibus et 
 divinis, ex propriis naturalibus viribus prorsus nihil intelligere, credere . . . 
 velle . . . perficere . . . aut cooperari possint, sed homo ad bonum 
 prorsus corruptus et mortuus sit, ita ut in hominis natura . . . ne scin- 
 tillula quid em spiritualium virium aliqua manserit aut restet' etc.; and 
 p. 661, quoting Luther, 'In spiritualibus et divinis rebus . . . homo est 
 instar statuae salis, imo est similis trunco et lapidi ac statuae vita ca- 
 renti' etc.; the ninth of the Thirty -nine Articles, 'Man is very far gone 
 from original righteousness . . . And this infection of nature doth remain, 
 yea in them that are regenerated'; and the tenth Article, 'The condition 
 of man after the Fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare 
 himself, by his own natural strength and good works' etc. See De Wette 
 1. c. 56 a, 77 a, 81, also 60 c, where the point is thus finally statel: 
 'He who has been saved by his faith in Christ, him God, by His grace, 
 has elected to faith and salvation'. Man's absolute passiveness cannot 
 be more clearly or more strongly expressed. The teaching of Catholicism 
 on most of these questions viz. that Christ's merit effaces only here- 
 ditary sin, not man's actual transgressions, which require personal satis- 
 faction; and that man may, by his moral efforts, qualify himself for the 
 reception of grace, by means of which he obtains the faculty of ful- 
 filling God's commands and thus meriting salvation by good works, 
 since by the first disobedience his powers for good have not been de- 
 stroyed but only weakened this teaching keeps a practical middle course, 
 which no doubt confirms many in their attachment to the Roman Church: 
 but Luther severely condemns these views of 'the old and new Pelagians' 
 (comp. his Confession of Faith of 1529, in Graul 1. c. pp. 15, 37, 40). 
 And yet, with a significant inconsistency, the Lutheran doctrine of re- 
 jection or reprobatio admits an active element, in teaching: 'Deus de- 
 cernit quod eos, qui per verbum vocati, illud repudiant et Spiritui 
 sancto resistunt, et obstinati in contumacia perseverant, indurare, reprobare 
 et aeternae damnationi devovere velit' (Form. Cone. XI. 808; De Wette 
 1. c. 6 la). Thus the Lutheran creed, evidently recoiling from the ex- 
 treme inferences of an awful tenet, makes damnation conditional on 
 continued and obstinate disbelief (though if belief can only be obtained 
 by the free grace of God, disbelief can on no account be imputed to 
 the guilt of man); and in reference to reprobatio, assumes "predestinating" 
 to be equivalent to "fore-knowing". But Calvin's trenchant and inex- 
 orable logic allows no distinction between the mode of electio and re- 
 probatio. He maintains unequivocally, that disbelief proceeds from an 
 absolute decree of rejection, which determines man's eternal destiny 
 and 'dates from the very creation; and not even Adam's sin does he 
 exclude from this rule (Institt. III. xxii. 11, 'si non possumus rationem 
 assignare, cur suos misericordia dignetur, nisi quoniam ita illi placet, ne- 
 que etiam in aliis reprobandis aliud habebimus quam ejus voluntatem', 
 
NOTES [p. 178]. 55 
 
 etc.; ibid, xxiil. 8, 'lapsus est primus homo, quia Dominus ita ex- 
 pedire censuerat; cur censuerit, latet'). Yet so inextricably occult is the 
 whole doctrine of predestination, that even Calvin ultimately supposes 
 rejection to be partially attributable to the guilt of man and God's 
 chastising justice (ibid, xxiii. 3, 'peccato vitiati sumus omnes . . . ne 
 ergo Deum iniquitatis insimulent, si aeterno ejus judicio morti destina- 
 ti skit' etc.); and a man of De Wette's clearness and penetration concludes : 
 'Here we need a pious reserve (sVo^^) and the acknowledgment of a 
 mystery' (I. c. 61, 62 c). The history of dogmas, in all creeds alike, 
 exhibits a constant, though impotent, reaction of common sense and right 
 feeling against superhuman theories. 
 
 P. 178. c See Bom. VIII. 29, 30, on ou Trpoeyvw, Kat npoupiasv . . . 
 ou s jrpo&piasv, row-Toy? KCXI sxaksasv, KOI o'J? sKoksaev, TOVTOV$ KOI s^iKaiuasv 
 K. T. X.,- comp. Eph. I. 5, 11. 
 
 P. 178. d Eom. IX. 18, 21; comp. I. 2428; 2 Thess. H. 1012; 
 John XII. 39, 40. The second of the passages quoted in the text is 
 analogous to Sirach's words, 'Some men God has blessed and exalted, . . . 
 but some has He cursed and brought low; ... as the clay is in the 
 potter's hand to fashion it at his pleasure, so man is in the hand of Him 
 that made him' (Sir. XXXIII. 12, 13) implying a transition from the 
 doctrine of the Old to that of the New Testament (comp. Jer. XVIII. 
 110; see Bible Studies, II. pp. 262, 263). 
 
 P. 178. e It requires, therefore, no little skill in casuistry to define 
 the precise meaning of such assurances as, 'If we confess our sins, 
 God . . . cleanses us from all unrighteousness' (1 John I. 9), especially 
 as one terrible exception is avowed the sin against 'the Holy Ghost', 
 which 'shall never be forgiven, neither in this world nor in the world 
 to come' (Matt. XII. 31, 32), and which is the more important on ac- 
 count of its vague comprehensiveness (but comp. the sixteenth of the Thirty- 
 nine Articles, 'They are to be condemned which . . . deny the place 
 of forgiveness to such as truly repent'; and again, -Not every deadly 
 sin willingly committed after Baptism is sin against the Holy Ghost and 
 unpardonable'). There are indeed some passages in the N. T. involving 
 the principle of human liberty both in reference to God (James I. 13, 
 14, 'Let no man say who is tempted, I am tempted of God' etc.; Matt. 
 XXV. 15, Kara ryv May Zvvaptv), to Satan (1 Cor. VII. 5; Eph. VI. 
 11; James IV. 7, 'resist the devil and he will flee from you'; 1 Pet. 
 V. 9), and to the Holy Ghost (Acts XII. 51; Eph. IV. 30; V. 18; VI. 
 17; Gal. V. 16); but as they are not so distinct and decisive as the 
 opposite maxims, they have in the formularies of the Church received 
 but subordinate weight, and almost appear as incongruities in their system. 
 Luther declares in his Confession of Faith (1529): 'Herewith I reject 
 and condemn as complete error any doctrine affirming our free will, 
 because it is diametrically opposed to the aid and grace of our Saviour . . . 
 "We have no strength or intelligence to strive after righteousness and 
 
56 NOTES [p. 178]. 
 
 life, but blinded and fettered, we belong to the Devil and to sin' etc. 
 (comp. Graul 1. c. p. 15, 'Hiermit verwerfe und verdamme ich als eitel 
 Irrthum' etc; see supra note b , p. 54). 
 
 P. 178. f Koran, Sur. VI. 39, iiUiS idff &L&S . 
 
 P. 178. Comp. De Wette 1. c. 73, <Der Versohnungstod Jesu ist 
 ein Gegenstand des frommen Glaubens oder der Ahnung, nicht des 
 "VVissens'. 'Die Versohnung durch Christum konnen wir nur durch den 
 Glauben ergreifen'. 
 
 P. 178. h Comp. Eom. IV. 4, 5, 'To him that worketh is the reward 
 not reckoned of grace, but of debt; but to him that worketh not, but 
 belie veth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for 
 righteousness'; XIV. 23. 'whatever is not of faith is sin'. 
 
 P. 178. iMark XVI. 16, 'he that believeth and is baptised, shall be 
 saved'; John III. 5, only he who 'is born of water and of the Spirit' 
 can 'enter the kingdom of heaven'; Matt. XXVIII. 19; Eom. VI. 37; 
 Gal. in. 27; 1 Pet. III. 21; also Tit. IU. 5; Hebr. X. 22; Eph. V. 26. 
 Comp. Tertull. De Bapt. c. 4, 'supervenit enim statim spiritus de coelis 
 et aquis superest' etc.; Luther in his Confession of Faith, 'Und dass die 
 Taufe an ihr selbst eine gottliche Ordnung ist, wie sein Evangelium 
 auch ist'; and in his large Catechism, 'Bin ich getauft, so ist mir zu- 
 gesagt, ich solle selig sein und das ewige Leben haben, beide an Seel' 
 und Leib' (Graul 1. c. pp. 18, 85, 135 138); and the English Catechism, 
 describing 'the inward and spiritual grace of baptism' as a death unto 
 sin and a new birth unto righteousness; comp. also the twenty-fifth and 
 twenty-seventh of the Thirty-nine Articles. 
 
 P. 178. k John IV. 25, 26; VI. 68, 69; IX. 35 38; X. 2430; 
 XVII. 15; XVIII. 37; Matt. XI. 24; XVI. 1319; XXVI. 63, 64; 
 but Matt. XVI. 20, 'he charged his disciples to tell no man that he 
 was Jesus Christ'; John X. 24, 'How long dost thou make us doubt? 
 If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly'. 
 
 P. 178. ] Matt. XIII. 55, 56; Mark VI. 3; comp. Luke III. 23; IV. 
 22; John VI. 42. 
 
 P. 178. m John XVIII. 36; comp. VI. 15. The 'kingdom of God' of 
 which Christ speaks as existing in his own time, is simply the com- 
 munity he was anxious to establish (Matt. XI. 11, 12; XII. 28; Luke 
 XVI. 16, etc.). 
 
 P. 178. n Comp. Luke I. 3133; John I. 45, 46; VII. 41, 42 ('shall 
 Christ come out of Galilee'? etc.); Matt. XXI. 11: especially as his re- 
 appearance, which he predicted, for the foundation of a wonderful king- 
 dom of piety and happiness within the generation of men then living, 
 did not come to pass (see Matt. XVI. 27, 28; XXIV. 30, 31; XXV. 
 31 sqq.; Mark IX. 1; Luke IX. 27; comp. Matt. XXVI. 64). The 
 exact scope and meaning of these announcements, which are akin to the 
 Messianic prospects at that time prevailing among the Jews, are uncertain 
 
NOTES [p. 179]. 57 
 
 (comp. De Wette, Bibl. Dogm. 216218). Comp. also 1 Thess. IV. 
 15_17; v. 1, 2; 1 Tim. VI. 14; Tit. II. 13; Phil. III. 20, etc. Christ 
 is indeed frequently called 'Son of David' (Matt. IX. 27; XV. 22; XXI. 
 9, 15, etc.), though never by John; but this seems mainly to denote his 
 Messianic dignity (comp. Matt. XII. 23). 
 
 P. 179. a John XVII. 5, 24; I. 27, 30; VIII. 58; 1 Cor. II. 7; Col. I. 
 15, 17; 1 John V. 7. 
 
 P. 179. b Paul calls Christ ysvo/wvov e'/r yuva/vo^, ysvo'/Ksvov vno VO'/KOV, 
 Gal. IV. 4; comp. supra pp. 145, 146. 
 
 P. 179. c '0 vns row soy. In John X. 3436, Christ himself takes 
 the term in the natural and ordinary sense (see Matt. V. 45, 48 ; John I. 
 12; Rom. VIII. 29; Gal. IV. 57). Comp. Matt. III. 17; XI. 27; 
 XIV. 33; XVI. 16; John I. 14, 18, 34; HI. 16, 17, 'His only begotten 
 Son', 36; Hebr. I. 2, 5; X. 29, etc.; also Acts XVII. 31, & wlpl $ upuav. 
 The Hebrews are in the Old Testament called God's 'firstborn son' 
 (Exod. IV. 22, 23), or simply 'His children' (Deut. XIV. 1 ; Hos. H. 1), 
 or His 'house' (Num. XII. 7) ; the theocratic king is specially His 'son' 
 (Ps. II. 7), and so the angels are His 'sons' (Job I. 6; H. 1; XXVIII. 7; 
 comp. Ps. LXXXII. 6). Ecclesiasticus describes the righteous man as 
 'the child of the Lord' or 'the son of God', and the wise man as the 
 'friend of God' (II. 13, 18; V. 5; VII. 14, 27, 7$ Kvptov, u/'o^ $eov, 
 </>/Xo &sov). Christ is also 'the Son of man', suggested by j^JN 12 
 in Dan. VII. 13, as 'in him human virtue appears in perfection^ "and 
 he, the image of God, is the pure prototype of man' (De Wette, Lehrb. 
 der christl. Sittenl. 62). 
 
 P. 179. d John X. 30, eyco *} 6 irarqp ev scpsv; comp. VIH. 19; XIV. 
 11, 12; XVII. 11, 22; XVIII. 2124. 
 
 P. 179. e John VH. 18; VIII. 46; 2 Cor. V. 21; 1 John HI. 3, 5; 
 Hebr. IV. 15; VII. 26, 27; 1 Pet. I. 19; but see supra Notes p. 40 
 [P. 143 d j. 
 
 P. 179. f Matt. XL 27; XXVIII. 18; John I. 3, 4; Rom. IX. 5; 
 XIV. 9; Col. I. 1519, 2 Cor. IV. 4, and Hebr. I. 3, 'the image of 
 God'; Phil. II. 911; 1 Cor. VIII. 6; XV. 47, 'the second man is the 
 Lord from heaven'; Eph. I. 20 22; Col. II. 9, 'in him dwelleth all 
 the fulness of the Godhead bodily'; 1 John V. 20, 'the true God'; comp. 
 Hebr. I. 2, 8; 1 Tim. HI. 16; Tit. H. 13; Luke X. 22; John in. 35; 
 XHI. 3; XVII. 2, etc. 
 
 P. 179. ^Matt. XTX. 17, 'why callest thou me good? there is none 
 good but one, that is, God'; XI. 27; John V. 22, 27; VII. 17; comp. 
 1 Tim. LT. 5, 'There is one God, and one mediator between God and 
 men, the man (-A/3W7ro;) Christ Jesus'; Eom. V. 15, 'grace, which is 
 by one man (TOU svog av^punrov) Jesus Christ'; I. 3; VI. 4; VIII. 3; 
 IX. 5; Col. I. 15, 17; 1 Cor. VHI. 6; XI. 3, 'the head of Christ is 
 God'; XV. 24, 27; Gal. IV. 4; Eph. I. 17, 20; Phil. II. 11 (but see 
 ver. 7); Hebr. HI. 2; V. 7. Some of the Reformed Churches hold in- 
 
58 NOTES [pp. 179, 180]. 
 
 deed that 'the Divine attributes ascribed in the Bible to Christ's human 
 nature are not to be taken literally, since a finite nature is incapable 
 of infinite attributes': but against this conception Lutherans raise a strong 
 protest (comp. Graul 1. c. p. 78). 
 
 P. 179. h Comp. Eph. IV. 46, 'One God and Father of all, who is 
 above all' etc.; see 1 Cor. VIII. 46, etc. 
 
 P. 179. i The passage 1 John V. 7, 'There are three that bear record 
 in heaven' etc., is acknowledged to be spurious (De Wette 1. c. 267, 
 'ist anerkannt unacht') ; while the genuineness of the formula of baptism 
 in Matt. XXVIII. 19, 'in the name of the Father' etc., is at least un- 
 certain (De Wette 1. c. . 238: 'die kirchliche Trinitatslehre konnte 
 Christus gar nicht in den Sinn kommen'; 267, 'auch Paulus und 
 Johannes sind noch sehr weit von der kirchlichen Trinitatslehre entfernt'). 
 
 P. 179, k Comp. Prod. Tim. II. p. 93, 'Numenius praises three gods, 
 and calls the first Father, the second Creator, and the third Creation 
 or Creature (naTspa, KonrjTrjv, and wo/i^a), . . . and he describes the same 
 thing promiscuously as Father, Son, and Offspring' (narspa, eVyovov, and 
 aTroyovov); Porphyr. ap. Cyrill. contr. Julian. VIII, p. 271 A (ed. Spanh.), 
 'In three substances (wroaTao-s/g), says Plato, is the Divine Being mani- 
 fested: the supreme Grod is the Good, the second is the Framer of the 
 world, and the third the Soul of the universe (raya^o'v, TOV Sypiovpyov, 
 and Tyv TOV KOU/JLOV ^vyrjv); Xenocrat. ap. Clem. Alex. V. p. 604 C. ed. 
 Sylburg, Xenocrates, 'in calling the one the supreme and the other the 
 inferior Zeus (vmxrov and vsarov A /a) points to the Father and the Son.' 
 
 P. 179. ] John XX. 9; Mark XVI. 11; Luke XXIV. 11; see, however, 
 1 Cor. XV. 12, 32. Comp. Orig. Contr. Cels. II. 54, 55, 63, 70, 73; V. 14. 
 
 P. 179. m Matt. XVII. 15; Mark IX. 27; Luke IX. 2835; 
 1 Pet. UI. 1820, etc. The Eeformed (Calvinist) Church virtually rejects 
 the Descent into hell by taking it figuratively, meaning that 'Christ, before 
 and while he was on the cross, suffered in his soul tortures of hell' 
 (Graul 1. c. p. 79). 
 
 P. 179. n Matt. V. 18; Gal. III. 10, 13; V. 2, 3; Rom. HI. 20; IV. 
 15; 2 Cor. III. 3 17, 'the ministration of condemnation' (ver. 9); comp. 
 also Matt. XII. 8, 'the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day'. 
 Most remarkable will ever be Paul's argument in Gal. III. 10 13, 
 and in fact throughout the chapter. Comp. also Bom. VII. 4 14; 
 Eph. II. 1417; Col. II. 1315. 
 
 P. 179. John XIV. 6; X. 15, 9; XVI. 23; Eph. II. 18, etc.; comp. 
 Hebr. IX. 15; Eom. VIII. 2 sqq.; John VIII. 34 sqq. 
 
 P. 180. a Mark XVI. 16; John HI. 16, 18; VIII. 24; XH. 48, etc. 
 
 P. 180. b John in. 36. 
 
 P. 180. c 2 John 10, 11; 2 Cor. VI. 1416; comp. Deut. XXIII. 7. 
 See also 2 Thess. III. 14, 15, 'have no company with him', after which, 
 however, follows the exhortation, 'yet count him not as an enemy, but 
 admonish him as a brother'. 
 
NOTES [pp. 180, 181]. 59 
 
 P. 180. d Matt. XI. 2830; comp. 1 Thess. IV. 13, 'Sorrow not even 
 as others who have no hope' ; Eph. II. 12; 1 Pet. V. 7 ; etc. 
 
 p. 180. e Prov. xxi. IB, ni:p DW> hnp2 tofen Tpno nyin DIN 
 
 - T T : -': : - '. r *v T T 
 
 P. 181. a In his Confession of Faith Luther says: 'Und ausser soldier 
 Christenheit ist kein Heil, noch Vergebung der Siinden, sondern ewiger 
 Tod und Verdammniss; obgleich grosser Schein der Heiligkeit da ist, 
 und viel guter Werk, so ist doch alles verloren' (Graul 1. c. p. 19); 
 Catech. maj. p. 503, 'Quicunque extra Christianitatem sunt, sive Gentiles, 
 sive Turcae, sive Judaei. aut falsi etiam Christiani et hypocritae ... in 
 perpetua manent ira et damnatione' (see De Wette, Dogm. der Prot. 
 Kirche, 58). The thirteenth of the Thirty-nine Articles declares even 
 that all works 'done before the grace of Christ . . . have the nature 
 of sin' ; and the eighteenth accounts those 'accursed that presume to 
 say that man can be saved by the light of Nature'. But innate 
 human kindness suggested mitigating views like this: 'Bene sperandum 
 est de omnibus, neque tern ere reprobis quisquam adnumerandus (Conf. 
 Hdv. II. c. 10). 
 
 P. 181. b Yet the seventeenth of the Thirty-nine Articles describes the 
 'godly consideration of Predestination' and Election as 'full of sweet, 
 pleasant, and unspeakable comfort' ; and similarly the eleventh calls justifi- 
 cation by faith 'a most wholesome Doctrine and very full of comfort'. 
 
 P. 181. c Matt. XI. 25; comp. 1 Cor. I. 26, 27. 
 
 P. 181. d Matt. VII. 12; XXII. 3640; John XIII. 34, 35; XV. 
 10, 12; 1 John in. 11; IV. 7, 12, 16, 1921; 1 Pet. I. 22; etc. Comp. 
 Gal. VI. 10, 'especially unto them that are of the household of faith'; 
 1 Pet. II. 7, 'love the brotherhood'. 
 
 P. 181. e Matt. XIII. 11; Mark IV. 11; Luke VIII. 10; comp. also 
 Matt. XIII. 33, 34; Mark IV. 33, 34; John XVI. 12. 
 
 P. 181. * In the writings of Paul the mention of 'mysteries' is frequent; 
 comp. Rom. XI. 25; XVI. 25; 1 Cor. IV. 1; XV. 51; Eph. I. 9; in. 
 3, 4, 9; V. 32; Col. I. 26; etc. 
 
 P. 181. S Mark XVI. 17, 18; comp. also Matt. XVII. 20; Luke XVII. 
 6, etc. See James V. 14 16, 'the prayer of faith shall save the sick' 
 etc. Comp. Tertull. De Orat. c. 29, 'sola est oratio quae Deum 
 vincit' etc. 
 
 P. 181. h Comp. even Abr. Carlov, Syst. locor. Theol. (Viteb. 1655 
 1671), V. 269, with respect to the unbaptised without the Church, timidly 
 indeed, but with an unmistakable bias towards liberality: 'hos Divino 
 judicio relinquimus, TOV; yap Ifco o &so npivsi . . . Misericordiae Divinae 
 immensae praejudicare vel metas ponere nostrum non est' (see De Wette 
 1. c. 58). 
 
 P. 181. * De Wette (1. c. 56 a, b) calls this Protestant doctrine 'exag- 
 gerated', as 'it sets down man's feeble power of will as none at all', 
 'allowing on his part no active co-operation whatever', and wrongs man's 
 fallible insight into spiritual truth in regarding it as absolutely blind; 
 
60 NOTES [pp. 181, 182]. 
 
 comp. Condi. Trid. sess. VI. c. 5 (De W. 1. c.), 'si quis liberum hominis ar 
 bitrium post Adae peccatum extinctum ese dixerit . . . anathema sit' 
 Aug. Cortf. (ibid.), 'De libero arbitrio decent, quod humana volunta 
 habeat aliquam libertatem ad efficiendam civilem justitiam et deligenda 
 res rationi subjectas', etc.; F. Striegel (ibid.), 'In homine non penitu 
 extincta est quaedam velut scintilla rationis, in qua factus est ad imaginer 
 Dei', etc. 
 
 P. 181. k Comp. 2 Pet. I. 510; James II. 1426; HI. 1318, et. 
 
 P. 181. l Comp. 2 Cor. V. 1, 2; Phil. I. 21, 22. 
 
 P. 182. a John IV. 21; VIII. 32, 36; 2 Cor. III. 1317. 
 
 P. 182. b John III. 17; comp. XII. 47; also I. 17; Horn. XI. 3: 
 'that He might have mercy upon all'; 1 Tim. II. 4, 'God our Saviou 
 who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge 
 the truth'. The English Catechism says, on the one hand, 'I believe j 
 God the Son, who hath redeemed me and all mankind; and on tl 
 other hand. 'I believe in the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me, and a 
 the elect people of God'. We confess we fail to understand this in 
 portant distinction, considering that, according to the fifth of the Thirty 
 nine Articles, 'the Holy Ghost ... is of one substance, majesty and gloi 
 with the Father and the Son'. 
 
 P. 182. c Luke XI. 13; comp. Matt. VII. 7, 8; also V. 45, 48; Jol 
 XVI. 23, 24. And so the English Catechism enjoins 'at all times 
 call for God's special grace by diligent prayer'. 
 
 P. 182. d l Cor. XIII. 113; Col. III. 14; 1 Tim. I. 5; Gal. " 
 14, 22; VI. 2; Eom. XIII. 815; comp. Gal. V. 6, 'faith which worke 
 by love'; VI. 10; 1 Thess. HI. 12; see James II. 1722, etc.; ai 
 supra p. 99. Augustin (Enchirid. ad Laurent, c. 117) writes: 'Qui rec 
 amat, procul dubio recte credit et sperat; qui vero non amat, inanit 
 credit, etiamsi sint vera quae credit'. 
 
 P. 182. e See Comm. on Levit. II. p. 120, esp. note 1. 
 
 P. 182. f .Comp. John XIV. 27, 'Peace I leave with you ... not 
 the world giveth'; Eom. V. 1, 2, 'being justified by faith, we have pea 
 with God' etc., 9, 11; VIII. 24; 2 Cor. V. 18, 19, God 'hath committ 
 unto us the word of reconciliation' etc.; Eph. n. 18; III. 12; Phil. I 
 7, 'the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep yo 
 hearts and minds'; Col. I. 11, 20; Hebr. IV. 9; 2 Thess. I. 7; Tit. I. 
 in. 7; 1 John V. 14. etc. 
 
 P. 182. 8' Even the very complex 'Ordo Salutis' elaborated by t 
 Christian Church implies much that is true and edifying in its si 
 cessive stages of Vocatio externa; Vocatio intema (Operationes spiritu 
 Auditio; Illuminatio; Conversio (Poenitentia) ; Justificatio; Sanctifica 
 (Renovatio); Perseverantia (Conservatio), up to the Unio mystica ci 
 Deo, which is defined as the 'conjunctio spiritualis Dei triunius ci 
 homine justificato' (comp. De Wette 1. c. 7684). See, in gener 
 De Wette, Dogmat. der Prot. Kirche, 5284; Bibl. Dogmat. 207 
 
NOTES [pp. 188190]. 61 
 
 306; Christl. Sittenlehre, 4080, 127, 128, 158, 200 sqq.; and the 
 corresponding sections in the works of Lutz, Weiss, Biedermann, Martense, 
 Schweizer, Ritschl, Lipsius, and others. 
 
 P. 188. a The distance of the nearest of the 350,000 catalogued stars, 
 a centauri, which is, however, only observable in the southern hemi- 
 sphere, is computed at 224, 500 earth radii, or about 4 bill. 480,000 mill, 
 geogr. miles; that of the remotest, a aurigae, at 4,484,000 earth radii, 
 or about 89 bill. 680,000 mill, geogr. miles. 
 
 P' 188. b Comp. Du Bois-Raymond, Culturgeschichte und Natur- 
 wissenschaft, p. 40; Car. Sterne, "Werden und Vergehen, pp. 457 459; 
 M. W. Meyer, Von den ersten und letzten Dingen im Universum, 
 pp. 8 sqq., 'It is certain that the moon has accomplished the task of its 
 existence', etc. 
 
 P. 189. a Madler places the chief point of gravity near the star 
 Alcyone in the group of the Pleiads. Our sun, possessing a translatory 
 motion of 7 */ 2 geographical miles in the second, directs, therefore, its course 
 at present towards a point in the constellation of Hercules, 'where, 
 on account of this approach, the stars part perceptibly asunder'. It is 
 needless to say, that these details are as yet no more than conjectures. 
 
 P. 189. b Of the chemical constitution of the sun we know at present sixteen 
 elements, viz. in the order of their probable atomic weight hydrogen, 
 natrium, magnesium, titanium, aluminum, silicium, kalium, calcium, 
 chromium, manganese, iron, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, and barium; 
 in the meteorites have been detected sulphur and phosphor ; in the nebular 
 spots, nitrogen; in the comets' nucleus, carbon; in Alderbaran one of 
 those stars with a reddish light, which, like Arcturus, differ in their 
 composition considerably from our sun antimony, tellurium, mercury, 
 and bismuth; or in all twenty-four elements. Of those existing on our 
 earth in larger quantities, there remain but five which have as yet not 
 been found elsewhere, viz. lead, fluorine, iodine, chlorine, and tin (comp. 
 M. W. Meyer, Kraft und Stoff im Universum etc., 1878, pp. 2024). 
 Hydrogen and iron are the chief constituents of the solar atmosphere, 
 as oxygen and nitrogen are the chief constituents in the atmosphere of 
 the earth. 
 
 P. 190. a We cannot resist the pleasure of quoting the following beautiful 
 observations of A. von Grafe (Sehen and Sehorgan, 1879, pp. 44, 45) 
 'Die naturwissenschaftlichen Studien, eng verbriidert, richten auf den 
 gemeinsamen Zielpunkt einer grossen Naturkraft ihr Steuer, einer Kraft, 
 welche nach denselben unwandelbaren Gesetzen alle Erscheinungen 
 regiert und zusammenhalt, ob sie das fluthende Meer in seinem weiten 
 Bette hebt, oder die feinen Molekiile in der organischen Zelle ordnet, 
 ob sie die riesigen Himmelskorper in ihre Bahnen zwingt oder die zarte 
 Aetherwelle auf dem Strahlenpfade zu unserer Netzhautgrube leitet. In 
 ihrem Walten weht der Athem des Unverganglichen, und auch wir 
 fiihlen uns inmitten menschlicher Willkiir und Gebrechlichkeit von 
 
62 NOTES [pp. 192196]. 
 
 hoherem Geiste getrieben, wenn wir unser Sinnen und Trachten, weni 
 wir den heissen Drang der Erkenntniss auf ihr tief nothwendiges, un 
 zerstorbar gleiches "Wirken lenken'. 
 
 P. 192. a Dante, Inferno, I. 97 99, 'So mischievous and fierce is it 
 nature, that it never satisfies its keen desire, and after the repast i 
 more famished than before'. 
 
 P. 192. b The hypothesis is that of Olbers, the objection was raise* 
 by Zollner. 
 
 P. 192. c So Virchow in his earlier works, and others. 
 
 P. 193. a Job XXVIII. 12, 13, 23, 24. 
 
 P. 193. b Schiller, Votivtafeln. 'Dich zu fangen, ziehen sie aus mi 
 Netzen und Stangen ; Aber mit Geistestritt schreitest du mitten hir 
 durch.' 'Euer Gegenstand ist der erhabenste freilich im Kaume; Abe] 
 Freunde, im Eaum wohnt das Erhabene nicht.' 
 
 P. 194. a A shooting star like that described in the text was observe 
 on the 21st of August, 1867, at 8 o'clock in the evening (comp. Dem 
 in Naturforscher, I. 58). The reader will excuse the little anachronisi 
 in the date. 
 
 P. 194. b The orbit of the August swarm coincides with that of tb 
 great comet of the year 1862; the swarm of the 27th of November 187 
 moved in the orbit of Biela's comet, etc. 
 
 P. 194. c See Schiaparelli, Entwurf einer astronomischen Theorie de 
 Sternschnuppen, ed. Georg von Boguslawski; comp. Deutsche Warte 
 I. 526536; Naturforscher, I. 223. 
 
 P. 195. a Diog. Laert. X. 89. 
 
 P. 195. b Ibid. 91; comp. Lucret. V. 564590; Cic. De Finil 
 I. 6, 20, 'huic (Epicuro) pedalis fortasse'; Acad. Prior. II. 26, 82 
 Senec. Quaest. Nat. I. 3, 10; Pint. De Plac. Philos. II. 2022. 
 
 P. 195. c Ibid. 92, Kara ava^tv ysvsa^ai Zwaer^ai KOU Kara afisar 
 TQiavTys Quays Trspiffraasccg. Yet Epicurus attributes the alternations als( 
 in harmony with the impression of the senses, to the heavenly bodie 
 passing above and below the earth. 
 
 P. 195. d Lucret. V. 729748. Humphrey does not strictly separat 
 the views of the Cyrenaics from those of the Epicureans. Comp. Lucre. 
 Books V and VI passim. 
 
 P. 195. e Diog. Laert. 1. c. 105; comp. Lucret. V. 535600; Plu 
 De Plac. Philos. III. 15. 
 
 P. 195. f Diog. Laert. 1. c. 114, 115; Plut. 1. c. III. 2. 
 
 P. 196. a See Diog. Laert. II. viii. 3, r,v Is ap^saa^ai KU} ronca KI 
 Xpwcp Kai npoffUKw K. T. X. (comp. Hor. Epist. I. xvii. 23, 24, Omn; 
 Aristippum decuit color et status et res; Tentantem majora, fere prat 
 sentibus aequum). 
 
 P. 196. b Diog. Laert. II. viii. 6, 85, rsXo$ V 'omtyaive ryv \stc 
 Kivyan si$ eudbrppt avaSe^o^/VTjv. 
 
 P. 196. c Diog. Laert. II. 87, re'Xo? slvai w ryv ttaraoT*i(UiTtK$v 
 
NOTES [pp. 196200]. 63 
 
 TTJV sir' avaipsast aXyTj^dvcev, KOI oTov avo^X^ff/av K. T. X.: 89, 90, fiiaac, 
 TS Ka.Ta.VTa.asH; ccvd/ia^ov ffaviay Kai airwiav: X. 136, o/ /JLSV yap (the 
 Cyrenaics) TTJV Kmaarr^arLKr^ (^ovjjv) OVK lyitplvwat, povyv $$ TTJV ev 
 Knf,y8i: comp. Cic. De Fin. I. 137139. 
 
 P. 196. d Diog. Laert. II. 90, TroXv JK/V TO/ TCCV $v%tKu>v T$ crco^car/- 
 K (i^ova?) afJLsivQvz elvat K. T. X. 
 
 P. 196. e I&i'd. 93, ^r* s Xa^ T/ s7va/, /OJTS </>/X/av, /oyTff slspyeuiav 
 K. T. X.: 95, TOV Tff <70</>ov sauTOU eWtfa Travra Trpd^siv, ov^eva yap ^ 
 TWV aXXcov eWary? a|/ov aur: 98, rov <77roua?by ^ 
 narptiot; eavTw. 
 
 P. 196. Ibid. 88, e7vau ^s T^V apsrijv aya^ov, /c^v ouro 
 TWV yevrjTat ... E/ yay9 KOI r, Ttpa^n; aroTro^ enj, aXX' ovv y y^ovy <' alrr/v 
 aipsTT] } aya^o'v. 
 
 P. 197. a J&i'd. 99, K\8&en rs K<XI p<>i%s{>7sty KOI /V/3ocruX^(7ff/v s'v Kaipu. 
 yap elvai TOVTCOV ala%pw <f>vast , rijq sit avTo7<; ^dfyyg aipofjLsvrjt;, TJ 
 SVSKOC Tfj/; TWV a<f>p6vcav auvo^ys: comp. 93, prfisv TS sJvat (frvvsi 
 17 /fXov ^ ahxpiv, XX vd/xw ^a/ e^f/ 1 o /ZSVTO; JTrou^aro? oysv T07rov 
 $ia TS 8iriKstfji.e'jct<; fyfjitag na} ^o^ag: in reference to fypwrpis, 91, 
 a^ov /iev e7va/ Xsyouj/v, oy / Jau-r^v e aipeTyv, XX / T 
 a.\iTr t s nsptyivofjLsva : and with regard to friendship ifo'rf. TOV 0/Xov T^5 
 
 P. 197. IIsiJ^cxvaTo;: iWd. 94, T^V sl^aifjioviav oXco? a^yvaTov s?va; 
 K. T. X.: (7zc. Tusc. I. 34, 83, 'a malis igitur mors abducit, non a 
 bonis; et quidem hoc a Cyrenaico Hegesia sic copiose disputatur, ut is 
 a rege Ptolemaeo prohibitus esse dicatur ilia in scholis dicere, quod 
 multi iis auditis mortem sibi ipsi consciscerent.' The title of one of 
 Hegesias' famous books was 'Jumifymptb or 'A man who starves him- 
 seh .' 
 
