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ANTHROPOLOGICAL RELIGION 
 
 MAX MULLER 
 
 (8) 
 
Oxford 
 
 HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL 
 RELIGION 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 BEFORE THE UNIYEBSITY OF GLASGOW 
 IN 1891 
 
 F. MAX MtJLLER, K.M. 
 
 FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE 
 
 ^^"^F THE 
 
 LONDON 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YOKK : 15 EAST 16th STREET 
 
 1892 
 
 [J.W rights reserved] 
 
A// 
 
 U^bif^L^ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In lecturing before the Members of the University "^ 
 of Glasgow, on the origin and the growth of religion 
 my chief object has been to show that a belief in God, 
 in the immortality of the soul, and in a future retri- 
 bution can be gained, and not only can be, but has 
 been gained by the right exercise of human reason 
 alone, without the assistance of what has been called 
 a special revelation. I have tried to prove this, not, as i 
 others have done, by reasoning d priori only, but by _^\ 
 historical investigation ; I have tried to gather in 
 some of the harvest which is plenteous, but which 
 requires far more labourers than are working in this 
 field at present. In doing this, I thought I was simply 
 following in the footsteps of the greatest theologians of 
 our time, and that I was serving the cause of true 
 religion by showing by ample historical evidence, 
 gathered from the Sacred Books of the East, how 
 what St. Paul, what the Fathers of the Church, what 
 mediaeval theologians, and what some of the most 
 learned of modern Divines had asserted again and 
 again was most strikingly confirmed by the records of 
 all non- Christian religions which have lately become 
 accessible to us by the patient researches of Oriental 
 
VI PKEFACE. 
 
 scholars, more particularly by the students of the 
 ancient literature of India. 
 
 I could not have believed it possible that in under- 
 taking this work, I should have exposed myself to 
 attacks from theologians who profess and call them- 
 selves Christians^ and who yet maintain that worst 
 of all heresies that during all the centuries that have 
 elapsed and in all the countries of the world, God has 
 left Himself without a witness, and has revealed Him- 
 self to one race only, the most stiff-necked of all the 
 Semitic races, the Jews of Palestine. I was glad to 
 hear that these attacks emanated chiefly from Roman 
 Catholic priests, carrying on at present an active pro- 
 paganda at Glasgow, from men who consider not only 
 the heathen, but all who are not Roman-Catholics, 
 more particularly all honest searchers after truth, as 
 outside the love of God. Yet^ they are the same men 
 who represent John H. Newman as the highest pattern 
 of Christian orthodoxy. But I must be permitted to 
 doubt whether they have ever had time to read his 
 writings. For who has spoken more frankly and 
 more powerfully of what has been achieved by Natural, 
 as distinguished from Supernatural religion than New- 
 man? Who knew better than Newman how near 
 the wisest and best among Greeks and Romans had 
 come to the truths of Christianity 1 ' I know,' he 
 writes in his Apologia (p. 243), ' that even the unaided 
 reason, when correctly exercised, leads to a belief in 
 God, in the immortality of the soul, and in a future 
 retribution.' Is this so very different from what I 
 have said, and what I have tried to prove by historical 
 evidence ? Whatever Newman may have been, he 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 knew at all events Greek and Latin, and to know 
 these languages and the thoughts contained in their 
 literature is an excellent preservative against that 
 narrow-mindedness and un-Christian intolerance 
 which one hoped would by this time have become 
 extinct, at least among the more highly educated 
 members of the Roman-Catholic priesthood. 
 
 But it seems that I have given still greater offence 
 by what I have said about the naturalness of miracles 
 than by my defence of Natural Eeligion. I do not 
 see, however, after reading all that my adversaries 
 have written, that I can retract a single word or 
 modify in the least what I have said about certain 
 miracles. To believe in miracles seems to be in the 
 eyes of my opponents the one great test of orthodoxy. 
 But they ought surely to know, if they are acquainted 
 with the recent theological literature on miracles, 
 that the whole controversy about miracles turns on 
 the definition which is given of that term. Let 
 me refer my opponents again to Dr. Newman, who 
 says in so many words : ' Most miracles are a con- 
 tinuation or augmentation of natural processes. For 
 instance, there is said^ to be something like manna 
 in the desert ordinarily, and the sacred narrative 
 mentions a wind as blowing up the waters of the Red 
 Sea, and so in numerous other miracles' ; that is to say, 
 the manna from heaven was not a physical miracle, 
 but an ordinary event, ignorantly mistaken for a 
 miracle, and the passing of the Red Sea was simply 
 the effect of the wind blowing up the waters. 
 Surely to admit so much is to admit everything ; or 
 
 ^ Contemporary Review, July, 1891, p. 48. 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 at all events, to admit the fundamental principle of 
 what is contemptuously called the German or critical 
 school. It is true that Dr. Newman excepts some 
 miracles, but who is to judge which miracles are to be 
 excepted, and which are to be interpreted as natural 
 events, misapprehended by those who witnessed and 
 those who recorded them, whether in the Old or in the 
 New Testament 1 It should be remembered also that 
 the miracle of the Manna in the Desert is a miracle to 
 which Christ referred (St. John vi. 31), but which as 
 usual He interpreted in a higher sense, when He said : 
 ' Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not 
 that bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you 
 the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is 
 he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life 
 unto the world.' 
 
 But let us now turn to Protestant theologians. The 
 present Bishop of London can hardly be considered a 
 very dangerous heretic. But what does he say about 
 miracles in his Bampton Lectures, preached before the 
 University of Oxford in 1884 ? First of all, with re- 
 gard to the old question of historical evidence, he waves 
 aside the whole of the miracles of the Old Testament. 
 He shows what historical evidence there is for the 
 miracles of the New Testament, and then proceeds : ' No 
 such evidence can now be produced on behalf of the 
 miracles of the Old Testament. The times are remote, 
 the date and authorship of the Books not established 
 with certainty ; the mixture of poetry with history 
 no longer capable of any sure separation, and, if the 
 New Testament did not exist, it would be impossible 
 to show such a distinct preponderance of probability 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 as would justify us in calling on any to accept the 
 miraculous parts of the narrative as historically true.' 
 
 From a purely historical point of view he rightly 
 considers the evidence for the miracles in the New 
 Testament far stronger than the evidence for the 
 miracles in the Old Testament, but even of these he 
 admits (p. 150) 'that without the satisfaction which 
 the Bible gives to the conscience, no miracles, how- 
 ever overwhelmingly attested, no external evidence 
 whatever, would have compelled intellects of the 
 highest rank side by side with the most uncultivated 
 and the most barren, to accept the Christian teaching 
 as divine.' And again (p. 157) he lays it down as a 
 general principle that ' the supernatural in the form 
 of miracles can never be the highest kind of evidence.' 
 
 When the Bishop proceeds to discuss certain classes 
 of miracles, he goes nearly as far as Cardinal Newman. 
 ' The miraculous healing,' he writes (p. 195), ' may be 
 no miracle in the strictest sense at all. It may be 
 but an instance of the power of mind over body, a 
 power which is undeniably not yet brought within 
 the range of Science, and which nevertheless may be 
 really within its domain. In other ways what seems 
 to be miraculous, may be simply unusual.' 
 
 Here we see how everything depends on the defini- 
 tion of a miracle or of what is usual and not usual. 
 Miracle, like all words, has had a long history. There 
 is a time in the history of human thought when such 
 a distinction is altogether unknown. Then follows 
 a time when aU is supernatural, when the blue sky 
 and the daily rising of the sun are marvels. After 
 that, with the increase of human knowledge, certain 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 segments of our experience are separated and labelled 
 natural. And why ? Because they return with great 
 regularity, and thus lead us to suppose that we under- 
 stand them and can account for them. As these seg- 
 ments become larger and larger, the residue of what we 
 cannot understand and account for grows smaller and 
 smaller, and if once the human mind has arrived at 
 the conviction that everything must be accounted 
 for, or, as it is sometimes expressed, that there is 
 unifoi*mity, that there is law and order in everything, 
 and that an unbroken chain of cause and effect holds 
 the whole universe together, then the idea of the 
 miraculous arises, and we, weak human creatures, call 
 what is not intelligible to us, what is not in accordance 
 with law, what seems to break through the chain of 
 cause and effect, a miracle. 
 
 Every miracle, therefore, is of our own making, and 
 of our own unmaking. In one sense every sunrise is 
 a miracle. Mohammed speaks of it as the greatest of 
 all miracles. But yqtj soon it became a matter of 
 course and ceased to be a miracle. Then, when the 
 daily rising and setting of the sun had ceased to be 
 a miracle, the sudden darkening of the sun or of the 
 moon struck the human mind as irregular, till solar 
 and lunar eclipses too could be accounted for. But 
 as their regular recurrence could be understood and 
 predicted by the few only, it is not surprising that 
 these few, call them sages, or prophets, or priests, 
 should occasionally have appealed to these startling 
 events as manifestations of a divine will, or as a 
 confirmation of the authority which they wished to 
 exercise over the less enlightened masses. 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 Even in our days, suppose a miracle had been 
 worked, would it not be the greatest presumption for 
 science to say that it was a miracle ? '*To prove it to 
 be a miracle,' to quote Dr. Temple's words once more 
 (p. 30), ' would require not a vast range of knowledge, 
 but absolutely universal knowledge.' 
 
 A comparative study of religions shows that there 
 is hardly any religion which in its later, if not in its 
 original stages, has not been infected by miracles. 
 
 Dr. Stokes has lately called attention to th^ fact 
 that in the history of the Christian religion also we 
 see that one of the earliest, if not the earliest known 
 apologist of Christianity, the philosopher Aristides, at 
 the beginning of the second century, does not lay any 
 stress on ordinary miracles or prophecy in support of 
 the truth of Christianity. In his lately discovered 
 Apology before Hadrian, or Antoninus PiuS;, Aris- 
 tides speaks of Jesus Christ as the Son of God Most 
 High, and he adds, ^ it is said that God came down 
 from heaven, and from a Hebrew virgin took and 
 clad Himself with flesh, and in a daughter of man 
 there dwelt the Son of God.' And again: 'He was 
 pierced by the Jews, and He died and was buried, 
 and they say that after three days, He rose and 
 ascended to heaven.' His own faith in God still 
 breathes a purely Platonic spirit. He begins his 
 Apology by saying : 
 
 ' I, O king, by the grace of God came into this world : and having 
 contemplated the heavens and the earth and the seas, and beheld 
 the sun and the rest of the orderly creation, I was amazed at the 
 arrangement of the world ; and I comprehended that the world 
 and all that is therein are moved by the impulse of another, and 
 I understood that He that moveth them is God, who is hidden in 
 
XU PREFACE. 
 
 them and concealed from them ; and this is well known that that 
 which moveth is more powerful than that which is moved. And 
 that I should investigate concerning this mover of all, as to how 
 He exists — for this is evident to me, for He is incomprehensible in 
 His nature — and that I should dispute concerning the steadfastness 
 of His government, so as to comprehend it fully, is not profitable 
 for me ; for no one is able perfectly to comprehend it. But I say 
 concerning the mover of the world, that He is God of all, who 
 made all for the sake of man ; and it is evident to me that this 
 is expedient, that one should fear God and not grieve Him. Now, 
 I say that God is not begotten, not made ; a constant nature, without 
 beginning and without end ; immortal, complete, and incompre- 
 hensible ; and in saying that He is complete, I mean this — that 
 there is no defining in Him, and He stands in need of nought, but 
 everything stands in need of Him : and in saying that He is with- 
 out beginning, I mean this— that everything which has a beginning 
 has also an end, and that which has an end is dissoluble. He has 
 no name, for everything which has a name is associated with the 
 created. He has no likeness, nor composition of members, for he 
 who possesses this, is associated with things fashioned. He is not 
 made, nor is He male or female. The heavens do not contain Him, 
 but the heavens and all things visible and invisible are contained 
 in Him. Adversary He has none, for there is none that is more 
 powerful than He. Anger and wrath He possesses not, for there is 
 nothing that can stand against Him. Error and forgetfulness are 
 not in His nature, for He is altogether wisdom and understanding, 
 and in Him consists all that consists. He asks no sacrifice and no 
 libation, nor any of the things that are visible : He asks not any- 
 thing from any one, but all ask from Him.' 
 
 We can easily distinguish three classes of miracles. 
 Some miracles are ideas materialised, others facts 
 idealised, while a third class owes its origin to a simple 
 misunderstanding of metaphorical phraseology. When 
 we are told that Lao-tse was born as an old man with 
 grey hair, can we doubt for a moment that this was 
 only meant to express an idea, namely a belief in his 
 extraordinary wisdom 1 The miracle here is simply 
 an idea materialised. Yet a follower of Lao-tse would 
 
PKEFACE. Xlll 
 
 cling to this miracle, nay, his belief in Lao-tse's teach- 
 ing might possibly suffer shipwreck, if his faith in 
 the miraculous birth of his teacher were destroyed. 
 
 The idea from which the miracle sprang may be 
 quite true and intelligible ; turned into a material 
 miracle, it becomes absurd. 
 
 Miracles due to the idealisation of material facts are 
 very frequent in all religions. Nearly all the miracles 
 of healing belong to it. We have no reason to doubt 
 that a powerful mind can influence a weaker and 
 suffering mind. We all know what faith-cures mean. 
 When a doctor tells us that there is nothing the 
 matter, or that after taking some often quite harmless 
 medicine we shall be all right again, how many have 
 felt encouraged and reinvigorated. Can we doubt 
 that many of the cures wrought at the shrines or on 
 sight or touch of relics of Roman Catholic saints belong 
 to this class ? 
 
 There are men and women even now whose very 
 face seems to drive out evil thoughts — what wonder 
 if their friends and grateful patients speak of them as 
 having the power of healing and driving out devils ! 
 These miracles occur in all religions, both ancient and 
 modern, and there are few persons who have not wit- 
 nessed them. To call them all intentional frauds is 
 an insult to humanity. 
 
 As to the third class of miracles, those which owe 
 their origin to a misunderstanding of language, they 
 are particularly frequent when the sober thought of 
 the West tries to interpret the more vivid language of 
 the East. But they are by no means restricted to that 
 one cause. Every language becomes more and more 
 
XIV PKEFACE. 
 
 forgetful of its antecedents, and is apt to interpret old 
 language by new thought, though not always correctly. 
 
 I have no doubt that many Christians, both young 
 and old, believe, that when Jesus had been baptized, a 
 real dove in a bodily shape was let loose and sent down 
 from heaven. They have read it, they have seen it 
 represented in ever so many pictures. And yet, who 
 can doubt that the Gospels themselves speak of it as 
 a vision only, and not as a material fact. St. Matthew 
 says (iii. 16) that ' the heavens were opened unto 
 Him, and that He saw the Spirit of God descending 
 like a dove, and lighting upon Him.' St. Mark says 
 (i. 10), 'And straightway coming up out of the water^ 
 He saw the heavens opened^, and the Spirit Wee a dove 
 descending upon Him.' It is only when we come to 
 St. Luke that we meet with the narrative of a material 
 fact, that the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape 
 like a dove from heaven upon Him. In the Gospel of 
 St. John the vision is no longer represented as a 
 vision of Christ Himself; but it still remains a vision 
 of John, who says, ' I saw the Spirit descending 
 from heaven, like a dove, and it abode upon Him.' 
 Who can doubt that the expression of the Spirit 
 descending like a dove, or even as a dove, is but an 
 Eastern simile, and that the whole meaning and the 
 real truth of the event would be destroyed, if we 
 changed the simile into a material fact, and the Spirit 
 into a feathered biped ! 
 
 I know there are Christians who would not even 
 surrender their belief in a miraculous cock, crowing 
 after Peter had denied his Lord thrice. And yet 
 what serious student of the New Testament can 
 
PKEFACE. XV 
 
 doubt, that when Christ said, ' Verily, I say unto thee, 
 that this night before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me 
 thrice,' He meant no more than what we should mean if 
 we said, ' Before cock-crow,' that is, before the morning. 
 
 It could easily be shown that by materialising an 
 idea we generally lose an important lesson, while by 
 idealising a fact we destroy its reality or misinterpret 
 it altogether. In either case we lose far more than 
 we gain. 
 
 There is one miracle, however, in the New Testa- 
 ment which stands by itself, and on which the belief 
 in miracles, nay, the whole belief in Christ's teaching 
 has often been made to hinge. Has not St. Paul 
 declared, ' If Christ is not risen, our faith is in vain ' 1 
 Yes, but what did ' risen ' mean to St. Paul ? Was it 
 the mere resuscitation of a material body, or was it 
 the eternal life of the spirit ? It required courage, no 
 doubt, for a Bishop to apply the same reasoning to 
 this as to all other mii-acles. ' It is quite possible,' 
 Dr. Temple writes (p. 196), ' that our Lord's resurrec- 
 tion may be found hereafter to be no miracle at all 
 in the scientific sense.' ' But this new discovery,' he 
 adds (p. 199), ' if once made, would not affect the place 
 which our Lord's Resurrection holds in the records of 
 revelation. It is not the purpose of revelation to 
 interfere with the course of nature ; if such interference 
 be needless, and the work of revealing God to man 
 can be done without it, there is no reason whatever to 
 believe that any such interference would take place.' 
 
 How different is this from the language of Dr. 
 Liddon, when speaking of the resurrection. Many 
 will remember the almost gruesome eloquence with 
 
XVI PREFACE. 
 
 which he described the idea of our Lord's sacred 
 body rotting in the soil. Why have recourse to 
 such appeals to our imagination? Why not use the 
 more simple and more scriptural language of dust 
 returning to dust, or the body being changed into the 
 elements out of which it had been framed ? 
 
 Taking the evidence such as it is, I can honestly 
 follow Dr. Temple and others in accepting the bodily 
 resurrection of our Lord as a real historical fact, as a 
 fact which from very early days was miraculised and 
 misinterpreted, while on the other hand, our Lord's 
 ascension will have to be understood, as I tried to 
 show, as a sublime idea, materialised in the language 
 of children. Is not a real fact that happened in a world 
 in which nothing can happen against the will of God, 
 better than any miracle ? Why should we try to 
 know more than we can know, if only we firmly 
 believe that Christ's immortal spirit ascended to the 
 Father? That alone is true immortality, divine 
 immortality ; not the resuscitation of the frail mortal 
 body, but the immortality of the immortal divine 
 soul. It was this rising of the Spirit, and not of 
 the body, without which, as St. Paul said, our faith 
 would be vain. It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the 
 flesh profiteth nothing (St. John vi. 63). 
 
 I have little doubt that sooner or later these very 
 simple truths will be accepted by all honest Christians, 
 though at present they are still violently attacked, 
 and stigmatised by very offensive names. Was it 
 not said by Archdeacon Wilson at the Church Con- 
 gress this year that 'modern criticism is practically 
 unanimous in saying that a non-historical element, no 
 
PREFACE. XVll 
 
 longer separable, has mixed with the narrative, and 
 that in this respect the sacred books of Christianity 
 are like those of Mosaism, of Buddhism, or Islam, or 
 other religions, and that modern criticism is practically 
 unanimous in saying that an atmosphere of the 
 miraculous in a certain stage of the human mind is an 
 inseparable accompaniment of the profound reverence 
 with which a great Teacher and Prophet and Saint 
 is regarded by his followers, and the necessary literary 
 form in which such reverence would express itself. It 
 is impossible, therefore, that such an atmosphere 
 should not have gathered round the memory of 
 Christ.' This was spoken in the presence of Bishops 
 and Archbishops, and not one of them cried Ana- 
 thema. Was it then so grave an outrage when I de- 
 clared that miracles, so far from being impossible, are 
 inevitable in the early stages of almost all religions ? 
 I have long professed these convictions, and I know 
 they are shared by thousands, aye, by hundreds of 
 thousands. But I have no wish to shield myself 
 behind the Bishop of London or any other eccle- 
 siastic dignitary. I am by no means certain that 
 Dr. Temple would approve of all that I have said, 
 nay, I am quite willing to admit that in selecting 
 certain passages of his Bampton Lectures, I have 
 taken those only which scientific honesty extorted 
 from the Bishop. It can easily be said that my ex- 
 tracts are garbled, but I can only admit that they were 
 carefully selected. Those who listened to his Bamp- 
 ton Lectures, know the strong qualifications which 
 the Bishop added, and the considerate way in which 
 he tried not to give ofience to any of his hearers, 
 (3) b 
 
XVIU PREFACE. 
 
 But qualifications may modify the aspect of certain 
 statements, they can never contradict or annihilate 
 them. 
 
 On one point only I must confess my complete 
 divergence from the Bishop. ' It is not God's pur- 
 pose,' he says (p. 214), 'to win the intellectually 
 gifted, the wise, the cultivated, the clever, but to win 
 the spiritually gifted, the humble, the tender-hearted, 
 the souls that are discontented with their own short- 
 comings, the souls that find happiness in self-sacrifice.' 
 If I ventured to speak of God's purpose at all, I 
 should say the very contrary, that it is not God's 
 purpose to win only the spiritually gifted, the humble, 
 the tender-hearted, the souls that are discontented with 
 their own shortcomings, the souls that find happiness 
 in self-sacrifice — those are His already — but to win 
 the intellectually gifted, the wise, the cultivated, the 
 clever, or better still, to win both. It would be an 
 evil day for Christianity if it could no longer win the 
 intellectually gifted, the wise, the cultivated, the 
 clever, and it seems to me the duty of all who really 
 believe in Christ to show that Christianity, if truly 
 understood, can win the highest as well as the humblest 
 intellects. Dr. Temple himself has done much in 
 showing that this is possible. He has likewise shown 
 how much of the mere outworks of Christianity 
 cannot hold the ground on which they have been 
 planted, that they have to be given up by force at 
 last, when they ought to have been given up long 
 before, and that, when given up at last, they often 
 tear away with them part of the strength of that 
 faith of which they had previously been not only 
 
PREFACE. XIX 
 
 the buttress outside, but a part of the liviog frame- 
 work. He makes no secret that he includes in 
 these outworks the verbal and even literal inspira- 
 tion of the whole Bible and, as we have seen, much 
 of the miraculous element of the Old, and even 
 in the New Testament. Dr. Temple has thus removed 
 many a stone of stumbling in the way of the most 
 honest disciples of Christ. But it will be to many of 
 them a real day of Damascus, when the very name 
 of miracle shall be struck out of the Dictionary of 
 Christian theology. The facts will remain exactly as 
 they are, but the Spirit of truth will give them a 
 higher meaning. What is wanted for this is not less, 
 but more faith, for it requires more faith to believe in 
 Christ without than with the help of miracles. The 
 signs and wonders which He wrought will remain just 
 the same, but they will no longer obscure the greatest 
 of all His signs and wonders — Himself. Let a per- 
 verse and adulterous generation seek for other signs. 
 It is those only who cannot believe unless they see 
 signs and wonders who are told to believe for the very 
 works' sake (St. John xiv. 11). Nothing, I feel sure, 
 has produced so much distress of mind, so much 
 intellectual dishonesty, so much scepticism, so much 
 unbelief as the miraculous element forced into Chris- 
 tianity from the earliest days. Nothing has so much 
 impeded missionary work as the attempt to persuade 
 people first of all not to believe in their own miracles, 
 and then to make a belief in other miracles a condition 
 of their becoming Christians. It is easy to say, ' You 
 are not a Christian if you do not believe in the 
 Christian mii'acles.' I hope the time will come when 
 
 ba 
 
XX PREFACE. 
 
 we shall be told, *You are not a Christian if you 
 cannot believe in Christ without the help of miracles.' 
 If I have in the slightest way helped towards that end, 
 I shall feel that I have been loyal to the spirit of the 
 founder of this lectureship, loyal to those who have 
 twice entrusted me with the delivery of these lectures, 
 loyal to the Spirit of truth, and, what is the same, 
 loyal to the spirit of the Founder of our religion, 
 whatever obloquy many who profess and call them- 
 selves Christians, many who ought to know better, 
 nay, some who do know better, have poured on my 
 head. 
 
 Painful as these charges have been to me, I must 
 not conclude this preface without expressing my 
 sincere gratitude to the Glasgow Presbytery for 
 having thrown them out by a majority of 17 to 5, and 
 to the General Assembly for having declined even to 
 entertain them. 
 
 F. MAX MULLER. 
 Oxford, Oct. 21, 1891. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 Preface ........ v 
 
 LECTUEE I. 
 On Freedom of Eeligious Discussion. 
 
 Difficulty of lecturing on Eeligion without giving offence. — 
 Private Judgment. — Comparative Study of Religions. — Lord 
 Gifford's Foundation. — Timid Counsels. — Lord Gi£ford's Condi- 
 tions. — Toleration in other Eeligions. — Toleration in Ancient 
 India. — Esoteric and Exoteric Religion. — Religious Education 
 of Children.— Growth of the Mind 1-28 
 
 LECTUEE II. 
 Ok Toleration. 
 
 Bright Side of all Religions. — Danger of keeping Truth 
 secret. — Antecedents of Buddhism. — Dialogue between Father 
 and Son. — Buddhism originally a Brahmanic Sect. — Religious 
 Discussions. — Toleration preached by Buddhism. — The Edicts 
 of Asoka. — The Tolerant Spirit of Asoka. — Disappearance of 
 Buddhism in India. — Toleration in the Jewish Religion. — 
 
XXll TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 Jewish Interpretation of the Bible. — The Ascent of Elijah.— 
 The Ascension of Christ.— Spiritual only.— The Solstice of 
 Joshua. — Fasti Temporis Catholici. — Diversity of Opinion 
 inevitable. — A Comparative Study of Eeligions teaches Toler- 
 ance 29-60 
 
 LECTUKE III. 
 
 Summary of the Eesults of Physical Keligion. 
 
 Outcome of Physical Keligion.— Origin of the Concept of 
 Cause. — Plato on the Gods. — First Consciousness of our Acts. — 
 Postulate of Psychology fulfilled by Language. — Naming of 
 Objects. — The Agents in Nature. — Transition to Human 
 Agents. — Difference between Human and Super-human 
 Agents. — The True Meaning of Animism. — General Names 
 of the Agents in Nature. — Highest Generalisation or Monothe- 
 ism. — The Biography of Agni representative only. — The God 
 of the Sky. — Principles of Comparative Mythology. — Brisaya 
 and Briseis. — Dyaus and Zeus. — The Lesson of Jupiter. — Dr. 
 Lippert. — Protest against Levity 61-88 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 The Historical Proof of the Existence of God. 
 
 Securus Judicat Orbis Terrarum. — Universality of a Belief 
 in God does not prove its Truth. — Belief in God inevitable. — 
 History of the Belief in gods and God. — Are all Eeligions 
 True? — ^The Gradual Elimination of what is imperfect. — 
 Negative Definition in Greek Philosophy. — Negative Definition 
 in Christian Theology. — True Agnosticism. — ^All Names well 
 meant. — Names of the Infinite. — I Am that I Am. — The Three 
 VedHnta Predicates. — Masculine or Neuter. — Return to the Old 
 Names. — The Minimum. — The Names and what is named 89-114 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. XXlll 
 
 LECTUKE V. 
 
 About the True Character of Ancestor-Worship. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Name of Anthropological Religion. — Former Opinions 
 on the Sources of Religion. — Fetishism. — Totemism. — Hallu- 
 cination. — Ancestor-worship. — Ancestor-worship presupposes a 
 Belief in Gods.— China and Egypt.— The Euhemeristic Explana- 
 tion of Zeus. — The Euhemeristic Explanation of other Gods. — 
 Did Ancestor- worship exist among the Aryan Nations ? . 115-144 
 
 LECTUKE VI. 
 
 The Untrustworthiness of the Materials for 
 THE Study of Eeligion. 
 
 Literary Documents of Aryan and Semitic Religions. — 
 Literary Documents of other Religions. — The Religions of 
 Illiterate Races. — Comparative Study of Languages. — Com- 
 parative Study of non- Aryan and non-Semitic Religions. — New 
 Epoch in the Study of Uncivilised Races. — The Two New 
 Principles. — A Third Principle for the Future. — Testing of 
 Evidence, (I) with regard to Civilised Races. ^—Different Ac- 
 counts of the Religious Beliefs of the Hindus.— The Goddess 
 Durga or Kali. — The Higher Conception of Durga. — The Origin 
 of Durga. — Authoritative Books. — Testing of Evidence, (II) 
 with regard to Illiterate Races. — The Andaman Islanders. — 
 Negative and Positive Evidence 145-180 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 The Discovery of the Soul. 
 
 Physical Religion Incomplete. — The Soul of Man. — Anim- 
 ism. — Primitive Man. — Materials for our Studies. — Names 
 
XXIV TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 for Soul. — ^What was meant by Soul ? — The Problem of Man. — 
 The Lessons of Death, — Blood as Life. — The Heart. — Breath. — 
 Soul after Death. — Words for Soul. — Words for Soul in 
 Hebrew. — Words for Soul in Sanskrit. — Words for Soul in 
 Tamil. — Polynesian Words for Soul, &c. — Material Begin- 
 nings . , 181-207 
 
 LECTUKE VIII. 
 Discovery of the Soul in Man and in Nature. 
 
 The Three Stages of Early Psychology. — The Original Mean- 
 ing of Psyche. — The Psychological Terminology of Homer. — 
 The Meaning of avros. — Psyche and Menos. — Thymos. — 
 Phrenes. — Soul and Ghost. — Differentiation of Meaning. — ^The 
 Agent. — Different Origin of other Names for Soul. — Shadow. — 
 Dreams. — Superstitious Sayings about Shadows. — The Ci-pr6s 
 in Language. — The Infinite in Man. — Why a Belief in a Soul 
 is necessary. — The Soul in Man and the Soul in Nature . 208-234 
 
 LECTUEE IX. 
 
 Funeral Ceremonies. 
 
 The Import of Customs. — Motives of Customs. — Funeral 
 Ceremonies in India. — Funeral Ceremonies in Greece. — The 
 Theory of Survivals. — Gifts produced a Belief that they would 
 be used by the Dead. — Funeral Ceremonies in Kome. — Funeral 
 Ceremonies among Savages. — Polynesian Funerals . 235-280 
 
 LECTUEE X. 
 What was thought about the Departed. 
 
 The Soul minus the Body. — Continuance of Feelings towards 
 the Dead. — The Germs of Ancestral Keligion. — ^The First 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. XXV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Ancestor. — Were there Races without Physical Religion ? — Are 
 there Races whose Religion is exclusively Ancestor- worship ? — 
 Religion of Zulus. — Religion of the Niassans. — Worship of 
 Gods and Worship of Ancestors kept distinct. — Where do the 
 Departed exist ? — How do the Departed exist ? — Belief in 
 Punishments and Rewards. — Plato. — ^The Law^ of Cause and 
 Eflfect. — Karma na kshiyate. — Are the Departed conscious of 
 what passes on Earth ? — Influence of Priests . . . 281-308 
 
 LECTURE XL 
 
 Soul after Death. 
 
 Greek Epic Poetry. — Finnish Epic Poetry. — ^The Nekyia does 
 not represent the popular Belief. — Homer does not reflect 
 popular Opinion on Death. — Punishments. — Post-Homeric 
 Poets. — Plato. — The Mysteries. — Plato's Influence. — Xeno- 
 phon's Cyropaedia. — Influence of Philosophers. — Funeral In- 
 criptions. — The Divinity of the Soul. — Somnium Scipionis 309-832 
 
 LECTURE XII. 
 What does it lead to ? 
 
 The Historical Proof. — The Two Lessons of Histoiy. — Reca- 
 pitulation of Anthropological Religion. — Ka^Tia-upanishad 333-350 
 
 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 The Divine and the Human. 
 
 Worship of the Departed leads to the Recognition of the 
 Divine in Man. — Apotheosis. — Heroes as Aioyeveis. — Heroes. — 
 Daimones. — Hesiod's Four Races. — The Daimonion of Sokrates. 
 — The Three Roads leading to the Discovery of something 
 Divine in Man. — Plato on Gods, Daimones, Heroes, and An- 
 
XXVI TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 cestral Spirits. — Our own Problems. — Belief in Immortality in 
 the Old Testament. — Meaning of Immortality. — Sheol. — Con- 
 troversy as to the Jewish Belief in Immortality. — Eeaction. — 
 Christianity, the Revelation of the Divine Sonship of Christ 
 and Man. — The Words Father and Son. — Parable of the King's 
 Son. — The Position of Christianity in the History of the 
 World. — The Second Birth —Christ's Teaching and its Later 
 Interpretation. — Objections considered .... 351-398 
 
 APPENDICES. 
 
 Appendix I. 
 
 Indra or Andra 395 
 
 Appendix II. 
 Hey Diddle Diddle 899 
 
 Appendix III. 
 On Totems and their various origin 403 
 
 Appendix IV. 
 Durga 410 
 
 Appendix V. 
 
 On the Untrustworthiness of Anthropological Evidence . 413 
 
 On the Untrustworthiness of the Accounts of the Religious 
 
 Ideas of Savages 428 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. XXVll 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Appendix VI. 
 
 Rajendralal Mitra's Notes on Vedic Funerals ... 436 
 
 Appendix VII. 
 Funeral Ceremonies ^^° 
 
 Appendix VIII. 
 The 'Kalevala' *^^ 
 
 Index ^^^ 
 
y^ OF XHB *. 
 
 UiriVBESITTl 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 ON FKEEDOM OF RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION. 
 Difficulty of lecturing- on Religion without giving offence. 
 
 DO you think it is possible to lecture on religion, 
 even on natural religion, without giving offence 
 either on the right or on the left % And do you think 
 that a man would be worth his salt who, in lecturing 
 on religion, even on natural religion, were to look 
 either right or left, instead of looking all facts, as 
 they meet him, straight in the face, to see whether 
 they are facts or not ; and, if they are facts, to find 
 out, if possible, what they mean, and what they are 
 meant to teach us ? 
 
 Religion, I know full well, differs from all other 
 subjects. It appeals not only to our head, but to 
 our heart. And as we do not like to hear those who 
 are very near to our heart, those whom we love and 
 revere, criticised, or even compared, it is but natural 
 that many people should object to a criticism of that 
 religion which they love and revere, nay, even to a 
 comparison of it with other religions. 
 
 But let us ask ourselves, Does this attitude with 
 regard to those whom we love and revere, really prove 
 that we have an undoubting faith in them ? If we 
 (3) B 
 
Z LECTURE I, 
 
 had, should we not rather wish to hear our friends 
 compared and criticised, if only in order to have an 
 opportunity of defending them, and of showing how 
 infinitely superior they are to all others ? 
 
 Why then should we not have the same feeling with 
 regard to our religion as with regard to our friends, 
 always supposing that we can give a good account of 
 the faith that is in us, and of the reasons for which 
 we love and revere our own religion ? For if our own 
 religion comes out victorious from the trial, and 
 superior to all the rest, surely we shall have gained, 
 not lost. And if other religions should after all 
 appear not so infinitely inferior to our own, not 
 altogether of a difierent stuff*, should we be really 
 poorer, because others are richer than we supposed? 
 Would our religion be less true, because some of its 
 truths are found in other religions also ? 
 
 We may, I think, go a step further. Our own self- 
 interest surely would seem to suggest as severe a trial 
 of our own religion as of other religions, nay, even a 
 more severe trial. Our religion has sometimes been 
 compared to a good ship that is to carry us through 
 the waves and tempests of this life to a safe haven. 
 Would it not be wise, therefore, to have it tested, and 
 submitted to the severest trials, before we entrust our- 
 selves and those most dear to us to such a vessel? 
 And remember, all men, except those who take part 
 in the foundation of a new religion, or have been 
 converted from an old to a new faith, have to accept 
 their religious belief on trust, long before they are 
 able to judge for themselves. Hence a child of 
 Mohammedan parents invariably believes in Moham- 
 med and the Koran. An Italian child never doubts 
 
ON FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION. 3 
 
 the miraculous achievements of the Saints, and 
 follows his mother in kneeling in adoration before 
 the image of the Virgin Mary. And while in all other 
 matters an independent judgment in riper years is 
 encouraged, every kind of influence is used to dis- 
 courage a free examination of religious dogmas, once 
 engrafted on our intellect in its tenderest stage. A 
 Mohammedan who should renounce the prophet, 
 knows that he risks his life. And a Roman Catholic 
 who should doubt the truth of the legends of the Saints, 
 or look upon the adoration of any image as idolatry, 
 would soon be called a sceptic and an infidel, or, what 
 is even worse, a Protestant. We condemn an examina- 
 tion of our own religion, even though it arises from 
 an honest desire to see with our own eyes the truth 
 which we mean to hold fast ; and yet we do not 
 hesitate to send missionaries into all the world, asking 
 the faithful to re-examine their own time-honoured 
 religions. We attack their most sacred convictions, 
 we wound their tenderest feelings, we undermine the 
 belief in which they have been brought up, and we 
 break up the peace and happiness of their homes. 
 And yet, if some learned Jew, like Mendelssohn, if 
 some subtle Brahman, like Rammohun Roy, aye, even 
 if some outspoken Zulu, like Colenso's friend, turns 
 round on us, asks us to re-examine the date and author- 
 ship of the books of the Old or the New Testament, 
 presses us to explain some portions of the Athanasian 
 Creed, or challenges us to produce the evidence on 
 which w^e also are quite ready to accept certain miracles, 
 we are surprised and offended, forgetting that with 
 regard to these questions we can claim no privilege, 
 no immunity. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 LECTURE I. 
 
 Private Judg-ment. 
 
 When I say we, I only mean those who have 
 rejected once for all every infallible human authority, 
 whether the infallibility of the Pope, or the infallibility 
 of the Church, or the infallibility of the Bible, or, 
 lastly, even the infallibility of the immediate disciples 
 and apostles of Christ, who, as you know, are the very 
 last to claim such infallibility. If we have once claimed 
 the freedom of the spirit which St. Paul claimed, 
 ' to prove all things and to hold fast that which is 
 good,' we cannot turn back, we cannot say that no 
 one shall prove our own religion, no one shall prove 
 other religions and compare them with our own. We 
 have to choose once for all between freedom and slavery 
 of judgment, and though I do not wish to argue with 
 those who prefer slavery, yet one may remind them 
 that even they, in deliberately choosing slavery, follow 
 their own private judgment, quite as much as others 
 do in choosing freedom. - In claiming infallibility for 
 Bible, Popes, or Councils, they claim in reality far 
 greater infallibility for themselves in declaring by 
 their own authority Bible, Popes, or Councils to be 
 infallible. 
 
 How easily people deceive themselves with regard 
 to what is private judgment and what is not, may be 
 seen in the case of Cardinal Newman. When he was 
 still a member of the Church of his own country, he 
 wrote, May 5, 1841 {Apologia, p. 188) : 
 
 ' We have too great a horror of the principle of 
 private j udgment to trust it in so immense a matter 
 as that of changing from one communion to another. 
 We may be cast out of our communion, or it may 
 
ON FKEEDOM OF RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION. 5 
 
 decree heresy to be truth, — you shall say whether 
 such contingencies are likely ; but I do not see other 
 conceivable causes of our leaving the Church in which 
 we were baptised.' 
 
 Now between the year 1841 and 1845 the English 
 Church, as far as I know, did neither the one nor the 
 other, it did not invent any new heresy, nor cast out 
 Newman and his friends ; and yet — Cardinal Newman 
 followed his private judgment, and submitted to an 
 infallible Pope. 
 
 Comparative Study of Religions. 
 
 In choosing between Romanism and Protestantism, 
 or in choosing between Christianity and Judaism, or 
 any other religion, we must necessarily compare these 
 religions with our own. I do not mean to say, there- 
 fore, that a comparative study of all religions forms 
 part of the duty of every Christian man and woman, 
 but it seems to me that to condemn such studies, and 
 to throw discredit on those who honestly devote them- 
 selves to this examination and comparison of all 
 religions, is contrary to the spirit of St. Paul, and 
 contrary to the highest command of Christianity to 
 do unto others as we wish they should do unto us. 
 
 l^oxd G-ifford's Foundation. 
 
 And yet, do not suppose that those who have 
 entered on this branch of historical research, and in 
 particular those who have accepted the responsibility 
 imposed upon them by Lord GifFord's bequest, are 
 insensible to the dangers and difficulties with which 
 their work is beset. It may be quite true that they 
 are relieved of some part of their responsibility by 
 the very fact that Lord Gifford's bequest has been 
 
b LECTUEE I. 
 
 accepted by the great Universities of Scotland. It 
 was quite possible that, under the conditions which 
 he had attached to it, some of the Universities might 
 have declined to accept Lord GifFord^s bequest. Their 
 acceptance of the bequest, therefore, implied their 
 general approval of its objects, and thus became 
 really more important even than the bequest itself 
 They admitted thereby that a treatment of religion 
 in the spirit prescribed by the founder of these 
 lectureships, would prove advantageous to the young 
 students committed to their care, and that nothing 
 should be kept back from them that had received the 
 approval of competent scholars. 
 
 But it seems right nevertheless to listen to the 
 objections that have been made against granting a 
 place among academic studies to the Science of 
 Religion, and to weigh at all events what has been 
 said and written against it by men whose judgment 
 and sincerity cannot be doubted. 
 
 Timid Counsels. 
 
 There are persons of very sound judgment who, 
 though they fully approve of a comparative treatment 
 of religions, and of the freest criticism of our own 
 religion, still insist that it is wise to keep such studies 
 for the few. They expressed this opinion years ago in 
 the case of Essays and Reviews, and more recently in 
 the case of Lux Mundi. Such books, they hold, 
 ought to be written in Latin. Keligion, they say, is 
 common property. It belongs by its very nature to 
 the young and to the old, to the wise and to the 
 unwise, to men, women, and children. Unless it ful- 
 fils that condition, unless it is open to little children, 
 
ON FKEEDOM OF RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION. 7 
 
 as well as to the wisest of the wise, it may be philo- 
 sophy, it may be absolute truth, but it ceases to be 
 religion. Now in lectures on any other subjects, we 
 are told that the technical character of the language 
 which is employed, restricts their influence to those 
 who can judge for themselves. No one would think 
 of putting restrictions on lectures on botany, because 
 people might learn from what plants they could 
 extract poisons. No one would prevent Professors of 
 chemistry from lecturing to large classes, because 
 some of their pupils might wish to learn how to 
 prepare dynamite. But while every other subject is 
 thus by its very nature restricted to a professional 
 class, we are reminded that a study of religion, or, at 
 all events, an interest in religion, appeals to every 
 human heart, and that a treatment of religion that 
 may be quite harmless, nay, quite legitimate with 
 advanced students and hard-headed thinkers, may 
 prove very hurtful to younger minds, not prepared 
 as yet for such strong diet. 
 
 I know quite well that there is some truth in all 
 this. I do not even deny that the use of the Latin 
 language in theological discussions, which are likely 
 to prove a stumbling-block to the uninitiated, had its 
 advantages. But it seems to me perfectly useless to 
 discuss such proposals now. We must learn to accept 
 the times in which we live, and make the best of 
 them. Whatever is now treated of in academic pre- 
 cincts, is preached the next day in the streets, and there 
 is neither palace nor cottage that is not reached by 
 the million arms of the public press. Latin is no 
 longer any protection ; I doubt whether it was so 
 altogether even in the middle ages. 
 
8 LECTUEE I. 
 
 The discovery of Copernicus (1473-1543) that the 
 earth moves round the sun and does not form the 
 centre of the universe, may indeed have been kept 
 back for nearly a century, remaining known to those 
 only who could read Latin. But it burst forth all the 
 same in the Italian writings of Gahleo (1567-1642), 
 and people soon recovered from the shock, even 
 though deprived of that much cherished conviction 
 that they formed the centre of the universe. 
 
 Ai-tificial protection of any kind is out of date in 
 the century in which we live, and in which we must 
 learn to act and to do as much good as we can. To 
 expect that religion could ever be placed again beyond 
 the reach of scientific treatment or honest criticism, 
 shows an utter misapprehension of the signs of the 
 times, and would, after all, be no more than to set up 
 private j udgment against private j udgment. I believe, 
 on the contrary, that if the inalienable rights of 
 private judgment, that is, of honesty and truth, were 
 more generally recognised, the character of religious 
 controversy would at once be changed. It is restric- 
 tion that provokes resentment, and thus embitters all 
 discussions on religious topics. 
 
 I have had to discuss this question many times with 
 some of the leading theologians of our time. I do not 
 mean with men who simply acted their part on the 
 stage of the world, but with men who were honestly 
 convinced that freedom of thought and freedom of 
 discussion were wrong and mischievous within the 
 sphere of religion, and ought to be restrained by 
 authority. 
 
 One of them declared to me that it had been his lot 
 during a long life to read more heresy than any other 
 
ON FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION. 9 
 
 living man, and he dwelt in the most forcible language 
 on the abyss, both intellectual and moral, into which 
 he had gazed again and again, but from which he had 
 at last turned resolutely away. He considered it his 
 duty for the rest of his life to keep others from the 
 mental agonies through which he himself had passed, 
 and he would have welcomed any measures by which 
 that abyss could have been enclosed, and public 
 discussion of religious problems could have been pre- 
 vented once for all. 
 
 All I could say to him in reply was, if such a 
 terrible abyss really existed, it must have its purpose 
 in the world in which we have been placed, like many 
 other things which entail suffering and agony, and are 
 nevertheless meant to serve a good purpose. To shut 
 our eyes will not remove that abyss, while courage 
 and faith may possibly help to throw a bridge across 
 the dark chasm that seems to separate man from 
 those bright regions for which his heart is always 
 yearning. 
 
 When I read a few days ago a letter from Cardinal 
 Newman, which Canon Maccoll has published in the 
 Conteonjjorary Review (January, 1891, p. 144), I 
 seemed once more to hear almost the same voice to 
 which I had often listened at Oxford. Speaking of the 
 authors of Essays and Reviews, Newman writes : ' Some 
 of them, I trust, were urged by a sincere feeling that 
 it is not right to keep up shams. Yet did they really 
 see the termination, or rather the abyss, to which these 
 speculations lead, surely they would see that, before 
 attempting to sift facts, they ought to make sure that 
 they have a firm hold of true and eternal principles. 
 To unsettle the minds of a generation, when you give 
 
10 LECTURE I. 
 
 them no landmarks and no causeway across the 
 morass, is to undertake a great responsibility. 
 
 ' The religion of England depends, humanly speak- 
 ing, on belief in the Bible, the whole Bible, etc., and 
 on the observance of the Calvinistic Sabbath. Let 
 the population begin to doubt in its inspiration and 
 infallibility — where are we 1 Alas ! whole classes do 
 already; but I would not be the man knowingly to 
 introduce scepticism into those portions of the com- 
 munity which are as yet sound. Consider the misery 
 of wives and mothers losing their faith in Scripture ; 
 yet I am told this sad process is commencing.' 
 
 But the most curious part is, that while Cardinal 
 Newman — he was already a member of the Roman 
 Catholic Church when he wrote this — considers a 
 belief in the plenary inspiration of the whole Bible, 
 the Old as well as the New Testament, and the obser- 
 vance of the Calvinistic Sabbath, essential to the faith 
 of Protestants, he does not think that the Roman 
 Catholic faith requires the same elaborate support. 
 
 'The volume in question,' he continues, namely 
 Essays and Reviews, ' is levelled at Revelation as a 
 whole, but is especially a blow at the Old Testament. 
 Now the plenary inspiration of Scripture is peculiarly 
 a Protestant question, not a Catholic. We, indeed, 
 devoutly receive the whole Bible as the Word of God ; 
 but we receive it on the authority of the Church, and 
 the Church has defined very little as to the aspects 
 under which it comes from God, and the limits of its 
 inspiration. Supposing, for argument sake, that it 
 could be proved that some passage in the Pentateuch 
 about Egyptian history was erroneous ; nay, let the 
 universality of the deluge over the globe, or the 
 
ON FKEEDOM OF RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION. 11 
 
 literal interpretation of Genesis be, for argument sake, 
 disproved, it would not affect a Catholic, for two 
 reasons — (1) Because the Church has not made them 
 points de fide, and (2) because not the Bible, but the 
 Church, is to him the oracle of Kevelation ; so that, 
 though the whole Scripture were miraculously re- 
 moved from the world as if it had never been, evil 
 and miserable as would be the absence of such a 
 privilege, he would still have enough motives and 
 objects of his faith, whereas to the Protestant the 
 question of Scripture is one of life and death.' 
 
 Thus, according to Cardinal Newman, the Koman 
 Catholic may be trusted to criticise the Bible, particu- 
 larly the Old Testament. He would not be affected 
 if, for argument sake, the universal deluge or the 
 crossing of the Bed Sea, could be disproved. And 
 why ? Because the Church is to him the oracle of 
 Revelation. And who speaks in the name of the 
 Church 1 Popes and Cardinals. And who are Popes 
 and Cardinals ? Men such as Mr. John Newman 
 himself, who followed his own private judgment in 
 leaving the Church in which he was born, the Church 
 of England, for the Church of Italy. There is no 
 escape, you see, from private judgment, as little as 
 there is from our own shadow. 
 
 Another great theologian whom I knew at Oxford, 
 and whose recent death is still in all our memories, 
 would draw in eloquent and touching words the picture 
 of a child sleeping in his cradle, and dreaming happy 
 dreams of God and His angels. Who would wake such a 
 child, he said. I knew full well what he meant. There 
 is certainly no happier life than a life of simple faith, 
 of literal acceptance, of rosy dreams. We must all 
 
12 LECTURE I. 
 
 grant that, if it were possible, nothing would be more 
 perfect. Nay I go further still, and I gladly acknow- 
 ledge that some of the happiest, and not only some of 
 the happiest, but also some of the best men and women 
 I have known in this life, were those who would have 
 shrunk with horror from questioning a single letter in 
 the Bible, or doubting that a serpent actually spoke 
 to Eve, and an ass to Balaam. 
 
 But can we prevent the light of the sun and the 
 noises of the street from waking the happy child from 
 his heavenly dreams? Nay, is it not our duty to 
 wake the child, when the time has come that he should 
 be up and doing, and take his share in the toils of the 
 day ? And is it not well for those who for the first 
 time open their eyes and look around, that they should 
 see by their side some who have woke before them, 
 who understand their inquiring looks, and can answer 
 their timid questions, and tell them in the simple- 
 hearted language of our old poet : 
 
 'There lives more faith in honest doubt, 
 Believe me, than in half the creeds.' 
 
 No, however excellent the motives of these faint- 
 heai-ted theologians may be, not only are the remedies 
 which they propose impossible, but it is easy to see 
 that they would prove much more dangerous than 
 the diseases which they are meant to heal. To en- 
 courage people, and particularly theologians, not to 
 speak the truth openly, though they know it, must 
 be fatal to every religion. Who could draw the line 
 between the truth that may, and the truth that may 
 not be communicated? I have known theologians, 
 occupying now the highest positions in the Church, 
 
ON FREEDOM OP RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION. 13 
 
 who frankly admitted among their own intimate 
 friends, that physical miracles, in the ordinary 
 sense of the word, were once for all impossible, 
 but who would not have considered it right to 
 say so from the pulpit. I do not question their 
 motives nor do I doubt their moral courage, I only 
 question the soundness of their judgment. I feel 
 convinced that to many of their hearers, an open 
 statement of the conviction at which they had them- 
 selves arrived would have been far more helpful than 
 many an apologetic sermon. If their own faith in 
 Christianity is not shaken, because they have ceased 
 to believe in miracles as mere miracles, nay, if their 
 iDelief in Christ's teaching has grown all the stronger 
 since they discarded these crutches, why should it be 
 different with others whom they profess to guide ? 
 There exists at present a very wide-spread impression 
 that preachers do not preach all they know, that they 
 will not help others to face the abyss, which all have 
 to face, and that they will not open the shutters to let 
 in the light of the sun and the fresh air of the morning, 
 which we are all meant to breathe ; but that they are 
 keeping the truth to themselves, I will not say from 
 any unworthy motives, but from fear that it might do 
 more harm than good to others. To all this I know 
 but one reply. Can there be anything higher and 
 better than truth ? Is any kind of religion possible 
 without an unquestioning trust in truth ? No one 
 knows what it is to believe who has not learnt to 
 believe in truth, for the sake of truth, and for the 
 sake of truth only. The question of miracles is no 
 longer, as it was in the days of Hume, a mere ques- 
 tion of historical evidence. A comparative study of 
 
14 LECTURE I. 
 
 religions has taught us that miracles, instead of being 
 impossible, are really inevitable, that they exist in 
 almost every religion, that they are the natural outcome 
 of what Mr. Gladstone has well called ' imperfect com- 
 prehension and imperfect expression.' Why should 
 such well-established results of scientific enquiry be 
 withheld from those whom they most concern, and, what 
 is still worse, why should they reach the people at 
 large, as it were, through unauthorised channels, and 
 not from the mouths of their recognised teachers ? 
 
 It ought, I think, to be clearly understood that re- 
 strictions on religious discussions have in our days, 
 and in this country, at all events, become perfectly 
 impossible, and that such palliatives as the use of 
 Latin would be simply futile. But for that very 
 reason the question becomes all the more important, 
 what we have a right to expect and to demand from 
 those whose duty it is to treat religious questions. 
 
 It has always been considered as one of the essen- 
 tial conditions of civilised life that the religious 
 convictions of every citizen should be respected and 
 protected against insult and injury. Whether a state 
 should recognise and support an established Church, 
 is a question that admits of debate. But what admits 
 of no debate is that the law should prevent or punish 
 any insults offered to individuals or societies on 
 account of their religious convictions. A state in 
 which religious convictions entail civil disabilities, or 
 in which religious professions lead to social advan- 
 tages, cannot be called a civilised state in the highest 
 sense of the word. Every creed is sacred to those 
 who hold it. Whether a fetish-worshipper calls on 
 his fetish for food and drink, or chastises it if his 
 
ON FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION. 15 
 
 prayer is not fulfilled, or whether an atheist exclaims 
 in despair, '0 God, if there be a God, save my soul, 
 if I have a soul,' they both hold their belief and their 
 unbelief sacred, and they have a right to see their 
 religious convictions, if not respected, at all events 
 protected against insult. These are no doubt ex- 
 treme cases, but even in such extreme cases toleration 
 and charity are far more likely to prove efficient 
 remedies than scorn and insult. If we can respect a 
 childlike and even a childish faith, we ought likewise 
 to learn to respect even a philosophical atheism 
 which often contains the hidden seeds of the best and 
 truest faith. We ought never to call a man an 
 atheist, and say that he does not believe in God, till 
 we know what kind of God it is that he has been 
 brought up to believe in, and what kind of God it is 
 that he rejects, it may be, from the best and highest 
 motives. We ought never to forget that Socrates was 
 called an atheist, that the early Christians were all 
 called atheists^, that some of the best and greatest 
 men this world has ever known, have been branded 
 by that name. Men may deny God for the very sake 
 of God. You remember what old Plutarch said, that 
 it was better not to believe in Gods at all, than to 
 believe in Gods, such as the superstitious believe them 
 to be. ' I, for my own part,' he continues, ' would 
 
 ^ Athenagoras (Legatio, 10) gives an elaborate defence of the 
 Christians against the charge of atheism. '■ I have sufficiently 
 demonstrated,' he says, ' that they are not atheists who believe in 
 One who is unbegotten, eternal, unseen, impassible, incomprehen- 
 sible and uncontained ; comprehended by mind and reason only, 
 invested with ineffable light and beauty and spirit and power, by 
 whom the universe is brought into being and set in order and held 
 firm, through the agency of his own Logos.' — (Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 
 p. 253.) 
 
16 LECTUKE I. 
 
 much rather have men say of me that there never 
 was a Plutarch at all, nor is now, than to say that 
 Plutarch is a man inconstant, fickle, easily moved to 
 anger, revengeful for trifling provocations, vexed at 
 small thiugs ^.' 
 
 This is as true to-day as it was in Plutarch's time, 
 and it is right that it should be said, however much it 
 may offend certain ears. One of our greatest theolo- 
 gians has not hesitated to say : * God is a great word. 
 He who feels this and knows it, will judge more 
 mildly and justly of those who confess that they dare 
 not say, "I believe in God^." ' 
 
 When people speak in a truly honest and kind spirit, 
 they will understand one another, however widely 
 they may stand apart in their rehgious opinions. 
 But for that object it is absolutely necessary that 
 discussion and controversy should be completely 
 unfettered. You cannot have a good fight or a fair 
 fight, if you tie the hands of the two combatants ; least 
 of all, if you tie the hands of one combatant only. 
 
 Iiord Gifford's Conditions. 
 
 It was the object of Lord Gifibrd's bequest to untie 
 the hands of combatants, but at the same time to fix the 
 conditions on which the combat should be conducted. 
 What was wanted for that purpose, as he declared in 
 his will, were ' reverent men, true thinkers, sincere 
 lovers, and earnest enquirers after truth.' These 
 words are not used at random. Each sentence seems 
 to have been carefully chosen and attentively weighed 
 
 ^ Sir John Lubbock, Pleasures of Life, ii. p. 217. 
 
ON FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION. 17 
 
 by him. He felt that religion was not a subject like 
 other subjects, but that, whether on account of its age 
 or owing to its momentous bearing on human welfare, 
 it ought to be treated with due care and respect. 
 Reverence alone, however, would not be sufficient, but 
 should be joined with true thinking. True thinking 
 means free thinking, thinking following its own 
 laws, and unswayed by anything else. Think what 
 thinking would be, if it were not free ! But even this 
 would not suffice. There ought to be not only loyal 
 submission to the laws of thought, there ought to be 
 a sincere love, a deep-felt yearning for truth. And 
 lastly, that love should not manifest itself in impa- 
 tient and fanatical outbursts, but in earnest enquiry^ 
 in patient study, in long-continued research. 
 
 Men who have passed through these four stages are 
 not likely to give offence to others or to be easily 
 offisnded themselves. I am sorry to have to confess it, 
 but among the many lessons which a comparative study 
 of religions teaches us, there is one that seems very 
 humiliating, namely, that religious intolerance has been 
 much more common in modern than in ancient times. 
 I know the excuse which is made for this. It is said, 
 that as our convictions become deeper and stronger, 
 our intolerance of falsehood also must assume a more 
 intense character, and that it would show an utter 
 want of earnestness if it were otherwise. There may 
 be some truth in this, but it is a dangerous truth. It 
 is the same truth which led the Inquisition to order 
 the burning of heretics, because it would be better for 
 their souls, and which inflicted in our own times a 
 less violent, though perhaps a not less painful martyr- 
 dom on such * reverent men, true thinkers, sincere 
 
 (3) C 
 
18 LECTURE I. 
 
 lovers, and earnest inquirers after truth ' as Dean 
 Stanley, Bishop Colenso, and Charles Kingsley. 
 