 P. 197. c Diog. Laert. II. 98, aya^a SI fpwijffn Ka} SiKaioevvyv, KO.KO. 
 Ss Tag svavTia$ s^si/;. 
 
 P. 197. Ibid. 75, TO Kpure'iv /c; py yTTacfeai TJ^OVWV apiaTov, ov TO 
 
 P. 197. e Ibid. 72. 
 
 P. 199. a Comp. 1 Pet. I. 12; see Spiess, Logos Spermatikos, 
 pp. xxv xxvii. 
 
 P. 199. b Eom. VII. 24, 25; 1 Cor. I. 30. 
 
 P. 200. a Eurip. Pr. inc. 904, IIs'/^ov psv ^w? ^v^on; ctvty&v To7? /Sou- 
 irpo/Ji.a'&eiv, iro^tsv l/2XaffTOV, T/^ /3''C KKK&V, T/va Sff? /jLaKUpuv 
 Evpstv ^cdx^wv v7rauXav. Comp. Sop/t. Antig. 1023, 1024, 
 yap To/ itaai KOIVQV sari Tovfe/jiapTaven : Philemon ap. Meineke 
 IV. 3, T Ii ffw$ ffovTj/jdv s<7T/v av^/scoTTou (/>u<7/; To avvoXov ^.T.X.: Andoc. II. 5 
 (Becker, Orator. Attic. I. p. 128), fieyaky $s ^TTOW J TO 
 
 sari K. T. X.: but PZatf. Sympos. c. XXIV, p. 205 A, co? 
 aXXo eVriv ou sp&yw av^>pcairoi TJ TOV aya^ou: Tim. c. XLI ; p. 86 D, 
 i; fJLsv yap ^/cwv o^s/j AC. T. X. 
 
64 NOTES fpp. 202 205]. 
 
 P. 202. a Comp. Diog. Laert. X. 9, r, rs Italo-ffl, xaccav ajp&ov SK\I- 
 Trouffcov TCOV a'XXcov, SGOCSI $tafjt.svovffa K. T. X. : Cic. De Fin. I. 7, 25; II. 
 15, 49; Lactant. Instit. III. 17. 
 
 P. 203. a Comp. Diog. Laert. X. 37, 'the study of nature contri- 
 butes more than anything else to the tranquillity and happiness of life' ; 
 98, 115, 116, 'apply yourself to the study of general principles, of 
 the infinite, and of other questions of this kind'; 120, 135, TOVTO. ovv 
 Koii rot. TOVTOH; ffvyysv?] jjisksra ^/aTravro? . . . KOI O^STTOTS ouV vnap OUT' ova/3 
 SiccTapax&yay: 142 144; Lucret. I. 6279 (Humana ante oculos 
 foede cum vita jaceret In terras oppressa gravi sub religione, Quae caput 
 a coeli regionibus ostendebat etc., vers. 62, 63), 101 (Tantum religio 
 potuit suadere malorum); 931, 932; IV. 6, 7 (artis Eeligionum animum 
 nodis exsolvere pergo) ; II. 37 61 (Hunc igitur terrorem animi tene- 
 brasque necesse est Non radii solis . . . Discutiant, sed naturae species 
 ratioque); III. 14 17 (Nam simul ac ratio tua coepit vociferari Na- 
 turam rerum . . . Diffugiunt animi terrores etc.), 25, 37 40, 87 93, 
 8281092; V. 8290, 11591638 (esp. vers. 11921195, genus 
 infelix humanum, talia divis Cum tribuit facta atque iras adjunxit acer- 
 bas, etc.), 12161223; VI. 979; Cic. De Fin. I. 63 (omnium rerum 
 natura cognita levamur superstitione, liberamur mortis metu. etc.); IV. 5 
 (ut pellatur mortis et religionis metus); Virg. Greorg. II. 490 492 (Felix 
 qui potuit etc., supra p. 60); Senec. De Benefic. IV. 19; Pint. Non 
 posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, c. 8. 
 
 P. 204. a Diog. Laert. X. 130132; comp. Cic. De Fin. I. 37, 
 'ut tollatur error omnis imperitorum, intelligaturque ea quae voluptaria, 
 delicata, mollis habeatur disciplina, quam gravis, quam continens, quam 
 severa sit'; 45; Tusc. V. 94. 
 
 P. 204. b Diog. Laert. 1. c. 144; comp. 127, 130, 'everything 
 which is natural is easily provided, and what is useless is not easily 
 procured'; 144, 'he who is acquainted with the limits of life knows 
 that which removes the pain arising from want, and renders life 
 complete, is easily procurable; so that he has no need of those things 
 which can only be obtained with trouble'; 149. 
 
 P. 204. c Ibid. 11; comp. Senec. Epist. 18, 9, 'certos habebat dies 
 ille magister voluptatis Epicurus, quibus maligne famem extingueret . . . 
 et quidem gloriatur non toto asse pasci'. 
 
 P. 204. d Juven. XIV. 316-320, Quantum, Epicure, tibi parvis suf- 
 fecit in hortis etc. (Dryden: 'As much as made wise Epicurus blest, 
 Who in small gardens spacious realms possesst'); comp. XIII. 122, 123, 
 'non Epicurum Suscipit exigui laetum plantaribus horti.' 
 
 P. 205. a Lucret. II. 1423, 37 39 (Good's translation); comp. III. 
 1001 1008 (Deinde animi ingratam naturam pascere semper etc.) ; V. 
 47, 48 (where among the chief vices are reckoned 'luxus' and 'desidia'); 
 1115 1117 (Quod si quis vera vitam ratione gubernet, Divitiae grandes 
 homini sunt vivere parve Aequo animo ; neque enim est unquam penuria 
 
NOTES [pp. 205, 206]. 65 
 
 parvi; 1118 1133; 1421 1433, especially the sweet idyllical picture 
 vers. 13901409, likewise vers. 921 sqq. the description of the earlier and 
 hardier generations, and the happy simplicity of their lives. We have 
 quoted Lucretius throughout from the edition of Bemays (Lips. 1862). 
 
 P. 205. b Dioff. Laert. 1. c. 130. 
 
 P. 205. c Ibid. 128, nyv T^OV^V apxy v Ke " 1*5X05 Xs'yo//?v elvtxi TOU 
 
 P. 205. d 'Aya^ov TTOCCTOV ira) ovyysviKov, ibid. 129; comp. 11, rqv 
 ^ov^v sl'jat Ts'Xo^: 34, TTJV fJt.sv ijSov^v QIKSMV, rr t v s aXyiySova XXor^ov, 
 3/' a-v Kpbi&at rat; aipsvsic, KOI </>vys: Cic. De Fin. I. 29, 30,4054 
 (seeking pleasure and avoiding pain are axioms, which for men with 
 sound natural instincts require no proof); Plut. Adv. Colot. c. 27. 
 
 P. 205. e Comp. Lucret. II. 172, dux vitae, dia voluptas. 
 
 P. 205. f Comp. Dioff. Laert. X. 128, 139; Lucret. II. 1719; Plut. 
 Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, c. 3, KQIVW 'Eirinovpoi; rr,v jrav- 
 rog toy Xyo5vro virsJjaipsaiv SITITS^SIKSV: esp. cc. 7, 8, 31; Cic. De Pin. 
 I. 11, 37; Senec. Epist. 66, 45, 'apud Epicurum duo bona sunt, ex 
 quibus summum illud beatumque componitur, ut corpus sine dolore sit, 
 animus sine perturbatione.' Even some sections of the Epicureans them- 
 selves, as the Annicereans, rejected Epicurus' sober notion of pleasure, 
 calling it 'the condition of the dead' (Clem. Alex. II. p. 417 B, -nyv TOW 
 Xyoyvro iTTS^aipsyty a&srouovv, viiepw Karajrajtv affo/caXoyvre^). 
 
 P. 205. ^ The exoteric school of the Nyaya, regarding the world in 
 reference to sensation, considers beatitude to be reached by the succes- 
 sive departure of 'false notions, fault, activity, birth, and pain' (comp. 
 J. R. Ballantyne, Christianity contrasted with Hindu Philosophy, p. xx); 
 see infra. 
 
 P. 206. a Senec. De Vit. Beat. cc. 12, 13, 'non aestimant, voluptas 
 ilia Epicuri quam sobria ac sicca sit, ... ad parvum et exile revocatur, 
 et quam nos virtuti legem dicimus, earn ille dicit voluptati'. 
 
 P. 206. b Diog. Laert. X. 128131, 137, 138, 141 ('no pleasure 
 is intrinsically bad; but the efficient causes of some pleasures bring 
 with them many perturbations of the soul'), 142, 149 ('those desires 
 which do not lead to pain if they are not satisfied, are not necessary; 
 it is easy to impose silence on them when they appear difficult to gratify 
 or likely to produce injury'); Senec. Epist. 85, 18 ('Epicurus quoque 
 judicat, cum virtutem habeat, beatum esse . . . idem negat umquam 
 virtutem esse sine voluptate; ita . . . et sola satis est'); Vit. Beat. c. 12, 
 3; De Otio, c. 7, 3; comp. Cic. De Pin. I. 32 36, 48, 55; also 
 Hor. Epist. I. ii. 55, Sperne voluptates, nocet empta dolore voluptas. 
 
 P. 206. c See Diog. Laert. IX. 45, re'Xoc %s slvat TTJV el^fiiav (said 
 Democritus), ou ryv avrqv 080001 ry iJSov^, KO& rp yaXTjvoc^ KOU eara^w~ yj 
 $vy7] Stayst, WTTO py^svot; TapaTTOftsvy $d/2ou K. r. X.: Senec. Epist. 67, 15, 
 'Occidor, sed fortiter: bene est; audi Epicurum, dicet, "dulce est"; ego 
 tarn honestae rei ac severae numquam molle nomen imponam'; comp. 
 
66 NOTES [pp. 206, 207]. 
 
 Epist. 12, 11, 'perseverabo Epicurum tibi ingerere, ut . . . sciant, quae 
 optima sunt, esse communia'; Cic. De Fin. I. 61. 
 
 P. 206. d Diog. Laert. X. 118; Senec. Epist. 66, 18; 67, 15; 
 Gic. Tusc. V. 26, 73; Pint. Non posse suaviter etc. c. 3. 
 
 P. 207. a Diog. Laert. X. 22; comp. Cic. Tusc. II. 7, 19, 30, 17, 
 44, 96 98 ('neglige dolorem, inquit Epicurus : quis hoc dicit? idem qui 
 dolorem summum malum; vix satis constanter', etc.); Sen. Epist. 33, 2 
 ('apud me Epicurus est et fortis, licet manuleatus sit'); 66, 47; 92, 25; 
 Plut. Non posse suaviter etc. cc. 3, 16, 18; M. Aurel. IX. 41. 
 
 P. 207. b Diog. Laert. X. 120, T% rs avr/T|=-ffW Senec. De Con- 
 stant. Sapient, c. 15, 4; Cic. De Fin. I. 19, 63; Tusc. V. 9, 
 26, 27. 
 
 P. 207. c Diog. Laert. X. 134, 135. 
 
 P. 207. d Plut. Non posse suaviter etc. c. 4, o/ Kv/^vaiVco/, Ka'nzsp SK 
 jjiiai; o/yo^oTj? 'EiriKovpcc KeiriaKOTsi;. 
 
 P. 207. e lsai. XXII. 13; LVL 12; Luke XII. 19; 1 Cor. 
 XV. 32. 
 
 P. 207. f Hor. Od. IV. xii. 27, 28; comp. I. xi. 7, 'Carpe diem' 
 etc.; xxvi. 1, 2, 'Musis amicus tristitiam et metus Tradam' etc.; II. 
 xvi. 25 27, 'Laetus in praesens animus quod ultra est Oderit curare, 
 et amara lento Temperet risu'; III. viii. 27, 28, 'Dona praesentis cape 
 laetus horae. et Linque severa'; xxix. 41 43, 'Ille potens sui Laetusque 
 deget, cui licet in diem Dixisse, Vixi'; Sat. II. vi. 96, 97; etc. 
 
 P. 207. Hor. Epist. I. iv. 15, 16, 'Me pinguem et nitidum bene 
 curata cute vises, Cum ridere voles Epicuri de grege porcum'; Od. I. 
 xxxiv. 1 3, 'Parcus deorum cultor et infrequens, Insanientis dum 
 sapientiae Consultus erro' etc. 
 
 P. 207. h Comp. Epictet. Disp. I. 20; II. 20; III. 7. 
 
 P. 207. i Comp. Cic. De Fin. I. 5, 13 sqq.j Tusc. III. 1521, 
 32 51; Plut. Adversus Coloten; Non posse suaviter vivi secundum 
 Epicurum; and De occulte vivendo three treatises expressly directed against 
 the Epicureans and throughout denouncing them for teaching a 'low and 
 beastlike life' (Adv. Colot. c. 2, OTI Zyv aysvv&<; KOI ^ptw^oci; StiaaKovcrtv); 
 for 'inciting men to incessant pleasures, not to virtue', since, in their 
 opinion, virtue affords only empty, vain and fluctuating hopes of en- 
 joyment' (ibid. c. 17; comp. c. 30; Non posse suaviter etc. cc. 2, 3); 
 for 'banishing the pleasures of the mind' (ibid. cc. 9 13); for 'drawing 
 down into the body the powers of thought by carnal lusts, as by leaden 
 weights' (cc. 14, 16); for being utterly indifferent to honour and the 
 safety of their country, since their highest good lies in the belly (c. 16); 
 for caring nothing whatever about the prizes of a noble rivalry in the 
 arts, the sciences, or public life, since they proclaimed the principle, 
 'Live in obscurity' (Xa&e/S/coja;,- cc. 16, 19; De occulte vivendo, passim) 
 most of which assertions are either entirely unfounded or greatly exag- 
 gerated (comp. Diog. Laert. x. 6; Cic. Tusc. III. 18, 41). 
 
NOTES [pp. 208, 209]. 67 
 
 P. 208. a Lucre*. II. 713, Sed nil dulcius est, bene quam munita 
 tenere Edita doctrina sapientum templa serena, Despicere unde queas 
 alios passimque videre Errare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae etc. 
 
 P. 208. b Diog. Laert. X. 135, CCOCTT? & & s ^ ev CCV^PWKOH;: Lucret. 
 III. 320 322, 'Usque adeo naturarum vestigia linqui Parvola, quae ne- 
 queant ratio depellere nobis, Ut nil impediat dignam dis degere vitam'; 
 Senec. Epist. 25, 4. 
 
 P. 208. c See supra p. 143; comp. Diog. Laert. 1. c. 121: the 
 Epicureans distinguish two kinds of happiness such as that of the gods, 
 which admits of no increase; and that which admits of the addition or 
 diminution of pleasures; even the former is within the reach of the 
 wise. Comp. Zeller, Philosophic der Griechen, III. 1. p. 427, 'Es ist 
 die gleiche Unendlichkeit der auf sich selbst und ihr Denken be- 
 schrankten Subjektivitat, welche beiden Systemen (the Stoic and the 
 Epicurean) als gemeinsame Voraussetzung zu Grunde liegt, und beide 
 haben diesen Gredanken unter derselben Form, an dem Ideal des 
 Weisen, und grossentheils mit gleichen Ziigen ausgefiihrt' j see ibid. 
 pp. 425 429. 
 
 P. 208. d Comp. Lucret. II. 1 sqq. 
 
 P. 208. e Lucret. V. 222 234, 'Vagituque locum lugubri complet, ut 
 aequumst Cui tantum in vita restet transire malorum' etc.; comp. II. 
 575 580; Plin. Nat. Hist. VII. 1; also c. 50 (51), 'incertum et fragile 
 nimium est hoc munus naturae ... tot periculorum genera, tot morbi . . . 
 totiens invocata morte ut nullum frequentius sit votum; natura vero nihil 
 hominibus brevitate vitae praestitit melius'; c. 53 (54), 'mortes repentinae, 
 hoc est summa vitae felicitas'; 56 (57), 'praecipuum naturae bonum 
 mortem'. 
 
 P. 208. f Lucret. II. 3, 'Non quia vexari quemquamst jucunda vo- 
 luptas'. 
 
 P. 209. a Supra p. 64; comp. Diog. Laert. X. 126, TO rfc W^ 
 cWaorov . . . TroXu %s xsi'pwv next o Xsywv K. r. \.- Lucret. V. 987, dulcia 
 lumina vitae. 
 
 P. 209. b Comp. Lucret. Id. 1070 1074, 'Naturam primum studeat 
 cognoscere rerum, Temporis aeterni quoniam, non unius horae, Ambigitur 
 status' etc.; Senec. Epist. 8, 7, 'philosophiae servias oportet, ut tibi 
 contingat vera libertas'. Epicunis himself wrote 37 books "on Nature" 
 (Diog. Laert. X. 27, 28). 
 
 P. 209. c Ibid. 6 (nadeiav %s naaav paKapioi <f>svysrs), 77 80, 
 85, 87, 118120; 'theoretical knowledge of astronomy is utterly useless 
 as regards any influence it can have on happiness' ( 79); 'that which 
 we have in view is not a set of systems and vain opinions, but much 
 rather a life exempt from every kind of disquietude* ( 87); Cic. De 
 Fin. I. 21, 71, 'nullam eruditionem esse duxit, nisi quae beatae vitae 
 disciplinamjuvaret'; 72, 'vivendi artem tantam . . . et fructuosam'; n. 
 4, 12; Sext. Empir. Adv. Mathem. XI. 169, -n?v (/>/Xocro</uav eve 
 
68 NOTES [pp. 209, 210]. 
 
 stvat Xoyo/s KCU ^/aXoy/a/zo/V rov sL^at'fjLova /3/ov Trepiitoiovaav. Yet Epicurus 
 was a most voluminous author, having composed more than three hundred 
 original volumes, with hardly any quotation from another writer (Diog. 
 Laert. 1. c. 26), though he was, perhaps justly, charged with a want 
 of exact and systematic erudition (Cic. De Fin. I. 20, 26, 'vellem 
 equidem aut ipse doctrinis fuisset instructior est enim . . . non satis 
 politus iis artibus quas qui tenent eruditi appellantur' etc.; 71, 72; 
 Seoct. Empir. Adv. Mathem. I. 1; Athen. XIII. 588 a, ey/ru/cX/cu nai%st'a$ 
 apv-rjToi; wv; Plut. Non posse suaviter etc. cc. 11, 12); Athen. XIII. 53, 
 o^v avrov KOCI 6 Ti/Jiuv fyrp} TpafjifjLo^i^acfKak^v avaycoyo'rarov Cwovrcov. 
 Comp. Senec. Epist. 11, 8, 9 ; 25, 5; De Otio in. 2, 'Epicurus ait: 
 Non accedet ad rempublicam sapiens nisi si quid intervenerit; Zeno ait: 
 Accedet ad rempublicam, nisi si quid impedierit; Epictet. Disp. I. 23; 
 
 in. ?. 
 
 P. 209. d Lucret. V. 1196 1201, 'Nee pietas ullast velatum saepe 
 videri Vertier ad lapidem . . . Sed mage pacata posse omnia mente 
 tueri'. 
 
 P. 2!0. a Diog. Laert. 1. c. 98 ('the prognostics derived from the 
 stars, like those inferred from animals, simply arise from coincidences'), 
 1 1 5 ('presages drawn from certain animals originate in a fortuitous com- 
 bination of circumstances'), 119, 120, 133 135, rr t v Is siftappsv-riv . . 
 M elvai, ... TO Be nap 7j/ji.u>y aSsWorov K. r. X.,- Senec. De Vit. Beat. 
 19, 1; Epist. 24, 22, 23, 'objurgat Epicurus non minus eos qui 
 mortem concupiscunt quam eos qui timent' etc. . . . Lucret. II. 256 
 262, 'Libera per terras . . . fatis avolsa potestas' etc.; III. 7981, 'Et 
 saepe usque adeo, mortis formidine, vitae Percipit humanos odium lucisque 
 videndae'; V. 114145, 'Eeligione refrenatus ne forte rearis, Terras et 
 solem et coelum . . . Corpore divino debere aetenia manere' etc.; VI. 
 374 386 (against auguries and divination); Plut. De Stoic. Repugn. 
 c. 34. 
 
 P. 210. b Diog. Laert. 1. c. 120, 121, 130, 140, 141; Lucret. HI. 
 5964, 74-77; Cic. Tusc. H. 12, 28; V. 31, 89; Senec. De Constant. 
 c. 16, 1; Epist. 9, 20; 14, 17; 21, 7; 25, 4; Plut. Non posse 
 suaviter etc. c. 15, TO sv jroisTv TJ^IQV sari TOW ndy^siv' comp. Acts XX. 35' 
 Ael. Var. Hist. XIII. 13, eXsys %s (Ptolemaeus Lagi) aftetvov slvai TrXov- 
 T/C/v 77 TrXoyre/v. 
 
 P. 210. c Comp. Epictet. Disp. III. 7, Soy/iaT/Cwv ra ala%pa, TTO/WV rot. 
 Kuka; comp. II. 20, avrot; spycc Ktxryyopov TWV eavrov ^oy^arcov: I. 23; Cic. 
 De Fin. II. 25, 31, 'nihil in hac praeclara epistola (see supra p. 207) 
 scriptum ab Epicuro congruens et conveniens decretis ejus reperietis; 
 ita redarguitur ipse a sese convincunturque scripta ejus probitate ipsius 
 et moribus'. 
 
 P. 210. *Diog. Laert. X. 117, 118 (indulgence towards slaves), 
 121, 'he will propitiate an absolute ruler, when occasion requires, and 
 will humour him for the sake of correcting his habits', and 'friendship 
 
NOTES [pp. 210, 211]. 69 
 
 is caused by our wants, but it must not be begun on our side' etc.; 
 'he will be ready even to die for a friend'; 148, etc.; Cic. De Fin. I. 
 65 70, 'nee hoc oratione solum sed multo magis vita et factis et 
 moribus comprobant . . . quod fit etiam nunc ab Epicuraeis'; see in 
 general ibid. I. 521, 1372; also II. 25, 80, 84, 'et ipse 
 (Epicurus) bonus vir fuit et multi et fuerunt et hodie sunt et in ami- 
 citiis fideles et in omni vita constantes et graves, nee voluptate sed officio 
 consilia moderantes' ; Pint. Adv. Colot. cc. 8, 11, 13. 
 
 P. 210. e Diog. Laert. X. 9, 10, etc.; Senec. Epist. 11, 8; 25, 
 5, 'sic fac omnia, tamquam spectet Epicurus' etc. ; comp. the enthusiastic 
 praises bestowed on Epicurus by Lucretius (I. 6.279; III. 113, 
 1041, 1042; V. 154, 'dicendum est, deus ille fuit, deus' etc.; VI. 
 18); also Cic. De Fin. I. 20, 65; II. 25, 80; V. 1, 3, 'cujus 
 (Epicuri) imaginem non modo in tabulis . . . sed etiam in poculis et in 
 annulis habent'; Tusc. II. 19, 44; Pint. Adv. Colot. c. 17; Euseb. 
 Praep. Evang. XIV. 5, 3, 4, oe 'EKtKovpeioi . . . jv win) /*ev w</&7?jav 
 'EiriKWptp svavTia ^s/Jisvoi ovSctfJL&g . . . "EotKS re rj 'ETTiKOiipw liarpi^ iro\t- 
 TSIIX TIV} a\r^st ) ajraavaarora-n;, KOIVOV sva vo5v, fjn'av yvwjtojv fyway K. r. X. 
 
 P. 210. f Lucret. V. 1239 1455 ('Praemia, delicias quoque vitae fun- 
 ditus ornnis, Carmina, picturas, et daedala signa polire' etc. vers. 1448, 
 1449). It is difficult to understand how it was possible to impute to 
 the Epicureans indifference to the fine arts and even contempt for their 
 cultivation (comp. Cic. De Fin. I. 21, 72, 'an tempus . . . aut in 
 poetis evolvendis in quibus . . . omnis puerilis est delectatio' etc.; and 
 similarly many others up to our time). Epicurus teaches: 'The wise 
 man surrounds himself with works of art, but is not annoyed if he is 
 unable to do so' (Diog. Laert. X. 121, siKova$ TS avc&f,aeiv el e%oi, 
 abiafopu; eeiv v py o^iti)'. which proves that not possessing treasures 
 of art is felt by him as a privation to be borne with equanimity. Still 
 more decisive is the grand work of Lucretius, which poets like Ovid, 
 Dryden and Byron, and scholars like Causobon and Scaliger, ranked 
 among the finest of poetical productions, and which could not possibly 
 have been written unless artistic culture and encouragement had pre- 
 vailed in the sect. Lucretius himself expresses more than once his pride 
 and ambition to convey his doctrine, as a favourite of the Muses, 'in 
 sweet-sounding verse'. 
 
 P. 211. a Diog. Laert. X. 150 153, vyrepov %s OVK 7,v sn liKaia, Zrt 
 pi) swtyeptv: comp. Cic. De Fin. I. 25, 'recta et honesta quae sint, 
 ea facere ipsa per se laetitiam, id est, voluptatem*. 
 
 P. 211. b Epict. Disp. III. 7, jrov^a iari ra Soy^cara, avarpaitriKa 
 TroXeco^ Xy/zavT//ca of*v, ol$s yvvait Trpsirovra K. r. X. 
 
 P. 211. Comp. e.g. Diog. Laert. 1. c. 152, 'From the moment that 
 a thing declared just by the law is generally recognised as useful for the 
 mutual relations of men, it becomes really just, whether it is universally 
 egarded as such or not' etc. 
 
70 NOTES [pp. 211, 212]. 
 
 P. 211. d Philodem. De Rhet., quoted by Zeller 1. c. p. 408, M /*ovov 
 ffwe/Sdrcov, aXXa KV Xav^avcojKsv K. -n X. 
 
 P. 211. e Diog. Laert. X. 132, 138, 140, OVK earn ftfas Zyv avev 
 TOW <f>povifj.w$ KOI /caXw KCU // K. T. X. ; conap. 144, 6 SiKaioi; arapa- 
 tJTQTaTog, 6 S'aS/KO? irkeiuTy; Tapani; yspuv: Lucret. V. 18, 'At bene non 
 poterat sine puro pectore vivi'; 43, 44, 'At nisi purgatumst pectus, quae 
 proelia nobis' etc.; Cic. De Fin. I. 50, 57, 62; Tusc. V. 9, 26; 
 Ad Famil. XV. 19, where Cassius writes: 'T^OV^V vero et arapa&'av 
 virtute,' justitia, TW /cXw parari et verum et probabile est . . . et ecqui 
 a nobis <f>i\r;$ovoi vocantur sunt ^/Xo'/caXo/ et (f>i\o$iKaioi omnesque virtutes 
 et colunt et retinent'; Senec. Epist. 85, 18; Epictet. Disp. I. 23, 'for 
 upon this again Epicurus insists very strongly that we should admire 
 and praise nothing that is detached from the essence of the good' (or/ 
 oy $s7 ansairaap-avov ovtisv rijt; TOW ayo&ot/ ova/ OVTS ^>avfjc.a^etv OUT airo 
 
 P. 212. a Spinoz. Epist. LX, 7, 'credo quod triangulum, siquidem 
 loquendi haberet facultatem, eodem modo diceret, Deum eminenter trian- 
 gularem esse, et circulus, divinam naturam eminenti ratione circularem 
 esse: et hac ratione quilibet sua attributa Deo adscriberet, similemque 
 se Deo redderet, reliquumque ei deforme videretur'. 
 
 P. 212. b Comp. Zeller, Vortrage und Abhandlungen, I. pp. 10, 11. 
 A Hindoo saying of the same import is thus rendered by Aufrecht 
 (Bliithenlese aus Hindustan, p. 80): 'Wie der Mensch ist auch sein G-ott; 
 Darum ward Gott so oft zum Spott'. 
 
 P. 212. c Diog. Laert. X. 76, 77, 97, akeiTavp-^roi; liaTr l psia%u KOI 
 sv ry itaay ficcKapioT-^ri: 123, TOV ^eov Cwov a^^apTov KOI paKapiov K. r. X.; 
 139; comp. Pint. De Stoic. Eepugn. c. 20. 
 
 P. 212. d Senec. Lud. c. 8, 'EntKOVpeios &eo . . . OVTS avroi; np&yfJia 
 s'xet ri OVTS a'XXo/j napey/ei; De Benef. IV. 4 ('quae maxima Epicuro fe- 
 licitas videtur, nihil agit'), c. 19 (the whole of the remarkable chapter, 
 'Tu denique, Epicure, deum inermem facis . . . et ne cuiquam metuendus 
 esset, projecisti ilium extra metum . . . Atqui hunc vis videri colere 
 non aliter quam parentem grato, ut opinor, animo . . . Propter majestatem, 
 inquis, ejus eximiam singularemque naturam . . . Nempe hoc facis nullo 
 pretio inductus, nulla spe'); Cic. De Divin. II. 17, 40, 'nihil habens 
 nee sui nee alieni negotii', and the whole section, 'Deos enim ipsos 
 jocandi causa induxit Epicurus perlucidos et perflabiles' etc.; De Nat. 
 Deor. I. 19, 20, 30, 'Epicurum . . . verbis reliquisse deos, re sustulisse'; 
 c. 34, 9496. 
 
 P. 212. e Lucret. I. 44 49, 'Omnis enim per se divum natura necessest 
 Immortali aevo summa cum pace fruatur Semota ab nostris rebus sejunctaque 
 longe . . . Nee bene promeritis capitur nee tangitur ira'; II. 646 651, 
 1093, 1094, 'Namproh sancta deum tranquilla pectora pace, Quae placidum 
 degunt aevom vitamque serenam' etc.; in. 18 25; V. 8190, 146 
 154, 165 167, 'Quid enim immortalibus atque beatis Gratia nostra queat 
 
NOTES [pp. 212, 213]. 71 
 
 largirier emolument!, Ut nostra quicquam causa gerere adgrediantur' ? 
 Hor. Sat. I. v. 101 103, 'Namque decs didici securum agere aevum; 
 Nee si quid miri faciat natura' etc. 
 
 P. 212. f Lucr. III. 1078, 1079, 'Nee nova vivendo procuditur ulla 
 voluptas'; comp. V. 177, 178, 'donee retinebit blanda voluptas'; Euseb. 
 Praep. Evang. I. 8, 9, Zn TO irav as} TO/OUTOV r,v Ktxl sarat TO/OUTOV, Zn 
 o$ev f'vov airors'ksTTai sv rw TTOCVT) irapa TOV rj^rj ysysvyjisvov %pww aireipov. 
 
 P. 212. Justly no doubt says Plutarch (De occulte Vivendo, c. 4): 
 'As the light not only makes men mutually distinguishable, but also 
 useful, so popularity procures to the virtues not only fame but a sphere 
 of usefulness'. To this, however, the Epicureans were not quite in- 
 sensible; comp. Lucret. V. 895, 896, 'tuisque Praesidium'; Plut. Adv. 
 Colot. c. 33; Non posse suaviter etc. c. 15 (above alluded to), TO tl nonTv 
 yotov sari TOU Trao^s/y. 
 
 P. 212. h Epictet. Disp. II. 20, orav avaipsTv ^s\y TIJV QvaiKyv KOtvwviav: 
 comp. Senec. Epist. 68, 10, 'Otium, inquis, commendas mihi? Ad Epi- 
 curaeas voces delaberis'; also Plin. Nat. Hist. XXIX. 4 or 19, 'lam 
 quid em hortorum nomine in ipsa urbe delicias agros villasque possident; 
 primus hoc instituit Athenis Epicurus, oti magister', etc.; Senec. De 
 Brevit. Vit. 14, 2, 'cum Epicure quiescere'; De Otio 1, 4; De Benef. 
 VI. 4. 1; Cic. Tusc. I. 15, 32, 'nemo umquam sine magna spe 
 immortalitatis se pro patria offerret ad mortem'; Plut. Adv. Colot. cc. 
 3133, etc. 
 
 P. 213. a Eccl. I. 4 10; III. 14, 15, etc. 
 
 P. 213. b Comp. Cic. De Fin. I. 21, 72, 'aut se. ut Plato, in musicis, 
 geometria, numeris, astris conteret, quae a falsis initiis profecta vera esse 
 non possunt, et, si essent vera, nihil afferrent, quo jucundius, id est, quo 
 melius viveremus'; Tusc. I. 23, 55, where the Epicureans are contemptu- 
 ously designated 'plebeii philosophi'; De Divin. I. 30, 62. 
 
 P. 213. c Diog. Laert. X. 31, 32, Kpirr,pia. rrjt; aX^siat; sJvat TJ 
 aly^r,asi<; . . . KOI rag Kpo\r;$siz Kae T 7ra^>y. O/ J' 'EirtKOvpsioi, KOI rat; 
 <f>avrasTiKa<; eirifo\ag TTJS liavoiai;: ibid. 'Every notion proceeds from the 
 senses either directly or in consequence of some analogy or proportion 
 or combination, reasoning always having a share in these operations'; 
 comp. 146, 'If you resist all the senses, you will not even have any- 
 thing left to which you can refer, or by which you may be able to 
 judge of the falsehood of the senses which you condemn'; 50, 51, on 
 the relation between judgment and evidence, TO s $ev$oi; KOU TO ir,[j.aprti- 
 fjisvov sv TU irpw%oaZofJi8vw net SUTIV sTti[j.apTVpr^'ri<7e<j'sOU TJ [ty avrtftapTvpTt]- 
 ^yasa'&cu K. T. X. Comp. Lucret. I. 690 700, 'sensus . . . unde omnia 
 credita pendent' (694); IV. 476, 477, 'Invenies primis ab sensibus esse 
 creatam Notitiam veri, neque sensus posse refelli'; 377 459 (ocular de- 
 lusions admitted), 460 719 (yet the faith in the fidelity of the senses 
 remains unshaken; 'Quae violare fidem quasi sensibus omnia quaerunt 
 Nequiquam' etc.; see vers. 498 504; for arguing against the Academics, 
 
72 NOTES [pp. 212214]. 
 
 he observes, 'Denique nil sciri siquis putat, id quoque nescit, An sciri 
 possit, quoniam nil scire fatetur', vers. 467, 468); 748, 749, 'quod mente 
 videmus Atque oculis, simili fieri ratione necesse est'; also I. 304 (the 
 general principle: 'Tangere enim et tangi, nisi corpus, nulla potest res') ; 
 Cic. De Fin. I. 22, 64, 'quidquid animo cernimus, id omne oritur 
 a sensibus' etc.; Pint. De Placit. Philos. IV. 8 13, 19; Advers. Colot. 
 cc. 47, 25. 
 
 Peculiar is Epicurus' conception, in substance borrowed from Democritus, 
 of 'images' (TVTTOI, s"%w\<x, rerum simulacra, spectra) resembling in their 
 form the solid bodies we see, but being surfaces without depth or of an 
 extreme thinness; for 'from the solids there may emanate some particles 
 which preserve the connection, disposition, and motion which they had 
 in the body' ; the production of the images is constant and extremely 
 rapid, being simultaneous with the thought (Diog. Laert. X. 46, 48) ; 
 see this subject very fully treated in Lucret. IV. 26 253, 720819, 
 where even 'simulacra meandi', enabling men to walk, are assumed (vers. 
 874 904); Cic. Ad Tamil. XV. 16; Qell. V. 16; Macrob. Saturn. VII. 
 14. Materialistically are also explained the causes of sight, hearing, 
 and smelling: 'something passes from external objects into us, in order 
 to produce in us sight and the knowledge of forms', etc. (Diog. Laert. 
 X. 49 53; Lucret. VI. 921 934). For some objections against 
 this doctrine of the senses see Zeller, Philosophic der Griechen, III. 1. 
 pp. 366, 367. 
 
 P. 214. a Diog. Laert. 1. c. 65, oaov nore ear/ TO auvrs2vov TWV aro/iwv jr\^og. 
 
 P. 214. b Lucret. HI. 327, 328. 
 
 P. 214. c Democritus asserted that the atoms of the soul correspond 
 individually to the atoms of the body (comp. Lucr. III. 370 395) ; see, 
 however, Cic. De Fin. I. 17, 21, Democritaea perpauca mutans, sed 
 ita ut ea quae corrigere vult, mihi quidem depravare videatur; IV. 13. 
 
 P. 214. d Diog. Laert. 1. c. 63 67, 'the soul is composed of atoms 
 of the most perfect lightness and roundness, atoms wholly different from 
 those of fire' ( 66); see Lucret. I. 112 116, 'Ignoratur enim quae sit 
 natura animai' etc.; HI. 323358, 445473, 485545, 590612, 695 
 708, 767773, 798803; comp. Cic. Tusc. I. 11, 'Democritum . . . 
 levibus et rotundis corpusculis efficientem animum concursu quodam 
 fortuito . . . nihil est enim apud istos quod non atomorum turba con- 
 ficiat'; c. 18, 'illam vero funditus ejiciamus individuorum corporum 
 levium et rotundorum concursionem fortuitam, quam tamen Democritus 
 concalefactam et spirabilem, id est animalem, esse vult'. 
 
 P. 214. e The -theory of Lucretius is briefly this. Man has a mind 
 or intellect (animus or mens), the ruler and governor of life (III. 94, 
 95), and a soul (anima) or vital power. The mind, which is not less 
 an integral part of man himself than the hand or foot, resides 'in the 
 middle portions of the breast' (III. 138 142, 'media regione in pecto- 
 ris'); while the soul is distributed through the whole body, obeys and 
 
NOTES [pp. 214, 215]. 73 
 
 is moved according to the will and impulse of the mind (vers. 143 
 146). Both are corporeal, composed of particles, fine and 'exceedingly 
 diminutive, smooth and round' (vers. 161176, 205), of air, heat, aura, 
 and a fourth nameless substance, 'the soul of the soul', more active and 
 more subtle than the rest, and mainly instrumental in distributing sen- 
 sible motions through the members (vers. 320 232, 396 416; with 
 respect to the fourth element : 'Nominis haec expers vis, facta minutis 
 Corporibus, latet atque animae quasi totius ipsa Proporrost anima et 
 dominatur corpore toto' etc.; vers. 270 280). Democritus considered 
 vov; and ^v-^r, identical (Diog. Laert. IX. 44) ; see also Plut. De Placit. 
 Philos. IV. 3 7. "With respect to the point under consideration, the 
 difference between Stoics and Epicureans has well been thus stated: 
 'According to the Stoics it is the soul which keeps the body together; 
 according to the Epicureans, it is the body which keeps the soul to- 
 gether; the former, therefore, believe the soul to survive the body; the 
 latter find this impossible; Stoicism regards the mind as the power 
 that rules everything extraneous and hence also the body; Epicureanism 
 places the mind on a level with the body, and then makes the one de- 
 pendent on the other' (Zeller 1. c. p. 387): 
 
 P. 214. f Diog. Laert. X. 124 126, 139, o ^avaro; o8*v irpog was, 
 TO yap avaXu&Jv ava/a&Tjrer, TO $e avat^y/Tovv ovSsv irpo<; r,fJiai;\ 145, KOI 
 oy^ev en Toy airetpw %pww itpoaebsrfa av: comp. Lucret. III. 828, 829, 
 'Nil igitur mors est ad nos neque pertinet hilum Quandoquidem natura 
 animi mortalis habetur'; 836840, 864, 865, 'scire licet nobis nil esse 
 in morte timendum, Nee miserum fieri qui non est posse'; 898, 899, 
 'Illud in his rebus non addunt, nee tibi earum Jam desiderium rerum 
 super insidet una'; die. De Fin. H. 31, 100, 101. 
 
 P. 215. a Comp. Ballantyne, Christianity contrasted with Hindu 
 Philosophy, pp. xxiii xxv. Gautama says: 'Desire, aversion, volition, 
 pleasure, pain and knowledge are that whereby we recognise soul (atman)'. 
 'The criterion of the mind (manas) is the not arising of cognitions (in 
 the soul) simultaneously'. 'The Hindoos believe', observes Colebrooke 
 (Essays on the Religion and Philosophy of the Hindoos, 1858, p. 28) T 
 'that the soul, or conscious life, enters the body through the sagittal 
 suture; lodges in the brain; and may contemplate, through the same 
 opening, the divine perfections. Mind, or the reasoning faculty, is 
 reckoned to be an organ of the body, situated in the heart' (comp. in 
 general, ibid. pp. 165187). 
 
 P. 215. b Comp. Colebrooke 1. c. pp. 143 164, 'absolute prevention of 
 all three sorts of pain, as an aphorism of the Sanc'hya intimates, is the 
 highest purpose of the soul'; Ballantyne 1. c. pp. xxvii xxx, 'Nature 
 (prakriti) is the state of equipoise of goodness, passion, and darkness', etc. 
 P. 215. c Comp. Colebrooke 1. c. p. 62, where, however, 'the multitude 
 of souls' is differently explained: 'Birth, and death, and the instruments 
 of life are allotted severally' etc. 
 
74 NOTES [pp. 215, 216]. 
 
 P. 215. d Comp. Lucret. IV. 820 854, where it is maintained that 
 the limbs of the human body were not designed for definite uses, but 
 that, being found useful for certain purposes as the eye for seeing, the 
 foot for walking men employed them so; see Aristot. Phys. II. 8; 
 Goethe, Gesprache mit Eckermann, TIT, 176, the ox has not horns, in 
 order to defend himself, but he defends himself with the horns because 
 he has them. 
 
 P. 216. a Dwff. Laert. X. 76, 77, o^ev ly Kara ra$ ig apw<; eva- 
 iro\fjipsi$ TCOV avffTpo(f>u>v TOVTCOV sv ry TOV KWJJLOV yavsasi, $s7 ^ofafe/v, KOI 
 ri)v avay/ojv ravryv K<xi mpiobov (rvvTs\a7<&ai: 81, 82, 93, 'sun and moon 
 and stars received originally, by appointment of Fate, an impulse from 
 east to west, and now their movement continues in consequence of their 
 heat;' 97, 'above all things let us not make the deity interpose here' 
 (esp. in the eclipses of the sun and moon, etc.); Lucret. I. 1021 1028; 
 V. 56 58, 'doceo dictis, quo quaeque creata Foedere sint' etc.; 81 90, 
 'Neve aliqua divom volvi ratione putemus'; 309, 310, 'Nee sanctum 
 numen fati protollere fines Posse neque adversus naturae foedera niti'; 
 675 677, 'Namque ubi sic fuerunt causarum exordia prima, Atque ita 
 res mundi cecidere ab origine prima . . . jam redeunt ex ordine 
 certo'. 
 
 P. 216. b Lucret. II. 1090 1092, 'natura videtur Libera continuo do- 
 minis privata superbis, Ipse sua per se sponte omnia dis agere expers' ; 
 III. 980, 981, 'Sed magis in vita divom metus urget inanis Mortalis' etc.; 
 V. 87, 'Et dominos acres adsciscunt'; Diog. Laert. X. 27, 123, 124, 
 'there are gods, . . . but they are not such as the people in general consider 
 them to be, ... and that man is not impious who rejects the gods be- 
 lieved in by the many, but he who applies to the gods the opinions of 
 the many' ; for people usually attribute to the gods all the good and all 
 the evil that happens to them, 'because they always connect with the 
 gods virtues resembling their own human qualities, while they regard 
 everything else as incompatible with the divine nature'; comp. 10, 
 riji; IJLSV fap Ttp^t; &sou OOVOTTJTO^ . . . a\sKTog y bic&suti;: 133, irsp} ^ecov 
 oj/a Soa?e/v: 134, oi&ev yap araKTWi; &su irpaTTsrai. Comp. also Lucret. 
 V. 146 155, 'Illud item non est ut possis credere, sedes Esse deum 
 sanctas in mundi partibus ullis; Tenuis enim natura deum longeque 
 remota Sensibus . . . Tangere enim non quit quod tangi non licet ip- 
 sum'; Cic. Nat. Deor. I. 16, 41, 43, 115; Plut. Non posse suaviter 
 etc. c. 21. Epicurus wrote books Hept ^scov and He pi oa/onyros, and he 
 inferred the existence of the gods from the universality of the belief, 
 which, he thought, proved a Kpfayipig derived from the apparition of 
 the 'images'. Yet with respect to the immortality of the soul he assumed 
 no such irpfaqifHg (comp. Zeller, 1. c. pp. .392400, and in general 
 pp. 341434.) 
 
 P. 216. c Comp. Cic. Nat. Deor. I. 8, 18; Plut. De Placit, Philos. 
 II. 3, TOV KoajjLov . . . OUT l//^u^ov OUTS irpwoi'ct 
 
NOTES [pp. 216, 217]. 75 
 
 Advers. Colot. c. 8, 'he abolishes Providence, yet professes to re- 
 tain piety'; cc. 14, 27; Non posse suaviter etc. c. 20. 
 
 P. 216. d See supra p. 164. Unobjectionable are the plainly poetical 
 metaphors and allegories of Lucretius (II. 598, 599, 'quam magna deum 
 mater' etc.; 655 660, 'hie siquis mare Neptunum Cereremque vocare 
 Constituit fruges' etc.; III. 976^-1021, where the legends of the sufferings 
 of Tantalus and Sisyphus are thoughtfully interpreted as the tortures 
 inflicted upon the living by vice and superstition). 
 
 P. 216. e See Lucret. II. 165181; 1101 1104, 'Exercens telum, 
 quod saepe nocentes Praeterit exanimatque indignos inque merentes'; 
 V. 156 234, 195221, 'Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam Na- 
 turam rerum; tanta stat praedita culpa' etc. Comp. Orig. Contr. Gels. IV.. 
 23, 74 88, TO! av^ocoTTw (jtayKOWt iravra ireirotyKsvai K. r. X., 98, 99, 'not 
 for man everything has been made, nor for the lion nor for the eagle 
 nor the dolphin; but in order that this world might be perfect and com- 
 plete as the work of God, all has been appointed, not for mutual pos- 
 session, but rather as a well-organised production and the property of 
 the whole' etc.; also Cic. Nat. Deor. n. 6164; Young, Night Thoughts, 
 I, 'A part how small of the terraqueous globe Is tenanted by man ! 
 The rest waste . . . Such is earth's melancholy map'! 
 
 P. 217. a Comp. Lucret. I. 329399; 9541020. 
 
 P. 217. b Lucret. I. 328, Corporibus caecis igitur natura gerit res; 
 comp. V. 187194, 416 431. 
 
 P. 217. c See supra p. 195. Comp. Diog. Laert. IX. 44; X. 38, 
 39, ol^sv yi'vsrai SK TOV [JLTJ ovrog, ouSs sit; TO {JLTJ ov t^tsipsrat: 'for were the 
 fact otherwise', he continues, 'then everything would be produced from 
 everything . . . And if that which disappeared were so absolutely des- 
 troyed as to become non-existent, then everything would soon perish . . . 
 But, in truth, the universal whole always was such as it now is, and 
 always will be such'; Lucret. I. 149 211, 'Nullam rem e nilo gigni 
 divinitus unquam, Quippe ita formido mortalis continet omnes . . . Nam 
 si de nilo fierent, ex omnibu' rebus Omne genus nasci posset, nil semine 
 egeret' etc.; vers. 215 264, 'Hue accedit uti quicque in sua corpora 
 rursum Dissolvat natura neque ad nilum interemat res . . . Haut igitur 
 possunt ad nilum quaeque reverti'; vers. 538 sqq., 'Ergo si solida ac 
 sine inani corpora prima Sunt ita uti docui, sint haec aeterna necessest' 
 etc.; vers. 10211034, 'Nam certe neque consilio primordia rerum Ordine 
 se suo quaeque sagaci mente locarunt' etc.; II. 1105 1143; VI. 387 
 395 (the innocent killed by lightning), 386422, 760768 (all phe- 
 nomena have natural causes). The atoms are corporeal and solid, void 
 of colour and indeed of all qualities except form, weight, and magnitude; 
 unchangeable, impenetrable, invisible to us, infinite in number and 
 very varied in shape, not infinitely divisible, of the least extent possible, 
 yet not without extent (Itiog. Laert. X. 4145, 5459, 61;. Lucret. 
 I. 504634, esp. 610627, 746758, 790797, 950954, 'solidissima 
 
76 NOTES [p. 217]. 
 
 material Corpora perpetuo volitare invicta per aevom'; II. 61 16 
 181 1022; VI. 485487; Cic. De Fin. I. 1720; Pint. De Pla 
 Philos. I. 3, 9, 12, 18, rag ap%cc<; TUV ovrcov acojaara Xo'yw ^sw/JTjra, apa 
 KSVOV, aysvvijTa K. r. X.; comp. also c. 4 (on the origin of the world), 
 (plurality of worlds), 7 (gods and demons), 24 (no creation nor-tot 
 annihilation), 25 (unalterable laws); II. 12 (worlds of different shapes 
 V. 19 ('the Epicureans, who regard the world as uncreated, believe th 
 living beings are produced from the transmutation of matter, and th 
 nothing dies, but everything changes into something else of a differed 
 form'); Advers. Colot. cc. 8, 12 (atoms and the vacuum; no creatic 
 out of nothing), c. 13 (the universe boundless). 
 P. 217. A Diog. Laert. X. 41, 42. 
 
 P. 217. e Ibid. 45, 74; comp. Lucret. II. 10481089, 'Esse ali< 
 alibi compressus material Qualis hie est' etc. (vers. 1065, 1066); 'Ess 
 alios aliis terrarum in partibus orbis Et varias hominum gentis et saecl 
 ferarum (vers. 1075, 1076). 
 
 P. 217. Diog. Laert. X. 74, ov$a w s7v<zi ccTroKp&evTa airo TC 
 amtpov K. T. X.,- Lucret. II. 865 1022, 'Nunc ea quae sentire videmu 
 cumque necessest Ex insensilibus tamen omnia confiteare principii 
 constare'; 991 998, 1150 1156, { quae (tellus) cuncta creavit Saecl 
 deditque ferarum ingentia corpora partu . . . Sed genuit tellus eaden 
 quae nunc alit ex se'; V. 780 833, espec. 804 812, 'Hoc ubi quaequ 
 loci regio opportuna dabatur, Crescebant uteri terram radicibus apti etc. 
 Linquitur ut merito maternum nomen adepta Terra sit, e terra quoniac 
 sunt cuncta creata'. The production of perfect organisms by generate 
 aequivoca, chiefly from the warm mud of the earth, was entertained als< 
 by Parmenides, Diogenes of Apollonia, Democritus and Anaxagoras 
 nay even by Aristotle, at least with respect to insects, some mollusc; 
 and fishes. Diodorus of Sicily (I. 10) reports the allegations of the 
 Egyptians that it was in their country that the first men were produced 
 on account of its favourable climate and the peculiar qualities of the 
 Nile. 'That from the beginning living creatures were generated in 
 Egypt, this they endeavour to prove from experience: it is surprising, 
 they say, to see how many and how large mice still originate in the 
 Thebais at certain times; some of them are developed up to the breast 
 and the forefeet, so that they are able to move, while the rest of the 
 body is undeveloped and retains the nature of earth (JJ.SVQWVJI; en Kara 
 ^vfftv rye /SwXou) . . . Even in our time, they maintain, we clearly per- 
 ceive how, after an inundation of the Nile, when the water subsides and 
 the mud begins to dry in the sun, animals are produced, some perfectly 
 developed, others half-developed and still joined together with the earth' ; 
 comp. ibid. c. 7 ; Aetian, Nat. Anim. II. 56, 'I hear that in the Thebais, 
 after a hailstorm, mice appear which are partly still clay, and partly 
 already flesh' (JJLV*;, wv TO psv irti\6<; SUTIV STI, TO e aa/jf 7^77), etc.; also 
 VI. 46; PUn. Nat. Hist. IX. 57, 58 (or 83, 84), 'Verum omnibus his 
 
NOTES [pp. 217220]. 
 
 fidem Nili inundatio adfert omnia excedente miraculo; quippe detegente 
 eo musculi reperiuntur inchoate opere genitalis aquae terraeque, jam parte 
 corporis viventes novissima effigie etiamnum terrena'; Censorin. De Die 
 Natali, c. 4, 'Democrito Abderitae ex aqua limoque primum visum esse 
 homines procreatos ; nee longe secus Epicurus . . . Zenon, principium humano 
 generi ex novo mundo constitutum putavit, primosque homines ex solo 
 adminiculo divini ignis, id est dei providentia genitos' ; Mishn. Chull. IX. 
 6, 'a mouse half flesh and half earth', HD"IN VSfPP "lEO Wl; Talm. 
 Chull. 126 b , 127 a ; Sanhedr. 91 a , where a disbeliever in Immortality 
 is bidden to go into the field and see how a mouse which is to-day half 
 flesh and half earth, the very next day is entirely flesh 
 
 ~i2O AD rwyy\ 'fnipn ino 1 ? HDIN yarn -itso van); 
 
 on Mishn. Chull. IX. 6, 'the production of the mouse from the earth alone, 
 so that one part consists of earth and another of flesh, is a well-known fact, 
 and innumerable people (^nb 1DDD fN) nave seen i* and have as- 
 sured me of it'. 
 
 P. 217. % Diog. Laert. X. 73; comp. Lucret. II. 10021012, 'Nee 
 sic interemit mors res, ut materiai Corpora conficiat, sed coetum dis- 
 supat ollis; Inde aliis aliud conjungitur, et fit ut omnes Res ita con- 
 vertant formas' etc.; Y. 64155, 235415, 'Scire licet coeli quoque 
 item terraeque fuisse Principiale aliquod tempus clademque futuram' 
 (vers. 245, 246). As regards the almost identical opinions of Democritus 
 on nearly all these points, see Diog. Laert. IX. 44, 45, etc. Comp. 
 also Origen. Contr. Gels. IV. 65, 69. 
 
 P. 217. h See R. Keim, Celsus' Wahres Wort: Aelteste Streitschrift 
 antiker Weltanschauung gegen das Christenthum vom Jahre 178 nach 
 Christ, etc. Zurich, 1873. 
 
 P. 218. a See Orig. Contr. Cels. VI. 1, pa\rmv aura irap "EXXiywv 
 8lpija>ai, KI X U P^"> avaJTaasco KOU eVayysX/a^ ryg TTO ^sov, 17 viov ^eou. 
 
 P. 218. b The errors have been sufficiently dwelt upon by Cicero, 
 Plutarch, and others; comp. Cic. De Fin. I. 6, Plut. Advers. Colot. 
 cc. 8 10; etc. 
 
 P. 220. a See Aristot. Phys. II. 8. This passage is indeed a remar- 
 kable anticipation of the principle of the 'survival of the fittest': 'Those 
 creatures, in the formation of which everything happened so as if it 
 were made with a design, were preserved, since chance had formed 
 them suitably; whereas those, which were not so formed, perished, as 
 for instance, according to Empedocles, the bulls with human faces'. 
 For Empedocles also is often numbered among the predecessors of Darwin, 
 on account of his grotesque doctrine, that at first no complete organisms 
 originated, but merely single and detached limbs, as heads without 
 necks, arms without shoulders, till, 'impelled by love', they combined as 
 chance happened to act; whence arose many monstrous creatures, as 
 men with bulls' heads and bulls with men's heads, which, however, soon 
 vanished, in order, after renewed rudimentary experiments, to make room 
 
78 NOTES [pp. 220224]. 
 
 to a second series of beings capable of living and propagating. The 
 first who attempted to account for the variety of animals by trans- 
 mutation was Anaximander of Milet, who supposed that men had at 
 first the form of fishes, being enclosed in a kind of thorny bark, as 
 the body of the butterfly is enclosed in the larva, or the tortoise in its 
 shell, but that subsequently, when they were able to support themselves, 
 they went ashore, their mail-like envelopment having burst asunder (comp. 
 Plut. Qu. conv. VIII. 8 ; Placit. Philos. V..19; Censorin. De Die Natal. 
 c. 4, 'Anaximander Milesius videri sibi ex aqua terraque calefactis exortos 
 esse sive pisces seu piscibus similia animalia, in his homines concrevisse, 
 fetusque ad pubertatem intus retentos tune demum ruptis illis viros mu- 
 lieresque qui jam se alere possent processisse' ; etc. These singularities, 
 like the similar eccentricities of Xenophanes of Colophon, do not even 
 deserve the rank of an analogy to the scientific hypothesis of trans- 
 * formation or evolution (comp. E. Zeller, Ueber die griechischen Vor- 
 ganger Darwin's, 1878). See also Lucret. V. 854 856, 'Nam quae- 
 cunque vides vesci vitalibus auris, Aut dolus aut virtus aut denique 
 nobilitas est Ex ineunte aevo genus id tutata reservans' etc. 
 
 P. 220. b Schopenhauer, "Works, ed. Frauenstadt, I. pp. xviii sqq. 
 The .principle of natural selection was, in 1813, enunciated with perfect 
 clearness by Dr. Wells, the originator of that theory of dew formation, 
 which is now generally accepted; and later (before 1858) by Wallace 
 and others. 
 
 P. 220. c Comp. Eckermann, Gesprache mit Goethe, 1837, in. 339, 
 353; Goethe's Werke, XL. pp. 488526 (Trincipes de Philosophic Zoo- 
 logique, discutes en Mars 1830 au sein de 1'Academie royale des Sciences 
 par M. Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire'). 
 
 P. 222. a Darwin (Descent of Man. 1871, I. 152) observes: 'I now 
 admit that I probably attached too much to the action of natural selection 
 or the survival of the fittest; I have altered the fifth edition of the 
 "Origin of Species" so as to confine my remarks to adaptive changes of 
 structure'; also p. 154, 'An unexplained residuum of change, perhaps 
 a large one, must be left to the assumed uniform action of unknown 
 agencies' etc. 
 
 P. 222. b The regenerating breath of Darwinism has been felt especially 
 by the sciences of zoology and botany, palaeontology, geology and 
 physiology, and even by philosophy and the science of language. 
 
 P. 224. a See Darwin, Descent of Man, 1871, passim. 
 
 P. 224. b Comp. Haeckel, Vortrage, I. 8284. 
 
 P. 224. c Comp. Haeckel, Studien iiber Moneren und andere Protisten, 
 1872; Perigenesis der Plastidule oder Wellenbewegung der Lebens- 
 theilchen, ein Versuch zur mechanischen Erklarung der elemexitaren 
 Entwickelungs-Vorgange, 1876; Tschermak, Die Einheit der Entwickelung 
 in der Natur, 1876. 
 
 P. 224. d Haeckel, Vortrage, I. 35. 
 
NOTES [pp. 225231]. 79 
 
 P. 225. a Comp. Haeckel, Bathybius und die Moneren; etc.; and, on 
 the other hand, D. von Schutz, Das exacte "Wissen der Naturforscher. 
 pp. 103111; Pagenstecher, Ueber die Thiere der Tiefsee, 1879, 
 pp. 17, 20. 
 
 P. 225. b See Commentary on Genesis, p. 35. 
 
 P. 225. c Haeckel, Vortrage, I. 35; comp. Aug. Muller, Ueber die erste 
 Enstehung organischer Wesen und deren Spaltung in Arten, 1869. 
 
 P. 226. a So, e. g., by Wallace and, at least at first, by Darwin. 
 
 P. 227. a Comp. O. von Linstoio, Kurzgefasste Uebersicht der Ent- 
 wickelungsgeschichte der Menschen und Thiere, etc. 1878, pp. 76 78. 
 
 P. 228. a Comp. C. G. Reuschle, Philosophic und Naturwissenschaft, 
 pp. 89, 90. 
 
 P. 229. a See Spence Hardy, Legends and Theories of Buddhists, 
 p. 151. 
 
 P. 229. b Comp. Darwin, Descent of Man, I. 12. 
 
 P. 229. c All the numerous genera of animals found as fossils in the 
 various strata of the earth, allow of an easy insertion in the system based 
 upon the animals now living, and often fill up very important gaps in 
 this system. 
 
 P. 231. a The repetition is the more complete, the more fully, by constant 
 inheritance, the original epitomising development (palingenesis) is preserved ; 
 and it is the less complete, the more extensively, by varied adaptation, the 
 later 'false development' (cenogenesis) is introduced. Comp. Haeckel, 
 Generelle Morphologic der Organismen, Books V and VI; Natiirliche 
 Schopfungsgeschichte, Lect. XII ; Studien zur Gastraea-Theorie^Populare 
 Vortrage, n. 16. 28 30, 'the difference between a second-watch, the 
 hand of which accomplishes its circular course within a minute, and a 
 year-clock the hand of which completes the circle in 365 days, is not 
 so great as the difference between the breathless rapidity of the on- 
 togenesis and the scarcely perceptible advance of the phylogenesis'; 
 pp. 83 96, 123 164; Corns Sterne, Werden und Vergehen, p. 447, 
 who expresses the law thus: 'Every creature has, in its development, 
 virtually to proceed on the same road which its ancestors gradually ac- 
 complished; in this progress it may indeed occasionally, avoiding 
 tortuous paths, take a short cut, yet it is on the whole unable to depart 
 from the slow and long-paved roads'. This most important law was 
 clearly pronounced as early as the beginning of the century, though 
 naturalists failed to draw from it the obvious and grave conclusions. 
 In 1812, Merkel wrote literally: 'The same succession of steps presented 
 by the whole animal kingdom ... is also presented by each of the 
 higher animals in its individual development, since, from the moment 
 of its first origin to the period of its perfection, and both with respect 
 to its inner and its outward organisation, it passes in every essential 
 through all forms which appertain to the animals below it in the scale 
 of organisms during their whole lives' (Joh. Friedr. Merkel, Handbuch 
 
80 NOTES [pp. 231251]. 
 
 der pathologischen Anatonrie, Leipzig 1812, I. 48; see Virchow, Menschen- 
 und Affenschadel, p. 20; also Danvin, Descent of Man, I. 31 33). A 
 similar view was expressed, even in 1759, by C. Fr. Wolff in his 'Theoria 
 generationis'. 
 
 P. 231. b Comp. Max Schasler, Ueber materialistische und idealistische 
 Weltanschauung, pp. 30, 31. The general nature of Phylogenesis is 
 sufficiently exhibited by the palaeontological remains; it may, therefore, 
 with some confidence be taken as a basis of comparison with Ontogenesis ; 
 and there is not, as has been objected, a logical fallacy in drawing an 
 inference from the analogy of both. 
 
 P. 232. a Dante, Paradiso, V. 79, 80, 'Be men, and not silly cattle, 
 lest the Jew among you laugh at you'. 
 
 P. 232. b Ennius ap. Cic. Nat. Deor. I. 35, 97. 
 
 P. 234. a See Haeckel, Freie Wissenschaft und freie Lehre, pp. 70, 
 76; Die heutige Entwickelungslehre im Yerhaltniss zur Gesammt- 
 wissenschaft, pp. 16, 24; etc. 
 
 P. 234. b So, e. gr., Du Bois-Reynwnd, Culturgeschichte und Natur- 
 wissenschaffc, p. 55: 'Der Darwinismus, dem ich sonst huldige, bleibe 
 dem Gymnasium fern'. 
 
 P. 236. a See Du Bois-Reymond, Culturgeschichte etc., p. 11; comp. 
 ibid. pp. 12 19, dilating, with too great stress, on the deficiencies of 
 the ancients in physical observation. 
 
 P. 236. b Biot in Journal des Savants, Paris 1849, p. 500. 
 
 P. 239. See Comm. on Genes, pp. 1929. 
 
 P. 141. a Especially the Abasides, Samanides and Ghaznavides in the 
 East, and the Omajads in the West. 
 
 P. 241. b Comp. A. Dillmann, Der Verfall des Islam, pp. 4, 5. 
 
 P. 243. a 'Nimmer labt ihn des Baumes Frucht, den er muhsam er- 
 ziehet; Nur der Geschmack geniesst, was die Gelehrsamkeit pflanzt' 
 (Schiller, Votivtafeln, Werke, 1838, I. 414). 
 
 P. 248. a For instance, the remarkable laws in the diffusion of 
 plants and animals, the conditions of the division of labour, the 
 causes of alternate generation, the origin of the so-called rudimentary 
 organs. 
 
 P. 249. a 'Art lasst nicht von Art'. Comp. D. v. Schiltz, Das exacte 
 Wissen der Naturforscher, pp. Ill 167. 
 
 P. 250. a A. Sechi, L'unita delle forze fisiche, 1876. 
 
 P. 250. b Dante, Paradiso, V. 82 84, 'Do not act like the lamb which 
 leaves the milk of the mother, and, silly and wanton, for its mere 
 pleasure fights against itself.' 
 
 P. 250. c Especially the relative proportions of the parts of the body, 
 the capacity of the lungs, the form of the skull, the convolutions of the 
 brain, the colour of the skin, and the nature of the hair. 
 
 P. 251. a The white, yellow, red, brown, and black races, i. e. the 
 Caucasian, Mongolian, American, Malayan, and African. 
 
NOTES [pp. 251261]. 81 
 
 P. 251. b Dolichocephali and, Brachycephali, with the intermediate 
 type of Mesocephali. 
 
 P. 251. c Comp. Darwin, Descent of Man, I. 214236, 240 250. 
 Darwin, admitting that 'fertility and sterility are not safe criterions of 
 specific distinctness', and balancing the weight of argument on both 
 sides, is inclined to regard the races of men as 'sub-species' (pp. 227, 
 228, 232), but justly considers the point 'almost a matter of indifference' 
 (p. 235), since the definition of species or race is extremely vague. 
 On the extinction of the races of man, see ibid. pp. 236240. 
 
 P. 252. a Schiller, Wallenstein's Tod, II. 4 (Werke, 1838, IV. p. 241). 
 'Seid ihr nicht wie die Weiber, die bestandig Zuriick nur kommen auf 
 ihr erstes Wort, Wenn man Vernunft gesprochen Stunden lang'? 
 
 P. 255. a Goethe, Parabase (Werke, H. p. 290). 
 
 P. 256. a Comp. Du Bois-Reymond, Darwin versus Galiani, 1876. 
 
 P. 256. b Comp. Du Bois-Reymond, Ueber die Granzen des Natur- 
 erkennens, 1872. 
 
 P. 256. c Correct conjectures on this point have been made even by 
 Aristarchus and Seleucus, who have therefore been called the Copernicus 
 and Galilei of the ancients. Comp. Plut. Platonicae Quaestiones, 8 ; De 
 Placit. Philosoph. II. 24. 
 
 P. 257. a Comp. Maimon. Mor. Nev. in. 13, 'We must not believe 
 that all beings exist for the sake of man, but, on the contrary, that all 
 other beings were likewise created with a view to their own existence 
 and not on account of something else'; and the whole of that chapter. 
 
 P. 258. a We may distinguish a materialism in religion (opposed to 
 theism), in philosophy (opposed to spiritualism or animism), in the physical 
 world (opposed to teleology), in biology (opposed to vitalism), in ethics 
 and art (opposed to idealism). A consistent materialism in all these 
 spheres is rarely, if ever, upheld. Accurately speaking, there are two distinct 
 pairs of opposites, viz. Kealism and Idealism, and Materialism and Spiri- 
 tualism, the two latter being the one-sided extremes of the two former; 
 but neither Realism and Materialism, nor Idealism and Spiritualism are 
 always kept apart, since, as a matter of fact, there is scarcely a ma- 
 terialist who is not virtually a realist, nor a spiritualist who does not 
 start from idealism. 
 
 P. 261. a Comp. Charles Martins, Du Spitzberg au Sahara etc. Paris 
 1866, p. 572. 
 
 P. 261. {) 'Schadliche Wahrheit, ich ziehe sie vor dem niitzlichen 
 Irrthum; Wahrheit heilet den Schmerz, den sie vielleicht uns erregt' 
 (Goethe); in opposition to the maxim: 'Ein Wahn, der mich begliickt, 
 1st eine Wahrheit werth, Die mich zu Boden driickt'. 
 
 P. 261. c In the celebrated Ormuzd-yast. for instance, he calls himself: 
 he who is to be consulted; the assembler (i. e. he who created all living 
 beings and gathered them on the earth); the diffuser (he who diffuses 
 the Law and religion); the highest purity; the creator of all boons that 
 
 F 
 
82 NOTES [pp. 261269]. 
 
 have a pure origin; reason and endowed with reason (who is capable 
 of imparting intelligence to other beings also); and so on in twenty 
 different appellations, besides many others of minor moment (comp. 
 Spiegel, Avesta, III. 2834). 
 
 P. 261. d Comp. Dosabhoy Framjee, The Parsees, p. 255, who after 
 quoting with approval Anquetil du Perron's account of Zoroastrianism, 
 adds: 'Ahriman should, however, be taken in an allegorical sense to 
 denote the cause of the temptation under which man often falls into 
 evil'. 
 
 P. 262. a The astrologer's influence in a Parsee's house is still very 
 considerable, especially in matrimonial matters; comp. Dosabhoy Framjee 
 1. c. pp. 64, 65, 7881, 'The men generally laugh at the absurdity of 
 this stuff, but the condition of the Parsee females is not yet sufficiently 
 advanced to make them conscious of its folly; the spread of education, 
 now happily commenced, will soon purge away such superstitious trash 
 from among them'. 
 
 P. 262. b Comp Spiegel, Avesta, II. pp. iii li. 
 
 P. 263. a Comp. Dosabhoy Framjee 1. c. pp. 257266. 
 
 P. 263. b Yac.na XIX. 45, 47; Vendidad XVIII. 52, 'Do not turn 
 from the three best things thinking well, speaking well, acting well; 
 turn away from the three evil things thinking badly, speaking badly, 
 acting badly'; etc. 
 
 P. 264. a See Spiegel, Avesta, III. 185187. 
 
 P. 264. b Spiegel I. c. pp. 187 189, where the three words are written 
 Humata, HuJchta and Hvarsta. 
 
 P. 264. c Comp. Khorda-Avesta, LI. 3. 
 
 P. 265. a Spiegel, Khorda-Avesta, p. 8. 
 
 P. 266. a Comp. Spiegel 1. c. pp. 19 21. The souls of the departed, 
 the Parsees believe, are conducted to the bridge Cinvat; the good are 
 allowed to pass over it and to enter into Paradise, while the wicked are 
 kept back and thrown into hell. A full account of the entrance and 
 reception of the pious in Paradise in given in Ven didad XIX. 89 107; 
 though this was subsequently greatly enlarged and adorned. The older 
 creed or confession of faith is given in Yagna XIII, XIV, 'I chase away 
 the daevas; I declare to be a Zarathustrian, a persecutor of the daevas, 
 a follower of the doctrine of Ahura' etc.; the later creed is that of 
 Khorda-Avesta XL VI. 28, 'I believe in the purity and indubitable truth 
 of the faith of Mazda-yac,na and in the creator Ormazd' etc. Obligatory 
 also upon the pious is the acknowledgment of Ya$na XXX. 9 XXXI. 
 3, 'Observe the two perfect works, the holy Scriptures and the Tradition 
 (Avesta and Zend), which Mazda has given to men' etc. 
 