 Toleration in other Religions. 
 
 Let us see how the problem of toleration has been 
 solved in other religions. Perhaps on this point also 
 a comparative study of religions may have some use- 
 ful lessons for us. For the difficulty is one that besets 
 them all. The religion of the young can never be 
 quite the same as that of the old, nor the religion of 
 the educated the same as that of the ignorant. We all 
 know it. Bishop Berkeley was a Christian ; so is 
 Mr. Spurgeon. But think of the gulf that separates 
 the two. And yet it is the object of religion that it 
 should serve as a bond between all classes, and should 
 supply a language in which all should be able to join 
 without dishonesty. 
 
 Toleration in Ancient India. 
 
 I tried to explain on a former occasion how this 
 problem has been solved in ancient India. The Indian 
 Law recognised four stages in the life of every man. 
 .The first stage was that of the pupil, which lasted till 
 a man had reached the age of manhood. A pupil 
 had to show implicit obedience to his superiors^ and 
 to learn without questioning the religion of his fore- 
 fathers. 
 
 The second stage was that of the householder, 
 which lasted till a man had grown-up children. A 
 householder had to marry, to earn his living, to bring 
 up a family, to perform daily sacrifices, and all this 
 again without questioning the teaching of his religious 
 guides. 
 
ON FREEDOM OP RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION. 19 
 
 Then followed the third stage, that of the dweller 
 in the forest, the Vanaprastha, the ascetic. In that 
 stage a man was not only released from his household 
 duties, but his sacrificial observances also were much 
 reduced, and he was allowed to indulge in the freest 
 philosophical speculations, speculations which often 
 ran counter to the theological system of the Brahmans, 
 and ended by replacing religion altogether by philo- 
 sophy. 
 
 The last stage was that of the hermit, who withdrew 
 himself from all human society, and willingly went 
 to meet his death, wherever it would meet him ^. 
 
 To us it seems difficult to understand how a religion, 
 not only so full of different shades of thought, but con- 
 taining elements of the most decidedly antagonistic cha- 
 racter, could have lasted ; how neither the father should 
 have contemptuously looked down on his son who 
 performed sacrifices which he himself had surrendered 
 as useless, nay as mischievous, nor the son should have 
 abhorred his father who had thrown off his belief in the 
 gods or devas, and adopted a philosophy that taught 
 the existence of something higher and better than all 
 these gods. And yet this system seems to have answered 
 for a long time. Recognising the fact that the mind 
 of man changes from childhood to old age, it allowed 
 the greatest freedom to old age, provided always that 
 old age had been preceded by the fulfilment of all 
 the duties of a pater familias, and by an unquestioning 
 submission to the discipline of youth. 
 
 I do not say that we see here the best solution of 
 our problem. I only call your attention to it as one 
 
 ^ Hibbert Lectures, p. 348. 
 C 2 
 
20 LECTURE I. 
 
 out of many solutions, based on the principle of 
 toleration for diversities of religious faith, which are 
 inevitable so long as human nature remains what it 
 is, and what it always has been. No society can exist 
 without diflferent classes. Our own society at all 
 events, as it has grown up during thousands of years, 
 cannot exist without them. I do not think so much 
 of classes differing from each other by wealth or titles. 
 I mean classes differing by education, and consequently 
 by culture and intelligence. It is impossible to expect 
 that these different classes, differing from each other 
 so much in all other respects, in their education, their 
 occupations, their manners, their tastes, their thoughts 
 and language, should not differ in their religion also. 
 It is the ignoring of this simple fact which has 
 wrought so much mischief. It has led to hypocrisy 
 on one side, and to an unreasoning dogmatism on the 
 other. I know there are some who hold that, however 
 much people may differ in other respects, they are all 
 alike in religion. We are told that the faith of the 
 child is as good as that of the sage ; and that an old 
 ignorant woman, who cannot even read her Bible, 
 may be a far better Christian than a young curate 
 who has just taken a first class at Oxford. It is the 
 old story of using words in different senses, or ignoring 
 what Mr. Gladstone calls ' the changes which the lapse 
 of time works in the sense of words.' So far as prac- 
 tical religion goes, so far as doing good is concerned, 
 no doubt many a poor widow who throws in her two 
 mites is better than the scribes and rich men who 
 cast their gifts into the treasury. And who that ever 
 saw an innocent child dying — stretching her arms 
 towards angel-faces above, and giving her last parting 
 
ON FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION. 21 
 
 look to all whom she loved on earth— can doubt that 
 of such is the kingdom of heaven ? 
 
 But we are speaking of something quite different, 
 though it is called by the same name of religion. 
 We are speaking of what educated and highly 
 educated men believe, what conceptions they form 
 of the Deity, of the relation of the human to the 
 divine, of the true meaning of revelation, of the true 
 nature of miracles, nay of the date of MSS., and the 
 value of the various readings in the Hebrew or Greek 
 text of the Bible. All these are questions which 
 hardly exist for millions of human beings, of which 
 they need not take any cognisance at all, but which 
 nevertheless to those for whom they once exist, are 
 questions of the deepest import. It is on these 
 questions that we must claim the same freedom 
 which even the most orthodox of Brahmans allowed 
 to their fellow-creatures. Only, we must claim it, 
 not only for the aged who retire into the forest, but 
 for all whose mind has been awakened, and who mean 
 to do their duty in this life. 
 
 Esoteric and Exoteric Belig'ion. 
 
 I know how strong a feeling there is against any- 
 thing like a religion for the few, different from the 
 religion for the many. An esoteric religion seems to 
 be a religion that cannot show itself, that is afraid of 
 the light, that is, in fact, dishonest. But so far from 
 being dishonest, the distinction between a higher and 
 a lower form of religion is in reality the only honest 
 recognition of the realities of life. If to a philosophic 
 mind religion is a spiritual love of God and the joy of 
 his full consciousness of the spirit of God within him, 
 
22 LECTURE I. 
 
 what meaning can such words convey to the millions 
 of human beings who nevertheless want a religion, a 
 positive, authoritative, or revealed religion, to teach 
 them that there is a God, and that His commands must 
 be obeyed without questioning. And do not think 
 that this appeal for freedom of conscience comes from 
 the educated laity only. The educated clergy are 
 sighing for it even more. Let me quote the words of 
 one whose right to speak on this subject can hardly 
 be questioned, considering that thousands of families 
 in England have confided to him the care of their 
 sons, just at that critical period of life when childish 
 faith has to grow into manly conviction ; considering 
 also that one of our most orthodox Bishops has 
 entrusted him with the examination of candidates for 
 Holy Orders, I mean the Ven. James M. Wilson, Arch- 
 deacon of Manchester, the late Headmaster of Clifton, 
 Examining Chaplain to Bishop Moorhouse, and Private 
 Chaplain to Bishop Temple. 
 
 'I say at once,' he writes ^ 'that we, educated 
 Christian men, have a distinct duty to perform in 
 this direction, always remembering the great law of 
 charity. I think that the Church ought to provide 
 meat for her strong men, as well as secure that her 
 babes shall get milk. One of our failures is in this 
 duty. I do not think that it can be denied that the 
 popular Christianity of the day, whether among 
 priests or people, in church or chapel, is for the most 
 part far less tolerant than is the Spirit of Christ, or of 
 St. Paul, or of the great minds among Christians of all 
 ages. That it should be so among the people is for 
 
 ^ Essays and Addresses, p. 162. 
 
ON FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION. 23 
 
 the present unavoidable. It ought not to be sO;, and 
 it need not be so among the educated laity and clergy, 
 and they ought not to permit the intolerance of 
 ignorance to pass unchecked, as it often does. We 
 clergy ought to stem the tide more bravely than we 
 do, and we ought to have done so in time past. We, 
 as a rule, regard differences of opinion on speculative 
 questions, and even on the terms in which we choose 
 to present them, as very serious matters ; and expect 
 old and young, philosophers and simple men and 
 women, to accept unquestioningly the same terms. 
 I think this is wrong. I do not at all think that this is 
 the mind of Christ. Much may be done to claim for 
 more abstract and philosophic views, and especially for 
 all views that profess to rise directly from the study of 
 facts and promote rightness of conduct, a place within 
 the recognised boundaries of the Christian Church.' 
 
 Then, after dwelling on the value of the discipline 
 of established forms, he continues : — 
 
 ' Why should we fail to recognise the fact that man 
 ought to grow, and does grow, not only in stature and 
 favour with God and man, but in wisdom also ? No 
 Church is honest which does not recognise that fact, 
 and which is not anxious to secure a place of safety, 
 nay, of honour, to those who have grown in goodness 
 and wisdom and understanding, in the gifts of the 
 Spirit, and have thus attained to a truer insight into 
 the nature of religion than can, for the present at 
 least, be reached by the majority of educated people. 
 A Church which declines to recognise the right of 
 the Few who are " fond of wisdom," not only to be 
 tolerated, but to be respected, must become stagnant ; 
 and if it actually encourages the ignorant intolerance 
 
24 LECTURE I. 
 
 of the multitude, if it identifies itself with the nar- 
 rowness and exclusiveness of the uneducated or half- 
 educated masses, it will drive its best champions into 
 silence, and many who under proper guidance might 
 have fought a good fight and done noble work for the 
 Church, into atheism, or what is still worse, into 
 hypocrisy. . . . When the Few cease to differ from the 
 Many, we may have uniformity and peace, but we 
 may also have dishonesty and death. When the Few 
 are respected by the Many, we may hope to have 
 again in the Church a true spiritual, that is, intellec- 
 tual aristocracy — a small heart throbbing within, but 
 giving life and strength to the large body of Christian 
 people without.' 
 
 I have quoted this important passage, not only on 
 account of the authority which justly belongs to Mr. 
 James M. Wilson as a clergyman, but because of his 
 unrivalled experience as a schoolmaster. There is, 
 I believe, no argument that appeals so strongly to 
 every heart as the dangers that may arise, if the faith 
 of the young is undermined. Who does not remem- 
 ber the words of Christ : ' And whosoever shall offend 
 one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better 
 for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck 
 and he were cast into the sea.' I quote once more 
 from the Headmaster of Clifton (1. c, p. 164) : — 
 
 ' I have spoken of the childhood of the individual 
 being like the childhood of the race, and said that, 
 therefore, the education of the one will follow the 
 lines of education of the other. And this is true, but 
 with some important qualifications. The child of the 
 present century is not in all respects like the man of 
 a bygone century. And the child may pass very 
 
ON FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION. 25 
 
 rapidly through the elementary stages ; and we do 
 him positive injury, we dispose him to reject religion, 
 if we prolong these stages artificially, for in that case 
 we make him identify religion with that which he will 
 grow out of. Further: As education advances, this 
 transition will inevitably become more rapid. It is 
 more rapid now than most people think. ... I feel 
 quite sure that, as a rule, religious teachers postpone 
 the higher teaching too long.' 
 
 Relig'ious Education of Children. 
 
 Nothing, I believe, is so dangerous to the healthy 
 growth of a child's mind as the impression that his 
 parents and teachers withhold something, or are not 
 quite honest when they speak of the Bible. The fact 
 that children ask such perplexing questions about 
 miracles in the Bible, shows that their minds are 
 awake, and that everything is not exactly like what 
 it ought to be. A child that had been stung by a 
 wasp, asked the very natural question whether Noah 
 in the ark was not stung by wasps. And what do 
 you think the answer was ? ' No, my child, the wasps 
 were kept in glass bottles.' In these days, when boys 
 see every day on the walls of their school collections 
 of geological specimens, and maps representing the 
 successive strata of the earth, we need not wonder at 
 what Mr. James M. Wilson tells us of his own boy, 
 when nine years old. He was reading the first chapter 
 of Genesis to his mother, and she explained to him 
 that the days were long periods of time. ' Why, 
 mamma, I should think I knew that,' was his remark. 
 
 The human mind, and more particularly the child's 
 mind, is so constituted, I believe, that it cannot take 
 
26 LECTUEE T. 
 
 in more than what it is prepared for. If any one were 
 to say to a little child, who had just repeated the 
 Lord's Prayer, that Heaven was not the blue sky, the 
 child would listen, but would turn up his hands and 
 his eyes just the same to the clouds above. 
 
 I have often wondered what passes in the mind of 
 a young man when he looks for the first time at his 
 'Articles of Religion,' and reads in the very first 
 article that ' God is a being without body, without 
 parts, and without passions.' Such a formula was 
 intelligible when it was uttered for the first time by 
 a philosopher in whose mind the Aryan thought of 
 Greece and the Semitic thought of Judaea were closely 
 blended. This is what Philo, the contemporary of 
 Christ, says on the concept of God : — He is ' without 
 body, parts, or passions ; without feet, for whither should 
 He walk who fills all things ; without hands, for from 
 whom should He receive anything who possesses all 
 things; without eyes, for how should He need eyes 
 who made the fight.' But what meaning can all this 
 convey to the unformed mind of a young boy ? In 
 its negative character, and as a warning against too 
 human a conception of the deity this formula may be 
 useful to him ; but when he tries to realise it with all 
 its positive consequences, he would shudder at the 
 crippled image of the Godhead, thus brought before 
 his mind. What would remain if he deducted 
 from his early conceptions or rather imaginations of 
 God everything that we call body or shape, every- 
 thing that we call parts or distinguishable elements, 
 everything that we call passions, not only wrath and 
 indignation, which are so often ascribed to God, but 
 likewise pity and love, which are passions in the true 
 
ON FKEEDOM OF KELIGIOUS DISCUSSION. 27 
 
 sense of the word, but which we can never separate 
 from our human ideal of the Godhead. 
 
 Growth of tlie Mind. 
 
 My impression is that a boy's faith is not affected 
 by any of these difficulties, till his understanding has 
 grown strong enough to grapple with them. Though 
 he would repeat the words that God was without body, 
 parts, and passions, he would never think of Him as 
 without those loving and pitying eyes without which 
 God would be to him an eyeless and blind idol, not a 
 living and loving God. The mind of a child, of a boy, 
 and of grown-up men and women too, is protected 
 against many dangers till the time comes when they 
 are strong enough to face them, strong enough to 
 reason and to say, that the words of the Article must 
 be taken in a negative (theologia negativa), not 
 in a positive sense (theologia afirmativa) ; and that, 
 though we may deny that God has body, parts, and 
 passions like human beings, we should never attempt 
 to form any positive conception of Him according 
 to this dangerous formula. 
 
 It may be quite right to guard against dangers, 
 whether real or imaginary, so long as it is possible. 
 But when it is no longer possible, I feel certain the 
 right thing is to face an enemy bravely. Very often 
 the enemy will turn out a friend in disguise. The use 
 of Latin in all theological discussions would be a mere 
 sham defence, and any restriction on free discussion 
 would provoke a resistance ten times worse. We 
 cannot be far wrong, if we are only quite honest, but 
 if we are once not quite honest over a few things, we 
 shall soon become dishonest over many things. As I 
 
28 LECTURE I. 
 
 said at the beginning of my lecture, I say once more 
 at the end : In lecturing on religion, even on Natural 
 Heligion, we must look neither right nor left, but look 
 all facts straight in the face, to see whether they are 
 facts or not, and, if they are facts, to find out what 
 they mean. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 ON TOLEEATION. 
 Bright Side of all Beligrious. 
 
 I HAVE often been told that in treating of the 
 ancient religions of the world, I dwell too much 
 on their bright side, and thus draw too favourable, 
 that is, not quite correct a picture of them. I believe 
 to a certain extent I must plead guilty to this indict- 
 ment. One naturally feels more attracted by one 
 bright jewel than by the heap of rubbish in which it 
 is hidden ; and, more than that, one is inclined to 
 consider what is false and bad in any religion, 
 whether our own or that of others, as a mere corrup- 
 tion, as something that ought not to be, and that will 
 pass away ; while what is good and true in all of them 
 seems to constitute their true and permanent nature. 
 You know the argument of the ancient Greek philoso- 
 phers, when they were reminded of the often repulsive 
 character of their gods. Nothing, they said, can be 
 true of the gods that is not worthy of them. 
 
 However, I admit my weakness, and the only excuse 
 I can plead is, that these same religions have so often 
 been drawn from their dark and hideous side that 
 there is less danger perhaps of people at large forming 
 
/ 
 
 30 LECTURE II. 
 
 too favourable an opinion of them, if now and then 
 I should have spoken too well of them. Perhaps I 
 have given the Brahmans too much credit for their 
 tolerant spirit, and for allowing great latitude of 
 philosophical speculation to the older and more 
 enlightened members of their villages. They were 
 able to solve a problem which to us seems insoluble, 
 because they lived in a state of society totally different 
 from our own. The Ara-nyakas or Forest-books, which 
 contained the oldest Upanishads, the philosophical 
 treatises of the Veda, were to be known by those only 
 who had retired from active life into the forest, and 
 the teaching contained in them was often called 
 rahasya or secret. In ancient India there were 
 no printed books, not even manuscripts, but all 
 teaching was oral. Nothing was easier, therefore, 
 for those who were the guardians or depositaries of 
 the higher truth of religion than to keep it from all 
 except those who were considered fit to receive it, 
 men who had left the world, men living in the 
 forest. So long as this was possible, it may have 
 been right. What I doubt is whether in our time the 
 few who, even while living in the world, have retired 
 into their own forest, freed from many fetters which 
 they had to wear in their youth and manhood, would 
 be treated with the same forbearance, aye, reverence, 
 with which the forest- sages, the Vanaprasthas, were 
 treated by the students, the householders, and the 
 very priests of ancient India. 
 
 Dang'er of keeping- Truth secret. 
 
 But we shall see that even in India this device of 
 keeping the highest truths carefully hidden, not only 
 
ON TOLEEATION. 31 
 
 from younger students, but also from grown-up men, 
 householders and fathers of families, broke down in 
 the end, nay, proved one of the main causes of the 
 downfall of Brahmanism. 
 
 In a former course of lectures I explained to you 
 how after a time Brahmanism was supplanted by 
 Buddhism, and how this Indian Buddhism was really 
 the inevitable consequence of the old system of the 
 four Asramas or the successive stages in which the 
 life of an orthodox Brahman was supposed to be 
 passed. Buddha, and those who followed him, seem 
 simply to have asked the question why, if the real 
 truth is reached in the third Asrama only, should 
 people spend their youth and their manhood in 
 learning and practising a religion which was pre- 
 liminary only to a higher and truer knowledge, and 
 in performing sacrifices which were a snare and 
 delusion rather than a means of grace ^. Those who 
 joined the Buddhist brotherhood looked upon the long 
 apprenticeship spent in the study of the Veda, on the 
 fulfilment of the duties of a householder, and on the 
 performance of sacrifices, as mere waste. They left 
 the world at once and listened to the highest truth, 
 such as Buddha had discovered and taught it. 
 
 Antecedents of BuddMsm. 
 
 The first signs of this rebellious spirit against the 
 old system are already visible in the Brahmanic 
 literature. I shall read you an extract from the 
 Mahabharata which has been well translated by my 
 old friend, Dr. John Muir. It is a dialogue between 
 
 ^ Hibbert Lectures, p. 359. 
 
33 LECTUKE II. 
 
 a father and a son. The father exhorts his son to 
 keep to the old paths, to serve his apprenticeship, 
 then to marry and to perform the regular sacrifices, 
 and at the end of his life only to seek for the hidden 
 wisdom. The son, however, does not see why he 
 should reach the highest goal on so circuitous a road, 
 and decides to leave the world at once, in order to 
 find rest where alone it can be found. The exact 
 date of the dialogue may be doubtful, but its spirit is 
 certainly pre-buddhistic. 
 
 Dialogue between Father and Son. 
 
 Son. 
 
 Since soon the days of mortals end, 
 How ought the wise their lives to spend 1 
 "What course should I, to duty true. 
 My sire, from youth to age pursue 1 
 
 Father. 
 
 Begin thy course with study; store 
 The mind with holy Vedic lore. 
 That stage completed, seek a wife. 
 And gain the fruit of wedded life, 
 A race of sons, by rites to seal, 
 "When thou art gone, thy spirit's weal. 
 Then light the sacred fires, and bring 
 The gods a fitting offering. 
 When age draws nigh, the world forsake, 
 Thy chosen home the forest make; 
 And there, a calm, ascetic sage, 
 A war against thy passions wage, 
 That, cleansed from every earthly stain, 
 Thou may'st supreme perfection gain. 
 
ON TOLERATION. 33 
 
 Son. 
 And art thou then, my father, wise, 
 When thou dost such a life advise 1 
 What wise or thoughtful man delights 
 In formal studies, empty rites 1 
 Should such pursuits and thoughts engage 
 A mortal more than half his age 1 
 The world is ever vexed, distressed ; 
 The noiseless robbers never rest. 
 
 Father. 
 Tell how the world is vexed, distressed ; 
 What noiseless robbers never rest ? 
 What means thy dark, alarming speech? 
 In plainer words thy meaning teach. 
 
 Son. 
 The world is vexed by death; decay 
 The frames of mortals wears away. 
 Dost thou not note the circling flight 
 Of those still robbers, day and night, 
 With stealthy tread which hurrying past, 
 Steal all our lives away at last ? 
 When well I know how death infests 
 This world of woe, and never rests. 
 How can I still, in thoughtless mood. 
 Confide in future earthly good 1 
 Since life with every night that goes. 
 Still shorter, and yet shorter grows, 
 Must not the wise perceive how vain 
 Are all their days that yet remain ? 
 We, whom life's narrow bounds confine, 
 Like fish in shallow water, pine. 
 
 No moment lose ; in serious mood 
 Begin at once to practise good; 
 (3) D 
 
34 LECTUEE II. 
 
 To-morrow's task to-day conclude ; 
 
 The evening's work complete at noon : — 
 
 No duty can be done too soon. 
 
 Who knows whom death may seize to-night, 
 
 And who shall see the morning lights 
 
 And death will never stop to ask, 
 
 If thou hast done, or not, thy task. 
 
 While yet a youth, from folly cease ; 
 
 Through virtue seek for calm and peace. 
 
 So shalt thou here attain renown, 
 
 And future bliss thy lot shall crown. 
 
 As soon as men are born, decay 
 And death begin to haunt their way. 
 How can'st thou, thoughtless, careless, rest, 
 When endless woes thy life infest; 
 When pains and pangs thy strength consume, 
 Thy frame to dissolution doom 1 
 
 Forsake the busy haunts of men, 
 For there has death his favourite den. 
 In lonely forests seek thy home, 
 For there the gods delight to roam. 
 
 Fast bound by old attachment's spell, 
 Men love amid their kin to dwell. 
 This bond the sage asunder tears ; 
 The fool to rend it never cares. 
 
 Thou dost advise that I should please 
 With sacrifice the deities. 
 Such rites I disregard as vain; 
 Through these can none perfection gain. 
 Why sate the gods, at cruel feasts, 
 With flesh and blood of slaughtered beasts 1 
 Far other sacrifices I 
 Will offer unremittingly ; 
 The sacrifice of calm, of truth. 
 The sacrifice of peace, of ruth, 
 
ON TOLEEATION. 35 
 
 Of life serenely, purely, spent, 
 Of thought profound on Brahma bent. 
 Who offers these, may death defy, 
 And hope for immortality. 
 
 And then thou say'st that I should wed, 
 And sons should gain to tend me, dead, 
 By offering pious gifts, to seal, 
 When I am gone, my spirit's weal. 
 But I shall ask no pious zeal 
 Of sons to guard my future weal. 
 No child of mine shall ever boast 
 His rites have saved his father s ghost. 
 Of mine own bliss I'll pay the price, 
 And be myself my sacrifice. 
 
 Buddhism originally a Brahmauic Sect. 
 
 Between this view of life and that of the Buddhists 
 the difference is very small. At first the followers 
 of Buddha seem to have been but one out of many 
 religious brotherhoods with which India has abounded 
 at all times. We only know a few of them, because 
 we know so little of ancient India, and all we know 
 is taken from two or three literatures, that of the 
 Brahmans, that of the Buddhists, and that of the 
 G^ainas. We must not imagine, however, that these 
 three literatures, or what remains of them, represented 
 at any time the whole intellectual and religious life 
 of India. India is as large as Europe, without Russia, 
 and its population is over 200 millions, most of them 
 scattered in villages. Many of these villages probably 
 never heard the name of the Veda, or the Tripi^aka, or 
 the Anffas. We are told that even now there are 
 people in India who have never seen a white man. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 LECTUKE II. 
 
 India is swarming with innumerable sects, and has 
 always been a very hotbed of religious ideas. It was 
 Cousin, the great French philosopher, whose knowledge 
 of the history of European philosophy was probably 
 unrivalled, who declared that India contained the 
 whole history of philosophy in a nut-shell. And yet 
 philosophers will continue to write on philosophical 
 questions, as if Kapila and Kamda had never existed. 
 And if India contains the history of philosophy in a 
 nut-shell, it certainly is richer in material for the 
 history of religion than any other country. No phase 
 of religion, from the coarsest superstition to the most 
 sublime enlightenment, is unrepresented in that 
 country. And yet theologians will write on religious 
 questions, as if the Vedas, the Pi^akas, the Angas, the 
 PuraTias, and Tantras had never existed. 
 
 Religious Discussions. 
 
 It stands to reason that in a country swarming 
 with religious sects like India, there must have been 
 discussion and controversy on religious topics. And 
 so there was from the earliest times. We read in 
 the Upanishads of disputants who were ready to stake 
 their heads, if they should be worsted by argument. 
 Nor need we wonder that there should have been 
 differences of opinion, represented by different schools. 
 We saw how in the Veda there stand side by side the 
 most transparent natural polytheism in the hymns, 
 the most minute and unmeaning ritualism in the 
 Brahma-Jias, and the most subtle theosophy in the 
 Upanishads. I do not doubt that these three strata 
 represent originally three successive stages of historical 
 growth ; but so long as we know anything of India, 
 
ON TOLERATION. 37 
 
 we find hymns, BrahmaTias, and Upanishads co- 
 existing, and united under the common name of Veda, 
 the Veda being recognised, not only as the highest 
 authority on all religious questions, but as divine 
 revelation in the fullest sense of that word. Remember 
 then that the Vedic hymns are addressed to a number 
 of gods of whom sometimes one, sometimes another 
 is represented as supreme ; remember that in the 
 Brahma^as an enormous number of daily, monthly, 
 quarterly, semestrial, and annual sacrifices are enjoined 
 as the only means of salvation, whether they be 
 offered to single gods or to Pra^apati, the lord of 
 creation ; remember that the Upanishads, generally 
 integral portions of these very Brahma^ias, teach in 
 the clearest way that all the gods of the Veda are but 
 names of one Supreme Being, whether we call it 
 Brahman, or Atman ; that sacrificial acts, so far from 
 helping man, are a snare and delusion, so long as he 
 expects any reward for them, and that true salvation 
 can be gained by knowledge only, by knowledge of 
 the human self and its true relation to the Highest 
 Self. All these opinions were upheld by certain 
 teachers, and in their schools the minutest differences 
 of opinion on religious ceremonial, and philosophical 
 questions were discussed by the Brahmans. Yet all 
 this was done peacefully and quietly, and we hear of no 
 persecutions on account of differences of opinion. 
 
 When Buddhism and G^ainism arose, about 500 B.C. 
 the Brahmans had to defend their views against those 
 of the new sects, the new sects criticised the old 
 teaching of the Brahmans, and very soon various 
 teachers among Buddhists and ^ainas began to differ 
 one from another. 
 
o8 LECTUEE IT. 
 
 We read, for instance, in the Buddhist scriptures, 
 of several teachers, the contemporaries and rivals of 
 Buddha, the best known being the ^igsbnthsi Nata- 
 putta, who has been recognised as the founder of the 
 6^aina sect, PuraTia Kassapa, Makkhah of the cattle- 
 pen (gosala), A^ita with the garment of hair, Ka/c^ayan 
 of the Pakudha tree, and Sa/7^aya, the son of the 
 Bela^^Aa, the slave-girP. We hear of controversies 
 between them ; and that even the imperturbable Bud- 
 dha could use cutting words in these discussions, we 
 may gather from what on one occasion he said of 
 Makkhali of the cattle-pen : ' O ye disciples, as of all 
 woven garments a garment of hair is deemed the 
 worst, a garment of hair being cold in cold weather, 
 hot in heat, of a dirty colour, of a bad smell, and 
 rough to the touch, so, my disciples, of all doctrines 
 of other ascetics and Brahmans the doctrine of 
 Makkhali is deemed the worst ^.' In the canonical 
 books of the G^ainas also we read of Gosala, the son 
 of Makkhali^, being defeated in disputation by 
 Mahavira Nataputta. 
 
 But though during Buddha's life we hear of such 
 discussions, sometimes bitter discussions, between him 
 and his disciples and other teachers, we never hear of 
 persecutions on the side of the Brahmans, nor of any 
 strong hostility on the side of the Buddhists. People 
 disputed, but they tolerated each other ; they agreed 
 to differ. 
 
 ^ See Maha-parinibbana-sutta, V.60, as translated by Ehys Davids, 
 in Sacred Books of the East, vol. xi. p. 106. Others take Gosala as a proper 
 name, the Sk. Gosala. 
 
 2 Oldenberg, Buddha, p. 69. 
 
 •'• Gaina-sutras, translated by Jacobi, Sacred Books of the East, vol, 
 xxii. Introd. p. xvi. 
 
ON TOLEBATION. 39 
 
 After a time, however, Buddhism seems to have 
 spread very rapidly, and to have led to great 
 social and political changes. The dynasty founded 
 by Z"andragupta, at the time of Alexander the Great, 
 was that of a pretender, a kind of Napoleon, not 
 belonging by birth to the royal caste, and therefore 
 bidding for popular support, wherever he could find 
 it. It is possible that the Buddhists were more ready 
 to recognise and support him than the orthodox 
 Brahmans. Anyhow, under the reign of his grand- 
 son, king Asoka (259-222 b. c), we see the followers 
 of Buddha not only recognised, but patronised by the 
 king, and we hear of a great Council held under his 
 auspices to settle the sacred canon of the Buddhists. 
 
 Toleration preached by BuddMsm. 
 
 In some respects Buddhism may be called a kind of 
 Protestantism directed against Brahmanism, and we 
 know that neither those who protest nor those who 
 are protested against, are generally distinguished by 
 mutual love and charity. The first authentic evi- 
 dence of the political and social changes produced by 
 the spreading of Buddhism in India, we have in those 
 wonderful inscriptions of king Asoka, which are 
 scattered over the whole of his dominions. They 
 have suffered, no doubt, during the more than two 
 thousand years that they have been exposed to the 
 climate of India ; but, as they exist in many copies, 
 their text has been restored, they have been published 
 and interpreted, and we can now read them exactly 
 as they were read by the subjects of king Asoka, 
 whether Buddhists or Brahmans. Their decipher- 
 ment is due to the combined laboui's of Prinsep, 
 
40 LECTUEE ir. 
 
 Burnouf, Wilson, Norris, Biihler, and Senart. If then 
 we remember that Asoka was a kind of Constantiae, 
 who owed much of his power to the support which he 
 received from the new religion, or, if you like^ a kind 
 of Henry VIII, hated by all who suffered under the 
 new reform, you will be surprised to see how much 
 more of true Christian charity was shown by this 
 Buddhist king in the third century B. c. than by 
 Constantine in the fourth, or by Henry VIII in the 
 sixteenth century. 
 
 The Edicts of Asoka. 
 
 It may be true that the idea of putting up public 
 inscriptions struck the Indian mind for the first time 
 when Greek ideas had reached India after Alexander's 
 conquests. But when Asoka had his inscriptions 
 engraved on rocks and pillars, it was not in order to 
 perpetuate his name or the names of his ancestors, 
 it was not to glorify his own origin ; it was chiefly 
 to preach toleration for all creeds. Thus he says in 
 his Seventh Edict ^ : 
 
 ' The king Piyadasi, dear to the gods, desires that 
 all sects should dwell (in peace) everywhere ; for 
 they all desire the control of the senses and purity 
 of mind. Men, however, have different wishes and 
 different passions ; they will perform the whole or a 
 part only (of what they ought to do). But even he 
 whose charity is not abundant, may surely always 
 possess control of the senses, purity of mind, grati- 
 tude, and loyalty ^.' 
 
 ^ Senart, Les inscriptions de Piyadasi^ Paris, 1881, vol. i. p. 174. 
 Biihler, Zeitschrift der D. M. G., xxxvii. p. 279. 
 
 ^ Buhler takes ni/ce, not for nityam, but for ni/ca, low, and 
 
ON TOLERATION. 41 
 
 And again, in his Twelfth Edict (1. c, p. 251), he 
 says: 'The king Piyadasi, dear to the gods^ honours 
 all sects, those of hermits and those of householders, 
 he honours them by alms and by different kinds of 
 worship. But the king, dear to the gods, does not 
 value alms and worship as much as the increase 
 of essentials. And^ the increase of essentials does 
 not differ much in different sects ; on the contrary, 
 the true foundation of every one consists in the 
 bridling of the tongue, so that neither should there be 
 praising of one's own sect, nor disparagement of other 
 sects, without a cause ; and whenever there is cause, 
 it should be moderate ^. The religions of others 
 may even be praised for any given reason^. In 
 this manner a man may much advantage his 
 own sect, and at the same time benefit that of 
 others ; while if he acts otherwise, he damages his 
 own sect and injures that of others. For whosoever 
 exalts his own sect and disparages all others from 
 a strong devotion to his own sect, but, in truth, from 
 a wish that it should be rendered pre-eminent, he will, 
 in this wise, injure his own sect much more. There- 
 fore a mutual understanding is best, that all should 
 Hsten to the teaching of others, and wish to listen. 
 This is indeed the wish of the king, dear to the gods, 
 that all sects should listen much, and be possessed of 
 pure doctrines. And all who belong to this or to that 
 
 translates : ' Even in a low person, to whom great liberality is not 
 (possible), control of the senses, purification of the heart, gratitude, 
 and loyalty are (something) beautiful/ 
 
 ^ Biihler translates : ' The increase of the kernel of all sects 
 (happiness) in different ways ; but its root is prudence in speech.' 
 
 "^ Here I follow Biihler's translation. 
 
 ^ According to Biihler's conjecture, tena tena pakalanena. 
 
43 LECTURE II. 
 
 sect, should have it said to them that the king, dear 
 to the gods, does not value alms and worship as much 
 as the increase of essentials, and that respect should 
 be shown to all sects ^.' 
 
 The Tolerant Spirit of Asoka. 
 
 The exact meaning of these edicts, which king 
 Asoka had engraved on rocks and pillars in different 
 parts of his kingdom^ is not always easy to discover, 
 nor easy to express in our modern terminology. Still, 
 we cannot be mistaken in giving him credit for a 
 most tolerant spirit which finds but few parallels in 
 ancient or modern history. He had recognised what 
 many find so difficult to recognise even now, that we 
 must distinguish between what is essential in all 
 religions, what Asoka calls the sara or sap. and what 
 is not. The number of religious and philosophical 
 sects prevalent in India during the third century 
 before our era must have been very considerable, and 
 on some points their difierences were no doubt very 
 great. But Asoka gives them all credit for incul- 
 cating the same lesson, namely, control of the passions, 
 purity of mind, gratitude, and loyalty. And think 
 what would be gained, if these four points were really 
 gained by any religion ! And when he comes to what 
 he calls the root or life-spring of religion, he finds 
 it in mutual forbearance, and more particularly in the 
 bridling of the tongue, as if anticipating the well- 
 
 ^ Bxihler translates the last line by : 'as that there should be an 
 increase of the kernel with all sects, and a considerable one,' taking 
 bahuka as an adjective referring to saravadhi. 
 
 Professor Biihler has lately given a new translation of this twelfth 
 edict from the Shahbhazgari version, which differs in some passages 
 from the version given in the text. 
 
ON TOLEEATION. 43 
 
 known words : ' If any man among you seem to be 
 religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth 
 his own heart, this man's religion is vain ^,' 
 
 I doubt whether any other religion could produce 
 such royal edicts in favour of mutual toleration. 
 They are one of the brightest pages in the history of 
 India, and I thought it right to make you acquainted 
 with them, because they show that a comparative 
 study of religions has some important lessons to teach, 
 even to us. If therefore I may sometimes seem to 
 speak too favourably of some of these religions,, may 
 I not appeal to the words of king Asoka : ' For who- 
 soever exalts his own faith and disparages all others 
 from a strong devotion to his own, he will injure his 
 own faith.' And again : ' The true foundation of 
 every faith consists in bridling the tongue, so that 
 there should be neither a praising of one's own reli- 
 gion, nor disparagement of others.' 
 
 Disappearance of BuddMsm in India. 
 
 Whether these edicts of Asoka were always obeyed, 
 is another question ; but even as an aspiration, they 
 deserve our respect. History, so far as we can speak 
 of history in India, certainly seems to teach that the 
 sentiments of forbearance and brotherly love, incul- 
 cated in these edicts, have not always been obeyed by 
 the rulers and by the people of that country. The 
 ruins of Buddhist monasteries, tombs, monuments, 
 and pillars, scattered over the whole of India, tell a 
 terrible tale. For some centuries the Buddhist reli- 
 gion must have ruled supreme in India. During the 
 period covered by the travels of the Chinese pilgrims, 
 ^ Ep. St. James, i. 26. 
 
44 LECTURE ir. 
 
 from 400 to 700, though the kings still preached 
 toleration, and encouraged peaceful congresses for 
 the discussion of religious questions, we hear already 
 of many Yiharas or monasteries being deserted, of 
 many Stupas, or pillars, lying prostrate. How 
 Buddhism was exterminated in India, we shall never 
 know. But the fact remains that Buddhism exists no 
 longer as an Indian religion. It lives in Ceylon, from 
 whence it has spread in its southern branch to Burma 
 and Siam, and it lives in Nepal, from whence in its 
 northern branch it spread to Tibet, Mongolia, China, 
 and Japan. But in India proper Buddhism has 
 ceased to exist, and the religious census returns 
 no Buddhists except as strangers and pilgrims in 
 their Holy Land, the birth-place of Buddha. 
 
 So much for king Asoka, the great ruler of India 
 in the third century B. c. We have to remember so 
 many kings for their intolerance. Let us give to 
 king Asoka a niche in our memory for his tolerant 
 spirit, for his benevolence, his large-heartedness, — for 
 that broad and wide view of religion which in our 
 days is so often stigmatised as latitudinarianism. 
 
 It seems often to be supposed that if we praise one 
 religion, we tacitly blame others. That is not so. If 
 I call Buddhism tolerant, I do not mean to imply that 
 Christianity is intolerant. Some who call themselves 
 Christians may be intolerant, but the spirit of Chris- 
 tianity itself is not so. Those who so often quote the 
 words (Matth. xii. 30), ' He that is not with me, is 
 against me,' forget the words (Mark ix. 40), ' For he 
 that is not against us, is on our part.' 
 
ON TOLERATION. 45 
 
 Toleration in the Jewish Beligfiou. 
 
 The greatest minds, whatever their religion, have 
 always been the most tolerant and charitable. We 
 often see how the founders of new religions en- 
 deavoured to retain all that was good and true in the 
 religions from which they seceded. They came to 
 fulfil, not to destroy. 
 
 Even the Jewish religion, which is often represented 
 as very intolerant, was not so from the first. The 
 Mosaic Law commanded that the stranger should not 
 be oppressed — ' for you know the heart of a stranger, 
 seeing you were strangers in the land of Egypt.' The 
 Jews were told : ' Ye shall have one law as well for 
 the stranger as for one of your own country.' Now 
 in the eyes of a Jew a stranger was a man who 
 worshipped false gods, and yet Moses claimed tolera- 
 tion and protection for him. 
 
 It was owing to political circumstances that the 
 Jewish religion became in time so strongly national 
 and exclusive, and it was the influence of the Rabbis 
 that imparted to it in later times so narrow-minded 
 and dogmatic a character. 
 
 Still, there were Rabbis and Rabbis, and some of 
 them would, I believe, put the most enlightened of our 
 Biblical critics to shame by the tolerant spirit in which 
 they treat the most widely-differing interpretations 
 of the Old Testament. Thus it is laid down in the 
 Talmud ^ as a general principle of interpretation, ' that 
 the Sacred Scriptures speak in a language that should 
 be intelligible to men.' A living Rabbi, Dr. Fiirst, 
 
 ^ Maccoth, 12 a ; Kiddushin, 17 b. 
 
46 LECTURE II. 
 
 remarks on this that ' if the Bible speaks of the 
 four ends of the earth, which rests on its pillars, or of 
 the sky stretched out like a tent, or of the sun as 
 running his course like a hero round the earth,' the 
 Jews in ancient times were far from seeing in such 
 expressions matters of fact which science was not 
 allowed to question or to reject. People said that the 
 Scripture used expressions which should be intelli- 
 gible to men such as they were at the time ^. No one 
 was called a heretic because he did not believe in the 
 pillars on which the earth was said to rest. 
 
 With us also, when children are taught to pray to 
 their Father in heaven, the only idea which they, as 
 children, can connect with heaven, is the blue sky. 
 This is so during childhood, and it has been so during 
 the childhood of the human race. The Romans 
 called the gods superi, those above. They spoke of 
 them naturally as descending from the clouds to the 
 earth, and they spoke of the favourites of their gods 
 as having been lifted up to heaven. Our own word 
 heaven is derived from heaving, and meant originally 
 what had been heaved on high. We know all this — 
 we know it is inevitable, and we do nofc blame chil- 
 dren when they retain for a time these childish ideas, 
 inherited from the childhood of our race. 
 
 But, to judge from some recent theological contro- 
 versies, the question seems no longer to be whether 
 we can tolerate this language of children, but whether 
 the children — children whether in age or in know- 
 ledge — will tolerate us. 
 
 o 
 
 ^ Das peinliche Bechtsverfahren im judischen Alterthum, Heidelberg, 
 1870, p. 38. 
 
ON TOLERATION. 47 
 
 Jewish Interpretation of the Bible. 
 
 Let me explain more fully what I mean. I shall 
 quote again a Jewish Rabbi, and you will see how 
 much more enlightened some of these despised Rabbis 
 were than some of our leading theoloo:ians. 
 
 Rabbi Jose says that ' the descent of God on Mount 
 Sinai must not be taken in a literal sense,' and he 
 continues, ' as little as the ascent of Moses and Elijah^.' 
 
 Now, I ask, Do we always bear this in mind ? Do 
 we remember that the descent of Jehovah on Mount 
 Sinai, as described in Exodus, and his carrying down 
 the heavy tables of stone to hand them to Moses, must 
 not, nay, cannot be taken, without irreverence, in a 
 literal sensei?' Every educated, every serious-minded 
 person knows it. The very Fathers of the Church, 
 who have so often been appealed to in support of 
 antiquated errors, protest against the literal inter- 
 pretation of such passages in the Bible, — passages to 
 which so many of our most troublesome miracles are 
 due. May we no longer claim the same freedom of 
 the spirit against the slavery of the letter, which even 
 in the first half of the second century was boldly 
 claimed by, and freely granted to, such a man as 
 Justin Martyr ! ' You are not to think,' he writes, 
 ' that the unbegotten God came down from anywhere, 
 or went up.' Thus by one stroke, this great Father 
 of the Church, whom no orthodox theologian would 
 venture to contradict, removes, or rather explains, a 
 number of so-called miracles which we, in the nine- 
 teenth century, are told we must not touch, we must 
 not venture to explain, we must not venture to try to 
 
 1 Sukka, 5 a. 
 
48 LECTURE II. 
 
 understand. Those who do so nevertheless, who 
 study ancient language and ancient thought, are 
 called Rationalists — a name meant, I believe, as a 
 reproach, but in reality the proudest title in the eyes of 
 every rational man, for it means a man who tries to 
 use, to the best of his power, the best gift which God 
 has given us, namely, our reason. 
 
 It is useless to fight against the truth — truth will 
 conquer us all, even the most orthodox. I have often 
 been told that I ought to have followed the example 
 of my colleague at Edinburgh, Mr. Hutchinson Stirling, 
 the only orthodox among the GifFord Lecturers. I 
 grant that Mr. Hutchinson Stirling is most orthodox, 
 but he is also a scholar and thoroughly honest. I 
 doubt whether those who represent him as the cham- 
 pion of what they call orthodoxy have really read his 
 lectures. When we read in the Bible that the walls 
 of Jericho fell at the blast of the trumpet, or when the 
 author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that the 
 walls of Jericho fell by faith, after they were com- 
 passed about some days, what does Mr. Hutchinson 
 Stirling say 1 Does he accept this as a miracle ? Far 
 from it. He sees in it nothing but what he calls 
 Oriental phantasy, expressing in a trope the signal 
 speed of the event, as if we were to say, that the walls 
 fell at the first blast of the trumpet. He goes still 
 further and says, without any misgiving: 'He who 
 would boggle at the wife of Cain (whose daughter she 
 was) or stumble over the walls of Jericho, is not an 
 adult : he is but a boy still.' This is quite true ; the only 
 question is whether the boys, because they are many, 
 should rule the masters, or the masters the boys. 
 
 Should we then allow ourselves to be frightened 
 
ON TOLERATION. 49 
 
 by another argument, namely that all this may be 
 true, but that such facts and such interpretations are 
 for the few, not for the many, and that more particu- 
 larly the young would suffer shipwreck of their faith, 
 if they were told that Jehovah did not reside in the 
 blue sky, that He did not descend on Mount Sinai in 
 fire, carrying in His arms the tables of the law to hand 
 them to Moses 1 
 
 Archdeacon Farrar has been a schoolmaster for many 
 years, yet he did not hesitate to say, ' We do not sup- 
 pose that heaven is a cubic city.' Is there really any 
 danger in this, and, if there is, should it not be faced ? 
 I believe that so long as a child's mind is still unable 
 to take in more than the idea of God dwelling in the 
 clouds and descending on Mount Sinai in a bodily 
 form, as working Himself with His own tools the tables 
 of stone, as writing Himself with His own finger the 
 ten commandments in Hebrew on the stone, nothing 
 will disturb his childish thoughts. But if he has once 
 learnt to conceive God as a spirit, whom no man can 
 see and live, no authority will be strong enough to 
 convince him that the account given in Exodus should 
 be accepted in a literal and material sense. 
 
 The Ascent of Elijah. 
 
 And what applies to the descent of Jehovah applies 
 equally, as Justin Martyr said, to all descents from 
 heaven, and all ascents to heaven. If we understand 
 the language of the time, we can well understand 
 the true meaning of the ascent of Elijah, as told in 
 the Old Testament. But I doubt whether any serious 
 student of the Bible would bring himself to say that 
 the passage, as we read it there (2 Kings ii. 11 
 
 jf^ OF THR -*^ 
 
 niHIVEESITVll 
 
50 LECTUKE IT. 
 
 was meant to vouch for an historical event, namely 
 that there appeared a real chariot of fire, and real 
 horses of fire, and parted them both (Elijah and 
 Elisha) asunder; and that Elijah went up by a 
 whirlwind into heaven. 
 
 The Ascension of Christ. 
 
 If then their own learned Rabbis, who knew the 
 language of the Bible as their own, exhorted the Jews 
 to take Elijah's ascent to heaven in a spiritual, and 
 not simply in a material sense, why has so much in- 
 tolerance been shown of late to clergymen of the 
 Church of England who claimed the same freedom 
 with regard to Christ's ascension, and tried to see in 
 it a spiritual truth, and not a merely material event? 
 The pictorial language is much stronger in the case of 
 the assumption of Elijah, and yet it was rightly in- 
 terpreted. In the case of Christ the fact of His body 
 being lifted from the mountain and passing through 
 the clouds, as we see it in many well-known pictures, 
 and as it is impressed on the minds of many children, 
 is really never mentioned ; and if it were, it ought to 
 be understood in its deep spiritual meaning, and not 
 as a merely miraculous event. The first Gospel is 
 altogether silent. In the Gospel of St. Mark the most 
 simple language is used, that 'He was received up 
 into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.' Can 
 we doubt of the true meaning of these words ? Does 
 any one really believe that the approach to God is 
 through the clouds ? The third Gospel says, ' He was 
 parted from them, and carried up into heaven.' St. 
 John is reverently silent as to any bodily assumption, 
 though the expressions that Christ descended from 
 
ON TOLEKATION. 51 
 
 heaven and ascended up to heaven are most familiar 
 to him in their true spiritual meaning. (St. John 
 iii. 13; vi. 62; xx. 17.) 
 
 It is in the Acts of the Apostles that the ascension 
 seems to assume a more material character, though 
 even here the expressions of His being seen going up 
 to heaven, or taken up, and received by a cloud out 
 of their sight, must be taken in a spiritual sense. 
 The material fact was, that He was withdrawn from 
 their vision. The spiritual meaning was, that He was 
 raised up and exalted to the right hand of God (Acts 
 ii. 33), that He 'ascended on high and led captivity 
 captive ' (Psalm Ixviii. 18). 
 
 We can well understand that to some minds, and 
 more particularly to the minds of children, the 
 material miracle of a passage through our terrestrial 
 atmosphere is a necessity. It requires less effort, less 
 thought, it requires less of real faith. So long as 
 the blue sky is believed to be heaven, so long as the 
 lessons of astronomy do not open wider views of 
 God's universe, a mere passage through the clouds has 
 nothing to disturb a childlike imagination. Nor is 
 there any reason why this view should not be tolerated 
 for a time, during the days of childhood, as it is sure 
 to disclose its spiritual meaning in the end. It is the 
 discovery of that spiritual meaning which requires 
 real faith ; while if we looked upon the ascension as 
 simply a material fact or an historical event, we should 
 simply have to submit the evidence, like the evidence 
 of any other historical event, to a critical examination, 
 and reject or accept it as we reject or accept the disap- 
 pearance of Romulus on the authority of Livy, i. 16. 
 
 E2 
 
52 LECTURE II. 
 
 Spiritual only. 
 
 Some people say that they can derive no help, no 
 comfort, from what they call spiritual 07ily. Spiritual 
 only — think what that only would mean, if it could 
 have any meaning at all ! We might as well say of 
 light that it is light only, and that what we want is 
 the shadow which we can grasp. So long as we 
 know the shadow only, and not the light that throws 
 it, the shadow only is real, and not the light. But 
 when we have once turned our head and seen the 
 light, the light only is real and substantial, and not 
 the shadow. 
 
 All this is a matter of growth, of spiritual growth, 
 and that growth, though it need not be hurried, ought 
 never to be checked. There is a period in the history 
 of the world, and there is a period in the life of every 
 individual, during which the material shadows only 
 seem to be real, while the light behind us seems a mere 
 illusion, the result of a deduction. Nay, even when 
 that deduction has been made, and has proved ir- 
 resistible to human reason, the human heart often 
 hesitates. There are many to whom the spirit seems 
 something too shadowy, not half so real as the body, 
 and the utmost they can grasp is what they call a 
 spiritual body. If they can connect any definite 
 meaning with such an expression, let them do so. 
 
 But why should others who have learnt to believe in 
 the stem reality of the spirit, have to plead for tolera- 
 tion? Why should those to whom the material 
 miracle would be no help at all, while the spiritual 
 fact, the true ascension of Christ, is a necessity, why 
 should they be deprived of that freedom which even 
 
ON TOLERATION. 53 
 
 Jewisli Rabbis and the Fathers of the Church enjoyed, 
 of interpreting the Bible according to the language of 
 the time? Why should not the two live peaceably 
 together, remembering the edict of Asoka, ' that 
 respect should be shown to all sects ; ' and if to all 
 sects, why not to all ages of men^ to all stages of 
 thought "? We want more faith, not less. 
 
 If there had been more of these Jewish Eabbis, 
 think how many controversies might have been pre- 
 vented. 
 
 The Solstice of Joshua. 
 
 Think of the long controversies carried on at the 
 time of Galileo ! At first so-called logical arguments 
 were used to show that the earth could not possibly 
 move. I shall give you a specimen or two : 
 
 ' All animals which are able to move have mem- 
 bers and muscles, 
 The Earth has no members and no muscles, 
 Therefore it does not move — quod erat demon- 
 strandum' 
 
 Or better still, to quote Chiaramonti : 
 
 'Angels cause Saturn, Jupiter, and the Sun to 
 
 move, and 
 The Earth also, if it does move, must be moved 
 
 by angels in its centre, 
 But in that centre of the Earth dwell devils, 
 Therefore devils would have to move the Earth 
 
 — which is impossible.' 
 
 But when these neatly-contrived syllogisms produced 
 no longer any effect, an irresistible appeal was made to 
 
54 LECTURE II. 
 
 the Bible. Ever so many passages were then quoted 
 from the Bible to show that Copernicus and Galileo 
 could not be right, because their view of the world 
 was contradicted by the express language of the 
 Bible. In the Bible the sun is spoken of as moving, 
 and Joshua said to the sun, ' Sun, stand thou still.' 
 Must we then surrender our faith in the Bible or 
 shut our eyes to the facts of science? The Jewish 
 Rabbis would have given a better answer than was 
 given at the time by Popes or Councils : ' The Bible 
 must be interpreted according to the language of the 
 time.' Joshua spoke as many a hero or poet would 
 speak even now, however convinced he might be fchat 
 the sun never moved. We read in the Odyssey 
 (xxiii. 243) that on the day when Odysseus and 
 Penelope were reunited, Athene lengthened the night, 
 and kept Eos, the dawn, back in the ocean, not allow- 
 ing her to harness the quick-footed horses, Lampos 
 and Phaeton, who bring light to men. But do we 
 imagine that Athene really upset the course of nature ? 
 Does anybody with any sense of poetry doubt that 
 all that Homer wished to say was that those who, 
 like Odysseus and Penelope, believed in the protecting 
 care of Athene, felt as if she had lengthened for them 
 the happiness of their reunion ? 
 
 Again, when we read in the Iliad (xviii. 239) that, 
 after the death of Patroklos, Hera sent Helios against 
 his will to dive into the waves of the ocean, can we 
 doubt that what the poet really meant was no more 
 than that the Trojans felt grateful to Hera, when the 
 sun set sooner than they expected, and the revenge of 
 Achilles was stayed for that day ? 
 
 We lose nothing by accepting these true and 
 
ON TOLERATION. 55, 
 
 natural explanations. Even in the case of Joshua we 
 lose nothing, we only gain. Joshua is represented to 
 us as eager to destroy the Amorites, who had been 
 defeated and were fleeing before him. Whatever we 
 may think of his warfare, he believed that in destroy- 
 ing the Amorites, he was doing the work of God. 
 When darkness seemed to come upon him and to prevent 
 him from finishing his work, what was more natural 
 than that he should exclaim : ' Sun, stand thou still 
 upon Gibeon, and thou. Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.' 
 He is not the only general who has uttered such a 
 prayer^. And if the Israelites finished their slaughter 
 before nightfall, their poets would have been very 
 different from all other poets, if they had not sung 
 that the Lord had delivered their enemies into their 
 hands, and that ' the sun stood still in the midst of 
 heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.' 
 All this is natural and intelligible, and, what is 
 most important, it does no violence to our sense of 
 truth. For, however anxious people may be to accept 
 every event recorded in the Old Testament as his- 
 torical, it must require an effort to believe that such an 
 event as stopping the sun and moon took place in the 
 year 1520 B.C., without being observed anywhere 
 except in the valley of Ajalon, and, let me add, with- 
 out upsetting the whole order of the planetary system. 
 These are what I mean by the so-called physical 
 miracles which science has proved to be once for all 
 impossible, not the true miracles of which Mohammed 
 spoke, when he said, 'You want to see miracles — 
 look at the sun.' And there is no necessity here for 
 doing violence to our sense of truth, if only we 
 
 1 See ' India, what can it teach us ? ' p. 182. 
 
56 LECTUKE II. 
 
 remember the ruling of the old Rabbis, that the 
 Scripture speaks in language intelligible to men. 
 
 But now let me tell you what may happen, if we 
 forget that ruling, and take this poetical language in 
 its literal sense. 
 
 Fasti Temporis Catliolici. 
 
 Many years ago, when I first came to Oxford, the 
 University Press published a work in four large 
 volumes, called Fasti Temporis Catholici and Origines 
 Kalendariae, by the Rev. Edward Ores well, 1852. It 
 is a work full of learning, full of ingenuity. But its 
 principal object is to show that there is a perfect 
 agreement between astronomical and historical chrono- 
 logy. The beginning of astronomical chronology is 
 fixed most minutely in the year 4004, in the week 
 between April 25 and May 2. Then by following the 
 solar and lunar years, and by taking into considera- 
 tion all eclipses of the sun and the moon, the dates of 
 ancient and modern history are brought into perfect 
 agreement with the recorded and calculated move- 
 ments of the heavenly bodies. But when all is done, 
 there remains a small discrepancy. There are twenty- 
 four hours less of astronomical than of historical 
 time. And how do you think this discrepancy is 
 accounted for ? By the time that the sun stood still 
 at the command of Joshua, and by the time that 
 the sun returned backward ten degrees on the dial of 
 Ahaz in the time of Hezekiah, on the 31st of March, 
 710 B.C. (2 Kings xx. 11). You would be surprised 
 at the learning that is expended in these four volumes 
 in order to establish the fact that this addition of 
 twenty-four hours was really made to what we call 
 
ON TOLERATION. 57 
 
 time, and how it agrees with the whole system of 
 astronomical chronology, and forms in reality a most 
 valuable confirmation of the historical truth of the Old 
 Testament. It may be so in the eyes of some people, 
 and if it is a plank which has saved them from drown- 
 ing, who would interfere with them? Who would 
 use against these learned arguments any weapons 
 except those of unimpassioned verification ? So long 
 as the world remains what it is and always has been, 
 so long as there are children and grandmothers, edu- 
 cated and uneducated, wise and foolish people, people 
 who dare not speak the truth, even when they know it, 
 and people who dare not not speak the truth, if once 
 they know it, there will be difference in religious 
 opinions as in everything else. 
 
 Diversity of Opinion inevitable. 
 
 However strong the desire for unity and uniformity 
 in religion may be, it requires but a small knowledge of 
 the history of religion, it requires no more than that 
 we should look around, in order to feel convinced that 
 this ideal will never be realised. One feels surprised 
 when one reads how Mohammed, who is considered 
 the most intolerant of prophets, exclaims in the Koran 
 (X. 99) : ' Had thy Lord pleased, all who are in the 
 earth would have believed altogether: as for thee, 
 wilt thou force men to become believers ^ 1 ' And 
 again: 'Follow what is revealed to you, and be 
 patient until God judges, for He is the best of judges.' 
 This was the language of Mohammed, though hardly 
 his practice. 
 