 P. 268. a Formica rufa and Formica rufescens. 
 
 P. 269. a The vine-fretter, puceron, or plant-louse. 
 
 P. 269. b For intance, the more extended division of labour prevailing 
 among the 'leaf-bearing ants' in the forests of Brazils, or the completely 
 
NOTES [p. 269]. 83 
 
 military organisation of some, the lawlessly piratical habits of other 
 species of the genus Eciton; etc. Comp. Walter Bates, The Na- 
 turalist of the Amazons, 1865; Carl Vogrt, Untersuchungen iiber 
 Thierstaaten ; and Vorlesungen iiber niitzliche und schadliche, verkannte 
 und verlaumdete Thiere; Buchner, Aus dem Geistesleben der Thiere. 
 Well known are the numerous remarks and statements of ancient writers 
 on the wonderful operations of bees and ants. Aristotle calls these animals 
 ffoXm*, and attributes fo them the most varied mental gifts and 
 qualities, though, in comparison to man, only as tynj, eireppaTa and 
 piWiJiaTa, a kind of Tta&iwv -rfkiKia; but he denies to them /3ouX*un/cov, 
 vov$ and avdpyrpK; (comp. Arist. Animal. Hist. I. 1, 15, POV\SVTIKQV $s 
 Qg tart TGCV ccv, Kai /jLvyftys ftev Kai $i$a%7]g ffoXXa /co/vv*r, 
 $s oiSev aXXo Svvarat TrXjyv av'&punog: VIII. 1, 1, 2, 
 wg yap e'v av^co/rw Ts%vir; Kai ao<j)ia Kai cvvseig, OVTU e'v evhig TUV Ccoav for! 
 rig sTspa TOiavrq fyvaiKTj Suva/at? QavspwTaTov ^syrt TO TOIOVTOV eV/ TTJV TWV 
 7ret/3/cov ijkiKiav /SX/^aff/v, e'v TOVTOH; yap TWV f/.sv vvTepov eeuv suofisvwv SGTIV 
 l^st'v oJov "%vri Kai yirepftctTa' Stafiepsi $w$sv wg SITTSIV TJ ^v^y rf,<; TWV ^tfjpiuv 
 $v%T;g Kara. TOV XP VO * TO-JTOV K. T. X.; IX. 1, 1, evict %s KOIVWVSI Tivog 
 ajjia Kai fJLa^aswg Kal $i$a<7Ka\iag K. T. X.; c. 8. 1, o\ug Se irspi Toug f$iw$ 
 TCCV aXXcov Cwwv ?roXXa av ^eupij^reiri [tiftyfAaTa Tijg av^pwm'vT/g ^carjg). Not 
 all authors were so thoughtfully discriminate in their estimate: Plutarch 
 assigns to animals X6yo$, Xoyiypog, avvsaig, Sidvoia, ay^ivoia, aofiia, and 
 fjLavTiKr, (Plut. De Solert. Anim. cc. 2, 5, /-t^e rd ^ypta \sywpev, slv 
 repav (frpctve'i Kai KUKIOV SiavoeJTat, p-i] $iavos7a'&ai, fjL^s <f>pws7v oXco?, 
 KSKTTj&ai X<xyov, da^syy $e Kai ^oXs^oov KeKTrjy'&ai K. T. X.; cc. 11, 12, 17, 
 22, nepi ^s/dnjTo? UVTUV Kai fJLavTiKr,g smufjisv: cc. 25, 33, 35 37. Comp. 
 Virg. Georg. I. 186, 380; Aen. IV. 402407; Plin. Nat. Hist. XI. 520 
 (or 4 22), 30 (or 36), 'rem publicam habent apes, consilia privatim 
 ac duces gregatim, et quod maxume mirum sit, mores habent' ; Aelian, Nat. 
 Anim. IV. 53, elvaibe a\oya fjiev^&a, tfrvffiKijV $s e%siv dp&fj.riTiKyv JJ.TJ ^i^a^svTa: 
 Plat. Sympos. c. 26, p. 207; Celsus ap. Orig. Contr. Gels. IV. 8188. 
 With respect to the ants Plutarch (De Solert. Anim. c. 11) says: 'To 
 describe the economy and thoughtfulness of the ants is impossible, .. . . 
 for there exists in nature nothing so small that mirrors greater or nobler 
 qualities, nay they show, as in a pure drop, the image of every virtue 
 (o3ev yap WTU ftiKpov TJ <f)vvig e%ei pei&vwv KO.} /caXX/ovwv /caroTTTyOOV, aXX* 
 &yirep e'v arayov/ Ka'&apSi nduyg evaariv dpsTrjg eitfyaaig). There are faith- 
 ful attachment and sociability, fortitude and industry, and germs of 
 temperance, prudence and justice in abundance'. The 'intelligent and 
 pious' elephant also excited great admiration, and he was even believed 
 'to worship the gods' and to be 'beloved by them' (Ael. I. c. VII. 44, 
 TOV TjX/ov v/a^ovT irpaaKwovyiv s\s(j)avTeg, Tag irpofioyKi^ag ev'&v -njg aKTwog 
 wg %sipag dvaTsivovTsg, ev^ev TO; KO.} TU >eu (pikovvTai . . . eks(f>avTig fjisv ouv 
 ^swg npoffKVvwaiv); comp. ibid. IV. 10 (at the new moon, the ele- 
 phants lift up towards it fresh branches, and move them gently, o/ T ov 
 
84 NOTES [pp. 269272]. 
 
 tKtrrjpiav Ttva ravrr/v ry ^^w irporetvovTai;, Ijrep TOV Tkewv rs KOU slftery ny 
 ^eov ys sJvai alroTi;) 24 ('the elephants understand the language of th< 
 natives'); V. 49 (elephants attend to the burial of the dead, and praj 
 to the gods when dangerously ill); X. 17 (their love of their nativ< 
 country); XI. 15 (they avenge conjugal infidelity). Comp. Cic. De Nat 
 Deor. I. 35; PUn. VIII. 1; Pint. De Solert. Anim. c. 17. The storl 
 was the 'pious bird' (Hebr. PIT DPI; comp. PUn. X. 23 or 32; Ael. Nat 
 Anim. IV. 23; X. 16; XI. 30; Pint. 1. c. c. 4). 
 
 P. 269. c A definition of instinct recently formulated by Hartmani 
 and others, and extensively adopted, is 'zweckmassiges Handeln ohn 
 Bewusstsein'. 
 
 P. 269. ^ 'The greatest gift which God in His bounty bestowed at th 
 Creation, that which is most in accordance with His goodness an< 
 which He prizes most highly, was liberty of will, with which the in 
 telligent beings alone were and are endowed' (Dante, Paradise, "V 
 1924). 
 
 P. 270. a Comp. Plat. Phaedrus, pp. 244, 245, Nvv $s ra psyHtTa, roc 
 aya^-cov TjfJt.'iv yiyvsra $ia [Aaviag, &e/a ftsvTOi $oeei $i$oftsvy<; . . . Ipirf] I 
 TTO Movawv Kcuroyy] ra Kcti fiervftt, Xa/3ouaa airokrjv KOU afitxrov tivxyv K. T. 5 
 See Bible Studies I, notes on Num. XXIII. 7 10. 
 
 P. 270. b Comp. Darwin, Descent of Man, I. 4951. 
 
 P. 270. c Spinoza already quotes the instance of a canis domesticu 
 and a canis venaticus, which were by practice gradually so trained tha 
 the former learnt to chase, and the latter restrained itself from the pursu: 
 of hares (Spinoza, Ethic. V, Praef.). At present we possess a larg 
 number of similar experiences. 
 
 P. 270. d Comp. Darwin 1. c. I. 55, 'All the kinds of birds that hav 
 the power of singing exert this power instinctively, but the actual song 
 and even the call-notes, are learnt from their parents or foster-parents 
 these sounds are no more innate than language is in man', etc. 
 
 P. 272. a The bark of eagerness, of anger, of despair, of joy, and c 
 demand or supplication. 
 
 P. 272. b See Darwin, Descent of Man, I. 46, 54, and for a full con: 
 parison of the mental powers of man and the lower animals, ibii 
 pp. 34 106, 185213, 'If man had not been his own classifier, h 
 would never have thought of founding a separate order for his own re 
 ception' (p. 191). 
 
 P. 272. c Huxley (Man's Place in Nature, p. 109) observes: 'I hav 
 endeavoured to show that no absolute structural line of demarcatioi 
 wider than that between the animals which immediately succeed us i 
 the scale, can be drawn between the animal world and ourselves; an 
 I may add the expression of my belief that the attempt to draw 
 psychical distinction is equally futile, and that even the highest facultit 
 of feeling and intellect begin to germinate in lower forms of life 
 Comp. also Virchow, Menschen- und Affenschadel, p. 5, 'If faculties an 
 
NOTES [pp. 272276]. 85 
 
 their development are considered, we should be far more justified in 
 separating the ants from the group of insects, than man from the group 
 of vertebrates'. 
 
 P. 272. d Max Midler, Ueber die Kesultate der Sprachwissenschaft, 
 Vorlesung gehalten zu Strassburg, 1872, pp. 28, 29, 'Ich bin iiberzeugt, 
 dass die Sprachwissenschaft allein uns noch in Stand setzen wird, der 
 Evolutionstheorie der Darwinianer ein entschiedenes Halt! entgegen zu 
 rufen, und die Granze scharf zu ziehen, welche den Geist vom Stoff, 
 den Menschen vom Thiere trennt'. 
 
 P. 273. a Comp. Lucret. V. 10171053, at first speech was imperfect 
 consisting merely of sounds and gestures ('Vocibus et gestu cum balbe 
 significarent', ver. 1020); 'to suppose, therefore, that any one man as- 
 signed names to things, and that men thence learned their first words, 
 is to think absurdly' (desiperet, vers. 10391041). 
 
 P. 274. a 'Not even from the fundamental forms of neighbouring and 
 in a certain manner similar types, for instance, not even from the originals 
 of the Arian and Shemitic languages, is it possible to construct a type 
 that can be attributed to both as the common parent' (Schleicher, Die 
 Darwinische Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft, 1873, pp. 24, 25). 
 
 P. 275. a Viz. the isolating, monosyllabic, or radical: the agglutinating, 
 connecting, or terminational: and the modifying, or inflectional. 
 
 P. 275. b Comp. Schleicher 1. c. pp. 2831, 'the roots are, as it were, 
 the simple language-cells yet unprovided with separate organs for the 
 functions of verb, noun', etc. ; Kuhn und Schleicher, Beitrage zur ver- 
 gleichenden Sprachwissenschaft; Steinthal, Abriss der Sprachwissenschaft, 
 etc.; Darwin, Descent of Man, pp. 53 62, 'it is assuredly an error to 
 speak of any language as an art in the sense of its having been ela- 
 borately and methodically formed' (p. 61); etc. 
 
 P. 275. c Virchow, Menschen- und Affenschadel, 1870, p. 25; see 
 infra p. 86 [P. 277]. 
 
 P. 276. a See Naturforscher, I. 270. 
 
 P. 276. b B. Davis, who disposed of the most extensive materials, sets 
 down the average of European skulls at 1835 cubic centimetres, and that 
 of Australian skulls at 1628, so that the difference between the maximum 
 and the minimum in human crania is only 207 cubic centimetres, whereas 
 the difference between Australians' and Gorillas' skulls is 1128, viz. 
 1628 500; comp. Huxley, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature, 
 pp. 76, 77, 'No human cranium belonging to an adult man has yet been 
 observed with a less cubical capacity than 62 cubic inches, while, on 
 the other hand, the most capacious Gorilla skull yet measured has a 
 content of not more than 34 '/ 2 cubic inches'. 
 
 P. 276. c Comp. Huxley 1. c. pp. 77, note, 78, 'an average European 
 cliild of four years old has a brain twice as large as that of an adult 
 Gorilla'; pp. 94 102, 'it may be doubted whether a healthy human 
 adult brain ever weighed less than 31 or 32 ounces, or that the heaviest 
 
86 NOTES [pp. 276, 277]. 
 
 Gorilla brain has exceeded 20 ounces'; also Virchow, Menschen- und 
 Affenschadel, p. 25, 'Of all the parts of the head, an ape's brain grows 
 least . . . Even the largest ape retains a child's brain, though its jaws 
 may equal those of an ox'; Darwin, Descent of Man, I. 10, 11, 
 145148. 
 
 P. 276. d Comp. Huxley 1. c. p. 103; the proportions in the weight 
 of the brain of the highest and the lowest men are 65 ounces to 32 
 ounces; and of the lowest man and the highest ape 32 ounces to 20 
 ounces. 
 
 P. 277. a That is, those whose nostrils have a narrow partition and 
 look downwards. 
 
 P. 277. b That is, the hylobates and satyrus, the pongo troglodytes 
 and pongo gorilla. The second group of true Apes are the Platyrrhinae 
 or 'flat-nosed' apes found in the New World and including the howler 
 ape, the capucine, and the tamarin. 
 
 P. 277. c Comp. Huxley 1. c. pp. 84 94, 'the hind limb of the 
 Gorilla is as truly terminated by a foot as that of man' (p. 91). 
 
 P. 277. d See Huxley 1. c. pp. 65 (origin and early stages of em- 
 bryonic development), 67 (later stages), 70, 73, 'In whatever proportion 
 of its limbs the Gorilla differs from Man, the other Apes depart still 
 more widely from the Gorilla'; pp. 7476 (on the Pelvis); pp. 78, 81, 
 84, (dentition), 84 94 (hand and foot), 100, 'So far from the posterior 
 lobe, the posterior cornu, and the hippocampus minor, being structures 
 peculiar to and characteristic of man, ... it is precisely these structures 
 which are the most marked cerebral characters common to man with 
 the apes: as to convolutions, the brains of the apes exhibit every stage 
 of progress, from the almost smooth brain of the Marmoset to the Orang, 
 and the Orang and the Chimpanzee, which fall but little below man'; 
 p. 102 (cerebral structure in general), 103 (weight of brain), and ibid. 
 the general conclusion stated in the text, and p. 104, 'the structural 
 differences between Man and the Man-like Apes certainly justify our 
 regarding him as constituting a family apart from them; though, in as 
 much as he differs less from them than they do from other families of 
 the same order, there can be no justification for placing him in a distinct 
 order'. 
 
 P. 277. e But see, on the other hand, Virchow, Menschen- und Affen- 
 schadel, 1870. This lecture of the celebrated physiologist shows already 
 a transition from his earlier and more determinately progressive period 
 to that standpoint of uncertain wavering, which, to the deep regret of 
 his greatest admirers, he has recently adopted (see infra passim); for 
 after a full description of the cranium and the brain, he arrives, most 
 unlogically, to the doubtful result above quoted (supra p. 275): yet after 
 vaguely adding (p. 27) that 'we can at present not ascertain whether it 
 will ever be possible to join together the species Man and the species 
 Ape by actually demonstrating all intermediate links', he questionably 
 
NOTES [pp. 279282]. 87 
 
 declares (p. 33), that 'a real proof of Man's descent from the Ape has 
 as yet not been supplied, as, for the establishment of this proposition, 
 it is indispensable to point out a distinct species of Apes'. Such a de- 
 mand can only be insisted upon by one who is resolved, under any 
 condition, to reject the theory; for it is obvious that that primary species 
 of Apes must be sought among the extinct species. Nevertheless, he 
 then recommends Darwinism by some fluctuating concessions; it is in- 
 deed, he says, still unproved in every point, but a single discovery in 
 the tropics might change the whole aspect of the question; it is tacitly 
 assumed by the Bible which derives the varied races from one couple, 
 though nobody has .yet observed the change of one race into another, 
 and we cannot decide whether the first man was white or a negro ; yet 
 he admits that the establishment of a possible transition from species to 
 species is a desideratum of science and so on in perplexed vacillation 
 (pp. 3438). 
 
 P. 279. a Comp. A. Weisbach, Eeise der osterreichischen Fregatte 
 Novara um die Erde, 1867, Divis. II. p. 269: the measurements were 
 carried out by Karl Scherzer and Eduard Schwarz. See also Darwin, 
 Descent of Man, I. pp. 34, 104 106, 'the difference in mental power 
 between the highest ape and the lowest savage is enormous; . . . never- 
 theless, great as it is, it is certainly one of degree, not of kind'; 
 pp. 196206; H. 386 405, 'He who is not content to look, like a 
 savage, at the phenomena of nature as disconnected, cannot any longer 
 believe that man is the work of a separate act of creation' (p. 386); 
 Haeckel, Vortrage, I. 31 95; Car. Sterne, Werden und Vergehen, 
 pp. 323341; etc. 
 
 P. 280. a Comp. Virchow, Die Freiheit der Wissenschaft im modernen 
 Staat, 1877, pp. 2931. 
 
 P. 280. b Or Dolichocephalus. Of the first man Homo primigenius 
 a recent naturalist gives the following hypothetical description: 'Like 
 the Papua negro, he was probably distinguished by curly, woolly hair, 
 and a dark-brown or blackish colour of the skin. The form of the skull 
 was no doubt longheaded with slanting teeth; his arms lengthy and 
 strong; his legs short and thin. His body was very likely much more 
 fully haired than is the case with men at present; and his gait but half 
 erect, the knees being bent'. 
 
 P. 280. c Comp. Haeckel 1. c. p. 79, and passim. 
 
 P. 282. a Goethe hardly prized any of his poetical productions so much 
 as his discovery of the metamorphosis of plants and animals, of the os 
 intermaxillare in men (i. e. of the small bone inserted between the two 
 halves of the upper jaw and bearing the upper incisors), and of the 
 vertebral theory of the skull. Nor was he less proud of his theory of 
 colours which, though now proved to be faulty in the main question 
 of the causes of prismatic colours, successfully elucidated many se- 
 condary points (comp. Joh. Mutter, Handbuch der Physiologic des 
 
88 NOTES [pp. 282291]. 
 
 Menschen, II. 367 sqq.; see Virchow, Goethe als Naturforscher, 
 pp. 6972). 
 
 P. 282. b The same view is taken by Johannes Miiller, who remarks: 
 'Only by means of a plastic imagination working on the clear ideas of 
 active change, Goethe discovered the metamorphosis of plants; and from 
 the same source flowed his progress in comparative anatomy and his 
 most refined and even artistic conception of this science' (Joh. Miiller, 
 Ueber phantastische Gesichtserscheinungen, pp. 134 sqq,; Virchoio 
 1. c. pp. 73 75 and passim); see also H. Helmholtz, Die Thatsachen der 
 AVahrnehmung, 1879, p. 44, 'Something of the poet's insight, of that 
 insight which led Goethe and Leonardo da Vinci to great scientific 
 ideas also, must ever be possessed by the true man of science. The 
 latter, like the artist, aims at the discovery of new laws, however different 
 their modes of operation'. 
 
 P. 284. a 'Dass die alte Schwiegermutter Weisheit Das zarte Seelchen 
 Ja nicht beleidige' (Goethe's Werke, 1840, II. 4649). 
 
 P. 287. a Schiller, Werke, I. p. 428, ed. 1838, 'Feindschaft sei zwischen 
 euch! Noch kommt das Biindniss zu friihe; "Wenn ihr im Suchen euch 
 trennt, wird erst die "Wahrheit erkannt'. Comp. also H. Helmholtz, Die 
 Thatsachen der Wahmehmung, 1879, p. 7, where the common problem 
 is so formulated: 'Was ist Wahrheit in unserem Anschauen und Denken? 
 in welchem Sinne entsprechen unsere Vorstellungen der Wirklichkeit' ? 
 
 P. 287. b HacJcel, Vortrage, II. 21. 
 
 P. 288. a Goethe's Faust, p. 78, ed. 1840. 
 
 P. 290. a Schiller, Votivtafeln, 'Leben gab ihr die Fabel, die Schule 
 hat sie entseelet, Schaffendes Leben aufs neu giebt die Vernunft ihr 
 zuriick'. 
 
 P. 290. b Comp. HaecJcel, Die heutige Entwickelungslehre im Ver- 
 haltniss zur Gesammtwissenschaft, pp. 14, 15; Vortrage, II. 50. Those 
 who are acquainted with the views of Giordano Bruno will readily ad- 
 mit that a philosophic theory asserting the indissoluble unity of mind 
 and matter, is certainly capable of high poetical beauty. According to 
 that thinker the world-soul, which is the all-working principle, the form of 
 forms, life-breathing nature, the parent of all things, shapes, in artistic 
 creations, every form we see, and all motion is but the expression of an 
 inner life, and of a mutual seeking and avoiding of kindred and hostile 
 souls (see especially the works: 'Of the Causes, the Principle, and the 
 One'; 'Of the Infinite, the Universe, and the Worlds'; 'Heroic Affections', 
 Degli Eroici Furori). If modern Monism is not so ardent and enthu- 
 siastic, it is no less earnest in the search for the living 'One' and 
 'Infinite'. 
 
 P. 291. a The Lemurini, Cheiromyini, and Galeopithecini. 
 
 P. 291. b Huxley, Man's Place in Nature, p. 105; comp. also p. Ill: 
 'Thoughtful men, once escaped from the blinding influences of traditional 
 prejudice, will find in the lowly stock whence man has sprung, the best 
 
NOTES [pp. 294297]. 89 
 
 evidence of the splendour of his capacities; and will discern in his long 
 progress through the Past, a reasonable ground of faith in his future'; 
 Darwin, Descent of Man, II. 405, 'Man may be excused for feeling 
 some pride at having risen ... to the very summit of the organic 
 scale, . . . and this . . . may give him hopes for a still higher destiny 
 in the distant future. But we must acknowledge that, with all his noble 
 qualities, . . . with his god-like intellect, he still bears in his bodily 
 frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin'; Virchow, Menschen- und 
 Affenschadel, pp. 37, 38, 'Not as a new dogma but as a torch on the 
 dark path of progressive research, the theory of evolution will bring us 
 rich blessings'; and, 'Morally it affords doubtless a higher satisfaction to 
 think that man, by his own labour, has raised himself from a state of 
 savageness to civilisation and liberty, than to imagine that he, by his 
 own guilt, has sunk from a godlike state of innocence into baseness and 
 sin, from which his own power is unable to release him' ; Zeller, Vortrage 
 und Abhandlungen, II. 57, and many other recent writers. 
 
 P. 295. a Straws, Alter and Neuer Grlaube, p. 113. 
 
 P. 295. b A. Sechi, L'unita delle forze fisiche, 1876. 
 
 P. 296. 3 Pliny, Nat. Hist. II. 1, 'Mundum et hoc quodcumque nomine 
 alio caelum appellare libuit, cujus circumflexu degunt cuncta, numen 
 esse credi par est, aeternum, immensum, neque genitum neque interiturum 
 umquam . . . Sacer est, aeternus, immensus, totus in toto, immo vero 
 ipse totum, infinitus ac finite similis, omnium rerum certus et similis 
 incerto, extra intra cuncta complexus in se idemque rerum naturae opus 
 et rerum ipsa natura'. 
 
 P. 297. a Even Plato, in his latest work, the Laws, adopts a similar 
 theory, contrary to his earlier conceptions, in assuming, besides the good 
 or godly soul of the world, a bad or ungodly one, to which alone the 
 many imperfections in the world can be attributed (see Plat. Legg. X. 
 pp. 896, Svo2V /lev ys TTOV sXarrov /JLTJ^SV rAco/iev, rr^ TS svepysriSo/; KOI rr t s 
 ravavrta ^vvafJisvTjt; e^spyd^su^ai; pp. 898, 904.) 
 
 P. 297. b Comp. Cic. Disp. Tusc. I. 28; Nat. Deor. H. 37, 'esse quem- 
 quam qui sibi persuadeat . . . mundum effici ornatissimum et pulcherri- 
 mum ex eorum corporum concursione fortuita? . . . Cur non idem putet, 
 si innumerabiles unius et viginti formae literarum vel aureae, vel quales 
 libet, aliquo conjiciantur, posse ex his in terram excussis annales Ennii, 
 ut deinceps legi possint, effici'? etc.; c. 45; Xenoph. Memor. I. iv. 4 7, 
 11 14, OVKOVV %OK8i aoi 6 e'f dpxys ifotwv av&pwirov/; eV uHf>s\ei7. 
 alroTi; K. r. X. . . . OVTCO ys GKOTrovpsvcp irdvv BQIKS ravra aofov rivo 
 KOI (/i/XoCcoov TsyrrjfJiaTa K. r. X., Aristot. De Mundo, c. 6, Znep ev vyi 
 KVJ3epvr;TT]G, ev apfjuzri e yvi'0%0; . . . TOVTO &ao$ s'v KCifffjLw K. r. X. 
 
 P. 297. c Comp. also Kant, Was heisst sich im Denken orientiren? 
 (Berliner Monatsschrift, Octob. 1786, pp. 312 sqq.). 'Ohne einen ver- 
 standigen Urheber anzunehmen, lasst sich, ohne in lauter Ungereimtheiten 
 zu verfallen, wenigstens kein verstandlicher Grrund von der Zweck- 
 
90 NOTES [pp. 297, 298]. 
 
 massigkeit und Ordnung, die man in so bewunderungswurdigem Grade 
 allenthalben antrifft, angeben'. But, comp. on other hand, Kritik der 
 reinen Vernunft, pp. 800 sqq.: 'Ordnung und Zweckmassigkeit in der 
 Natur muss wiederum aus Naturgriinden und nach Naturgesetzen er- 
 klart werden, und hier sind selbst die wildesten Hypothesen, wenn sie nur 
 physisch sind, ertraglicher als eine hyperphysische, das ist die Berufung 
 auf einen gottlichen Urheber, den man zu diesem Beruf voraussetzt', etc. 
 
 P. 297. d "We may quote some of the older opinions on this point of 
 design. Copernicus (De Revolutionibus orbium coelestium, Praef.) says: 
 'I began to be annoyed at seeing that philosophers had agreed upon no 
 more certain principle in the motions of the machinery of a world produced 
 by the best and most precise of all artificers' (ab optimo et regularissimo 
 omnium opifice conditus); Kepler (Tertius interveniens, 1610; Opp. 
 Omn. ed. Frisch, I. 619): 'Nature is fitted to keep order and proportion, 
 which is the work of reason' ; Newton (Princip. ed. 2, p. 482) : 'All such 
 regular movements in the solar system owe their beginning not to me- 
 chanical causes; they could not arise without the design (consilium) of 
 an intelligent Being'; Bacon (De Augment. Scient. III. 4), 'Natural 
 philosophers could find no satisfactory result, unless they finally had 
 recourse to God, and Providence' (nisi postremo ad Deum et providentiam 
 confugerent) ; Leibniz (Opp. philos., instr. I. E. Erdmann, 1840, p. 106): 
 'The general principles even of physics and mechanics depend on the 
 guidance of a supreme intelligence (d'une intelligence souveraine), and 
 could not be explained without taking it into account'; Lap]ace (Ex- 
 position du Systeme du Monde, 1818, p. 389), with reference to the solar 
 system: 'We may wager four thousand milliards to one that such an 
 arrangement is not the effect of chance ; ... we must, therefore, suppose, 
 that a primary cause has determined the movements of planets'. Also 
 Humboldt (Brief an Varnhagen von Ense), 'Nature, like the history of 
 man, is an harmonious universe, upheld by one Spirit, determind by Di- 
 vine forces and well-designed laws'. 
 
 P. 298. a Let one illustration suffice. If the mammals, it is pointed 
 out, after the completed segmentation of the yelk, laid their eggs like 
 the birds, these eggs would, on account of their minuteness, be lost by 
 the mother; it is, therefore, expedient that they should be developed to 
 maturity in the maternal womb. If, on the other hand, the young birds 
 developed themselves in the mother's body, they would by their heaviness 
 impede her in flying; it is, therefore, expedient, that birds should lay 
 their eggs. Many similar instances confounding cause and design are 
 constantly quoted (comp. 0. von Linstow., Entwickelungsgeschichte der 
 Menschen und Thiere, pp. 108 110; H. Werner, Die Zweckmassigkeit 
 in der Natur, 1878, pp. 10 27). 
 
 P. 298. b Comp. Lucret. II. 10581063, 'Cum praesertim hie (viz. 
 terrarum orbis) sit natura factus, et ipsa Sponte sua forte offensando ut 
 semina rerum Multimodis temere in cassum frustraque coacta Tandem 
 
NOTES [p. 298], 91 
 
 .coluerunt' etc.; 834851, 'Multaque turn tellus etiam portenta creare 
 Conatast' etc.; Pint. De Placit. Philos. V. 19 (the views of Anaxi- 
 mander and Empedocles, see supra, Notes pp. 77, 78). Comp. also Darwin, 
 Descent of Man, I. 17 31, where many rudimentary and useless organs 
 in men and animals are enumerated; also p. 153, 'That all organic beings, 
 including man, present many modifications of structure which are of no 
 service to them at present, nor have been formerly, is, I can now see, 
 probable'. It is well known that occasionally animals develope eyes in 
 parts of the body which do not commonly bear them: some snails, the 
 onchidia, have many additional eyes in the back; many conchifera 
 which, with their heads, have lost their eyes, obtain, in compensation, 
 numerous fine green eyes at the exterior border of the large mantle-like 
 skin-fold of the back; several worms, as the fabricia, have an extra pair 
 of eyes in the tail, and others, as the polyophthalmis, possess a pair of 
 eyes in each limb. These facts are taken by the naturalist, no doubt 
 justly, as proofs of an unconscious adaptation to extraneous conditions 
 of life, or as 'the spontaneous products of natural selection in the struggle 
 for life' (Haeckel, Vortrage, II. 161, 162). Yet he would find it difficult 
 to refute the theologian who insists upon these remarkable facts as testi- 
 monies of an all-pervading and pre-conceived plan of creation. It is for 
 this reason probably that Attinghausen refrained from referring to them 
 in his reply to Humphrey. "With greater confidence he might have 
 pointed to the high authority of Helmholtz, who considers the structure 
 of the human eye in many respects as very imperfect, and has observed 
 that 'if an artisan were to deliver to him an optical instrument of such 
 defectiveness as the human eye, he would feel compelled to return it to 
 him' (comp. Car. Sterne, Werden und Vergehen, pp. 338, 339.) Yet, 
 with a prudent reserve of which Attinghausen, in spite of his apparent 
 impulsiveness, occasionally gave surprising proofs, he refrained from raising 
 a discussion the result of which, for his argument, would at best have 
 been in no proportion to its probable vehemence, since the absolute per- 
 fection or fitness of the human organs and especially the eye is an al- 
 most universal dogma (comp. Haeckel 1. c. pp. 123 164, 'Ueber Ur- 
 sprung und Entwickelung der Sinneswerkzeuge'). Many apologetic 
 justifications of the rudimentary organs and other questionable phenomena 
 have been attempted ; see, e. g., H. Werner, Die Zweckmassigkeit in der 
 Natur, pp. 28 35; and on the eye, which he calls Undoubtedly one of 
 the greatest wonders of nature', ibid. pp. 24, 25; comp. also A. v. Qraefe, 
 Sehen und Sehorgan, Vortrag, 1879, p. 44, where the celebrated oculist 
 calls the human eye 'a jewel in creation', especially on account of 'the 
 completeness of its structure', 'the perfection of the means employed for 
 securing the great object', and 'the crystal clearness of its parts'; yet 
 he declines being 'a blind eulogist of nature', and acknowledges that 
 'the crystal lens is not free from optical irregularities', besides admitting 
 some other smaller defects of structure (pp. 28, 37). 
 
92 NOTES [pp. 299302]. 
 
 P. 299. a Determined utterances like the following of Moses Mendels- 
 sohn, are frequent in the writings of Jewish and Christian theologians: 
 'As in the physical world disorders in the parts hurricanes, tempests, 
 earthquakes, or pestilence, dissolve themselves into perfections of the 
 immeasurable whole; thus in the moral world, in the destinies and ex- 
 periences of social man, all temporal defects are subservient to eternal 
 perfections, and sufferings themselves are transformed into mere exercises 
 indispensable for salvation' (Mendelssohn, G-esammelte Schriften, 1843, 
 II. 184). 
 
 P. 300. a Comp. Cicer. Nat. Deor. II. 14, 45, 'scito . . . omnia alioram 
 causa esse generata ; ut eas fruges atque fructus quos terra gignit animan- 
 tium causa, animantes autem hominum' etc. Interesting both on ac- 
 count of the true and the doubtful views they contain are the following 
 lines of Goethe : 'Zweck sein selbst ist jegliches Thier, vollkommen ent- 
 springt es Aus dem Schooss der Natur und zeugt vollkommene Kinder. 
 Alle Glieder bilden sich aus nach ew'gen Gesetzen, Und die seltenste 
 Form bewahrt im Geheimen das Urbild' (Metamorphose der Thiere; 
 Werke, II. p. 294). Comp. also (Werke, XXXVI. p. 280) : 'Wir denken 
 uns das abgeschlossene Thier als eine kleine Welt, die um ihrer selbst 
 willen und durch sich selbst da ist' ; Eckermann, Gesprache mit Goethe, 
 1837, I. 353: like Kant, he does not believe 'that the cork-tree grows 
 merely to supply us with corks for our bottles' (expressed by Goethe 
 also in the distich: 'Welche Verehrung verdient der Weltenschopfer, 
 der gnadig, Als er den Korkbaum schuf, gleich auch die Stopsel erfand'); 
 espec. II. 176, 'Man regards himself as the object of the world . . . and 
 when he devours other creatures, he acknowledges his God and praises 
 a bounty that has so paternally provided for him . . . But I adore 
 Him who has endowed the world with such power of generation that, 
 if only the millionth part is called into life, the world teems with 
 creatures, and is armed against warfare, pestilence, flood, and fire. This 
 is my God'. 
 
 P. 301. a Comp. H. Werner 1. c. pp. 3236. 
 
 P. 302. a Comp. I. Anselmus Cant., Monologium de Divinitatis essentia, 
 cc. 1 5; Proslogium s. alloquium de Dei existentia, cc. 2, 3 ('at certe 
 bonum id, quo majus cogitari nequit, non potest esse in intellectu solo; 
 si enim quo majus cogitari non potest, in solo intellectu foret, utique 
 eo, quo majus cogitari non poteet, majus cogitari possit, scilicet id quod 
 sit etiam in re', etc. Cartes. Meditatt. de prima philosoph. Medit. 3,5; 
 Mos. Mendelssohn, Morgenstunden, oder Vorlesungen iiber das Daseyn 
 Gottes; Hegel, Encyclop. 193 (third ed.); see Fortlage, Darstellung 
 und Kritik der Beweise furs Dasein Gottes, 1840, pp. 13 152. II. 
 Jo. Damascen. De orthod. fide I. 3; Ch. Wolf, De Methodo exist. 
 Dei ex ordine naturae demonstrandi, 1730; Garve, Beweis fur Gottes 
 Daseyn; also Thorn. Aquin. Summa Theol. P. I, Qu. 2, Art. 3, 'Omne 
 quod movetur ab alio movetur' etc.; Leibniz, Opp. ed. Dutens, II. 1. 
 
NOTES [pp. 302304]. 93 
 
 p. 343, 'Corpus movetur, ergo datur aliquid movens'; see Fortlage 1. c. 
 pp. 153 200. III. W. Derham, Physico-Theology, and Astro-Theology, 
 1714, 1715; J. Bay, The Wisdom of God in the works of Creation, 
 1714; Gh. Wolf, Verniinftige Gedanken von den Absichten natiirlicher 
 Dinge, 1723; Jerusalem, Betrachtungen iiber die vornehmsten Wahr- 
 heiten der Religion; especially, Paley, Natural Theology (with Notes 
 by Lord Brougham and Ch. Bell); Brougham, Discourse on Natural 
 Theology; see Fortlage 1. c. pp. 201 330; ibid. pp. 217 236, a sum- 
 mary of Paley's illustrations, and pp. 240 242, objections raised against 
 them. IV. J. Kant, Einzig moglicher Beweisgrund zu einer Demon- 
 stration fur das Daseyn Gottes, 1763; also in Kritik der reinen Ver- 
 nunft, and der Urtheilskraft, 87 and passim; and die Eeligion inner- 
 halb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, Preface; Tief trunk, De argumento 
 ex ethico-theologia ad existentiam Dei, 1794. A model of Scholastic 
 playfulness is a proof put forward by Augustine, Anselmus, Duns Scotus, 
 and others, and thus formulated by Thomas Aquinas (1. c. 3): 'Qui 
 negat veritatem esse, concedit veritatem non esse; si enim veritas non 
 est, verum est, veritatem non esse; si autem est aliquid verum, oportet 
 quod veritas sit; Deus autem est ipsa veritas; ergo Deum esse est per 
 se notum'. See Fortlage 1. c. pp. 349 364; and the aesthetic proofs, 
 ibid. pp. 332348. 
 
 P. 302. b Darwin, Descent of Man, H. 394. 
 
 P. 302. c Similarly H. Werner, Die Zweckmassigkeit in der Natur, 
 1878, pp. 27, 28. 
 
 P. 303. a Nigaristan, or The qualities of the Dervishes, in Hammer, 
 Fundgruben des Orients, II. 107. 
 
 P. 303. b Comp. C. G. Beuschle, Philosophie und Naturwissenschaft, 
 1874, pp. 97 119. 
 
 P. 303. c 'Das gesetzmassige, lebens- und vernunftvolle All'. 
 
 P. 303. d Strauss, Alter und Neuer Glaube, p. 139, 'Die furchtbaren 
 Kampfe, die wir in der Welt wahrnehmen, dienen grade dazu, den 
 Bestand und den Einklang des Ganzen zu erhalten; und iiberall, sowohl 
 in der Natur wie im Menschen, finden wir einen regelmassigen, ununter- 
 brochenen Stufengang von dem Niedrigen zum Hohern'. 
 
 P. 304. a Ibid. p. 143, 'It seems audacious and impious (vermessen 
 und ruchlos) on the part of an individual human being to oppose himself 
 so insolently to the Universe from which he arises and to which he 
 owes the trifling share of intelligence he abuses'. 
 
 P. 304. b Ibid. p. 140, 'nicht mehr angelegt von einer hochsten Ver- 
 nunft, aber angelegt auf die hochste Vernunft'. 
 
 P. 304. c Compare an analogous theory of Zeller (Vortrage und Ab- 
 handlungen, II. 527550, also pp. 11 23): the world, he says, is not 
 created (entstanden); we can, therefore, not ask at all whether it was 
 created mechanically or teleologically; this distinction applies only to 
 the individual parts of the world, which alone have been formed (die 
 
94 NOTES [pp. 304312]. 
 
 allein geworden sind), not to the world as a whole. This must, just on 
 account of the laws of necessity that pervade it, be regarded at the 
 same time as the work of Absolute Reason, which, from its nature, can 
 only produce the perfect, although its operations are not guided by 
 teleological designs. 'We are therefore entitled to speak, with Kant and 
 Hegel, of an inner or immanent fitness of the world, and to describe 
 by this term the absolute necessity and perfection of its productions'. 
 It is difficult to see how the whole can be considered separate from its 
 parts, and how the one can be perfect, when the others are essentially 
 imperfect. 
 
 P. 305. a See Voltaire in Dictionnaire philosophique, Art. Atheisme; 
 Abel Remusat, Foue Koue Ki, p. 138; Saint-Hilaire, Le Bouddhisme, 
 pp. 178 180. 
 
 P. 306. a Comp. Darwin, Descent of Man, I. 65; II. 394, 395, 'Nu- 
 merous races still exist who have no idea of one or more gods' etc. On the 
 other hand, the supposed universal agreement of mankind in believing in 
 a God has by ancient writers been frequently adduced as a weighty 
 argument for His existence; see Bible Studies, II. 308. 309. 
 
 P. 307. a Dante, Paradise, V. 6466. 'Let mortals make no jest of 
 the vow that binds them; be faithful'! 'And in engaging yourselves, 
 be not blind like Jephthah at his first offering'. 
 
 P. 308. a Comp. Lucret. V. 247323, 'Assidue quoniam fluere omnia 
 constat' (ver. 280, i. e. there is an incessant consumption and replacement 
 of particles and force), 825 830, 'Mutat enim mundi naturam totius 
 aetas, Ex alioque alius status excipere omnia debet, Nee manet ulla sui 
 similis res, omnia migrant, Omnia commutat natura et vertere cogit' etc.; 
 see Plato, Cratyl. c. XIX, p. 402 A, \eysi TTOU 'HpaK^siTog or; navTK 
 
 %Wps7 KOU OV^SV fJLSVSl KOU TTOTOCfJiQV pOT] KTTSlKOi^WV TO. OVTCt K. T. X. ; COmp. 
 
 M. Aurel. II. 17; VI. 36; IX. 9, 21; X. 7; XII. 23. 
 
 P. 310. a Goethe, Werke, 1840, I. 9698. Goethe has expressed the 
 same ideas in many other forms, both in verse and in prose; as the 
 burden of all may be taken the lines: 'Das Ew'ge regt sich fort in alien: 
 Denn alles muss in Nichts zerfallen, Wenn es im Sein beharren will' 
 (Eins und Alles; Werke, II. p. 288). 
 
 P. 311. a This result of modern geology, established by Lyell, has 
 already been stated by some of the ancient philosophers, as Anaxagoras 
 and the Pythagorean Ocellus. 
 
 P. 311. b Compare the lines of Goethe: 'Miisset im Naturbetrachten 
 Immer eins wie alles achten; Nichts ist drinnen, nichts ist draussen: denn 
 was drinnen, das ist aussen'. (Epirrhema; Goethe's Werke, II. 293); 
 or : 'Natur hat weder Kern noch Schale, Alles ist sie mit einemmale' 
 (Allerdings; ibid. p. 304). 
 
 P. 311. c Comp. Haeckel, Vortrage, I. 168178. 
 
 P. 312. a Compare Schmick, Ein Wissen fur ein Glauben, pp, 
 8284. 
 
NOTES [pp. 313317]. 95 
 
 P. 313. a Comp. I. H. Fichte, Anthropologie; Schmick 1. c. pp. 71 
 85, etc. See also Plato, Sympos. c. 26, p. 207 D, E, eV iratlaptw 6 
 a-lrc; \e-fsrai ew$ v icpsafivTr^ ysvyTtxr oJro? pavrot otisrrors ra aira e^ecv 
 e'v avrw o/ito^ o alroi; Ka\s"trat, aXXa v/0 asl ytyvoftsvot;, TO. $s affoXXv?, KO.} 
 Kara rat; Tpi%a$ KO.} aapKa no.} oara KOC} dtpa KCXI ^vfJLirav TO KUfta.' Kai fiij 
 In Ka.ro. TO acedia, aXXa KO,\ Ka.ro. rr]v ^ux^v o/" T/joVo/, T 77^17 /r. T. X. 
 
 P. 314. a On the remarkable faculty of memory much that is interesting 
 has been written in ancient and modern times; for instance most elo- 
 quently by Cicero (Tusc. Disp. I. 24, 25, 'an imprimi quasi ceram ani- 
 mum putamus et esse memoriam signatarum rerum in mente vestigia?'); 
 comp. Sext. Empir. Adv. Mathem. VII. 228, 
 TJnnurt* Kara eiuo^v re KOI e'fo^Jyv, uairsp Kat B/a ruv 
 TOW Kypw rimwyrj. 
 
 P. 315. a Brotcninff, La Saisiaz, p. 36; comp. JwZ. Rob. Maier, in 
 J). von Schutz, Das exacte Wissen der Naturforscher, 1878, pp. 213, 
 214; H. Schmick 1. c. p. 56; also Cicer. Tusc. Disp. I. 20, 'ut facile 
 intelligi possit, animum et videre et audire, non eas partes, quae quasi 
 fenestrae sint animi, quibus tamen sentire nihil queat mens, nisi id agat 
 et adsit'. etc. 
 
 P. 315. b Darwin, Descent of Man, I. 3; comp., however, ibid. p. 36, 
 'In what manner the mental powers are first developed in the lowest 
 organisms, is as hopeless an enquiry as how life first originated: these 
 are problems for the distant future, if they are ever to be solved by 
 man'. 
 
 P. 316. a Darwin, Descent of Man, I. 145. 
 
 P. 317. a Virchow, Die Freiheit der Wissenschaft im modernen Staat, 
 p. 27. 
 
 P. 317. b The exceptions alluded to are propagation by means of 
 parthenogenesis, direct self-division, bud-formation change of generation 
 (as medusa and polype), etc.; but they are very numerous. 
 
 P. 317. c Comp. Darwin, The Variation of animals and plants under 
 Domestication, vol. II.; Haeckel, Vortrage, II. 34 sqq., esp. pp. 72 74, 
 'Ueber die Wellenzeugung der Lebenstheilchen, oder die Perigenesis der 
 Plastidule'. The violence of the antagonism is exaggerated by Humphrey, 
 as either hypothesis professes to be no more than 'provisional': other 
 theories, as that of Elsberg, combine features of both. Comp. also 
 Professor Allman's Inaugural Address as President of the British As- 
 sociation, read in Sheffield, August 20, 1879. We think it right to ob- 
 serve that the chapter on Soul was in the press before Professor All- 
 man's Address was delivered. As we were, therefore, unable to avail 
 ourselves of bis excellent exposition, we quote in this place a few salient 
 passages proving that he inclines to the cautiousness of Virchow, rather 
 than to the bold generalisations of Attinghausen, yet also to the fluctua- 
 tions of the former. 'We must go back to protoplasm as a naked formless 
 plasma if we would find freed from all non-essential complications the 
 
96 NOTES [pp. 317, 318]. 
 
 agent to which has been assigned the duty of building up structure and 
 of transforming the energy of lifeless matter into that of the living. 
 To suppose, however, that all protoplasm is identical where no difference 
 cognisable by any means at our disposal can be detected would be an 
 error. Of two particles of protoplasm . . . one can develope only to a 
 jelly-fish, the other only to a man; and the fundamental difference . . . 
 must depend on their hidden molecular constitution . . . The essential 
 phenomena of living beings are not so widely separated from the phe- 
 nomena of lifeless matter as to render it impossible to recognise an 
 analogy between them ... It is quite true that between lifeless and 
 living matter there is a vast difference; ... no one has ever yet built 
 up one particle of living matter out of lifeless elements . . . Yet with 
 all this, . . . there is nothing which precludes a comparison of the pro- 
 perties of living matter with those of lifeless. However, . . . between 
 thought and the physical phenomena of matter there is not only no 
 analogy, but there is no conceivable analogy, and the obvious and con- 
 tinuous path . . . here comes suddenly to an end. The chasm between 
 unconscious life and thought is deep and impassable, and no transitional 
 phenomena can be found by which, as by a bridge, we may span it 
 over . . . But even admitting that every living cell were a conscious 
 and thinking being, are we therefore justified in asserting that its con- 
 sciousness, like its irritability, is a property of the matter of which it 
 is composed? That consciousness is never manifested except in the 
 presence of cerebral matter, or of something like it, there cannot be a 
 question; but this is a very different thing from its being a property of 
 such matter in the sense in which polarity is a property of the magnet, 
 or irritability of protoplasm . . . But have we made in all this one step 
 forward towards an explanation of the phenomena of consciousness or 
 the discovery of its source? Assuredly not. The power of conceiving 
 of a substance different from that of matter is still beyond the limits of 
 human intelligence . . . We are not, however, on that account forced 
 to the conclusion that there is nothing in the universe but matter and 
 force'. These sentences will sufficiently exhibit Dr. Allman's standpoint, 
 both his truly scientific method and his hesitation in consistently ap- 
 plying it. 
 
 P. 318. a Thus literally Virchow 1. c. p. 12, 'Stellen Sie sich einmal 
 vor, wie sich die Descendenztheorie im Kopfe eines Socialisten dar- 
 stellt' etc.; comp. also H. Ahrens, Die Abwege in der neuen deutschen 
 G-eistesentwickelung etc. 1873, pp. 42, 53: 'The three ideas God, Liberty, 
 and Immortality are the tests of every system of philosophy ; ... in the 
 curriculum of education, it will above all be necessary to prevent any 
 doctrine from gaining access, which imperils those three intimately allied 
 principles; this is demanded by the moral consciousness, nay the very 
 duty of self-preservation, of human society'. Max Schasler, Ueber 
 materialistische und idealistische Weltanschauung, 1879, pp. 3445, 
 
NOTES [pp. 318321]. 97 
 
 'Our time furnishes only too numerous and too manifest proofs of the 
 justice of the apprehensions, entertained by well-meaning and high- 
 minded men, that the diffusion of the theory of evolution must be attended 
 with the most dangerous consequences for morality and social order', etc. 
 See, on the other hand, Oscar Schmidt, Darwinismus und Social- 
 democratic, Vortrag, 1878; Herm. Muller, Die Hypothese in der Schule. 
 Ein Wort zur Abwehr und Rechtfertigung. 1879. As recently still as 
 1870, Virchow wrote: 'There is certainly no justification for rejecting 
 the theory of evolution from the moral standpoint; if man is the last of 
 the transformations experienced by the animal kingdom in its individual 
 members, he is at the same time the highest and noblest type; it was 
 therefore an immeasurable progress made by living nature, when the 
 first man was evolved (hervorging) from an animal' (Menschen- und 
 Affenschadel, p. 37; also supra Notes p. 89). But, as in the case of 
 not a few other scholars, advancing years, bringing timidity in their 
 train, have not matured but weakened his views. 
 
 P. 319. a Comp. Isai. XXXI. 3, 'The Egyptians are men, and not 
 God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit' (nn~N^l "l'2). 
 
 P. 319. b The title of the Tractatus theologico-politicus/'Continens dis- 
 sertatioues aliquot quibus ostenditur, libertatem philosophandi non tantum 
 salva pietate et reipublicae pace posse concedi, sed eandem nisi cum 
 pace reipublicae ipsaque pietate tolli non posse'; comp. ibid. cap. XX, 
 'Ostenditur, in libera republica unicuique et sentire quae velit, et quae 
 sentiat dicere licere'; esp. 43 46. 
 
 P. 320. a Comp. Virchow 1. c. p. 7, 'Wir miissen durch unsere Massigung, 
 durch einen gewissen Verzicht auf Liebhabereien und personliche 
 Meinungen es moglich machen, dass die giinstige Stimmung der Nation 
 nicht umschlage'; and he continues, 'We are in danger, by using our 
 liberty too extensively, to imperil the future, and I would express a 
 warning against continuing the arbitrariness of all kinds of personal 
 speculation, which is now prevalent in various branches of natural science'! 
 and similarly passim in the same much-discussed Speech. In opposition 
 herewith, Virchow had, just with respect to the transition of species into 
 species, avowed, in 1858, the opinion which he repeated in 1870: 'There is at 
 present a great blank in our knowledge; are we allowed to fill it up by 
 conjectures? Certainly, for it is only by conjectures that the roads of 
 enquiry in unknown fields are marked out' (Virchow, Vier Reden iiber 
 Leben und Kranksein, 1858 and 1862, p. 31; Menschen- und Affen- 
 schadel, p. 34). 
 
 P. 321. a Comp. Oscar Schmidt 1. c. p. 34, 'Das Princip der Ent- 
 wickelung ist die Aufhebung des Princips der Gleichheit . . . Der Dar- 
 winismus ist die wissenschaftliche Begriindung der Ungleicheit' ; p. 38, 
 'Die Socialdemocratie, wo sie sich auf den Darwinismus beruft, hat ihn 
 nicbt verstanden' etc. 
 
 o 
 
98 NOTES [pp. 321328]. 
 
 P. 321. b 'The more closely centralised animal body may be described 
 as a cell-monarchy, the less compact vegetable organism as a cell -republic' 
 (Haeckel, Vortrage, II. 36). 
 
 P. 322. a 'Each microscopic cell', says Briicke, 'is an elementary or- 
 ganism' or 'a being of the first order'. 
 
 P. 323. a See Haeckel, Studien iiber Moneren und andere Protisten, 
 1872; Ueber die Wellenzeugung der Lebenstheilchen oder Perigenesis 
 der Plastidule, 1875 (see supra Notes p. 95); Ueber die heutige Ent- 
 wickelungslehre im Verhaltniss zur Gesammtwissenschaft, 1877, pp. 13, 
 14, 23; T. Tschermak, Die Einheit der Entwickelung in der Natur, 
 1876, etc. 
 
 P. 324. a Comp. De Wette, Dogmatik der protestantischen Kirche, 
 50; and ibid. Joh. Gerh., 'animas eorum, qui ex Adamo et Eva 
 progeniti fuissent, non creatas, neque etiam generatas, sed propagatas 
 ftiisse', etc.; and Hollaz., 'Non generatur anima ex traduce, sive semine 
 foecundo, tamquam principio materiali, sed per traducem, sive mediante 
 semine prolifico, tamquam vehiculo propagator'. 
 
 P. 325. a Comp. Haeckel, Vortrage, I. 152, 'die empfindlichen Sinnes- 
 organe sind nichts weiter als eigenthiimliche Endausbreitungen der 
 Empfindungsnerven, und die dem Willen gehorchenden Muskelfasern 
 nichts anderes als besondere Endorgane der Bewegungsnerven'. 
 
 P. 325. b Comp. Carl Vogt, Vorlesungen iiber den Menschen, I. 108: 
 Paul Broca who, during the reign of Napoleon III, had occasion 
 to examine many human skulls of old cemetries, found from century 
 to century a regularly progressive enlargement of their inner dimensions, 
 so that the crania of the present Parisians perceptibly exceed in size 
 those of the Parisians of the twelfth century. 
 
 P. 326. a Comp. Haeckel, Preie Wissenschaft und freie Lehre, 
 p. 85. 
 
 P. 326. b See the elaborate argument in Lucret. III. 632 667, to 
 avoid the conclusion that 'one living creature has in its body several souls'. 
 
 P. 327. a Comp. Haeckel, Vortrage, I. 120127, 173175; II. 3540, 
 49, etc. 
 
 P. 327. b Comp. Carl Gegenbaur, Untersuchungen zur vergleichendeu 
 Anatomie der Wirbelthiere; Grundziige der vergleichenden Anatomie; 
 Das Kopfskelet der Selachier, als Grundlage zur Beurtheilung der Genese 
 des Kopfskelets der Wirbelthiere; etc. 
 
 P. 328. a Koran, XVII. 87; comp. XXII. 6, 8, 'God first fashioned 
 man of clay; He completed His work by breathing into him a part of 
 His own spirit'. 
 
 P. 328. b Koran, LXXXII. 15. 
 
 P. 328. c Comp. Senec. Epist. 120, 14, nee domus hoc corpus sed 
 hospitium et quidem breve hospitium; Cic. De Senect. c. 23, Ex vita 
 discede tamquam ex hospitio, non tamquam ex domo; etc. Hebr. XIII. 
 14, 'for here we have no continuing city' (/te'vouaav 7roX/v); etc. 
 
NOTES [pp. 328334]. 99 
 
 P. 328. d Comp. Cicer. Tusc. Disp. I. 11, where Atticus says, 'I have 
 great pleasure in the thought that souls, after they leave the body, go to 
 heaven as to a permanent home (in domicilium suum), and even if it 
 should not be so, I should still be very willing to believe it' ; and again, 
 ibid. c. 17, 'I would rather, by Hercules! be mistaken with Plato . . . 
 than be in the right with others'; c. 21. 
 
 P. 328. e Comp. Yafna XLIV. 6, 7; XXXI. 21, 'Ahura-Mazda created 
 abundance and Immortality to the perfection of the pure' (i. e. he created 
 Immortality in such fulness that the righteous will receive a complete mea- 
 sure of it). It is believed that Immortality existed at first as a prerogative 
 of the earliest men, disappeared afterwards through the wiles of the 
 wicked Agra-maingus, but will be finally restored by the grace of Ahura- 
 Mazda for the felicity of the pure (comp. ibid. XXXI. 6, 14). 
 
 P. 329. a Koran, Sur. XXIX. 64; comp. LVH. 19; XCIII. 14, 
 'The future life is better for you than the present'. 
 
 P. 329. Mishn. Pirke Avoth, IV. 16, -minDt> HDH HTH D^H 
 
 DI Nun D^iyn ^33. 
 
 P. 329. c Talm. Bab. Bathr. ll a ; comp. Matt. VII. 1921; Luke XII. 
 1534; 1 Tim. VI. 19, etc. 
 
 P. 333. a Koran, Sur. II. 59; V. 37; comp. VI. 48. 
 
 P. 333. b Ibid. XXXII. 23. This is one of the Mohammedan inter- 
 pretations of the words, intended to refer to the alleged interview be- 
 tween Moses and Mohammed in the sixth heaven, during the Prophet's 
 night visit thither; the common rendering is: 'do not be in doubt as to 
 its being revealed'. The following verse runs thus: '"We have also 
 granted to them priests who should guide them in accordance with our 
 command, since they suffered with fortitude and firmly believed in our 
 
 P. 333. c Ibid. XXIII. 52; comp. infra. 
 
 P. 333. d Ibid. V. 70; the verse concludes: 'but most of them are 
 wicked'. 
 
 P. 333. e Ibid. V. 51. 
 
 P. 333. f Ibid. V. 53; comp. in. 57, 'Say to the Jews and the 
 Christians : "let us terminate our dissensions; let us adore only one God, 
 and associate with Him no equal" ', etc. 
 
 P. 333. % Ibid. HI. 79. 
 
 P. 334. a Ibid. III. 77, 78 ; comp. XXIX. 45, 'We believe in the 
 Book which has been sent to us and in your Scriptures; our God and 
 yours are one'; XLII. 14. 
 
 P. 334. b This reasoning is acknowledged by some Mohammedan 
 authorities and rejected by others (comp. Sale, Koran, p. 9, note y). It 
 receives indeed some support from several analogous passages (e. g. 
 VII. 162, 'the Lord has led me in the right path, He has taught me 
 a holy religion, the faith of Abraham, who believed in the unity of God 
 and refused to offer incense to idols'; XVI. 124); but taken by itself, 
 
100 NOTES [pp. 334338]. 
 
 the verse m. 79 can hardly be interpreted otherwise than Humphrey 
 understood it (U>^ f \Uo^)\ j+& 5X0 ^x^). 
 
 P. 334. c Ibid. XVI. 45, 46. 
 
 P. 334. d Ibid. HI. 60; comp. XIX. 59. 
 
 P. 334. e Ibid. V. 48, 50. Comp. XL. 56, 'We gave to Moses the 
 Pentateuch; the Hebrew people inherited it; the light of that Book is 
 the guide of the wise'; etc. 
 
 P. 334. f Ibid. XXXIII. 7. 
 
 P. 334. S Ibid. III. 252; comp. IV. 161, etc. 
 
 P. 334. h Ibid. LVII. 27. 
 
 P. 334. * Ibid. III. 3746; comp. with respect to Jesus also Sur. IV. 
 155 157, 'The Jews did not crucify Jesus, a man resembling him was 
 put into his place; God has taken him up t Himself, for He is powerful 
 and wise'; V. 108, 118; XIX. 16; XXI. 91, 'Sing the glory of Mary, 
 who preserved her virginity intact; we breathed upon her our Spirit; 
 she and her son became the wonder of the universe'; XLIII. 57 59, 
 'The son of Mary is the servant of God; heaven lavished upon him 
 all favours and gave him as an example to the Hebrews'; 63 65 ; LXVI. 
 12; etc. 
 
 P. 335. *Ibid. LXL 6; comp. IH. 138, 180; IV. 161. 
 
 P. 335. b Ibid. IV. 69; V. 19, 116; comp. II. 110, 'God has a son, 
 say the Christians; far from Him be this blasphemy'; IX. 30, 31; XXn. 
 93; XLIH. 81, 'Tell them, If God had a son, I should be the first to 
 adore him'. 
 
 P. 336. a Comp. Dosabhoy Framjee, The Parsees, pp. 36, 'Toleration 
 is unknown to the haughty, uncivilised barbarian believers in the Koran, 
 bigotry is the highest virtue demanded of the Mahomedan, and one 
 which secures for him favour in the eyes of his prophet and his God 
 and takes him by the shortest route to a place in heaven', etc.; pp. 29 
 51, 'Within a hundred years ... the condition of the country was 
 entirely changed: landscapes once fertile had become dreary wastes, 
 and the fields . . . became the pasture grounds of wild animals . . . 
 Wild hordes of robbers . , . traversed every part of the land, perpetrating 
 the most cruel atrocities'. 
 
 P. 337. a Koran, II. 186, 189. 
 
 P. 337. b Ibid. II. 257. 
 
 P. 337. c lbid. V. 99; III. 79; comp. LXIV. 64; VH. 183; XHI. 8; 
 XVI. 126. 
 
 P. 337. d Ibid. XLV. 13; L. 44. 
 
 P. 337. e Comp. Spence Hardy, Legends and Theories of Buddhists, p. 189. 
 
 P. 338. a The indignation of the Wahabites is especially directed 
 against luxury in dress and against the smoking of tobacco or other narcotic 
 plants. The Sunne, obviously contravened in the rich and often gor- 
 geous apparel of the Turks, forbids expressly the wearing of gold and 
 silk; while it allows silver only in moderation. 
 
NOTES [pp. 338352]. 101 
 
 P. 338. b Comp. Koran HI. 138 ; VH. 156158, 188; XVII. 95; 
 XVIII. 10, 'I am a man like yourself. 
 
 P. 338. c The scholars prove by various reasons that Mohammed, 
 though he died and was buried, yet did not die like ordinary men. 
 
 P. 339. a See Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and the Wahabys. 
 The second point, on Keligion, is in the Catechism treated with some 
 confusion and partly intermixed with the first and third points. Islam, 
 or the first part of Eeligion, is sub-divided into five sections viz. the con- 
 fession that there is no other God besides Allah and that Mohammed 
 is His prophet, the performance of the prescribed prayers, distribution 
 of alms, observance of the Ramadhan fasting, and the pilgrimage to 
 Mecca. Faith, the second part of Religion, embraces 79 ramifications. 
 Most of these articles of creed are supported by verses from the Koran 
 or by declarations from the earliest traditions. 
 
 P. 340. * Koran, II. 172. 
 
 P. 340. b So A. Dillmann, Der Verfall des Islam, pp. 911, and 
 many others. Noteworthy, on the other hand, is the remark of Spinoza 
 (Epist. XLIX, 11), 'Quod autem ad ipsos Turcas et reliquas gentes 
 attinet : si Deum cultu justitiae et caritate erga proximum adorant, eosdem 
 Spiritum Christi habere credo et salvos esse, quidquid de Mahomete et 
 oraculis ex ignorantia persuasum habeant'. 
 
 P. 345. a Koran, XXXVH. 46; comp. LV. 58. 
 
 P. 345. b Ibid. VII. 41; XV. 47; XXXVII. 42; XLV. 53. 
 
 P. 345. c See Koran, II. 23, 45; HI. 13, 15, 127, 128, 163165; IV. 
 17, 121; VI. 29; VII. 58, 40, 41; IX. 89, 90, 101, 112; X. 911; 
 XIII. 2023, 35; XV. 4548; XTX. 61; XXTC. 64; XXXV. 26, 27, 
 30; XXXVI. 55, 56; XXXVII. 3947; XXXTX. 21; XLIII. 6972; 
 XLIV. 5157; XLV. 4678; XL VI. 14, 15, XCVIII. 7, 8. 
 
 P. 345. d Comp. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. L ; Bayle, Dictionnaire 
 bistorique, Art. Mahomet; Muir, Life of Mahomet, II. 141 sqq. 
 
 P. 347. a Strauss, Alter und Neuer Glaube, pp. 125, 126. 
 
 P. 349. a Comp. Koran, H. 45, 75 j in. 14; IV. 18; VI. 2931, 69; 
 X. 7, 8; XI. 10, 11; XIH. 25, 35; XIV. 49, 52; LV. 19, 3545. 
 
 P. 349. b Comp. Mendelssohn, Phaedon, Gesammelte Werke, 1843, H. 
 pp. 177181. 
 
 P. 350. a Comp. Cicer. De. Finib. H. 25, 81, 'Et tamen jure fortasse, 
 sed tamen non gravissimum est testimonium multitudinis ; in omni enim 
 arte vel studio vel quavis scientia . . . optimum quidque rarissimum est'; 
 Tusc. Disp. I. 12, 'I have all antiquity on my side, which the nearer 
 it is to its origin and divine descent, the more clearly, perhaps, on that 
 account, did it discern the truth in these matters'; c. 16, 'as we are led 
 by nature to think there are gods, ... so by the consent of all nations 
 we are induced to believe that our souls survive'. 
 
 P. 352. a Strauss 1. c. p. 129. 
 
 P. 352. b Comp. Lucret. HI. 418827; comp. also IV. 3741. 
 
102 NOTES [pp. 352355]. 
 
 P. 352. c The contention of Hermes is by no means exaggerated. The. 
 pleas of Plutarch in favour of Immortality are verbally as follows. 
 1. Those who deny Immortality 'rob the people of great and sweet hopes, 
 and deprive of still higher ones the good and pious, who have a right 
 to expect in the next world the greatest and divinest boons'. 2. One 
 of these expectations is this that 'they will there see those men who 
 here boast of their wealth and power and mock the virtuous, endure 
 their deserved punishment'. 3. 'No one yet of all who have yearned after 
 truth and the knowledge of the Absolute, was in this life able to satisfy his 
 desire completely, because our reason is disturbed and obscured by the 
 misty envelopment of the senses ... In the future existence the soul 
 will find its true life'. 4. We long and firmly expect to meet again 
 in reality the beloved dead, and to be reunited with our affectionate 
 parents and our dear wives. 5. Those who regard death as the be- 
 ginning of another and better life, will, if happy, enjoy in anticipation 
 a still higher delight; while in adversity, they do not so easily despond, 
 because the precious hopes and expectations banish every disharmony 
 from the soul, and cause men, like travellers, to bear calmly and pa- 
 tiently the temporary mischances and inconveniences they may encounter 
 (Plut. Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, cc. 28, 29). 
 
 P. 353. a See especially Arguments 810, 13, 14, 17, 23, or Lucret. 
 1. c. vers. 545589, 613631, 677695, 782797 ('Quare, corpus ubi 
 interiit, periisse necessest Confiteare animam distractam in corpore toto') ; 
 comp. vers. 709, 710, the proposition fully stated: 'Quapropter neque 
 natali privata videtur Esse die natura animi nee funeris expers'. Great 
 stress is also laid on the eleventh argument (vers. 590 604), pointing- 
 out man's absolute unconsciousness during a fainting fit, and concluding 
 a fortiori: 'Quid dubitas tandem guin extra prodita corpus Imbecilla 
 foras, in aperto, tegmine dempto' i. e. when after death the body is 
 decayed 'Non modo non omnem possit durare per aevom, Sed minimum 
 quodvis nequeat consistere tempus'? Evidently with reference to Lucretius, 
 Pliny (Nat. Hist. VII. 55 or 56) expresses his strong dissent from the 
 doctrine of Immortality: the very questions on this point are to him 
 'manium ambages'; and then he says: 'Quod autem corpus animae 
 per se? quae materia? ubi cogitatio illi'? etc.; and he is of opinion, 'pueri- 
 lium ista delenimentorum avidaeque nunquam desinere mortalitatis com- 
 menta sunt'. 
 
 P. 353. b E. g. Arguments 1, 4, 19. Comp. also Origen, Contra 
 Celsum, IV. 52, 60, 61. 
 
 P. 353. c Comp. Cicer. Tusc. Disp. I. 11, 24, supra Notes p. 38. 
 
 P. 354. a Plat. Phaed. c. 15, p. 70 D, ov yap av irov na\iv e'y/yvovTO 
 
 P. 354. Ibid., ovruffi ytyvsrai iravra, OVK aXXo^sv y SK rcov svavr/cov TO. 
 svavria: p. 71, navra OVTU ylyvsrai, s'f svavTtwv ra svavria npayfJiaTa. 
 P. 355. a 'Ava/S/wjKgff^a/, 1. c. 
 
NOTES [pp. 356362.] 103 
 
 . P. 356. a Ibid. c. 17, p. 72, ueirep ev KVK\U iraptiovra. 
 
 P. 357. a Ibid. cc. 31, 32. 
 
 P. 358. a Ibid. c. 21, faav apa . . . al \l>v%a} KOI irpirspov, itpw slvat iv 
 av^ocoTTou e*$ai, %upi<; ewfJUZTuv, KO.} Qpovyaiv sl^w. Against pre-existence 
 see Lucret. in. 668676, Cur super ante actam aetatem meminisse 
 nequimus, Nee vestigia gestarum rerum ulla tenemus? etc.; and against 
 transmigration ibid. vers. 739 766. 
 
 P. 358. b BouXara/ or Qpsyarai. 
 
 P. 358. c AUTO TO faov. 
 
 P. 358. d Plat. Phaed. cc. 1821. 
 
 P. 359. a Jer. I. 5 ; Talm. Jevam. 62 a; Joel, Beligionsphilosophie des 
 Sohar, p. 108. Jewish tradition specifies seven things produced before 
 the creation of the world: the Law, Hell, Paradise, God's Throne, the 
 Temple, Repentance, and the name of the Messiah (Pirke Rabbi Eliezer, 
 c. 3); and ten others produced towards the evening of the sixth day, 
 as the rainbow, the manna, the mouth of Balaam's ass, etc. (Mishn. 
 Avoth, V. 6; Targ. Jonath. Num. XXII. 28). 
 
 P. 360. a Plat. 1. c. C. 23, ; yap S?TI {JLSV -rj ^1^37 Kcxi irpirspov K. T. X. 
 
 P. 360. b Ibid. cc. 50 sqq. By this reasoning Socrates replies to the 
 curious illustration, brought forward by Cebes, of the old weaver and 
 his garment, which is meant to show that 'each soul wears out many 
 bodies', yet may at last be exhausted and perish itself (c. 37). 
 
 P. 360. c It is easy to make this clear by many other examples. Thus 
 liberty does not admit the idea of slavery; therefore, when slavery ap- 
 proaches, liberty must either flee and withdraw or perish; that is, though 
 liberty may not become slavery, it is annihilated by slavery or its ap- 
 proach. 
 
 P. 360. d Comp. Cic. Tusc. Disp. I. 29. 
 
 P. 361. a Plat. 1. c. cc. 25 sqq. 
 
 P. 361. b Ibid. cc. 36 sqq. 
 
 P. 362. a Comp. Plato, Phaedrus, c. XXIV, p. 245, ^vyy naaa a^avaros, 
 TO yap aeiKtvyTov a^dvarov K. T. X.; Cicer. Tusc. Disp. I. 23, 27 (nee vero 
 deus ipse, qui intelligitur a nobis, alio modo intelligi potest nisi mens 
 soluta quaedam et libera . . . omnia sentiens et movens ipsaque praedita 
 motu sempiterno); De Republ. VI. 25. Cicero admires this argument 
 intensely and thinks that all philosophers together who dissent from 
 Plato, and whom he calls 'plebeii philosophi', could never produce anything 
 so 'elegant' or profound. 
 
 P. 362. b Cicero (Tusc. J. 23) says quite generally: 'Inanimum est 
 enim omne, quod pulsu agitatur externo; quod autem est animal, id motu 
 cietur interiore et suo'. Yet then he associates with the argument the 
 extraneous element of consciousness, and thus entirely changes its nature 
 and scope: 'The soul perceives that it has motion (sentit igitur animus 
 se moveri), and at the same time it gains this perception, it is sensible 
 that it derives that motion from its own power, and not through the 
 
104 NOTES [pp. 363367]. 
 
 
 agency of another; and it is impossible that it should ever forsake it- 
 self whereby the animals are of course excluded. 
 
 P. 363. a Comp. Cicer. Tusc. Disp. I. 32. 
 
 P. 363. b Plat. Phaedo, c. 63, p. 114, *aXo; yap o /c/v&vvo;, KOU ipy 
 TQiavrct wairep snofisiv savrca. 
 
 P. 364. a 1 Chr. XV. 32, 'If I have fought with beasts at Ephesus' etc. 
 
 P. 364. b Koran, XXXVI. 33. 
 
 P. 364. c Comp. Moses Mendelssohn, Phaedon, pp. 140, 141 (Werke, 
 1843, vol. II.): 'If our soul is mortal, . . . virtue is without all lustre 
 (Glanz) that makes it Divine in our eyes, . . . and we have been placed 
 here like the beasts (wie das Vieh) to seek fodder and to die ; in a few 
 days it will be utterly indifferent whether I have been an ornament or 
 a disgrace of creation', etc. 
 
 P. 365 a Mendelssohn 1. c. p. 134, 'Die Begriffe nehmen allezeit ihren 
 Anfang von einer sinnlichen Empfindung, die ohne die sinnlichen Organe 
 unmoglich ist'. 
 
 P. 365. b Ibid. 1. c. p. 133; comp. p. 144, 'The faculty of thought is 
 formed with the body, grows with it and suffers analogous trans- 
 formations . . . The functions of the brain and the viscera (Eingeweide) 
 are in closest relation to the efficacy of the power of reflection'. 
 
 P. 366. a Ibid. p. 134, 'Was fur Grand haben wir aber . . . der Natur 
 schlechterdings abzusprechen, die Seele ohne diesen gegliederten Leib 
 denken zu lassen'? 
 
 P. 366. b 'Blindheit von Blodsinnigen'. 
 
 P. 366. c Comp. ibid. pp. 121138, 142, 185, 'Das Vermogen zu 
 empfinden ist keine Beschaffenheit des Korpers und seines feinen Baues, 
 sondern hat seine Bestandheit fiir sich*. 
 
 P. 367. a Ibid. p. 143; comp. p. 146, 'Die Kraft zu denken, ist eine 
 Eigenschaft des Zusammengesetzten und hat ihren Grund in einer 
 feineren Organisation oder Harmonie der Theile'. 
 
 P. 367. b Ibid. p. 157; comp. p. 159, 'This simple substance, which 
 has no extension, is the most perfect of all thinking substances that are 
 within me, and comprises all notions of which I am conscious in uni- 
 form distinctness, truth and certainty : is that not my soul' ? Mendelssohn, 
 in order to arrive at his 'simple' thinking substance is thus compelled 
 to attribute to 'the other thinking substances of the body' indistinctness, 
 imperfection and uncertainty, as we otherwise, he says, should be ob- 
 liged 'quite unnecessarily' to assume, instead of one rational mind in 
 each human body, a large number of such minds, which needless multi- 
 plication is not likely to have been ordained by the all- wise Creator. 
 After having established, by assertions so arbitrary and playful, a simple 
 and uncompounded principle of thought, the author can easily indulge 
 in the gratifying belief of having rebutted the idea of mind as a com- 
 pound of forces. 
 
NOTES [pp. 367372]. 105 
 
 P. 367. c He even declares that 'there can be in the whole no manifes- 
 tation of energy, the cause of which does not lie in the constituent parts, 
 and that everything else which does not follow from the qualities of the 
 elements and component parts, as order, symmetry and the like, is ex- 
 clusively traceable to the manner of composition (ibid. pp. 142, 152; 
 comp. p. 155, 'The constituents of the thinking body must possess powers 
 the complex result of which is the faculty of reflection'). 
 