 Look how Christianity is divided into three hostile 
 
 ' Krehl, Glauben, p. 25. 
 
58 LECTURE II. 
 
 camps, Roman Catholics, Greeks, and Protestants. 
 Yet they are all Christians. Look at the divisions 
 among Protestants, in Germany, Holland, England, 
 and America. Yet they are all Christians. Look 
 again in each division at the variety of opinions 
 preached every Sunday from the same pulpits and 
 listened to by the same congregations. Yet they are 
 all Christians. 
 
 Why should we always dwell on the differences 
 which divide the Roman Catholic, the Greek, and the 
 Protestant Churches ? Why should we be disheartened 
 at the multiplicity of Protestant sects, and at the 
 numberless shades of doctrine and ritual which we 
 see in cathedrals, churches, chapels, and meeting- 
 houses 1 Are not the beliefs which they all share in 
 common infinitely more numerous and infinitely more 
 essential than those on which they differ ? And yet 
 these differences, in some cases so small as almost to 
 defy definition, are allowed to separate so-called 
 Christian denominations, while the magnificent in- 
 heritance of truth which belongs to all of them is 
 wilfully ignored. Christianity, which in the be- 
 ginning was the most tolerant of all religions, 
 seems to have become the most intolerant. We say, 
 no longer, ' He who is not against us, is for us ; ' we 
 always seem to say, ' He who is not with us, is 
 against us.' 
 
 It is an easy excuse to say that this or that point 
 is essential, and that whosoever will be saved must 
 hold it. Many things seem essential to the young 
 which are looked upon in a very different light by 
 the old. To quote the words of one of the highest 
 ecclesiastical dignitaries in this very city, ' Man judges 
 
ON TOLERATION. 59 
 
 more wisely of what is essential and what is indifferent 
 in the quiet sunset of life, than during the heat and 
 burden of the day ^.' 
 
 A Comparative Study of Beligrious teaches Tolerance. 
 
 And here I say once more, that a serious study of 
 the great religions of the world may prove a great 
 help and a most efficient remedy against intolerance. 
 A story was told of Macaulay when, after his return 
 from India, he stood as Member of Parliament for 
 Edinburgh. He had been heckled by some ministers 
 who wanted to find out whether he was quite sound 
 on certain minute points of doctrine, which were too 
 minute even for so acute an intellect as Macaulay's. 
 ' Gentlemen,^ he exclaimed at last^ ' if you had lived 
 for some years, as I have, in a country where people 
 worship the cow, you would not waste your thoughts 
 on such trifles.' 
 
 Macaulay was right. The essentials of religion 
 may be found in almost every religion, even among 
 those who have a superstitious feeling about a cow. 
 When one sees the struggles through which mankind 
 has to pass in order to establish the few fundamental 
 principles of religion, and to gain a recognition for 
 the simplest rules of morality, one learns to be very 
 grateful to the founders of every religion for what 
 they have achieved. Man can be a very wild beast, 
 and to have induced him, not only to believe in a 
 supreme government of the world, but to restrain his 
 selfish passions in submission to a higher will, that is 
 a real miracle. You remember what Asoka called 
 
 ^ Speech of the Bishop of Glasgow at the Church Congress ; see 
 Times, Oct. 2, 1890. 
 
60 LECTURE 11. 
 
 the essentials, or the sap of religion — control of the 
 senses, purity of mind, gratitude, and loyalty. These 
 he finds inculcated by all the sects in India, however 
 different in other respects. We occupy a much higher 
 point of view than Asoka, and looking at the work 
 done by religion in all parts of the world, we may 
 learn that in these essentials all religions are really 
 one. There are differences, there are great differences, 
 between the great religions of the world, between their 
 sects, between their individual members. But there 
 is a unity which ought to comprehend them all — the 
 unity of toleration, the unity of love. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE RESULTS OF PHYSICAL RELIGION. 
 Outcome of Physical Religion. 
 
 BEFORE we proceed to an analysis of what is 
 meant by Anthropological Religion, it will be 
 useful to look back to see what has been the outcome 
 of our last course of lectures. To put it as briefly as 
 possible, it was this, that man, as soon as he began to 
 observe, to name, and to know the movements and 
 changes in the world around him, suspected that there 
 was something behind what he saw, that there must 
 be an agent for every action, a mover for every 
 movement. Instead of saying and thinking, as we 
 do at present, the rain, the thunder, the moon, he 
 said, the vainer, the thunderer, the measurer. Instead 
 of saying and thinking, as we do at present, It rains, 
 It thunders, he said, He rains, lie thunders, without 
 caring as yet who that He might be. 
 
 Man could not help this. He was driven, as we 
 saw, to speak in this way by a necessity inherent in 
 language, that is,'^ in. thought. This necessity arose 
 from the fact that his earliest concepts consisted in 
 
62 LECTURE III. 
 
 the consciousness of his own repeated acts, and that 
 the only elements of conceptual speech which were 
 at his disposal, the so-called roots, were all, or nearly . 
 all, expressive of his own actions. If this is true, 
 and I do not know of any one who has seriously 
 controverted it, it is clear that man in speaking of a 
 rainer, a thunderer, a measurer, was unconsciously, 
 or at least unintentionally, speaking and thinking 
 in what Kant would call the category of causality. 
 The rainer was not only a name for the rain, but a 
 name for a rainer, the agent of the rain, whoever or 
 whatever that agent might be. This category of 
 causality which most philosophers consider as the 
 sine qua non of all rational thought, and as an 
 indefeasible necessity of our understanding, thus 
 manifests itself in the historical growth of the human 
 mind as the sine qud non of all rational speech, as 
 an indefeasible necessity of our very language. 
 
 This is an unexpected coincidence, and therefore, 
 if properly understood, all the more valuable and 
 significant. 
 
 Origrin of the Concept of Cause. 
 
 What is meant by philosophers when they speak of 
 the category of causality as a form, and as a necessary 
 form of pure reason, is simply this — that, whether we 
 like it or not, we cannot help conceiving whatever 
 we conceive, except as cause and effect. Our reason 
 knows of nothing, and tolerates nothing that is not 
 either cause or effect. We may not always dwell on 
 this side of our experience, when we speak of rain or 
 thunder, of sunshine or storm. But we always imply 
 that every link in our experience is determined by a 
 
RESULTS OF PHYSICAL RELIGION. 63 
 
 preceding link, and will in turn determine a succeding 
 link. ' There is nothing in the world without a cause/ 
 this is the fundamental article of all philosophical 
 faith. Whether that faith is, as some philosophers 
 maintain, the result of experience, is quite another 
 question. I hold, of course, with Kant, that no 
 experience could ever give to this article of philosophic 
 faith the character of universality and necessity which 
 it possesses, and without which it would cease to be 
 what it is. Nay, I go further, and maintain that, if 
 ever we were to find ourselves in a world not held 
 together by causality, a mere chaos, we should still 
 retain our belief in causality. The very name of 
 chaos would prove our ingrained faith in causality, for 
 it is a negation of causality, and we could not deny 
 causality without first having conceived it. 
 
 But that is not the question at present. Our 
 question is, how the human mind became possessed 
 for the first time of that ineradicable faith in universal 
 causality. 
 
 No one would venture to say that the human 
 mind, though always under the sway of causality, was 
 from the first conscious of it in its abstract form, as a 
 law of thought. Historically and linguistically, what 
 we now call cause, was first considered and named as 
 an agent, nay as something like a human agent. 
 
 When I have used the argument that we are so 
 made that whenever we see a movement, we require a 
 mover, whenever we observe an action, we require an 
 agent, I have been asked what I meant by ' we are so 
 made.' Other philosophers, from Plato to Kant, have 
 answered that question, each in his own, and yet all 
 in the same way, so that I thought I need not repeat 
 
64 LECTURE III. 
 
 their arguments. I preferred to give mj^ own argu- 
 ment, namely, that our language is so made that from 
 the very first we cannot even speak of anything 
 except as a mover, an agent, a doer. This may to 
 some seem an illustration only. To those, however, 
 who know the true meaning of Logos, and who have 
 perceived once for all the inseparableness of language 
 and thought, it is a great deal more than an illustration, 
 and perhaps the strongest and most palpable argument 
 in support of the inevitable character of the concept 
 of causality that could be adduced. 
 
 But let us throw a glance at one of the earliest 
 arguments in support of our belief in movers in every 
 movement, and agents in every act. 
 
 Plato on the Gods. 
 
 Plato, in the Laws (p. 893), begins his induction in 
 proof of the existence of gods, by observing that all 
 things either move or are at rest. He then distinguishes 
 between what is able to move other things, but not to 
 move itself, and what is able to move itself as well as 
 other things ; and he shows how self-motion is the 
 oldest and mightiest principle of change. 
 
 When that motion is seen in any earthy, watery, 
 or fiery substance, we should call it life, and likewise 
 when we observe in it what he calls psyche, and what 
 we translate by soul. He then proceeds to show that 
 what we mean by psyche is really the same as what 
 is able to move itself — what I call the agent — and 
 that soul is the first origin and moving power of all 
 that is, or has been, or will be, while body, or what is 
 moved, comes second and is born to obey the soul. 
 
KESULTS OF PHYSICAL RELIGION. 65 
 
 The soul, according to Plato, receives the divine mind 
 and then controls heaven and earth and the whole world. 
 
 After these preliminary remarks, Plato proceeds to 
 apply this reasoning to the heavens, the sun, moon, 
 and stars. Every one, he says, sees the sun, but no 
 one sees his soul. Yet there must be a soul, whether 
 it is within the sun or without, and this soul of the 
 sun should be deemed a god by every man who has 
 the least particle of sense. And the same, he says, 
 applies to all the other heavenly bodies, and to the 
 months, and seasons, and years, so that we perceive 
 that all things are full of gods ^. 
 
 You see that we have only to substitute for Plato's 
 psyche, or soul, or what is able to move itself, what 
 we call agents, and his argument for the existence of 
 gods becomes the same as our own for the existence 
 of agents, and, at last, of one agent behind all the 
 phenomena of nature. And that we may do so, that 
 Plato really means by psyche, soul, that which is able 
 to move itself without being moved, he has told us 
 himself in so many words. 
 
 What Plato called souls, what I call agents, others 
 who speak a more poetical and legendary language 
 have sometimes called angels. But we all mean the 
 same thing. Thus Newman writes (Apologia, p. 28) : 
 ' I considered the angels as the real causes of motion, 
 light, and life, and of those elementary principles of 
 the physical universe, which, when offered in their 
 developments to our senses, suggest to us the notion of 
 cause and effect, and of what are called the laws of 
 nature.' This may sound very childish to our ears, 
 
 ^ A saying ascribed to Thales. 
 (3) F 
 
66 LECTURE III. 
 
 but it was a very common mode of expression in the 
 early ages of Christianity. 
 
 Let us now return to our own argument. 
 
 Pirst Consciousness of our Acts. 
 
 Psychologists tell us that the first manifestation of 
 self-consciousness in man consists, not only as a fact, 
 but by necessity, in the consciousness of our own acts. 
 Even of our suffering, we are told, we become conscious 
 only when we act, or react, against it, when we resist or 
 try to escape from it. Mere sensuous impressions may 
 come and go, unobserved, unnamed, unrecorded, but our 
 own acts must always be accompanied by a conscious- 
 ness that they are the acts of ourselves, the acts of a 
 self different from other selves. I do not speak of 
 purely mechanical or involuntary acts ; they would 
 ipso facto cease to be what can properly be called 
 acts. 
 
 If then we can well understand how our true 
 consciousness begins with the consciousness of our 
 own acts, whatever the impulse of these acts may 
 have been, it would seem to follow that our true 
 language also, as distinct from mere cries of joy or 
 pain, should begin with signs of our own acts. And 
 this, as we shall see, which at first was a mere postu- 
 late of the psychologist, has now received the most 
 complete confirmation from the Science of Language. 
 
 Some philosophers try to go back even further. 
 They observe that breathing of a certain sort is 
 crying, and that children have no language but a cry. 
 As the muscles of a child increase in strength, he 
 begins to gesticulate, and his cries diminish in propor- 
 tion to the increase of his gestures. His cries become 
 
RESULTS OF PHYSICAL RELIGION. 67 
 
 also more differentiated, and they accompany certain 
 of his acts and wishes with such regularity that a 
 nurse can often understand the different meanings o£ 
 these cries ^. All this is true, and may throw some 
 light on certain phases in the growth of the human mind 
 and of human language. It may show the close 
 connection between certain acts and certain sounds, 
 but it does not touch the real problem, the historical 
 origin and growth of language and thought, which must 
 be studied first of all a posteriori, that is, by an 
 analysis of language, such as we actually find it, not 
 by a mere synthesis of possibilities. 
 
 Postulate of Fsycholog-y fulfilled by Iiaug-uagfe. 
 
 Now an analysis of language, and more particularly 
 of the Aryan and Semitic languages, carried on without 
 any preconceived psychological theories, has clearly 
 shown that what we call roots, that is, the real 
 elements of speech which defy further analysis, are 
 all, with a few insignificant exceptions, expressive of 
 the acts of man. They signify to go, to run, to strike, 
 to push, to find, to bend, to join, to rub, to smoothe, 
 and a number of similar acts of a more or less special 
 character, such as would be most familiar to the members 
 of an incipient society. Much may lie even beyond this 
 stage when the acts of men received their simple 
 expression. But these earlier stages concern the 
 biologist, possibly the geologist. They do not concern 
 the student of language and thought. 
 
 With a small number of radicals, such as we find at 
 the end of our analysis of speech, more particularly of 
 
 ^ See an able article by Dr. J. M. Buckley, The Philosophy of 
 Gesture, in Werner's Voice Magazine, Nov. 1890. 
 
 Fa 
 
68 LECTURE III. 
 
 Aryan and Semitic speech, it was found possible to 
 express all that was wanted in an early state of 
 society; while looks, gestures, cries, accents would, no 
 doubt, have helped to supply what in more developed 
 languages is supplied by grammar. 
 
 How these radicals arose, why they had one sound 
 and not another^ we cannot tell. Not even the most 
 careful observations of children in their cradles can 
 help us here. What Bopp said in 1833 is quite as 
 true to-day. We shall never know why the act of 
 going was signified by the sound ga, the act of stand- 
 ing by the sound stha. We can only accept the fact 
 that they were felt to be natural expressions for the 
 acts which they signified^ or that they remained out 
 of a number of cognate sounds which might have 
 answered the same purpose. If I call, for instance, 
 such a root as MAR, the clamor concomiitans of the 
 act of pounding or rubbing, I do not mean to say that 
 this was the only possible sound that could have 
 accompanied this special act, but simply that it was 
 one out of many that did accompany that act, and 
 that it survived in the struggle for existence in the 
 Aryan family of speech. 
 
 I tried to explain how with such a root as MAE, 
 man might convey a command, asking his friends to 
 pound or strike. He might also inform them that he 
 was himself in the act of pounding and striking. Nay, 
 he might point to a stone with which he pounded as a 
 pounder, and to the pounded stones as the result of 
 his pounding, as pounded or powder. 
 
 In this way the whole world of his experience 
 would be divided into two spheres, what we call an 
 active and a passive sphere. The result of an act, 
 
KESULTS OF PHYSICAL KELIGIOIf: 69 
 
 the pounded stones, for instance, would be passive, 
 while whatever produces such results would be 
 active. First of all, the man himself who pounded, 
 then also his fellow- workers, would all be active. 
 Even the instruments they used, whether of stone, or 
 wood, or metal, would have to be named as active, as 
 pounders, as borers, or cutters. 
 
 Naming- of Objects. 
 
 It has been urged with an air of triumph that 
 it might be quite possible with a given number 
 of active roots to express all that is active, but that 
 this theory would break down, when we try to 
 account for the names of objects, such as a 
 stone, or a tree,, or a knife ^. This, no doubt, is a 
 difficulty, but when that difficulty has been fully 
 discussed both by Professor Noire and by myself, it 
 is rather hard that we should be supposed never to 
 have thought of it. It is true that we do not quite 
 take the same view of the psychological process that 
 led to the naming of objects. But we do not differ 
 as to the facts, and these facts are there to speak for 
 themselves. 
 
 First of all, with regard to the naming of instru- 
 ments, we find that even in our modern languages we 
 still speak of scrapers, pincers, squeezers, borers, 
 holders, etc., all conceived originally as active, though 
 we are hardly conscious of it now. It was the same 
 in Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit. Thus vomer, a plough- 
 share, was really he who threw up ; securis, an axe, 
 was really she who cut ; fcoo-rrjp was a girder, before it 
 
 » Athenomm, Dec. 6, 1890. 
 
70 LECTURE III. 
 
 became a mere girdle. Even such words as hbvTrip, a 
 cloak, was at first he who helped to clothe, just as in 
 German, ein Uberzieher, an overcoat, was originally 
 he who drew over or covered. All this may seem 
 strange to us, but it is still perfectly intelligible to 
 popular poets. There is a famous German Volkslied, 
 in which a soldier addresses his old cloak, and says : 
 
 'Thou ai*t thirty years old 
 And hast weathered many a storm — 
 Thou hast guarded me, like a brother, 
 And when the cannons thundered, 
 We two have never trembled/ 
 
 In all these words, the masculine came first, then the 
 feminine, and lastly the neuter. 
 
 But how were mere objects named, it is asked. 
 Noir^ has laboured very hard to show that, at 
 first, they too could only have been named and 
 conceived as our acts ; that a cave, for instance, 
 could only have become objective to us as our 
 subjective act, viz. as our excavating. This may 
 sound very unlikely, but here also language has 
 still preserved a few faint vestiges of its former 
 ways. Even now, how do people in a primitive state 
 of society call a newly-opened mine ? Our diggings, 
 they say. The French maison, house, meant origi- 
 nally a remaining, Lat. mansio, a mansion. The 
 venison which we eat was called venatio, our chase, 
 our sport, and all such words as oration, invention, 
 pension, picture, were names of acts, before they 
 became the names of objects. After a time, no doubt, 
 the human mind accustomed itself to look upon the 
 actions as independent of the agents, the cutter 
 became a ship, the cutting a slice, the writing a book. 
 But the chain from the active root to the passive 
 
RESULTS OF PHYSICAL RELIGION. 71 
 
 nouns was never broken, and every link is there to 
 attest the continuous progress of human language 
 and human thought. 
 
 The Ag-ents in ITature. 
 
 If then we ask ourselves how, with such materials 
 at their disposal as have been discovered by students 
 in the lowest stratum of human speech, the ancient 
 dwellers on earth could think and speak of the great 
 phenomena of nature, say the storm-wind, the fire, the ; 
 sun, the sky, we shall see that, at first, they could 
 name and conceive them in no other way but as , 
 active or as agents^ and not yet as mere causes. 
 What we now call the category of causality is no 
 doubt at the bottom of all this, but historically it 
 manifested itself, first of all, not in a search for 
 something like a cause, but in the assertion of some- 
 thing like an agent. The storm-wind, if it was to be '. 
 singled out at all, if it was to be named with the 
 materials supplied by the radical dictionary of that 
 early period of thought, could be called in one way \ 
 only, as the pounder, the striker, the smasher. Andi 
 so it was as a matter of fact. From the root MAR, 
 to smash, we found that the Aryas had formed the 
 name Mar-ut, the smashers, the name of what we 
 now call the gods of the storm-wind, while to them 
 it was no more at first than a name of the agents of 
 the storm-wind. 
 
 We saw that the same process of naming the most 
 prominent phenomena of nature led in the end to the 
 creation of a complete physical pantheon. Not only 
 trees, mountains, and rivers were named as agents, but 
 the sea and the earth, the fire and the wind, the sky, 
 
72 LECTURE III. 
 
 the stars, the sun, the dawn, the moon, day and night, 
 all were represented under different names as agents. 
 
 Transition to Human Ag-ents. 
 
 It might be said that with all this we had only 
 explained why every object of experience had to be 
 named and conceived at first as an agent, and that we 
 have not explained why it should ever have been 
 conceived as a human agent. This is quite true. But 
 if we consider that all roots were originally the 
 expressions of human actions, and that they were 
 predicated at first of human agents, it becomes per- 
 fectly intelligible how, when nothing but human 
 agents were known as yet, other agents, having the 
 same names as human agents, should have been 
 conceived as something like human agents. Suppose 
 that a strong man had been called a striker, and that 
 he had spoken of himself as I strike, of others as 
 thou strikest, and he strikes, was it not almost inevit- 
 able that, if the lightning was called a striker, he 
 should likewise be spoken of as something like a 
 man who strikes, and that people should say of 
 that lightning striker, he strikes, and not as yet, it 
 strikes. 
 
 Difference between Human and Super-human Agfents. 
 
 No doubt a difierence was soon perceived between 
 the ordinary human strikers, and that terrible and 
 irresistible striker, the lightning. And what would be 
 the inevitable result of this ? The striker in the 
 lightning would by necessity be called a non-human 
 striker, and from a non-human striker to a super- 
 human striker the steps are small and few. 
 
KESULTS OF PHYSICAL RELIGION. 73 
 
 So far, I hope, all is clear, for the process is really 
 extremely simple. Whatever in nature had to be 
 named, could at first be named as an agent only. 
 Why? Because the roots of language were at first 
 expressive of agency. Having been named as agents, 
 and no other agents being known but human agents, 
 the agents in nature were, if not necessarily, yet very 
 naturally, spoken of as like human agents, then as 
 more than human agents — and, at last, as superhuman 
 agents. 
 
 The True Meaning- of Animism. 
 
 Consider now how different this is from what 
 is generally understood by Animism and Anthropo- 
 morphism. The facts are no doubt the same, but the 
 explanation is totally different, theoretical in the 
 one case, historical in the other ; nay, irrational in 
 the one case, rational in the other. I cannot help 
 calling it irrational when we are asked to believe that 
 at any time in the history of the world a human 
 being could have been so dull as not to be able to 
 distinguish between inanimate and animate beings, 
 a distinction in which even the higher animals hardly 
 ever go wrong; or again that man was pleased to 
 ascribe life or a soul to the sun and the moon, to trees 
 and rivers, though he was perfectly aware that they 
 possessed neither one nor the other. Even Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer protests against this insult to the human 
 intellect. 
 
 A knowledge of the nature of language explains 
 everything, not only as possible, but as necessary. 
 Human language, being what we found it to be, 
 could not help itself. If it wished to name sun or 
 moon, tree or river, it could only name them as 
 
74 LECTURE III. 
 
 agents, simply as agents, without ascribing as yet life 
 or soul to them. 
 
 Here, it seems to me, we often do great injustice to 
 the ancients, when we translate their language literally, 
 but after all not truly, into our own. Thus Epichar- 
 mos, no mean philosopher, who lived in the fifth 
 century b. c, is often quoted as having declared that 
 the gods of the Greeks were the winds, water, the 
 earth, the sun, fire, and the stars ^. The question is, 
 were the winds and the water and the earth, the sun, 
 fire, and the stars, to his mind mere things, dead 
 material objects, or were they conceived, if not as mas- 
 culine or feminine, at all events as active powers, pos- 
 sibly as something like what the so-called positivist 
 philosophers would accept even now, when they speak 
 of act and agent being one. 
 
 The transition from animate to man-like beings is 
 much less violent, if we account for it not so much by 
 the poetry, as by the poverty of language, which knew 
 at first of no agents except human agents, and there- 
 fore had often to use the same word for natural agents 
 and human agents, without thereby committing the 
 speaker to the startling assertion that the sun and 
 moon, the tree and river were, in the true sense of the 
 word, anthropomorphous, or man-like. Later religious 
 and mythological fancy, particularly when assisted by 
 sculpture and painting, achieved this also, but that 
 stage of thought was reached slowly and gradually, 
 and not by the sudden impulses of what is vaguely 
 called Animism and Anthropomorphism. 
 
 ^ Stobaeus, Florilegium, xci. 29 : 'O nlv 'Enlxap/^os rovs Oioiis eTvai 
 \eyei ^Ave/xovs, iidap, yfjv, ^\iov, irvp, aoTipa. 
 
EESULTS OF PHYSICAL RELIGION. 75 
 
 General Names of the Ag-ents in Nature. 
 
 There was one more step that had to be explained, 
 namely, how these different agents, in or behind 
 nature, came to be classed together and called by- 
 names which we, very glibly, translate by gods. 
 
 We saw how they came to be distinguished from 
 merely Jiuman agents, as non-human, and super- 
 human. And we also saw how from certain important 
 features which all these superhuman agents shared in 
 common, they were emphatically called deva, bright, 
 vasu, brilliant, a sura, breathing or living, and many 
 other names. We saw how this word deva, meaning 
 originally bright, was gradually divested of its purely 
 physical meaning, and, instead of meaning brilliant 
 agents, came to mean in the end great and good, or 
 what we now mean by divine agents. The history of 
 that one word deva in Sanskrit, and deus in Latin, 
 disclosed, in fact, better than anything else, one of the 
 most important channels of the historical evolution of 
 the concept of deity, at least among our own Aryan 
 ancestors. 
 
 Kig-hest Generalisation or Monotheism. 
 
 When that concept of deva had been realised, it 
 was at first a generic concept. It applied, not to one 
 power, but to many. Even when the human mind 
 tried to combine the idea of supremacy and therefore 
 of oneness with that of deity, this was done at first by 
 predicating supremacy of single devas or gods only, 
 each supreme in his own domain. After this stage in 
 which we find a number of single gods, neither co- 
 ordinate nor subordinate, there follows the next in 
 
76 LECTURE III. 
 
 which all the single gods were combined into a kind 
 of organic whole, one god being supreme, the others 
 subject to him, but to him only, and standing among 
 themselves on a certain level of equality. After these 
 two stages, which I called Henotheism and Polytheism, 
 follows in the end that of real Monotheism, a belief in 
 one god, as excluding the very possibility of any other 
 gods. We saw that this highest stage was not only 
 reached by the most thoughtful and religious poets 
 in Greece and Rome, but even by some of the Vedic 
 poets in India. 
 
 These stages in the development of the idea of the 
 godhead are not therefore merely theoretical postu- 
 lates. They are historical realities which we may 
 watch in many religions, if only we are enabled to 
 follow their history in literary documents. Nowhere, 
 however, can this be done more effectually than in 
 India, where some fortunate accident has preserved 
 to us in the Vedic hymns relics of the henotheistic 
 stage in wonderful completeness. Only we must not 
 imagine, as some scholars seem to do, that the whole 
 of the Veda belongs to the worship of single gods. On 
 the contrary, and this is what renders the Veda so 
 valuable, we see in it all the three stages together, the 
 henotheistic, the polytheistic, and the monotheistic, 
 representing the different levels of religious thought 
 that had been reached at that early time by different 
 classes of the same society. 
 
 The Biogfraphy of Agni representative only. 
 
 But though the regular development of religious 
 names and concepts can best be studied in ancient 
 
RESULTS OF PHYSICAL EELIGION. 11 
 
 India, every country and every sacred literature pre- 
 sents us with more or less complete portions of the 
 same intellectual evolution. Not only among Aryan 
 and Semitic races, but among Negroes, Polynesians, 
 and Red Indians we find a belief in and a worship of 
 the divine representatives of the principal phenomena 
 of nature. If the Maruts or Storm-winds rose to the 
 rank of supreme deities in India, the same process, 
 as we saw, raised HuraJzan, our hurricane, to the 
 supreme rank among the gods among the Quiches in 
 America, and left Odin or Wodan as supreme in the 
 pantheon of the Teutonic nations. I placed before you 
 a very complete analysis of the theogonic or god-pro- 
 ducing process by which the Fire rose from the 
 humblest beginnings to the rank of a supreme deity 
 in India. I meant this one analysis to be repre- 
 sentative only, and nothing could have been more 
 remote from my mind than to imply that all religion 
 took its beginning from fire-worship. Over and over 
 again I pointed out that by the side of this one, and, 
 no doubt, very important stream of religious develop- 
 ment, there were many other streams and rivulets, all 
 starting from the observation of natural phenomena, 
 and all ending with the recognition of powers beyond 
 nature, named by the names of these phenomena, and 
 in the end by a recognition of one Power, of one God, 
 the creator of Heaven and Earth. 
 
 The God of the Sky. 
 
 This may seem a long road, leading to a belief in 
 gods and in God — but it was an inevitable road, and 
 a road that it is even for us well to remember. The 
 ancient philosophers never forgot it, and it would be 
 
78 LECTURE III. 
 
 diifficult to sum up the results of Physical Religion, 
 as treated in my last course of lectures, better than in 
 the words of Maximus of Tyre : ' Let men know all that 
 is divine, let them know it only ! But whether the 
 Greeks be roused to a remembrance of God by the art 
 of Phidias, or the Egyptians by the worship of animals, 
 and others by a river, and others by fire, I do not care 
 for all these differences. Let men only know, let them 
 only love, let them only remember the Divine ^.' 
 
 Principles of Comparative Mythology, 
 
 Having traced this process through the fire and 
 other elements, through storm-wind and thunder, 
 through rivers and mountain-peaks, I thought I could 
 have dispensed with going once more over what are, 
 no doubt, the two most important theogonic processes 
 of the Aryan nations, one leading to the worship of the 
 god of the sky, the other to the worship of the god of 
 the sun, though the two are not always kept distinct. 
 I thought that after all that has been written on that 
 subject, no one would call in question the fact that by 
 the same theogonic process which we examined in 
 full detail in the case of fire or Agni, the sun and the 
 sky have been raised to the rank of Devas or deities 
 in India, Greece, and Italy, and in many other 
 countries. I could not imagine that it was possible 
 to doubt any longer the identity of the names of 
 Dyaus, Zeus, Jupiter, and Tyr^. But it seems that 
 
 ^ Maximus Tyrius, Dissert, viii. 10. El Si "EWrjvas fxev eneyfipfi 
 irpbs TTjv fiVTjfirjv rov Oeov i] ^^idicv rex^r}, AlyvvTiovs Se jj irpbs rd (aia 
 Tifi^, zeal voTUfxds dWovs, Kol irvp dWovs, ov vffxeau) r^y Siacbcovias' 
 iarwoav p.6vov, (pdrojcav pi6vov, nvqixovivirojaav novov. 
 
 "^ See Science of Lmiguage, vol. ii. p. 537 seq. 
 
EESULTS OF PHYSICAL RELIGION. 79 
 
 there is nothing that cannot be doubted, if only there 
 is a sufficient amount of ignorance. Because etymolo- 
 gists have sometimes, or, if you like, have often been 
 wrong, as astronomers have often been wrong, as 
 chemists, geologists, and even anthropologists have 
 often been wrong, therefore people seem to imagine 
 that no etymology can ever be trustworthy, or, on the 
 other hand, that any etymology is acceptable. They 
 do not even know why one etymology is wrong, 
 another right. They do not know where the seat of 
 authority lies. They have no idea that there are 
 phonetic rules which cannot be broken with impunity. 
 So long as we recognise these phonetic rules, we may 
 discuss certain etymologies and try to discover 
 whether they are right or wrong. But if these rules 
 are ignored or their authority questioned, all dis- 
 cussion becomes simply useless. 
 
 Bnsaya and Bris^is. 
 
 Let me give you an instance. When, many years 
 ago, I found in the Veda the expression BHsayasya 
 s^sha^, the offspring of BWsaya, and when that off- 
 spring was said to have been conquered by the gods 
 before they brought light to many (Rv. I. 93, 4; 
 VI. 61, 3), I thought that we might possibly have here 
 the same name which we know in Homer as Briseis, 
 the offspring of Brisks, who has likewise to be con- 
 quered before victory could be brought to the Achaeans. 
 But unfortunately I had neglected a very simple 
 phonetic rule, that in Greek an original s between two 
 vowels always disappears. I did not at all like to 
 surrender my identification oi Briseis and Brtsayasya 
 sesha^, but there was no help for it. All I could 
 
80 LECTUEE IIT. 
 
 say in defence was that Briseis might possibly stand 
 for Barseis, but even this was only an excuse ; pho- 
 netically the equation was simply wrong, and had 
 therefore to be surrendered. Here is a weapon for all 
 scoffers. 
 
 Dyaus and Zeus. 
 
 On the other hand, ask any student of Comparative 
 Philology what is the right form which such a word 
 as Dyaus in Sanskrit must assume, if it occurs at all 
 in Greek, and the unanimous answer will be Zeus. 
 No one doubts this, as little as we can doubt that the 
 sun, if it rises at all, will rise in the east. 
 
 No scholar ought to complain if men who are 
 eloquent in the pulpit or amusing in the press, attack 
 his conclusions or ridicule his facts. Only he should 
 not be accused of want of courtesy if he does not reply 
 when he is asked, why Jove should not be taken as 
 a corruption of Jehovah or Jahve, or why God should 
 not be derived from good, or from Wodan and Odin, 
 or from the Persian khoda, or from Sk. dyut, to 
 shine. There are statements which it is simply im- 
 possible to discuss, such as that Baga, the Persian 
 name for god, is derived from the Zend root vakhs, our 
 own ' to wax ; ' that the Persian Peri is found in our 
 fairy; and lastly that Jupiter is really a contraction 
 of i 6 Piter, i.e. O Father. Would any classical 
 scholar take notice of an antagonist who writes, ' We 
 now use the vocative Jove for the nominative, because 
 it was the form used when Jupiter was invoked, e. g. 
 Jove = Jupiter ! ' 
 
 But while such outbursts may safely be ignored, 
 what shall we say, if an author like Dr. Lippert, 
 
EESULTS OF PHYSICAL RELIGION. 81 
 
 a man of considerable learning in his own subject, 
 dares to write (p. 358) : * Whatever may be the mean- 
 ing of the uncertain name of Zeus, I believe that it 
 will more probably have to be looked for somewhere 
 near Spirit or Lord than near the fetish-name of the 
 sky. We must remember that the prevalent explana- 
 tion of Zeus rests entirely on the by no means safe 
 conjecture that a primitive word div means something 
 bright, and must therefore signify the sky.' 
 
 That dyaus (fem.) means the sky in Sanskrit, 
 every dictionary will prove. That Dyaus (masc.) 
 was an ancient god of the sky, any dictionary of the 
 Veda will prove. That Zeus in Greek corresponds 
 regularly to Dyaus in Sanskrit, that dyaus must be 
 traced back to a root ^dyu, and that dyu and div are 
 interchangeable forms, any manual of Comparative 
 Philology will prove. In spite of that, we are told 
 that Zeus may after all be derived from fr/r, to live, 
 and may have been originally a name for spirit. 
 
 I know that to many people a mere etymology may 
 seem of little importance. But what is of immense 
 importance in all scientific discussions is the spirit of 
 truth. To make light of a fact that has been esta- 
 blished, to ignore intentionally an argument which 
 we cannot refute, to throw out guesses which we 
 know we cannot prove, nay, which we do not even 
 attempt to prove, is simply wi'ong, and poisons the 
 air in which alone true science can breathe and live. 
 No amount of downright blundering does half the 
 mischief which is caused by an assumption of supreme 
 indifference as to the truth of any statement, even of 
 an etymology. And there are etymologies on the 
 truth of which depend the most momentous issues. 
 (3) (^ 
 
82 LECTURE III. 
 
 The Wesson of Jnpitex. 
 
 If I were asked what I consider the most important 
 discovery which has been made during the nineteenth 
 century with respect to the ancient history of man- 
 kind, I should say it was this simple etymological 
 equation: Sanskrit DYATJSH-PITARi=: Greek ZET2 
 nATEP2=Latin JUPITEI13= Old Norse TtR. Think 
 what this equation implies ! It implies not only that 
 our own ancestors and the ancestors of Homer and 
 Cicero spoke the same language as the people of 
 India — this is a discovery which, however incredible 
 it sounded at first, has long ceased to cause any sur- 
 prise — but it implies and proves that they all had 
 once the same faith, and worshipped for a time the 
 same supreme deity under exactly the same name — a 
 name which meant Heaven — Father. 
 
 This lesson cannot be taught too often, for no one 
 who has not fully learnt, marked, and inwardly 
 digested it, can form a true idea of the light which 
 it sheds on the ancient history of the Aryan race. 
 Ancient history has become as completely changed 
 by that one discovery as astronomy was by the 
 Copernican heresy. 
 
 And if we wish to realise to its fullest extent the 
 unbroken continuity in the language, in the thoughts 
 and words of the principal Aryan nations, let us look 
 at the accents in the following list : 
 
 1 Rv. IV. 1, 10. 
 
 ^ ZeC TTCLTep (Od. v. 7, etc.). 
 
 ^ Diespiter, Dispiter. As to the corresponding German names, 
 see Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, i. p. 192. The Eddie name T^r, gen. 
 TDsj corresponding to Sanskrit Dyaus, would be Tius in Gothic, Tiw 
 in A. S., Zio in Old High-German. 
 
RESULTS OF PHYSICAL RELIGION. 83 
 
 Sanskrit. 
 
 Greek. 
 
 Li 
 
 Norn. Dyaus 
 
 Zei5s 
 
 Ju-piter 
 
 Gen. Divas 
 
 Atos 
 
 Jovis. 
 
 Loc. Divi 
 
 Alt 
 
 Jovi. 
 
 Ace. Divam 
 
 Aia 
 
 Jovem. 
 
 Voc. Dyaus 
 
 Zev 
 
 Jupiter. 
 
 Here we see that at the time when the Greeks had 
 become such thorough Greeks that they hardly knew 
 of the existence of India, the people at Athens laid 
 the accent in the oblique cases of Zeus on exactly 
 the same syllable on which the Brahmans laid it at 
 Benares, with this difference only, that the Brahmans 
 knew the reason why, while the Athenians did not ^. 
 
 A scholar who ventures on the sea of ancient 
 history, and more particularly of ancient religion and 
 mythology, without having this short equation con- 
 stantly before his eyes, is as helpless as an ancient 
 mariner without a compass: he may weather many 
 a storm, but he must be wrecked in the end. 
 
 But it is one thing to discover a truth, and quite 
 another to make other people see that truth. Naturally, 
 though perhaps unfortunately, the man who has dis- 
 covered a truth, who sees it, knows it, and can no 
 longer doubt it, is generally very indifferent as to 
 whether other people can be made to see and to 
 accept it. He knows it will conquer in the end, 
 and he feels that he has more important work to do 
 than to convert philological painim. Truth, he knows, 
 is in no hurry. The Copernican theory was laughed 
 at, it was anathematized^ it was refuted by the high- 
 est authorities, but it lived on for all that ; and, what 
 is more wonderful still, it is at present accepted as 
 
 ^ Selected Essays, i. p. 220 ; Lectures on the Science of Language, ii. 
 p. 468 seq. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 LECTUKE III. 
 
 gospel by millions, whereas the number of those who 
 really understand it, and, if called upon, could defend 
 it, might probably be counted by hundreds only. 
 
 But for all that, one cannot help feeling sorry, nay, 
 even angry, when one sees scholars who in their own 
 particular sphere deserve our respect and may claim 
 considerable authority, speak of an etymology like 
 that of Zeus and Dyaus as something that may or 
 may not be. 
 
 Dr. Iiippert. 
 
 It seems indeed as if his own conscience had 
 smitten Dr. Lippert. After rejecting the only possible 
 etymology of Zeus, and denying its connection with 
 what he calls the sky-fetish — just imagine, if you 
 can, what possible meaning can be conveyed by such 
 a monstrosity as the compound sky-fetish — he seems 
 to have remembered that, after all, sub divo in Latin 
 means beneath the sky, and that if divuoii meant the 
 sky, there might possibly have been some connection 
 between divumi and diiis, and Dyaus and Zeus, and 
 Ju-piter. Let us see now how he quiets his qualms 
 of conscience. ' Bivus,' he writes (p. 422), ' is a con- 
 cept of the widest extension, and so is diva. Whether 
 this has any connection with the Greek 6tos-stem, 
 does not concern us here. But no translation is so 
 well adapted to all cases where it is used, as spirit, 
 in the sense of soul, separated from the body. The 
 German word Geist becomes inapplicable only because 
 it has not, like the Latin word, both substantival and 
 adjectival meaning. Whether the word goes back 
 to the same root dus, from which the Slaves have 
 derived their words for spirit, may be left to etymolo- 
 
RESULTS OF PHYSICAL RELIGION. 85 
 
 gists to settle. (No etymologist would for one moment 
 even listen to this.) Certain it is from its use that 
 of all synonyms it expresses more especially the 
 concept of spirit, so that it can be prefixed to others 
 as an attributive general name. Thus Divus pater 
 means the father who continues to live as a spirit, 
 diva Ttiater the mother-spirit ; and we also find divi 
 famuli, and divi manes. . . .' 
 
 'Latin does not distinguish in its usage between 
 divus and dius, as if both were dialectic forms of 
 the same meaning. Particularly, and this is impor- 
 tant, the manes are as often called dii manes as divi 
 manes. . . .' 
 
 And again, p. 441 : 
 
 ' The forms divi, dii, and dei do not enable us to 
 establish an essential difference between them. Divus 
 pater and Diespiter (Jupiter) are so clearly synony- 
 mous that I cannot believe in any derivation of the 
 former which would bring in the absolutely uncon- 
 cerned sky. It would be extremely strange that 
 beings dwelling on the earth or under the earth 
 could directly or indirectly have been called divi, and 
 in the words of Livy (i. 32), diique . . . terrestres 
 vosque inferni, there would be an unaccountable 
 contradiction.' 
 
 But after Dr. Lippert has thus far tried to persuade 
 others, if not himself, that the root div, which means 
 something bright, could never have yielded names for 
 the bright sky, or for the bright god of the sky, his 
 conscience awakes once more. There is that trouble- 
 some expression suh divo, which means beneath the 
 sky. And that expression, as he himself remarks, 
 must have been in use before Cato's time. There is 
 
86 LECTUEE III. 
 
 evidently a momentary struggle in Dr. Lippert's 
 mind; but at last, with a supreme effort, he waves 
 his own objection aside. ' There are too many wit- 
 nesses against it,' he says ; ' and it probably arose at 
 a time when Greek influence might have told on it.' 
 
 If this is not mere forensic pleading, I do not know 
 what is. If Dr. Lippert knows that sub divo means 
 beneath the sky, he surely knows likewise that sub 
 dio, sub diu, and sub Jove frigido are used in the same 
 sense. He knows that in Greek diipetes means 
 swollen by rain, lit. fallen from the sky, and that 
 diosemia are portents in the sky. As dyaus in 
 Sanskrit means not only sky and the god of the sky, 
 but is used in the sense of day also, he knows that 
 the Cretans used hia for ^/xepa, and that diuvi fulgur 
 was lightning by day which came from Jupiter. In 
 fact, if by this time there still could be any reason- 
 able doubt on the correctness of the common origin 
 of Dyaus, Zeus, and Jupiter, the comparative study 
 of languages might as well be banished from our 
 Universities, the comparative study of mythology 
 should be ostracised, and the comparative study of 
 religions should take its place behind astrology and 
 palmistry. Instead of forming the glory of the nine- 
 teenth century, these three sciences should be quoted 
 in future, together with table-turning and spirit- 
 rapping, as a disgrace to our generation. 
 
 Protest agfainst levity. 
 
 I am sorry that I should have had to use such 
 strong language. I should gladly have remained 
 silent, if it were a purely personal matter. I have 
 
EESULTS OF PHYSICAL KELIGION. 87 
 
 always held that it matters very little who is right, 
 but that it matters very much what is right. There 
 are many things in every branch of scientific research 
 which are doubtful. There are many questions in 
 the study of ancient language, mythology, and reli- 
 gion which at present, and possibly for ever, must be 
 left open questions. The exact spot, for instance, from 
 whence the Aryan languages — I do not speak of Aryan 
 people — started, cannot be determined with any ap- 
 proach to certainty, unless we can gain possession of 
 new facts. To speak on such a point, as if no diffi- 
 culties existed, is unscholarly, and only shows that 
 those who rush in are ignorant of the dangers which 
 they ought to dread. But there are other questions 
 that have been solved once for all, and to re-open 
 them again and again, without a single scrap of new 
 evidence, is simply to impede the progress of know- 
 ledge. Nothing has been produced to weaken a 
 single link in the chain that unites the Dyaus of 
 the Veda with the Zeus of Homer. To say that Zeus 
 may be derived from (-^v, to live, is simply to say 
 that which is not. And thus to trifle with an ety- 
 mology is to trifle not only with what is true — that 
 is bad enough — but with what is sacred^. For the 
 history of the past is a sacred thing. The knowledge 
 that God has not left Himself without a witness in 
 India as well as anywhere else, is a sacred thing. 
 The evidence that the Aryas, before they separated, 
 had fixed on a name for god, and that a name, mean- 
 ing the bright sky, is a sacred thing. In matters 
 of such import true science has a right to say, Odi 
 
 ^ See Appendix I. 
 
88 LECTUKE III. 
 
 profannrti vulgus et arceo. A scholar who cannot 
 grow indignant when he sees serious questions turned 
 into ridicule^ by mere trifling, does not deserve the 
 name of a scholar, and to my mind the identity of 
 these two divine names, Dyaus and Zeus, is with all 
 its consequences as serious, as solemn, as sacred a 
 matter as any article of our creed. 
 
 ^ Appendix II. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 THE HISTORICAL PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 Secums Judicat Orbis Terrarum. 
 
 WE have lately been told that what finally 
 determined Newman to leave the English 
 Church and to join the communion of Rome, was a 
 short sentence of St. Augustine, Secur us judicat orbis 
 terraTUVi. ' Cardinal Wiseman,' we are told ^, ' had 
 written an article on the Donatist Schism, with an 
 application to the Church of England. Newman read 
 it, and did not see much in it. But one of his friends 
 called his attention to St. Augustine's phrase, Securus 
 judicat orbis terrarwni, quoted in the article. The 
 friend repeated these words again and again, says 
 Newman ; and when he was gone they kept running 
 in my ears ..." For a mere sentence," he says, " the 
 words of St. Augustine struck me with a power which 
 I never had felt from any words before. To take a 
 familiar instance, they were like the 'Turn again, 
 Whittington,' of the chime ; or, to take a more serious 
 one, they were like the ' Tolle, lege ; tolle, lege ' of 
 the child, which converted St. Augustine himself." 
 Securus judicat orbis terrarum, by those great 
 
 ^ Contemporary Review, Jan. 1891, p. 141, Dean Church, by Canon 
 Maccoll. 
 
90 LECTURE IV. 
 
 words of the ancient Father, interpreting and summing 
 up the long and varied course of ecclesiastical history, 
 the theory of the Via Media was absolutely pulverised.' 
 
 If we think how small and insignificant was the 
 orhis terrarumi to which St, Augustine could appeal, 
 and yet how powerful the effect which that appeal 
 produced at the time, and produced even in our own 
 time on such a mind as Newman's, we are surely 
 justified in appealing to the orbis terrarurti in its 
 widest sense, in support of the universal belief in God, 
 whatever the images by which He was represented, 
 whatever the names by which He was called ^. And 
 yet people ask what can be gained by a comprehensive 
 study of religions, by showing that, as yet, no race 
 has been discovered without some word for what is 
 not- visible, not-finite, not-human, for something super- 
 human, and divine. 
 
 It is curious that some theologians go even so far 
 as to resent the discovery of the universality of such 
 a belief. They are anxious to prove that human 
 reason alone could never have arrived at a conception 
 of God. They would much rather believe that God 
 had left Himself without witness, than that a belief in 
 something higher than the Finite could spring up in 
 the human heart from gratitude to Him who gave us 
 rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our 
 hearts with food and gladness. At a recent Missionary 
 Conference, held in London, it was gravely asserted 
 by Dr. David Brown that the apostle Paul made a 
 mistake at Athens, that he, when he appealed to the 
 god whom the heathens ignorantly worship, meddled 
 
 ^ To 8^ PapfiapiKov, dfxoioos fxlv anavTcs ^vverol tov Ocov, KareffT-qaavTo 
 5e avTcis ffTjfxcia dKXoi dWa. Maxim. Tyr., Dissert, viii. 4. 
 
HISTORICAL PEOOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 91 
 
 with philosophy, and therefore had few converts ^. 
 And such irreverence is called Bible Christianity. 
 
 Universality of a Belief in God does not prove its Trutli. 
 
 But there is another class of critics, far more difficult 
 to deal with. Granted, they say, that a belief in 
 gods, or even a belief in one Supreme God, can be 
 discovered in every corner of the orhis terrarum as 
 known to us — how does that prove that such a belief 
 is true, and that either these different gods or a 
 supreme deity really exist ? In reply to the argument 
 securus judicat orhis terrarurti, ' the judgment of the 
 whole world is safe,' it has been pointed out that the 
 same orhis terraruni has been deceived again and 
 again. We live in times of serious, nay, if you like, 
 of honest atheism. People have not parted with their 
 belief in the existence of a god^ without a hard, a 
 heart-breaking struggle. They declare that the old 
 proofs for the existence of a divine Being, the teleolo- 
 gical, the ontological, and the cosviological, have all 
 failed them, and that a belief in revelation, without a 
 previous belief in the existence of a divine Being, is 
 impossible. 
 
 Let me remark that even if we admitted the truth of 
 these objections, we might still claim for the history of 
 religions the same right to a place among our academic 
 studies which is conceded to other historical studies. If 
 at our schools and universities we teach the history 
 of literature, of art, and of the various branches of 
 physical science, surely the history of religion ought 
 to form a recognised department in the teaching of 
 every university. Knowledge has a value of its 
 
 ^ Madras Christian College Magazine, Sept. 1889, p. 209. 
 
92 LECTURE IV. 
 
 own, even if it should not be of practical or marketable 
 utility. Even if religion were nothing but hallucina- 
 tion, as we have lately been told, an accurate know- 
 ledge of the causes and the different phases of this 
 universal disease might prove useful for its final cure. 
 
 But I claim a great deal more for an historical 
 study of the religions of the world. To my mind the 
 historical proof of the existence of God, which is 
 supplied to us by the history of the religions of the 
 world, has never been refuted, and cannot be refuted. 
 It forms the foundation of all the other proofs, call 
 them cosmological, ontological, or teleological ; or 
 rather, it absorbs them all, and makes them super- 
 fluous. 
 
 There are those who declare that they require no 
 proof at all for the existence of a Supreme Being, or, 
 if they did, that they would find it in revelation and 
 nowhere else. Suppose they wanted no proof them- 
 selves, would they really not care at all to know how 
 the human race, and how they themselves, came in 
 possession of what, I suppose, they value as their 
 most precious inheritance? Do they really think 
 that in this case an examination of the ancient title- 
 deeds might safely be dispensed with, while with 
 regard to much less precious holdings it is considered 
 a plain duty to guard these documents with the 
 greatest care ? 
 
 An appeal to revelation is of no avail in deciding- 
 questions of this kind, unless it is first explained 
 what is really meant by revelation. The history of 
 religions teaches us that the same appeal to a special 
 revelation is made, not only by Christianity, but by 
 the defenders of Brahmanism. of Zoroastrianism, and 
 
HISTOEICAL PKOOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 93 
 
 of Mohammedanism, and where is the tribunal to 
 adjudicate on the conflicting appeals of these and 
 other claimants? The believer in the Vedas is as 
 thoroughly convinced of the superhuman origin of 
 his ancient hymns, as the Zoroastrian of that of the 
 Gathas, and the Mohammedan of that of the Surahs ; 
 and the subtle arguments by which each, but more 
 particularly the Brahman, supports his claims, would 
 put some of our ablest casuists to shame. The 
 followers of every one of these religions declare their 
 belief in the revealed character of their own religion, 
 never in that of any other religion. Many persons 
 believe, and believe honestly, in visions they have had 
 themselves, never in the visions claimed by other 
 people. There is, no doubt, a revelation to which we 
 may appeal in the court of our own conscience, but, 
 before the court of universal appeal, we require 
 different proofs for the faith that is in us. 
 
 Let our antagonists bear in mind that in what I 
 call Physical Religion, the subject of my lectures of 
 last year, we have proved not only the universality of 
 a belief in something beyond the finite, in something 
 infinite, in something divine. Even that would be 
 something, considering the repeated attempts that 
 have been made by students of great learning and 
 research to prove the contrary. We have proved 
 more than that. We have proved that, given man, 
 such as he is, and given the world, such as it is, a 
 belief in divine beings, and, at last, in one Divine 
 Being, is not only a universal, but an inevitable fact. 
 
 Those who doubt the universality of the fact, have to 
 take up the challenge, and produce their instances, or, 
 at least one undoubted instance, of a really atheistic 
 
94 LECTURE IV. 
 
 race, I mean a race that not yet believes in superhuman 
 beings. The case of people who no longer believe in 
 gods is quite different, and has to be considered by 
 itself. 
 
 What we have to consider at present is, how it 
 follows that the universal belief in the Infinite, under 
 all its various disguises, is true. 
 
 Belief in God inevitable. 
 
 True is a strong word for any human being to use. 
 But suppose we could prove that universal dogma to 
 be inevitable, would not that suffice ? Does it not 
 suffice us, for all geometrical calculations, to know 
 that, in this world at least, there are only three 
 dimensions, that the straight line is always the 
 shortest, and that two parallel lines can never meet ? 
 Why then should it not suffice us to know that, in 
 this world at least, the belief in a Supreme Being is 
 inevitable for human beings, such as we are 1 
 
 In former times it was the fashion to say that the 
 gods and all that was to be believed about them had 
 been invented by the priests, in order that they might 
 be better able to control the passions of men, and to 
 establish law and order on a firm basis. We saw, on 
 the contrary, that the gods were believed in long 
 before any priests were heard of, and that there was 
 no extraneous motive whatever for that belief. Unless 
 all historical evidence deceived us, that belief arose 
 everywhere naturally, irresistibly, and at first, we 
 might almost say, unconsciously. We may safely 
 say therefore that, as far as historical evidence goes, 
 man cannot escape from a belief in gods, whether 
 many or one. Philosophy may go so far as to teach 
 
HISTOKICAL PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 95 
 
 that the senses, the understanding, the whole intellect 
 of man are all a fraud ; but even philosophy will 
 never teach us how to be anything but what we are, 
 namely, human beings, and, in that sense, liable to 
 human error. There may be truth beyond the reach 
 of the human intellect, but that truth is not for us. 
 
 Philosophy has taught us to distinguish between 
 what is phenomenal and what is real, but it stands 
 to reason that we can know the real as phenomenal 
 only. Everything we know, by the very fact that 
 we know it, becomes phenomenal. To attempt to 
 know what a thing is by itself, the Noumenon, das 
 Ding an sick, is to attempt to know a thing as we 
 do not know it, and this is a contradiction in itself. 
 Nothing can be real to us, unless it submits to be 
 phenomenal ; nothing can be objective to us, except 
 in the forms of our own subjective consciousness. It is 
 strange that even philosophers should not see this, — 
 at least some of them ; and that they should attempt 
 what even the ancient metaphysicians called a most 
 troublesome athletic performance, namely, to stand on 
 their own shoulders, to see beyond their own horizqn. 
 Even physical science ought to have opened peo- 
 ple's eyes. In music, for instance, we speak of tones, 
 yet we know that by itself, that is, if not taken in by 
 our ear, what we call A', the A' of our tuning-forks, 
 consists really of 875 single vibrations in one second. 
 If we speak of colours, we know that by itself, that 
 is, if not taken in by our eye, what we call red is 
 simply so many millions of vibrations of ether in 
 one second. I use these, of course, as illustrations 
 only, for even the number of these vibrations is 
 phenomenal, or based on phenomenal experience. 
 
96 LECTURE IV. 
 
 But as illustrations they might teach us that what- 
 ever we perceive we must perceive by our senses, 
 whatever we knOw we must know by our own mind, 
 and call by our own language, that all our knowledge 
 in fact must be phenomenal or relative, must be hu- 
 man knowledge. 
 
 All therefore that the historical student of religion 
 maintains that he has proved is that man, being what 
 he is, and simply using the instruments of knowledge 
 which he possesses, cannot escape from a belief in an 
 infinite Being, whatever forms it may assume in the 
 historical development of the human race. 
 
 If then, from the standpoint of human reason, no 
 flaw can be pointed out in that intellectual process 
 which led to the admission of something within, 
 behind, or beyond nature, call it the Infinite or any 
 other name you like, it follows that the history of 
 that process is really at the same time the best proof 
 of the legitimacy and truth of the conclusions to which 
 it has led. 
 
 History of the Belief in gfods and God. 
 
 And here it is where our historical studies, which 
 to some appear so far removed from the burning 
 interests of the hour, touch the springs of our deep- 
 est religious convictions. Our own belief in God as 
 the author of all that exists, whether we call Him 
 father or creator or supporter of the world, has its 
 deepest, its only living roots in that ancient, univer- 
 sal stratum of thought which postulated an agent in 
 the sky, the sun, the fire, and the storm-wind ; which 
 was not satisfied with the mere play of appearances 
 in nature, but yearned to know what it was that 
 appeared ; which felt the limits of the finite in all its 
 
HTSTOKICAL PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 97 
 
 sensuous perceptions, and in feeling the limits, felt at 
 the same time the presence of something that was 
 beyond those limits. This dissatisfaction with the 
 finite, this struggle after the non-finite, this search for 
 an agent for every act, of a mover for every move- 
 ment, whatever shape it took, whatever name it 
 claimed, forms the primitive and indestructible foun- 
 dation of man's faith in God. If it is taken away, 
 people may indeed have dogma and creeds, but they 
 cannot have their own ineradicable conviction that 
 there is and that there must be a God. Dogma can 
 supply no argument against atheism. Dogma is what 
 my excellent colleague at Edinburgh, Mr. Hutchinson 
 Stirling (p. 12), has very truly called mere Vorstellung, 
 which requires for its philosophical foundation the 
 Begriff. But that Begriff has a history, and it is this 
 history of the Begriff ^hioh to my mind is the true, 
 because unanswerable, answer to all atheism. I 
 should go so far as to say that the history of religion 
 is the best proof of religion, just as the growth of the 
 oak-tree is the best proof of the oak-tree. There may 
 be excrescences, there may be dead leaves, there may 
 be broken branches, but the oak-tree is there, once for 
 all, whether in the sacred groves of Germany, or at 
 Dodona, or in the Himalayan forests. It is there, not 
 by our own will, but by itself, or by a Higher Will. 
 There may be corruptions, there may be antiquated 
 formulas, there may be sacred writings flung to the 
 wind, but religion is there, once for all, in all its 
 various representations. You can as little sweep 
 away the oak-tree with its millions of seeds from the 
 face of the earth, as you can eradicate religion, true 
 religion, from the human heart. 
 (3) H 
 
98 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Are all Belig-ious True? 
 