 P. 368. a Ibid. p. 168, and in the Second Dialogue passim. 
 
 P. 369. a Ibid. pp. 142, 145. 
 
 P. 369. b Ibid. pp. 167176, 'As we here below serve the Lord of 
 the universe by developing our faculties, so we shall, under His guardianship, 
 continue in the next life to exercise ourselves in the practice of virtue 
 and wisdom . . . and to realise the long series of Divine schemes, which 
 extends from ourselves to infinitude. To stop at any point on this road, 
 is manifestly opposed to Divine wisdom, goodness and omnipotence" 
 (p. 176.) 
 
 P. 369 c 'Man sollte bisweilen glauben, das Schicksal der Menschen sei 
 von einer Ursache angeordnet worden, die am 'Bosen Vergniigen ge- 
 funden'. 
 
 P. 370. a Ibid. pp. 182185. 
 
 P. 370. b Ibid. p. 149, 'Erdenket einen Lehrbegriff, welcher der 
 menschlichen Gesellschaft so unentbehrlich ist wie die Lehre von Gott, 
 und ich wette, dass er wahr sei'. 
 
 P. 370. c Wisd. II. 1 sqq.; comp. also Plat. Phaed. cc. 14, 23, uxwep 
 Trvsv/ia 7} Kairvog oyaavceaa&s2aa of^ryra/ ^nxirTOfJLS'JT] K} ov^sv en olSafiov y: 
 Koran, XXIII. 3442; XXXTT. 9-11; XXXVIII. 1618. 
 
 P. 371. a Dante, Inferno, HE. 9, 'You who enter, leave all hope 
 behind'. 
 
 P. 371. b See B. Browning, La Saisiaz, p. 31. 
 
 P. 371. c 'That Sun (Beatrice or TheologjO that at first made my 
 heart burn in love, - had revealed to me, by proving and refuting, the 
 sweet aspect of beautiful truth' (Dante, Paradiso, III. 13). 
 
 P. 371. d Comp. Wisdom II. 1 III. 5. 
 
 P. 372. a Here Gregovius was tempted to remind Panini of the view, 
 ably defended by his learned co-religionist and countryman Luzzatto, 
 that the verse to which he alluded (Eccles. XII. 7), like some other 
 passages iu the concluding part of the Book, are later additions designed 
 to conciliate orthodoxy; while Berghorn was on the point of remarking 
 that the verse proves no personal immortality, but affirms merely that 
 'the spirit, this particle detached for individual existence from the Divine 
 breath diffused in the world, is drawn back again by God and thus 
 reunited with His breath, or the world-soul'; and that, therefore, the 
 verse would have about the same import as the words of the Bundehesh, 
 'When the body dies here below, it is mingled with the earth, and the 
 soul returns to heaven' (Anguetil du Perron, Bundehesh, p. 384; see 
 
106 NOTES [pp. 373, 374]. 
 
 Hitzig, Ecclesiast. pp. 215, 216; comp. Ps. CIV. 29; Job XXXIV. 14, 
 15; also Gen. in. 19; Num. XVI. 22; Isai. XLII. 5; Jer. XXXVIII. 
 16); or as the lines of Lucretius, a determined disbeliever in personal 
 immortality, 'Cedit enim retro, de terra quod fuit ante, In terras, et 
 quod missumst ex aetheris oris, Id rursum caeli rellatum templa receptant' 
 (Lucr. II. 999 1001; comp. III. 589, Quam prolapsa foras enaret in 
 aeris auras). But both Gregovius and Berghorn kept silence from fear 
 of raising an exegetical controversy. For neither can the interpolation 
 be demonstrated with mathematical cogency; nor is Berghorn's opinion 
 likely to recommend itself to many, as, taken literally, it amounts to the 
 doctrine of emanation and re-absorption, of which there is no trace in 
 the Old Testament. Yet it must be avowed that the former view can, on 
 consideration of the whole subject, not fail to find adherents, and that 
 the latter has at least a negative support in the extreme difficulty of 
 exactly defining what other notion a Hebrew writer can have connected 
 with the words, 'The spirit returns to God who gave it'; unless they 
 be understood in the sense given by Lucretius to his own analogous 
 terms, viz. that man, like all other sentient creatures, has in himself 
 etherial substances (comp. Lucr. II. 991, Denique caelesti sumus omnes 
 semine oriundi). 
 
 P. 373. a Schiller, Werke, 1838, I. 412, 'Vor dem Tode erschrickst 
 Du? Du wiinschest uusterblich zu leben? Lebe im Ganzen! Wenn Du 
 lange dahin bist, es bleibt' 1 
 
 P. 373. b 'Im Ganzen resigniren'. Goethe has expressed this idea 
 repeatedly and fully; e. g. 'Eins und Alles: Im Granzenlosen sich zu 
 finden, Wird gem der Einzelne verschwinden, Da lost sich aller Ueber- 
 druss; Statt heissem "Wiinschen, wildem "Wollen, Statt last'gem Fordern, 
 strengem Sollen, Sich aufzugeben ist Genuss' (Werke, II. 287); and 
 Faust says in the moment of his death: 'Es kann die Spur von meinen 
 Erdentagen Nicht in Aeonen untergehn; im Vorgefuhl von solchem 
 Gliick Geniess' ich jetzt den hochsten Augenblick' (Werke XII. 290; 
 Faust, Second Part). 
 
 P. 373. c Comp. Ernst Hermann, Woher und Wohin? 1877, pp. 30, 31. 
 
 P. 373. ^ B-iickert. Plato himself, in his Symposion (c. 26, p. 208), 
 expresses a similar idea: 'Everything mortal is preserved, not by its 
 being in all respects the same for ever, as the deity is, but by the 
 thing which departs and grows old leaving behind another new thing, 
 such as it was itself', concluding: ravry ry fi^exvy . . . ^VTJTOV a^ava^iag 
 p.sTe%et, KOV ffufjia KCU raXXa travra, 
 
 P. 374. a Plin. Nat. Hist. VII. 55 or 56, 'perdit . . . praecipuum 
 naturae bonum, mortem'; Horat. Epist. I. xvi. 79. 
 
 P. 374. b Browning, La Saisiaz, pp. 33, 34. Further on the con- 
 clusion is reached: 'True, the only facts acknowledged late, are now in- 
 creased to three God is, and the soul is, and, as certain, after death 
 shall be' (p. 56); comp. p. 63, 'God, soul, earth, heaven, hell five facts 
 
NOTES [pp. 375380]. 107 
 
 now: what is to desiderate'? So says Fancy, who adds a sixth fact: 
 'Good done here, be there rewarded, evil worked here, there amerced' 
 (p. 65). 
 
 P. 375. a Comp. E. Sulze, Ueber Biichner's Schrift "Stoff und Kraft" 
 und gegen den Materialismus, 1878, p. 31. 
 
 P. 378. a For instance, the words 'action' and 'will'; comp. Spinoz. 
 Eth. Ill, Def. 2, 'Nos turn agere dico, quum aliquid in nobis aut extra 
 nos fit, cujus adaequata sumus causa' etc.; wherby human action is 
 converted into a merely logical sequence following from its cause; 
 Eth. II, Prop. 48, Schol., 'Notandum, me per voluntatem affirmandi 
 et negandi facultatem, non autem cupiditatem intelligere; facultatem. 
 inquam, intelligo, qua mens quid verum quidve falsum sit affirmat vel 
 negat, et non cupiditatem qua mens res appetit vel aversatur' so that 
 the will belongs to the category of the intellect. God is denied to have 
 'intellects', though he has 'idea', which necessitates artificial dis- 
 tinctions (see -infra). 'Good' is identified with 'useful', and 'bad' with 
 'detrimental' (per malum id intelligam quod certo scimus impedire quo- 
 minus boni alicujus simus compotes, Eth. IV, Defin. 1, 2); and similarly 
 'virtue' with 'power' (Eth. IV, Defin. 8, 'per virtutem et potentiam idem 
 intelligo'). God's 'power' (potentia) is nothing else than 'his essential 
 activity' (actuosa essentia), so that we can as little conceive His not 
 acting as His not existing (Eth. II, Prop. 3, Schol.). 
 
 P. 378. b See, for instance, Eth. I, Prop. 17, Schol., 'Porro ut de in- 
 tellectu et voluntate, quos Deo communiter tribuimus, aliquid dicam' etc.; 
 Prop. 32, Coroll. 1, 2, 'Hinc sequitur, Deum non operari ex libertate 
 voluntatis' etc., in connection with which, however, Spinoza's peculiar 
 definition of 'will' must be considered (see the preceding Note). Yet in 
 other passages God is allowed to possess 'perception' (idea sive cognitio) 
 both of His nature and of all that results from this nature with necessity 
 (Eth. II, Proposs. 3, 4, 20) which contradiction is reconciled by the 
 assumption that 'intellect' denotes individual and successive thoughts, 
 but 'perception' an all-comprehending intelligence in repose. 
 
 P. 378. c Ethic. IV, Praefat., 'Aeternum illud et infinitum ens, quod 
 Deum sen Naturam appellamus, eadem, qua existit, necessitate agit'. 
 Comp. Goethe, Bei Betrachtung von Schiller's Schadei; (Werke, II, 91) : 
 'Was kann der Mensch im Leben mehr gewinnen Als dass sich Gott- 
 Natur ihm offenbare, Wie sie das Feste lasst zu Geist verrinnen, Wie 
 sie das Geisterzeugte fest bewahre'. 
 
 P. 380. a I. H. von Kirchmann, Erlauterungen zu Spinoza's philo- 
 sophischen Schriften, pp. vii, 44, 45, 185. 
 
 P. 380. b As an instance may be taken the notion of 'Substance', 
 which plays so great a part in Spinoza's theories. He defines it: 'Per 
 substantiam intelligo id quod in se est et per se concipitur; hoc est id, 
 cujus conceptus non indiget conceptu alterius rei, a quo formari debeat' 
 (Eth. I., Defin. 3). What is meant by 'quod in se est'? Every thing 
 
108 NOTES [pp. 380382]. 
 
 can be conceived both 'by itself and in relation to other objects. Every 
 single thing can, therefore, be 'Substance', and yet there is, according to 
 Spinoza, only one infinite Substance, of which all individual things are 
 modi. But the Substance cannot be imagined without the modi, nor 
 the modi without the Substance: Spinoza's Substance corresponds, 
 therefore, with nothing that exists in reality, but is a mere form or 
 relation of thought; it is convenient for logical conclusions, but it is 
 empty and impalpable. Almost exactly the same applies to the notions 
 Attributum, Modus, Deus, Infinitum. 
 
 P. 380. c Comp. Erdmann, Versuch einer wissenschaftlichen Dar- 
 stellung der Geschichte der neueren Philosophic, I. 2, pp.53 98; Ver- 
 mischte Aufsatze, pp. 118 192, etc. 
 
 P. 381. a Ethic. IV. 7, 14, 'Vera boni et mali cognitio, quatenus vera, 
 nullum affectum coercere potest, sed tantum quatenus ut affectus con- 
 sideratur'. 
 
 P. 381. b An analogous instance of Spinoza's sound insight is his view 
 that man, as a rational being, is indeed free and active, but that this 
 freedom of action may be constantly interrupted by passive affections, 
 since man is an integral part of Nature. Spinoza thus escapes the one- 
 sidedness, refuted by experience, of the Stoics, Descartes, Kant, Fichte, 
 Hegel, and others, who assume an unconditional rule of reason over 
 the impressions. 'It is equally necessary for man', he observes admirably, 
 'to know the strength and the weakness of his nature, in order to de- 
 termine what reason is able to do for moderating his affections and 
 what not' (comp. Ethic. IV, Prop. 15 17). 
 
 P. 381. c Comp. Ethic. I, Append.; IV. Praef. etc. This followed 
 naturally from Spinoza's geometrical conception of the world: as we 
 cannot intelligently ask, for what end or purpose the angles of a triangle 
 are together equal to two right angles, or for what object the radii of 
 a circle are equal to each other, just as little are we allowed to ask, 
 for what end or object the things are, or the events happen, in the 
 world as they are and as they happen, and not otherwise. 
 
 P. 381. d Comp. Ethic. I. 32, 'Voluntas non potest vocari causa libera 
 sed tantum necessaria'; II. Propos. 48, 'In mente nulla est absoluta sive 
 libera voluntas, sed mens ad hoc vel illud volendum determinatur a 
 causa, quae etiam ab alia determinata est, et haec iterum ab alia, et sic 
 in infinitum' ; III, Affectuum Definitiones, vi, 'hoc (viz. liberum decretum) 
 fictitium esse demonstravimus'. 
 
 P. 381. e Comp. Ethic. Ill, Praefat., 'humanas actiones atque appetitus 
 considerabo perinde ac si quaestio de lineis, planis aut de corporibus 
 esset'; Tractat. polit. I. 4, 'sedulo curavi, humanas actiones non ridere . . . 
 sed intelligere, atque adeo humanos affectus . . . non ut humanae na- 
 turae vitia, sed ut proprietates contemplatus sum' etc. 
 
 P. 382. a Comp. Eth. IV. Praefat., 'Aeternum illud et infinitum ens, 
 quod Deum seu Naturam appellamus'; and Epist. XXI, 'Quod quidam 
 
NOTES [pp. 382387]. 109 
 
 putant, Tractatum theologico-politicum eo niti quod Deus et natura, per 
 quam massam quandam sive materiam corpoream intelligunt, unum et 
 idem sint, tota errant via': for Oldenburg had written to Spinoza that 
 many readers of that work had taken offence at the opinions 'quae 
 ambigue ibi tradita videntur de Deo et natura, quae duo a te confundi 
 quam plurimi arbitrantur'. See Kirchmann 1. c. pp. 30, 45, 'In one 
 place God is distinguished from the world both as regards thinking and 
 existing; in another place, the world, being a modality of the Substance, 
 is taken as one with God; now the Substance is the opposite of the 
 Modus, and now both are identical: just as the necessity of a particular 
 argument requires it, stress is laid either on the difference or on the 
 unity, and we search in vain for unequivocal distinctness'. 
 
 P. 382. b Comp. Ethic. I, Propos. 11, 'Deus sive substantia constans 
 infinitis attributis, quorum unumquodque aeternam et infinitam essentiam 
 exprimit, necessario existit'; comp. Definit. 6. Not even Time has been 
 included among the chief attributes, because, by its definition, the 
 Substance is eternal, and therefore lies out of the range of Time. 
 
 P. 383. a Ethic. II, Propos. 13; V. Prop. 1, 'Prout cogitationes re- 
 rumque ideae ordinantur et concatenantur in mente, ita corporis affectiones 
 seu rerum imagines ad amussim ordinantur et concatenantur in corpore': 
 yet it is difficult to conceive the relation of both being another than 
 that of cause and effect, however distinctly the author intimates by 
 'prout' and 'ita' a merely external association. 
 
 P. 383. b These inconsistencies account for ftie fact that, while indeed 
 most scholars regard Spinoza as a Pantheist, some authorities look 
 upon him as an Individualist, others as an Atomist (comp. I. Volkelt, 
 Pantheismus und Individualismus im System Spinoza's, pp. 4 9). 
 
 P. 383. c That is, something the existence of which is a part of its 
 very nature : this is akin to Anselmus' ontological proof of God's existence 
 (see supra p. 294). In terms borrowed from the Scholastics, Spinoza 
 identifies also the natura naturans and natura naturata (comp. Eth. 
 I, Prop. 29, Schol., where he explains natura naturans as 'id quod in 
 se est et per se concipitur, . . . hoc est Deus', and natura naturata as 
 'omne quod ex necessitate Dei naturae . . sequitur, hoc est, omnes Dei 
 attributorum modi'). 
 
 P. 385. a Comp. Num. VI. 26; Talm. Meg. 18 a , 'The blessing of the 
 Lord is peace', ( D ^p D"Dpm HD"|D). 
 
 P. 386. a See supra pp. 38, 39. 
 
 P. 386. b Comp. Burnouf, Lotus de la bonne Foi, pp. 800820, 
 espec. pp. 801, 802, 807; Introduction, pp. 88, 89; Spence Hardy, 
 Legends and Theories of the Buddhists, pp. 179183, quoting from 
 the Samanya Phala Suttanta, or the Advantages of the Priesthood; 
 Barthel. Saint-Hilaire, Le Bouddha et sa Eeligion, pp. 135138. 
 
 P. 387. a Comp. Ethic. Ill, Propos. 11, 'Quidquid corporis nostri 
 agendi potentiam auget vel minuit, juvat vel coercet, ejusdem rei idea 
 
110 NOTES [pp. 388390]. 
 
 mentis nostrae cogitandi potentiam auget vel minuit, juvat vel coercet': 
 and ibid. Schol., 'Videmus itaque mentem magnas posse pati mutationes, 
 et jam ad majorem, jam autem ad minorem perfectionem transire, quae 
 quidem passiones nobis explicant affectus laetitiae et tristitiae' ; Propos. 
 39, Schol., 'Per lonum hie intelligo omne genus laetitiae, . . . per 
 malum autem omne tristitiae genus' etc.; Affectuum Definitiones, ii, iii, 
 'Laetitia est hominis transitio a minore ad majorem perfectionem', etc.; 
 and Ethic. III. passim; also IV, Propos. 8, 'Cognitio boni et mali nihil 
 aliud est quam laetitiae vel tristitiae affectus, quatenus ejus sumus conscii' ; 
 Propos. 41, 42, esp. 45 Schol., 'Only dark and mournful superstition 
 can forbid cheerfulness ... A wise man uses the things of the world, 
 and enjoys them as much as possible'; Propos. 52, 53. 
 
 P. 388. a Ethic. IV, Append., cc. 4, 31; comp. V, Propos. 27, De- 
 monstr., 'He who examines the things in this manner (the 'third mode'), 
 attains the highest human perfection and is consequently filled with the 
 greatest joyousness, accompanied by the perception of his own self and 
 his virtues'; Propos. 32, 33, where that mode of knowledge is described 
 as that peculiar 'intellectual love of God' (amor Dei intellectualis), which 
 has become so famous a notion, though it has not seldom been misunder- 
 stood (see infra.) 
 
 P. 388. b Comp. supra chap. V; Ethic. IV, Propos. 37, Schol. 1, where, 
 however, the idea is not expressed so decidedly as is done by Humphrey. 
 The wise man, Spinoza says, is allowed to use the animals for his ad- 
 vantage, since, as the superior being, he has surely a greater right over 
 the animals than these have over him. However, it cannot be denied 
 that his utterances on this point are harsh: 'legem illam de non mactandis 
 brutis magis vana superstitione et muliebri misericordia quam sana 
 ratione fundatam esse' etc.; comp. Append, cap. 26. 
 
 P. 388. c Ethic. IV, Prop. 50, 'Commiseratio . . . per se mala et 
 inutilis est'. Spinoza speaks in this passage of the wise man desirous 
 of living conformably to reason, and bound to keep aloof from all sadness, 
 and hence also from compassion. The principle may be faulty for 
 pity is not a sadness that paralyses energy, but is on the contrary mostly a 
 strong incentive to helpful action ,yet it was certainly not prompted 
 by want of feeling, for Spinoza explains : to deliver the -pitied indivi- 
 dual from his distress, is even a dictate of reason ; but 'he who is neither 
 by reason nor by compassion induced to assist others, is justly called 
 inhuman, since he does not seem to resemble a man'. 
 
 P. 389. a Ps. LXXIH. 28; LXXXIV. 11; XCVII. 12; Isai. XXX. 
 15; Jerem. VI. 16; comp. Ps. CV. 3; Nehem. VIII. 10, 'the joy of the 
 Lord (nirp nnn) is vour strength'; etc. 
 
 P. 389. b Comp. Spinoz. Ethic. V. 32, 33. 
 
 P. 389. c Gal. V. 22, 23; comp. Matt. XXV. 21 ; Hebr. XH. 2; 1 Pet. 1. 8. 
 
 P. 390. a Acts XVII. 28; 1 John IV. 12, 13; comp. III. 24; John 
 XIV. 20, etc. Comp. Spinoz. Epist. XXI, where, besides quoting Acts 
 
NOTES [p. 390]. Ill 
 
 XVII. 28, he refers to 1 Cor. III. 16, 'Know ye not that you are the 
 Temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you'? XII. 6, 
 'There are diversities of operations, but it is the same God who 
 worketh all in all'; and Eph. I. 23, 'which is his body, the fulness of 
 him that filleth all in all'. See also Ethic. I, Propos. 15, 'Quidquid est 
 in Deo est, et nihil sine Deo esse neque concipi potest'; etc. 
 
 P. 390. b Comp. Epistol. XXII. 4, where Oldenburg writes: 'Quid de 
 his et similibus dicendum, ut sua constet evangelio et Christianae re- 
 ligioni, cui te favere opinor, veritas' etc. 
 
 P. 390. c Epistol. XXI. 4, 'De aeterno illo filio Dei, hoc est, Dei 
 aeterna sapientia, quae sese . . . omnium maxime in Christo Jesu mani- 
 festavit, longe aliter sentiendum: nam nemo absque hac ad statum be- 
 atitudinis potest pervenire, utpote quae sola docet, quid verum et falsum, 
 bonum et malum sit'. It will be seen that Spinoza traces beatitude to 
 Divine wisdom, rather than to Christ, whom, he says, "it is not at all 
 necessary to know after the flesh" (ad salutem non esse omnino necesse, 
 Christum secundum carnem noscere) : but Humphrey naturally lays stress 
 upon the person of Christ, as the Incarnation of that Wisdom. Nor 
 would he have been unable speciously to support his view by several 
 other observations made by Spinoza on this point; e. g. Ethic. IV, 
 Propos. 68, Schol., 'patriarchae . . . ducti spiritu Christi, hoc est, Dei 
 idea'; and especially the famous letter to his young friend and pupil 
 Albert Burgh, who had embraced Catholicism and entreated Spinoza to 
 follow his example a letter which shows with what withering satire in- 
 dignation could arm the placid philosopher: 'ubicumque haec (viz. justitia 
 et caritas) reperiuntur, ibi Christus revera est, et ubicumque desunt, 
 deest Christus; solo namque Christi spiritu duci possumus in amorem 
 justitiae et caritatis' (Epist. LXXIV. 4). Comp. also Epist. XLIX, 
 11, : si Deum cultu justitiae et caritate erga proximum adorent, eosdem 
 Spiritum Christi habere credo et salvos esse'; etc. 
 
 P. 390. d Epist. XXI. 5, 'non minus absurde mihi loqui vi- 
 dentur' etc. 
 
 P. 390. e Comp. Prov. XV. 15; XVH. 22; Sir. XXX. 22, 23, 'The 
 gladness of the heart is the life of a man, and the joyfulness of a man 
 prolongs his days; . . . remove sorrow far from thee, for . . . there is 
 no profit therein'; XXXI. 27, 28, 'Wine is as good as life to man . . . 
 for it was made to make man glad'; XXXII. 46: XL. 20; etc. 
 
 P. 390. f Ps. H. 11; Prov. XXVIII. 14. 
 
 P. 390. 6 Comp. Talm. Berach. 31 a : in the midst of the high revelries 
 of a nuptial feast one Babbi dashed a costly crystal bowl to pieces; on 
 a similar occasion, another recited a mournful threnody; Besh Lakish 
 is said never during his whole life to have opened his mouth for 
 laughter; etc. 
 
 P. 390. h Sir. XL. 1 sqq.; 'Great turmoil is created for every man, 
 and a heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam, from the day that they 
 
112 NOTES [p. 391]. 
 
 go out of their mother's womb till the day that they return to the 
 mother of all things' etc. 
 
 P. 391. a Midrash Koheleth. 
 
 P. 391. b Talm. Moed Kat. 25 b tfinff JITON^ N^l D^N 5 ? D3 
 
 nmxb ONI nnuob. 
 
 P. 391. c l Chron. XXIX. 15; comp. Ps. XXXIX. 7; CHI. 15, 16; 
 Job XIV. 1, 2, etc. 
 
 P. 391. d Talm. Erub. 54 a : Babbi Gideon did not deem it necessary 
 to quote the words which follow, 'In the grave there is no longer any 
 joy; mortals are like the herbs of the field, they sprout and wither in 
 constant change'. 
 
 P. 391. e This is principally derived from the words of God addressed- 
 to Cain (Gen. IV. 7), which are interpreted to mean, 'If thou art cheerful, 
 God accepts thee' etc.; in opposition to the sentiments of Ecclesiastes 
 (VII. 3, 4, 'Sorrow is better than laughter, for in the sadness of the 
 countenance the heart remains good', etc.); comp. Prov. XIV. 13; XV. 
 13, etc.; Talm. Shabb. 30 b , 'The Deity reveals Himself to man only 
 in the gladness produced by a good act' (. . . 
 
 nn*D btf nnD&y -on IFID N'PN . . . nna 
 
 P. 391. f Talm. Sot 20 a , 'the religious man devoid of intelligence, 
 the cunning evildoer, the bigoted woman, and the stripes of the Phari- 
 sees, are the ruin of the world'; comp. -ibid. 22 b the humorous de- 
 scription of the seven classes of Pharisees. 
 
 P. 391. & Comp. Talm. Berach. 31 a , 'Prayers should only be said in 
 the cheerful spirit engendered by a good deed' (^ hbvnrb fiDiy fN 
 
 man bw nriD&y "pno N^N . . . rvoay lino); Mid*. Rabb. Lev. 
 
 c. 34, 'he who performs a Divine command, should perform it with a 
 joyful heart'. 
 
 P. 391. h Comp. rnQf JTYEQ ")TOn; and tne nne small Prayer of 
 Solomon ben Gabriol Ol "]K>pDN IDttf. 
 
 P. 391. i Comp. especially the enthusiastic descriptions of the ceremony 
 of 'drawing water' during the Feast of Tabernacles (nDNlttM n^U nnD^); 
 Mishn. Succ. V. 1, 'he who has not seen this joy, has never seen joy 
 in his life'; also Deut. XVI. 14, "pm nDDtin, efcc - 
 
 P. 391. k This idea is supported by Biblical passages as Deut. XXVIII. 
 47, 'because thou didst not serve the Lord thy God with joyfulness 
 and with gladness of heart' ; 1 Chron. XXVIII. 9, etc. 
 
 P. 391. ] Comp. Maimon. Mor. Nevoch. III. 54, 'The fourth kind is 
 the true human perfection ; it consists in acquiring the intellectual virtues, 
 that is, in conceiving the intelligible things capable of supplying us 
 with sound ideas on metaphysical subjects. This is man's last aim, . . . 
 it appertains to him alone; it is through this perfection that he wins 
 Immortality, and that he is really a human being'. The 'four kinds of 
 perfection' property, physical excellence, morality, and intelligence 
 
NOTES [pp. 392394]. 113 
 
 are derived from Aristotle (Ethic. Nicom. I. 8.), Nevspr,fjievuv by TCOV aya^wv 
 TptXrj, Koii TOJV psv, &KTQ; Xeyopsvuv, rwv SI, nspi ^Vfflv Kai ffwpa K. r. X. 
 
 P. 392. a Comp. M. Joel, Zur Genesis der Lehre Spinoza's, p. 51, 
 'So ist Spinoza nicht bloss bei seinem Gottesbegriff, sondern auch bei 
 seinem Schopfungsbegriff als jiidischer Philosoph, oder doch als Fort- 
 setzer jener jiidischer Denker anzusehen, deren Namen wir hier ofter 
 erwahut haben'. 
 
 P. 392. b E. ff., Joel, Spinoza's Theologisch-politischer Traktat auf 
 seine Quellen gepriift; Id. Zur Genesis der Lehre Spinoza's; Id. Don 
 Chasdai Creska's Religionsphilosophische Lehre; Loewe, Die Philosophic 
 Fichte's, mit einem Anhang iiber den Gottesbegriff Spinoza's und dessen 
 Schicksal (where numerous passages are brought together purporting to 
 show that the God of Spinoza has individual self-consciousness, and is 
 not merely the aggregate of the thinking souls of men; but the con- 
 clusions, based as they are on the obscurest propositions, are not con- 
 vincing); also Trendelenburg, Historische Beitrage zur Philosophic, II. 
 59 sqq.; etc. 
 
 P. 392. c This Platonism, as expounded in the works of Marsilius, 
 Ficinus, Picus de Mirandula, Job. Reuchlin and many others, teaches: 
 God is the one existence, which is all in all, without which nothing can 
 be conceived, and whose existence is also the existence of all individual 
 things; Divine Reason is the source of universal intelligence; there is a 
 direct knowledge which is attained by the immediate contemplation of 
 the supreme Being; Love is the complete union with God, which de- 
 livers man from all earthly love and raises him to the highest bliss. 
 
 P. 392. d Comp. Ch. Sigwart, Spinoza's neu entdeckter Traktat von 
 Gott, dem Menschen und seiner Gliickseligkeit, pp. 106 sqq. 
 
 P. 393. a Spinoz. Ethic. II, Propos 7, Schol., 'quod quidam Hebraeorum 
 quasi per nebulam vidisse videntur, qui scilicet statuunt, Deum, Dei 
 intellectum, resque ab ipso intellectas unum et idem esse'. 
 
 P. 393. b Cogitat. Metaph. II. 5, 6, 'caeterum Peripateticorum dis- 
 tinctionum farraginem non curamus'; comp. Joel, Zur Genesis der Lehre 
 Spinoza's, p. 19. 
 
 P. 393. c Spinoz. Tract, theol. polit. c. 9, 'Legi etiam et insuper novi 
 nugatores aliquos cabbalistas, quorum insaniam nunquam mirari satis 
 potui'. 
 
 P. 394. a Comp. Maimon. Mor. Nev. I. 51; II. 20, 21; HI. 13, etc. 
 
 P. 394. b Comp. Epistol. LXXIV. 15, 'ceterum tractatus theologico- 
 politici fundamentum, quod scilicet Scriptura per solam Scripturam 
 debeat exponi, . . . non tantum supponitur, sed ipsum verum seu firmum 
 esse apodictice demonstratur' etc. 
 
 P. 394. c Comp. Spinoz. Eth. I, Propos. 18, 'Deus est omnium rerum 
 causa immanens, non vero transiens'; yet this 'causa immanens', which 
 is identical with the 'causa sui' or the Substance and its modi, cannot 
 easily be distinguished from causation in general. 
 
114 NOTES [pp. 395399]. 
 
 P. 395. a Ethic. Ill, Affect. Defin. 1; IV, Propos. 18, Demonstr., 
 'cupiditas est ipsa hominis essentia, hoc est conatus, quo homo in suo 
 esse perseverare conatur'. 
 
 P. 395. b Comp. Ethic. IV, Propos. 21, 22. 
 
 P. 395. c Ethic. IV, Propos. 18, Schol. 
 
 P. 395. d Ethic. Ill, Affect. Definit. 24. 
 
 P. 396. a Ethic. IV, Propos. 37. 
 
 P. 396. b Ibid. Schol. 1, 'Cupiditatem autem bene faciendi, quae ex 
 eo ingeneratur quod ex rationis ductu vivimus, pietatem voco'. 
 
 P. 396. c Ibid. Propos. 46, 'amore contra sive generositate compensare'. 
 Comp. Propos. 73, Schol; Append, cap. 11, 'animi non armis sed amore 
 et generositate vincuntur'. 
 
 P. 396. d Comp. Ethic. IV, Propos. 18, Schol., etc., esp. Prop. 35. 
 E. v. Hartmann (Phaenomenologie des sittlichen Bewusstseins, pp. 14, 
 15) observes: 'It is expedient, with respect to a man of matured mind, 
 who is roused by strong motives, not to urge higher ethical principles 
 for dissuading him from his purposes, but to use those principles at 
 most as auxiliaries, and mainly to appeal from his ill-advised egotism 
 to an egotism more properly to be advised'. 
 
 P. 396. e Comp. Ethic. IV, Prop. 18, Schol. 
 
 P. 396. f Ethic. IV, Propos. 72, Schol., 'Quid si homo se perfidia a 
 praesenti mortis periculo posset liberare' etc. 
 
 P. 397. a Ethic. Ill, Propos. 13, Schol., 'Amor nihil aliud est quam 
 laetitia concomitante idea causae externae' etc.; comp. Proposs. 19 22. 
 
 P. 397. b Comp. Ethic. IV, Prop. 18, Schol, etc; espec. Propos. 24, 
 'Ex virtute absolute agere nihil aliud in nobis est, quam ex ductu rationis 
 agere, vivere, suum esse conservare (haec tria idem significant), ex funda- 
 mento proprium utile quaerendi'; Propos. 35, Cor. 2, 'quum maxime 
 unusquisque homo suum sibi utile quaerit, turn maxime homines sunt 
 sibi invicem utiles' etc.; Append, cap. 9. 
 
 P. 398. a Comp. Epist. XXXVI. 4, 'Neronis verbi gratia matricidium, 
 quatenus aliquid positivum comprehendebat, scelus non erat' etc. See 
 Ethic. I, Appendix. 
 P. 398. b Ethic. I, Append, sub fin. 
 
 P. 398. c Ethic. IV, Praef., 'Bonum et malum quod attinet, nihil etiam 
 positivum in rebus, in se scilicet consideratis, indicant, nee aliud sunt 
 praeter cogitandi modos seu notiones, quas formamus ex eo quod res ad 
 invicem comparamus'; see ibid. Propos. 73, Schol. 
 
 P. 399. a Ethic. I, Append, sub fin., 'quia ei non defuit materia ad 
 omnia ex summo nimirum ad infimum perfectionis gradum creanda'. 
 
 P. 399. b Comp. ibid. IV, Praefat., 'quod vulgo aiunt, naturam ali- 
 quando deficere vel peccare, resque imperfectas producere, inter commenta 
 numero'. 
 
 P. 399. c Ethic. V, Propos. 35, 36. 
 P. 399. d Ethic. II, Propos. 11, Corol. 
 
NOTES [pp. 399 402]. 115 
 
 P. 399. * Ibid. Prop. 4, 11, 19 Demonstr. 
 
 P. 400. a Ethic. IV, Prop. 8; see supra Notes, p. 107; comp. ibid. 
 Prop. 28, 'the highest good of the soul is the knowledge of God, and 
 the highest virtue of the soul is to know God'; V, Propos. 24, 'The 
 better we know the individual things, the better we know God', etc. 
 Another instance is Ethic. V, Prop. 14: 'It is hi the power of the soul 
 to cause all sensations of the body, or the images of all objects, to be 
 associated with God'; here God is nothing but the general Substance, 
 without which no individual observation or conception can exist. 
 P. 400. b Ibid. Propos. 15, 16. 
 
 P. 400. c Ibid. Propos. 19, 'Qui Deum amat, conari non potest, ut 
 Deus ipsum contra amet'. 
 
 P. 400. d Ethic. V, Prop. 42, 'Beatitude non est virtutis praemium, 
 sed ipsa virtus', and Spinoza continues: 'nee eadem gaudemus, quia 
 libidines coercemus, sed contra quia eadem gaudemus, ideo libidines 
 coercere possumus'. The last part of the sentence is evident in considering 
 that the laetitia which constitutes the beatitude is the controlled and 
 well-balanced joy. 
 
 P. 401. a Ethic. V, Prop. 21, 'Mens nihil imaginari potest, neque 
 rerum praeteritarum recordari, nisi durante corpore'. 
 
 P. 401. b Ethic. V, Prop. 22, 23, 'In Deo tamen datur necessario idea, 
 qua hujus et illius corporis humani essentiam sub aeternitatis specie ex- 
 primit'; and 'Mens humana non potest cum corpore absolute destrui, 
 sed ejus aliquid remanet, quod aeternum est'. 
 P. 402. a See supra pp. 109, 110. 
 
 P. 402. b So clearly in Ethic. V, Prop. 42, Schol.; the whole passage 
 is significant: 'The ignorant is not only agitated by external causes and 
 in many ways, and never attains true tranquillity of mind, but he lives 
 also without knowledge of himself, of God and external objects, and when 
 his suffering ceases (simulac pati desinit), his existence also ceases ; 
 whereas the wise man, as such, hardly feels an emotion in his mind, 
 but in the natural knowledge of himself, God and external objects, never 
 ceases to be, and always enjoys tranquillity of mind'. 
 P. 402. c Ethic. V, Prop. 41. 
 
 P. 402. d Comp. Ethic. V, Propos. 40, Schol., 'Our soul, as far a* 
 it is intelligent, is an eternal modus of thinking, which is determined by 
 another eternal modus of thinking; this is again determined by another, 
 and so on without end; so that all together constitute the eternal and 
 infinite intellect'. 
 