 But it may be objected that, if everything at which 
 man by his unassisted intellect arrives were true, then 
 all religions would be true, and, as many of them con- 
 tradict either themselves or one another, this cannot be. 
 
 This is the very objection which nothing, I believe, 
 can meet and repel except an appeal to history. 
 
 History teaches us how all the predicates which 
 were bestowed by man on the Transcendent, or what 
 was beyond the finite, or what I call the Infinite, 
 proved insufficient. One after another they were 
 chosen as the best that the human mind possessed, 
 but one after another they were rejected as inadequate 
 for their highest purpose. 
 
 You remember how the Peruvian Inca, who had all 
 his life looked upon the Sun as the true manifestation 
 of the Divine, as the maker and ruler of the world, 
 nay, as his father, and the father of his own royal 
 race, was suddenly disturbed in his mind because the 
 sun seemed to rise and set, to come and go, not of 
 his own free will, but at the command of some one 
 else. Hence he decided that the Sun could not be the 
 true God, and that that name, however sacred, must 
 be surrendered and replaced by another, a better, a 
 higher name. But though he rejected the predicate, 
 he did not reject the subject ; on the contrary, the rejec- 
 tion of that predicate served only to raise the subject 
 for which it had been intended, to a higher level. 
 
 Let us suppose that the same thoughtful Inca, after 
 renouncing the name of Sun, had only retained the 
 name of Father for that which he was searching for. 
 That name might have satisfied him for a time. But 
 
HISTORICAL PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 99 
 
 in moments of more serious reflection the same diffi- 
 culties would have returned. Father could not have 
 remained for a long time a satisfactory predicate of 
 the godhead; for is not every father the son of 
 another father '? Is not a father dependent on a 
 mother ? Is not the son of the same substance as 
 the father ? and if the son is mortal, is not the father 
 mortal also ? All these and many more objections 
 might have troubled our conscientious Inca, and 
 might have led him after a time to discard the predi- 
 cate father, as he had discarded before the predicate 
 sun. And if he had carried his speculations further, 
 he would probably in the end have arrived at the 
 conclusion at which the worshipper of the Vedic 
 deities arrived, that there is no predicate in human 
 language worthy of God, and that all we can say of 
 Him is what, as you may remember, the Upanishads 
 said of Him, No, no ! 
 
 The Gradual Elimination of what is imperfect. 
 
 What does that mean? It meant that if God is 
 called all-powerful, we have to say No, because what- 
 ever we comprehend by powerful is nothing compared 
 with the power of God. If God is called all- wise, we 
 have again to say No, because what we call wisdom 
 cannot approach the wisdom of God. If God is called 
 holy, again we have to say No, for what can our con- 
 ception of holiness be, compared with the holiness of 
 God ! This is what the thinkers of the Upanishads 
 meant when they said that all we can say of God is 
 No, no. 
 
 TSfegsitive Definition in Oreek Philosophy. 
 
 Nor were the philosophers of Greece behind the 
 philosophers of India in denying the possibility of 
 
 H2 
 
100 LECTURE IV. 
 
 naming or predicating anything rightly of the Deity. 
 We know the protests of Xenophon, of Plato, and 
 of Aristotle against all attempts of applying human 
 names and concepts to the Supreme Being. But even 
 in later times, in the second century a.d., we find 
 philosophers, such as Maximus Tyrius, for instance, 
 still repeating the same protest. ' God,' he writes 
 (Dissert, viii. 10), ' the father and maker of all things, 
 who is older than the sun, older than the sky, who is 
 beyond time and age and all changing nature, is with- 
 out a name given Him by legislators, inexpressible by 
 language, invisible to the eyes. And as we cannot 
 grasp His essence, we try to approach Him through 
 words, names, pictures, images of gold, ivory, and 
 silver, through plants, rivers, mountains, and lakes, 
 yearning to know Him, but from our weakness pre- 
 dicating all that we know as most beautiful of His 
 nature ^.' 
 
 In all this we can still clearly perceive the spirit of 
 Plato. In fact, Maximus Tyrius quotes Plato in his 
 seventeenth Dissertation, when he says : ' Thus this 
 messenger from the Academy places before us the 
 father and creator of the universe. He does not tell 
 his name, for he knew it not ; he does not tell his 
 colour, for he saw it not ; he does not tell his size, for 
 he touched it not. These natural qualities are the 
 perceptions of the flesh and the eyes, but the Divine 
 itself is not seen by the eyes, nor spoken by the voice, 
 nor touched by the flesh, nor heard by the ear. Only 
 by what is most beautiful, most pure, most clear- 
 sighted, most swift, and most ancient in the soul is 
 it seen through likeness, and heard through kinship, 
 
 ^ See Hatch, Hibhert Lectures, p. 242. 
 
HISTORICAL PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OP GOD. 101 
 
 taken in whole and complete by complete per- 
 ception.' 
 
 XTegrative Definition in Christian Theologry. 
 
 The early Christians also, many of whom, as the 
 late Dr. Hatch has clearly shown in his Hibbert 
 Lectures, were Greek rather than Jewish, who had 
 been brought up in the schools of Plato and Aristotle, 
 and were perfectly familiar with the metaphysical 
 terminology of these powerful thinkers, spoke of the 
 Deity in the same abstract language, in the same 
 negative terms. To them God was no longer simply 
 Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the 
 God who walked in the garden of Eden in the cool of 
 the day, not even the God who maketh the clouds His 
 chariot, who walketh upon the wings of the wind. 
 'Listen, my friend,' writes Theophilus, when asked 
 by a heathen opponent to describe the form of the 
 Christian God : ' the form of God is unutterable and 
 indescribable, nor can it be seen with fleshly eyes: 
 for His glory is uncontained, His size is incompre- 
 hensible, His loftiness is inconceivable. His strength 
 is incomparable, His wisdom is unrivalled. His good- 
 ness beyond imitation, His beneficence beyond de- 
 scription. If I speak of Him as light, I mention His 
 handiwork : if I speak of Him as reason, I mention 
 His government : if I speak of Him as spirit, I 
 mention His breath : if I speak of Him as wisdom, 
 I mention His offspring: if I speak of Him as 
 strength, I mention His might : if I speak of Him 
 as providence, I mention His goodness : if I speak of 
 His Kingdom, I mention His glory ' (Hatch, 1. c, 
 p. 253). Clement of Alexandria (Strom, v. 12) asserts 
 
102 LECTURE IV. 
 
 still more strongly that there is no name that can 
 properly be named of Him, — 'neither the One, nor 
 the Good, nor Mind, nor Absolute Being, nor Father, 
 nor Creator, nor Lord' (Hatch, I.e., p. 255). 
 
 True Ag'nosticisiu. 
 
 Would not many of these early Christians be con- 
 demned for such utterances as Agnostics by our 
 modern theologians — at least by some of them 1 And 
 yet, it was not pride of intellect, it was, on the con- 
 trary, intellectual humility that made them silent 
 before the majesty of an infinite Being. 
 
 True Agnosticism, so far from being a negation of 
 all true religion, seems to me the only safe foundation 
 of it. How can we be said to know what we cannot 
 name, and who is there that would maintain that 
 God can be named ? Let us hear what Philo says on 
 this point : 
 
 * God is invisible,' he writes, ' for how can eyes that 
 are too weak to gaze upon the sun be strong enough 
 to gaze upon its Maker ? He is incomprehensible ; 
 not even the whole universe, much less the human 
 mind, can contain the conception of Him. We know 
 that He is, we cannot know what He is. We may 
 see the manifestation of Him in His works, but it 
 were monstrous folly to go behind His works and 
 inquire into His essence. Hence He is unnamed, for 
 names are the symbols of created things, whereas His 
 only attribute is to be ^.' 
 
 And if Philo is not considered as an authority, 
 perhaps Cardinal Newman may be with some at least 
 
 ^ Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, p. 245. 
 
HISTORICAL PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 103 
 
 of my hearers. Yet he expresses exactly the same 
 conviction when he says : ' God is incommunicable in 
 all His attributes.' 
 
 If people would only define what they mean by 
 knowing, they would shrink from the very idea that 
 God could ever be known by us in the same sense in 
 which everything else is known, or that with regard 
 to Him we could ever be anything but Agnostics. All 
 human knowledge begins with the senses, and goes on 
 from sensations to percepts, from percepts to concepts 
 and names. And yet the same people who insist that 
 they know God, will declare in the same breath that 
 no one can see God and live, and that no flesh that 
 hath heard the voice of the living God speaking out 
 of the midst of fire, can live (Deuter. v. 26). Let us 
 only define the meaning of knowing, and keep the 
 different senses in which this word has been used 
 carefully apart, and I doubt whether any one would 
 venture to say that, in the true sense of the word, he 
 is not an Agnostic as regards the true nature of God. 
 If any one doubts, let him read the almost-forgotten 
 works of Cusanus, particularly his Docta Ignorantia^ 
 and let him remember that before the Reformation 
 such true Agnosticism was not only tolerated, but 
 that Cusanus who held it and taught it died as a 
 Cardinal and as a friend of Pope Nicolaus V. 
 
 This silence before a nameless Being does not ex- 
 clude a true belief in God, nor devotion, nor love of 
 a Being beyond our senses, beyond our understanding, 
 beyond our reason, and therefore beyond all names. 
 
 All Names well meant. 
 
 On the contrary, every one of the names given to 
 
104 LECTURE IV. 
 
 this infinite Being by finite beings marks a stage in 
 the evolution of religious truth. If only we try to 
 understand these names, we shall find that they were 
 all well meant, that, for the time being, they were 
 probably the only possible names. Dyaus, Zeus, 
 whether it was meant for light or for sky, was 
 originally a well-meant name. It did not mean at 
 first the material sky only, as an object, but it meant, 
 as we saw, the agent postulated behind or within the 
 sky, what Plato meant by the soul of the sky. If 
 the agent or the sky was often mistaken for the sky 
 itself, and many things that could be truly predicated 
 of the material sky only were predicated of Dyaus or 
 Zeus or Jupiter, history teaches us how this confusion 
 arose, and thus warns us against similar errors. 
 
 In China also the name of the supreme deity is 
 Tien or sky. And not only Chinese scholars in Europe, 
 but scholars in China also have been disputing for 
 centuries whether what is meant by Tien is the real 
 sky or the Supreme Being, supposed to be residing in 
 the sky, or invoked by the name of the sky. We 
 ourselves should never be in doubt, if we heard any 
 one say, * Heaven knows.' We should know at once 
 that he did not mean the visible heaven, but much 
 the same as if he were to say ' God knows.' When 
 the prodigal son says, * I have sinned against Heaven 
 and in Thy sight,' we know that against Heaven 
 means against God. 
 
 But most missionaries will assure us that, when 
 the Chinese address their prayers to Tien, when they 
 say, 'Tien knows,' when they say, 'I have sinned 
 before Tien,' they mean the blue sky and nothing 
 else. It is quite possible that thousands of uneducated 
 
HISTORICAL PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 105 
 
 Chinese would give the same answer. But when the 
 once famous Commissioner Yeh was asked to give an 
 account of what an educated Chinese meant by Tien, 
 he said that Tien meant, no doubt, the material 
 heaven, but that it also meant Shang-te^ the supreme 
 ruler or God. It is not lawful, he added, to use the 
 name of Shang-te lightly, and therefore we name him 
 by his residence, which is tien ^. 
 
 Let it be clearly understood, therefore, that the 
 Historical School does not look upon all the names 
 that were given to divine powers as simply true or 
 simply false. We look upon all of them as well 
 meant and true for the time being, as steps on the 
 ladder on which the angels of God ascend and de- 
 scend. There was no harm in the ancient people, 
 when they were thirsting for rain, invoking the sky 
 and saying, ' O dear sky, send us rain.' There was no 
 harm when they saw their stable struck by lightning, 
 in their imploring the thunderer to spare their home 
 and their children. There was no harm when they 
 were dying of cold, in their greeting the rising sun as 
 a dear friend and protector. And when after a time 
 they used more and more general words, when they 
 addressed these powers as bright, or rich, or mighty, 
 as kings and lords, as friends and fathers, all these 
 were meant for something else, for something they 
 were seeking for, if haply they might feel after Him 
 and find Him. This is St. Paul's view of the growth 
 of religion, this is the view defended and supported 
 by new evidence by the Historical School, — and this 
 is the view condemned as heretical and blasphemous 
 by men who call themselves Christian Divines. 
 
 ^ See Hilderic Friend, in Folk Lore Record, vol. iv. p. 6. 
 
106 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Names of the Infinite. 
 
 When I said that all these names had been from 
 the beginning names of the Infinite, I hardly expected 
 that I could have been so far misunderstood as if I 
 supposed that the name and concept of the Infinite 
 had been fully elaborated, before it was called Sky 
 and Earth, Sun and Moon, Day and Night, Lord, 
 Maker, Ruler, Friend, and Father. I have actually 
 been told, as something I ought to have known, that 
 when the prehistoric Semite built altars to and 
 called on the name of Shaddai, Jehovah, or Baal, 
 the object of his worship was not at first conceived 
 as Infinite, but as very local and limited and finite 
 indeed. The Himalayan mountain range has different 
 names in different dialects and in different parts of 
 its long extent. We who know its unbroken continuity 
 from east to west, speak of the whole as the Hima- 
 layan range; but the inhabitants of every small 
 valley, by whatever name they call their own hills, 
 TKiean likewise the Himalayan range^ though they 
 have as yet no name for it. It is in that sense that 
 the people who spoke of their own gods as Zeus, or 
 Apollo, or Athene, meant the Infinite that was behind 
 or in these names^ though as yet they had no name 
 for it. When I speak of the Infinite, I simply use the 
 widest generalisation within my reach, wider even 
 than what is comprehended by the name of the Un- 
 knowable. To suppose that such generalisations had 
 been realised in the minds of the earliest observers 
 of thunder and lightning, would be to invert the 
 whole historical growth of the human mind. But as 
 soon as an altar was built to Shaddai, as the giver of 
 
HISTORICAL PIIOOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 107 
 
 rain, as soon as such a name was formed, something 
 more was meant than the visible cloud or the finite 
 sky, something which by the most general term I 
 shall continue to call the Non-Finite and the 
 Infinite. 
 
 There are indeed misapprehensions against which 
 it is almost degrading to defend oneself. 
 
 I Am that I Am. 
 
 When we find in the old Testament such names as 
 Elohim, Adonai, Jehovah or Jah, we never doubt that 
 they were all meant for the same Being. But when, 
 as we are told in the book of Exodus, iii. 14, Moses 
 asked the God of his fathers what was His true name, 
 is it not wonderful that that name contains no pre- 
 dicate whatever, ' no manner of similitude,' but is 
 simply, ' I Am that I Am ' ? 
 
 To a student of the history of religion such unex- 
 pected rays of light are quite dazzling. I call them 
 unexpected, because the language in which Jehovah 
 is spoken of in the Old Testament is often, as you 
 know, not very different from the language applied to 
 the deity in other ancient religions. It is human 
 language, full of metaphor ; it is, what is called, 
 anthropomorphic ; and what else could it be ? 
 
 It is true that in India also we meet with the same 
 or a very similar name. We read in one of the 
 Upanishads ^, ' He, looking round, saw nothing but 
 himself. He first said : " This is I ; " and therefore he 
 became " I " by name.' 
 
 But in India we can see how the way was slowly 
 
 ^ Bnhad-aranyaka Upanishad, I. 4, 1, Sacred Books of the East, vol. 
 XV. p. 85. 
 
108 LECTURE IV. 
 
 prepared for so abstract, so unmetaphorical, and in no 
 sense anthropomorphic a name as ' I am I.' We can 
 see there a class of philosophic theologians, working 
 hard to free their thoughts from the inevitable 
 leading-strings of language. But among the Jews at 
 the time of Moses (placing ourselves on the ordinary- 
 standpoint of readers of the Old Testament), so sudden 
 a burst of the purest light, so transcendent a name of 
 the deity, as ' lavi,' comes upon us indeed like a 
 revelation, in the truest sense of the word. 
 
 And what is more marvellous still, we find joined 
 with this, the most abstract conception of the deity, 
 that truly human feeling for God which is expressed 
 in such words as : ' Hear, Israel : the Lord our God 
 is one Lord : And thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with 
 all thy might' (Deuter. vi. 4). I doubt whether we 
 can find anything like this anywhere else. When 
 God has once been conceived without 'any manner of 
 similitude,' He may be meditated on, revered, and 
 adored, but that fervent passion of the human breast, 
 that love with all our heart, and all our soul, and all our 
 might, seems to become hushed before that solemn 
 presence. We may love our father and mother with 
 all our heart, we may cling to our children with all 
 our soul, we may be devoted to our wives and hus- 
 bands and friends with all our might, but to throw all 
 these feelings in their concentrated force and truth on 
 the deity, has been given to very few elect souls only, 
 the true Saints of the world. Others must rest con- 
 tent with the hope that true love shown to any human 
 being, to father and mother, to husband and wife, to 
 sons and daughters, aye to the stranger also, if there 
 
HTSTOEICAL PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 109 
 
 is a stranger, may take the place of that love of God 
 which Moses demanded, and that ' what ye have done 
 unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done 
 it unto Me ' (Matth. xxv. 40). 
 
 The Three Vedauta Predicates. 
 
 But while in some places the ancient philosophers 
 of India would go so far as to protest against all 
 predicates of the deity, even against that of existence, 
 lest it might be mistaken as identical with the tran- 
 sient existence of human or any other beings, we find 
 that even in the Vedanta philosophy, these Indian 
 metaphysicians condescended to recognise a some- 
 what more human view of the Supreme Being, and 
 allowed at least three predicates. They were to he, 
 to know, and to rejoice, or, possibly, to love, and I 
 doubt whether the most rigid metaphysician could 
 rightly object to any one of them. When in the 
 historical process of name-giving and name-removing, 
 the Infinite has been freed again of all names that 
 proved inadequate, no philosophy, and no religion 
 need give up these three predicates. What is meant 
 by the Infinite, or the Unknown, or the Divine^ for 
 all these names have the same intention, must be 
 allowed to he, must be allowed to know, and must be 
 allowed to rejoice, or, as others will have it, to love, to 
 be blessed in itself, to be satisfied. The opposite of 
 these three propositions is unthinkable, and this must 
 suffice for us, as long as we are what we are. We 
 cannot conceive the Infinite, or the Unknown, or the 
 Divine, and conceive it as not being. This is the 
 purely human side of the ontological argument. Nor 
 
110 LECTUKE IV. 
 
 can we conceive it as not-knowing, however different 
 its knowledge may be from human knowledge. Esse 
 with the Infinite, is in reality percipi, and who 
 should be the percipient, if not the Infinite itself? 
 We may be more doubtful about the third predicate, 
 that of bliss or love, because it seems to have too 
 much of a human character, too much of a 7:d6o^, 
 about it. But again the absence of bliss, satisfaction, 
 and love would be a defect, I mean from a human 
 point of view. 
 
 It is well known that even the Epicureans who 
 predicated so little of their gods, predicated of them 
 perfect blessedness. ' Eternal existence and perfect 
 happiness are, according to Epicurus, the two funda- 
 mental elements which, in all ages and nations, con- 
 stitute the true idea of godhead — an idea which is as 
 widespread as the human race ^.' 
 
 We may therefore grant the Hindu triad of divine 
 predicates, and say, if there is an Infinite, an undefin- 
 able and unnameable Being, if there is an Agent 
 behind all acts, we cannot deny its perfect bliss, its 
 perfect knowledge, and its everlasting existence. 
 
 Masculine or Neuter. 
 
 You may have observed how difficult it is when 
 speaking of that infinite Being, to know whether we 
 ought to speak of it as He or It. With us that 
 distinction always implies something human. He 
 implies masculine gender and excludes feminine 
 gender, and from either point of view it is inap- 
 plicable to God, while It, implying neither, seems 
 preferable. But on the other hand He implies a.gency, 
 
 ' W. Wallace, Epicureanism, p. 207. " 
 
HISTORICAL PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. Ill 
 
 activity, not to say life, while It implies mere objec- 
 tivity, passivity, not to say lifelessness. In languages 
 which distinguish no gender this difficulty does not 
 exist. In languages again which distinguish two 
 classes only, one of animate, the other of inanimate 
 beings, the choice is much easier. But being what 
 we are, speaking an Aryan language and thinking 
 Aryan thoughts, there can be no doubt that we 
 must speak of the Infinite as He^ though with cer- 
 tain reservations, and not as either She or It. 
 
 Here then is the last point at which we arrive by a 
 continuous progress from the lowest perception of the 
 unknown Infinite, to the highest expression that poor 
 human nature can find for it. The predicates become 
 wider and wider, purer and purer, truer, we hope, 
 and truer, and yet their subject is always beyond 
 their reach. The last result of Physical Religion will 
 always remain, that there is something within or 
 behind the finite world which, by a most compre- 
 hensive, but from one point of view, no doubt, by a 
 very empty name, we may call the Infinite. But the 
 history of religion, and a knowledge of our own 
 human nature, teaches us likewise that so vague 
 and so cold a name ceases to be religious, and 
 cannot satisfy the deepest yearnings of the human 
 heart. 
 
 Beturu to the Old Names. 
 
 In times of trouble and despair, and in moments of 
 intensest happiness too, the heart falls back on the old 
 names, and utters once more the language of the 
 childhood of the world and of its own childhood. 
 It does not call for help on the Infinite, but though 
 
112 LECTURE IV. 
 
 feeling the overwhelming presence of the Infinite, 
 it says Lord, it says my God, it says Our Father. 
 And what harm is there ? If we have understood the 
 lessons of the history of religion, we know that all 
 these names, and even much less perfect names, were 
 well meant, were all meant for the same, and that He 
 who is beyond all names, understands them all. I 
 have often quoted the words placed in the mouth of 
 KrishTia, ' Even those who worship idols, worship me.' 
 Whatever we do, however pure and abstract our 
 language may be, in one sense we are all idolators, 
 we idolise the deity in the imperfect ideas which 
 we have formed of it, and under the ever-varying 
 names which we have given to it. 
 
 The Minimum. 
 
 What, however, we may say with a good conscience, 
 both as philosophers and as historians, is this, that 
 how high so ever above all our ideas, and all our 
 names and concepts, the Infinite may be, that Infinite 
 is at least the source of light that beams from heaven, 
 it is at least the giver of the fire that warms and 
 cheers us, it is at least in the storm-wind, it is at least 
 the Lord, it is at least the Father, w^hatever else He 
 may be. We still use the name of Jehovah, though 
 we know how many things have been predicated of 
 Jehovah which are incompatible with our reverence 
 for the Deity. We shrink from using the names of 
 Zeus and Jupiter, but the early Christians had no 
 such fears. Thus Tertullian (ad Scap. 4) speaks of 
 'the people shouting to the God of gods who alone 
 is powerful, as bearing witness to our God by the 
 name of Jupiter,' while in another passage he actually 
 
HISTOBICAL PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 113 
 
 appeals to 'Jovem Christianum.' Dante also still 
 uses Giove in the sense of God, when he says (Purg. 
 vi. 118): 
 
 ' O sommo Giove, che foste in terra per noi cruci- 
 fisso.' 
 
 And Petrarca does not hesitate to say (Son. 133) : 
 
 ' Se I'eterno Giove della sua grazia sovra me non 
 piovi.' 
 
 Nor are we ourselves afraid to speak of God as the 
 Deus Optimus Maxivius, though the word deus also 
 is of heathen workmanship, and was meant originally 
 for the bright powers of the sky, the sun, the moon, 
 the dawn, and the spring; though maximus meant 
 probably no more, at first, than the greatest among 
 such gods as Mars, Janus, Quirinus, and Bellona (Liv. 
 viii. 6, 9 ; 10 ; x. 28 ; 29), while optivius conveyed at 
 first the idea of the richest rather than of the best. 
 
 I could hardly have believed it, if I had not seen it 
 black on white, that there are some classical scholars 
 left who seem to look upon Jupiter as a real person, 
 and who have asked me whether I really mean that 
 Jupiter is the same individual as the God of the Jews 
 and the Christians. What meaning can they connect 
 with such words ? Do they really imagine that 
 Jupiter was some kind of potentate who lived on 
 Mount Olympus, and, then, after changing his name 
 and clothing, emigrated to Mount Zion? If they do 
 not mean that, what do they mean ? 
 
 The Names and what is named. 
 
 Surely, if the study of the history of religion has 
 taught us anything, it has taught us to distinguish 
 between the names and what is named. The names 
 
 (3) t I . 
 
114 LECTURE IV. 
 
 may change, they may become more and more perfect, 
 and as they become more perfect, our concepts of the 
 deity may become more perfect also, but the deity itself 
 is not affected by our names. However much the 
 names may differ and change, there remains as the 
 last result of the study of religion, the everlasting 
 conviction that behind all the names there is a some- 
 thing named, that there is an agent behind all acts, 
 that there is an Infinite behind the Finite, that there 
 is a God in Nature. That God is the abiding goal of 
 many names, all well meant and well aimed, and yet 
 all, far, far away from the goal which no man can 
 see — and live. Convince the human understanding 
 that there can be acts without agents, that there can 
 be a limit without something beyond, that there can 
 be a Finite without a Non-Finite, and you have 
 proved that there is no God. But let it be shown 
 that the universality of that belief rests on that 
 without which sense would not be sense, reason 
 would not be reason, man would not be man, and we 
 may say that for man as he is, for reason as it is, nay, 
 even for the perceptions of the senses as they ai-e, 
 belief in something infinite, in an agent, in a God, is 
 irresistible. All names that human language has in- 
 vented may be imperfect. But the name, ' I Am that 
 I Am,' will remain for those who think Semitic 
 thought, while to those who speak Aryan languages 
 it will be difficult to invent a better name than that 
 of the Vedanta, Sa^-A;id-ananda, He who is, who 
 knows, and who is blessed. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 ABOUT THE TKUE CHARACTEK OF ANCESTOR-WORSHIP. 
 Tlie Name of Antliropolog'ical Religion. 
 
 IT was not easy to find a satisfactory name for 
 that branch of Natural Religion of which I mean 
 to treat in this course of Lectures. The discovery of 
 the Infinite in nature, traced from its first poor begin- 
 nings to its culminating point, the belief in One God, 
 as manifested in the whole of nature, could be called 
 by one name only, namely Physical Religion. By a 
 proper definition, this Physical Religion might easily 
 be kept distinct from Natural Religion, of which it 
 forms one branch. 
 
 But what name is there for the second branch 
 of Natural Religion, which is to comprehend the 
 history of the various attempts at discovering some- 
 thing infinite and divine in man or mankind, begin- 
 ning with the first surmises of the existence of some- 
 thing different from the body, and culminating in a 
 belief in the divine sonship of man, the true key-note 
 of the religion of Christ? Perhaps the proper title 
 would have been Antkropic Religion. But I shrink 
 from forming new words, if it can be avoided. And, 
 as for the third branch of Natural Religion, which deals 
 
 I 2 
 
116 LECTUKE V. 
 
 with the true nature of the soul or the self, the most 
 intelligible name seemed to be Psychological Religion, 
 I determined to use Anthropological for the second 
 branch, only guarding against the supposition that 
 Anthropological Keligion is in any way more closely 
 connected with what is now called Anthropology, the 
 Science of Man and Civilisation, as Dr. Tylor defines it, 
 than the other branches of Natural Religion. It may 
 be true that the languages of uncivilised races throw 
 more light on the problems of Anthropological Religion 
 than on those of Physical and Psychological Religion ; 
 and it is for that reason that we shall have to examine 
 the true value of this kind of testimony more care- 
 fully now than we were called upon to do when 
 tracing the development of the universal belief in 
 the gods of nature. But otherwise Anthropological 
 Religion has nothing to do with Anthropology. It is 
 called anthropological, simply and solely in order to 
 comprehend under that name all the attempts which 
 have been made to discover something not merely 
 human, then superhuman, then divine and immortal 
 in man. The most interesting parts of this process 
 are the beginning and the end, the first discovery of 
 something different from the body, and the final 
 identification of that something with the Divine. 
 To these two parts we shall have to devote most of 
 our attention, leaving the intermediate steps, which 
 are better known, to the historian of religion and of 
 philosophy. 
 
 Former Opinions on the Sources of Beligion. 
 
 It is unfortunate that in tracing this second deve- 
 lopment of religious thought^ the anthropological, we 
 
TRUE CHARACTER OF ANCESTOR-WORSHIP. 117 
 
 shall have to defend almost every step we take, against 
 certain philosophers who have traversed the same 
 ground, but who have done so without an accurate 
 knowledge of the facts that have to be interpreted, 
 and, what is still worse, with certain preconceived 
 ideas of their own, which they have applied to the 
 interpretation of these facts^ — I mean, more parti- 
 cularly, Comte in France, Mr. Herbert Spencer in 
 England, and Lippei-t, Gruppe, and several other 
 scholars in Germany. The fatal mistake which, 
 according to my opinion, vitiates all their researches 
 is their not seeing, or not being willing to see, that 
 religion has had many sources, and that any attempt 
 to trace all phases of religion back to one source 
 must lead to the most forced and unnatural theories. 
 If anything is all-embracing^ it is what we call 
 religion. We might as well derive the ocean from 
 one river as religion from one source. 
 
 FetisMsm. 
 
 The theory first broached by De Brosses, and after- 
 wards adopted by Comte, that all religion arose from 
 Fetishism, need not be slain again. It broke down, 
 because it tried to make one small and very late 
 tributary the main source of all religion. 
 
 De Brosses himself, however, still kept within 
 certain bounds ^. He claimed for fetishism a share in 
 the early growth of religious ideas ; he did not make 
 it the only source of all religion. It was Bastholm 
 who, in his famous work on Anthropology, published 
 
 ^ Bastholm, Historische Nachrichten zur Kenntniss der Menschen, aus 
 dem Danischen iibersetzt von H. E, Wolf, Altona, xl. 1818, vol. iv. 
 p. 168. 
 
118 LECTUEE V. 
 
 in 1805, claimed 'everything produced by nature or 
 art, which receives divine honour, including sun, 
 moon, earth, air, fire, water, mountains, rivers, trees, 
 stones, images, and animals, if considered as objects 
 of divine worship, as fetish.' Of late another step 
 has been made, and Lippert^ now defines fetishism 
 'as a belief in the souls of the departed coming to 
 dwell in anything that is tangible or visible in heaven 
 or earth.' 
 
 But while anthropologists mostly contented them- 
 selves with collecting facts, more or less carefully 
 observed and comprehended under the ill-defined name 
 of fetishism, Comte went further still, and claimed 
 fetishism as a necessary plan in the universal growth 
 of religion. This of course was a mere theory, un- 
 supported by facts, and called by a misleading name. 
 But it took a long time before that theory was com- 
 pletely annihilated. The ease with which it explained 
 everything, recommended it to many who dislike the 
 trouble of vigorous thought. If it was asked why 
 people worshipped the sun, the answer was always 
 ready, because they took the sun for a fetish. The 
 same answer was supposed to account for tree- worship, 
 serpent- worship, idol-worship, stone- and shell-wor- 
 ship, in fact for everything. I do not mean to say 
 that the ghost of fetishism has been entirely laid, but 
 ritr-only haunts deserted places now. Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer himself has formally surrendered that theory, 
 and has set an excellent example in doing this. How 
 much rubbish that now stops the way of further 
 advance might be removed, if all who have dis- 
 
 ^ Die Religionen der Europaischen Culturvolker, 1881, p. 10. 
 
TRUE CHARACTER OF ANCESTOR-WORSHIP. 119 
 
 covered a theory which they once held, to be untenable, 
 would follow his excellent example, and say so openly. 
 This is what Mr. Spencer writes in his Principles of 
 Sociology (1877), p. 343: ^J^VJ ^ko 
 
 ' How untenable is the idea that fetishism comes first 
 among superstitions will now be manifest. Suppose the 
 facts reversed. Suppose that by Juangs, Andamanese, 
 Fuegians, Australians, Tasmanians,and Bushmen, wor- 
 ship of inanimate objects was carried to the greatest 
 extent ; that among tribes a little advanced in intelli- 
 gence and social state it was somewhat restricted ; that 
 it went on decreasing as knowledge and civilisation 
 increased ; and that in highly-developed societies, 
 such as those of ancient Peru and modern India, it 
 became inconspicuous. Should we not say that the 
 statement was conclusively proved? Clearly, then, 
 as the facts happen to be exactly the opposite, the 
 statement is conclusively disproved.' 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer explains very truly how this 
 extraordinary superstition — I do not mean fetishism, 
 but a belief in fetishism as a primordial religion — 
 arose (p. 344) : 
 
 ' Made,' he writes, ' on the strength of evidence 
 furnished by early travellers, whose contact was 
 chiefly with races partially advanced and even semi- 
 civilised, the assertion that fetishism is primordial 
 gained possession of men^s minds ; and prepossession 
 being nine points of belief, it has held its ground 
 with scarcely a question. I had myself accepted it ; 
 though, as I remember, with some vague dissatisfac- 
 tion, probably arising from inability to see how so 
 strange an interpretation arose. This vague dissatis- 
 faction passed into scepticism on becoming better 
 
120 LECTURE V. 
 
 acquainted with the ideas of savages. Tabulated 
 evidence presented by the lowest races, changed scep- 
 ticism into disbelief ; and thought has made it mani- 
 fest that the statement, disproved a posteHori, is 
 contrary to a priori probability.' 
 
 It was indeed high time that this spurious fetishism 
 should have been exterminated, for it had almost been 
 introduced into the very country from which it had at 
 first been carried away by those Portuguese sailors 
 whom De Brosses followed as his authorities. Lander, 
 as quoted by Mr. Spencer [Sociology, p. 134), when 
 narrating his voyage down the Niger, says : ' From 
 time to time, as we came to a turn in the creek, 
 the captain of the canoe — a Negro, I suppose — halloed 
 to the fetish, and where an echo was returned, half a 
 glass of rum and a piece of yam and fish were thrown 
 into the water. When asked why, he said — " Did you 
 not hear the fetish ? " ' 
 
 It must be clear that, whatever the facts of the case 
 may have been, the form in which it is told is simply 
 impossible. First of all, the fetishes of De Brosses 
 were never supposed to speak through the echo. 
 Secondly, the name fetish, assigned by Portuguese 
 priests to the Negro amulets and talismans, is of 
 course utterly unknown to the natives themselves. 
 To ask a Negro, as has often been done, whether he 
 believes in a fetish, is much the same as to ask him 
 whether he believes in Satan or the Devil. How is 
 he to know what we mean by Satan or the Devil ? ^ 
 
 ^ It is curious, however, that in conversation with Europeans, 
 some African tribes actually use now the word fetish. W. J. Miiller, 
 in his Die Africanische Landschaft Fetu, Niiremberg, 1675, says : ' When 
 they talk to whites, they call their idolatry Fitiseken, I believe 
 because the Portuguese call Zauherei fitiso.' 
 
TRUE CHARACTER OF ANCESTOR-WORSHIP. 121 
 
 We miffht as well ask him whether he believes in Con- 
 stitutional Government or in the Law of Gravitation. 
 Fetishism, however, need not be banished altogether 
 from the history of religious thought. On the con- 
 trary, it has its place, as I tried to show in my Hibbei*t 
 Lectures, as a very late phase of superstition, during 
 which, with or without reason, some peculiar charm 
 is ascribed to the most casual objects. Our peasants 
 still believe in the efficacy of a horse-shoe, and many 
 of us, I suspect, carry a halfpenny with a hole for 
 luck. I am not ashamed to say I have myself done 
 so for years. This is what is called a survival. The 
 world is still full of such survivals, but it does not 
 always follow that they are the rudiments of a primor- 
 dial faith. There is old rubbish, but there is new rub- 
 bish also— a point which we may have to discuss more 
 fully hereafter. 
 
 Totemism. 
 
 And what applies to Fetishism, applies to Totemism 
 also. Totemism is, no doubt, a most curious phase in 
 the evolution of religious thought. But we want an 
 accurate definition of it. Everything almost that is 
 considered sacred in any religion, has by some writer 
 or other been called a totem. But why should the 
 original and true meaning of totem be so diluted and 
 destroyed "? Totem became known to us first of all 
 through missionaries among the Indian tribes of 
 Canada. They tell us that in the language of the 
 Indians it meant ' clan mark/ or, rather, ' my clan 
 mark.' Father Cuoq (see Academy, Sept. 20, 1884) 
 states that the word is properly ote, meaning ^ clan 
 mark.' The possessive form is otem, and with the 
 personal pronoun nind ote'in, ' my clan mark,' kit otem, 
 
122 LECTURE V. 
 
 * thy clan mark, &c.' These clan marks still exist, and 
 an Ottawa Indian has told us that the people to whom 
 he belonged were divided into tribes, sections, and 
 families, according to their clan marks or ododams. 
 All people belonging to the same ododamn or sign-post 
 were required to dwell in their own section of the 
 village. At the principal entrance of their enclosure 
 there was often a sign set up. Those who had a bear 
 for their sign were called the Bears ; others, the Gulls, 
 the Hawks, the Finches, the Hares, and so on. 
 
 After a time every family had to adopt some kind 
 of totem,, which became more and more important as 
 signs of recognition in war, and in migrations from 
 one place to another. What would be more natural 
 under these circumstances than that those who called 
 themselves Bears should be supposed to be descended 
 from a bear, that they should feel a certain reverence 
 for their ursine ancestor, should look upon real bears 
 as some distant relations, and abstain from killing 
 and eating the animal ? 
 
 All this is perfectly intelligible, and it is equally 
 intelligible that similar, though not identical, customs 
 and ideas should have sprung up in many parts of the 
 world. Nor was there any harm if, at first, all such 
 customs should have been comprehended under the 
 name of Totemism. But Anthropology has left that 
 early stage, and its best representatives are now en- 
 gaged, not so much in comparing as in discriminating. 
 Comparative Philology also began with comparing ; it 
 is now almost entirely occupied with discovering what 
 is peculiar to each family of languages, to each lan- 
 guage, to each dialect. To treat all animal worship 
 as due to totemism is a mistake. Animal worship 
 
TRUE CHARACTER OF ANCESTOR-WORSHIP. 123 
 
 has many different sources. Nor is totemism the 
 only reason why people abstain from eating certain 
 animals. Surely the Jews did not abstain from eating 
 pork because they were totemists, and believed them- 
 selves descended from a pig. It does not follow that 
 because savage tribes in different parts of the world 
 do the same thing, they do it for the same reason. 
 For the purposes of clear thought we must, as much 
 as possible, keep one name for one thing, and en- 
 deavour to prevent its definition from becoming 
 blurred by promiscuous usage. Comparison and 
 generalisation are interesting and useful, as a first 
 step ; but real knowledge is based on discrimination. 
 
 If we once knew what is meant by fetishism, what 
 by totemism, and what by worship of ancestors, we 
 can follow the course of these three independent 
 streams of religious thought in different parts of the 
 world, and derive many useful lessons from what 
 they share in common and what is peculiar to each. 
 But when we are told by Long [Academy, Sept. 20, 
 1884) that totem designates the protecting animals 
 or other worshipful objects of each sept, or by School- 
 craft that totems are the mother-class of the Algon- 
 quins, or by Lippert (1. c, p. 12) that * a totem is the 
 same as a fetish in which the soul of some departed 
 ancestor has taken up its abode,' we have a right to 
 protest, and to say, 'Define what you mean by fetish, 
 by totem, and by ancestral spirits, and do not mix up 
 three things which, as has been shown again and 
 again, have had three distinct and totally independent 
 beginnings.' 
 
 In many cases what are called totems are nothing of 
 the kind. For instance, the same Indians who have 
 
124 LECTURE V. 
 
 their totems, which may well be translated by family 
 crests, have also charms in the shape of animals. But 
 these charms have a totally different origin. For 
 instance ^, when a young man intends to become a 
 medicine-man, he fasts and prays, until in a vision 
 there is revealed to him his god, in the shape of a bird 
 or animal, ' which he seeks, and carries with him as 
 his protector and guide. Every young man must 
 seek such a god to protect him. The representation 
 of this god he carries at all times as a charm. . . . 
 The skins of animals and birds seen in visions are 
 stuffed and worn on the person. Sometimes deer- 
 skins and cow-hide are cut into strips and made into 
 snakes, toads, and various reptiles, ornamented with 
 beads, and carried about on the person or in the 
 medicine bag.' 
 
 Now these charms are quite different from the 
 totems. Men belonging to the same totem may each 
 have his own charm, some one of these animals or 
 birds seen in a vision. And while there is no secret 
 about totems, these charms were often kept secret, or 
 displayed on sacred festivals only. 
 
 If a man among the Santec Indians should dream 
 of a buffalo, he takes the head of the buffalo which he 
 has killed, removes the skin, restores it to its natural 
 shape, and allows it to cure. He then removes the 
 rods from a few square feet of earth behind a lodge, 
 works the exposed earth very fine, takes a new 
 blanket or robe, which must not have belonged to a 
 woman, and places it over this prepared soil, which 
 was called the Uniane. The skin of the buffalo head, 
 
 ^ McLean, The Indians, p. 70. 
 
TRUE CHARACTER OF ANCESTOR-WORSHIP. 125 
 
 having retained its natural shape, was painted blue 
 on one side and red on the other, and then placed in 
 the centre of the blanket. Upon the blue side tufts of 
 white swan's down or small eagle feathers were tied 
 to the hair, and upon the red side tufts of down 
 painted red were tied. When this part of the cere- 
 mony was completed, a pipe was filled, the feast- 
 kettle hung over the fire, and after presenting the 
 pipe to the head, the dreamer addressed the head as 
 follows : ' Grandfather, Venerable Man ! Your children 
 have made this feast for you, may the food thus 
 taken cause them to live, and bring them good 
 fortune ^.' 
 
 What has this to do with the idea embodied in the 
 totems or sign-posts of Indian tribes ? 
 
 Again, 'there are war-charms borne upon poles and 
 standards, and these were held to be sacred in war. 
 Such was the faith of the Red Indians in the potency 
 of these charms that, when the standard-bearer was 
 slain, their courage departed, and they were easily 
 defeated by the enemy.' These standards were by 
 no means identical with totems. 
 
 Sir George Grey, in his Journals of two expeditions 
 of discovery in Western Australia (vol. ii. p. 228), was 
 the first to point out among Australians something 
 very like, and yet, as we shall see from his own 
 description, something very different from, the totem 
 of the Red Indians, namely the kobong. 
 
 This is what he writes : 
 
 ' But as each family adopts some animal or vegetable 
 as their crest or sign, or kobong, as they call it, I 
 
 1 Loc. cit., p. 121. 
 
126 LECTUKE V. 
 
 imagine it more likely that these have been named 
 after their families than that the families have been 
 named after them. A cei^tain mysterious connection 
 exists between a family and its kobong, so that a 
 member of the family will never kill an animal of the 
 species to which his kobong belongs, should he find it 
 asleep ; indeed, he always kills it reluctantly, and 
 never without affording it a chance of escape^.' 
 
 Here, then, if Sir George Grey's description is right, 
 we have the very opposite of totemism, the kobong or 
 crest derived from the name of the family, not the 
 name of the family derived from the kobong. I do 
 not say that the explanation of Sir George Grey is 
 right, but it is surely right to distinguish kobongs 
 and totems, and not to mix them up all together 
 under a vague name. 
 
 The custom of totems, of dream-signs, of standards, 
 of kobongs, may each and all become sources of 
 religious ideas. But in order to understand these 
 various ideas, we must carefully distinguish their 
 sources, and not mix them all together and then label 
 them Totemism ^. 
 
 Hallucination. 
 
 If then we can recognise neither Fetishism nor 
 Totemism as the exclusive source of religion, we are 
 not likely to allow ourselves to be persuaded by Dr. 
 Gruppe that the only source of religion all over the 
 world was — hallucination. No one who has studied 
 the annals of religion would deny that hallucination 
 has played a very prominent part in religion, and does 
 so still. But to say that all religion is hallucination 
 
 ^ See also Journal of American Folk Lore, April- June, 1890. 
 ^ Appendix III. 
 
TRUE CHAEACTER OF ANCESTOR- WORSHIP. 127 
 
 is— I say so with all respect for Professor Gruppe's 
 great learning — not very far from hallucination 
 itself. 
 
 Ancestor-worship . 
 
 We now come to Mr. Herbert Spencer's own favour- 
 ite theory of the origin of religion. According to him 
 the root of every religion is ancestor-tvorship. Here 
 again, who would deny that ancestor-worship is an 
 important ingredient of ancient and modern religion ? 
 But to say that it is the root of every religion, is a 
 thoroughly one-sided view. Why should religion, 
 one of the most comprehensive terms in our language, 
 be supposed to have had one beginning only ? Lest I 
 should be suspected of misrepresenting Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer's theory, I must quote his own words 
 (p. 440): 'Anything,' he writes, 'which transcends 
 the ordinary, a savage thinks of as supernatural or 
 divine : the remarkable man among the rest.' 
 
 We may admit that the savage considers what is 
 outside the ordinary as extra-ordinary, and, if he has 
 the concept of order in nature, as extra-natural or 
 supernatural. But let us reflect for a moment. How 
 could he call it divine, unless he had already elaborated 
 the concept of divinity or divinities ? We saw what 
 labour it took before the crude metal suppHed by 
 the senses, such as the fire, the sky, the sun, could be 
 hammered into a coin equivalent to deity. Are we 
 to suppose that the same coin was handed to the 
 savage out of mere charity ? 
 
 But let us go on with Mr. Herbert Spencer's de- 
 finition. ' The remarkable man,' he continues, ' may 
 be simply the remotest ancestor remembered as the 
 founder of the tribe ; he may be a chief famed for 
 
128 LECTURE V. 
 
 strength and bravery ; he may be a medicine-man of 
 great repute ; he may be an inventor of something 
 new; and then, instead of being a member of the 
 tribe, he may be a superior stranger bringing arts 
 and knowledge ; or he may be one of a superior race 
 gaining predominance by conquest. Being at first 
 one or other of those, regarded with awe during his 
 life, he is regarded with increased awe after his death ; 
 and the propitiation of his ghost, becoming greater 
 than the propitiation of ghosts which are less feared, 
 develops into an established worship. There is no 
 exception then. Using the phrase ancestor- worship 
 in its broadest sense as comprehending all worship of 
 the dead, be they of the same blood or not, we 
 conclude that ancestor-worship is the root of every 
 religion' 
 
 Ancestor-worship presupposes a Belief in Gods. 
 
 That ancestor-worship is more fertile in religious 
 thought than fetishism or totemism, will be denied 
 by no one who is acquainted with any of the ancient 
 religions of the world, with those of Rome and Greece, 
 and, more especially, of India. But any scholar ac- 
 quainted with the literature of these countries, knows 
 at the same time how in every one of these religions 
 ancestor-worship presupposes nature-worship, or, more 
 correctly, a worship of the gods of nature. 
 
 We constantly hear that the Departed, the Fathers, 
 the Ancestors, the Heroes are admitted to the society 
 of the gods, they are often called half-gods, they may 
 at times claim even a certain equality with the gods. 
 But the gods are always there before them, and even 
 when their individual names are forgotten, there is 
 
TRUE CHARACTER OF ANCESTOR-WORSHIP. 129 
 
 the general concept of deity to which the ancestral 
 spirits aspire. 
 
 Thus we read in the golden words ascribed to Pytha- 
 goras, whoever their author may have been : 
 
 ' First to the immortal gods pay reverence due, 
 Honour thy oath, and give the Heroes praise. 
 And those beneath the earth by actions just ; 
 Reverence thy parents, and thy nearest kin : 
 And count him friend whose virtue briglitest shines, 
 To gentle vv^ords incline and useful deeds.' 
 
 'ASavdrovs fxev itpwra Odovs, vofxaj us SiaKeivrai, 
 Tifxa Kal aefiov opKov, eneiO' ripoias dyavovs, 
 rovs T€ KaTaxQoviovs G€0€ Saiptovas, euvopa pf^ojv 
 Tovs re yoveis rifia, rovs t 017x4 o-t' eKyeyawras ; 
 raiv 8' dWcuv dperrj ttoih (piXov offTis dpiaros^. 
 
 Again, when Plato speaks of the divine powers that 
 ought to be reverenced by obeying their laws and 
 wishes, he says (Laws, xi. 927) : ' But if these things are 
 really so, in the first place men should have a fear of 
 the gods above, who regard the loneliness of orphans ; 
 and in the second place of the souls of the departed, 
 who by nature incline to take an especial care of 
 their own children; and they are friendly to those 
 who honour them, and unfriendly to those who do 
 not.' 
 
 There are exceptions where the spirits of the de- 
 parted are mentioned before the Olympian gods, but 
 they are intelligible. When Epaminondas exhorted 
 his Greeks to fight and die for ' their country, for the 
 graves of their fathers, and for the altars of the gods,' 
 he placed the graves of the fathers even before the 
 altars of the gods. But why ? Because he knew 
 
 ^ Fragmenta Phihsophorum Graecorum, Mullach, vol. i. p. 198 ; trans- 
 lated by W. Marsham Adams, in The Brmna of Empir e, p. 
 (3) • K 
 
 f^^ OF THK 
 
 'UHIVBECITTl 
 
130 LECTURE V. 
 
 the human heart, and what would most powerfully 
 stir it for noble deeds at such a moment. 
 
 But we may appeal to the very passages quoted by 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer himself in illustration of the 
 worship of ancestors among civilised and uncivilised 
 peoples, in order to show that these ancestral spirits 
 are again and again represented as admitted to the 
 society of the gods, or seated by the side of the gods. 
 On p. 418 he tells us of a Maori chief who scornfully 
 repudiated an earthly origin, and looked forward to 
 rejoining his ancestors, the gods. 
 
 Williams says of the Fijians, that they admit very 
 little difference between a chief of high rank and one 
 of the second order of deities. 
 
 Bastian tells us that the king of the Benin in Africa 
 is not only the representative of God upon earth, but 
 God himself. 
 
 Battel states that the king of Loango is respected 
 like a deity. 
 
 In America. F. de Xeres relates that Huayana Ceapac 
 was so feared and obeyed that they almost looked 
 upon him as their god. 
 
 In Peru, according to Acosta, a dead king was imme- 
 diately regarded as a god. 
 
 According to Thomson, the New Zealanders believed 
 jthat several high chiefs after death became deified. 
 
 I could go on quoting such passages from page after 
 page, all showing not that the gods became ancestors, 
 but that the ancestors became gods, or, at all events, 
 approached to the status of a second order of deities. 
 How this deification or apotheosis could have taken 
 place, unless people had formed beforehand a name 
 and concept of gods, Mr. Herbert Spencer seems never 
 
TRUE CHARACTER OF ANCESTOR-WORSHIP. 131 
 
 to have asked himself. Anyhow, it has never been 
 explained by him, and I am afraid^ it never will be. 
 
 China and Eg-ypt. 
 
 China is the country in which ancestor-worship is 
 most widely spread, and where it may be studied 
 in the largest number of ancient literary documents. 
 But no ancestor in China has ever become a god. 
 Dr. Victor von Strauss, to whom we owe so many 
 learned works on Chinese religion, says ^ : ' It can be 
 proved that in China ancestor- worship has enjoyed 
 the highest respect for four thousand years, probably 
 even for longer. It is practised most conscientiously 
 by the emperor and by the common people. But it 
 has been, and has always remained, a concern of the 
 house or the clan only, and even for them the spirit 
 of an ancestor has never become a god.' 
 
 The same scholar, when treating of Egyptian religion, 
 writes : ' In Egypt divine honours were paid to kings 
 even during their life-time, divine qualities were 
 ascribed to them, and for many of them there existed 
 during thousands of years sanctuaries, priests, and 
 sacrificial services. But even the best and mightiest 
 among them have never become popular deities. If in 
 the oldest times the spirits of the departed had been 
 changed into gods, the same process would have been 
 repeated afterwards, and it would at all events 
 remain inexplicable, why these deities, if their origin 
 had been what it is pretended, should ever have been 
 metamorphosed into natural phenomena.' 
 
 Among uncivilised races of whose religion we 
 possess only a fragmentary, and often a very doubtful 
 
 ^ Entstehung unci Geschichte des altdgyptischen Gotterglmibens, p. 9. 
 K 2 
 
132 LECTURE V. 
 
 knowledge, the worship of nature-gods may sometimes 
 .seem to be entirely absent. 
 
 How easily might it happen, if a traveller were to 
 question a Neapolitan lazzaroni about his religion, 
 that he might take him for a mere worshipper of 
 saints, if not for a fetish-worshipper. 
 
 It may happen also, as in the case of Buddhism, 
 that the old nature-gods have been completely used 
 up, and, if not entirely discarded, are tolerated only 
 in a subordinate capacity, chiefly for the satisfaction 
 of the populace. Buddhism has outgrown the old 
 Devas. It may be called adevistic, though not atheistic, 
 for the place, formerly occupied by the Devas of 
 nature, was not left entirely vacant. Buddha himself, 
 the man who had obtained enlightenment, took that 
 place, and though he could not be called divine in the 
 old sense, he was at all events conceived as eternal, at 
 least in some of the sects of the Mahayana division 
 of Buddhism, or of what I call Bodhism. 
 
 However, granting even that there are races whose 
 religion consists of ancestor-worship only, though, as 
 at present informed^ I know of none, would that prove 
 that the worship of nature-gods must everywhere be 
 traced back to ancestor- worship ? 
 
 No one, so far as I know, has ever maintained that, 
 because there are countries where religion consists of 
 .the worship of nature-gods only, therefore all ancestor- 
 worship must be traced back to nature- worship. Why 
 then should the worship of nature-gods, nay^ according 
 to Mr. H. Spencer, of all religion, be traced back to 
 the worship of ancestors 1 The one conclusion would 
 be as absurd as the other. 
 
 .What is the result of this one-sidedness in the 
 
TRUE CHARACTER OF ANCESTOR-WORSHIP. 133 
 
 study of religion, may best be seen in Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer's Sociology. I always wish to speak with 
 respect and courtesy of a man who in his own sphere 
 is justly regarded as a very high authority. I have 
 no doubt that Mr. Herbert Spencer's knowledge in 
 physical science is very great. In expressing my 
 strong difference of opinion with regard to the facts 
 and the theories in his Principles of Sociology, I can 
 clearly see that the responsibility lies less with him 
 than with the ' tabulated evidence ' on which he 
 founded his theories. Some years ago, for instance, 
 when I doubted the evidence which was to prove that 
 ' reverence for stones is in some cases accompanied by 
 the belief that they were once men and will eventually 
 revive as men ' (1. c, p. 335), I did not question the 
 good faith of the upholders of that theory. I simply 
 doubted the facts on which they relied. And my 
 doubts proved to be well-founded. If a pleader may 
 tell a judge that he has been misinformed as to facts, 
 surely we may claim the same privilege, without 
 being guilty of any want of respect towards a man 
 who, in his own sphere, has done such excellent work. 
 I make no secret that I consider the results of Mr. H. 
 Spencer's onesided explanation of the origin of religion 
 as worthy of the strongest condemnation which a love 
 of truth can dictate ; but to show that a scholar has 
 been led and almost driven to certain false conclusions, 
 by trusting to evidence which is untrustworthy, or by 
 attending to one kind of evidence only, is no more than 
 what every student of history is constantly doing, and 
 what every real lover of truth is bound to do. Mr. 
 H. Spencer has always been so courteous in the criti- 
 cisms which he has addressed to me, that in stating 
 
134 LECTUEE V. 
 
 that I mistrust his evidence, and that I differ from his 
 conclusions toto coelo, I hope I may not say anything 
 that could be considered as personally offensive. 
 
 I wish I could have followed the example of other 
 scholars who pass his theory by in silence. But would 
 that have been more respectful ? Thus Erwin Rohde, 
 who has just published a learned work, Psyche, Seelen- 
 cult und Unsterhlichkeitsglauhe, 1890, and whose 
 very object is to prove the existence of this cult of 
 souls in Greece, writes : ' I have taken no notice of the 
 attempts to derive the whole of Greek religion from 
 ancestor-worship, which at first existed alone, — 
 attempts made not only by De Coulanges, but by 
 several savants in England and Germany' (p. 157). 
 And yet this writer is on many points a follower of 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer, and cannot be suspected of any 
 prejudice against him. But in England these theories 
 cannot be simply ignored, and I only hope that I 
 may succeed in criticising them without seeming 
 discourteous to their author. 
 
 The Euliemeristic Explanation of Zens. 
 
 As I am addressing those who are familiar with 
 Greek and Latin literature^ I shall confine my remarks 
 to some of the explanations which Mr. Herbert Spencer 
 has given us of classical deities ; and first of all of 
 Jupiter or Zeus. 
 
 We are told (I.e., p. 230) that Rajah Brooke, in 
 describing a prolonged contest with a mountain-chief 
 in Borneo, shows us what would be likely to happen 
 when a stronghold was in possession of a superior 
 race. His antagonist had fortified an almost inacces- 
 sible crag on the top of Sadok — a mountain about 
 
TRUE CHARACTER OF ANCESTOR- WORSHIP. 135 
 
 5000 feet high, surrounded by lower mountains. 
 Described by Rajah Brooke as 'grim and grand,' it 
 figures in Dayak legends and songs as 'the grand 
 Mount, towards which no enemy dare venture.' The 
 first attempt to take this fastness failed utterly ; the 
 second, in which a small mortar was used, also failed ; 
 and only by the help of a howitzer dragged up by the 
 joint strength of a hundred yelling Dayaks, did the 
 third attempt succeed. Their chieftain, driven out 
 only by the appliance of a civilised race, was naturally 
 held in dread by surrounding tribes. 
 
 ' Grandfather Rentap,' as he was commonly called, 
 was dangerously violent ; occasionally killed his own 
 men; was regardless of established customs; and, 
 among other feats, took a second wife from a people 
 averse to the match, carried her off to his eyrie, and, 
 discarding the old one, made the young one Ranee of 
 Sadok. With his followers and subordinate chiefs, 
 Layang, Nanang, and Loyish, holding secondary forts 
 serving as outposts, he was unconquerable by any of 
 the native powers. Already there were superstitions 
 about him. Snakes were supposed to possess some 
 mysterious connection with Rentap's forefathers, or 
 the souls of the latter resided in these loathsome 
 creatures.' 
 