 P. 402. e To show that Attinghausen did not misrepresent Spinoza's 
 views, though, in his usual manner, he carried them perhaps to their 
 extreme consequences, we insert a few sentences from the philosopher's 
 own explanations of the twenty-third Proposition of the fifth Book of 
 his Ethics: 'We attribute existence to the human soul only while the 
 body exists. As, however, that which is conceived with a certain eternal 
 
116 NOTES [pp. 406410]. 
 
 necessity through God's own essence, is something; this something which 
 belongs to the essence of the soul, will necessarily be immortal . . . 
 It is impossible for us to have any reminiscence of an existence previous 
 to the creation of the body . . . Yet nevertheless we feel and are con- 
 scious that we are eternal. For the soul knows equally the things which 
 it conceives through reflection and those which it remembers . . . The 
 soul can, therefore, be said to last only in so far ... as it involves the 
 real existence of the body, and in so far only it has the power to measure 
 the existence of the things by time, and to conceive them as a duration' 
 (mens igitur nostra eatenus tantum potest dici durare, . . . quatenus 
 actualem corporis existentiam involvit, et eatenus tantum potentiam habet 
 rerum existentiam tempore determinandi, easque sub duratione con- 
 cipiendi). Comp. also Propos. 29 31, 34. 
 
 P. 406. a Comp. Colebrooke, Essays on the Religion and Philosophy 
 of the Hindus, edit. 1858, pp. 223, 238; comp. p. 217, 'The omnipotent, 
 omniscient, sentient cause of the universe ... is the ethereal element, 
 from which all things proceed and to which all return. He is the breath 
 in which all beings merge, into which they all rise; he is the light 
 which shines in heaven, . . . everywhere throughout the world, and 
 within the human person'; p. 225, Brahme is omnipotent, capable of every 
 act, without organ or instrument; no motive or special purpose need be 
 assigned for his creation of the universe, beside his will ; 226, 'he himself 
 has no origin, 110 procreator nor maker, for he is eternal, without be- 
 ginning as without end'; p. 238, 'he is one, sole-existent, secondless, 
 entire, without parts, sempiternal, infinite, ineffable, invariable ruler of 
 all, universal soul, truth, wisdom, intelligence, happiness'. These doctrines, 
 in many points indeed Spinozistic, are expounded with wonderful sub- 
 limity, for instance, in the Bhaghavad-Gita (Song of the Deity). 
 
 P. 407. a Comp. Colebrooke 1. c. p. 242, and in general pp. 208 242. 
 
 P. 407. b Comp. J. R. Ballantyne, Christianity contrasted with Hindu 
 Philosophy, 1859, pp. xxxi xxxvii. 
 
 P. 408. a See Colebrooke 1. c. p. 46. 
 
 P. 409. a Confucius says elsewhere clearly: 'Knowledge, charity, and 
 fortitude are the three jewels resulting from the celestial virtue which 
 pervades the world'; and he adds: 'He who is willing to learn, is not 
 far from knowledge; he who employs well what he has learnt, is not 
 far from charity; he who can blush from a feeling of honour, is not 
 far from fortitude' (Tchong-yong, ch. 20, 8, 10). 
 
 P. 410. a Comp. for instance, the nine duties of the ruler specified in 
 Confucius' Tchong-yong (ch. 20, 12 15), among which are: to make 
 himself more perfect in virtue, to treat the people like his children, to 
 encourage industry and art, to show urbanity to strangers. 
 
 P. 410. b Comp. Tchong-yong, ch. 20, 18, 'In order to win the 
 Tao, we require the most extensive study . . . and the determined will 
 to walk in accordance with what we have recognised to be the truth'. 
 
NOTES [pp. 410 413]>^_ 117 
 
 P. 410. c Tchong-yong, ch. 16. 
 
 P. 411. a Comp. Plaenckner, Tchong-yong, p. 254, the ming-te is of 
 heavenly origin, a ray of the Divine light, intensified reason, absolute 
 intelligence, highest ennoblement in man, and full consciousness of godly 
 fervour'. 
 
 P. 411. b Tchong-yong, ch. 12. 
 
 P. 411. c Ibid. ch. 13, 4, 'Consequently the Tao of the wise includes 
 four symbols, of which I (Confucius) am not yet able strictly to carry 
 out a single one what is required of the son in his duties of reverential 
 obedience to his father, this I am not yet able to fulfil', etc. In ch. 20, 
 28, five mutual relations of duty are named, viz. ruler and subject, 
 father and son, husband and wife, elder and younger brother, and friend 
 and friend. 
 
 P. 411. d Ibid, ch. 33, 1, 6. Confucius adds: 'High-sounding 
 phrases, splendid words, external pomp, are they to convert the people? 
 Never, never'! 
 
 P. 411. e Ta-hio, 6. 
 
 P. 412. a Ta-hio, 4, 5; Tchong-yong, ch. 17, 18; also ch. 31, where 
 the qualities of such a general ruler are specified, concluding, 'Such a 
 one is surely comparable to heaven'; and ch. 32, and Plaenckner in loc. 
 
 P. 412. b Tchong-yong, ch. 13, where the explanation is added: 'Pro- 
 bity, sincerity, fidelity, and truthfulness, charity and the resolve to 
 treat others as we wish to be treated ourselves this is the result of 
 our inner Tao'; comp. Ta-hio, ch. 10, pp. 276 285 in Plaenckner's 
 translation. 
 
 P. 412. c See Bible Studies, H. 320. We add again a few other 
 parallels. 'Hear the sum of righteousness, and when thou hast heard, 
 ponder over it: Do not to others what would be repugnant to thyself 
 (Panchatantra III. 104, in Muir's Religious and Moral Sentiments from 
 Indian writers, p. 23). 'Let no man do to another what would be painful 
 to himself; this is the sum of righteousness; the rest is according to 
 inclination' (Mahabharata XIII. 5571; Muir 1. c. p. 24; also Bohtlingk, 
 Indische Spriiche, p. 39). 'As regards refusing and granting, or pleasure 
 and pain, man follows the proper rule in considering the cases his own* 
 (Mahabharata XIII. 5572; Muir 1. c.). 
 
 P. 412. d Plaenckner 1. c. p. 323; Tchong-yong ch. 20, 'Humanity is 
 the truly human in man; it expands the love of relatives and neighbours 
 into one general principle' etc. 
 
 P. 412. e Tchong-yong, ch. 25; comp. ch. 28, 'the unwise takes only 
 an interest in that which is of advantage to himself; the man of mean 
 disposition pays attention only to his own concerns'. 
 
 P. 413. a Tchong-yong, ch. 20, 17, 18; comp. John XIV. 16, 17, 
 'the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive . . . but we know 
 him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you'. The contradistinction 
 of eternal and inward truth is equivalent with that of the transcendent 
 
118 NOTES [pp. 413 416]. 
 
 and immanent deity. Confucius says, besides: 'If you seek the truth, 
 you seek God; if you find the truth, you have found and understood 
 God' (Plaenckner 1. c. pp. 175, 176). 
 
 P. 413. b Tchong-yong, ch t 25, 2. 
 
 P. 413. c Comp. Tchong-yong, ch. 11 (p. 76 of Plaenckner's translation): 
 'To try to fathom the recondite, the mysterious, the supernatural and 
 enigmatical, only in order to achieve something extraordinary and mar- 
 vellous, to make posterity talk of me and cause it to believe the mira- 
 culous, this is decidedly not my object ... To paint this doctrine of 
 the Tao partially in brilliant colours and thereby to corrupt it, of this 
 I am certainly not capable; for the wise man relies on the eternal and 
 unchangeable truth (the tchong-yong) that is immanent in him'. 
 
 P. 413. d Comp. Tchong-yong, ch. 21; Plaenckner 1. c. pp. 179182. 
 
 P. 414. a Tchong-yong, ch. 27, 15; Plaenckner 1. c. pp. 210214. 
 
 P. 414. b Plaenckner 1. c. p. 186. The Chinese scholar Ko remarks: 
 'If those who read our books, were to examine what our scholars in 
 all times have written about the holy one, they would, in spite of all 
 prejudices, be compelled to confess that they have commented on things 
 which can only refer to a Divine man, a King, Saviour and. Instructor 
 of mankind' (Plaenckner 1. c. p. 213). 
 
 P. 414. c Tchong-yong, ch. 29, 4. 
 
 P. 414. d Ibid. ch. 24. 
 
 P. 415. a So Plaenckner 1. c. p. 185. 
 
 P. 415. b Comp. Vendidad XIX. 5154; Ya$na XVII. 26, 28, etc. 
 
 P. 415. c Comp. E. L. Fischer, Heidenthum und Offenbarung, 1878, 
 pp. 129133. 
 
 P. 415. d Comp. Geo. Smith, Assyrian Discoveries, p. 403. 
 
 P. 416. a So in the Leyden Papyrus: Amon is the Absolute, Eternal, 
 Hidden, or Mysterious; Ha is his revelation in nature, especially in the 
 sun; and Ptah the creator of the world through his omnipotence and 
 wisdom (see Lauth, Moses der Ebraer, p. 103; comp. Jamblich. De 
 Myster, VIII. 3, where Osiris occupies the place of Ea). In the Turin 
 Papyrus the Absolute one calls himself the most Holy, the good Spirit, 
 and Judge; or the Father, the good Spirit, and the Holy one (comp. 
 Seyffarth, Theolog. Schriften, p. 17; Fischer 1. c. pp. 289 293). 
 
 P. 416. b Tchong-yong, ch. 22. 
 
 P. 416. c In Lao-tse's Tao-Te-King also, Missionaries have discovered 
 Christian dogmas; thus Montucci writes: 'Many passages of the Tao-Te- 
 King speak so clearly of a triune God that, whosoever reads the book, 
 must gain the conviction that the mystery of the holy Trinity was" re- 
 vealed to the Chinese more than five centuries before the advent of 
 Christ' (Plaenckner, Lao-tse's Tao-Te-King, Vorwort, p. xiii; comp. 
 ibid. p. 18, 'The tchang tao, or the Eternal Tao, comprises this Trinity: 
 1. The Lord of Heaven, the Eternal, the Invisible, the Creator of heaven 
 and earth; 2. The visible Tao, the power of nature, incessantly pro- 
 
NOTES [pp. 417426]. 119 
 
 ductive, or Nature herself; and 3. The Tao or Divine in man, only 
 comprehended by a pure and passionless mind engendering knowledge 
 and inward bliss'. 
 
 P. 417. a Ibid. ch. 30; comp. also ch. 32, 1, 'Only he who on earth 
 arrives at the perfect knowledge of truth, will be able to see all in- 
 dividual threads of the great web of the world closely knit together, 
 and to set this forth as the great fundamental law of the world'. 
 
 P. 417. b Comp. Ibid. ch. 26, 18 ; ch. 27, 13, etc. 
 
 P. 417. c Ibid. ch. 30, 6; ch. 33, 1, etc. 
 
 P. 419. a Schopenhauer said: 'Der Optimismus ist eine ruchlose 
 Denkungsart'. 
 
 P. 420. a Comp. E. von Hartmann, Phaenomenologie des sittlichen 
 Bewusstseins, p. 49. 
 
 P. 421. a Comp. Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, 
 I. 366 sqq., 418, 441; Parerga, II. 165, etc. 'All life', he says in the 
 first passage, 'is essentially suffering. While we see even in unintelligent 
 nature, as its innermost character, a constant striving without aim and 
 without rest, this feature appears much more strikingly in considering 
 animals and men. Attempting and striving is man's entire being, wholly 
 comparable to an unquenchable thirst. But the basis of all striving is 
 want, deficiency, and hence pain, to which man thus falls a prey by 
 his very nature and from the beginning. But if, on the other hand, 
 he has no objects of desire, because these are at once removed by too 
 easy gratification, he is seized by a terrible emptiness and ennui, and 
 his individuality and existence themselves become to him an insupportable 
 burden. His life, therefore, oscillates to and fro, like a pendulum, 
 between pain and ennui, which two conditions are indeed life's final 
 constituents' (Sein Leben schwingt also gleich einem Pendel hin und 
 her zwischen dem Schmerz und der Langweile, welche beide in der 
 That dessen letzte Bestandtheile sind). 
 
 P. 423. a Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Buch 
 IV, 71, fin. (Werke, ed. Frauenstadt, H. 486). 
 
 P. 423. b Comp. Schopenhauer, Welt als Wille u. Vorst. I. 54, 69. 
 
 P. 424. a Comp. E. von Hartmann, Phaenomenologie etc., pp. 41 46. 
 
 P. 424. b Talm. Berach. 5 a , '31 n^DD "llDNH fP"D FID. 
 
 P. 425. a Talm. 1. c. 
 
 P. 425. b Talm. Erach. 16 a , i. e. he has obtained the full reward of 
 his merits. 
 
 P. 425. c Talm. Sanhedr. 101 a . 
 
 P. 425. d Talm. Taan. 25 a ; Berach. 5 a ; comp. Taan. 23 a , 'What must 
 man do in order to live? Let him die. What must he do in order to 
 die? Let him live'. 
 
 P. 426. a So Rabba said to his pagan friend Bar Sheshach that the 
 joys of the pious in the next world would be undisturbed by the fear 
 of tyrannical masters. 
 
120 NOTES [pp. 426429]. 
 
 P. 426. b Talm. Avod. Zar. 65 a . A sad tone of mind was especial]y 
 fostered by the grief felt at the destruction of Jerusalem, after which 
 event many Jews abstained from meat and wine. This austerity was 
 indeed disapproved by some , teachers like Rabbi Jehoshua, yet even he 
 advised : 'If you build a house, leave in it some token of sorrow ; if you 
 have on your table a dainty meal, renounce some part of it ; if you are 
 merry with wine at a wedding feast, strew some ashes on the bride- 
 groom's head, for', he added, 'he who mourns for the desolation of 
 Jerusalem, will enjoy its future glories' (Talm. Bab. Bathr. 60 b ). 
 
 P. 426. c The Hebrew words are: nJIDD HD 1 ?^ fOlD HD^n, an( * 
 i"ljn; Maimon. Epist., Edit. Amst., 17 a . 
 
 P. 426. d Comp. also Mendelssohn, Phaedon, p. 183 (vol. II, ed. 1842): 
 'If we have the hope of Immortality, it will, nay it must be much more 
 important for our felicity if we struggle on earth with adversity, if we 
 learn and practise patience, fortitude and submission to the Divine will, 
 than if we forget ourselves in happiness and abundance' etc. 
 
 P. 427. a Comp. Strauss, Alter und neuer Glaube, pp. 138 143. 
 
 P. 428. a Comp. Schopenhauer, Parerga, II. 20; Welt als Wille und 
 Vorst. I. 193; II. 678. To quote one instance only, Schopenhauer de- 
 clares that "Mechanics and astronomy show to us properly how the will 
 of the world acts when, in its lowest phase, it appears merely as gravity, 
 inertness and indifference". This is as if a person offered to show us 
 how the water acts when it burns. Will and inertness are diametrically 
 opposed and exclude each other. But all this, Attinghausen believes, 
 becomes true if Schopenhauer's will is taken in the sense of his own 
 cellular soul, and is applied to the elective affinity of elements as shown 
 by chemistry; see supra p. 323. 
 
 P. 428. b Hartmann said, therefore, that Schopenhauer's endeavour to 
 use the mortification of the will through ascetism as a means of our 
 final emancipation from life, was mere infatuation and 'an excrescence 
 of Eastern and fanciful mysticism', which does not gain a higher truth 
 by being expressed in the language of modern metaphysics (Hartmann 
 1. c. p. 46). 
 
 P. 429 a Hartmann 1. c. p. 43, 'im Uebrigen den wahnsinnigen Narren- 
 tanz des allgemeinen Lebens weiter gehen zu lassen, wie er eben kann 
 und mag'. 
 
 P. 429. b Hartmann 1. c. pp. 43, 46 sqq. 'The special self is not 
 the universe; in spite of the discontinuity of consciousness, there is a 
 continuity of substance, or at least an indifferent substitution of selves 
 succeeding each other in time, or even an identity of nature in selves 
 separated from each other in space'. How the substance of individual 
 men can continue to exist, when their consciousness has ceased, is one of 
 those dialectic subtleties which Attinghausen would himself have de- 
 tected, if he had not sacrificed his logic, generally so clear and robust, 
 to his eagerness of saving Pessimism by any means whatever. 
 
NOTES [pp. 431437]. 121 
 
 P. 431. a Comp. Schopenhauer, Welt als Wille und Vorsfc. I. 477 483. 
 
 P. 432. a Schopenhauer makes indeed strenuous efforts to prove that 
 there exists no 'absolute but only a relative Nothing', no nihil negativum, 
 but only a nihil privatimtm, since a Nothing always refers to something 
 which it negatives : that which is, he says, is taken as positive ; its ne- 
 gation is the Nothing; the idea of Nothing presupposes, therefore, the 
 idea of Something. This is true, but it proves that even the Nothing 
 can only exist as the reflection or the reverse of Something; that, there- 
 fore, by itself, the Nothing is a nonentity that has reality neither in 
 actual existence nor in thought; and if even the condition of ecstasy, 
 which does not distinguish between subject and object, is deemed by 
 the philosopher as too positive, what can there be at all which he is able 
 to conceive as positive? (comp. Schopenhauer 1. c. pp. 483486). 
 
 P. 433. * With such a light irony or banter, with such dialectic 
 fallacies, as is often done, we would not set aside Pessimism. Strauss, 
 for instance, argues (Alt. u. Neu. Glaub. p. 142) : If the world is bad, 
 man's reasoning, which is a part of the world, is also bad; and as the 
 world is by pessimist thinkers pronounced to be bad, it is in reality 
 good which argumentation is vitiated by the same term 'bad' being 
 used in two very different meanings : a reasoning may reveal much that 
 that is bad or painful in the world, yet it need not itself be bad or 
 false; moreover, the 'badness' in man's reasoning may just lie in its 
 being so constituted as to show to him the sad reality in its true light, 
 since, according to the poet, 'Nur der Inthum ist das Leben und das 
 Wissen ist der Tod'. Hence little weight can be attached to the pro- 
 position founded on that conclusion: 'Every true philosophy is neces- 
 sarily optimistic, since it otherwise denies its own right of existence' 
 (1. c.). Not more tenable is the contention of Rosenkranz (Wissenschaft 
 der logischen Idee, I. 329), that 'if laws rule in the world, the omni- 
 potence of Pessimism is an error' : the evil no less than the good, disease 
 no less than health, are subject to definite laws. 
 
 P. 434. a Goethe's Faust, pp. 56, 57, ed. 1840. 
 
 P. 434. b Spinoz. Ethic. IV, Prop. 73, Schol., 'perturbate, mutilate et 
 confuse'; see supra Notes p. 109. 
 
 P. 434. c Ibid. V, Propos. 6, 'Quatenus mens res omnes ut neces- 
 sarias intelligit, eatenus majorem in affectus potentiam habet, seu minus 
 ab iisdem patitur'; comp. the Demonstrat. and Schol. in loc. 
 
 P. 437. a Not even Schopenhauer denies the possibility of enjoyment, 
 which he divides into three classes, declaring the highest to be the 
 intuitive insight into truth. Yet he teaches that each enjoyment con- 
 sists only in the removal of a privation, or the appeasement of a grief, 
 and is, therefore, but negative in its nature. Spinoza and others con- 
 sider just that pleasure to be the intensest which follows as a relief and 
 contrast after a past suffering; while others still, like Plato, regard pleasure 
 and pain as inseparable, the one succeeding the other immediately 
 
122 NOTES [pp. 443-448]. 
 
 (Plat. Phaedo, c. 3). Schopenhauer's Pessimism has been praised fron 
 an ethical point of view, because it is not based on the sufferings o: 
 life, but on their source, which, in his opinion, is the antimoral dis- 
 position of the will towards life. But this deliberate and self-willec 
 estrangement from life seems to be even less ethical than aversion to life 
 in consequence of overwhelming trials. 
 
 P. 443. a 'The arguments against the possibility of a supreme intelligent 
 Being are regarded (by a large portion of the Cingalese) as so con- 
 clusive that any attempt to disprove them would be a mark of extreme 
 folly . . . "We are frequently told that our religion would be an ex- 
 cellent one, if we could leave out of it all that is said about a Creator' 
 (Spence Hardy, Legends and Theories of Buddhists, p. 221). Yet some 
 believe in one Almighty God, while others confer upon the devs divine 
 attributes. 
 
 P. 443. b The stupas (topes or steles) were at first only mounds of 
 earth, included within circular wooden rails; but later, and especially 
 by the piety of king Asoka, they were faced with stone often beautifully 
 wrought and ornamented, and so designed as to indicate the authority 
 of the monarch of 'the Three Worlds' the World of Men, of Devs, and 
 of Space (comp. Seal, Catena of Buddhist Scriptures, p. 129). 
 
 P. 444. a See Beat 1. c. pp. 239 244. In a Chinese work of Wong 
 Puh, 'probably a copy of the first records brought from India', and 
 claiming a semi-canonical authority, as belonging to the traditional or 
 smriti class of writings, we read: 'Sakya's pure body is incapable of 
 beginning or end'. Comp. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, Le Bouddha et sa 
 Religion, p. 168, 'Le Bouddhisme n'a pas divinise le Bouddha; . . . 
 jamais personne n'a songe a en faire un dieu' which requires modi- 
 fication with respect to later Buddhism; though it is perhaps true that 
 Buddha has received no 'sacrifice of adoration' (yajnd) but only 'com- 
 memorative homage' (puja; comp. Em. Burnouf, Sciences des Religions, 
 p. 23). 
 
 P. 444. b Comp. Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, II. 426, 'The 
 relic cell was composed of precious stones; in the middle was a Bodhi- 
 tree, likewise of precious stones, on the eastern side of which a bench 
 bore a golden statue of Buddha sitting in that posture in which he at 
 Uruvilva attained the highest knowledge' etc.; ibid. pp. 453, 454, 'As 
 Buddha recognised no god, and himself claimed to be only a mortal, 
 though one highly privileged, he could not establish any divine 
 worship', etc. 
 
 P. 446. a See Earth. Saint-Hil. 1. c. p. 52, after the translation of 
 the Lalitd-vistara by Foucaux. 
 
 P. 448. a Comp. Barth. Saint-Hil. 1. c. pp. 391, 392. 
 
 P. 448. b On the Nirwana see Colebrooke, Essays on the Relig. and 
 Philos. of the Hindus, 1858, pp. 258, 259 (to him the Nirwana is a 
 'profound' or 'unruffled calm', a 'perfect' or 'imperturbable and unceasing 
 
NOTES [p. 448]. 123 
 
 apathy', 'not discontinuance of individuality' or 'annihilation', but a state 
 of unmixed or tranquil happiness or ecstasy, ananda, when the soul is 
 in 'a condition of re-union with the Supreme' which seems, on the 
 whole, the correct conception, though the last qualification may give 
 rise to error); Eug. Burnouf, Introduction a 1'histoire du Buddhisme 
 Indien, pp. 18 20 ('le Nirvana est pour les theistes 1'absorption de la 
 vie individuelle en Dieu, et pour les athees 1'absorption de cette vie 
 individuelle dans le neant; mais pour les* uns et pour les autres, le 
 Nirvana est la delivrance, 1'affranchissement supreme', p. 18), 441 
 (Nirvritti nearly synonymous with Nirwana), 521 ('Qakya vit le bien 
 supreme dans 1'aneantissement complet du principe pensant' which is 
 the 'complete Nirwana'); Barthel. Saint-Hil. 1. c. pp. 132 140, 177 
 (following and exaggerating Burnouf, 'le Nirvana ou le neant, est une 
 conception monstrueuse, qui revolte la raison'), 394 399; Max Midler, 
 Buddhist Pilgrims, pp. 14, 16, 4454; Ueber den Buddhistischen 
 Nihilismus, Vortrag, 1869; Beal 1. c. pp. 172 188 (observing, that there 
 is a general agreement respecting the Nirwana of the Buddhists in 
 their own works, viz. that it signifies a condition of Best and Peace, 
 or 'the entrance of the soul into Best', a subduing of all wishes and 
 desires, indifference to joy and pain, to good and evil), 250 (translating 
 the Maha-pari-Nirwana Sutra, 'Having destroyed all boastful desires and 
 all unholy attachments, we reach a condition of Best beyond the limit 
 of human knowledge'); Spence Hardy 1. c. pp. 169, 172 174 ('So long as 
 there is attachment to existence upadana , there will be repetition of 
 birth of some form or other of sentient existence . . . When this attach- 
 ment is destroyed, the repetition of birth ceases, as ... the lamp no 
 longer burns when the whole of the oil and the wick is consumed : this 
 cessation of existence is Nirwana' which implies the right view at least 
 indirectly); Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, III. 390 sqq., 'Nirvana, 
 mit welchem Worte die vollstandige Ausloschung und Vernichtung be- 
 zeichnet wird', or 'die vollstandige Vemichtung des Daseins'; Vassilief, 
 Le Boudhisme, pp. vii, viii ('le Nirvana le neant, ou un reve, ou 
 une extase, dans laquelle s'evanouit tout sentiment et jusqu'a la con- 
 science meme de notre personne; 1'instinct s'efforce d'arriver a 1'infini 
 par I'indefini'; or 'sortir ou etre exclu de tout ce qui est du monde'), 
 93 sqq. ('il semble que par le mot Nirvana tous les Boudhistes n'entendent 
 pas la meme chose'). 
 
 P. 448. c See supra p. 386. Comp. Burnouf, Lotus, pp. 816 sqq. The 
 saint arrives to the place 'ou il n'y a ni idees ni absence d'idees': this 
 is said to have been taught even by Buddha's Brahmanistic prede- 
 cessors and masters, who are believed to have also expounded the four 
 dhyanas in all essential points. The eight degrees of ecstatic contem- 
 plation are mainly identical with the so-called 'eight deliverances' 
 (vimuJcti), which are frequently mentioned (compare 1. c. pp. 543, 
 824832). 
 
124 NOTES [pp. 448453]. 
 
 P. 448. d Seal 1. c. p. 172 observes: 'The figure of a lamp gone out 
 seems to point more to the extinction of personal or individual being, 
 than to the extinction of all being'. 
 
 P. 449. a Burnouf, Introduction, p. 83, translation of the Sutra of 
 Mandhatri. 
 
 P. 450. a Except perhaps in Tibet, the Buddhist priesthood has, in 
 spite of its great numbers and riches, never formed an oppressive ' or 
 dangerous hierarchy (comp. Barth. Saint-Hil. 1. c. pp. 298, 299; see, 
 however, pp. 403 405). At present, not a few of the Bhixus engage 
 in commerce or take part in the government (Vassilief 1. c. p. 87). 
 
 P. 450. b The twelve observances of the ascetic are: 1. To clothe 
 himself only in rags gathered from the roads, heaps of rubbish, or 
 cemeteries. 2. Not to have more than three of these ragged coverings, 
 which he must sow together with his own hand. 3. To wear over such a 
 garment a yellow woollen cloak procured and made in the same manner 
 as the garment: if the materials are new, the raiments, before being 
 worn, must be soiled with mud and dust. 4. To live on alms to be 
 begged in silence with a wooden bowl in his hand. 5. To have no 
 more than one meal in the day. 6. Never to eat after noon. 7. To 
 live in the woods, except during the rainy season, when he may enter 
 a vihara. 8. To protect himself solely with the foliage of the trees. 
 9. To sit with the back leaning against the stem of a tree. 10. To 
 sleep in the same upright position. 11. To leave his piece of carpet 
 unmoved after having once spread it under a certain tree. 12. To go 
 at least once a month in the night to a cemetery, to meditate on human 
 vanities (comp. Saint-Hil. 1. c. pp. 86, 87, etc). 
 
 P. 451. a Vassilief 1. c. Introduction. 
 
 P. 453. a The five Jchandas are called, respectively, rupa, wedana, 
 sannya, sankhara, and winyana; that is, body, sensation, perception, 
 discrimination, and consciousness. The 'organised body' is considered to 
 consist of twenty-eight elements and properties. 
 
 P. 453. b Comp. Spence Hardy 1. c. pp. xlii, xliii, 162, 163, 211; 
 see ibid. p. 240, Buddha says: 'It should be distinctly known, All this 
 (body, sensation etc.) is not mine; I am not it; it is not to me a Soul'. 
 Yet some, holding heterodox opinions, say that upon death the soul 
 flees happily away like a bird from its cage (ibid. p. 237); and many 
 Buddhists at present believe in the existence of a soul, and regard the 
 statement that Buddha taught there was no self as a misrepresentation 
 (ibid. p. 220). 
 
 P. 453. c Barth. Saint-Hil. 1. c. pp. 162, 163. The school of the 
 Svabhavikas, still found in Nepal, maintains that nothing exists but 
 Nature, or rather Substance, which is self-existent (svabhavat), having 
 no Creator or Ruler. Buddha is reported to have said that he ab- 
 stained from teaching his disciples a cosmogony, as this knowledge 
 would be of no benefit to them, and all speculation on the subject is 
 
NOTES [p. 454]. 125 
 
 hopeless. See Spence Hardy 1. c. p. 159. A sketch of the Buddhist 
 universe is given ibid. pp. 8096; the curious views of the production 
 of men and women by 'the apparitional birth', by touch or look, per- 
 fumes or flowers, food or the voice, and of beings not human by pu- 
 tridity or warmth, the wind or the rain, ibid. p. 161. At the dissolution 
 of any given world, the destruction of its elements is considered complete, 
 and another world is created out of nothing. The periodical destruction 
 is successively accomplished by water, fire, and wind : the next in order 
 is by fire (ibid. p. 175). 
 
 P. 454. a The principle that life is only a tissue of griefs and miseries, 
 and salvation consists in never entering it, is common to the Buddhists and 
 the Brahmans; the difference lies only in the mode of 'deliverance', 
 which is more consistent and nobler in the Buddhist's creed. Yet, as 
 will presently be pointed out, the Buddhist's actual life is not one of 
 'profound and irremediable sadness', or an 'odious burden' which he is 
 anxious to shake off. 
 
 P. 454. b The twelve 'Causes of continued Existence' (nid&nas) or of 
 'the complete Concatenation of Sorrow', begin thus: 'On account of ig- 
 norance merit and demerit are accumulated, on account of merit and 
 demerit the conscious faculty is produced'; and then come, successively, 
 the sensitive, perceptive and reasoning powers, the body, and so on till 
 birth is produced, and 'in consequence of birth follow decay, death, 
 sorrow, weeping, grief, discontent and vexation' (comp. Burnouf, In- 
 troduction, pp. 485 sqq. ; Lotus, pp. 530 544; Spence Hardy 1. c. 
 p. 167; Earth. Saint-Hil. 1. c. pp. 127 131, 167, 168). This mutual 
 concatenation of causes, together with the 'Four Sublime Truths' (see 
 infra), forms the oldest and most authentic foundation of Buddha's 
 doctrine. 
 
 P. 454. c The sutras attribute to Buddha, rightly or wrongly, the 
 following sentiment: 'Every object is empty; no object has a proper 
 substance; all substance is empty; within is emptiness, without is 
 emptiness; personality itself is without substance; all compound things 
 are perishable, and, like the lightning of heaven, pass rapidly away'; or, 
 condensed into one sentence, 'This is transitory, this is misery, this is 
 void' (Earth. Saint-Hil. 1. c. pp. 131, 155, 168), the school of Pradjna- 
 paramita professing 'to know nothing and to believe nothing'. 
 
 P. 454. d Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire (1. c. p. 161) writes: 'Ainsi igno- 
 rance de la notion du bien; egoisme aveugle; meprise absolue sur le 
 devoir; scepticisme a peu pres universel; aversion fanatique de la vie 
 qu'on meconnait; pusillanimite devant ses douleurs; tristesse inconsolable 
 dans un monde que 1'on ne comprend pas; voila deja bien des erreurs; 
 mais le Bouddhisme en commet de bien plus fortes encore', (comp. ibid. 
 pp. 168, 177, 178). It is not too much to say that, almost in every 
 particular, the exact reverse is much nearer the truth, as will be ap- 
 parent from the conversations. 
 
126 NOTES [pp. 454461]. 
 
 P. 454. e Comp. Farrar, Bampton Lectures, p. 35, etc. 
 
 P. 455. a Spence Hardy 1. c. pp. xlviii, xlix. 
 
 P. 455. b See supra p. 429. 
 
 P. 455. c Comp. Hardy 1. c. pp. 164 166, 'that which transmigrates 
 is not the spirit, the soul, the self; but the conduct and character of 
 the man, something too subtle to be denned or explained'. 
 
 P. 455. d Comp. Bastian, Reise in Siam, p. 73. 
 
 P. 456. a Comp. Barth. Saint-Hil. 1. c. pp. 169, 170, 335. Previous 
 to Gautama were twenty-four Buddhas. As characteristics of a great 
 man thirty-two points are specified and very minutely described (comp. 
 Burnouf, Lotus, pp. 553647). 
 
 P. 456. b John III. 3; Gal. VI. 15; 1 Pet. I. 23, etc. 
 
 P. 458. a Comp. Vassilief 1. c. I. 5, 18, 19. 
 
 P. 461. a The 'Four Sublime Truths' are, therefore: grief, the cause 
 of grief, the annihilation of grief, and the way that leads to it. Burnouf 
 (Lotus, p. 517) states them thus: '1. la douleur, condition necessaire de 
 toute existence; 2. la production de 1' existence causee par les passions 
 (indiquante 1'inevitable sujetion des etres aux passions et aux desirs sen- 
 suels qui les attachent fatalement a 1' existence) ; 3. la cessation des pas- 
 sions; et4. le moyen d'arrivera cette cessation' (comp. ibid. pp. 517 538; 
 Introduction, p. 629; Seal, Catena, pp. 155, 160172; Vassilief 1. c. 
 p. 93, 'souffrance, enchainement, renonciation, et le chemin'). 
 
 P. 461. b Comp. Barth. Saint-Hil. 1. c. pp. 8082; etc. 
 
 P. 461. c Seal 1. c. pp. 156, 251; comp. Barth. Saint-Hil. 1. c. p. 84, 
 where the verse is thus rendered: 'Abstention de tout peche, pratique 
 constante de toutes les vertus, domination absolue de son propre coeur, 
 tel est 1'enseignement du Bouddha'. 
 
 P. 461. d Seal 1. c. p. 158. 
 
 P. 461. e Comp. Barth. Saint-Hil. pp. 383 sqq., 387 sqq. 
 
 P. 461. f Seal 1. c. pp. 202, 203; comp. Ps. CXIX. 103, 'How sweet 
 are Thy words unto my palate ! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth' ! 
 XIX. 11, 'sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb', etc. The ac- 
 count of Buddha's addresses generally concludes with the words: 'All 
 the great Bhixus, having heard the words of Buddha, were filled with 
 joy, and departed'. The object of all lessons is stated to be attainment 
 of 'permanence, joy, personality, purity'. Yet it is deemed praiseworthy 
 to subordinate the chase and similar pastimes to the study of the Law 
 and to works of charity; and the priests are forbidden to indulge in 
 dancing, singing and any other music (Barth. Saint-Hil. 1. c. pp. 108, 361). 
 
 P. 461. 8' To these are joiued five others of minor importance: to ab- 
 stain from meals out of the regular times; from attending dances and 
 theatrical performances; from wearing ornaments and using perfumes; 
 from sleeping in a luxurious bed; and from accepting gold or silver. 
 The ten commands enumerated are those to which alone the clerical 
 novice has to pledge himself, except that the third and the fifth are, in 
 
NOTES [pp. 461-464], 127 
 
 his case, of greater stringency, being 'not to have any sexual intercourse', 
 and 'not to take any drinks likely to disturb him in his religious duties 
 or reflections'. They were minutely, and often veiy beautifully, deve- 
 loped hi a manner not unlike that of the Talmudists; for instance, the 
 prohib'tion of lying is made to involve backbiting, impropriety of language, 
 and e\ >n empty and frivolous talk. Backbiting is held in abhorrence 
 especially because it tends to cause strife, whereas it is the Buddhist's 
 duty ha every way to promote union and friendship. The language 
 employed should be 'gentle, pleasant to the ear, affectionate, heart- 
 winning, polite, agreeable to others' (comp. Barth. Saint-Hil. pp. 84, 89, 
 90, 361). 
 
 P. 461. h Comp. Barth. Saint-Hil. p. 88; see also Burnouf, Lotus, 
 pp. 544 553, where the second virtue is stated to be la perfection de 
 la vertue (de la moralite, des bonnes moeurs, de la bonne conduite)', and 
 the fourth 'la perfection de 1'energie ou de I'effort'. 
 P. 462. a Beat 1. c. pp. 193, 194. 
 
 P. 462. b Comp. Barth. Saint-Hil. pp. 149 152, 'il n'agit jamais qu'en 
 vue de la remuneration qu'il espere ; il eteint toutes les autres convoitises, 
 maisil garde celle-la' ! and so on in many modifications; see also supra p. 163. 
 P. 462. c Beat 1. c. p. 190; then foUow the words: 'To remain fixed 
 in religious meditation, this is to conquer the Devil'. 
 P. 463. a At the new and the full moon. 
 
 P. 463. b Barth. Saint-Hil. pp. 8891, 373. King Piyadasi, long 
 after Buddha, issued an edict ordering the whole people to assemble 
 once every year for three days to hear the reading of the Law and 
 to make a general and public confession of their sins: which recalls 
 an analogous command of the Pentateuch (Deut. XXXI. 10 13). 
 
 P. 463. c Comp. Burnouf, Introduction, p. 198; Barth. Saint-Hil. 
 pp. 144, 145, where, as the testimony of an opponent, the following is 
 valuable: 'La gloire, qui lui (a Bouddha) est propre et que mil ne lui 
 dispute, c'est cette charite sans bornes, dont son ame parait embrasee . . . 
 Sans doute 1'esprit Chretien connait des doctrines plus belles et plus 
 hautes; mais six ou sept siecles avant qu'il ne renouvelle le monde, 
 c'est deja une bien admirable idee que celle d'associer tous les homines, 
 tous les etres, dans une foi commune, et de les confondre dans uue 
 egale estime et dans un egal amour'. 
 
 P. 463. d Comp. Barth. Saint-Hil. 1. c. pp. 148, 378, 379, etc. 
 P. 464. a Barth. Saint-Hil. 1. c. pp. 9193; comp. Burnouf, In- 
 troduction, p. 21, where the remarkable address is thus summarised: 
 'Les maisons, ou les enfants honorent leur pere et leur mere, sont aussi 
 saintes que si Brahma, un precepteur spirituelle, le dieu de la famille 
 et le feu domestique se trouvaient au milieu d'elles'. 
 P. 464. b Seal, Catena, p. 199. 
 
 P. 464. c From Buddha's Dhammapada; comp. Max Muller, Lectures 
 on the Science of Religion, p. 241. 
 
128 NOTES [pp. 464470]. 
 
 P. 464. d Bbhtlinffk, Indische Spriiche, p. 101. 
 
 P. 464. e Beal 1. c. p. 203. 
 
 P. 464. f Ibid. p. 195. P. 464. 6 Ibid. p. 203. 
 
 P. 464. h Ibid. p. 196. P. 465. a Ibid. p. 193. 
 
 P. 465. b Ibid. p. 194. 
 
 P. 465. c Ibid. p. 196; comp. p. 203, 'The state of the perfect equi- 
 librium of the mind is the true standing ground'; p. 201, 'Keep the 
 mind well adjusted (that is, guard it from extremes), and you will be 
 able to acquire reason' : this is illustrated by the example of a lute, the 
 strings of which must neither be fixed too loosely nor too tightly; in 
 the former case they give no sound at all, in the latter case too sharp 
 a sound; they should be tuned to a just medium. 
 
 P. 465. d Ibid. p. 199. P. 465. e Ibid. p. 197. 
 
 P. 465. f See Beal 1. c. pp. 239244; comp. also ibid. pp. 398 409, 
 the 'Liturgical Services of the great compassionate Kwan-yin' (saec. VI 
 A. D.), with Imperial Preface of Yung Loh, of the Ming dynasty, 
 written A. D. ]412; especially the confessions of sin, pp. 407, 408. 
 
 P. 466. a Beal I c. pp.183, 194, 195, 199. Among the eight hundred 
 'manifest Gates of the Law' are: faith, purity, discretion, benevolence, 
 pity, modesty, self-knowledge, respect (Barth. Saint-Hil. p. 52). 'The 
 Dhamma padam, the Pali work on Buddhist ethics', says Spence Hardy 
 (Eastern Monachism, p. 169), contains 'a collection of precepts that in 
 purity of its ethics could scarcely be equalled from any other heathen 
 author'; or as Knighton (History of Ceylon, p. 77) remarks, 'a code of 
 morality and a list of precepts which, for purity, excellence and wisdom, 
 is only second to that of the Divine Legislator himself. 
 
 P. 466. b Barth. Saint-Hil. 1. c. pp. iv, vii. xxiii, 32, 177, 'sa morale 
 est incomplete et vaine en ce qu'elle s'appuie sur une vue tres fausse 
 de la nature de 1'homme et de la vie qu'il mene ici bas'; etc. 
 
 P. 466. c Spence Hardy 1. c. pp. xiii, 217, 218; comp. ibid. p. 185, 
 'In the whole story of humanity, there is nothing more cheerless, more 
 depressing, or more afflictive'. 
 
 P. 466. d Max Mutter, Buddhist Pilgrims, pp. 20, 21, 54, 'hallucinations' 
 not worth noticing. 
 
 P. 467. a Comp. Barth. Saint-Hil. 1. c. pp. 147, 148. 
 
 P. 467. b Comp. Spence Hardy 1. c. pp. 220 sqq.; see supra p. 186. 
 
 P. 467. c Comp. Barth. Saint-Hil. 1. c. pp. 150165. 
 
 P. 467. d Comp. 1. c. pp. 159, 172, 175, etc. 
 
 P. 467. e Ibid. pp. 374, 387, 391, 392. 
 
 P. 468. a Comp. Spence Hardy 1. c. pp. 183185, 211, 212. 
 
 P. 468. b Barth. Saint-Hil. 1. c. p. 182. 
 
 P. 468. c Comp. Barth. Saint-Hil. 1. c. pp. 94, 114119, 145, 146, 
 285, 399, 400. 
 
 P. 470. a Comp. Barth. Saint. Hil. 1. c. pp. 78, 110, 181, etc. See 
 supra, Note a of p. 466. 
 
NOTES [pp. 470483]. 129 
 
 P. 470. b Seal 1. c., Preface. Even Spence Hardy (1. c. p. xiii) 
 observes: 'The system elaborated by Gotama Buddha ... is one of the 
 most wonderful emanations that ever proceeded from man's intellect, unaided 
 by the outward revelation of God*. 
 
 P. 470. c Comp. Burnouf, Introduction, pp. 462, 478, 520; Max 
 Miiller, Buddhist Pilgrims, p. 53; Seal 1. c. pp. 197, 202, 203, 'The 
 four elements in your body are only names, and therefore without any 
 personal reality'; Earth. Saint. Hil. 1. c. p. 131, etc.; see supra Notes 
 p. 125 (P. 454 e ). 
 
 P. 470. d See supra pp. 38, 39; comp. Barth. Saint-Hil. 1. c. pp. 387, 
 392 sqq., etc. 
 
 P. 475. a See Goethe, West-ostlicher Divan, Werke, IV. p. 264. 
 
 P. 475. b Comp. Strauss, Reimarus und seine Schutzschrift etc. 
 p. 279. 
 
 P. 476. a See Plato, Sympos. pp. 208E 212 A; also Phaedr. p. 249; 
 comp. Zeller, Philosophic der Griechen, II. 1, p. 387, 'Seinem wahren 
 "Wesen nach ist der Eros der philosophische Trieb, das Streben nach 
 Darstellung des absolut Schonen, nach Einbildung der Idee in die 
 Endlichkeit durch spekulatives "Wissen und philosophisch.es Leben, und 
 nur als ein Moment in der Entwickelung dieses Triebes ist alle Freude 
 an irgend welchem besonderen Schonen zu betrachten'. 
 
 P. 478. a Compare Schiller's Drei Worte des Glaubens, und Drei 
 Worte des Wahns. 
 
 P. 478. b Comp. Zeller 1. c. pp. 439455, 601. 
 
 P. 479. a Plat. Legg. VII. 10, p. 803 B, C, fan ny rotvvv TO. m-v 
 av^ocoTTCov TT^ay/tara fisya\ri<; fJih JTrouS^ QVK a/a . . , av'&puirov $s (^>r t fju) 
 &sov Tt naiyviw etvai fjiSfir^avyjfjLsvov. Comp. ibid. I. 644 D ; V. 728 D ; 
 X. 903 D, etc. 
 
 P. 479. b Comp. ibid. V. 739; VII. 807 B; see Kepubl. IX. 592 B. 
 
 P. 479. c Legg. V. 727, 728, 731; VI. 773; VII. 797; IX 874. 
 
 P. 479. d Comp. Plat. Legg. X. 896, 898, 904; see Zeller 1. c. 
 pp. 634 637. 
 
 P. 479. e Plat. Phaed. c. 6 ; see supra Notes p. 9 (P. 70 C ). 
 
 P. 482. a This may easily be made evident. Man's chief attributes are: 
 Intellect, Morals, Religious sentiment, Imagination, and Character. Now 
 his Intellect is satisfied or trained by the Epicurean's freedom from 
 superstition and Spinoza's love of truth; his Morals by the Monist's 
 general sympathy and the Buddhist's compassion and benevolence; his 
 Religious sentiment by the Biblical peace, a genuine idealism, and the 
 Buddhist's resignation and contentment; his Imagination by the Greek's 
 art or beauty; and his Character by the Stoic's fortitude. One other 
 instinct or faculty, which might seem to have been overlooked, will be 
 pointed out at the conclusion of the chapter. 
 
 P. 483. a ShaJcesp. Jul. Caesar, V. v. 73 75; comp. Romeo and 
 Juliet, TTT. iii. 115, 'I thought thy disposition better temper'd'. 
 
 i 
 
130 NOTES [pp. 483494]. 
 
 P. 483. Olympiodor. c. 6, uo yap avrai itu^a} Xsyovra/ ysvsa'&ai navap- 
 P.WIQI; comp. PZa#. Eep. 401, 403; Phileb. 64, 66. etc.; see Zeller 1. c. 
 pp. 317319. 
 
 P. 485. a Xenoph. Memor. IV. viii. 11, e^o'/fs/ TOIOVTO^ $7va/ o/ T o v 5*77 
 aptyToz TS avyp KOU sv^ai/JLOVsurarog. 
 
 P. 485. b Comp. Spiess, Logos Spermatikos, p. 398. 
 
 P. 485. c Comp. Col. I. 15; II. 9; Hebr. I. 3, 'the brightness of his 
 glory and the express image of his person', etc. 
 
 P. 485. d See Matt. IX. 58; XXVIII. 18; 2 Cor. VIII. 9; Philipp. 
 II. 7; comp. Matt. VIII. 20; John 1.3; Kom. XIV. 9; 1 Cor. VIII. 6; 
 Col. I. 16; Hebr. I. 2, etc. 
 
 P. 485. e Hebr. IV. 15, etc. 
 
 . P. 485. f John IV. 34; VI. 38; VIII. 50; IX. 4; comp. XVII. 4; 
 XIX. 30. 
 
 P. 485. S i Pet. II. 22; Acts X. 38. 
 
 P. 485. h Hebr. VII. 26; comp. 2 Cor. V. 21; 1 John III. 5, etc. 
 
 P. 486. a Hebr. I. 1, 2. 
 
 P. 486. b Comp. 1 Cor. XII. 
 
 P. 487. a Mic. VI. 8, ^ "1DH rnnNl DDt^D nWJJ. 
 
 P. 487. b Comp, Isai. XXXIII. 15, 16; LVIII. 6, 7; Jer. VII. 5, 6; 
 IX. 22, 23; XXII. 3; Ezek. XVIII. 59; Zechar. VII. 9, 10; VHI. 
 16, 17; Ps. XV. 1 sqq.; XXIV. 3. 4; XXXIV. 1215; Job XXIX. 
 1217; esp. XXXI. 140. 
 
 P. 487. c Eccles. IV. 912. 
 
 P. 488. a Comp. Talm. Yom. 23 a , 86 a ; Shabb. 88 b ; Ethics of the 
 Fathers, VI; etc. 
 
 P. 491. a Plat. Theaet. c. 25> p. 176 B, o/*o/cc<n ^ew Kara TO UVTOV 
 o/o/coa/ $e ^I'KCCIOV K<xi oovov fJLSTO. (frpovrjGstog ysvsa&ai. 
 
 P. 491. Ibid., $10 KOU ireipa&ai %py sv^sv^s sKslas tyevysiv o,rt ra^/jra, 
 (frvyy ^e ofjiotuuig K. r. \. 
 
 P. 492. a Comp. Neander, Vorlesungen uber Geschichte der Christlichen 
 Ethik, pp. 65, 67. 
 
 P. 492. b Plat. Theaet. 1. c., &s<j otiapy ou^a^w^ '/KO?, oXX' w$ o7ov 
 TS SiKaivTixTQt;, KOU ovK effTiv uTt3 oftoioTspov ovdsv ^ og v Ty/dcov u ysy-fjrai 
 
 0,T1 SlKaMTCtTOi; K. T. \. 
 
 P. 492. c Comp. Plat. Eep. VI. 508 E; VII. 517 B; Tim. 28 C, TOV 
 
 /jisy ovv TroirjTyv KOU n/xTspa TOV^S TOV Travrog svpstv TS epyov, KCU evpovTcc sig 
 iravTag a^vvuTov \systv: etc. See on Plato's Ideas in general, Zeller 1. c. 
 pp. 412 457; on the supreme Idea of the Good specially, pp. 448 sqq. 
 
 P. 494. a Plat. Legg. IV. p. 716 C. 
 
 P. 494. b Neander 1. c. p. 72, where the author continues: 'Denn es 
 wird hier bezeichnet die demiithige Unterordnung des Greistes unter das 
 gottliche Gresetz in der sittlichen Weltordnung, im Gegensatz gegen die 
 mit dem Wort sfcp'&eii; angedeutete Selbstiiberhebung die Gesinnung, in 
 welcher das Bewusstsein der Abhangigkeit von Gott der Grundton ist*. 
 
NOTES [pp. 495500]. 131 
 
 P. 495. a Neander 1. c. p. 75; comp. p. 79, 'der Staat kann nicht 
 umnittelbar das Hochste selbst darstellen, sondern 1st nur dazu bestimmt, 
 die Bedingungen fiir die Realisirung aller Giiter der Menschheit und 
 des hochsten Gutes zu sichern, und sie gegen die storende Willkur zu 
 verwahren'. 
 
 P. 495. b Comp. Plat. Legg. V. p. 739 D, etc. 
 
 P. 496. a Neander 1. c. p. 83, and in general pp. 57 85. 
 
 P. 496. b Plat. Phileb. c. 10, p. 20 B, C, /wow mpi re ^owfr KO.} 
 (f>pwr;<Tewg, ov^srepov auro2v sari raya^o'v, aXX' aXXo rt rpirov, srspw pev 
 TOVTWV, apetvov $e apfaTv; c. 11, pp. 21, 22, T/ I' o vvafjKf>oTepog, w 
 Hpwrapxe, e'f apfaiv avftfufoeti; KOIVO<; yewfjisvoi; ; 'HSovTfc \syett; Kai vov KOI 
 (ftpovyasKi; K. T. X. 
 
 P. 498. a Comp. Schiller, Ueber die aesthetischeErziehung des Menschen, 
 Letter X. 
 
 P. 498. b Shakesp. Sonnet LIV; Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn. 
 
 P. 498. c Comp. Plat. Rep. X. p. 607 A; also III. pp. 398 C 401 A; 
 Legg. II. pp. 653, 660; VII. pp. 800, 814, etc. 
 
 P. 499. a Plat. Rep. II. 377 B, TT/JCOTOV 77 W^v, wg SOIKSV, eV/araTTjTg'ov 
 TO/ ftv'&oirQiQ'?/;, Kai ov JJLSV av /caXov Tro/^uwa/v, syKpirsov, ov ^av ^77, TTO- 
 Kpireov: Legg. H. 656, 658, 668, 671; VII. 797802, 813. However, in 
 his later work, the Laws, Plato admitted that the Comedy teaches us 
 what we should avoid, the Tragedy what we should strive to imitate; 
 yet he did not abandon the control of the state (comp. Legg. VII. 
 816 D sqq.; XI. 935 D sqq.). See in general, Zeller 1. c. pp. 608615. 
 
 P. 500. a 'Wer "Wissenschaft und Kunst besitzt, der hat Religion; wer 
 diese beiden nicht besitzt, der habe Religion'. 
 
 P. 500. b Here Wolfram entered upon an exposition of Schiller's theory ; 
 but as his summary has probably little interest for many readers on 
 account of its abstract character, we have omitted it in the text and 
 insert it in this place for the benefit of those to whom a brief account 
 may perhaps not be unwelcome.* 
 
 'I must content myself, continued Wolfram, 'with a few general 
 outlines, whereas those Letters as a whole reveal the great poet as one 
 of the acutest and closest of reasoners. Man in his first stage, he 
 explains, is a sensual being; it is his aim to transform himself into a 
 being intellectual and moral; and there exists no other way of making 
 the sensual man rational than by first making him aesthetic. In order 
 to proceed from the passive state of feeling to the active state of reflection 
 
 * See Schiller, Aesthetische Er- ; courage, as far as we can, the study 
 ziehung des Menschen, Letters j of a work which, we believe, will 
 XXIII XXVII. We have given ever remain the basis of all theo- 
 
 Schiller's chief ideas in a trans- 
 lation as literal as possible of his 
 
 retical enquiries into the functions 
 of Art and Aesthetics, and the im- 
 
 own words ; in doing this we have } portance of which is being more 
 been guided by the wish to en- j and more acknowledged. 
 
132 NOTES [p. 500]. 
 
 and will, he must pass through the intermediate one of aesthetic freedom. 
 In his physical phase man endures the power of nature; he releases 
 himself from this power in the aesthetic stage; and he rules over it in the 
 moral one; or in other words, both individuals and nations, in order to 
 fulfil their destiny, must advance from Nature, through Art, to Culture'. 
 
 'Is that intermediate link indeed indispensable'? asked Gideon. 'Are 
 truth and duty alone and by themselves not strong enough to find ac- 
 cess to the mind of the sensual man'? 
 
 'Decidedly', replied "Wolfram; 'truth and duty must absolutely owe 
 their directing force to themselves only. That middle state is in itself 
 of no significance whatever for our intellectual and moral worth. Beauty 
 supplies no result either to our reason or our will. It has no influence 
 on our thoughts or our resolutions but it involves the faculty for both; 
 since the aesthetic frame of mind affords to the sensual man the freedom 
 to discover or to seize the truth by his own energy. It marks his transition 
 from the physical or passive to the intellectual or active condition, be- 
 cause it includes both the one and the other. Comprising the whole of 
 humanity, it involves potentially its individual manifestations. It en- 
 courages every single function, because it favours none exclusively. It 
 enables us to turn with equal readiness to seriousness and play, to repose 
 and motion, to meditation and reception. It stimulates the operations 
 of reason even in the sphere of sensuality, and it prepares and refines 
 the physical man sufficiently to let him develop into an intellectual being 
 merely by the common laws of liberty. This step from the aesthetic 
 to the logical and moral state from beauty to truth and duty is in- 
 finitely more easy than the step from the physical to the aesthetic state 
 from a low and blind existence to one of form and taste. In order to lead 
 the aesthetic man to intelligence and high thoughts, it is only necessary to 
 offer to him great opportunities; whereas in order to bring the sensual 
 man to the same point, his whole nature must be thoroughly changed. 
 
 'Every one should strive after the faculty of enlarging his judgment 
 and will into the judgment of our species, of finding the road from his 
 limited existence to an infinite one, and of rising from a condition of in- 
 ward dependence to release and freedom. That invaluable faculty is 
 gained by the rules of beauty, which effect that man at no moment is 
 merely an individual, or stands under the dominion of the natural laws. 
 Form and play Spieltrieb . though without legitimate influence on 
 truth and morality, are allowed to govern in the domains of happiness. 
 Play, in the largest sense of the word, was the existence of the Greek 
 gods, living free from labour and all burdens, free from duty and care ; 
 hence their features show no distinguishable trace of inclination or will, 
 because both are intimately blended'. 
 
 'But are the stages you have pointed out', said Gideon, 'really se- 
 parated in the manner described? and if not, would this not prove that 
 the intermediate aesthetic state cannot claim the importance you assign to it' ? 
 
NOTES [p. 500]. 133 
 
 'It is true', rejoined Wolfram, 'a state of merely savage nature, of 
 purely aesthetic liberty, or of perfect culture, cannot be pointed out in 
 any age or people; it is simply an idea, but an idea plainly illustrated 
 by experience in the minutest details. In actual history the three epochs 
 more or less pass into each other; man was never entirely in the phy- 
 sical state and he never escapes from it completely'; yet in theory those 
 three phases must be kept apart. As long as man, in his earliest or 
 natural condition, views the visible world passively, he is still one with 
 it; and just because he is himself only a cosmic being, the world does 
 not exist for him. Not until, in the aesthetic stage, he separates himself 
 from the world and comprehends it by his contemplation, his indivi- 
 duality becomes distinct, and he recognises a world, because he has 
 ceased to be one with it. Reflection, rescuing him from the compulsion 
 and undivided power of nature, creates in his mind an instantaneous 
 peace, and the form, the image of the Infinite, is mirrored on the fugitive 
 and ever changeful ground of time. "When there is light in man, there 
 is without him no longer darkness; when there is tranquillity in his mind, 
 the storm in the universe is appeased, and the conflicting forces of nature 
 find rest within permanent boundaries"* A slave of nature while he 
 merely feels it, man becomes its lawgiver when he seizes it in his 
 thought. He proves and exercises his liberty by fashioning formless 
 matter. He is delivered from every dread and apprehension, and is shielded 
 from the rage of the elementary powers. With a noble freedom he rises 
 against his gods. "These throw off the ghostly masks with which they 
 terrified his childhood, and surprise him with his own likeness by becoming 
 his conception. The Oriental's divine monster, which governs the world 
 with the blind force of a beast of prey, is in the imagination of the 
 Greeks changed into the gentle lineaments of humanity; the empire of 
 the Titans falls, and the limitless strength is vanquished by the 
 limitless form"'.** 
 
 'But have you not', said Gideon with some irritation, as he suspected 
 in Wolfram's last words a covert attack on the Biblical Deity, 'have you 
 not yourself, in these observations, proceeded at once from the material 
 world to that of spirits, and thus tacitly admitted that the intervening 
 stage of beauty or aesthetics is superfluous'? 
 
 'I confess', replied Wolfram, 'my imagination has misled me to a 
 bound not in consonance with human nature, and I must, therefore, 
 make again a step backward. Beauty is indeed the work of free per- 
 ception, and with it we enter into the world of ideas, yet without leaving 
 the world of the senses, as we do in the search after truth, which is the 
 pure product of active and objective abstraction. It is in direct and 
 mutual relation to feeling; in the pleasure it affords, action and passion 
 are one. It is indeed form, since we behold it; but at the same time 
 
 * Letter XXV, p. 79. | ** Ibid. p. 80, 
 
134 NOTES [p. 500]. 
 
 it is life, because we feel it. It is at once a condition and a deed. 
 Therefore it serves triumphantly to demonstrate that passiveness is not 
 incompatible with action, nor matter with form, nor limitation with in- 
 finitudein fact, that man's physical dependence, which is inevitable, 
 by no means destroys or endangers his moral liberty. Whereas logical 
 reflection excludes feeling while the reflection is carried on, and feeling 
 excludes reflection while the feeling works, the enjoyment of the beautiful, 
 or the aesthetic unity, involves a real combination and interchange of 
 matter and form, and proves the possibility of blending our two natures, 
 and of accomplishing the infinite in our finite existence in a word proves 
 the possibility of the most exalted humanity. Thus the progress from 
 sensual dependence to moral liberty is shown to be feasible, since beauty 
 makes it evident that the latter may well co-exist with the former, and 
 that man, in order to manifest himself as a spirit, need not escape from 
 matter; as, on the other hand, it gives us the guarantee that man is 
 able to rise from the material limits to the absolute, and by his thought 
 and will may oppose himself to sensuality, since he can assert his liberty 
 even in conjunction with the senses. When he has once paved his way 
 from a common to an aesthetic reality, or from the mere consciousness of 
 life to the consciousness of beauty, there can no longer be a question 
 how he may pass from beauty to truth'. 
 
 'You admit, it appears', said Gideon, 'that the aesthetic disposition has 
 not its source in morality, and yet you presume that, on its part, it 
 calls forth liberty'. 
 
 'Exactly so', rejoined Wolfram ; 'it must be a free gift of nature, because 
 the favour of circumstances alone can unloosen the fetters of the physical 
 state and lead the savage to beauty. Its first symptoms are the delight 
 in mere appearance Schein ,and the desire of adornment and play. 
 The reality of the objects is their own attribute, but the appearance is 
 the work of man, and a mind which finds pleasure in appearance, is no 
 longer rejoiced at that which it receives, but at that which it does; the 
 barriers of animal existence are broken through, and a career is opened 
 which is endless'. 
 
 'But are we here not', said Gideon, 'threatened by the very danger 
 which has already been pointed out by Plato and which I cannot consider 
 unfounded the danger of destroying all objective truth and reality, and 
 thus thoroughly uprooting solidity and sincerity of character'? 
 
 'That of which I speak', rejoined Wolfram, 'is the aesthetic appearance 
 which is distinct from reality, not the logical one which is often con- 
 founded with it it is that appearance which is admired simply because 
 it is such, and not because it is deemed to be something superior; the 
 former alone is play, whereas the latter is deception. Despising that 
 appearance which cannot imperil truth, means despising the fine arts in 
 general, whose essence is appearance. To the question, therefore, how 
 far appearance is permitted in the moral world, the answer is short and 
 
NOTES [pp. 500502]. 
 
 135 
 
 decisivein so far as the appearance is aesthetic, that is, that genuine 
 and independent appearance which does not claim to represent reality, 
 and which, borrowing no aid from reality, does not require to be re- 
 presented by it. If it is false and simulates reality, or if it is not pure 
 and needs reality for its effects, it is nothing but a base instrument of 
 aesthetic impotence and moral perverseness for producing material ends. 
 But wherever, in an individual or nation, we find the genuine and in- 
 dependent appearance, we may safely expect intelligence and taste, and 
 all the excellence that flows from them. There we shall see the ideal 
 rule over common life, and honour triumph over utility, thought over 
 passion, the dream of immortality over the enjoyment of the hour. In 
 one word' etc. 
 
 P. 500. c Schiller, Spaziergang, fin. 
 
 P. 501. a Schiller, Aesthet. Erziehung, Letter XXVII. 
 
 P. 501. b Comp. Haeckel, Gesammelte populare Vortrage, II. p. 163. 
 
 P. 502. a At this point Canon Mortimer dwelt eagerly on the relation 
 between Christianity and Art; but as his remarks seemed somewhat to 
 interrupt, or at least to obscure, the progress of the discussion, they are 
 here reported separately. 
 
 'The Christian Church', said the Canon, with a side glance at Rabbi 
 Gideon, 'has never failed to recognise the great importance of Art and 
 has imparted to all its branches to architecture, sculpture and painting, 
 to music, lyrical and didactic poetry, and also to the drama an impulse 
 stronger even than that they received from the revival of learning. It 
 is true, neither St. Paul, who in his travels repeatedly passed through 
 lands abounding with master-pieces of Greek art, nor Luther, who had 
 an opportunity of seeing in Eome the choicest productions accumulated, 
 uttered a word of pleasure or commendation with regard to such trea- 
 sures : the critical times in which the lot of those valiant champions was 
 cast, filled their minds with far more momentous thoughts compared 
 to which Art naturally appeared as a mere luxury.* Yet man does not 
 live on bread alone. Indeed, Religion and Art are in their innermost 
 nature closely akin. Both deliver the soul from the limits of time and 
 space, and carry it, on the wings of a heavenly yearning, into unmea- 
 sured distances of eternity and infinitude. Both alike seek, as it were, the 
 Platonic prototypes of all perfection, and hence the highest works of art 
 have at all times proceeded from religious enthusiasm'. 
 
 'This is indeed in a certain sense true', interrupted Abington; 'yet 
 Religion and Art can not be considered as co-ordinated ; in this parallel 
 
 * See, however, Col. III. 16, 'tea- 
 ching and admonishing one another 
 in psalms and hymns and spiritual 
 songs'; IV. 6, 'let your speech be 
 
 al way with grace seasoned with salt' ; 
 Eph. V. 19, 'speaking in spiritual 
 songs, singing and making melody 
 in your heart to the Lord'. 
 
136 NOTES [p. 502]. 
 
 
 
 relation are Science, Art, and practical Life; but equally over all these 
 Religion extends, as the heaven extends over the earth, and is the 
 eternal guiding star for all human labours. Art is the elevation to a 
 symbolic ideality, Religion to a living reality to God. The one is a 
 dream of the lost Paradise, the other points the way back to it; and 
 while the former employs the aid of restless fancy, the latter works 
 through that faith which permeates all fibres of the soul, solves all 
 enigmas of life, silences all torments of conscience, and diffuses in the 
 heart a peace such as nothing else is capable of bestowing'. 
 
 'Who can question these profound principles?' said Canon Mortimer 
 evasively. 'Yet it is undoubted that the Greek philosophers deplored but 
 could not prevent the fact that poets and artists should create a popular 
 religion which survived the speculations of the subtlest thinkers. We 
 may thus understand why Christianity, in its earliest stage, assumed a 
 position negative, if not even hostile to Art: this had helped to convert 
 Religion into idolatry, it had accustomed men to worship the creature 
 instead of the Creator*, and it had kept them in the bonds of earthly 
 and sensual beauty, whereas they were to be trained to find their true 
 home in the invisible realms which had been opened to them. But 
 when Christianity had no longer to apprehend the dangerous influences 
 of paganism, it renounced that unjust aversion, and welcoming Art as 
 a most powerful ally, it strove to strengthen the inward through an 
 outward harmony. It supplied, on its part, to the artist an inexhaustible 
 variety of the highest subjects in the Redeemer's life, passion and 
 glorification, in the typical connections between the Old and the New 
 Covenant, in the labours of the Apostles and the numerous Saints; and 
 it began by pressing into its service spiritual lyrics and song, and made 
 them essential and most effective elements of public worship'. 
 
 'Need I remind you', said Panini, 'that music was performed in the 
 Temple of the Hebrews with unequalled grandeur and magnificence'? 
 
 'It was not the song of appointed priests,' continued the Canon 
 placidly, 'that was introduced by the Christian Church, but the chant of 
 the whole congregation, which was in unison to be roused to devotion 
 by those solemn strains which impress the feelings more directly and 
 more powerfully than the most fervid words of instruction. More cautious 
 was the Church in reference to the plastic arts. For dreading a relapse 
 into Hellenistic practices, it ventured at first but timid attempts in the 
 form of symbols, such as significant ornaments on tombs and in places of 
 meeting. But gradually Religion and Art entered into closer and closer 
 alliance, which in the Middle Ages amounted almost to a unity, as is 
 testified, for instance, by the religious depth breathing in the pictures at 
 St. Maria Novella in Florence and in the Campo Santo at Pisa; and 
 that amalgamation was, even after the most brilliant advances of art, 
 
 * Comp. 1 John V. 21, TSKVIU, fyvkdtars savru airci TCCV el%ta\uv. 
 
NOTES [p. 502]. 137 
 
 manifested in the works of a Leonardo and Rafael and the sublime 
 originality of a Michael Angelo. But alas ! abuse was not avoided, and as 
 once the Apostles felt it their duty to declare war against the idols, so the 
 Reformers against the images, a war which in some countries was unfortunately 
 intensified into a raging fanaticism. Truth and Liberty were the watch- 
 words, no room or thought was left for Beauty. And yet Luther, that 
 whole man, was by no means hostile to Art. He was not only a friend 
 of poetry and music but a creative master in both, and his hymn "Eine 
 feste Burg ist unser Gott", words and melody alike, will elevate and 
 fortify as long as there are devout and generous hearts. While inveighing 
 against Catholic pomp and image worship, he protested no less strongly 
 against the Puritan rigour of the reformed sects. "The Gospel has not 
 come", he said, "to overthrow the arts, but to use them in the service 
 of Him who bestowed them"; and the prohibition of the Old Testament; 
 "Thou shalt not make any likeness or image", he omitted in his 
 Catechism'. 
 
 Rabbi Gideon muttered an observation of which only the words "usual 
 misconception" were audible. 
 
 'He once exclaimed', continued Mortimer, '"I wish I could persuade 
 the rich to the Christian work of having the whole Bible painted inside 
 and outside of the houses before everyone's eyes". Not even Zwinglius 
 and Calvin condemned painting, and as a matter of fact we find im- 
 mediately after the Reformation masters like Diirer, Cranach and Hol- 
 bein. The restoration of the purer faith was not therefore, as is so often 
 asserted by Romanists, the grave of Art; indeed, the Evangelical Church 
 is no unfruitful soil for its growth. It is true, Ecclesiastical art has 
 deteriorated within the last centuries, but most strikingly in the Italian 
 schools, where the secular decline began even before the Reformation. 
 Christianity had everywhere in Europe ceased to be the starting point 
 and foundation of Art; its grandly productive period was closed. There 
 might still remain cause for admiring wonderful colouring or remarkable 
 power and sensual fulness of outline; but hardly any production passed 
 beyond the expression of earthly wellbeing and satisfaction, none rose 
 into a higher and ideal world. The blind strife of sects, and the sterile 
 pietism and frigid rationalism which governed the succeeding ages, 
 scattered or nipped the delicate blossoms of celestial beauty. I repeat, 
 therefore, that the Evangelical Church is surely not inimical to Art, 
 however determined it is to repress its undue prominence in Divine 
 service and to resist an extravagant indulgence in aesthetic forms. 
 But we are guilty of a very strange inconsistency. While our Church 
 admits in its public worship the musical productions of Catholic com- 
 posers and delights in the imposing strains of a Palestrina and Durante, 
 no less than of a Bach, Handel and Graun, why should it frown upon 
 painting, which has the very same object of inspiring and vivifying the 
 feelings through the imagination ? Why should it not allow us to enjoy the 
 
138 NOTES [pp. 502510]. 
 
 glorious pictures of the brothers Van Eyk, Memling or Martin Schon, 
 although these masters belonged to the Roman confession? For is not the 
 past of the old Church also our own past, and does not the universal 
 language of true Art efface all distinctiveness of creeds? Do we not in 
 our most splendid pictorial Bibles see without offence the illustrations 
 of a Rafael and Overbeck side by side with those of a Durer and 
 Schnorr? And as there is in Borne a papal sepulchre chiseled by the 
 Protestant Thorwaldsen, so Cornelius, the Catholic, designed the finest 
 frescoes for the most powerful Protestant dynasty'. 
 
 'The utmost moderation only', said Humphrey, with an evident effort 
 of self-control, 'can render such a practice innocuous'. 
 
 'Assuredly', replied Mortimer; 'yet not before the Church has ap- 
 proached nearer to its destination of serving as a centre for all the 
 highest forms of intellectual life, will the arts receive within its pale 
 their due cultivation and rank. They belong to the ministering angels 
 attending the Gospel of Christ as the proclaimer of God's love on earth'. 
 
 P. 505. a The leading principle is: The summum bonum is absolute 
 deliverance from pain; and this deliverance is attained by an abnegation 
 of all action, good or bad. 
 
 P. 505. b J". Muir, Religious and Moral Sentiments from Indian 
 Writers, p. 25. 
 
 P. 506. a Vendid. XVIII. 52. Sleep was originaUy no creation of 
 Ahura, wherefore it befalls men mostly in darkness, or in the time when 
 Agra-mainyus is most powerful (compare Spiegel, A vesta, II. p. xlix). 
 Yet later, a good sleep also was adopted, 'the delight of man and beast' 
 (Vispered, VIII. 16). 
 
 P. 509. a From the didactic poem Gkdshen Ras; see Gunsburg, Geist 
 des Orients, pp. 153, 166. 
 
 P. 509. b Zechar. XIV. 9; Isai. XIX. 25. See Bible Studies, H. 
 pp. 242247. 
 
 P. 510. a Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, ch. XI. 
 

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