 ' Now if, instead of a native ruler thus living up in 
 the clouds (which hindered the last attack), occa- 
 sionally coming down to fulfil a threat of vengeance, 
 keeping the country around in fear, and giving origin 
 to stories already growing into superstitions, we 
 suppose a ruler belonging to an invading race, which 
 bringing knowledge, skill, arts, and implements un- 
 known to the nations, were regarded as beings of 
 
136 LECTURE V. 
 
 superior kind, just as civilised men now are by 
 savages ; we shall see that there would inevitably 
 arise legends concerning this superior race seated in 
 the sky. Considering that among the very Dyaks, 
 divine beings are conceived as differing so little from 
 men, that the supreme god and creator, Tapa, is 
 supposed to dwell " in a house like that of a Malay 
 . . . himself being clothed like a Dyak," we shall see 
 that the ascription of a divine character to a conqueror 
 thus placed would be certain. And if the country 
 was one in which droughts had fostered the faith in 
 rain-makers and "heaven-herds" — if, as among the 
 Zulus, there was a belief in weather-doctors, able to 
 " contend with the lightning and hail," and to " send 
 the lightning to another doctor to try him ; " this ruler, 
 liviug on a peak round which the clouds formed and 
 whence the storms came, would, without hesitation, 
 be regarded as the causer of these changes — as a 
 thunderer holding the lightnings in his hand. Joined 
 with which ascribed powers, there would nevertheless 
 be stories of his descents from this place up in the 
 heavens, appearances among men, and amours with 
 their daughters. Grant but a little time for such 
 legends and interpretations to be exaggerated and 
 idealised - let the facts be magnified as was the feat 
 of Samson with the ass's jawbone, or the prowess of 
 Achilles making " the earth flow with blood," or the 
 triumphant achievement of Ramses II in slaying 
 100,000 foes single-handed ; — and we reach the idea 
 that heaven is the abode of superhuman beings com- 
 manding the powers of nature and punishing men.' 
 
 I had to give you the whole of this long passage in 
 order to enable you to form an independent judgment of 
 
TRUE CHARACTEE OF ANCESTOR-WORSHIP. 137 
 
 Mr. H. Spencer's theory of the origin of religion. The 
 story which you have just heard is meant to account 
 for the genesis of Zeus, the gatherer of the clouds 
 {v€(f)€\r}y€piTa), the wielder of the thunderbolt (TepxjnKi' 
 pavvos), the ruler of gods and men {ava^ iravTiov re 0€(av 
 TTCLVTcov T avOpcoTTOiv), aud at the same time, no doubt, 
 the lover of Leto and other heroines. This Zeus, and 
 let it not be forgotten, this Dyaus also in India, was, 
 according to Mr. Herbert Spencer, originally no more 
 than a ' Grandfather Rentap.' How a divine cha- 
 racter could have been ascribed to this Grandfather 
 Rentap by people . who had as yet no knowledge of 
 divine beings, has never been explained. Who was 
 Tapa, whom the Dayaks considered the supreme god 
 and creator ? Whence did he come ? Mr. H. Spencer 
 seei;ns to think that he also was originally a robber, 
 and why? — because he was supposed to dwell in a 
 house like that of a Malay, and to be clothed like a 
 Dayak. How else, I ask, could he have been housed or 
 clothed? How was Zeus himself housed or clothed 
 by the imagination of the early Greek poets ? But 
 granting all this, granting that Tapa, the supreme god 
 and creator, was originally a mere Dayak — where is 
 this retrogression to end, and whence came the first 
 god to whom these deified men could be assimilated ? 
 All I can say at present is that, if Mr. H. Spencer 
 can find a single classical scholar to accept this view 
 of the origin of Zeus in Greece, and of Dyaus in 
 Sanskrit, I shall not write another word on mythology 
 or religion. 
 
 The Enhemeristlc Explanation of other Oods. 
 
 Other gods share the same fate as Jupiter, when 
 
138 LECTUEE V. 
 
 arraigned before Mr. Herbert Spencer. He thinks he 
 has proved that savage tribes often ascribe ordinary 
 and extraordinary events to ghosts, and these ghosts, 
 he maintains, were always originally the ghosts of 
 dead people. I doubt whether he has proved the 
 latter point. For instance, when Major Harris tells 
 (1. c, p. 237) us that no whirlwind ever sweeps across 
 the path without being pursued by a dozen savages 
 with drawn creeses, who stab into the centre of the 
 dusty column in order to drive away the evil spirit 
 that is believed to be riding in the blast, how does 
 this prove that the Danakils believed they were 
 stabbing the ghosts of their own ancestors, or of any 
 ancestors at all? When certain tribes shoot their 
 arrows into the sky to bring down rain, we have no 
 reason to suppose that they were trying to kill their 
 deceased ancestors once more. 
 
 Again (p. 238), it may be quite true that, 'if an 
 eddy in the river, where floating sticks are whirled 
 round and engulfed, is not far from the place where 
 one of the tribe was drowned and never seen again,' 
 there should be stories told that ' the double of this 
 drowned man, malicious as the unburied ever are, 
 dwells thereabouts, and pulls these things under the 
 surface, nay, in revenge, seizes and drags down per- 
 sons who venture near.' But are we to suppose that 
 all over the worlds whenever we hear of watersprites, 
 or Naiads, or Nickers, some person must have been 
 drowned before people could speak of streams and 
 torrents as doing mischief, or of springs and rivulets 
 as conferring blessings ? 
 
 Expressions such as ' possessed by a spirit,' par- 
 ticularly by an unclean spirit, or again, filled by a 
 
TRUE CHAEACTER OF ANCESTOR-WORSHIP. 139 
 
 good spirit or by the spirit of prophecy, occur in many 
 parts of the worlds and in languages quite unrelated 
 to each other. But where is the evidence that in 
 all these cases the spirits meant were, as Mr. Herbei-t 
 Spencer asserts, originally the ancestral spirits? It 
 is well known that the spirits of the departed were 
 dreaded, because they had power to return, and to 
 cause disease and death in other members of the family. \ 
 Many of the funeral ceremonies were intended to pre- 
 vent the return of the dead and to pacify their anger. 
 In special cases the spirits of the departed, particularly 
 of a father or a mother, may seem to call for ven- 
 geance, and may be believed to drive a criminal into 
 madness. It is quite true also, as Mr. H. Spencer says, 
 that sneezing, yawning, and even hiccup are often 
 ascribed to a devil who has entered the body of the 
 afflicted. But nowhere do I remember that sneezing, 
 yawning, and hiccup were ascribed to the spirits of a 
 father, grandfather, or great-grandfather. 
 
 Even the idea of Death, as an agent or as a power 
 that cannot be resisted, or Avhat Mr. Herbert Spencer 
 called ' personalised Death,' is supposed by him to 
 have begun everywhere in the tradition of some un- 
 usually ferocious foe, whose directly seen acts of 
 vengeance were multitudinous, and to whom, after- 
 wards, unseen acts of vengeance were more and more 
 ascribed. 
 
 It is the disregard of the simplest facts of language 
 which makes Mr. H. Spencer look here as elsewhere 
 for what must seem to all students of language an 
 almost incredible solution of self-made difficulty. If 
 death was to be named at all, it could only be named 
 like hunger, thirst, illness, sleep, and all the rest, as 
 
140 LECTUBE V. 
 
 an agent. The Sanskrit mr^tyu, death, comes from 
 the root mr^ or mar, to grind down, to destroy, and 
 means originally no more than the agent of destruc- 
 tion. Who that agent was, the early speakers and 
 thinkers knew as little as they knew the agents of 
 rain and sunshine, of cold and heat, when they formed 
 these names. But having once framed a name for 
 death, and having called him the destroyer or killer, 
 there was nothing to prevent them from imagining 
 him as something like a human agent, and picturing 
 him according to the flights of their poetical fancy, 
 whether as a skeleton, or as a reaper, or even as a 
 kind friend. The process was in fact the very op- 
 posite of what Mr. H. Spencer would wish it to have 
 been. When they saw an unusually ferocious foe 
 approaching, they might say that it was Death him- 
 self. But they would not wait till they saw an un- 
 usually ferocious foe, before they conceived and 
 named the extinction of life, which they witnessed 
 every day, and ascribed, not to a known, but to an 
 unknown agent. 
 
 If therefore Mr. Herbert Spencer (p. 239) sees in 
 the gods who ward off death from Hector, in Minerva 
 who assists Menelaos, in Venus who saves Paris, in 
 Vulcan who snatches away Idaeus, as well as in the 
 Jew's ministering angel and in the Catholic's patron 
 saint, the ghosts of the dead changed into super- 
 natural agents, I can only say, once more, let him get 
 a single classical scholar to second his bill, and I 
 shall vote for it myself. 
 
 But though I differ from Mr. Herbert Spencer when 
 he thinks that ancestor-worship is the only source of 
 all religion, I readily acknowledge the useful service he 
 
TRUE CHARACTER OF ANCESTOR-WORSHIP. 141 
 
 has rendered in showing how important an influence 
 a belief in worship of ancestors has exercised on the 
 development of religious thought. 
 
 And here I must call attention once more to a 
 strange misapprehension under which Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer seems still to labour. 
 
 Did Ancestor- worship exist among the Aryan Nations? 
 
 Mr. H. Spencer, who has been so diligent a collector 
 of every kind of information from the most distant 
 parts of the world on the worship of the departed and 
 of ancestors, seems to think that some serious doubt 
 has been entertained as to the existence of that wor- 
 ship in Greece and in Italy. On p. 31 3 of his Principles 
 of Sociology he writes : ' It is said that ancestor- 
 worship is peculiar to inferior races. I have seen it 
 implied, I have heard it in conversation, and I have 
 now before me in print the statement that " no Indo- 
 European or Semitic nation, so far as we know, seems 
 to have made a religion of worship of the dead." And 
 the intended conclusion appears to be that these 
 superior races, who in their earliest recorded times 
 had higher forms of worship, were not, even in their 
 earlier times, ancestor- worshippers.' 
 
 Mr. H. Spencer returns once more to the same 
 subject. In his Appendix, p. 1, he writes : ' The 
 more I have looked into the evidence, the more I 
 have marvelled at those who, in the interests of the 
 mythological theory, assert that the Aryans have been 
 distinguished from inferior races by not being ancestor- 
 worshippers, and who ascribe such ancestor-worship 
 as cannot be overlooked, to imitation of inferior 
 races.' 
 
142 LECTUEE V. 
 
 Nay, he appeals to Mr. A. C. Lyall as one who 
 had unusual opportunities of studying Aryan super- 
 stitions as even now being generated, and who 
 says in a letter : ' I do not know who may be the 
 author of the statement which you quote at p. 313, 
 that " No Indo-European nation seems to have made 
 a religion of the worship of the dead ; " but it is a 
 generalisation entirely untenable. Here in Kajpu- 
 tana, among the purest Aryan tribes, the worship of 
 famous ancestors is most prevalent ; and all their 
 heroes are more or less deified.' 
 
 Considering the importance ascribed to this state- 
 ment, that 'No Indo-European or Semitic nation seems 
 to have made a religion of the worship of the dead,' 
 what reason could there have been for withholding 
 the name of its author ? I do not doubt that Mr. H. 
 Spencer saw it implied, heard it in conversation, and 
 at last had it before him in print — for what is more 
 patient than paper ? But why withhold the name ? 
 Nay, I should say, why quote it at all ? For either 
 the author of that statement was simply not ac- 
 quainted with Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, or he may 
 possibly have laid down so narrow a definition of 
 religion that the worship of the dead would have 
 fallen with him under the head of superstition rather 
 than of religion. Would any one quote a statement, 
 by whomsoever it might have been made, that no Indo- 
 European nation ever made a religion of the worship 
 of the powers of nature ? We might as well say that 
 we had seen it implied, heard it in conversation, and 
 seen it in print, that there was no such place as Rome 
 in Italy, or Benares in India, and then invoke high 
 authority to say that these two towns did really exist. 
 
TRUE CHAEACTER OF ANCESTOR-WORSHIP. 143 
 
 Whoever has only read the Antigone knows how- 
 deep roots reverence for the departed had struck in 
 the Greek heart. In Rome we can see the three 
 stages of that worship in full detail, while in India it 
 may be studied more fully even than in Rome and 
 Greece. The facts which Mr., now Sir Charles, Lyall 
 mentions from Rajputana belong to quite a different 
 phase, to the very last period, I should say, of re- 
 ligious development. First of all, the unmixed Aryan 
 blood in the Rajputana of the nineteenth century is 
 more or less problematical. Secondly, the unmixed 
 Aryan thought of that country, centuries after 
 Greek, Mongolian, and Mohammedan and English 
 conquests, is very problematical. But granting all this, 
 it is not the worship of some famous ancestors or of 
 some more or less deified heroes that forms our problem, 
 but the worship of ancestors, and afterwards of All 
 Souls, and All Saints, and this worship not as a 
 curious psychological phenomenon by itself, but as 
 the supposed source of all religion. Does Sir Charles 
 Lyall really think that his experience in Rajputana 
 will support such a theory ? 
 
 So far from admitting that ancestor-worship is 
 peculiar to inferior races, it will be the chief object 
 of this course of Lectures to show you from authentic 
 sources how a belief in the existence of departed 
 spirits and a worship of ancestors arose among the 
 Aryan nations, how it was combined with the ancient 
 belief in gods, and how it pervaded not only their 
 religious cult, but the whole of their social, civil, and 
 political life. What I protest against is the attempt 
 to make ancestor-worship the only source of all 
 religion. It is one source of religious sentiment — 
 
144 LECTURE V. 
 
 nay, it is a very importaht source, but it is second in 
 importance, and second in origin, as compared with 
 the worship of the powers of nature. It is only as 
 following after Physical Religion that what I call 
 Anthropological Religion, or the discovery of some- 
 thing divine in man, and more particularly in the 
 departed or in our ancestors, can be properly treated 
 and rightly understood. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 THE UNTRUSTWOETHINESS OF THE MATERIALS FOR THE 
 STUDY OF RELIGION. 
 
 Iiiterary Documents of Aryan and Semitic Religions. 
 
 BEFORE I began to give you an outline of Physical 
 Religion, I felt it incumbent on me to describe 
 the materials which are accessible to us for studying 
 the origin and growth of the gods of nature. The 
 most important among them was the Veda, and so 
 it is again for our present purpose. For information, 
 therefore, of what the Veda is, I must refer you to 
 the description of Vedic literature which I gave in 
 the second volume of my GifFord Lectures. 
 
 Besides the Veda, our chief authorities were then 
 the Avesta, the sacred book of the followers of 
 Zoroaster, the Homeric poems, and the religious and 
 mythological traditions preserved to us in the later 
 literatures of Rome and Germany. I touched but 
 rarely on Celtic and Slavonic traditions, partly, 
 because they have not yet been so carefully collected 
 and sifted ; partly, or I should say, chiefly, because I 
 felt unable to control as strictly as they ought to 
 be controlled, the statements on which I should have 
 had to rely. 
 
 (3) L 
 
146 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Considering how ample the materials are with 
 which the literature of the Aryan nations supplies the 
 students of the Science of Religion, it is but natural, 
 nay, it seems most desirable, that they should devote 
 their principal attention to this wide field of research, 
 and not attempt to glance at other fields, till they 
 have gained a firm footing on their own. Still, the 
 time must come when they have to look beyond the 
 limits of the Aryan world, in order to compare their 
 results with the results obtained by other explorers, 
 and thus either to modify or to confirm the convic- 
 tions at which they have arrived by their more special 
 studies. 
 
 The same applies to the study of the Semitic reli- 
 gions, and we can see in a recent work by Professor 
 Robertson Smith, how wide and accurate a survey of 
 extraneous religions may be commanded by a scholar, 
 if he has once gained a firm footing on his own special 
 vantage-ground. 
 
 Iiiterary Bocuiuents of other Beligfions. 
 
 But even from this higher point of view the 
 instinct^ or, it may be, the prejudice, of the scholar 
 would naturally lead him to approach, first of all, 
 the study of those non-Aryan religions which are 
 represented by a real literature. Wherever I allowed 
 myself to survey the wider fields of religious thought, 
 I dwelt chiefly on what may be called the historical 
 religions of the world, the Semitic in Babylon, 
 Nineveh, and Judaea, the Hamitic in Egypt, and 
 the national religion of China, as restored by Con- 
 fucius. 
 
 All these may be called the religions of civilised or 
 
MATERIALS TOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION. 147 
 
 historical races, and, what is more important still, they 
 can all be studied in literary documents. 
 
 The BelifiTions of lUiterate Races. 
 
 But it has been said very truly that religion is not 
 confined to civilised races, nor is civilisation essential 
 to religion. On the contrary, the lowest savage has 
 his religion, and that religion, for all we know, may 
 be far more primitive, far more simple, nay even 
 far more true, than the religions of many civilised 
 races. 
 
 Now I have not one word to say against all this. 
 On the contrary, there was a time when I thought 
 myself that a study of the religions of uncivilised 
 races would help us to reach a lower, that is, a 
 more ancient and more primitive stratum of reli- 
 gious thought than we could reach in the sacred 
 books of the most highly civilised races of the 
 world. 
 
 Comparative Study of Langtiagres. 
 
 I was led to this opinion chiefly through the study 
 of Comparative Philology. After exploring the most 
 important languages of the Aryan and the Semitic 
 families of speech, I devoted, as a yOung man, several 
 years to a study of other languages, in order to see 
 how far they agreed and how far they differed from 
 the Aryan and the Semitic types. I examined for that 
 purpose, not only literary languages, such as the 
 Dravidian languages of India, Chinese and Mandshu, 
 Turkish and Finnish, but likewise some of the 
 Malay and Polynesian dialects, some representatives 
 of American speech, of one of which, the Mohawk, I 
 
 L2 
 
148 LECTURE VI. 
 
 wrote a grammatical analysis, and some of the more 
 important linguistic specimens from Africa, and even 
 from Australia. You must not imagine that I studied 
 these languages as we study Greek and Latin. The 
 age of Methuselah would not suffice for that. I 
 studied chiefly the grammars, I made myself ac- 
 quainted with the general structure of each language, 
 and I was thus enabled to compare, not only the 
 materials of these languages, but their grammatical 
 expedients also with those of the Aryan and Semi- 
 tic languages. I consider this more comprehensive 
 study of languages extremely useful as a preparation 
 for more special studies. It frees us from many pre- 
 judices, it enables us in many cases to go behind the 
 grammars of Sanskrit and Hebrew, not genealogically, 
 but psychologically, and it helps us to recognise 
 beneath a great variety of grammatical formations one 
 and the same fundamental purpose. 
 
 I am quite aware that the results of these re- 
 searches, which I collected in a letter to Baron Bunsen, 
 On the Turanian Languages, published in 1854, have 
 been to a great extent corrected and superseded by 
 subsequent labours. Some of the classifications which 
 I then proposed have had to be surrendered, and the 
 very comprehensive name of Turanian, under which 
 I included a large number of languages neither Aryan 
 nor Semitic, has very properly been banished for a 
 time from linguistic science. But with all that, I do 
 not regret the time devoted to these studies, and I 
 still hold that for gaining a firm grasp on the general 
 principles of human speech, nay for fully appreciating 
 the distinctive character of the Aryan and Semitic 
 languages, nothing is so useful as to be able to con- 
 
MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION. 149 
 
 trast them even with such imperfect attempts at 
 embodying human thought as we find in the jargons 
 of the Australian Blacks. 
 
 Comparative Study of non-Aryan and non-Semitic Religions. 
 
 When in later years I was led from a study of 
 languages to a study of mythologies and religions, it 
 was but natural that I should have felt strongly 
 drawn towards the same sources from which I had 
 already derived so much useful information. Unde- 
 terred by the dark looks of classical scholars, I en- 
 deavoured to show how some of the best-known 
 mythological and religious traditions of Greece and 
 Eome found their analogy and explanation in the 
 Veda. I went even further, and did not shrink from 
 pointing out striking parallels between the gods and 
 heroes of Homer and the gods and heroes of Polyne- 
 sian, African, and American savages. Here again, I do 
 not deny that later information has shown in several 
 cases that some of these parallelisms were no parallel- 
 isms at all, that what seemed like was essentially 
 unlike, and that the chapter of accidental coincidences 
 was larger than we expected. But the principle that 
 there was, quite apart from any historical borrowing, 
 a common fund of thought in all the mythologies and 
 religions of the world, has remained untouched, and 
 must continue to inspire all serious students of the 
 ancient history of man. 
 
 Hew Epocli in the Study of Uncivilised Baces. 
 
 But there has been of late a strong reaction. First of 
 all, it has been shown that it was certainly a mistake 
 
150 LECTURE VI. 
 
 to look upon the manners and customs, the legends 
 and religious ideas of uncivilised tribes as represent- 
 ing an image of what the primitive state of mankind 
 must have been thousands of years ago, or what 
 it actually was long before the beginning of the 
 earliest civilisation, as known to us from historical 
 documents. The more savage a tribe, the more accu- 
 rately was it supposed to reflect the primitive state 
 of mankind. This was, no doubt, a very natural 
 mistake, before more careful researches had shown that 
 the customs of savage races were often far more 
 artificial and complicated than they appeared at first, 
 and that there had been as much progression and 
 retrogression in their historical development as in 
 that of more civilised races. We know now that 
 savage and primitive are very far indeed from mean- 
 ing the same thing. 
 
 But another and even more important change has 
 come over the study of anthropology, so far as it 
 deals with illiterate tribes. Formerly the chief object 
 of students of anthropology was to collect as much 
 information as was available. Whatever a sailor or a 
 trader or a missionary had noted down about out-of- 
 the-way people, was copied out^ classified and tabu- 
 lated, without any attempt at testing the credibility 
 of these witnesses. This was particularly the case 
 whenever the evidence seemed to tally with the 
 expectations of the philosopher, or furnished amusing 
 material to the essayist. At last, however, the contra- 
 dictions became so glaring, the confusion so complete, 
 that serious students declined altogether to listen to 
 this kind of evidence. 
 
MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION. 151 
 Tlie Two ITew Principles. 
 
 This, no doubt, was going too far. It was what 
 the Germans call pouring out the child with the bath- 
 water. But it has left at least two principles firmly 
 established and recognised by all conscientious stu- 
 dents of anthropology : 
 
 1. That no one is in future to be quoted as an 
 authority on savage races who has not been an eye- 
 witness, and has proved himself free from the preju- 
 dices of race and religion. But even to have been an 
 eye-witness does not suffice. Let us suppose that a 
 traveller had passed through a desert, and seen there 
 a race of savages, perfectly naked, and dancing round 
 a graven image which they called their god. Suppose 
 that after a time these savages had quarrelled among 
 themselves, and the traveller had witnessed at the 
 end of their orgies a massacre of about three thousand 
 men, the corpses weltering in their blood. What 
 account would he have given of that race ? Would he 
 not have described them as worse than the negroes of 
 Dahomey ? Yet these savages were the people of God, 
 the image was the golden calf, the priest was Aaron, 
 and the chief who ordered the massacre was Moses. 
 We, no doubt, read the 32nd chapter of Exodus in a 
 very different sense. But the casual traveller, unless 
 he could have conversed with Moses and Aaron, could 
 only have described what he saw, and the ethnologist, 
 knowing his authority to be trustworthy, would 
 naturally have ranged the Israelites among the lowest 
 of savage races. 
 
 2. It was necessary therefore to lay down a 
 second principle, namely that no one is in future to 
 
152 LECTURE VI. 
 
 be quoted as an authority on the customs, traditions, 
 and, more particularly, on the religious ideas of un- 
 civilised races, who has not acquired an acquaintance 
 with their language, sufficient to enable him to con- 
 verse with them freely on these difficult subjects. 
 
 No true scholar requires any proof in support of 
 these two demands. He knows how difficult it often 
 is for the best informed Greek, Latin, or Sanskrit 
 scholars to gain a correct view of the religious 
 opinions of ancient writers. He knows how much 
 depends very often on a single various reading in 
 the text of Homer or Pindar. He knows how often 
 he has himself changed his opinion as to the actual 
 import of a verse in Homer or in the Veda. If, 
 therefore, he has simply to rely on authority, he 
 knows that he must first examine the claims to 
 authority possessed by special students, and he would 
 never dream of relying on the statements of casual 
 travellers in Italy, Greece, or India, ignorant of the 
 languages spoken in these countries, for information 
 either on the modern or the ancient religions of their 
 inhabitants. 
 
 Anthropologists can no longer ignore the fact that 
 the languages of Africa, America, Polynesia, and even 
 Australia are now being studied as formerly Greek, 
 Latin, and Hebrew only were studied. You have only to 
 compare, for instance, the promiscuous descriptions of 
 the traditions of the Hottentots, in the works of the 
 best ethnologists, with the researches of a real Hot- 
 tentot scholar, like Dr. Hahn, to see the advance 
 that has been made. When we read the books of 
 Dr. Callaway on the Zulus, of the Revs. William 
 Wyatt Gill and Edward Tregear on the Polynesians, 
 
MATEKIALS FOK THE STUDY OF BELIGION. 153 
 
 of Dr. Codrington on the Melanesians, of Horatio Hale 
 on some of the North American races, we feel at once 
 that we are in safe hands, in the hands of real scholars. 
 Even then we must, of course, remember that their 
 knowledge of the languages cannot compare with that 
 of Bentley, or Hermann, or Burnouf, or Ewald. Yet 
 we feel that we cannot go altogether wrong in trust- 
 ing to their guidance. 
 
 A Third Principle for tlie Future. 
 
 I go even a step further, and I believe the time 
 will come when no student will venture to write on 
 any religion, unless he has acquired some knowledge 
 of the language of its sacred writings, or of the people 
 who believe in it. I think, of course, of serious 
 students only, of men who wish to assist in the 
 discovery of truth and in the real advancement of 
 knowledge, not of that class of anthropologists, so 
 well described by Professor Tiele as, ' Ces braves gens 
 qui, pour peu qu'ils aient lu un ou deux r^cits de 
 voyages, ne manqueront pas de se mettre a comparer 
 a tort et a travers, et pour tout resultat produiront la 
 confusion' {Le Mytlie de Kronos, p. 17). 
 
 This may seem to be exacting too much, but you 
 have only to look, for instance, at the description 
 given of the religion, the mythology, the manners, 
 customs, and laws of the Brahmans about a hundred 
 years ago, and before Sanskrit began to be studied, 
 and you will be amazed at the utter caricature that 
 is often given of the intellectual state of the in- 
 habitants of India, compared with the true picture 
 reflected in their literature. Yet there was plenty of 
 evidence, from Greek and Koman, from Arabic and 
 
154 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Persian writers, and from many intelligent travellers 
 and missionaries, which seemed perfectly trustworthy 
 and was accepted as such without any misgivings. 
 
 This question of the trustworthiness of writers on 
 religion who are ignorant of the language in which 
 religion lives and moves and has its being, has of late 
 become the object of so keen a controversy that it 
 seems best to argue it out, once for all. I do not 
 wonder that those who depend for their information 
 on the tabulated extracts published by Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer, should be unwilling to surrender these con- 
 venient ' Aids to Faith ' without a struggle. The best 
 I can do, therefore, is to give some of the results of 
 my own experience, and to show, in some critical 
 cases, on how broken a reed I myself and others with 
 me have been resting, when we thought that mere 
 outside observers, ignorant of the language of the 
 people, could ever be qualified to give us trustworthy 
 information as to the real religion of uncivilised or 
 even of civilised races. 
 
 Testing of Evidence, (I) witli regard to Civilised Baces. 
 
 I suppose we may reckon the Hindus of the present 
 day among civilised races, and we might suppose that, as 
 many of them speak English, they were quite capable 
 of giving an accurate and intelligible account of their 
 religion. I have tried the experiment again and again 
 with educated Indians staying at Oxford, and I have 
 been startled at their ignorance of their own religion. 
 Many of them have never heard the names of their 
 own sacred books. I do not mean of the Vedas only, 
 but even of the more modern Pur^7?as. They have 
 learned a few prayers from their mothers, they have 
 
MATEKIALS FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION. 155 
 
 watched the priest coming to their houses to receive 
 gifts, and they remember some festivals, though often 
 for their secular rather than for their religious char- 
 acter. If you ask them what their religious convictions 
 are, they will say that they are followers of VishTiu 
 or >Siva or some other popular deity, but what they 
 have to believe and not to believe about these gods or 
 any gods, they are unable to say. In fact, they 
 hardly understand what we mean by religion. Keli- 
 gion, as a mere belief, apart from ceremonies and 
 customs, is to them but one, and by no means the 
 most important, concern of life, and they often wonder 
 why we should take so deep an interest in mere 
 dogma, or, as they express it, make such a fuss about 
 religion. 
 
 However, we must not be too hard on these young 
 gentlemen who come from India to study in England. 
 Consider what answer an English boy would give, if 
 he were suddenly asked to give an account of the 
 Christian religion. No doubt he would have seen 
 and read the Old Testament and the New Testament, 
 and acquit himself well to a certain extent. Still, 
 I know what answers are sometimes given in the 
 examinations in the Rudiments of Religion by under- 
 graduates at Oxford, and knowing it, I can make 
 allowance for the answers which I sometimes receive 
 from my young Indian friends. I shall give you two 
 specimens only. In the questions on the Old Testa- 
 ment there was one, ' State what you know about 
 Jezebel.' The answer was short and pithy: 'Jehu 
 ate him.' In the viva voce examination on the New 
 Testament, a candidate was asked : ' Who was Salome ?' 
 The answer came quick, 'The father of the sons of 
 
156 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Zebedee.' The examiner paused and said: *Do you 
 really mean that, Sir ? ' He thought for a moment, 
 and then said, * Oh no. Sir, a pool.' 
 
 After this we must not be too much scandalised, if 
 we do not always get the most trustworthy informa- 
 tion about the Indian religion even from highly 
 educated young Hindus, preparing for the Indian 
 Civil Service examinations. 
 
 Different Accounts of tlie Religious Beliefs of the Hindus. 
 
 Bat while these natives themselves are generally 
 very reticent on their religion, and unable or unwilling 
 to give an account of the faith that is in them, 
 England possesses a large class of persons who have 
 spent their life in India in various pursuits, and who 
 might safely be supposed to know everything about 
 what is called the religion of the natives. These men 
 were formerly quoted as the highest authorities, and 
 it would have seemed an unwarrantable scepticism to 
 question their statements. There are, no doubt, very 
 able, learned, and thoughtful men among these Anglo- 
 Indians. These generally speak with great caution. 
 But there are others who are most positive in their 
 statements, whether favourable or unfavourable, about 
 the manners, the customs, and the religious opinions 
 of the natives, and who think it the height of pre- 
 sumption for a student who has never been in India 
 to differ from their opinions. Fortunately the number 
 of Anglo-Indians is large, and as they often contradict 
 each other flatly, it is open to us to appeal from one 
 to the other, and in the end to form our own opinion 
 from recognised authorities in the ancient and modern 
 literature of the country. 
 
MATEKIALS FOR THE STUDY OF EELIGION. 157 
 
 I shall mention a few only of the dangers which 
 beset the inquiries into the religious opinions of the 
 natives of India, as carried on by gentlemen resid- 
 ing for a number of years at Calcutta, Bombay, or 
 Madras. 
 
 First of all, there is no such thing as a general 
 religion of the natives. There are probably a hundred 
 different forms of religious belief and worship in that 
 enormous country, but there is no general standard of 
 belief, no pope, no councils, no confession of faith, to 
 guide the masses of the people. The sacred books 
 are read and understood by the few only. There are 
 many educated Hindus who have never seen a copy 
 of a Purana, still less of the Veda. No wonder, 
 therefore, that observations made in one part of India 
 should not always agree with observations made in 
 another locality and among a totally different popu- 
 lation. 
 
 Secondly, in the great towns the whole atmosphere 
 is now pervaded by European ideas. Schools, news- 
 papers, and books have introduced words and ideas 
 into the native languages of India which are quite 
 foreign to the native mind. 
 
 Thirdly, some natives, particularly those who have 
 been brought in contact with Europeans, are very apt 
 to give the answers which they are expected to give, 
 even if they do not go quite so far as Wilford's and 
 JacoUiot's friends. 
 
 Like Koman Catholic theologians who, when they 
 are charged with tolerating idolatry, have recourse to 
 a distinction between objects of adoration and objects 
 of veneration, the educated Hindu repels indignantly 
 the charge of idol-worship, and shows that sacred 
 
158 LECTURE VI. 
 
 images are only meant as memorials or as temporary 
 abodes of the deity. This may be quite true for the 
 educated classes, but it is not so for the mass of the 
 people. 
 
 To illustrate what I mean I shall give here a 
 description by a missionary who has had long and 
 intimate relations with the Hindus, both the educated 
 and the peasantry, as to the way in which an idol is 
 made and unmade in India, and an account of what 
 the Hindus themselves think of the indwelling spirit 
 of the deity. 
 
 The Goddess Durga or Kali. 
 
 Durga or Kali is the most popular goddess in 
 Calcutta, and in the whole of Bengal. Her temple at 
 Kalighat is the most sacred in the country. The 
 image-maker, preparing for the great Durga-P%a 
 festival, buys bamboos, straw, clay, paint, &c. He 
 then fastens the bamboos together so as to form, as it 
 were, the bones or framework of the future image. 
 Having twisted the straw into ropes, he gives the 
 bamboos their required thickness by twisting these 
 ropes round them, and lastly, he gives the outward 
 form of limb and feature by plastering the whole 
 with clay, which, when dry, is painted, and set up in 
 his shop for sale. But it is as yet no more a goddess 
 than an earthern pot is. A day or two before the 
 Pu(/a, the worshipper visits the shop of the image- 
 maker, and selects an image, larger or smaller, accord- 
 ing to his means. Having paid for it, he hands it to 
 a coolie, or to three or four coolies — if large — to carry 
 home. Meanwhile he himself goes to another shop, 
 
MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION. 159 
 
 and buys Durga's hair, in a third her sari, in a fourth 
 gorgeous jewellery made of rtiica or talc, in a fifth the 
 tin weapons, &c., with which her hands are armed. 
 Laden with these purchases he arrives at home, and 
 commences to tie on the hair, and to array the image 
 in gorgeous apparel. Still, when all this is done, and 
 the image is enshrined in the P%a house, she is yet 
 no goddess. Durga must be entreated to leave her 
 beloved husband, and to descend and dwell in the 
 image ; and it is only when she has done this, that the 
 image is to be bowed before, and ofierings of money, 
 &c., presented at the shrine. She condescends to 
 dwell on earth for three days. On the afternoon of 
 the third day, the image is borne aloft on men's 
 shoulders, to the deafening sound of gongs and tom- 
 toms. Baboos, often men who never put a foot to 
 the ground on any other day of the year, follow 
 through the dusty and not very odorous streets 
 of Calcutta. When the banks of the Hooghly are 
 reached, the image is put on board a boat, which is 
 rowed to the middle of the stream ; and, just as the 
 sun is setting, it is allowed to sink below the water, 
 while a Nilkanth (the beautiful Indian jay, also a 
 name of >S'iva) is released from a cage in which he has 
 been carried, to fly away to >S^iva, to tell him that his 
 beloved Durga is coming back to him. The image 
 was not sacred till animated — so to speak — by Durga, 
 nor are the frameworks of the images, which in a day 
 or two plentifully strew the shore, sacred. Durga 
 has gone away, and they are again but bamboo and 
 straw. 
 
 This is one account of the goddess Durga, the most 
 popular deity of Bengal. 
 
160 LECTUEE VI. 
 
 If we asked an educated native, he would probably 
 say that all these festivals with their processions and 
 shoutings and images were meant for the people who 
 could not understand anything else. Educated people 
 in England say the same of the corybantic processions 
 of the Salvation Army. They say that they appeal to 
 minds to whom nothing else would appeal. But to 
 the Kuli and his wife and children the very question, 
 what the image of Durga was, would be hardly intel- 
 ligible. To him it is Durga, the wife of /Siva, who 
 has to be propitiated, and whose festival is to them 
 one of the happiest days in the whole year. 
 
 We should find but few, if any, among the learned 
 natives who could tell us the real character, the origin 
 and history of this goddess. They see, no doubt, more 
 in her than a mere idol, and look upon the hideous 
 accessories of her worship as things that must be 
 tolerated, though they cannot be approved. But her 
 real antecedents and her historical origin would be as 
 great a puzzle to them as it is to us. 
 
 The Hig-her Conception of DurgS.. 
 
 I had a correspondence not long ago with a learned 
 and thoughtful native of India, a real believer in 
 Durga, in order to find out how he reconciled his own 
 exalted ideas of the godhead with the popular concep- 
 tion of this deity. * Behind the popular conception,' 
 he writes, ' there is, as many of us believe, a beautiful 
 and grand idea of godhead. Durga represents to us 
 universal Sskti or power, i. e. every force, spiritual 
 and physical, of Nature in every form. This may be 
 seen from the famous hymn addressed to her as 
 KsiTidi (in the Devimahatmya of the Marka-TKieya 
 
MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION. 161 
 
 Pura^ia), beginning with the words, ya devl sarva- 
 bhuteshu, " she who is the goddess in all things," 
 occurring in every verse. The Vedic deities represent 
 separate forces or manifestations of Nature. Agni is 
 fire, VaruTia is water, Indra is the firmament or clouds 
 or rain. But Durga includes in herself every deity, 
 being universal power. She is all the Vedic deities 
 and all the Paura^iic ones combined in a grand unity. 
 The teachers of the Adi Sam% (Devendranath Tagore, 
 «Sz;c.) have already familiarised the people with the 
 idea of God being either Father or Mother. Durga is 
 Mother-God. Divested of personality and sex, Durga 
 is universal power, almighty, irresistible power. What 
 Kr^sh?^a says of himself to Ar^una in the Bhagavad- 
 gita, about his being everything, would apply to this 
 conception of Durga equally. For Krishnsb in the 
 Bhagavadgita read Durga, and you will readily under- 
 stand who and what Durga is in the estimation of all 
 genuine and educated /Saktas. 
 
 'How a deity of PauraTiic origin could come to 
 supplant all the earlier Vedic deities, and to be iden- 
 fied with the idea of supreme Godhead, is, perhaps, 
 not very difficult to understand. The manner in 
 which the Marka^Kieya Puraiia has described her 
 (notwithstanding the late origin ascribed to her) has 
 naturally led to this development. No Christian can 
 compose a hymn to the Godhead (without reference to 
 Christ, of course, and to the Holy Ghost) that would 
 not apply to Durga. Indeed, if a personal God, 
 almighty and all-perfect, is to be believed in, it 
 makes very little difference whether that God is caUed 
 Father or Mother. 
 
 * I have only to add what the meaning of the word 
 (8) M 
 
162 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Durga is. Etymologically the word means, She who 
 is approached with difficulty. Of course, in this sense, 
 she is the unapproachable supreme godhead ; one, that 
 is, who cannot be approached without years upon 
 years of the austerest of penances and meditations. It 
 may also mean, one who can cross every difficulty, and 
 hence ward off all difficulties from her devotees. You 
 know that Rama worshipped Durga, and it was on 
 the fourth day (i. e. the first day after the worship had 
 been over) that RavaTia was slain. No Hindu rises 
 from his bed in the morning without repeating the 
 following : — 
 
 Prabhate ya^ smaren nitya'77i Durga-Durgakshara- 
 dvayam, 
 
 Apadas tasya nasyanti tamas suryodaye yatha. 
 " He who recollects every morning the two syllables 
 Durga, Durga, his calamities vanish like darkness 
 at the rising of the sun." ' 
 
 Who would deny that there are true religious 
 elements in this view of Durga, so different from the 
 image made of bamboos, straw, clay, and paint ? Who 
 would deny that motherhood has as much right as 
 fatherhood as one of the many forms under which man 
 may conceive the godhead ? Durga, as conceived by 
 my friend, seems a kind of deified Nature, or an 
 image of Divine Omnipotence, such as we find most 
 frequently elsewhere, particularly in Semitic religions. 
 
 The Origfin of DurgrS.. 
 
 But there is one difficulty that remains. My corre- 
 spondent says that the manner in which the Mar- 
 k&ndeysi Pura^ia has described Durga has naturally led 
 to this development. No doubt it has. But the ques- 
 
MATERIALS FOB THE STUDY OP RELIGION. 163 
 
 tion is, How did that late Pura^ia come to describe 
 her thus? Are there any historical antecedents of 
 such a goddess as the Durga described in the Mar- 
 ka?ic?eya Pura^ia? If the study of religion has 
 taught us anything, it has taught us that no goddess 
 springs suddenly from the brain of man, like Athene 
 from the head of Zeus. Now it is well known that 
 female deities act a rather subordinate part in the 
 Vedic mythology of India, and even those who, like 
 the Dawn, receive the warmest homage, never attain 
 to the dignity of the female deities in Semitic 
 mythology who represent the active power (sakti) of 
 their male companions. 
 
 Some scholars, such as Weber, Muir\ and others, 
 endeavoured, many years ago, to show that the 
 Pauramc Durga was the continuation of the Vedic 
 Kali, the dark flame, also the wife of Agni, and of 
 Ambika, the sister, later the wife of Rudra. There is 
 some truth in this, as there is also in the other theory 
 that /Siva, the husband of Durga^ may be looked upon 
 as connected with Rudra and Agni. 
 
 But I cannot bring myself to believe that this modern 
 god and goddess represent really a continuous develop- 
 ment of the older Vedic gods and goddesses. There 
 is such a decidedly non-Vedic spirit in the conception 
 of Durga and her consort >Siva that I feel inclined to 
 trace it to some independent source. A goddess with 
 four arms, or ten arms, with flowing hair, riding on a 
 lion, followed by hideous attendants, could hardly have 
 
 * See Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, vol. iv. pp. 420-437. Nearly all 
 the important passages, bearing on Durga, have been carefully 
 collected here. I have quoted some of his translations also, with 
 but few alterations. 
 
 M.2 
 
164 LECTURE VI. 
 
 been the natural outcome either of Rodasi, the wife of 
 Eudra, and of the Maruts, or even of the terrible flames 
 of Agni, Kali, and Karali. The process to which 
 Durga and /Siva owe their present character must, I 
 believe, be explained in a different way. It was 
 probably the same process with which Sir Alfred 
 Lyall and others have made us acquainted as going 
 on in India even at the present time. When some 
 outlying, half-savage tribes are admitted to a certain 
 status in the social system of the Brahmans, they 
 are often told that their own gods are really the 
 same as certain Brahmanic gods, so that the two 
 coalesce and form a new incongruous mixture. Many 
 years ago I suspected something like this in the 
 curious process by which even in Vedic times the 
 ancient gods, the i?<^bhus, had been assigned to the 
 Rathakaras, literally the chariot-makers, a not quite 
 Brahmanic class, under a chief called BWbu. If we 
 suppose that some half-barbarous race brought their 
 own god and goddess with them, while settling in the 
 Brahmanised parts of India, and that after a time they 
 forced their way into the Brahmanical society, we 
 could then more easily understand that the Brahmanic 
 priests, in admitting them to certain social privileges 
 and offering them their partial services, would at the 
 same time have grafted their deities on some of the 
 minor Vedic deities. 
 
 Traces of a foreign, possibly of a Northern or North- 
 eastern Durga, may still be discovered in some of her 
 names, such as Haimavati, coming from the snow- 
 mountains ; Parvati, the mountaineer ; Kirati, belong- 
 ing to the Kira^as, a race living in the mountains east 
 of Hindustan. One of her best-known names, K&ndi, 
 
MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION. 165 
 
 explained as violent, savage, belongs to an indigenous 
 vernacular rather than to Sanskrit. K&nd& and 
 Mnndsb, the latter possibly meant for the Mundsi, tribes, 
 are represented as demons conquered by the goddess, 
 and she is said to have received, from her victory over 
 them, the name of Ka.-mundk. Possibly K&ndsbia., 
 the name of one of the lowest castes, may be connected 
 with Ka^nda,, supposing that, like MuTicZa, it was 
 originally the name of a half-savage race. Even in 
 so late a work as the Harivamsa, v. 3274, we read 
 that Durga was worshipped by wild races, such as 
 iS^abaras, Varvaras, and Pulindas. Nay even >S^arva, 
 another name of >Siva, and >S^arva and ^'arva^ii, names 
 of Durga, may be interpreted as names of a low caste 
 (see /S^arvari, a low-caste woman, a devotee of Rama). 
 
 If then Ksindi was originally the goddess of some 
 savage mountaineers who had invaded central India, 
 the Brahmans might easily have grafted her on 
 Durga, an epithet of Ratri, the night, or on Durga, as 
 a possible feminine of Agni (havyavahani), who 
 carries men across all obstacles (durga), or on Kali 
 and Karali, names of Agni's flames, or Rodasi, the 
 wife of the Maruts or Rudra. This goddess is called 
 vishita-stuka, with dishevelled locks, and K&ridi also 
 is famous for her wild hair (kesini). 
 
 In the same way her consort, whatever his original 
 name might have been^ would, as a lord of mountaineers, 
 have readily been identified with Rudra, the father of 
 the Maruts, or storm- winds, dwelling in the mountains 
 (giristha, Rv. VIII. 94, 12, &c.), or with Agni, whether 
 in one of his terrible, or in one of his kind or friendly 
 forms (siva tsmtih, /Satarudriya, 3). In his case, no 
 doubt, the character of the prototypes on which he 
 
166 LECTURE VI. 
 
 was grafted, whether Rudra or Agni, was more 
 strongly marked, and absorbed therefore more of his 
 native complexion, than in the case of Burga, his 
 vrife. But the nature of /Siva's exploits and the 
 savage features of his worship can hardly leave any 
 doubt that he too was of foreign origin. It should 
 be remembered also that Rudra and Agni, though 
 they were identified by later Brahma7iic authors, were 
 in their origin two quite distinct concepts ^. 
 
 I hold therefore that neither Durga nor /Siva can 
 be looked upon as natural developments, not even as 
 mere corruptions, of Vedic deities. They seem inex- 
 plicable except as importations from non-Brahmanic 
 neighbours, possibly conquerors, or as adaptations of 
 popular and vulgar deities by proselytising Brahmans. 
 
 But even this would not suffice to account for all 
 the elements which went towards forming such a 
 goddess as we see Durga to be in the epic and 
 Paura^iic literature of India. 
 
 If she was originally the goddess of mountaineers, 
 and grafted on such Vedic deities as Ratri, Kali, 
 Rodasi, Nir?^^ti, one does not see yet how she would 
 have become the representative of the highest divine 
 wisdom. The North, no doubt, was often looked upon 
 as the home of the ancient sages, and, as early as 
 the time of the Kena-upanishad, the knowledge of the 
 true Brahma is embodied in a being called Uma Hai- 
 
 ^ As early as the time of the Satapatha-brahmawa, Agni was 
 identified with Rudra (VI. 1, 3, 10), and among his other names 
 we find Sarva (sic), Pasupati, Ugra (Vayu), Asani (lightning), 
 Bhava (Pargranya), MahAn Deva (moon), Isana (sun), Kumara (boy). 
 In the same Brahmawa (I. 7, 3, 8) Agni's names are given as Sarva 
 (^ among the eastern people), Bhava (among the Bahikas), Pasunam 
 pati, and Rudra. 
 
MA.TEKIALS FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION. 167 
 
 mavati. She is also called Ambika, mother, Parvatt, 
 living in the mountains, and her husband Um^- 
 pati is identified with Rudra (Taitt.-Ar. 18). Some 
 authorities (Ram. I. 36, 13) speak of XJma and Ganga 
 as two daughters of Himavat, which might lead us 
 to suppose that Uma was the name of a Northern 
 river, possibly, like the Sarasvati, a river protecting 
 the settlement of some Vedic sages. But whoever 
 this Uma or Ambika was, she too, as representing the 
 highest wisdom, was sometimes embodied in the god- 
 dess Durga, who thus became the incarnation of 
 wisdom quite as much as the terrible goddess, the 
 destroyer of thousands of evil demons. Nor is she 
 only the representative of that Brahma- vidya (Maha- 
 bh., Bhishmaparva, v. 803), or of that Vedantic 
 philosophy which discovers the true Brahma behind 
 the veil of Maya ; but in the Devi-mahatmya she is 
 represented also as Mahamaya herself, or the cause of 
 all phenomenal existence. We read there (V. 56) : 
 ' By thee the universe is upheld, by thee this world is 
 created, by thee it is preserved, O goddess ; and thou 
 always devourest it in the end.' And again (V. 63) : 
 ' Thou art the power of whatever substance, existent 
 or non-existent, anywhere is, thou soul of all 
 things ; why art thou praised then ? Who is able to 
 magnify thee, by whom the creator of the world, the 
 possessor of the world, and he who devours the world, 
 have been made subject to sleep ? ' 
 
 Here then we see to a certain extent the justi- 
 fication of the opinion expressed by my Indian 
 correspondent, as to the true nature of Durga. What 
 he says of her, is exactly what the gods, headed by 
 Indra, said to her, after she had vanquished the demon 
 
168 LECTUKE YI. 
 
 Mahisha : ' We bow down with devotion before the 
 goddess Ambika, who stretched out this world by her 
 own power, in whom are impersonated the various 
 energies (saktis) of all the gods ; she is to be adored 
 by all the deities and i^ishis.' 
 
 But the steps by which Durga became what she is 
 now will never be laid bare from beginning to end, 
 unless we can gain much fuller information of the 
 religious life of the people at large than has hitherto 
 been accessible to us in Sanskrit literature ^. 
 
 This may give some faint idea of the difficulties 
 which confront the student of religion, even under the 
 most favourable circumstances. They could hardly 
 anywhere be more favourable than in India. We 
 have the advantage there of a large number of wit- 
 nesses, whose observations can be compared and 
 checked one by the other. We have natives who 
 speak English, and missionaries and others who 
 speak Hindustani, and yet we see how they not only 
 contradict one another, but how what they relate is 
 hardly ever the whole truth. There are more varieties, 
 dialects, patois, and jargons of religion than of lan- 
 guage, and to construct out of all of them a classical 
 grammar, a rule of faith accepted by all, is one of the 
 most difficult tasks ^. Some people would consider 
 it almost impossible. Every one, they say, has a right 
 to his own religion. Religion lives only in the heart, 
 and no one has any right to touch or to correct it. 
 Such a view, though I do not deny that there is 
 some truth in it, would, of course, put an end to all 
 
 ^ See Appendix IV. 
 
 ^ See some very pertinent remarks on this subject in the Pioneer 
 Mail of April 9, 1891. 
 
MATEKIALS FOR THE STUDY OF RELiaiON. 169 
 
 historical study and religion. It would be the same 
 as if in the study of language we were to say that 
 every one has a right to his own dialect; that lan- 
 guage lives only as it is spoken, and no one has any 
 right to touch or to correct it. 
 
 Authoritative Books. 
 
 Among most nations this difficulty has been solved, 
 for religion by sacred books and creeds, for language 
 by classical literature and grammar. But among 
 races who have neither the one nor the other, you will 
 see now why the task of discovering the general out- 
 lines of their religion is so difficult a task, quite as 
 difficult as that of discovering the general outlines of 
 their grammar, nay even more difficult. 
 
 Testing- of Evidence, (IZ) with regard to lUiterate Baces. 
 
 I tried once to collect from the mouth of a Mohawk 
 a grammar of his language. The circumstances were 
 most advantageous. My Mohawk friend knew English 
 and a little Latin. He had been educated at a Mis- 
 sionary school, and he was ready to answer all ques- 
 tions which I addressed to him. Besides, the Mohawk 
 being one of the North- American poly synthetic lan- 
 guages, I knew on the whole what to expect. 
 
 It was most curious, however, that this young 
 Mohawk, who knew what grammar meant, insisted 
 from the first, that Mohawk was really no language, 
 like English, that it had no real grammar, and that it 
 was useless to attempt to construct a grammar of it. 
 
 This is exactly what some Negro converts say, 
 when examined about their former religion. It is 
 really no religion at all, they say ; their old gods are 
 quite different from their new God, and yet, when 
 
170 LECTURE VI. 
 
 they are in trouble, they will pray to their old gods 
 to avert dangers, while they shrink from troubling 
 their new God with their petitions. 
 
 I soon discovered that Mohawk, as spoken by my 
 friend, was a most systematic, most regular, most 
 transparent language. The roots stood out clearly 
 by themselves, and the most minute grammatical 
 modifications were expressed by a number of short 
 suffixes which left no doubt as to their original 
 pronominal character. After I once knew the char- 
 acter of these suffixes, there was little difficulty in 
 telling how to conjugate a new verb, even though my 
 friend had not repeated to me the actual forms. 
 This surprised him very much, and I remember one 
 occasion when he was almost frightened by my know- 
 ledge of the Mohawk grammar. In Mohawk there 
 are different forms not only for singular and plural, 
 but also for a dual. Now if we want to say, ' I love 
 my children,' we must say, ' I them love my children.' 
 The suffix for themi is really what is called an infix, 
 and seems to form part of the verb. I then asked 
 my teacher to give me the Mohawk for ' I love my 
 parents,' which was ' I them love my parents.' Here 
 I stopped him, and asked whether it should not be ' I 
 them two love my parents,' substituting the dual for 
 the plural infix. He stared at me when he heard my 
 grammatical compound, as if it were not quite canny. 
 ' Why,' he said, ' that is how my grandmother used to 
 say. How came you to know it?^ I explained to 
 him how I came to know it. The fact was that in 
 Mohawk, as in other languages, the old dual forms 
 were dying out. His grandmother still used them — 
 he himself found the plural sufficient. 
 
MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION. 171 
 
 If this correcting and reconstructing process is 
 necessary for a knowledge of the languages, how 
 much more is it for the religions of uncivilised people. 
 As I have spoken of my Mohawk friend, I may give 
 you another curious case that arose in my conversa- 
 tions with him, and which shows how the peculiar 
 character of a language may influence even religious 
 expressions. In Mohawk we cannot say father, mother, 
 child, nor the father, the mother, the child. We must 
 always say, my father, or thy mother, or his child. 
 Once when I had asked him to translate the Apostles' 
 Creed for me, he translated, ' I believe in our God, our 
 father, and his son,' all right. But when he came to 
 the Holy Ghost, he asked, is it their or his Holy 
 Ghost 1 I told him that there was a difference of 
 opinion on that point between two great divisions of 
 the Christian Church, and he then shook his head and 
 declared that he could not translate the Creed till 
 that point had been settled. 
 
 Of course, my friend, the Mohawk, having been 
 educated at a Missionary school in Canada, knew 
 nothing of the old religion of his tribe. He was a 
 Christian, and if he had known anything of the 
 religious beliefs and customs of his ancestors, he 
 would probably have said that they really had no 
 religion like the Enghsh religion, just as he thought 
 that their language had no grammar like the English 
 language. Such an answer has very often been given 
 to inquisitive travellers, and some of them have told 
 us in consequence that certain races had really no 
 religion at all. 
 
 This belief, however, that there are savage races 
 without any trace of religion, has now, I believe, 
 
172 LECTURE VI. 
 
 been completely surrendered by those who have made 
 the history of religion a subject of scholarlike study. 
 Tribes without religion have been hunted for in the 
 most remote and inaccessible corners of the globe, but 
 in every case, so far as I am aware, the statement 
 that a whole race was ever without any religion, has 
 been controverted by ocular observation. 
 
 I cannot here go through every case where a more 
 or less savage race has been described to us first, as 
 entirely without religious ideas, and afterwards, not 
 only as religious, but as superstitious, pious, and even 
 priest-ridden. It might seem as if there had been on 
 one side a wish to establish the fact that man could 
 exist without religion, and, on the other side, that he 
 could not. There certainly was for a time a tendency 
 to discover men standing on so low a level as to 
 form a bridge between animal and man. All such 
 tendencies are much to be deprecated, as hindrances 
 to the progress of science. But in most cases, I 
 believe, the conflict of evidence is due to misconcep- 
 tion rather than to prejudice. 
 
 We all know from our own experience within a 
 smaller sphere, what contorted and distorted images 
 our own peculiar angle of vision, our own religious, 
 moral, national, or political spectacles may produce, 
 what we can bring ourselves to believe, and, as we 
 call it, honestly to believe, if there is nothing to make 
 us hesitate. 
 
 Read the descriptions of Mohammed by his disciples 
 and by his enemies, read the enthusiastic panegyrics 
 of Socrates by Plato and his condemnation as a 
 corruptor of the Athenian youth, read the account of 
 Napoleon by Thiers and by Lanfrey or by Mad. de 
 
MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OF RELIQION. 173 
 
 Remusat, read in our daily papers the representations of 
 the same person as a pattern of unselfish patriotism and 
 as a reckless political gambler, and you will learn to 
 make allowance for the strange opinions expressed by 
 travellers and missionaries of races of men whom they 
 are pleased to call savages or brutes. 
 
 The Andaman Islanders. 
 
 I shall only mention one more case, which seems 
 more flagrant than all the rest, that of the Mincopies, 
 or the inhabitants of the Andaman islands. It is a case 
 of taking away not only their religious character, but 
 their character altogether. Owing to the exaggerated 
 accounts of travellers, the inhabitants of these islands 
 had acquired such a bad reputation for ferocity and 
 brutality that for centuries no ships passing there, on 
 the very high road of commerce, would go near these 
 islands. An Arab writer ^ of the ninth century states 
 that their complexion is frightful, their hair frizzled, 
 their countenance and eyes terrible, their feet very 
 large, and almost a cubit in length, and that they go 
 quite naked. Marco Polo (about 1285) declared that 
 the inhabitants are no better than wild beasts, and he 
 goes on to say : ' I assure you all the men of this 
 island of Angamanain have heads like dogs, and teeth 
 and eyes likewise ; in fact, in the face they are just 
 like big mastiff dogs.' 
 
 In 1857, after the Sepoy mutiny, it was necessary 
 to find a habitation for a large number of convict 
 prisoners. The Andaman Islands were then selected 
 for a penal colony. The havoc that was wrought by 
 this sudden contact between the Andaman islanders 
 and these Indian convicts was terrible, and the end 
 
 * Flower, On the Pygmy Races of Men, p. 6. 
 
174 LECTURE VI. 
 
 will probably be the same as in Tasmania, — the 
 native population will be extirpated. If these natives 
 had really been like what Marco Polo describes them, 
 their disappearance would not have been a cause 
 of regret. But let us hear what Mr. Edward Horace 
 Man, the Assistant- Superintendent of the islands, 
 and specially in charge of the natives, has to tell 
 of them. He is a careful observer, a student of 
 language, and perfectly trustworthy. According to 
 him the Andamanese are certainly a very small race, 
 their average height being 4 feet lOf inches. The 
 tallest woman was 4 feet 4| inches, the smallest 
 4 feet. 2 inches. Their hair is fine, very closely 
 curled and frizzly. Their colour is dark, not abso- 
 lutely black. The features possess little of the most 
 marked and coarser peculiarities of the negro type. 
 The projecting jaws, the prominent thick lips, the 
 broad and flattened nose of the genuine negro are so 
 softened down in the Andamanese as scarcely to be 
 recognised. 
 
 Before the introduction into the islands of what is 
 called European civilisation, the inhabitants lived in 
 small villages, their dwellings built of branches and 
 leaves of trees. They were ignorant of agriculture, 
 and kept no poultry or domestic animals. Their 
 pottery was hand-made, their clothing very scanty. 
 They were expert swimmers and divers, and able to 
 manufacture well-made dug-out canoes and outriggers. 
 They were ignorant of metals, ignorant, we are told, 
 of producing fire, though they kept a constant supply 
 of burning or smouldering wood. They made use of 
 shells for their tools, had stone hammers and anvils, 
 bows and arrows, harpoons for killing turtle and fish. 
 
MATEKIALS FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION. 175 
 
 Such is the fertility of the islands that they have 
 abundance and variety of food all the year round. 
 Their food was invariably cooked, they drank nothing 
 but vv^ater, and they did not smoke. 
 
 People may call this a savage life, — I know many 
 a starving labourer who would gladly exchange the 
 benefits of European civilisation for the blessings of 
 such savagery. 
 
 But this is not all. It has been the custom of a 
 certain class of anthropologists to illustrate their 
 theories of the growth of civilisation by descriptions 
 of savage life, such as it was supposed to exist in 
 Africa, Australia, and America. In these descriptions 
 the Andaman islanders have generally been made to 
 serve as specimens of the very lowest stratum of 
 humanity, and it is fortunate that before they have been 
 altogether improved off the face of the earth, they 
 should have found one advocate at least to redeem 
 their character. This is what Mr. Man, who witnessed 
 their last struggle with civilisation, says of them : 
 
 * It has been asserted that the " communal mar- 
 riage " system prevails among them, and that " mar- 
 riage is nothing more than taking a female slave ; " 
 but so far from the contract being regarded as a 
 merely temporary arrangement, to be set aside at the 
 wiU of either party, no incompatibility of temper or 
 other cause is allowed to dissolve the union ; and while 
 bigamy, polygamy, polyandry, and divorce are un- 
 known, conjugal fidelity till death is not the exception, 
 but the rule ; and matrimonial differences, which, how- 
 ever, occur but rarely, are easily settled with or with- 
 out the intervention of friends.^ ' One of the most 
 striking features of their social relations is the marked 
 
176 LECTURE VI. 
 
 equality and affection which exists between husband 
 and wife/ and the 'consideration and respect with 
 which women are treated might with advantage be 
 emulated by certain classes in our own land.' 'As 
 to cannibalism or infanticide, they are never prac- 
 tised by the Andamanese.' 
 
 But this is not all. These little fellows who in- 
 habit these beautiful islands have lately found another 
 defender in the person of Colonel Cadell, the Chief 
 Commissioner of the Andaman Islands. As to the 
 scenery, he describes it like fairyland. ' The water 
 deep and clear as a crystal ; on either side, within a 
 stone's throw, magnificent forest trees, reaching to 
 a height of 200 feet, the stems of some straight and 
 white, like gigantic silver rods, with umbrella-like 
 tops ; others clothed from foot to summit with 
 creepers in beautiful festoons ; palms, rattans, and 
 canes of many varieties interspersed among the forest 
 trees, creating striking contrasts of form and colouring, 
 while beneath the vessel were inconceivably beautiful 
 coral gardens.' ' But year after year,' he continues, 
 ' in his cruises among the islands, he saw a perceptible 
 diminution in the number of people. It was un- 
 doubtedly a moribund race, and probably none of 
 them would be found alive twenty-five or thirty 
 years hence, except perhaps in Little Andaman, where 
 the inhabitants had been kept free from the dire effects 
 of contact with civilisation.' 
 
 I have said before that I cannot share the feeling 
 of regret that certain races are dying out, par- 
 ticularly when they are succeeded by a stronger and 
 better race. If the Celtic race were effete, why should 
 it not be replaced by the Saxon race ? If the Saxon 
 
MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OP RELIGION. 177 
 
 race were effete, why should it not make room for a 
 better race ? Nothing would be lost so long as we have 
 on earth sound minds in sound bodies. But I must 
 protest when I see certain races represented as un- 
 worthy to cover the face of the earth, simply in order 
 to have an excuse for removing them from the face 
 of the earth. Now think of all that has been alleged 
 against the poor Mincopies. They had feet a cubit long 
 — and yet we know now that they are hardly five feet 
 in height. They had faces like dogs, they were like big 
 mastiffs ; but Mr. Man tells us that the coarse features 
 of the Negro type were softened down in them so as 
 scarcely to be recognised. And now let us hear 
 Colonel Cadell once more. He is a Victoria Cross, 
 and not likely to be given to excessive sentimentality. 
 Well, this is what he says of these fierce mastiffs : 
 'They are merry little people. One cannot imagine 
 how taking they are. Every one who had to do 
 with them fell in love with them. Contact with 
 civihsation had not improved the morality of the 
 natives. In their natural state they were truthful 
 and honest, generous and self-denying. He had 
 watched them sitting over their fires cooking their 
 evening meal, and it was quite pleasant to notice the 
 absence of greed and the politeness with which they 
 picked ofi* the tit-bits and thrust them into each 
 other's mouths. The forest and sea abundantly sup- 
 plied their wants, and it was therefore not surprising 
 that the attempts to induce them to take to cultiva- 
 tion had been quite unsuccessful, highly though they 
 appreciated the rice and Indian corn which were 
 occasionally supplied to them. All was grist that 
 came to their mill in the shape of food. The forest 
 
 (3) N 
 
178 LECTUKE VT. 
 
 supplied them with edible roots and fruits. Bats, 
 rats, flying foxes, iguanas, sea-snakes, molluscs, wild 
 pig, fish, turtle, and last, though not least, the larvae 
 of beetles, formed welcome additions to their larder. 
 He remembered one morning landing by chance at an 
 encampment of theirs under the shade of a gigantic 
 forest tree. On one fire was the shell of a turtle, 
 acting as its own pot, in which was simmering the 
 green fat delicious to more educated palates ; on 
 another its flesh was being broiled together with some 
 splendid fish ; on a third a wild pig was being roasted, 
 its drippings falling on wild yams, and ajar of honey 
 stood close by — all delicacies fit for an alderman's table.' 
 
 According to strict anthropological terminology 
 these men are savages, nay, the very lowest among 
 savages, because we are told they have no knowledge 
 of kindling a fire, they do not cultivate the soil, and 
 they do not domesticate any animals. How they can 
 boil a turtle and roast a pig without a fire is difficult 
 to understand. It may be true that they sow not, 
 neither do they reap^ nor gather into barns, but the 
 reason which they give for it would prove satisfactory 
 even to an alderjnan. They need not toil, and they 
 need not spin, and yet they have enough to eat. 
 
 However, I do not want to defend these merry, 
 lazy islanders, or to maintain that Solomon in all his 
 glory was not arrayed like one of them in their almost 
 complete nakedness. All I wished to point out was 
 the insecurity of the evidence on which so many 
 theories have been erected, and the necessity of trust- 
 ing to no witnesses except those who have lived among 
 so-called savages for many years, and who have 
 acquired a practical knowledge of their language. 
 
MATEKTALS FOE THE STUDY OF KELIGION. 179 
 
 And now let us consider their religion. According 
 to some authorities they were quite guiltless of any 
 religion, whether good or bad. This opinion received 
 the support of Sir John Lubbock, and has been often re- 
 peated without ever having been re-examined. As soon, 
 however, as these Mincopies began to be studied more 
 carefully, more particularly as soon as some persons, 
 resident among them, acquired a knowledge of their 
 language, and thereby a means of communication with 
 them, their religion came out as clear as daylight. 
 According to Mr. E. H. Man, they have a name for 
 God, PMuga ; and how can a race be said to be with- 
 out a knowledge of God, if they have a name for God ? 
 P4luga has a very mythological character. He has a 
 stone-house in the sky. He has a wife whom he 
 created himself, and from whom he has a large family, 
 all, except the eldest, being girls. The mother is 
 supposed to be green (the earth ?), the daughters black. 
 They are the spirits, called Morowin. His son is 
 called Fijchor. He alone is permitted to live with his 
 father, and to convey his orders to the Morowin. But 
 Puluga has a moral character also. His appearance 
 is like fire, though now-a-days he has become invisible. 
 He was never born, and is immortal. The whole world 
 was created by him, except only the powers of evil. 
 He is omniscient, knowing even the thoughts of the 
 heart. He is angered by the commission of certain 
 sins, some very trivial, but he is pitiful also to all 
 who are in distress. He is the judge from whom 
 each soul receives its sentence after death. 
 
 According to other authorities, some of the Mincopies 
 look on the sun as the fountain of all that is good, on the 
 moon as a minor power, and they believe in a number 
 
 N2 
 
180 LECTUEE VI. 
 
 of inferior spirits, the spirits of the forest, the water, 
 and the mountain, as agents of the two higher powers. 
 They believe in an evil spirit also, who seems to have 
 been originally the spirit of the storm. Him they try to 
 pacify by songs, or to frighten away with their arrows. 
 All this has been known for years, and yet the old 
 story is repeated again and again that the Andaman 
 islanders are devoid of all religious sentiments. Is that 
 right 1 ? 
 
 Negative and Positive Evidence. 
 
 It can easily be seen that there is in these matters 
 an essential difference between negative and positive 
 evidence. If travellers tell us they have never dis- 
 covered any signs of religion among certain races, 
 this may or may not be a proof that these races are 
 without religion. But if a traveller tells us that he 
 has seen people believing in God or gods, showing 
 reverence to the spirits of the forest, the water, and 
 the mountains, and trying to pacify an evil spirit, we 
 can hardly ignore all this and ascribe it either to 
 imagination or wilful untruth. It is quite possible 
 that a traveller or missionary may misapprehend and 
 misunderstand what he sees and hears, but there are 
 few cases where downright falsehood as to facts has 
 been proved against any of them. I fear, however, 
 that, unless the students of religion acquire themselves 
 a certain knowledge of the languages in which religious 
 ideas have taken their origin and their shape. Com- 
 parative Theology will never hold its place by the 
 side of Comparative Philology, and will never assume 
 a truly scientific character^. 
 
 ^ See Appendix V. 
 
 ^ See my address as President of the Anthropological Section at 
 the Meeting of the British Association at Cardiff in 1891. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF THE SOUL. 
 Physical Belisfiou Incomplete. 
 
 PHYSICAL religion, beginning with a belief in 
 agents behind the great phenomena of nature, 
 reached its highest point when it had led the human 
 mind to a belief in one Supreme Agent or God, what- 
 ever his name might be, whether Jehovah or Allah, 
 whether Jupiter, Dyaus, or Zeus. Homer calls Zeus 
 the father, the most glorious, the greatest, who rules 
 over all, mortals and immortals. Xenophanes^ goes 
 even further : ' There is one god,' he says, ' the 
 greatest among gods and men, neither in form nor 
 in thought like unto mortals.' What more could 
 we require from Physical Religion? 
 
 It was supposed that this God could be implored 
 by prayers and pleased by sacrifices. He was called 
 the father of gods and men. Yet even in his highest 
 conception he was no more than what, as we saw, 
 Cardinal Newman defined God to be. 'I mean by 
 the Supreme Being,^ he wrote, ' one who is simply self- 
 dependent, and the only being who is such. I mean 
 
 ^ Efs 6(bs tv T6 OfoTat Kal av6 pwiroiai fiffiaros, ov ri difias BvqToTai 
 ofioiios ovSi vorjfjta. (Clmi. Alex. Strom, v. p. 601, C.) 
 
182 LECTURE VII. 
 
 that he created all things out of nothing, and could 
 destroy them as easily as he made them, and that, in 
 consequence, he is separated from them by an abyss, 
 and incommunicable in all his attributes ^' 
 
 This abyss separating God from man remains at 
 the end of Physical Religion. It constitutes its in- 
 herent weakness. But this very weakness becomes 
 in time a source of strength, for from it sprang a 
 yearning for better things. Gods like those of the 
 Epicureans, who exist, indeed, but never meddle 
 with the affairs of men, could not satisfy the soul 
 of man for any length of time. Even the God of 
 the Jews, in His unapproachable majesty, though 
 He might be revered and loved by man during His 
 life on earth, could receive, as it were, a temporary 
 allegiance only, for 'the dead cannot praise God, 
 neither any that go down into darkness.' 
 
 The Soul of Man. 
 
 God was immortal, man was mortal ; and Physical 
 Religion, such as we found it and defined it, could not 
 throw a bridge over the abyss that separated the two. 
 Real religion, however, requires more than a belief in 
 God, it requires a belief in man also, and in an 
 intimate relation between God and man, at all events 
 in a life to come. There is in man an irrepressible 
 desire for continued existence. It shows itself during 
 life in what we may call self-defence. It shows itself 
 at the end of life and at the approach of death, in the 
 hope of immortality. 
 
 You may remember how it was the chief object of 
 my Lectures on Physical Religion to discover the faint 
 
 * Open Court, p. 9/7. 
 
THE DISCOVERY OF THE SOUL. 183 
 
 vestiges of that intellectual progress which led the 
 human mind to the formation of a name and concept 
 of God. We saw how that progress began with the 
 simplest perceptions of the great phenomena of 
 nature, and then advanced step by step from what 
 was seen to what was not seen, from what was finite 
 to what was not finite, till at last all that was 
 merely phenomenal in the ancient names was dropped, 
 and there remained in the end the one infinite Agent, 
 still called by the old names, but purified from all 
 material dross. 
 
 As in treating of Physical Religion it was our chief 
 object to watch this genesis of the name and concept 
 of God in the various religions and languages of the 
 ancient world, we shall now have to do the same for 
 what forms the necessary counterpart of God in every 
 religion, namely the human soul, or whatever other 
 name has been given to the infinite, and therefore the 
 immortal element in man. The name of that im- 
 mortal element also was not given to man as a 
 gratuitous gift. It had to be gained, like the name of 
 God, in the sweat of his face. Before man could say 
 that he believed his soul to be immortal, he had to 
 discover that there was a soul in man. He had to 
 shape its name and concept from such materials as 
 were within his grasp, till at last, by a process of 
 abstraction which we found to be inherent in lan- 
 guage, certain names became more and more freed 
 from their material elements, and more and more 
 fitted to express something entirely immaterial, in- 
 visible, infinite, and divine. It required as great an 
 efibrt to form such a word as anwia, breath, and to 
 make it signify the infinite in man, as to form such a 
 
184 LECTUKE VII. 
 
 word as deva, bright, and to make it signify the 
 infinite in nature. 
 
 Animism. 
 
 You may remember the arguments which I pro- 
 duced against admitting Animism of any kind as a 
 primitive form of religious thought. You cannot 
 have animism unless you first have an animia. In 
 order to ascribe an anima, a soul, to anything, be it 
 a stone, or a rag (Fetishism), a sign-post (Totemism), a 
 tree, or a mountain (Animism), man must first have 
 gained the name and concept of anima. If, as we are 
 told, trust in a fetish arose always from ^ the doctrine 
 of spirits embodied in, or attached to, or conveying 
 influence through certain material objects,' how can it 
 longer be doubted that fetishism, under all its forms, 
 presupposes a belief in spirits, and that what has 
 really to be accounted for, is how for the first time 
 a spirit was named, conceived, and believed in, not 
 how a spirit was attributed to a stone, a sign-post, 
 or a tree? 
 
 The problem therefore with which we have to deal 
 at first, is not how man came to believe in the immor- 
 tality of the soul, but how such a thing as a soul was 
 ever spoken of, how man was supposed to be any- 
 thing but what he was seen to be, how here also 
 behind the finite, something not-finite, or infinite, was 
 perceived or postulated and believed in. 
 
 Primitive Man. 
 
 When we try to trace human thought, such as we 
 find it in early language, back to its first beginnings, 
 we ought to make it quite clear to ourselves, that 
 these first beginnings are entirely beyond the reach of 
 
THE DISCOVERY OF THE SOUL. 185 
 
 what we mean by history. We shall never know 
 what primitive man, or what the first man on earth, 
 may have been. When we speak, nevertheless, of 
 primitive man, we mean, and can only mean, man as 
 he is represented to us in his earliest works. 
 
 We do not mean man while he was emerging from 
 brutality to humanity, 'while he was losing his fur 
 and gaining his intellect,' We leave that to the few 
 biologists who, undeterred by the absence of facts, 
 still profess a belief in the descent of man from 
 some known or unknown animal species ^. 
 
 Nor do we mean man as known to us by skulls 
 and skeletons only. Here, no doubt, we have to deal 
 with real and most important facts. But the historian 
 leaves these to the ethnologist, not because, as 
 Socrates said of the leaves of trees, they cannot teach 
 him anything, but because the lessons which they teach 
 would only be spoiled, if mixed up with the lessons 
 which concern him more immediately. Even the 
 earliest works of art, the flints and bones and stones, 
 which display clear traces of human handiwork, and 
 
 ^ Vircliow, no mean authority on this question, writes to Haeckel : 
 ' Vous savez que c'est precisement a I'anthropologie que je travaille 
 maintenant avec une predilection tout particuliere. Je dois cepen- 
 dant le declarer, chacun des progres positifs que nous avons faits 
 dans I'anthropologie prehistorique nous a particulierement, et de 
 plus en plus, eloign^s de la preuve de cette parente. . . . Nous devons 
 reellement reconnaitre qu'aucun des types fossiles ne presente le 
 caraetere marque d'un developpement inferieur. Et meme, si nous 
 comparons la somme des fossils humains connus jusqu'ici avec ce 
 que nous offre I'epoque actuelle, nous pouvons hardiment pretendre 
 que parmi les hommes actuellement vivants il existe un beaucoup 
 plus grand nombre d'individus relativement inferieurs que parmi 
 les fossils en question. . . . Nous ne pouvons pas considerer comma 
 un fait acquis a la science que I'homme descend du singe ou de tout 
 autre animal.* {Revue scientifique, 1877, p. 542.) Compare with this 
 Mr. Clodd's article in the kew Review, July, 1891, p. 19. Surely a 
 challenge from Virchow cannot be ignored ; why then has it never 
 been taken up ? 
 
186 LECTURE VII. 
 
 therefore of human intellect, are outside his special 
 domain, and are better dealt with by the anthro- 
 pologist. 
 
 The documents from which we study primitive man 
 are contained in language. Whether language was 
 older than anything else, whether the Neanderthal 
 skull was the abode of a speechless man, whether 
 the rudest palaeolithic flints were fashioned by mute 
 workmen, we cannot tell. All we know is that in 
 the world of intellectual beings there can be nothing 
 older than language. With us primitive man means 
 therefore speaking man, and if speaking man, then 
 rational and intelligent man. 
 
 Materials for our Studies. 
 
 The historical materials for studying the earliest 
 phases in the growth of man are found in one 
 store only, namely in language, and yet they are 
 enormous, enormous in number, and enormous in age. 
 Remember that English alone contains 250,000 words, 
 and that every one of these words is an ancient 
 chronicle. Remember that English is but one dialect 
 of one branch of one great stem of human speech, and 
 you will see that the students of the history of man 
 will not lack for materials for some time to come. 
 
 But though there is nothing more ancient than the 
 chronicles contained in every word, let us guard 
 against the absurd idea that even words or roots can 
 ever bring us to the beginning of human thought. 
 All beginnings are by their very nature and by our 
 nature, beyond our ken. But when we come to a 
 stratum of thought and language that is still intel- 
 ligible to us, when we are able to enter into ancient 
 
THE DISCOVERY OF THE SOUL. 187 
 
 words and concepts, as if we had formed them our- 
 selveSj when there is nothing left in them that is 
 irrational and unintelligible, then we may speak of 
 primitive, using the word in the sense of something 
 that, whatever its chronological date may be, requires 
 no antecedents, but has its own beginnings in itself. 
 
 Poor primitive man has had many things to suffer 
 at the hands of the ethnologist, the linguist, the 
 psychologist. He has been represented on one side 
 as no better than an ape, on the other as a primeval 
 and divinely inspired prophet. We must try to look 
 upon him and to understand him as essentially the 
 same as ourselves, only as moving in different sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 If from this point of view we ask, how primitive 
 man, or how man in a primitive state of life, came to 
 invent a soul, came to discover that he had, or, that 
 he was a soul, our answer is, look at his language, 
 and try to find out what he called the soul. 
 
 XTames for Soul. 
 
 To us the two words ' body and soul ' are so 
 familiar that it seems almost childish to ask the 
 question how man at first came to speak of body and 
 soul. It is true also, and, I believe, it has never been 
 contested, that even the lowest savages now living 
 possess words for body and soul. If we take the 
 Tasmanians, a recently extinct race of savages, we 
 find that however much different observers may con- 
 tradict each other as to their intellectual faculties 
 and acquirements, they all agree that they have names 
 for soul and souls, nay, that they all believe in the 
 immortality of the soul. 
 
188 LECTDEE VII. 
 
 We saw how long it took to frame a name for God. 
 We also saw that man could never have framed such 
 a name, unless nature had taken him by her hand, 
 and made him see something beyond what he saw, in 
 the fire, in the wind, in the sun, and in the sky. The 
 first steps were thus made easy for him. He spoke of 
 the fire that warmed him, of the wind that refreshed 
 him, of the sun that gave him light, and of the sky 
 that was above all things, and by thus simply speak- 
 ing of what they all did for him, he spoke of agents 
 behind them all, and, at last, of an Agent behind and 
 above all the agencies of nature. 
 
 We shall find that the process which led to the dis- 
 covery of the soul and the framing of names for soul 
 was much the same. There was no conclave of sages 
 who tried to find out whether man had a soul, and 
 what should be its name. If we follow the vestiges 
 of language, the onl}^ true vestiges of all intellectual 
 creations, we shall find that here also man began 
 by naming the simplest and most palpable things, 
 and that here also, by simply dropping what was 
 purely external, he found himself by slow degrees in 
 possession of names which told him of the exist- 
 ence of a soul. 
 
 What was meant by Soul? 
 
 But what did he mean by soul? What do we 
 ourselves mean by soul ? Here, you see, our diffi- 
 culties begin, and they are due, as in nearly all philo- 
 sophical questions, to the indiscriminate use of our 
 words. 
 
 Think of the many meanings which are contained 
 in our word soul, as used in ordinary conversa- 
 
THE DISCOVERY OP THE SOUL. 189 
 
 tion_, and even in philosophical works. Our soul 
 may mean the living soul ; it may mean the sentient 
 soul ; it may mean the soul as the seat of the passions, 
 whether good or bad ; it may mean the soul as the 
 organ of thought; and lastly, the immortal element 
 in man. 
 
 It is quite clear that no name could ever have been 
 framed to embrace all these meanings, though in the 
 end all these meanings may cluster round one and the 
 same name. 
 
 The question, therefore, which we have to ask, is 
 not, how man arrived at a name for soul, but how he 
 came for the first time to think and speak of some- 
 thing different from the body. To a question rightly 
 put, we may expect a right answer. 
 
 We saw how man was startled, was made to wonder 
 at the wonders of nature, the true miracles presented 
 to him on every side, and how he was led on by the 
 irresistible laws of his mind to look for the workers 
 of these wonders, the agents in these miracles. 
 
 The Problem of Man. 
 
 Next to nature, the most startling problem for 
 man was man himself, man seen as coming into the 
 world, living his short life, and then departing. 
 
 The Lessons of Death. 
 
 When we say departing, we adopt already a con- 
 clusion which may be quite natural to us, but which 
 was anything but natural to early thinkers. When we 
 speak of the departed, we assume something for which 
 there is no material evidence. What was seen was 
 simply death, cessation of life and activity, a horrible 
 
190 LECTUKE VII. 
 
 corruption of the body, and, at last, a mere handful 
 of dust. 
 
 If anything could frighten man, could force him 
 to meditate, it was surely death, and we shall see 
 how some of the most important and most per- 
 manent ingredients of the intellectual life of the 
 world were supplied, the first time, by the aspect of 
 death. 
 
 When a friend who in every respect had been 
 exactly like themselves, was suddenly seen by those 
 who knew and loved him, prostrate, without motion, 
 without sight, without speech, the simplest process 
 of reasoning, a mere adding and subtracting of 
 perceptions, would teach the bystanders that some- 
 thing that was formerly there was there no longer. 
 Something had gone. 
 
 Blood as Xiife. 
 
 What then was that which had departed "? If a 
 man had been killed, and the blood was seen pouring 
 away from his wound, it was the most natural con- 
 clusion that the blood had left him, and, with it, life. 
 Hence the well-known expression, ' the blood is the 
 life,' which we find not only in Hebrew and in the 
 Bible (Deut. xii. 23), but in other languages also, and 
 which became the source of ever so many religious 
 and superstitious acts. Homer uses the two expres- 
 sions, the blood ran down from the wound (II. xvii. 
 86), and the life (v/'ux^i) ^^'^ down from the wound 
 (II. xiv. 518), almost synonymously. Kritias, a Greek 
 philosopher quoted by Aristotle (De Anima, i. 2, 19), 
 declared that the soul was the blood. The Arabic 
 expression, ' The soul flows (from his wound),' instead 
 
THE DISCOVERY OF THE SOUL. 191 
 
 of ' he dies,' shows that the Arab also believed the 
 blood to be the life or soul of man. 
 
 We have no time to enter on the question whether 
 people who said the blood is the life, meant also that 
 the life is the blood_, so that the two words would be 
 entirely synonymous ; or whether they had formed an 
 independent idea of life, and meant simply to say 
 that life was in the blood and depended on it. The 
 difference is considerable, but it hardly affects the 
 superstitions which arose from that ancient belief. 
 
 The Jews were forbidden to eat or drink the blood, 
 and they gave a reason for it which is of a religious 
 character. The blood, they said, was the life, and the 
 life belonged to God. Hence the blood was to be 
 poured out upon the altar of the Lord, but not to be 
 eaten. Among savage nations, on the contrary, the 
 idea is very prevalent that in drinking the blood of 
 an enemy, his life, his strength, and his courage were 
 absorbed by the living. 
 
 Another widely-spread custom is the drinking of 
 blood, as the highest sanction of a promise or a treaty. 
 Herodotus (iii. 8) alludes to this custom as existing 
 in Arabia, and how long it prevailed and how; firmly 
 it was established we may gather from the fact 
 that Mohammed had to forbid it as one of the heavy 
 sins, — idolatry, neglect of duties towards parents, 
 murder, and the blood-oath ^. Stanley found the old 
 custom still prevailing in Central Africa. ' After 
 making marks,' he writes, ' in each other's arms and 
 exchanging blood, there was a treaty of peace as 
 firm, I thought, as any treaty of peace made in 
 Europe.' 
 
 ^ Kremer, Studien sur vergleichenden Culturgeschichte, p. 35. 
 
192 LECTURE VIT. 
 
 I feel convinced, however, whatever anthropologists 
 may say to the contrary, that the evidence of the 
 senses was as strong with ancient people as it is with 
 ourselves. When they saw how after a time blood 
 became putrid and offensive, they could hardly con- 
 tinue to believe that what had departed at death 
 was simply the blood. 
 
 The Heart. 
 
 What applies to the blood, applies to a certain 
 extent to the heart also. As the heart ceased to beat 
 at death, we find in many languages that heart is 
 used in the sense of life and soul. The eating of the 
 heart of an enemy ^, nay even of his eyes, was some- 
 times supposed to produce the same effect as the 
 drinking of an enemy's blood ^. Some languages ^ 
 use the same word for the beating of the heart, for 
 the pulse, and for the soul. But they can distinguish 
 perfectly well between the actual heart, and heart as 
 a name of the soul. 
 
 We must keep this distinction in mind, if we wish, 
 for instance, to understand the answers given by the 
 Indians of Nicaragua to Bobadilla*. They stated 
 
 ^ * Among certain of the mountain tribes (of South Africa) there 
 is a curious custom regarding an enemy who falls after displaying 
 considerable bravery. They immediately cut out his heart and eat 
 it. This is supposed to give them his courage and strength in battle.* 
 (Kev. J. Macdonald, Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xx, 
 p. 137.) 
 
 ^ ' Some writers have fancied that the idea prevails among the 
 Blacks of Australia that the man who partakes of such food acquires 
 the strength of the deceased in addition to his own ; but I have 
 never been able to verify this statement, nor do I believe it.' (Curr, 
 The Australian Race, vol. i. p. 77.) 
 
 ' Kremer, 1. c, p. 40. 
 
 * Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. p. 390. Oviedo, Hist, du Nicaragua, pp. 
 21-51. Spencer, 1. c, p. 190. I must confess to some misgivings as 
 to the trustworthiness of Bobadilla. 
 
THE DISCOVERY OF THE SOUL. 193 
 
 that ' when they die, there comes out of their mouth 
 something that resembles a person, and is called julio 
 (Aztec yuli means 'to live'). This being goes to a 
 place where the man and the woman are. It is like 
 a person, but does not die, and the body remains 
 here.' 
 
 The following dialogue took place between a Chris- 
 tian and a native of Nicaragua : 
 
 Question : ' Do those who go up on high keep the 
 same body, the same face, and the same limbs, as here 
 below ? ' 
 
 Answer : ' No ; there is only the heart.' 
 
 Question : ' But since they tear out their hearts 
 (i.e. when a captive was sacrificed), what happens 
 then ? ' 
 
 Answer : ' It is not precisely the heart, but that in 
 them which makes them live, and that quits the body 
 when they die.' And again : ' It is not their heart 
 that goes up above, but what makes them live, that is 
 to say, the breath that issues from their mouth and is 
 called julio J 
 
 We can understand that the blood and the heart 
 should have been supposed to have something to do 
 with the living soul during life. But after death 'that 
 which had lived could hardly have been sought there, 
 as little as in the flesh or in the bones. 
 
 Other nations placed the seat of life or the living 
 soul in other organs, such as the liver, the kidneys, or 
 in the chest, and in the diaphragm which surrounded 
 the most important internal organs. But all these 
 were perishable, and it was difficult to believe that 
 what had departed at death, and what by its de- 
 parture had produced the tremendous change from 
 (3) 
 
194 LECTUKE VII. 
 
 life to death, could be identified with these decaying 
 organs. 
 
 It is curious that the brain, which in modern lan- 
 guages is so frequently used as the seat of the 
 thinking soul, should have played so insignificant 
 a part in the intellectual nomenclature of the ancient 
 world. It is hardly ever mentioned as a name of 
 the soul. 
 
 Breath. 
 
 We enter into quite a diff*erent stage of language 
 and thought when we come to deal with breath as a 
 name of soul, or, more correctly, as a name which, by 
 a very natural development, or divestment, came to 
 mean soul in its various applications. Breath van- 
 ished at death, but it did not perish before the eyes 
 of people, like the blood, or the heart. No doubt, 
 the actual breathing, the most certain sign of life, 
 ceased at death. With the breath life was seen to 
 have departed. To expire, to breathe out (uz-anan) 
 became in many languages one of the most common 
 expressions for to die. 
 
 But in the case of breath a question arose very 
 naturally, namely, what had become of the breath 
 which was formerly in the body ; — where it was, and 
 what it was. Breath did not putrefy before their 
 eyes, and nothing led to the conclusion that it had 
 actually perished. Another great advantage was that 
 language could distinguish between the act of breath- 
 ing and that which breathed, the former the life, as 
 an act, the latter the soul, as an agent, or a living 
 subject. This distinction was most important, as we 
 shall see, in all its consequences. 
 
THE DISCOVERY OF THE SOUL. 195 
 
 Here, then, we may discover the first and very 
 natural suggestion arising in men's minds, that the 
 breath which had departed at the moment of death 
 was something different from the dead body, different 
 from the putrid blood, different from the decaying 
 heart, and from the dissolving brain. 
 
 We must remember, however, that with the breath, 
 not only life, but all that constituted the man himself, 
 his thoughts, his feelings, his language, had departed, 
 and that therefore the conclusion was not unnatural 
 that the breath had carried away with itself all that 
 constituted the very being of man. When people said, 
 his breath has departed, they could not help saying 
 at the same time that his thoughts, his feelings, in 
 fact, all that belonged to the individual man, had 
 departed. We can thus understand how the words 
 which originally meant breath, real, tangible breath, 
 supplied, the first material that was shaped in time 
 into words meaning soul in its widest sense. 
 
 Soul after Death. 
 
 And here we can watch at once another step. If it 
 is true that the discovery of the soul was made, not 
 so much during life, when body and soul were almost 
 indistinguishable, but at the time of death, when the 
 breath, and all that was implied by that word, had 
 departed from the body, the question could hardly be 
 avoided, whither that breath had gone. 
 
 To us the idea of annihilation, though it is really an 
 idea inconceivable to any human mind, has become 
 quite familiar. Not only among a certain class of 
 philosophers, but even among uneducated people, the 
 thought of man being utterly destroyed or annihi- 
 
 2 
 
196 LECTURE YII. 
 
 lated by death is by no means uncommon. But to 
 unsophisticated minds the thought that a man who 
 but yesterday was, like ourselves, eating, drinking, 
 working, fighting, should have utterly perished, was 
 almost impossible to grasp. It was far more natural 
 to suppose that he continued to exist somewhere and 
 somehow, though the where and the how were 
 unknown, and had to be left to the imagination. 
 Imagination, however, was more busy in ages of 
 comparative ignorance than in our days, and if the 
 expression had once been used, 'our father's breath 
 has fled,' that would soon grow into the expression 
 that his spirit had fled, that he himself had departed 
 from his house, and had gone where all spirits had 
 gone before him, to a world of spirits. 
 
 This is a very general outline of a process which, 
 under varying forms, we can trace almost everywhere, 
 among uncivilised and among civilised people, and 
 which has led to a belief, first, in something in man 
 diflferent from his body, call it breath, or spirit, or 
 soul; and secondly, to a belief in the existence of 
 disembodied spirits, to a belief in immortality, and 
 to a large number of acts intended to keep up the 
 memory of the departed, to secure their favour, to 
 escape their anger, till in the end they were raised to 
 an exalted position, second only to that of the 
 immortal gods. 
 
 Words for Soul. 
 
 The principal, if not the only evidence which we 
 can produce in support of the theory just propounded, 
 is naturally taken from language. But the ancient 
 archives of language are often very difficult to 
 
THE DISCOVERY OF THE SOUL. 197 
 
 decipher. It is particularly difficult to watch the 
 growth of meaning in the ancient words for soul, 
 because most of them become known to us at a time 
 when they had passed already through various stages, 
 and had been more or less arbitrarily restricted in 
 their meanings. They generally convey at the same 
 time the ideas of mere breath, of vital breath, and of 
 understanding. Whether they are used by certain 
 writers in one sense or the other is often a question 
 of idiomatic usage only, while in the end there 
 generally arise learned discussions as to the exact 
 meaning in which each term ought or ought not to 
 be used. 
 
 Words for Soul in Hebrew. 
 
 Let us look at some of the words for soul in 
 Hebrew. The distinction between the body and a 
 something that gives life to it was familiar to the 
 Jews from the earliest times ^. Body was the flesh, 
 ")K^3, basar. Hence ' all flesh ' meant everybody, 
 every living being, and ' my flesh ' was used for 
 I myself. The flesh, as active and living, was opposed 
 on one side to what is without life, stones or bones ; on 
 the other side, as being mortal, weak, and perishing, 
 it was distiuguished from what is eternal and im- 
 perishable, God and the soul. 
 
 The question then arises, how did the Jews call that 
 which was not the body ? They called it by different 
 names, and these names had at first a very vague 
 and undefined meaning, so that they are often used 
 one in place of the other. To attempt to define 
 
 1 See H. Schultz, Alttestammtliche Theologie, p. 622. 
 
198 LECTUEE VII. 
 
 these words strictly is a mistake, though at a later 
 time the Jews themselves tried to define their old 
 vague terms. 
 
 One of these words is n^"^, ruach, which means 
 originally what moves, either the wind or the breath. 
 As thunder was called the voice of God, the storm 
 was conceived as His breath. This ruach in man is 
 life, given by God and returning to God. It is used 
 for man's breath, but not for breath only, but likewise 
 for what we mean by soul, for we read of the riiach 
 being embittered, cast down, and grieved, or being 
 revived and glad. 
 
 Another word, nDK^3, neshamah, has nearly the same 
 meaning. It is used for the vital breath which 
 every creature has received from God, and likewise 
 for the creature that breathes and Hves. Thus, when 
 we read in Genesis ii. 7, that ' the Lord God formed 
 man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his 
 nostrils the breath of life : and man became a living 
 soul,' the word neshamah is clearly conceived as breath 
 coming from God, and as giving not only life, but 
 also what we mean by soul, the latter being impos- 
 sible without the former. 
 
 A third word also, C'lJ, nephesh, does not seem from 
 the beginning to have had a very different meaning. 
 But it soon came to be used for the individual soul 
 rather than for life and spirit in general. Nephesh is 
 the living soul, the self-conscious soul. Hence it is the 
 nephesh that loves and hates, that is glad and sorrow- 
 ful, and ' my nephesh ' is a very common expression 
 for I myself. We meet with such expressions as ' my 
 soul lives,' ' my soul dies,' and even the dead is still 
 called a nephesh. But to say in every passage where 
 
THE DISCOVERY OF THE SOUL. 199 
 
 nephesh occurs, whether it was meant for breath or 
 life or soul is impossible. When Elijah prayed over 
 the dead child, he said : ' O Lord my God, I pray thee, 
 let this child's soul come into his inward parts again.' 
 'And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of 
 the child came unto him again, and he revived.' Here 
 (1 Kings xvii. 21) the soul may be meant for mere 
 breath, the actual breath, just as we say that a 
 drowned person has been reanimated by breathing 
 into his lungs. But it may also mean the soul as 
 given by God and returning to God ^t the time of 
 death. 
 
 We saw that this soul is sometimes said to be in the 
 blood, or to be the blood. And like the blood, the 
 heart also, leb, is conceived as the seat of the soul, or 
 is used synonymously with soul. Not only feelings 
 and passions, but the conscience also, nay reason and 
 understanding, dwell in the heart. Hence we read of 
 a pure heart, of a new heart. We read (Hos. vii. 11) 
 of Ephraim being 'like a silly dove without heart,' 
 that is, without understanding. 
 
 We see here the same wealth of expression which 
 we generally meet with in ancient languages. The 
 same thing is called by different names, according to 
 some characteristic mark that strikes the speaker. 
 These names, being at first almost synonymous, become 
 gradually differentiated by usage, till the time comes 
 when they are defined more or less arbitrarily by 
 grammarians, philosophers, or theologians ^. 
 
 ^ In later times the Jewish Eabbis defined the different names 
 of soul more accurately, but also more arbitrarily. They tell us 
 (Midrash Genes. Rabba, cap. 14 ad fin.) that there are in man 
 five spiritual potentiae, each having its own name. They are (1^ 
 B^D3, the vital power ; (2) H^l, the vital spirit ; (3) HDK^J, conscioiis- 
 
200 LECTURE VII. 
 
 What is important for us to observe is the fact that 
 the original meaning of all these words was material. 
 The idea of life was borrowed from blood, from heart, 
 from breath, and that idea included in time not only- 
 physical life, but feeling, sensuous perception, and 
 understanding, nay soul itself, as a self-conscious and 
 personal, if not immortal, being. There are other ex- 
 pressions in Hebrew which start from even more 
 material beginnings, and end by meaning the soul or 
 the self. Thus when the Psalmist (vi. 3 seq., xvi. 9) 
 speaks of ' my bones,^ ' my body,'' he means, not his 
 bones or his body only_, but his soul, his self, and he 
 has entirely forgotten the material meaning of the 
 words which he is using. 
 
 Words for Soul in Sanskrit. 
 
 It is curious that the ancient language of India 
 which generally allows us so clear an insight into the 
 earliest history of words, should tell us so little by its 
 names for soul or spirit. 
 
 The best known word for soul is a tm an. But unfor- 
 tunately its etymology is doubtful. It has been derived 
 from AN, to breathe, a root which has yielded many 
 words for wind, breath, soul, and mind. Thus we 
 find in Sanskrit an-ila, wind, also an-ala, fire; in 
 Greek ai;-e/xoy, wind ; in Latin an-ima, air, wind, 
 breath, but also life, soul, and even mind, and an- 
 imus, soul and mind. But an + man would not give 
 atman, nor should it be forgotten that in the Veda we 
 find tman also for atman. Others have thought of the 
 
 ness ; (4) mTT', and (5) HTl, the two last being in the Bible epithets 
 only of the soul. See an important article by Kohut, in Zeitschrift 
 d, D. M. 0., xxi. p. 563. Kohut ascribes this fivefold division to 
 Persian influences. 
 
THE DISCOVEKY OF THE SOUL. 201 
 
 root AV=VA, to blow, and have connected it with 
 avTfjiriv. The original meaning, however, of atman was 
 certainly breath. Thus the wind (vata) is called, Rv. 
 V. 168, 4), atma devanam, the breath of the gods. In 
 E,v. X. 16, 3, where the dead is addressed, we read : 
 surya77i kakshuh gaMAatu vatam atma, let the eye go 
 to the sun, the breath to the wind. 
 
 In other places atma can best be translated by life. 
 To be separated from the atman (atmana viyukta) 
 means to be dead. From meaning the vital prin- 
 ciple, it came to be used for what we call the essence 
 or substance. Thus in I. 164, 4, 'Who has seen 
 him who was born first, when he who has no bones 
 (form) bore him that has bones (form)? Where 
 was the breath (asu), the blood (sisrig), the essence 
 (atma) of the world ? Who went to one who knew it, 
 to ask him?' Here we see how atm^ is employed 
 with the same metaphorical meaning as asu, breath, 
 and Sisrig, blood. In another place, 1. 115, 1, the sun is 
 called atma gsLgai&h tasthushaA /ca, the soul of all that 
 moves and stands. In later times atma meets us as the 
 recognised name for soul, and the more abstract the 
 conception of soul becomes, the more abstract the 
 meaning conveyed by atma, till at last we cannot 
 translate it any longer by soul, but must render it by 
 self. Such has been the reaction of thought on lan- 
 guage, that atman has become a recognised pronoun, 
 corresponding to the Lat. ipse, the Greek avros. In 
 some passages it can even be translated by body, as 
 when we read in the Ka^/ia-upanishad IV. 12, the 
 person (purusha), of the size of a thumb, stands in the 
 midst of the atman, the body ^. Having passed through 
 
 ^ See also Taittiriya-upanishad I. 7 ; II- 1. 
 
202 LECTURE VII. 
 
 all these stages, atman was at last used by philosopliers 
 as the best name for the soul of the world, the Supreme 
 Being. 
 
 While the derivation of atman is doubtful, it is clear 
 that ana, breath, is derived from AN, to breathe, and 
 likewise the more common praTia, breath. Pra')^a, 
 however, does not only mean the breathing in its 
 various modifications, or the life, but likewise what 
 are called the five senses, viz. the nose, the tongue 
 (speech), the eye, the ear, and the mind (manas), with 
 their respective functions. 
 
 Other words for soul in Sanskrit are equally unin- 
 teresting. Pudgala means beautiful, then body, then 
 soul, but why it has any of these meanings we cannot 
 even guess. If we are told that ka also may be used 
 for soul, this is evidently a merely philosophical name. 
 It means Who, and was used at a very early time as a 
 name of the deity as well as of the soul. 
 
 Words for Soul in Tamil. 
 
 Before we proceed to examine the words for soul in 
 Greek, we have still time to glance at some other lan- 
 guages in India, I mean the Dravidian. You know 
 that, before the Aryas migrated into India, the country 
 was occupied by people speaking a totally different 
 language, a language which still lives all over the 
 South of India, as Tamil, Telugu, Canarese, and in 
 several local dialects. 
 
 In an able article on the study of Tamil, lately 
 published in the Madras Christian College Magazine, 
 Dec, 1890, p. 15, the Rev. G. Mackenzie Cobban informs 
 us that uyir is the Tamil word for life, and that where 
 in English we should use the word soul, the Tamil man 
 
THE DISCOVERY OP THE SOUL. 203 
 
 would use uyir. This uyir comes from a verb ft-thu, 
 which means to blow, or from u-yi, which means to 
 breathe, and to exist. As, too, in Sanskrit, meant to 
 breathe, though as a verb it means simply to he, 
 as -mi, I am. But u-yir means more than breath and 
 life. It means the soul. Another curious name for soul 
 is kuttan, and this means a dancer, or a leaper, thus 
 recalling the Greek Ovfxos, which originally meant 
 shaker or shaking or commotion, and the Gothic 
 saivala, soul, which likewise seems to have had the 
 original meaning of violent movement. There are 
 other expressions for soul, or for mind, which simply 
 mean what is within, like the Sk. anta^kara^ia, the 
 working within. 
 
 Polynesian Words for Soul, &c. 
 
 We have only to consult the dictionaries of any lan- 
 guage, whether spoken by civilised or uncivilised 
 people, and we shall find everywhere the same process, 
 that is to say, words meaning originally blood, heart, 
 chest, breath, becoming in time the recognised terms 
 for life, feeling, thinking, and soul. Mr. Edward 
 Tregear has lately published a most excellent Com- 
 parative Dictionary of Maori and other Polynesian 
 languages, particularly Samoan, Tahitian, Hawaian, 
 Tongan, Rarotongan, Marquesan, Mangarevan, Pau- 
 motan, and Moriori. When we look for words for 
 mind, we find, for instance, manawa. This raanaiva 
 means in Maori the belly, the heart, the lungs, breath, 
 but also the seat of the affections. In Samoan 
 nidnaiva means to breathe, to rest ; manatu, a 
 thought. In Tahitian vianava is the stomach, the 
 interior man, and ^nianavanava is to think, to pon- 
 
204 LECTUKE VII. 
 
 der ; Tnanao, thought or idea ; dumanava, affection 
 of the heart. In Hawaian manawa stands for affec- 
 tion, but likewise for spirit, and even for a spirit, as 
 an apparition ; rtiana is intelligence, nianao to think, 
 mananao, thought, opinion. 
 
 In Tongan rtianava is breath, life ; to throb, to pul- 
 sate, and also to be careful of. 
 
 In Mangaian nianava is mind, spirit; in Mar- 
 quesan menava is breath, life, soul; in Mangarevan 
 soul and conscience. 
 
 Another word for bowels and heart in Maori is 
 ngakau, but it is also used for heart as the seat of the 
 affections and of sorrow. In Tahitian, the same word 
 appears regularly as aau, and means heart, mind, 
 courage, spirit, and conscience. In Hawaian naau 
 still signifies the small intestines of men and animals, 
 but it is likewise used for the seat of the affections 
 and of thought, for memory, conscience, learning, and 
 wisdom. 
 
 A third word, hinengaro, is used in Maori for a 
 certain portion of the intestines, but likewise for heart 
 and affections ; in Samoan for will and desire ; in 
 Tahitian for love, desire, will, choice, pleasure ; in 
 Tongan, as Jinengalo, for the mind, but applied to a 
 king only. 
 
 Material Beg-inning's. 
 
 We have learnt so far that the discovery of the soul, 
 the first attempts at naming the soul, started every- 
 where from the simplest observations of material facts. 
 It was the running away of the blood, the beating of 
 the heart, the breathing, and more particularly the 
 cessation of breathing at the time of death, which 
 
THE DISCOVERY OF THE SOUL. 205 
 
 suggested the idea that there was something different 
 from the decaying body, and at the same time sup- 
 plied the first names for that something. In fact 
 the lesson cannot be inculcated too often that the 
 whole wealth of our most abstract and spiritual words 
 comes from a small number of material or concrete 
 terms. 
 
 Only we must guard against two very common 
 mistakes. 
 
 We constantly meet with such statements as that 
 ancient and uncivilised people used metaphorical lan- 
 guage when they spoke of the soul as breath, or as air, 
 or as a bird, that at first they knew these names to 
 be merely poetical expressions, but that afterwards 
 they forgot and mistook the simile for the reality. 
 There is no sense in this. If metaphor means trans- 
 ference, how can transference take place, when as yet 
 there is only a word that can be transferred, but 
 nothing it can be transferred to ? This kind of poetical 
 transference is very familiar to ourselves. A poet who 
 knows what he means by soul, may metaphorically 
 call the soul half angel and half bird, but until he has 
 two concepts and two words, he cannot transfer one 
 to the other. When people spoke of breath, they at 
 first meant breath, and it was only by what I call the 
 process of divestment inherent in language, that breath 
 came in the end to mean something from which all 
 the material characteristics of breath had vanished, 
 the postulated agent of breath, the living soul, the 
 spirit, the mind. 
 
 But it is as great a mistake to say that spirit, 
 because it originally stood for exhalation, means and 
 can never mean more than exhalation, or material 
 
206 LECTUKE VIT. 
 
 breath. Spirit, as it became developed from age to age, 
 meant less than breath, but by meaning less, it also 
 meant more. It meant less than breath, because it 
 became divested of many of the material qualities which 
 spiritus originally implied. It meant more, because, 
 by being freed from its material limitations, it came 
 to stand for something less limited, and in the end for 
 something unlimited or infinite, for the immortal, the 
 eternal, the divine agent within man. 
 
 This process, which has hitherto been treated as a 
 mere psychological postulate, stands before us as a 
 simple fact in the history of all the languages of the 
 world. Take whatever dictionary you like, and you 
 will find how the words for soul, if they can be 
 analysed at all, invariably point back to a material 
 origin, and invariably disclose the process by which 
 they were freed from their material fetters. 
 
 It may sound very strange to us when we are told 
 that the word which in Tamil is used for soul has the 
 original meaning of dancer. Yet it is but another 
 attempt to name and grasp that which moved within, 
 that which even the greatest philosophers could not 
 define better than as something moving itself, without 
 being moved, that is, as dancing. 
 
 We are not aware how often in our own language, 
 which has grown so rich in abstract terms, we still use 
 the old material words. We say that a man's blood 
 is up, meaning half that he is flushed, half that he is 
 angry. We speak of taking things to heart, know- 
 ing things by heart, without thinking of the heart 
 that actually beats within our breast. The human 
 mind, as led by human language, starts from different 
 beginnings, and follows different roads in climbing up 
 
THE DI8C0VEKY OF THE SOUL. 207 
 
 to the highest summits which it can reach. Nothing 
 can be more instructive than to watch these patient 
 toilers, and nothing can more strongly confirm our 
 belief that they were following a right direction than 
 when we see them in the end arrive at the same 
 summit, at the same religious hopes, nay, at the same 
 philosophical convictions. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 .DISCOVERY OF THE SOUL IN MAN AND IN NATURE. 
 The Three Stages of Early Fsychology. 
 
 WE saw in our last Lecture how man came first 
 to speak about a soul, or, more correctly, 
 about a breath. We saw that there was nothing 
 altogether unreasonable in such a name. In fact, 
 whenever we examine that autobiography which man 
 has left us in his language, we shall always find some 
 good sense, something reasonable, even in what seems 
 at first sight most unreasonable or foolish. 
 
 If we only bear in mind, what is now a fact doubted 
 by no one, that every word in every language had 
 originally a material meaning, we shall easily under- 
 stand why that which at the dissolution of the body 
 seemed to have departed and which we consider the 
 most immaterial of all things, should have been called 
 at first by the name of something material, viz. the airy 
 breath. This was the first step in human psychology. 
 
 The next step was to use that word breath, not 
 only for the breath which had left the body, but 
 likewise for all that formerly existed in the breathing 
 body, the feelings, the perceptions, the conceptions, and 
 that wonderful network of intellectual threads which 
 
DISCOVEKY OF THE SOUL IN MAN AND NATURE. 209 
 
 constituted the man such as he was in life. All this 
 depended on the breath. It certainly was seen to 
 have departed at the same time as the breath. 
 
 The third step was equally natural, though it soon 
 led into a wilderness of imaginations. If the breath, 
 with all that belonged to it, had departed, then it 
 must exist somewhere after its departure, and that 
 somewhere, though utterly unknown and unknowable, 
 was soon painted in all the colours that love, fear, 
 and hope could supply. 
 
 These three consecutive steps are not mere theory ; 
 they have left their foot-prints in language, and even 
 in our own language these foot-prints are not yet 
 altogether effaced. 
 
 Let us look at Greek, as we find it in the Homeric 
 poems. At present, I do not mean to speak of what 
 the poet himself may have thought about the soul, 
 about its work during life, and its fate after death. 
 We shall have to speak of that hereafter. What we 
 are now concerned with is what the language which 
 Homer had inherited had to say to him on this 
 subject. 
 
 The Origriual Meaning- of Psyche. 
 
 The most common word for soul in Greek is psyche 
 (^^X^i)" This psyche meant originally breath. When 
 a man dies, his psyche, his very breath, is said to 
 have passed through the bar of his teeth, the epKo? 
 obovTOdv. Here we see the first step. This word yj/vxri, 
 as you know, assumed afterwards every possible kind 
 of meaning. Even in this passage we might translate 
 it by life, or by soul, without destroying the sense. 
 But we can clearly see that what passed through the 
 (3) P 
 
210 LECTUKE VIII. 
 
 epKos obovTav was originally meant for the actual 
 breath. 
 
 The Psychological Terminologfy of Homer. 
 
 Much has been written by Greek scholars about 
 the exact meaning of psyche in every passage where 
 that word occurs in Homer. I am not going to enter 
 on that subject beyond stating my conviction that it 
 is a mistake in poems, such as the Iliad and Odyssey, 
 to look for a consistent use of words. It would be 
 difficult even in modern poetry to find out what 
 Shakespeare, for instance, thought about the soul, by 
 collecting and comparing all the passages in his plays 
 in which that word occurs. Poets are not bound by 
 logical definitions, and if they used all their words 
 with well-defined meanings, I doubt whether they 
 could have written any poetry at all. They use the 
 living language in which the most heterogeneous 
 thoughts lie imbedded, and whatever word serves 
 best for the moment to convey their thoughts and 
 feelings, is welcome. 
 
 In the Homeric poems this difficulty is increased 
 tenfold. Whatever may be thought about the final 
 arrangement of these poems, no one can now hold 
 that they were all originally the outcome of one 
 mind. Nor must we forget that in epic poems dif- 
 ferent characters may be made to speak very different 
 thoughts, and use the same words in very different 
 meanings, as they best suit the circumstances in which 
 they are uttered. 
 
 The Meaning- of avT6s. 
 
 I shall give you one instance only to show what 
 happens, if we try to interpret Homer as we should 
 
DISCOVEEY OF THE SOUL IN MAN AND NATURE. 211 
 
 interpret Aristotle's treatise on the soul. You re- 
 member how it is said in the beginning of the Iliad, 
 that Achilles sent the souls of the heroes to Hades, 
 but he gave themselves, avrovs, a prey to the dogs. 
 It has been inferred from this and similar passages 
 that Homer looked upon the body as constituting the 
 true self of man. But this is to forget the require- 
 ments of poetry. Homer here wanted to bring out 
 the contrast between the souls that went to Hades, 
 and the corpses suffering the indignity of being 
 devoured by dogs. ' They themselves ' means here 
 no more than ' they themselves, as we used to know 
 them in life.' 
 
 How free Homer feels in the use of such words, we 
 can see from another passage. In the Odyssey, xi. 601 , 
 we read that Odysseus saw Herakles, or his eidolon, 
 that is, his psyche, in Hades, but he himself, avro^^ he 
 adds, rejoices among the immortal gods. 
 
 In one passage, therefore, avros means the body, or 
 even the corpse, in another, the soul, and to attempt 
 to reconcile the two by any theory except a poet's 
 freedom of expression, would lead, and has led, to 
 mere confusion of thought. 
 
 I shall attempt no more than to give you the 
 general impression which a study of the Homeric 
 poems has left on my mind, as to what was thought 
 about the soul, if not by Homer himself, at least by 
 those whose language he used. 
 
 Psyche and Menos. 
 
 What strikes me as most characteristic of psyche in 
 the Homeric Greek, is that, whether it means breath, 
 or life, or soul, it is never localised in any organ of 
 
 P2 
 
212 LECTUKE VIII. 
 
 tlie body. It is not in the heart, or in the breast, or 
 in the phrenes, where thought resides. It is in the 
 whole body (o-w/xa), yet different from the body. 
 
 The Homeric language clearly distinguishes between 
 psyche and menos, including under the latter name 
 all that we should call mind. 
 
 But the most important distinction between psyche 
 and menos, or any other HQame for mind, seems to me 
 this, that the psyche is something subjective, while 
 all other names express originally rather acts or 
 qualities. 
 
 Thymos. 
 
 Take, for instance, thymos (Ovfxos). Of course, the 
 Greeks had no recollection of the etymological mean- 
 ing of that word, as little as we have of our own word 
 soul. But there can be no doubt that thymos is 
 derived from thyein, to move violently, from which 
 we have also thyella, storm. In Sanskrit we have 
 exactly corresponding to thymos, dhuma; but this 
 has retained the material meaning of smoke, literally 
 what moves about quickly. Dhuli, also, the Sanskrit 
 word for dust, meant originally what is whirled 
 about. 
 
 The Greek thymos, therefore, meant originally 
 inward commotion, — you remember how in Tamil the 
 soul was called the dancer — and we find in conse- 
 quence that it is chiefly used with reference to the 
 passions. But though originally thymos meant simply 
 what moves within us, it afterwards comprehended 
 both feelings and thoughts, and has often to be 
 translated by mind in general. It seems to me that 
 it was only after it had assumed this meaning, that it 
 could also be used in the sense of life. For if it was 
 
DISCOVERY OF THE SOUL IN MAN AND NATURE. 213 
 
 said that one man had torn out or destroyed another 
 man's thymos, that was tantamount to his having 
 taken his life ^. Or when it is said that the thymds 
 left the bones (AiTre oaria OvfjLos), we know that what 
 is meant is that his mind, and therefore his breath, or 
 bis life, had left his body. But it is important to 
 remember that we never hear of a thymos continuing 
 by itself after death, like the psyche, which shows, as 
 I said, that originally the thymos was really an 
 activity, and not, like psyche, a something active. 
 
 Fhrenes. 
 
 Another important word which Homer had to use 
 is phrenes. It means literally the midriff or dia- 
 phragm, which holds the heai-t and lungs, and separates 
 them from the lower viscera. It is therefore much 
 the same as stethos (arrrjOos), the chest, as the abode of 
 the heart. We find it used of animals as well as of 
 men, as when the lion is said to have a stout heart in 
 his chest, €v (fypeo-C, II. xvii. 111. But it soon drops its 
 material meaning, and is considered as the seat of all 
 inward acts, both of feeling and of thought. The 
 work of the menos, mind, of nous, thought, and boule, 
 will, takes place within the phrenes, just as much as 
 it takes place within the thymos. The Homeric 
 Greek rejoiced, perceived, remembered, reasoned, erl 
 (f)pe(TLu, as we should say, in the breast or in the heart. 
 When we meet with such expressions as Kara (ppiva 
 Kol Kara 6v[j,6i', we should not try to distinguish 
 between the two, as thought and feeling, but translate 
 ' in the heart and in the thought,' the heart being the 
 
 ^ The same process of thought accounts for such expressions as 
 diTo yap fiivos ctXero x«^f<^Sj H- iii- 294. 
 
214 LECTUEE VIII. 
 
 locality, the thought the activity. We find a similar 
 juxtaposition in KpahCr] koI OvfjLo^. 
 
 But it is important to observe that the psyche, the 
 soul, is never spoken of as dwelling within the phrenes, 
 the breast, or within the heart (rJTop), nor is the psyche 
 ever spoken of by Homer as the abode of the mind. 
 
 It has been pointed out that while phrenes in the 
 plural is often used in its purely physical meaning, as 
 we use the words breast and heart, the singular phren 
 has always reference to the mind or the intellect. 
 
 The derivation of phren and phrenes is not clear in 
 Greek, but there can be little doubt that its meaning, 
 like that of all words, was originally material. It 
 meant the actual diaphragm ; then, what was enclosed 
 in the diaphragm, particularly the heart, and lastly 
 what took place within the breast or the heart. To 
 suppose that it was derived from phronein, to think, 
 and meant originally thought, and afterwards only 
 the seat of thought, the chest or the heart, is to invert 
 altogether the natural order of things. It was only 
 after phrenes had become familiar in the sense of mind 
 in general, that we can account for a large number of 
 derivatives in Greek, such as acppcuv, iroXv^pctiv, ippovelv, 
 and all the rest. 
 
 Soul and Ghost. 
 
 It would be easy to follow the same process in other 
 languages, but the result would always be the same^. 
 
 It is unfortunate that our own words, soul and 
 ghost, are not quite clear in their etymology. It is 
 most likely, however, that soul, the German Seele, 
 the Gothic saivala, meant originally, like the Greek 
 
 ^ Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. p. 388 ; Hibbert Lectures, pp. 89 seq. 
 
DISCOVEKY OF THE SOUL IN MAN AND NATURE. 215 
 
 Ovixos, commotion, and that it is connected with the 
 names for sea, the Gothic saiv-s'^. And I feel inclined 
 now to trace the English ghost, the German Geist, 
 which, following an idea of Plato's ^, I formerly thought 
 connected with yas, to boil, with yeoM, and German 
 Crischt, back to the Sanskrit hid, to be angry, he da,, 
 anger, so that it meant originally heat or commotion. 
 
 Differentiation of Meaning-. 
 
 This linguistic process which led to the formation 
 of words for the different phases of the intellectual life 
 of man is full of interest, and deserves a far more 
 careful treatment than it has hitherto received, par- 
 ticularly at the hands of the professed psychologist. 
 What is quite clear is that all these words begin as 
 names of material objects and processes, such as heart, 
 chest, breath, and commotion, just as the names of 
 the gods began with the storm- wind, the fire, the sun, 
 and the sky. At first every one of these words was 
 capable of the widest application. But very soon 
 there began a process of mutual friction and deter- 
 mination, one word being restricted idiomatically to 
 the vital breath or the life, shared in common by 
 man and beast, other words being assigned to the 
 passions or the will, to memory, to knowledge, under- 
 standing, and reasoning. This process of widening 
 and narrowing the meaning of words goes on for ever ; 
 it goes on even now, and can only be stopped by that 
 dictatorial definition of terms which is so offensive to 
 the majority of mankind, and yet is the sine qua non 
 of all accurate thought. Our own language is over- 
 
 ^ Science of Language, i. p. 522. 
 
 * Q^ffis Kol ^4(Tis TTJs ^vxvs, Kxatylos. 
 
216 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 burdened with an abundance of undefined names, such 
 as soul, mind, understanding, intellect,, reason, thought, 
 to say nothing of breast, and heart, and brain, of 
 passion, desire, and will. Who is to define all these 
 words, and to keep one distinct from the other 1 There 
 is here a real Augean stable to be cleared out, and 
 until it is cleared out by a new Hercules, all philo- 
 sophy will be in vain. 
 
 The Agent. 
 
 For the purposes of Anthropological Religion we 
 wanted to know how man, for the first time, came to 
 speak and think about a soul as different from the 
 body. We have now seen that the way which led to 
 the discovery of a soul was pointed out to man as 
 clearly as was the way which led him to the discovery 
 of the gods. It was chiefly the breath, which almost 
 visibly left the body at the time of death, that sug- 
 gested the name of breath, and afterwards the thought 
 of something breathing, living, perceiving, willing, 
 remembering, and thinking within us. The name 
 came first, the name of the material breath. By 
 dropping what seemed material even in this airy 
 breath, there remained the first vague and imperfect 
 concept of what we call the soul. 
 
 This something breathing, living, perceiving, and 
 thinking, or, as we may now say again, this postulated 
 agent of the acts of breathing, living, perceiving, and 
 thinking, was recognised as within the body during 
 life, and as without the body after death. It went by 
 the same name, being called psyche in Greek, while 
 inside the living body, and likewise psyche, after 
 having departed from the dead body. 
 
DISCOVEEY OF THE SOUL IN MAN AND NATUKE. 217 
 
 In all this there is nothing strange, nothing which 
 we cannot follow and understand, nothing, or almost 
 nothing, that we cannot make our own. There is one 
 step, no doubt, which we find it difficult to take. We 
 may admit the agent within, we may admit the per- 
 sistence of that agent after it has left the body, but we 
 should probably consider its identification with the 
 breath as too material. We stand here before the old 
 problem whether the human mind can ever conceive 
 anything, entirely divested of all material attributes. 
 Certain it is, that language cannot express anything 
 except with names taken from material objects. This 
 is a fact to be pondered on by all philosophers, aye 
 even by those who do not claim that proud title. 
 Language, no doubt, can go on and negative all that 
 is material. One of the poets of the Veda, when 
 speaking of the Supreme Being, says ' that it breathed 
 without air' (Rv. X. 129, 2), anit avatam ; and, if we 
 want to follow his example, we may say of the soul 
 after death, that it is a breath without air. Language 
 will perform wonderful feats in that way. But the 
 ancients evidently thought they had gone as far as 
 they could, when they spoke of the soul after death as 
 a breath, that is, as a breathing and as a breather, and 
 with all due respect for modern metaphysical phrase- 
 ology, I doubt whether, if we keep to positive terms, 
 we shall ever find a better word for the agent within 
 us than breath or psyche. 
 
 Different Origin of other XTames for Soul. 
 
 But even though the process which led the ancients 
 to a belief in a soul and in souls may not be quite per- 
 fect in the eyes of modern metaphysicians, to study it 
 
218 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 in the annals of language has one great advantage. 
 It teaches us again and again that the first framers of 
 our language and our thoughts, even though they were 
 not philosophers by profession, were on the whole 
 reasonable beings, men not very different from our- 
 selves, though living in a very different atmosphere. 
 We cannot protest too strongly against what used to 
 be a very general habit among anthropologists, namely 
 to charge primitive man with all kinds of stupidities 
 in his early views about the soul, whether in this life 
 or in the next. 
 
 Shadow. 
 
 When we are told, for instance, that there was 
 another road also on which man was led to his first 
 discovery of the soul, by recognising it in his own 
 shadow, we simply cannot follow. When man had once 
 realised the idea of a soul and found a name for it, he 
 might liken that soul to many things, and we shall see 
 that he did liken it to many things, such as a bird, a 
 butterfly, a cloud of smoke, and also a shadow. But 
 all this is poetical metaphor, and carefully to be dis- 
 tinguished from that process which we have hitherto 
 examined. There we saw that breath, the actual 
 breath, was identified with life, the individual breath 
 with the living individual, and the departed breath 
 with the departed individual. But to suppose that 
 any human being should ever have mistaken the 
 shadow of his body on the wall as the true agent 
 within, and as that which would remain after his body 
 had been burnt, or buried, or devoured, is more than 
 we can father even on the most primitive savage. It 
 is said that a savage does not know what a shadow is, 
 
DISCOVEKY OF THE SOUL IN MAN AND NATUKE. 219 
 
 and how it arises. I doubt it. He might fell a tree, 
 he would never try to fell the shadow of a tree. Any- 
 how the very word, shade or shadow, shows that the 
 primitive Aryan savage at least knew, even before the 
 Aryas separated, that shade was simply a covering, 
 whether the covering from the sun-light, given by the 
 branches of a tree, or a covering of any light by an 
 opaque body. The name is derived from a root mean- 
 ing to cover. We can understand how the name of 
 breath became the name of many things dependent on 
 breath, from the breathing of the living man to the 
 soul of the departed. But that any person should 
 ever have looked on his outside shadow which came 
 and went, and could be produced at a moment's notice, 
 as something by which he lived in this life, or some- 
 thing by which he would Hve in the next, is more 
 than we can take in and digest, more than we ought 
 to charge even against the most primitive savage. 
 
 The name of shade did not help the birth of the 
 concept of soul, but the soul, having been conceived 
 as breath flown from the body, was afterwards, for one 
 of its qualities, its thinness or impalpableness, likened 
 to a shadow. So long as the soul was in the body, no 
 likeness was required, and shadow would have been 
 the very last to answer the purpose. After death, 
 however, such a simile became quite natural. The 
 soul was supposed to be like the body^ hence it was 
 often called an eidolon or likeness, and what likeness 
 was so like as the shadow which bore the very out- 
 lines of the human body, and seemed always to be 
 doing exactly what the man himself was doing ? If, 
 as we are told, shadows on a wall suggested to the 
 early artist the first idea of a portrait, what better 
 
220 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 name could poetical imagination suggest for a dis- 
 embodied soul than shadow ? 
 
 We can watch this process in many languages. Thus 
 ata, which in Maori means spirit and soul, is clearly- 
 identical with ata, shadow, image, with the Tahitian 
 ata, cloud, with the Marquesan ata^ likeness. In 
 Mangaian ata has actually come to signify the essence 
 of a thing, a concept which many people would consider 
 far beyond the reach of these uncivilised people. 
 
 The Maori wairua also, which means a spirit, and 
 the human soul, is clearly connected with wairua^ a 
 shadow, a reflection. In Hawaian waitua is a ghost 
 or spirit of a person seen before or after death, separate 
 from the body. 
 
 This will show how important the distinction 
 between radical and poetical metaphor ^ really is for 
 a right appreciation of the thoughts of primitive man 
 in their historical development. He, poor primitive 
 man, can no longer defend himself, but his descendants 
 ought all the more to stand up for his good name. If 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer is right that our common ancestor 
 could never have mistaken a dead for a living thing, 
 how can he believe that a mere shadow was mistaken 
 by him for his own living soul, whether before or after 
 death? 
 
 And here language comes again to our help. Though 
 shadow becomes at a very early time a recognised 
 name for the souls after death, its original character 
 as a poetical metaphor is not yet quite forgotten, for 
 instance; by Homer. No doubt, the dead are to him 
 skiai {(TKiaC) shades, quite as much as psychai, souls. 
 But in certain passages we can still discover traces of 
 
 ^ Science of Language, vol. ii. pp. 456, 479. 
 
DISCOVERY OF THE SOUL IN MAN AND NATURE. 221 
 
 the poetical metaphor. When Odysseus tried to lay 
 hold on the psyche of his dead mother, then thrice it 
 flew away from his hand, ' like unto a shadow or even 
 a dream ' ((TKifj etKeXov t) koL oretp«). And when she 
 explains to him that this is the state of mortals after 
 death, ' that their nerves no longer hold the flesh and 
 bones, for these the strong force of fire has consumed, 
 what time their thymos first left the white bones,' she 
 adds, ' hut their psyche flying flits about, like a dream.' 
 All these were originally poetical comparisons. The 
 souls were like shades, like dreams, like smoke {rjvTe 
 Kairvos); but we never hear of shades, dreams, or 
 smoke leaving the body^. That applies to breath 
 only, to psyche, and these two processes must there- 
 fore be kept carefully distinct, if we wish to gain a 
 true insight into the working and growing of the 
 human mind in its earliest phases ^. 
 
 Dreams. 
 
 I have still to say a few words with regard to 
 another theory, according to which the idea of a soul 
 in man is supposed to have been suggested for the 
 first time by dreams and apparitions. What I said 
 with regard to the theory that the soul was originally 
 conceived as a shadow, applies with even greater force 
 to this theory. Before primitive man could bring 
 himself to imagine that his soul was like a dream 
 or like an apparition, it is clear that he must have 
 already framed to himself some name and concept of 
 soul. All the illustrations which have been collected 
 
 1 See on this subject an interesting paper by Mr. C. F. Keary, 
 ' The Homeric V^ords for Soul,' in Mind, XXIV, Oct. 1881. Though 
 I differ from his conclusion, the facts collected by him have proved 
 very useful. 
 
 ^ See Dr. Codrington, as quoted in Hibhert Lectures, p. 91. 
 
222 LECTUEE VIII. 
 
 in order to prove that man's first conception of a 
 soul was derived from what he saw in dreams and 
 apparitions, leave no doubt on that point. They 
 all presuppose some knowledge of the soul. When 
 Mr. St. John ^ tells us that the Dayaks think that in 
 sleep the soul sometimes remains in the body, and 
 sometimes leaves it and travels far away, it is clear 
 that they must have elaborated their concept of soul, 
 quite independently of its travels in sleep. They 
 might indeed have likened it to a dream, but they 
 could not have received the first intimation of a soul 
 from hypnotic apparitions. 
 
 It is quite true that the separation of subjective 
 and objective impressions is much less fully carried out 
 by uncivilised than by civilised nations, by uneducated 
 than by educated persons. But with regard to dreams 
 the first impression, whether with civilised or un- 
 civilised people, is that they are not like ordinary 
 objective impressions. As soon as a man wakes even 
 from the most vivid dream, he knows that it was 
 only a dream. When, as Sir George Grey describes 
 it, a savage jumps up to get rid of a nightmare, 
 catches a lighted brand from the fire and flings it with 
 many imprecations in the direction where the appari- 
 tion was seen, he knows, as soon as he is fully awake 
 and has quite shaken off" his dream, that the spirit he 
 saw in his dream is not like a real person whom he 
 can lay hold of, punish, and kill. As soon as he is 
 awake, he feels relieved. It was only a dream, he 
 says, it was a nightmare, or whatever name suggests 
 itself; and he comforts himself in his fright by say- 
 ing: 'the fellow only came for a light, and having 
 
 ^ Tylor, Early History of Mankind, p. 7. 
 
DISCOVEKY OF THE SOUL IN MAN AND NATURE. 223 
 
 got it, having been hit by the lighted brand, he will 
 go away.' 
 
 If people once possess the idea of something within 
 themselves different from the body, even though they 
 call it as yet a commotion or a mover or a dancer 
 only, and if they have once brought themselves to 
 believe that after death, though the body may perish, 
 that which was in the body has not perished, then 
 visions, whether by day or by night, will no doubt 
 help to strengthen their belief in departed spirits, 
 though alas ! that belief would soon vanish like a 
 dream, if it had nothing but dreams to depend on. 
 
 Once given the name and concept of soul, and of 
 departed souls, there would be no limit to poetical 
 metaphor. They might be likened to birds flying 
 away, to smoke vanishing in the air, to shadows that 
 can be seen, but cannot be touched, to dreams that 
 come when least expected, but can never be called 
 back. How far this popular poetry may be carried, 
 may be seen from many popular sayings current 
 among uncivilised and civilised people. 
 
 Superstitious Sajring's a'bont Shadows. 
 
 Thus Bastian states that the Benin-negroes regard 
 men's shadows as their souls, that is to say, that 
 they speak of the souls as shadows. Nothing can be 
 more natural. But if he adds that the Wanika are 
 actually afraid of their own shadows, that depends 
 very much on the authority of the interpreter. In 
 the presence of white people, the Wanika may have 
 seemed afraid of many things, even of their own 
 shadows. The reason given that ' possibly they think, 
 as some other negroes do, that their shadows watch 
 
224 LECTURE VI ri. 
 
 all their actions and bear witness against them,' shows 
 that the explanation was a mere surmise, and all 
 depends on who ' the other negroes ' were meant to be. 
 If Crantz tells us that the Greenlanders believe a man's 
 shadow to be one of his two souls, is it not clear that 
 they must previously have possessed an independent 
 idea at least of one or the other of the two souls ? 
 
 Most likely^ however, the fact that bodies threw no 
 shadows in the dark, was quite sufficient to suggest 
 the expression, that during sleep and in the darkness 
 of the night a man's soul left his body, just as the 
 shadow did. When speaking of inseparable friends, 
 we may say even now, one follows the other like his 
 shadow, or that one never leaves the other, like his 
 shadow. Even when their relations are less friendly, 
 we speak of one man being shadowed by another. Why 
 then should not the same simile have suggested itself 
 to early thinkers, that in sleep the soul left the body 
 as the shadow leaves the body during night ? 
 
 There is another popular saying among the Zulus \ 
 that a corpse throws no shadow. Is this really to be 
 taken as a myth of observation, as Mr. Tylor would 
 call if? Did any human being ever persuade him- 
 self that a corpse, when carried on the bier, threw no 
 shadow, while the bier and those who carried it were 
 followed by their shadows ? Mr. Herbert Spencer, in 
 spite of his repeated warnings against taking savages 
 for fools, thinks it was so. I can see in it nothing but 
 a perfectly intelligible process of language. People 
 who had adopted shades as one of many idiomatic 
 names for the souls of the departed, might very 
 naturally say that the shade had left the corpse, or 
 
 ^ Callaway, Religious System of the AmazuHus, p. 91. 
 
DISCOYERY OF THE SOUL IN MAN AND NATURE. 225 
 
 that the corpse was without its shade. Fond of 
 riddles as ancient people are, they might even ask, 
 ' What is there in the world without a shadow,' and 
 the answer would be, ' a corpse.' When Eastern 
 nations say now, ' May thy shadow never grow less,' 
 they know perfectly well that a shadow never grows 
 less by itself. What they mean is perfectly under- 
 stood, namely, ' Mayest thou thyself never grow less.' 
 There are many things which half- educated people 
 repeat and which they pride themselves on believing, 
 though they would often laugh at others for believing 
 that they believe them. Think with how serious and 
 almost solemn a face young ladies will tell ghost- 
 stories in these days. Even though they have never 
 seen a ghost themselves, they are fully convinced that 
 their friends have, and it would amount almost to 
 rudeness to doubt their good faith. However, I ought 
 not to restrict these remarks to young ladies, for I see 
 in the newspapers that the young men at Oxford 
 have just carried a resolution in their Debating 
 Society that they believe in ghosts. And yet they 
 do not really believe in ghosts. They do not even 
 believe that they believe in ghosts, unless they use 
 'to believe' in a very peculiar sense. They like to 
 make believe that they believe in ghosts. To believe 
 is always supposed to be more proper than not to 
 believe. But ask them to bet one shilling on the due 
 apparition of a ghost, and, if I know them well enough, 
 they will decline. It is exactly the same with savages. 
 They also are proud to believe or to profess to believe 
 what ordinary people are not able to believe. The 
 Zulus, for instance, not only profess to believe that a 
 corpse throws no shadow, they look equally serious 
 (3) Q 
 
226 LECTURE YIII. 
 
 when they assure their European questioners that ' as 
 a man approaches his end, his shadow shortens, and 
 contracts into a very little thing ^.' However, when 
 Bishop Callaway spoke to his Zulu friend seriously, 
 and asked him whether he really believed that the 
 shadow thrown by his body, when walking, was his 
 spirit, he soon collapsed, and falling back on his 
 popular idiom, declared, ' No, it is not your itongo or 
 spirit (evidently understanding me to mean by my 
 spirit an ancestral guardian spirit watching over me, 
 and not my own spirit), but it will be the itongo or 
 ancestral spirit for your children when you are dead.' 
 This is hardly more than if we were to say that after 
 death a man's spirit would be to his children a mere 
 shadow, or like a shadow. 
 
 Unless we study the wonderful ways of language, 
 we shall never understand the wonderful sayings of 
 men, particularly during the earlier phases of human 
 speech. Here Mr. Herbert Spencer has deprived 
 himself of a microscope that would have disclosed to 
 him again and again perfectly organic thought, while 
 he can see nothing but incoherent specks. 
 
 The Ci-pres in Iiang'uag'e. 
 
 He often accuses savages of what he calls erroneous 
 classing. He wonders that the Esquimaux should 
 have taken glass for ice, and quotes this as an 
 instance of their erroneous classing. I do not believe 
 it for a moment. Do we not ourselves call glass 
 crystal, and KpvaraWos meant ice, before it came to 
 mean rock-crystal. This is not a case of erroneous 
 classing ; it is simply and solely a necessity of 
 
 1 Callaway, 1. c, p. 126. 
 
DISCOVERY OF THE SOUL IN MAN AND NATURE. 227 
 
 language. When we become acquainted with a 
 new subject, such as glass, we have either to invent 
 an entirely new name, and that, particularly in the 
 later periods of language, becomes almost an impos- 
 sibility, or we must be satisfied with what lawyers 
 call a ci-pres, and in the case of glass the most 
 natural ci-pres, or the nearest likeness, seemed to 
 be ice. 
 
 Thus again, when we say, ^ the wall sweats,' it is 
 not because we really assume that water comes out 
 of the wall, after a frost, as perspiration comes out of 
 our skin. It is simply a case of poetical metaphor, 
 without which half of our language would become 
 impossible. 
 
 I do not believe that because the Orinoco Indians 
 call the dew 'the spittle of the stars,' they believe 
 that the stars spit during the night. We speak 
 ourselves of cuckoo-spittle, even though we know 
 perfectly well that it is no more than a small 
 grub enclosed in a slimy substance. Nor is it more 
 than a poetical metaphor when we say, it spits with 
 rain. 
 
 The Infinite in Man. 
 
 A student of language knows that all these expres- 
 sions are not only perfectly natural, but simply in- 
 evitable. And the same applies to the words for soul. 
 The soul was discovered in the breath, and hence it 
 was called breath, or psyche, by people who at first 
 really believed that that which left the body at death 
 and continued to exist was the breath. This some- 
 thing, called breath, or psyche, was afterwards likened 
 to many things, if they possessed certain attributes 
 
228 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 which seemed compatible with the nature of the 
 psyche or soul. As the souls after death were sup- 
 posed to fly away, they were called winged, or even 
 birds, not because they were really taken for birds, 
 or birds for them, but simply and solely because they 
 were supposed to pass through the air, like winged 
 creatures. Even biologists may sometimes speak of 
 angels' wings, but do they believe that vertebrate 
 beings can have wings as well as arms ? 
 
 The souls were called shades, not because they were 
 ever supposed to be nothing but images thrown on 
 the wall, but because they shared one attribute in 
 common with the shadows, namely, that of being 
 without a body, and almost unsubstantial. Another 
 name, eidola, meant really not much more than 
 shadow. It meant likeness, such as the outline of 
 a man's shadow, or his image reflected in the water. 
 And if the souls were called dreams, this was again 
 because they shared in common with the visions of 
 dreams their unsubstantial nature, their withdrawing 
 themselves from the touch and the embraces of their 
 friends. 
 
 When mythology steps in with its irrepressible 
 vagaries, or, what is even more serious, when art 
 invests these unsubstantial similitudes with a sub- 
 stantial form, no doubt the souls often become in 
 the popular mind actual shadows and dreams, birds 
 and winged angels. But though such expressions 
 may satisfy the human heart in moments of grief 
 or hope, though they may inspire the poet with his 
 happiest strains, the serious thinker knows that they 
 are no more than relics of ancient poetry. The soul 
 is not a bird, the soul is not a shadow, the soul is not 
 
DISCOVERY OF THE SOUL IN MAN AND NATURE. 229 
 
 a dream, not even the shadow of a dream. Here we 
 have the same No, no, which in the Upanishads we 
 saw applied to God. But when the ancients called 
 the soul breath, they really meant what they said ; 
 at least, they meant it as much as when they spoke 
 of Dyaus or the sky, meaning not the material sky, 
 but the agent in the sky. No doubt, as the sky 
 was recognised afterwards as only a vesture of God, 
 the breath also was conceived, as early as the time of 
 the Vedic poets, as ' breathing without air.' On this 
 point we are not wiser than the most primitive 
 savage. We retain his words, however knocked and 
 battered during ages of intellectual toil and moil, and 
 we shall have to retain, whether we like it or not, some 
 of his thoughts also. If breath sounds too material 
 to our ears, we may like the Latin word better, and 
 translate breath by spirit. But so long as we think 
 in human language, we shall never arrive at a truer 
 expression than breath or spirit, unless we rise to a 
 higher octave of thought altogether, and agree to call 
 it the Infinite in Man, as we recognised in the gods of 
 nature the ancient names for the Infinite in Nature. 
 
 Why a Belief in a Soul is necessary. 
 
 It has been asked what our belief in a soul can have 
 to do with religion and with a belief in God, and 
 what room there is for anthropological by the side of 
 physical religion. To judge from many works on 
 religion, and, more particularly, on the origin of 
 religion, it might seem indeed as if man could have a 
 religion, could believe in gods and in One God, with- 
 out believing in his own soul, without having even a 
 name or concept of soul. It is true also that our 
 
230 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 creeds seldom enjoin a belief in a soul as they enjoin 
 a belief in God ; and yet, what can be the object, nay, 
 what can be the meaning of our saying, ' I believe in 
 God,' unless we can say at the same time, ' I believe 
 in my soul.' 
 
 This belief in a soul, however, exactly like the belief 
 in gods, and, at last, in One God, can only be understood 
 as the outcome of a long historical growth. It must 
 be studied in the annals of language, in those ancient 
 words which, meaning originally something quite 
 tangible and visible, came in time to mean something 
 semi-tangible, something intangible, something in- 
 visible, nay, something infinite in man. The soul 
 is to man what God is to the universe, and as it was 
 the object of my last course of Lectures to follow in 
 the ancient languages and religions of the world the 
 indications of man's progress towards a knowledge of 
 or a faith in God, it is my object now to discover, if 
 possible, in the same historical archives, some evidence 
 that may be left there of man's progress towards a 
 knowledge of or a faith in his own soul. The search 
 for that evidence may often prove tedious, and its 
 interpretation by no means so satisfactory as when 
 we had to deal with the history of man's belief in 
 God. Yet the subject itself is so important that we 
 must not allow ourselves to be discouraged. It is a 
 first attempt, and first attempts, even though they 
 fail, encourage others to try again. 
 
 The Soul in Man and the Soul in Nature. 
 
 The problem which we have to face in trying to 
 discover how the agent within us was first dis- 
 covered, was first named and conceived, is really in 
 
DISCOVERY OF THE SOUL IN MAN AND NATURE. 231 
 
 many respects the same as the problem the solution 
 of which we had to study when treating of Physical 
 Religion. There we saw how the agent without, or, at 
 firsts the many agents behind the phenomena of 
 nature, had to be named by the names of visible out- 
 ward phenomena. There, too, if you remember, the 
 question arose whether what had been called Dyaus, 
 the sky, or in Chinese, Tien, the sky, was the actual, 
 visible, blue sky, or something else, the Agent in the 
 sky. That postulated Agent was actually called in 
 later times the 'psyche, the soul of the sky. 
 
 In exactly the same way, we find that the question 
 was asked whether what had been called pra'^^a in 
 Sanskrit, or psyche in Greek, or spirit in Latin, was 
 the actual, visible, warm breath, or something else, 
 the agent in the Breath. 
 
 We, at our time in the history of the world, may 
 smile at such questions. We know that if we speak 
 of heaven, we do not mean the blue sky. We know 
 that when we speak of our Father in heaven, we do 
 not mean our Father in the clouds. We know that 
 if we speak of the dead as ascending into heaven, as 
 dwelling in heaven, we mean more than a mere 
 ascension into the higher strata of our terrestrial 
 atmosphere. We live in post-Copernican times. Still 
 we must remember that what was once the language 
 of the childhood of the world, will remain for ever 
 the language of the childhood of every generation. 
 A child will always look to the blue sky as the abode 
 of his Father in heaven. A child will always lift his 
 hands and his eyes upward, when praying to God. 
 And no child could conceive the return of the spirit 
 to God who gave it, the return of the Son to the 
 
232 LECTUKE VIII. 
 
 Father, except under the image of an ascent through 
 the clouds. Some bear these fetters of language 
 longer than others. Some bear them all their life, 
 without even being aware of them. Who would 
 blame them, if only they would not grudge to others 
 the freedom for which they have often paid a very 
 heavy price ! 
 
 In the same way, the soul or the spirit will with 
 many people always remain a breath, an airy breath, 
 for this is the least material image of the soul which 
 they can conceive, just as the sky was the least 
 material image of the deity which many of the 
 ancient nations could conceive. 
 
 If we only remember this, we shall better under- 
 stand how old age is able to use, and, from an his- 
 torical point of view, to use honestly, the language of 
 childhood, though with a deeper and truer meaning. 
 An old man who prays, 'Our Father which art in 
 heaven,' is not necessarily a hypocrite. It is a study 
 of the ancient religions of the world that best enables 
 us to see behind the imagery of their language, and 
 the outward show of their sacred customs and cere- 
 monies, something which we can at least understand, 
 something with which to a certain extent we can 
 even sympathise, something that is true, though 
 expressed in helpless and childish words. 
 
 But there is another lesson also which an historical 
 study of the origin and growth of the words for soul 
 and for God may help to impress upon our mind. In 
 teaching us how the concept of God arises of necessity 
 in the human mind, it teaches us at the same time 
 that nothing can satisfy the human mind but what we 
 mean by an agent, that is, a real, self-conscious, agent, 
 
DISCOVEKY OF THE SOUL IN MAN AND NATUKE. 233 
 
 or, as we express it, in more anthropomorphic lan- 
 guage, a personal soul and a personal God. 
 
 We have to guard here against two misunderstand- 
 ings. There are theologians, even Christian theo- 
 logians, who hold that the concept of God was the 
 result of a special disclosure, and made to Jews and 
 Christians only. Such assertions can only be silenced 
 by facts, such as I gave in great abundance in my 
 Lectures on Physical Religion, though one would have 
 thought that some of these orthodox sceptics would 
 on this point have yielded more ready submission 
 to the express teaching of St. Paul. 
 
 But there are other philosophers who hold that 
 the concept of God, though, like the concept of soul, 
 it may be the result of a long-continued historical 
 development which can be traced in all languages 
 and all religions, is nevertheless a name only, which 
 we may retain for old association's sake, but which 
 denotes merely the unity of nature and no more. 
 
 This has been repeated again and again, and yet 
 a little reflection would have shown that this whole 
 argument rests simply on a mistake in language and 
 thought. If people prefer to call the agent of their 
 own acts and the agent of the acts of nature a mere 
 unity, modern languages allow such a licence. But 
 we must remember that unity is an abstract term, 
 and that we can never have abstract terms without 
 concrete objects from which they are abstracted. 
 Unity is nothing, if it is not a predicate. 
 
 We may predicate unity either when what is sub- 
 stantially one has become difterentiated, or when what 
 is substantially different has become combined. The 
 latter is clearly impossible in our case when, if we 
 
234 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 may trust our reason at all, our reason postulates a 
 self-conscious agent for everything that deserves to 
 be called an act. To speak of an act that acts itself, 
 or of an agent not different from his act, is not to 
 speak, but only to use words. In the former accepta- 
 tion of unity, we may predicate it of that which is 
 one and the same in different acts, whether the soul 
 in man, or God in nature ; but in predicating unity 
 we cannot predicate it except of a unit. We cannot 
 define that unit, whether in ourselves or in nature, 
 beyond saying what we mean by it, namely, a self- 
 conscious agent, such as we know our self to be, apart 
 from all other qualifications, and such as we require 
 the self of nature to be, apart from all phenomenal 
 attributes. 
 
 Now then we see clearly how closely what I call 
 Anthropological and Physical Religion hang together. 
 The former teaches us how we have come to discover 
 an agent within, and to call that agent soul or person, 
 or ego or self, but not simply a cause, still less a mere 
 unity. The latter shows us how we have come to 
 discover an agent without, and to call that agent soul 
 or person or ego or self, but not simply a cause, still 
 less a mere unity. If in religious language we prefer 
 the name of God, we may do so, but we must not leave 
 out any of the elements of which it is composed. If 
 soul is nothing except it be a self, a self-conscious 
 agent, or a person, God would be nothing, unless He 
 was at least a self, at least a self-conscious agent, or a 
 person, in the highest sense which that word conveys 
 to ourselves. 
 
LECTURE IX. 
 
 FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 
 The Import of Customs. 
 
 WE have hitherto examined the evidence which lies 
 imbedded in the very words for life, soul, and 
 mind, such as we find them in some of the more im- 
 portant languages of the world. Every one, as we saw, 
 tells the same story. Man began by naming what he 
 could perceive ; and by simply ignoring what was purely 
 material in his words, he gained possession of a large 
 array of expressions to convey to himself and to 
 others what coald not be perceived, but had to be 
 conceived, something more abstract, yet by no means 
 less real than what was perceived. Heart, for instance, 
 though no longer meant for a mere muscle, was still 
 meant for something that could account for real 
 feelings, for real passions, for real thoughts. Breath, 
 though being divested of its visible attributes, re- 
 mained in man's language as the sure sign of some- 
 thing or of some one that breathed and lived. This 
 simple process of slow and almost unconscious divest- 
 ment revealed behind the perceptible world a new 
 world which, though invisible, became to man the 
 necessary substratum of the visible world. We saw 
 
236 LECTUKE IX. 
 
 that the discovery of the soul was not a mere accident, 
 but that it was the necessary consequence of the 
 progress of human language from the singular to 
 the general, from the concrete to the abstract, from 
 the phenomenal to the noumenal, from what seems to 
 be to what is. 
 
 After having explored this lowest stratum of lan- 
 guage, in order to discover, if possible, some of man's 
 earliest thoughts about the soul, we shall now have to 
 carry on our search for new evidence to a new stratum, 
 the stratum of ancient customs. Ancient customs 
 contain, no doubt, a less articulate expression of 
 man's thoughts and feelings than ancient words, or 
 what we shall have to examine afterwards, ancient 
 poetry and ancient philosophy. But, for that very 
 reason, they are important to us when we wish to 
 discover the earliest impressions of the human mind, 
 when brought face to face with the great problems of 
 life, and more particularly the greatest of all, namely, 
 the problem of death. 
 
 Motives of Customs. 
 
 The feelings roused by death are naturally of a 
 religious character. The sight of death brings man, 
 whether he likes it or not, face to face with what is 
 beyond, with what transcends the limits of our senses, 
 with what may be called once more the Infinite. If 
 anything was solemn and sacred, if anything could 
 stir even the hardest heart, it was the sight of a 
 sudden and violent death, or the watching of the slow 
 ebbing away of a beloved life. Whatever mode of 
 disposing of the dead was adopted, we can perfectly 
 understand that the place where the body, the bones. 
 
FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 237 
 
 or the ashes were deposited, was regarded as different 
 from other places, was entered with a certain awe, 
 and soon acquired a sacred character. So far scholars, 
 such as Stackelberg for instance, were right when 
 they imagined that much of the worship of the gods of 
 Greece had been derived from the custom of address- 
 ing prayers to the dead, or offering gifts to them on 
 their graves. In some countries, particularly in China, 
 the room of the ancestors became really a temple, but 
 that was not the case in Greece. In the eyes of the 
 Greeks the care bestowed on the graves was considered 
 the truest measure of the real culture of a people. 
 It may seem a mere superstition when we find how 
 the Greeks from the earliest times thought that the 
 departed found no rest till they had received a proper 
 funeral, or till their bones had at least been covered with 
 a handful of earth. But the concatenation of ideas 
 which led to this belief was likewise perfectly natural. 
 At first came the impulse to treat the body with respect 
 and kindness. This surely requires no explanation, 
 though it is well known that there are what seem to 
 us startling exceptions ^. Then followed the thought 
 that what was done for the dead was for their good, 
 and would be appreciated by them ; and at last came 
 the conclusion that the souls would be displeased 
 or would find no rest, unless and until these acts 
 of kindness had been rendered to them. Homer, 
 though he touches but seldom on the state of the 
 departed after death, was evidently familiar with 
 these ideas. You remember how the soul of Elpenor 
 is the first to meet Odysseus in the Nekyia (Od. xi. 
 51). Elpenor had broken his neck in the house of 
 
 ^ Grimm, Das Verbrennen der Leichen, p. 4. 
 
238 LECTURE IX. 
 
 Circe, but had been forgotten and left behind, unburnt 
 and unhonoured. He therefore could not join the 
 other departed, and could find no rest till Odysseus 
 should have performed the proper funeral rites for 
 him. 
 
 In the case of Patroklos, we see that the departed 
 may appear to his friends. Achilles saw the soul 
 of his friend, he recognised his eyes and his voice, but 
 he could not touch him. We must remember, however, 
 that the soul of Patroklos had at that time not yet 
 entered the gates of Hades. After the bones had 
 once been consumed by fire, the departed were not 
 supposed by the Greeks to reappear to the living. 
 
 Again, if Odysseus gives the shades blood to drink, 
 we must recollect that blood was looked upon as the 
 condition of life. As the word had become almost 
 synonymous with life, it was but a natural conclusion 
 that the departed in the house of Hades were without 
 bloodj that is, without life, and that they had to 
 drink blood, before they could live, and hear, and 
 speak again. 
 
 Still, this need not have been a general belief, nor 
 is this process of reviving the departed with blood, 
 I believe, mentioned anywhere else. We must not 
 expect consistency, where so much had to be left 
 to the fancy of the poet or the poets. In the Iliad, for 
 instance, the abode of Hades is supposed to be beneath 
 the earth, in the Odyssey it is placed in the West, 
 behind the island of Circe. We speak of Hades as a 
 place, and so did the later Greeks. In Homer, however, 
 there is no passage where Hades need be taken as 
 anything but the name of the god. 
 
 But though Homer may differ from himself, and 
 
FUNEEAL CEEEMONIES. 239 
 
 though other Greek poets may differ from Homer, 
 on one point all Greek testimonies agree, namely, that 
 some funeral obsequies are essential to the repose of 
 the dead. This belief prevails in Homeric as well as 
 in post-Homeric times. Antigone, as represented by 
 Sophocles (v. 1322), looks upon them as ordained by 
 a divine law, a law before which all human laws 
 must give way. Euripides goes so far as to call the 
 graves 'the sacred temples of the dead^,' They 
 became places of solemn meetings, the natural centres 
 of a family, of a clan, and in time of a whole 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 The great national festivals in Greece were mostly 
 games, instituted at first in honour of some departed 
 hero or benefactor. They began like the games 
 celebrated by Achilles and his companions in honour 
 of Patroklos^ and when repeated grew into national 
 institutions. 
 
 The earliest account of an Aryan funeral is found 
 in the Ara^iyaka of the Taittiriya-veda. Here, how- 
 ever, we find only a large collection of the hymns 
 and verses, which are to be recited at different parts 
 of a funeral. The description of the funeral itself we 
 must take from the Sutras, which are later than the 
 Arariyakas. 
 
 I place the Ara9^yakas at the end of the Brahma^ia 
 period, about 600 B. c. This is, of course, hypothetical, 
 like all dates in India, previous to the rise of Bud- 
 dhism. But a welcome confirmation of that date has 
 been supplied by the editor of the Taittiriya-ara^iyaka, 
 Rajendralal Mitra. I had pointed out that nowhere 
 in Vedic literature is there any mention of the burning 
 
 ^ Troades, 96, vaovs re TVfJi0ovs 9\ Upa tSiv KeK/xrjKOTonv. 
 
240 LECTURE IX. 
 
 of widows at the funeral of their husbands. On the 
 contrary, there is clear evidence that they were not 
 burnt. Rajendralal Mitra, however, calls our attention 
 to the fact that nevertheless, according to Diodorus 
 Siculus, xix. 33, this custom was fully recognised in 
 India in 316 B.C. Diodorus, the contemporary of 
 Caesar and Augustus, gives a full description how the 
 two wives of Keteus were both anxious to be burnt 
 with him. One of them, however, being with child, 
 could not be burnt, but the other, the younger one, 
 was burnt in the sight of the Greek army, rejoicing in 
 her victory, and offering no resistance, when lying on 
 the funeral pile by the side of the dead husband. This 
 shows that a custom, not yet recognised in the Veda, 
 was recognised in the fourth century B.C. Nay, Dr. 
 Rajendralal Mitra might have added that Diodorus 
 states that this cruel custom was then sanctioned by 
 an ancient law (ovtos 8e -naXaiov voixov), which would 
 push the date of the Ara^iyaka still further back. 
 However, though there is some force in this argument, 
 we must not forget that India is a large country, and 
 that an old law may have existed in the North- West 
 and among the martial nobility, which was unknown 
 among the Brahmans of Aryavarta at a much later 
 date. We are told, for instance, in the iTAandogya- 
 upanishad, VIII. 8, 5, that the so-called Asuras had 
 their own form of burial, that they ' decked out the 
 body of the dead with perfumes, flowers, and fine 
 raiment by way of ornament, and thought thus to 
 conquer the next world.' 
 
 We find a more detailed description of a Vedic 
 funeral in the SMras of A^valayana. Without claim- 
 ing for this description a very primitive character or 
 
PUNEBAL CEREMONIES. 241 
 
 an extravagant age, we must remember that, even if it 
 presents to us what a funeral was at about 600 b. c, 
 we have nothing more ancient in any other Aryan 
 literature. 
 
 It was in the year 1855 that I published in the 
 journal of the German Oriental Society, the text and 
 translation of the Siitras of Asvalayana. I shall here 
 give you an abstract of them. 
 
 If it was death that made man conscious for the first 
 time of life, we have a right to expect that the acts of 
 men in the presence of death will disclose to us some- 
 thing of what passed through his mind at that solemn 
 moment. It is true that when these acts become 
 known to us they have almost ceased to be real acts, 
 and have become mere customs, half-understood tradi- 
 tions, nay often, misunderstood ceremonial. Stilly we 
 may discover in them some relics of what is ancient, 
 for there is in customs, as in language, an unbroken 
 continuity. Much may be changed, but little is 
 entirely thrown away. 
 
 Funeral Ceremonies in India. 
 
 I shall begin with a description of the funeral 
 ceremonies in India, as preserved to us in the Ar&n- 
 yakas and Sutras, both still belonging to the Vedic 
 period of literature. 
 
 Asvalayana-sutras IV. 1 : 
 
 ' If some one who has set up the sacred fires (in his 
 own house) begins to ail, he should depart (with his 
 fires) towards the east, the north, or the north-east. 
 People say, the fires love the village, and hence it is 
 understood that longing and desirous to return (to 
 the village), they will make him whole. If he is well 
 (8) R 
 
242 LECTURE IX. 
 
 again, he should sacrifice with Soma or with an animal, 
 and settle down again in his house, or also without 
 such a sacrifice.' 
 
 Here you have an old piece of folk-lore. First of 
 all, a proverb — ' the fires love the village.-' Here we 
 need hardly think of the fires as divine beings, though 
 such sayings contain, no doubt, the germs of mytho- 
 logy. We ourselves might say just the same, without 
 being in any sense fire- worshippers, or even believers 
 in Agni. Secondly, the proverb leads to a supersti- 
 tion. Because the fires love their village, therefore, if 
 you take them away with you, they will try to make 
 you return to their home and to their hearth, and in 
 order to induce a sick person to return home, they will 
 make him whole. 
 
 Then the Sutra continues : 
 
 ' If he dies, let some one have a piece of land dug up, 
 south-east or south-west (of the village), inclining to- 
 wards the south or the south-east ; others say, towards 
 the south-west. It should be as long as a man with 
 outstretched arms, one fathom (vyama) in breadth, 
 and one span (vitasti) in depth.' 
 
 Here there is nothing to remark, except the names 
 of the ancient measures. What Protagoras said in a 
 philosophical sense, is true in a material sense also. 
 Man was the measure of all things. One measure is 
 the man with his arms lifted up, the other a vyama, 
 as much as a man can embrace with his two arms, five 
 aratnis or ells ^, as the commentator explains it. The 
 
 1 Ell, Germ. Elle, O. H. G. elina, oJXfvr}, ulna, all point to a common 
 source, probably to the root AR, from which we have dp-Opov, ar-tus, 
 joint, literally, what moves. Sk. ar-atni, fore-arm, and Goth. 
 arms may come from the same root. Five aratnis make a vyama, 
 Germ. Klafter. 
 
FUNEKAL CEREMONIES. 243 
 
 next is vitasti\ the outstretched hand, or twelve 
 fingers. 
 
 ' The place (smasana) should be free on all sides and 
 rich in plants. If they should be thorny and milky, 
 let it be as said before. One requirement of a burning 
 ground (smasana) is that the water should run down 
 from it on all sides.' 
 
 The place is the cemetery, but it is the place both 
 for burning and afterwards for burying also. 
 >S^masana is one of those old words in Sanskrit, the 
 origin and formation of which we cannot explain. 
 They must have been formed of materials which exist 
 no longer in the language, such as we know it. 
 
 Why thorny and milky plants should be removed, is 
 not explained. In a former passage (II. 7, 5) it had 
 been said that in building a house a man should clear 
 the ground of thorny and milky plants. This is in- 
 telligible, but for burning purposes thorny plants would 
 have been useful, and they were often preferred for 
 constructing a pile ^. 
 
 ' What has to be done with the hair of the head, the 
 beard, and the hair of the body, has been explained 
 before (>Sirauta-sutra VI. 10, 2). There should be a full 
 supply of sacrificial grass and of butter. Then they 
 pour clarified butter into curds, which makes the 
 sprinkled butter for the Fathers.' 
 
 Certain rules as to how the dead body should be 
 treated before it is taken to the place of burning had 
 been given in the >S^rauta-sutras, the rules for the 
 /Srauta or great sacrifices. Burial does not properly 
 
 ^ Vitas ti is explained as the measure from the joint of the hand 
 to the top of the fingers, and as equal to twelve fingers, or angulas, 
 the aiigula again being defined as equal to eighty 
 
 ^ Grimm, Bas Verbrennen der Leicherif p. 
 
 R2 _ ^y ^^^ 
 
 'tj'sivbrsit 
 
244 * LECTURE IX. 
 
 fall under the >S^rauta, but under the Gr^hya or domestic 
 sacrifices. But it may happen that a man dies while 
 offering one of these great sacrifices. This is considered 
 as an accident, just as the breaking of a sacrificial 
 vessel, and has to be remedied. Certain rules had 
 therefore to be inserted in order to explain what should 
 be done with the dead body of the sacrificer, if he 
 should die before the sacrifice is finished. 
 
 ' When he dies they take him out on the sacrificial 
 path (or^ according to others, not on the sacrificial 
 path), and perform the adornments of the dead in the 
 place where the sacrificial vessels are cleaned. They 
 shave the hair of the head, the beard, and the hair of 
 the body. They anoint him with spikenard and put 
 on him a wreath of spikenard. Some clear the body 
 of its contents and fill it with sprinkled butter. They 
 then cut ofi" the seam of a new piece of cloth, and 
 cover the body so that the other seam is turned to- 
 wards the west, and the feet remain uncovered. The 
 sons should keep the piece that has been cut ofif.' 
 
 All these rules should be observed at the time of an 
 ordinary funeral also, but as they had been learnt by 
 heart before, they need not be repeated here ^. 
 
 The ceremony now proceeds, IV. 2 : 
 
 ' They now carry his fires and his sacrificial vessels 
 to the same place. The old people follow with the 
 dead, in odd numbers, and not in couples (i.e. not 
 men and women together). Some say (that the dead 
 should be carried) on a car drawn by cows. Some 
 lead an animal behind (the anustara7ii, that is to be 
 burnt with the dead), a cow, or a she-goat, of one 
 
 1 See Appendix VI, Note 1. 
 
FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 245 
 
 colour, or, according to some, a black one, after having 
 tied a rope to its left fore-foot (bahu for bahau). 
 Then follow the relatives (amatya), v^earing their sacri- 
 ficial thread below (round the body), with their hair- 
 locks untied, the old men first, the young ones last ^. 
 
 'When they have thus reached the place, the 
 performer walks three times round the spot with his 
 left side turned towards it, sprinkles water on it with 
 a SsLToal branch, and says : 
 
 ' Go away, disperse, remove from henee. 
 The Fathers have made this place for him. 
 Yama grants him this resting-place, 
 Sprinkled with water day and night/ 
 
 This is a verse which is found in the Rig-veda, X. 
 14, 9. It is supposed to be addressed to spirits hover- 
 ing round the place of burial. Yama, as we shall see, 
 is the god of the fathers, and he is supposed to have 
 assigned this place to the dead person as his final rest- 
 ing-place. When it is said that the place is sprinkled 
 with water day and night, this implies that it ought 
 to be thus honoured by the relations of the dead. 
 
 ' He then places the fires on an elevated corner, the 
 Ahavaniya-fire to the south-east, the Garhapatya-fire 
 to the north-west, and the Dakshir^a-fire to the south- 
 west. 
 
 ' Thereupon a person who understands it, piles up 
 between the fires a pile of fuel for him. After the 
 sacrificial grass and the skin of a black antelope with 
 the hair outside have been spread over this, they place 
 the dead on it, taking him north of the Garhapatya- 
 fire, and with his head turned towards the Ahavaniya- 
 fire. Noi*th of him (they place) his wife, and for a 
 
 ^ See Appendix VI, Note 2. 
 
246 LECTUEE IX. 
 
 Kshatriya the bow. Then her brother-in-law, stand- 
 ing in the place of her husband, or a pupil, or an 
 old servant, should make her rise, reciting the verse 
 (Rv. X. 18, 8) : 
 
 * Else, woman ; come to the world of the living ; thou liest by 
 him whose breath is gone, come back ! Thou hast fulfilled this 
 thy wifehood to him who took thy hand and made thee a mother \' 
 
 'If an old servant (a >Sudra) makes her rise, the 
 performer should repeat this verse. He then removes 
 the bow, saying (Rv. X. 18, 9): 
 
 ' I take the bow from the hand (of the dead), to be to us protec- 
 tion, glory, and strength. Thou art there, we are here with good 
 men ; let us overcome all the wiles of the enemy,' 
 
 ' If it is a >S^iidra, the same applies as before. After 
 he has stringed the bow, he should walk round the 
 pile, break it, and throw it (on the pile).' 
 
 These rules are full of interest, but also of difficulty. 
 What is quite clear is that in Vedic times the widow, 
 though she was placed for a time near her husband 
 on the pile, was not burnt with him. Nothing can 
 be clearer than the words of the verse when she is 
 asked to return to the world of the living. Yet, with 
 all their regard for the divine authority of the Veda, 
 the Brahmans tried to explain it away, and to 
 change the world of the living into the world of the 
 dead. 
 
 That the old servant is not allowed to recite the 
 Vedic verses, shows that these rules date from a time 
 when the Brahmans had secured already the exclusive 
 privilege of the three upper classes, so that no 
 
 ^ Eajendralal Mitra translates the second half of the verse by : 
 'become the wife of him who holds thy hand and is willing to 
 marry thee.' 
 
FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 247 
 
 SMrsb was allowed to learn the Veda by heart. The 
 word used, however, in the text is not /SMra, but 
 Vr^shala. 
 
 The second half of the verse is not quite clear, but 
 I believe my translation is the right one. 
 
 We should observe that the bow given to the dead, 
 if he is a Kshatriya, is broken before it is burnt. It 
 was, therefore, a mere gift, and the idea, that he 
 might have to use it in the next world, seems not to 
 have presented itself to the Indian mind. 
 
 Then follow special regulations (IV. 3) as to how 
 the various sacrificial implements should be placed on 
 the different parts of the dead body. These again 
 show a considerable development of the Brahmanic 
 ceremonial, but are otherwise of little interest. That 
 the Vedic Indians with all their devotion to the dead 
 were thrifty, may perhaps be gathered from the fact 
 that the two mill-stones, and all that is made of 
 copper, iron, and earthenware is kept by the son, 
 who is here mentioned for the first time. There may, 
 however, have been another reason, namely, the fact 
 that these things were not combustible. 
 
 Then follow rules as to how the animal should be 
 dissected and how again different portions of it 
 should be placed on different parts of the dead 
 body. 
 
 * After cutting out the omentum of the AnustaraTii, 
 (the animal that had been brought to the pile) he 
 should cover the head and mouth with it, saying 
 (Rv. X. 16,7): 
 
 * Put on this armour against Agni (fire), (taken) from the cows ; 
 cover thyself with their fat and marrow, that the fierce Agni, re- 
 joicing in his glare, the bold one, may not, when he flares up, 
 injure thee.' 
 
248 LECTURE IX. 
 
 * Having taken out the kidneys, he should lay them 
 into his hands, saying (Rv. X. 14, 10) : 
 
 ' On the good path run past the two dogs, the brood of SaramS, 
 the four-eyed, the grey ; then go towards the wise Pitns who are 
 happily rejoicing with Yama.* 
 
 Here we enter on mythological ground. It is quite 
 clear that the dead is supposed to proceed on a good 
 or right path till he reaches the PitWs, the fathers, 
 who have died before him. On that path he has to 
 run past two dogs. These dogs are called sarameya, 
 according to the Brahmans^ the sons of Sarama, four- 
 eyed, and grey or dark. 
 
 Now it is well known that the Greeks also believed 
 that the entrance of the realm of Hades was guarded 
 by a dog, a dog with several heads, called Kerheros 
 by Hesiod. The idea itself is natural enough. Their 
 houses were probably guarded by a dog or dogs, there- 
 fore why not the house of the Pitris 1 Still we should 
 remember that this watch-dog has a name in Greece, 
 Kerheros, and that the Greek language supplies no 
 etymology and no meaning of that word. If then it 
 can be proved that sarvari is a name of the night, 
 can there be any possible doubt that the Greek word 
 Kepj3epos is the same as the Sanskrit sarvara. I hold 
 the original meaning of sarvara to have been dark, 
 like the night, not speckled, and as sarvara has 
 become s a vara in certain words, I hold that s aba la, 
 the adjective applied to the two dogs of Yama, meant 
 originally dark or grey, like the night. 
 
 This identification is so perfectly simple and clear 
 and unobjectionable that it has been accepted by the 
 severest critics ^. But a small acquaintance with 
 
 ^ Aufrecht, Indische Studien, iv. p. 342. 
 
FUNERAL CEEEMONTES. 249 
 
 phonetic rules is certainly required in order to see 
 the force of the argument, and we must not be 
 surprised if writers, ignorant of the Sanskrit alphabet 
 and of the invariable correspondence between Sk. 
 palatal s and Greek *c, express a learned doubt as to 
 the identity of sarvara and kerberos. Every letter is 
 simply the same in the two words, and if we are to 
 doubt this equation, we may as well doubt the 
 equation of Sk. ma tar and Lat. Triater. 
 
 Asvalayana then continues, IV. 4 : 
 
 ' The heart of the animal is placed on the heart of 
 the dead, and two rice-cakes, according to some ; 
 according to others, only when the kidneys are absent. 
 
 ' Having thus distributed the whole animal, limb 
 by limb, and having covered it with its hide, he 
 recites, while the PraTiita water is carried forward, 
 the following verse (X. 16, 8) : 
 
 * Agni, do not hurt this cup, which is dear to the gods and to the 
 Somyas (the Fathers). It is that which the gods drink, and in 
 which the immortal gods delight.' 
 
 ' Bending his left knee he should sacrifice %ya- 
 oblations (clarified butter) in the DakshiTja fire, say- 
 ing : "SvahatoAgni! Svaha to Kama (love) ! Svaha 
 to the world ! Svaha to Anumati ! " 
 
 ' A fifth oblation (is to be poured) on the chest of the 
 deceased, with the verse : 
 
 * Thou (Agni) hast verily been born from him, may he (N. N.) 
 now be born from thee. Svaha to the heaven- world ^ ! ' 
 
 ' He now gives the word of command, '* Light the 
 fires together ! " If the Ahavaniya-fire reaches him 
 
 ^ This verse is not in the Rig-veda, and is therefore given in full 
 in the Sutra. See Ykg. Samh. XXXV. 22 ; Satap.-Br&hm. II. 3, 3, 5 ; 
 XII. 5, 2, 15. 
 
250 LECTURE IX. 
 
 first, he should know that it has brought him to the 
 Svarga- world (heaven). He will prosper there, and 
 this, his son, here on earth. 
 
 ^ If the Garhapatya-fire reaches him first, he should 
 know that it has brought him to the Antariksha- 
 world (air). He will prosper there, and this, his son, 
 here on earth. 
 
 ' If the DakshiTia-fire reaches him first, he should 
 know that it has brought him to the Manushya world 
 (the world of men). He will prosper there, and this, 
 his son, here on earth. 
 
 ' If the three fires reach him at the same moment, 
 they call it the highest luck. 
 
 'While the body is being burnt, he recites the 
 following verses in the same way as described before ^ : 
 
 'Eig-vedaX. 14, 7; 8; 10; 11. 
 
 ' Go forth, go forth on those ancient paths on which our fore- 
 fathers departed. Thou shalt see the two kings delighting in 
 Svadha, Yama and the god Varuna. 
 
 ' Come together with the Pitns, and with Yama in the highest 
 heaven, as the fulfilment of all desires. Having left all that is un- 
 speakable (sin), go home again, and radiant in thy body come 
 together with them. 
 
 ' On the good path run past the two dogs, the brood of Saram§, 
 the four-eyed, the grey ; then go towards the wise Pitns, who are 
 happily rejoicing with Yama. 
 
 ' Protect him, O king, from those two dogs, which are thy 
 watchers, O Yama, the four-eyed guardians of the road, spying for 
 men. Grant him happiness and health ! * 
 
 'Rig-veda X. 16, 1-6. 
 
 * Do not burn him altogether, Agni, do not scorch him, do not 
 confound his skin and his body ; when thou shalt have cooked 
 him, O Gatavedas, then send him ifbrth to the Pitns. 
 
 ' As soon as thou cookest him, Catavedas, thou shouldst hand 
 him over to the Fitris, As soon as he enters that life, he will 
 become the servant of the gods. 
 
 * May the eye go to the sun, the breath to the wind ; go to the sky 
 
 ^ As described in Srauta-sutras VI. 10, 19; see note in Z.D.M.G. 
 
FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 251 
 
 and the earth, as is right, or go to the waters, if it is good for thee 
 there, rest in the plants. 
 
 ' The unborn part \ warm it with thy warmth, may thy heat warm 
 it and thy flame ! O Gatavedas, carry him in thy kindliest shape 
 to the world of those who have done well. 
 
 * O Agni, send him back to the Pitns, he who comes sacrificed 
 with offering to thee ! When clothed with life, may what remains ^ 
 come back, may he be joined with a body, (ratavedas ! 
 
 ' Whatever the black bird injured, the ant, the snake, or a wild 
 beast, may Agni make that whole from all (mischief), and Soma 
 who has entered into the Brahmans ! ' 
 
 'Rig-vedaX. 17,3-6. 
 
 * May Pushan carry thee hence, the provident shepherd of the 
 world, who never lost an animal ; may he deliver thee to those 
 Pitns, and Agni to the wise gods ! 
 
 ' Ayu (life), the all-enlivening, will guard thee ; may Pushan 
 guard thee in front at the outset. May the god Savitn place thee 
 where the good people dwell and whither they have gone. 
 
 ' Pushan knows all those places ; may he lead us on the safest 
 path ! May he, the knowing, walk in front without faltering, he 
 who gives blessings, the brilliant, the great hero ! 
 
 ' Pushan was born at the outset of the roads, at the outset of the 
 sky, at the outset of the earth ; he, the wise, walks to and fro to 
 the two best homesteads.' 
 
 'Rig-vedaX. 18,10-13. 
 
 ' Creep close to the mother, that earth there, the broad, the all- 
 embracing, the blissful ! She is like a maiden, soft like wool to the 
 pious ; may she guard thee from the lap of Nirnti (destruction). 
 
 * Earth, open wide, do not press him, be kind in admitting and 
 in embracing him ! Cover him, O Earth, as a mother covers her 
 son with her cloth. 
 
 * May the opened earth stand firm, and may a thousand supports 
 stand near ; may these dwellings be running with ghnta-offerings, 
 and may there always be safety for him there ! 
 
 * I retain my translation of agro bhSgas, the immortal part, 
 because, after the poet has said how the material portions of the 
 body go to the sun, the wind, the earth, the water, and the trees, 
 he now speaks of what survives. The translation, ' the he-goat is 
 (thy) portion,' is impossible, first, because it is a she-goat, not a he- 
 goat, that may be offered as anustaram ; secondly, because, if one 
 portion is especially assigned to Agni, the pronoun cannot be left 
 out. There is no doubt, however, that from a very early date, ago 
 hhagSLh was taken in the sense of : ' the goat is thy share.' 
 
 ^ I take sesha as a masculine, the rest, what remains of him. 
 The word does not occur again as a masculine in the Rig-veda, but 
 all other translations are impossible. 
 
252 LECTURE IX. 
 
 ' I raise up the earth all around thee, may I not hurt thee in 
 putting down this slab ; may the Pitns hold this cairn of thine ; 
 may Yama there make seats for thee/ 
 
 ' Rig-veda X. 154, 1-5. 
 
 'For some (Pitns) Soma is clarified, some sit down to cream 
 (ghnta) ; those also for whom honey runs, — may he go to them 
 indeed ! 
 
 ' They who are unapproachable by their penance, they who went 
 to heaven by penance, they who performed penance mightily, to 
 those also may he go indeed ! 
 
 ' They who fight in battle, the heroes who lost their life, or they 
 who gave a thousand gifts, to those also may he go ! 
 
 ' And they who formerly followed the right, who did the right, 
 and increased the right, to those also may he go, O Yama, to the 
 Pitns rich in penance ! 
 
 'The poets of a thousand lays, they who guard the sun, the 
 J?ishis rich in penance, Yama, may he go to them, the sons of 
 penance ! ' 
 
 ' Rig-veda X. 14, 12. 
 
 'The two messengers of Yama, broad-nosed, blood-thirsty, and 
 tawny, go about among men ; may they grant us again happy life 
 here, so that we may see the sun ! * 
 
 ' If a man is burnt by some one who knows all this, 
 it is understood (from the >Sruti) that together with 
 the smoke he goes to the Svarga-world. 
 
 'North-east of the Ahavaniya-fire he should dig 
 a pit, knee-deep, and deposit in it an Avaka, that is, a 
 water-plant, called >Sipala. For it is understood from 
 the >S'ruti that the deceased, when he comes out thence, 
 will go with the smoke to the world of Svarga.' 
 
 It would take a long time to bring out all that is 
 contained in these verses. Unfortunately, we do not 
 know whether they originally succeeded each other as 
 we now read them. It seems as if they had been 
 taken from different hymns as they suited certain* 
 portions of the funeral ceremony. But other scholars 
 would probably say that they were written originally 
 
FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 253 
 
 for the funeral, and afterwards worked up into hymns. 
 The decision is difficult, perhaps impossible, but I 
 incline towards regarding the succession of the verses, 
 as they stand in the hymns of the Rig-veda as more 
 original than their order in the Sutras. 
 
 What we learn from the verses as I have just trans- 
 lated them, is that the departed, the PitWs, the Fathers, 
 have gone to a realm of Yama and Varu^ia, in the 
 highest heaven. Nothing is said of their going to a 
 lower world. The dead in being burnt, is supposed 
 to follow the old path of the Pitris, to be guided by 
 Piishan, Savitri, and Agni, to pass the two watch- 
 dogs, to escape from the lap of Nirriti, and to arrive 
 in the world of the pious,, to become the servant of 
 the gods. 
 
 The process of burning is not supposed to destroy 
 the body altogether, but only to warm or to cook it, 
 and thus prepare it for a new life with a new body. 
 The elements are supposed to return to the elements, 
 the eye to the sun, the breath to the wind. But, if 
 my translation is right, an unborn or eternal part is 
 mentioned, and this part Agni is asked to carry gently 
 to the world of the good. 
 
 So far there is a thread that may be followed. But 
 immediately after, the earth is invoked to receive the 
 dead, as a mother receives her child, and to keep him 
 from the lap of Nir?'iti or destruction. The grave is 
 spoken of as the resting-place of the dead, and Yama 
 is said to have prepared a seat for him there. 
 
 It is the same everywhere. There can be no con- 
 sistency where everybody has a right to express his 
 own imaginations, as if they were real, and his wishes, 
 as if they had been fulfilled. 
 
254 LECTURE IX. 
 
 We now proceed to consider the ceremonies which 
 follow the actual burning of the corpse. The corpse 
 is as yet left on the pile, but the idea evidently is, not 
 that it should be completely reduced to ashes, but that 
 it should be warmed, roasted, and made ready for a 
 new life, and that any injury it may have suffered 
 should be made good by Agni. 
 
 ' They now turn to the left, and go away without 
 looking back, reciting the verse (Rv. X. 18, 3) : 
 
 * These living people have turned away from the dead, the 
 sacrifice of the gods was auspicious for us to-day. We went forth 
 to dance and laughter, we who continue a longer life/ 
 
 * When they have come to a place where there is 
 standing water, they dive once, throw up one handful 
 of water, pronounce the name of the deceased and his 
 family (gotra), go out from the water, put on new 
 garments^ wring the others once, spread them out to- 
 wards the north, and then sit down till they see the 
 stars, or the sun. 
 
 ' When the sun has been seen ^, they may return 
 home ; the young should go first, the old last ^. 
 
 ' When they have come to their dwelling, they touch 
 a stone, the fire^ cow-dung, fried barley-corns, oil, and 
 water. 
 
 'They should not cook food during that night. 
 They should live on what has been bought or what is 
 there. For three nights they should not eat anything 
 pungent and salt. They may also for twelve nights 
 
 1 I have followed Dr. Winternitz in referring adityasya va to a 
 nakshatradarsanat. The option of waiting for the appearance of the 
 Nakshatras, or waiting the whole night till the sun is seen, is con- 
 firmed by Paraskara, III. 10, 35. Rajendralal Mitra translates : They 
 sit down till the stars are seen ; according to others, they do not 
 go home before sunrise. 
 
 ^ See Appendix VI, Note 3. 
 
FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 255 
 
 omit almsgiving and study (of the Veda), if one of 
 their great Gurus (father, mother, or teacher) has died ; 
 or for ten nights, if one of their near relations (Sapi^i- 
 d&s) has died, or the guru, if unrelated, or unmarried 
 female relatives, or a child that has no teeth, or a 
 deadborn child ; or for one day, if a fellow-pupil has 
 died, or any learned Brahman of the same village.' 
 
 We now come to a new ceremony, namely, the 
 gathering of the bones. The corpse is supposed to 
 have been left on the pile, covered with the sacrificial 
 implements of the deceased. 
 
 ' The collection of the bones takes place after the 
 tenth day (after death), on odd days of the dark fort- 
 night, and under a single Nakshatra ^.' 
 
 This would mean that ten days must have passed, 
 first of all, after the day on which the death took 
 place, and that then they must wait for the dark fort- 
 night and for an odd day in it ^. 
 
 ' A man is placed into an urn (kumbha, masc.) 
 without any marks, a woman into an urn (kumbhi, 
 fem., an urn with a spout, according to Rajendralal 
 Mitra) without any marks. It is done by old people 
 of an odd number, and without their wives. 
 
 ' Then the performer walks three times round the 
 place turning his left to it, and with a >S^ami branch 
 
 ^ A Nakshatra with one name, not therefore under the AshadMs, 
 Phalgunis, or Prosh^topadas. 
 
 2 There has evidently been much difference of opinion on this 
 point among the Brahmans. Some, such as Vishwu, XIX. 10-12, 
 fix the gathering of the bones on the fourth day, and prescribe that 
 they should be thrown into the Ganges. This seems a later rule. 
 Narayana explains the Sutra so that it should mean, ' on any odd 
 day after the tenth day of the dark fortnight,' i.e. on the 11th, 13th, 
 or 15th day of the waning moon. Bodhayana enjoins the 3rd, 5th, 
 or 7th from the day of cremation. 
 
256 LECTURE IX. 
 
 sprinkles milk and water on it, reciting a verse, Rv. 
 X. 16, 4. 
 
 ' They should put each bone (into the urn) with the 
 thumb and the fourth finger, without rattling them, 
 the feet first, the head last. Having well gathered 
 them, and swept them together with a broom, they 
 should put (the urn) into the pit, where the water does 
 not run together from all sides except in the rainy 
 season, and recite the verse, Rv. X. 18, 10 : 
 
 'Creep close to the mother, that earth there, the broad, the 
 all-embracing, the blissful ! She is like a maiden, soft like wool to 
 the pious ; may she guard thee from the lap of Nirnti (destruc- 
 tion).' 
 
 ' With the following verse, Rv. X. 18, 11, he should 
 throw earth (into the pit) : 
 
 '0 Earth, open wide, do not press him, be kind in admitting, 
 and in embracing him, cover him, O Earth, as a mother covers her 
 son with her cloth.' 
 
 * After he has thrown the earth, he should recite the 
 next verse, Rv. X. 18, 12 : 
 
 * May the opened earth stand firm, and may a thousand supports 
 stand near : may these dwellings be running with ghnta offerings, 
 and may there always be safety for him there.' 
 
 ' He then covers (the urn) with a lid, saying, Rv. X. 
 18,13: 
 
 ' I raise up the earth all around thee, may I not hurt thee in 
 putting down this slab. May the Pitns hold this cairn of thine, 
 may Yama there make seats for thee.' 
 
 'Then returning without looking back, and after 
 bathing, they should give him the /S^raddha offering^.' 
 
 The actual burial is now finished, and it is clear 
 that the Vedic Indians both burnt and buried their 
 dead. The urn into which the bones were deposited 
 
 * See Appendix VI, Note 4. 
 
FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 257 
 
 must have been large, and it is strange that none of 
 them, so far as I know, should ever have been dis- 
 covered. 
 
 The honours to be paid to the dead do not cease, 
 however, with the burial. We saw that at the end of 
 it a >S'raddha offering was to be made. These offerings, 
 meant for the deceased, are continued afterwards 
 during a whole year. After that time they cease to be 
 addressed to him individually, he having taken his 
 place among the three ancestors, father, grandfather, 
 and great-grandfather, and receiving the common 
 >S^raddhas at the times appointed ^ 
 
 Before, however, we proceed to consider this impor- 
 tant branch of the Indian religion, the >Sraddha, we 
 have still to follow the mourners to a kind of expia- 
 tory service, which was meant to pacify death, and to 
 guard the survivors against every evil. 
 
 ' They who have lost a Guru (father, mother, or 
 teacher), or have been afflicted in any other way, 
 should on the day of the new moon perform an expia- 
 tory service. Other authorities fix on the ninth day 
 after death, i.e. on the tenth day, for this ceremony. 
 Before sunrise they should carry the fire and ashes in 
 a receptacle southward, saying, Rv. X. 16, 9 : 
 
 ' Agni, the flesh-eater, I send away far ; may he, the evil-bringer, 
 go to those who own Yama as their king.' 
 
 ' They then throw the fire away where four roads 
 meet, or somewhere else, and walk three times round 
 it, turning their left to it, and striking their left 
 thighs with their left hands. They then return home 
 without looking back, wash, have their hair, their 
 
 ^ On the Sraddhas, see India, What can it teach m ? pp. 234-242, 
 374-376. 
 
 (8) S 
 
258 LECTURE .IX. 
 
 beard, the hair of the body, and their nails cut, and 
 procure for themselves new jars, pots, and vessels 
 for rinsing, adorned with wreaths of >Sami flowers, 
 fuel of iS^ami wood, two pieces for kindling fire and 
 (fifteen) for laying round it, also dung of bulls, a hide, 
 fresh butter, a stone, and as many bunches of Kusa 
 grass as there are young women (in the house). Then 
 at the time of the Agnihotra (in the afternoon) he 
 (the oldest person present) should kindle the fire, 
 saying, Rv. X. 16, 9 : 
 
 ' But here may this other (Agni) Gatavedas, carry the sacrifice to 
 the gods, knowing (how to do it),' 
 
 ' Keeping that fire burning they sit until the still 
 night, repeating the tales of the old, and having sacred 
 stories, such as Itihasas and Pura'Tias, recited to them. 
 
 'When all sounds have ceased, and when (others) 
 have gone to their house or resting-place, he (the per- 
 former), stepping from the south side of the door to 
 the north, should pour out a continuous stream of 
 water, reciting a verse (Rv. X. 16, 9). 
 
 ' Having then lit a fire (aupasana), he spreads west 
 of it the hide of a bull, its neck turned to the east, 
 and the hair outside, and asks the people of the house 
 (amatya), to step on it, saying, Rv. X. 1 8, 6 : 
 
 ' Mount up the life, choosing old age, striving forward, as many 
 as you are, one after the other. Tvaahiri who grants good offspring 
 may graciously yield you here a long life to live.' 
 
 ' He should then place logs round the fire, the first 
 with the words, Rv. X. 18, 4: 
 
 * This fence I place for the living, may no other of these here go 
 to that place ; may they live through full a hundred harvests, 
 hiding death with this stone.' 
 
 ' While he says, " hiding death with this stone," he 
 
rUNERAL CEREMONIES. 259 
 
 places a stone north of the fire. He then recites four 
 verses, and sacrifices with each, Rv. X. 18, 1 : 
 
 ' Death, go oif on another path, that is thy own, and different 
 from the way of the gods. I speak to thee who hast eyes to see 
 and ears to hear, do not hurt our offspring, or our men ! ' 
 
 ^ Be pure and clean, ye who are partakers in the sacrifice, so that, 
 effacing the track of death, ye may continue a longer life, abound- 
 ing in offspring and wealth.' 
 
 'Then follow two verses, translated before. He should 
 then look at his people (amatya) and recite, Rv. X. 18, 5 : 
 
 '■ As days follow one another, as seasons go rightly with seasons, 
 so shape our lives, Creator, that the young may not leave the 
 old behind.' 
 
 ' The young women should then with some young 
 Darbha-blades take fresh butter, and anoint their 
 eyes with the thumbs and fore-fingers of both hands 
 (at the same time) ; and after that turn round and 
 throw (the blades) away. While they are anointing 
 themselves, the performer should look at them and 
 say, Rv. X. 18, 7 : 
 
 'These women, not widows, but having good husbands, may 
 anoint themselves with collyrium and butter. Without tears, 
 without ailments, and well adorned, may the wives go first to the 
 house ^' 
 
 This has indeed proved a fatal verse to thousands 
 of women who have been burnt on the pile with their 
 husbands, on the strength of a spurious reading. ' They 
 should go first to the house ' is in the text yonim 
 agre. By changing agre into agneA, the line would 
 mean, ' They should go into the house, or into the lap 
 of Agni (fire).' This reading was foisted into the 
 Veda, and after that, widow-burning was represented 
 as having a sacred authority in the Veda. 
 
 ^ For other readings of this verse, see Rajendralal Mitra, 1. c, 
 p. 52. The Taitt, Ar., VI. 10, 8, reads a^lgranena sarpisha sam mnsa- 
 ntam, which Rajendralal Mitra translates, ' let the women smear 
 themselves with collyrious butter.' 
 
 S2 
 
260 LECTURE IX. 
 
 ' Then the performer should first touch the stone, 
 (the others after him), saying, Rv. X. 53, 8 : 
 
 •The river full of stones flows on ; hold together, rise up, and 
 move on, friends ! Let us leave here those who are luckless ; 
 we shall turn out on lucky raids.' 
 
 ' Then, while the others walk round with the fire, 
 with the dung of the bull, and with an uninterrupted 
 stream of water, the performer, stationing himself to 
 the north-east, should recite the verse, Rv. X. 155, 5 : 
 
 ' They have led the cow round, they have taken the fire round, 
 they have given praise to the gods, — who then will defy them ?' 
 
 ' While they pour out the stream of water, they recite 
 three verses, Rv. X. 9, 1 : 
 
 ' You are truly the blissful waters, give us strength, that we may 
 see great rejoicing,' &c. 
 
 ' Whatever is your best sap, let us here share in it, like loving 
 mothers,' &c. 
 
 ' A brown bull should be led round, thus they say. 
 
 ' Then they sit down where they like, covering them- 
 selves with a new garment, and they sit till sunrise 
 without sleeping. 
 
 ' When the sun has risen they repeat the hymns 
 sacred to the sun and benedictions, prepare food, and 
 offer libations with every verse, while reciting the 
 hymn, Rv. I. 97, "May he by his light drive evil 
 away from us," &c. 
 
 'After having fed the Brahmans, he should make 
 them repeat a benediction. 
 
 *A cow, a metal jar, and a new garment form the 
 priestly fee.' 
 
 I have given you this description of an ancient 
 Indian funeral in full, because it is less known than 
 the funeral ceremonies of Greeks and Romans, and 
 
FUNEKAL CEKEMONIES. 261 
 
 may serve as a typical instance of an ancient Aryan 
 funeral. 
 
 Funeral Ceremonies in Greece. 
 
 We do not possess the same minute accounts of the 
 funeral among Greeks and Romans. There was prob- 
 ably more local variety with regard to funeral rites 
 in different parts of Greece and Italy than there was 
 in India, if indeed we may judge of the whole of India 
 by the literature preserved by the Brahmans. Still, 
 making allowance for the greater spirit of independence 
 and the more restricted influence of a priestly caste 
 among Greeks and Romans, we can gain some general 
 idea at least of what their funeral was, and we can 
 discover in their customs also some indications of the 
 thoughts which they had formed about the dead ^. 
 
 The Greek language has preserved a curious relic 
 which testifies to the ancient and wide-spread custom 
 of burning as antecedent to burying. The verb 
 Odirro), which means to bury, must originally have 
 meant to burn. All scholars agree that Ocl-it-too and 
 Td(f)os are connected with the Sanskrit root dab, which 
 means to burn and to burn only. It is a root common 
 to several of the Aryan languages, and wherever it 
 occurs, it means to burn. It must therefore have had 
 the same meaning in Greek also (as we see in the 
 name Daphne) ^, and have lost it when burying took 
 the place of burning. A similar transition of meaning 
 
 ^ Fuller information on funerals in Greece may be found in 
 Manuals of Greek Antiquities, such as K. T. Hermann, Lehrbuch der 
 Griech. Antiquitdien, vol. iv, Privatalterthiimer. See also Rohde's 
 treatise, Psyche, Seelencvlt und Unsterblichkeiisglaube, 1890. 
 
 ^ Science of Language, vol. ii. p. 621, n. 
 
262 LECTURE IX. 
 
 has been pointed out by Schott in some of the words 
 for burying in the Ural-Altaic languages. 
 
 In Greece it was primarily the duty of the son to 
 bury his father. This was a duty from which nothing 
 could release him. A son might under certain circum- 
 stances be released from his obligation to support his 
 father during life, but after death the law of Solon, as 
 quoted by Aeschines (Timarch. 13), made it incumbent 
 on him to bury his father and to perform all that was 
 considered right {a-noOavovra 8' avrov OauTiroi kol raWa 
 -noidroi ra zojottfo/xei^a). If, however, there was no son 
 and no relative to perform the last sacred rites, the 
 whole community or the Demos was held responsible 
 for the proper disposal of the dead body, or, during 
 war, the General. The vengeance of the gods was 
 believed to fall on all who left a corpse unburied. It 
 was not only a crime, it was felt to be an ayo?, a sin, 
 probably because there was the old belief among the 
 Greeks that the dead found no rest or could not enter 
 Hades till their body had been burnt or buried, and 
 that they would haunt the abode of their relatives and 
 friends till this last duty had been performed. There 
 is a meaning in most customs, and even mere super- 
 stitions have generally a foundation of truth. 
 
 It was the custom in Greece that the nearest relative 
 should close the eyes and the mouth of the departed, 
 that the women should wash and anoint the body, 
 clothe it in clean garments, as in India, and then 
 leave it on a couch in the interior of the house. Here 
 people might come to see it, and it was usual at Athens 
 to place a vessel full of water near the door, so that 
 these who had become impure by entering the house, 
 might purify themselves. The purifying by touching 
 
FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 263 
 
 water was mentioned in India also. The house with 
 the dead in it was considered impure, though that is 
 hardly the right translation for ixtapos in Greek, or for 
 asau/i;a in Sanskrit, both conveying the feeling of awe, 
 with which the Greek felt inspired by death, rather 
 than the sense of actual impurity. Even the water, in 
 order to be pure, had to be fetched from another house. 
 
 While the dead body was exposed in the house, 
 various marks of affection were bestowed on it. If 
 we may judge from legal enactments, forbidding the 
 killing of sacrificial animals and restraining the 
 excessive wailing of women, before the body was 
 carried away (€K<popd, udvaha), these marks of love and 
 outbursts of grief must at times have been carried to 
 excess in Greece as in other countries. After a time, 
 however, a reaction set in in Greece as elsewhere, par- 
 ticularly in Germany ^, and a new popular belief arose 
 that the dead could find no rest till the violent grief 
 of their friends had been appeased ''^. 
 
 On the morning of the third day ^, before sunrise, the 
 couch with the body on it was carried out of the 
 house. Here again there must have been at times 
 much extravagance, for the law had to interfere and 
 limit vain display. Though the prevalent custom was 
 to burn the dead, yet it was never forbidden in Greece 
 to bury without burning. We must remember also 
 that burning did not mean a complete reduction of 
 the body to ashes, but that often, after it had been 
 
 ^ Rochholz, Deutscher Glaube und Branch, i. 207- 
 
 ^ Plato, Mendx. 248 E, SeofxfOa -naTepajv koi fiijTipcw flScvai on ov 
 0prjvovvT€s ovbk d\o<pvp6fX€Voi ■^fxds -^fiiv fiaKKXra xo-pi-ovvrai. Lucian, De 
 luctu 24, ^e'x/Jt TiVos ddvpofxcOa ; eacrov avairavaaadai rovs rod fxaKapiov 
 5ai/xovas. 
 
 ^ Plato, Laws, xii. 959. 
 
264 LECTURE IX. 
 
 for some time on the funeral pile, the bones were col- 
 lected without having been entirely destroyed or 
 reduced to ashes, and then deposited in a tomb. 
 Traces of these different kinds of burial are found in 
 Greece. There are urns holding ashes, containing 
 corpses, there are tombs in which skeletons, more or 
 less perfect, are placed on the ground, and there are 
 graves in which the bodies have simply been deposited 
 in the earth. There are coffins also of wood or earthen- 
 ware, but this is supposed to be a custom of foreign 
 origin. Even the embalming of dead bodies was not 
 unknown in Greece, as, for instance, in the case of the 
 kings of Sparta. 
 
 As many tombs have been found to contain various 
 articles that had been dear or useful to the living, it 
 has been supposed that the Greeks also believed that 
 the dead remained, for some time at least, in or near 
 their tombs. But although such a belief may have 
 existed, for even Plato alludes to it, the custom itself 
 admits, as we shall see, of a different explanation. 
 
 The general idea among the Greeks seems to have 
 been that, after the body had been properly disposed 
 of, the soul, the V'^x^, would join the better ones 
 (/3eA.rtoi;es Kal Kpdrroves). It is supposed that in 
 ancient times the Greeks deposited the remains of the 
 dead in their own houses, near the hearth, which was 
 the primitive altar of the family. Here the memory 
 of the departed was kept alive by various observances. 
 In later times also, when the bodies were deposited 
 outside the town, each family liked to keep its tombs 
 separate, and as a sacred spot for family gatherings. 
 These places were enclosed, marked by monuments, 
 ornamented with trees and flowers, and often covered 
 
FUNEKAL CEREMONIES. 265 
 
 with gifts which by a kind of unreasoning love were 
 intended for the dead. Many of these customs, 
 whether reasonable or unreasonable, were apt to be 
 repeated by others without any clear motive beyond 
 that very common motive of doing what others had 
 done before. After a time they became fixed, and 
 were regarded as proper, as necessary, nay as sacred. 
 These offerings began even at the time of the funeral, 
 and consisted of wine, oil, honey, sometimes of sacri- 
 ficial animals also. 
 
 When the relatives and friends of the departed had 
 returned from the funeral, they were expected to 
 purify themselves, and then, adorned with wreaths, 
 to proceed to a common meal in honour of the dead. 
 While this meal was sometimes considered as given by 
 the departed, the departed himself was honoured with 
 a meal on the third [to, rpira) and on the ninth day 
 [ra hara) after the funeral. After that the proper 
 mourning was supposed to be at an end. Sometimes, 
 however, we hear of eleven days of mourning, and at 
 Athens a funeral meal was celebrated also on the 
 thirtieth day. After that, sacrificial offerings [hayiC^iv) 
 were due to the departed on certain days, such as the 
 thirtieth day of the month, and his birthday. 
 
 On great occasions, when the members of a family 
 were gathered to celebrate the birth of a new child or 
 a wedding or some other joyful event, the souls of the 
 departed were seldom forgotten, particularly those of 
 the Tritopatores, probably the three generations of 
 ancestors who in India also received on joyful occa- 
 sions ^ regular offerings (sraddha), and who represent 
 
 * India, What can it teach its ? p. 374. 
 
266 LECTURE IX. 
 
 the whole body of ancestors, and, in a certain sense, 
 the family heroes and gods. 
 
 There were also certain days set apart on which 
 the souls of all departed had to be honoured or pacified. 
 In Athens this All Souls celebration took place in 
 spring, at the end of the Anthesteria. When it was 
 over, the souls were asked to depart again, with the 
 words : Ovpa^e Krjpes, ovk er ' AvdeaTripLa, ' Away, ye 
 Keres, the Anthesteria are over.' 
 
 In all these customs we must distinguish between 
 their first impulse and their later interpretation. At 
 first the idea of impurity attaching to the house and 
 the relations of the departed, need not have meant 
 more than a wish to be left alone, not to be spoken to, 
 and not to be disturbed. After a time, the awe that 
 was inspired by a death would have caused people to 
 regard the family that was 'in mourning' as sacred 
 for a timC;, possibly as afflicted and disgraced, and 
 thus as impure. This so-called impurity seems, in fact, 
 to be something like the taboo which by other tribes 
 is placed for a time on all the relations of the dead. 
 It is not restricted to the days of mourning, for a family 
 may be placed under the same kind of taboo at the birth 
 of a child also, otherwise one of the most joyful events. 
 In the law-book of VishTiu, 20, this kind of impurity 
 is clearly distinguished from being in mourning. We 
 read : ' As both his good and his bad actions follow a 
 man after his death like companions, what does it profit 
 a man whether his relations mourn for him or not ? 
 But so long as they remain impure, the departed guest 
 finds no rest, and returns to visit his relatives.' 
 
 Again, the mere fact that off*erings were made to 
 the dead near their tombs would impress the popular 
 
FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 267 
 
 mind with the idea that the souls in some form or 
 other were hovering round their tombs ^ The next 
 step would be that the souls were believed to .rejoice 
 in these offerings, and if to rejoice, then actually to eat 
 and to drink what was offered to them. There is no 
 evidence to show that the educated classes in Greece 
 believed that the souls actually devoured the offerings 
 of honey mixed with milk (fi^XiKpriTov) which were 
 poured on the grave, yet the offerings were made, and 
 we can easily understand that it did their hearts good 
 to give up something, whatever it was, for those who 
 had been the object of love and reverence, though 
 they were no longer present in the body. That feel- 
 ing exists to the present day in spite of all so-called 
 enlightenment. 
 
 The Theory of Survivals. 
 
 I know it is the custom to call such things survivals. 
 But that name should, I think, be reserved for cus- 
 toms which have no longer any intelligible object, 
 and can be made intelligible only when traced back 
 to times and circumstances in which their origin can 
 be shown to have been perfectly natural. A survival 
 means what has no longer any life in it, 'tuas sick 
 uberleht hat' There are many customs, however, 
 which may seem to us irrational or unintelligible, but 
 which need not therefore be traced back to the child- 
 hood of the human race. They seem to me to receive 
 a far easier explanation in that never-ceasing child- 
 hood of the human heart, which breaks out in different 
 
 ^ Plato, Phaedo 81, ^vxrj . . . cuavep Xeyerai, ire pi tcL fivqixara t€ Kal 
 rovs rd(povs KvXivhovixivq- irepl a dr) Kal u>(p$r] drra ipvxfxjv CKiundfj 
 (pavTaajxaTa. . . . 
 
268 LECTURE IX. 
 
 strata of our own society as it did thousands of years 
 ago. 
 
 I remember, when Lord Palmerston was buried in 
 Westminster Abbey, a friend, a member of Parlia- 
 ment, was seen to take off some valuable rings and 
 throw them into the grave. Some people called it 
 foolishness, others fondness. It might, no doubt, be 
 called a survival, for the habit of throwing what 
 seemed most precious upon the funeral pile or into 
 the grave, was certainly more common in former times 
 than it is with us. But the true sense in which it 
 may be called a survival ^ is that the same sentiment 
 which prompted the ancients, whether civilised or 
 uncivilised, to give up something to the dead, to 
 make some kind of sacrifice, has survived in our 
 hearts also. There was but a small step from throw- 
 ing a ring into the grave to saying, ' He would have 
 liked it, let him have it, let him enjoy it.' 
 
 There is a similar case, so well known that I 
 suppose it may be mentioned without indiscretion. 
 An eminent English poet insisted on placing the MS. 
 of his own unpublished poems — probably the most 
 valued treasure which he possessed — in his wife's 
 cofiin. We need not try to analyse all his feelings, 
 but we should probably be not very far wrong, if we 
 recognised here too a real survival, that is, a per- 
 manent manifestation of that profound human impulse 
 which prompted the ancient mourners to sacrifice 
 what they valued most, on the funeral pile of their 
 dearest friends. 
 
 ^ See Appendix VII. 
 
FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 269 
 
 Gifts produced a Belief that they would lie used by 
 tlie Dead. 
 
 It is generally said that because among many people 
 the dead were supposed to carry on the work of which 
 they had been most fond in this life, therefore a bow 
 and arrow were placed in the grave of the hunter, a 
 sword and shield were buried with the soldier, and 
 even horses and wives were burnt with the body of 
 their master. Psychologically, I believe, the process 
 was exactly the reverse. Bow and arrow were thrown 
 on the grave because it seemed natural. In India, 
 as we saw, the bow was actually broken. Sword and 
 shield were essential almost to the complete dress of a 
 soldier ; and wives at first were certainly prompted 
 by fondness to follow their husbands into death. 
 But when people were pressed for an answer, what 
 could they say? Some might say, it was all mere 
 foolishness. But the early rationalists would soon 
 discover a reason. What could be the use of the bow 
 and arrow, unless there was in the other world also 
 a hunting-ground? Why waste a valuable sword 
 and shield, unless the departed really wanted them 
 for their defence? And why should a wife wish to 
 be burnt with her husband, if the dead rise not, if 
 there is not another world in which husband and wife 
 will be united again? What seems the effect may 
 here, as in so many cases, have really been the cause. 
 Anyhow, the cause and effect of customs are here as 
 elsewhere inseparably united. Because honey mixed 
 with milk was poured on the graves, the dead were 
 beheved to be fond of milk and honey. The real 
 cause having been forgotten, another was soon sup- 
 plied, just as the old negro woman, when pressed 
 
270 LECTURE IX. 
 
 about the medicine bottles thrown on the tombs of 
 children, replied that people thought they would help 
 the children after their burial. The human heart has 
 many chambers, and we must be on our guard against 
 supposing that we know and can count all its pulses 
 and impulses. 
 
 And what gave rise in every family to these simple 
 gifts of milk and honey offered to their deceased 
 parents, led afterwards to a more elaborate worship 
 of ancestors, and likewise to the worship of national 
 heroes. When we are told that the Lokrians always 
 left a place empty for Ajax Oileus in their battle 
 array, did they believe that this national hero was 
 actually present in the flesh during the fight, that 
 they saw him, touched him, or spoke to him? No 
 doubt there were many who said so, for there are many 
 things that we can say, many things that we can say 
 we believe, many things that we can believe we believe, 
 and which nevertheless are but metaphorical and poeti- 
 cal expressions, and at first not meant to be anything 
 else. And yet this belief soon became a reality, nay 
 more than a reality. The presence of Ajax during 
 the battle was a real presence, nay more than a real 
 presence. Those who held the place of honour as 
 fighting on each side of the half-divine hero, would 
 probably fight with greater bravery than if he him- 
 self had been present. When the excitement of the 
 fight was over, they would declare that they had felt 
 his presence, that they had been inspirited by him, 
 very soon, that they had seen and heard him. And 
 when they celebrated their victory, was it so very 
 strange that they should have poured out the first 
 drops of wine to Ajax, that they should have 
 
FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 271 
 
 expressed their gratitude for his help, or celebrated 
 his valorous deeds in song ? From such thoroughly- 
 natural beginnings arose the worship of heroes, 
 belonging no longer to one family only, or receiving 
 honour from their own descendants only, but claimed 
 as their own by a whole village, or a town, or a state, 
 or, at last, by the whole of Greece. 
 
 We can thus distinguish in Greece four stages in the 
 worship of ancestral spirits, (1) mourning for relatives 
 and friends (Trauer), (2) honour paid to one's own an- 
 cestors [Ahnen-cult), (3) memorial services of national 
 heroes (Heroen-cult), (4) worship paid to departed 
 souls in general (Seelen-cult). 
 
 These four forms of ancestral worship often co-exist, 
 but it is sometimes useful to distinguish between 
 them. 
 
 Funeral Ceremonies in Borne. 
 
 The funeral ceremonies of the Romans have been 
 very carefully studied by classical scholars. The 
 well-known work by Kirchmann, De Funerihus 
 Romanorum, 1672, contains all the evidence most 
 carefully collected, and has formed the chief founda- 
 tion for all subsequent treatises on this subject. 
 
 It seems to have been the custom at Rome, after 
 the dead body had been washed, anointed, and 
 clothed, to keep it for seven days in the vestibule of 
 the house. Possibly this was done to prevent the 
 possibility of a person being buried while in a 
 trance. During that time the house itself and all 
 that belonged to it were considered impure, and 
 passers-by were warned by a cypress tree placed 
 before the door. On the eighth day the corpse was 
 carried out and burnt. Afterwards the remains were 
 
272 LECTURE IX. 
 
 collected, sprinkled with wine and milk, placed in an 
 urn, and deposited in the sepulchre. The relations 
 on reburning home stepped over a fire and were 
 sprinkled with water. 
 
 The departed was now believed to be a kind of 
 divine being, and on the eighth day after the funeral 
 the sacrificiunn novendiale or the feriae denicales 
 were celebrated in his honour. The offering con- 
 sisted in a swine or a sheep, dedicated to Ceres, and 
 was followed by a feast, called the silicerniuvi, during 
 which much was said and sung in honour of the 
 departed, libations were made for him, and incense 
 was burnt. But though the body was burnt, it was 
 always considered essential that some eai-th should 
 be thrown on it. Sometimes, particularly in war^ a 
 single bone was taken and covered with holy earth. 
 No Roman would pass a dead body anywhere without 
 throwing some earth on it. This looks like a survival 
 of the more ancient custom of burying, and it is well 
 known that in certain Eoman families, for instance, 
 in that of the Cornelii, the bodies were not burnt, but 
 buried. It may also contain a remnant of the old feel- 
 ing for the Earth, as the mother of all living beings ^. 
 
 When all had been done that was required (Justa 
 facere), the soul of the departed was supposed to be 
 at rest. It had become one of the Manes. Once every 
 year, on the 19th of February, there was a com- 
 memoration festival, called Feralia or Parentalia, on 
 which certain offerings were made to the Manes. 
 This was called parentare. Similar offerings, how- 
 ever, had to be made on certain days, such as the 
 calendae, nonae, and idus, and other occasions also, 
 
 ^ See Liv. viii. 6, 9, Diis manibus matrique Terrae. 
 
FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 273 
 
 whenever some important event brought the members 
 of a family together, such as the investiture with the 
 toga virilis, the arrival of the bride, &c. We also 
 hear of funeral games at Rome, like those described 
 by Homer at the funeral of Patroklos. In Rome they 
 were chiefly gladiatorial contests, lasting sometimes 
 for several days. Some scholars have seen in these 
 bloody combats survivals of an original human sacri- 
 fice in honour of the dead, but this can hardly be 
 proved. 
 
 The Manes were supposed to dwell in the lower 
 world {rtiundus and orcus), though little is said about 
 their receiving either rewards or punishments. A dis- 
 tinction, however, was made. As kind beings, they 
 were called lai^es ; as unkind, larvae. They were 
 called dii manes also, or simply dii, though they were 
 not supposed to live in company with the great gods. 
 The Romans swore by the Manes as well as by their 
 gods, and how near the Manes were sometimes brought 
 to the gods, we may gather from the scoffing words 
 of Pliny (vii. 56), that ' those who had ceased to be 
 men were worshipped as manes and exalted into 
 gods.' Tertullian also (Apol. 13) inveighs against 
 these superstitions, though from a different point of 
 view : ' What honour do you show to the gods,' he 
 says, * which you do not show to the dead ? What 
 difference is there between a funeral feast and a feast 
 of Jupiter ; between the obha, goblet, with which you 
 sacrifice to the dead, and the sivipuluon used at sacri- 
 fices ; between a pollindor (who washes the corpse) 
 and a hamspexl You employ a haruspex even for 
 the service of the dead.' 
 
 All this shows how near in the thoughts of the 
 
 (8) T 
 
274 LECTUKE IX. 
 
 Romans the dead were to the gods. That this was 
 not a late idea, influenced by Greek thought, we may 
 gather from Cicero, who says (Leg. ii. 22) in so many 
 words, that the days kept sacred for the dead, would 
 not, like the days kept sacred for the gods, have been 
 called feriae, had not our ancestors wished that the 
 departed should be considered as gods. We are told 
 even of a treatise ascribed to Labeo, a Roman lawyer, 
 De diis quibus origo anmialis est (Servius, ad Aen. 
 iii. 168), and these gods who derive their origin from 
 human souls are the lares. Apuleius ('De deo Sacr.' 
 p. 688), who may have known Labeo's work, tells us 
 that ' Every departed spirit is called a lemur. If he 
 abides in the house peaceful and beneficent, and 
 confers security and bliss on his descendants, he is 
 called a lar. If, tormented by the consciousness of 
 his evil deeds, he roams about restlessly, distracting 
 the good and terrifying the bad, he is called larva. 
 If he is indifferent, he is simply counted as one of the 
 manes.' 
 
 There are private and public lares. The former 
 are also called penates. The latter, such as Romulus, 
 Remus, Acca Larentia, &c., come nearest to the Greek 
 heroes. Then there are lares of the town, of the field, 
 of the high roads, and of the sea, to all of whom some 
 kind of worship has to be paid on certain occasions. 
 
 Funeral Ceremonies amongf Savages. 
 
 The funeral ceremonies of Indians, Greeks, and 
 Romans which we have hitherto examined, though 
 they are old, do not claim to be considered as the 
 customs of primitive men. They cannot even be con- 
 sidered as primitive, in the sense in which I some- 
 
FUNEEAL CEREMONIES. 275 
 
 times use that word, namely as requiring no antece- 
 dent, and as being perfectly natural and intelligible. 
 There are features in all these ceremonies which are 
 no longer quite intelligible, and the origin of which 
 can only be discovered by conjecture, sometimes not 
 even by that. How the so-called primitive savages 
 disposed of their dead, we shall never know. There 
 has been considerable discussion whether cremation 
 or interment was the more primitive form of burial. 
 By those who believe that modern savages represent 
 to us the customs of primitive humanity, an appeal 
 has been made to the lowest of savages, such as the 
 Australians, and whatever their mode of burial is, 
 has been supposed to have been the first and most 
 natural. 
 
 I have taken some pains to examine the accounts 
 which eye-witnesses have given us of the manner in 
 which the Australians disposed of their dead. This 
 evidence, however, so far as I can judge, leaves the 
 question as to the priority of cremation or burial 
 quite undecided. There is hardly any kind of burial 
 that is not practised by the Australians. They inter, 
 but they also cremate^. They take little trouble 
 about the corpses of women and children, but men 
 are interred with a good deal of ceremony. The corpse 
 is firmly tied together, enveloped in a rug or in strips 
 of bark, and placed in soft ground or sand, at the 
 depth of three or four feet. Above the grave a mound, 
 generally a foot or two high, but sometimes rising to 
 five feet, is erected and covered with logs to prevent 
 wild dogs from disturbing the corpse. Some tribes 
 erect a hut over the grave. Not unfrequently some 
 1 Carr, 1. c, p. 87. 
 
 T2 
 
276 LECTURE IX. 
 
 trees close at hand are marked with rude cuttings 
 in memory of the deceased, and curved paths made 
 round the grave, which is visited from time to time 
 and kept in order for several years. 
 
 When the corpse is burnt, the few bones which 
 remain are likewise deposited in the earth. But that 
 is not all. Some Australian tribes make a sort of 
 mummy of a dead body by drying it before the fire. 
 Others, again, erect a stage either on posts or among 
 the branches of trees, and there leave the corpse, 
 between sheets of bark, until the flesh has decayed. 
 The bones are then cleaned, made into a parcel, and 
 carried about for many months, till at last they are 
 either dropped into a hollow tree or interred. 
 
 Among the most savage tribes the flesh of the 
 deceased is cut off the bones, the skulls are used as 
 drinking vessels, and in some cases the dead are 
 actually eaten by the aborigines of Australia. 
 
 What then is the most primitive form of burial ? 
 Is it the devouring of the dead bodies ? I doubt it ; 
 for I feel convinced that what are called the lowest 
 savages, are quite as often the result of centuries 
 of corruption and degeneracy as the survivals of a 
 primitive and unadulterated state of human life on 
 earth. 
 
 Polynesian Funerals. 
 
 Among the Polynesians also, who stand no doubt 
 on a higher level among savages than the Australians, 
 we find nothing that seems more primitive than the 
 funeral customs of Hindus, Greeks, and Romans. 
 
 The Rev. W. Wyatt Gill, to whom we owe so much 
 of really trustworthy information about the Poly- 
 
FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 277 
 
 nesianSj has lately given us the following description 
 of a funeral in Mangaia (Hervey Islands) ^ : — 
 
 ' The bodies of deceased friends were anointed with 
 scented oil, carefully wrapped up in a number of 
 pieces of cloth, and the same day committed to their 
 last resting-place. A few were buried in the earth 
 within the sacred precincts of the appropriate Triarae ; 
 but by far the greater number were hidden in caves 
 regarded as the special property of certain families. 
 
 'If a body were buried in the earth, the face was 
 invariably laid downwards^ chin and knees meeting, 
 and the limbs well secured with strongest sinnet cord. 
 A thin covering of earth was laid over the corpse, and 
 large heavy stones piled over the grave. The inten- 
 tion was to render it impossible for the dead to rise 
 up and injure the living ! The head of the buried 
 corpse was always turned to the rising sun, in accord- 
 ance with their ancient solar worship. 
 
 ' It was customary to bury with the dead some 
 article of value — a female would have a cloth-mallet 
 laid by her side ; whilst her husband would enjoin 
 his friends to bury with him a favourite stone adze, 
 or a beautiful white shell (Ovula ovum, Linn.) worn 
 by him in the dance. Such articles were never 
 touched afterwards by the living. 
 
 ' Numbers were buried in caves easily accessible, to 
 enable the relatives to visit the remains of the dearly- 
 loved lost ones from time to time. The corpse was 
 occasionally exposed to the sun, re-anointed with oil, 
 and then wrapped in fresh tikoru (white native cloth). 
 
 The dead were never disembowelled for the purpose 
 
 ^ Transactions of the Australian Association for the Advancement of Science, 
 Melbourne Meeting, 1890, p. 343. 
 
278 LECTURE IX. 
 
 of embalming. The corpse was simply desiccated, and 
 daily anointed with cocoa-nut oil. A month would 
 suffice for this. 
 
 ' Warriors were in general carefully hidden by their 
 surviving friends, through fear of their being dis- 
 interred and burnt in revenge. 
 
 ' The people of the entire district where the deceased 
 lived take up " taro " and prepare a feast in honour 
 of the dead. A grand interchange of presents is usual 
 on these occasions ; but. excepting the near relatives 
 of the deceased, no one is really the worse for it_, as 
 it is etiquette to see that distant relatives get back 
 similar articles to what they brought. 
 
 ' Whatever is laid upon the corpse is buried with it 
 and no further notice taken of it ; but whatever is 
 placed by the side, without touching it, is repaid. 
 
 ' The moment the sick died, the bodies of near re- 
 latives were cut with sharks' teeth, so that the blood 
 might stream down the bodies ; their faces were 
 blackened, and the hair cut off. At Rarotonga it was 
 usual to knock out some of the front teeth in token 
 of sorrow. Everywhere the moment of death was 
 the signal for the death-wail to commence. The most 
 affecting things are said on such occasions, but always 
 in a set form, commencing thus : — 
 
 ^^ Aue tou e! Aue ! Aue ! 
 Alas for us ! Alas ! Alas ! " &c. 
 
 The wailers usually lose their voices for several days, 
 and their eyes are frightfully swollen with crying. 
 
 ' As soon as the corpse was committed to its last 
 resting-place, the mourners selected five old cocoa- 
 nuts, which were successively opened, and the water 
 poured out upon the ground. These nuts were then 
 
FUNEKAL CEEEMONIES. 279 
 
 wrapped up in leaves and native cloth, and thrown 
 towards the grave ; or, if the corpse were let down 
 with cords into the deep chasm of '' Auraka," the nuts 
 and other food would be successively thrown down 
 upon it. Calling loudly each time the name of the 
 departed, they said, " Here is thy food ; eat it." 
 When the fifth nut and the accompanying " raroi," 
 or pudding, were thrown down, the mourners said, 
 " Farewell ! we come back no more to thee." 
 
 ' A death in the family is the signal for a change of 
 names amongst the near relatives of the deceased. 
 
 ' Chiefs and priests occasionally received the honour 
 of a " spirit-burial," the corpse being borne to the most 
 renowned rtiarae of his tribe on the island, and 
 allowed to remain within the sacred enclosure for 
 some hourS) but the same day hidden away in the 
 tribal cave. In such cases the depositing of the body 
 in the marae was '^ the burial," or the committal of 
 the spirit to the care of the god worshipped in life, 
 whilst the letting down of the corpse into the deep 
 chasm was designated " the throwing away of the 
 bones " {tiringa ivi), the well- wrapped -up body being 
 regarded as a mere bundle of bones after the exit of 
 the spirit. 
 
 ' In the olden times, relatives of the deceased wore 
 only " pakoko," or native-cloth, dyed red in the sap 
 of the candle-nut tree, and then dipped in the black 
 mud of a taro-patch. The very offensive smell of this 
 mourning garment was symbolical of the putrescent 
 state of the dead. Their heads were encircled with 
 chaplets of mountain fern, singed with fire to give it 
 a red appearance. 
 
 *The eva, or dii'ge, and the mourning dance sue- 
 
280 LECTUKE TX. 
 
 ceeded. Of this dirge, four varieties are known. 
 They invariably took place by day, occupying from 
 ten to fifteen days, according to the rank of the 
 deceased. Sometimes a " death-talk " was preferred, 
 consisting of sixty songs in honour of the dead, 
 mournfully chanted at night in a large house built 
 for the purpose, and well lighted with torches. Each 
 adult male relative recited a song. A feast was the 
 inevitable finale. 
 
 ' Each island of the Hervey Group had some variety 
 of custom in relation to the dead. Perhaps the chiefs 
 of Atiu were the most outrageous in mourning. I 
 knew one to mourn for seven years for an only child 
 (a woman), living all that time in a hut in the vicinity 
 of the grave, and allowing his hair and nails to grow, 
 and his body to remain unwashed. This was the 
 wonder of all the islanders. In general, all mourning 
 ceremonies were over in a year.' 
 
 It seems to me that in spite of some savage in- 
 gredients, these funeral customs of Australians and 
 Polynesians difier but little from those of the civil- 
 ised nations of the ancient world. Those of the 
 Polynesians, in particular, are full of indications of 
 deep sentiment and even of exalted thoughts about 
 death and life after death. In fact, when brought 
 face to face with the great problems of life and death, 
 when welcoming the rising of a new life at birth, or 
 standing by the grave of a beloved child, men difier 
 far less than we imagine. They all have tears of joy 
 and tears of sorrow, and in the end there is for all of 
 them the same silence. 
 
LECTURE X. 
 
 WHAT WAS THOUGHT ABOUT THE DEPARTED. 
 The Soul minus the Body. 
 
 WE saw in a former Lecture how the name and 
 concept of soul arose. It was a perfectly 
 simple process ; what may almost be called a mere 
 process of subtraction. There was man, a living 
 body, acting, feeling, perceiving, thinking, and speak- 
 ing. Suddenly, after receiving one blow with a club, 
 that living body collapses, dies, putrefies, falls to dust. 
 The body, therefore, is seen to be destroyed. But 
 there is nothing to prove that the agent within that 
 body, who felt, who perceived, who thought and 
 spoke, had likewise been destroyed, had died, putre- 
 fied, and fallen to dust. Hence the very natural 
 conclusion that, though that agent had departed, it 
 continued to exist somewhere, even though there was 
 no evidence to show how it existed and where it 
 existed. 
 
 Continuance of Feeling^s towards the Dead. 
 
 We next examined the different ways in which 
 some of the principal nations of antiquity treated the 
 dead bodies of their friends, and we could clearly 
 
282 LECTURE X. 
 
 perceive that they were all suggested by feelings of 
 either love or fear, not directed towards the material 
 remains which had either been destroyed by fire or 
 hidden in the earth, but directed towards something 
 else which they called the souls, or the spirits, or the 
 shades. 
 
 If a father had been loved and revered while living 
 among his children, it would have been against all the 
 tendencies of the human heart, if those sentiments had 
 suddenly ceased at death. And if an enemy had died 
 or had actually been killed, it seemed by no means 
 unnatural that feelings of hatred and fear should be 
 entertained against him, even after his death. 
 
 However, whether it was due to the fact that among 
 uncivilised races the sentiment of love was less preva- 
 lent, or whether the terrible appearances which often 
 accompanied death told on the survivors, certain it is 
 that in ancient times the feelings towards the 
 departed consisted more largely of fear or awe than 
 of tenderness and love. 
 
 The Zulus, however, when giving an account of 
 their ancestral worship to Bishop Callaway, laid great 
 stress on their feelings of love and gratitude towards 
 the deceased. Their father whom they knew is the 
 head by whom they begin and end in their prayer, for 
 they know him best, and his love for his children ; 
 they remember his kindness to them whilst he was 
 living ; they compare his treatment of them whilst he 
 was living, support themselves by it, and say : ' he 
 will still treat us in the same way now he is dead.' 
 
 It was this feeling of love that led to a continuance 
 of acts of kindness towards the departed. Not only 
 was their body carefully disposed of^ but their memory 
 
WHAT WAS THOUGHT ABOUT THE DEPAETED. 283 
 
 was cherished, and at the ordinary meals of the family 
 and at festive gatherings some share of food and drink 
 was often thrown into the fire of the hearth, as a gift 
 to them. This led to what I believe to have been a 
 subsequent belief, namely, that, in some way or other, 
 the souls were really able to enjoy these gifts, nay, 
 that they had a right to them, and would resent their 
 withdrawal. 
 
 The feelings of fear would dictate almost the same 
 acts, though the motive would be rather a wish to 
 propitiate than a desire to benefit the departed. The 
 thought that the souls of the dead had the power of 
 injuring the survivors seems to have been very com- 
 mon, and the great attention paid to a proper disposal 
 of the dead bodies, was due in no small degree to a 
 desire to pacify the departed spirits, and to give them 
 what was considered their due [ra vofjufjia). 
 
 I hardly think, however, that, as has lately been 
 suggested, we can ascribe the wide-spread custom of 
 burning the dead, to an apprehension lest, if only 
 buried, their ghosts might return. There are many 
 much more natural motives that would have suggested 
 cremation rather than burial. Nor do I know of any 
 evidence that people who burnt the dead bodies 
 thought that they were safe thereby against the 
 mischievous power of the ghosts of the departed, or 
 that they were freed from the obligation of honouring 
 and appeasing the ancestral spirits by commemorations 
 and sacrificial ofierings. 
 
 The Oerms of Ancestral Beligiou. 
 
 Two results would almost inevitably follow. The 
 honours paid to the dead at the time of the funeral, 
 
284 LECTURE X. 
 
 would assume a solemn and sacred character, and their 
 continuance at certain times and seasons would become 
 part and parcel of the religious life of the people. 
 Secondly, the souls themselves, to whom these honours 
 were paid, would soon assume a more and more exalted 
 character, and occupy in the minds of their w^or ship- 
 pers a place second only to that which had been 
 assigned to the gods. 
 
 This process would naturally assume different forms 
 among different people, but its general character would 
 be the same. A second religion would arise, a second 
 class of no longer human, and soon of half- divine 
 beings would be believed in, and the powers ascribed 
 to them and the worship paid to them would become 
 almost, if not entirely, identical with those of the gods. 
 
 Tlie First Ancestor. 
 
 It has been asserted that in some cases this worship 
 of the departed formed all that can be called religion 
 among certain tribes. Religion has sometimes been 
 called a retrogressio in infinitum, and by a very 
 simple retrogressio in infinitum certain tribes were 
 supposed to have argued that as they had known 
 a father, a grandfather, and a great-grandfather, 
 there must have been earlier fathers, and fathers 
 of fathers, all to be honoured and to be feared, 
 all in their way powerful, able to punish and able 
 to reward, till at last human reason wanted a rest, 
 and postulated at the beginning of all things one 
 father, the father of all fathers, and, very soon, the 
 maker of all things. You see that this process of 
 reasoning is perfectly natural, however startling its 
 result may seem to us. When a missionary tells us 
 
WHAT WAS THOUGHT ABOUT THE DEPAKTED. 285 
 
 for the first time that a savage believes that the world 
 was made by his grandfather, we find it difficult to 
 believe such a statement. Nevertheless the train of 
 thought that leads from a real father to a father of all 
 fathers, is not so very different from that which leads 
 our own minds from the conception of one cause to 
 the conception of a cause of all causes. The Zulus, for 
 instance, believe in Unkulunkulu, the great-grand- 
 father, and this great-grandfather is regarded by some 
 of the Zulu tribes as the creator and ruler of the world. 
 \ 
 
 We^e there Races without Physical Beligriou ? 
 
 Some students assure us that there are races whose 
 religion consists entirely of ancestral worship. This 
 question, whether there are and whether there have 
 been races whose whole religion consists in worship 
 of ancestors, can only be solved by a careful examina- 
 tion of those very troublesome accounts of travellers 
 of which I had to speak before. As far as my own 
 studies go, I have not succeeded in discovering one 
 single race believing in ancestral souls only, and not 
 in gods. Among civilised and literary nations, whose 
 history must always form the starting-point and the 
 foundation of any truly scientific research, there is no 
 trace of such a state of things. That does not prove 
 its entire impossibility, by no means. But it will 
 certainly make the true historian very careful, before 
 he draws his general conclusions from the fragmentary 
 accounts of travellers among Zulus and Australians, 
 rather than from the sacred literature of the great 
 nations of the world. 
 
286 LECTURE X. 
 
 Are there Baces whose Religion is exclusively Ancestor- 
 worship ? 
 
 I have been looking out for many years, wherever 
 there was any likelihood of meeting with a religion 
 that consisted entirely of ancestor- worship. There is 
 no d priori reason why races should not exist now 
 who, even in the eyes of careful observers, might 
 seem to worship nothing but their ancestors. Even 
 where a worship of nature-gods existed, it is quite 
 possible that it might have vanished and have been 
 superseded by a worship of ancestral spirits. 
 
 Religion of Zulus. 
 
 The best-known of the races who were formerly 
 considered as having no religion except ancestor- 
 worship are the Zulus, and the other so-called Bantu 
 tribes of South Africa. I do not wonder that this 
 mistake should have arisen. These tribes are migra- 
 tory, they are not held together by a common priest- 
 hood, and, like most savages, they are very unwilling 
 to allow themselves to be examined on religious 
 topics. It was quite natural therefore that some 
 missionaries, when they were told that these Kafirs 
 worshipped Unkulunkulu, the great-grandfather, 
 should have stated that the whole religion of these 
 natives consisted in worship of grandfathers and an- 
 cestors. When at a later time some missionaries, 
 such as Dr. Colenso or Dr. Callaway, acquired a more 
 accurate knowledge of the dialects spoken by the 
 Bantu tribes, and were able to carry on rational dis- 
 cussions with some old chiefs and priests, they were 
 able to give a much better account. But they also 
 
WHAT WAS THOUGHT ABOUT THE DEPARTED. 287 
 
 were under the impression for a long time that the 
 Zulu religion was exclusively ancestral. 
 
 We owe the best description of the Zulu religion 
 to Bishop Callaway, in his Religious /System of the 
 Amazulus, a book which certainly leaves us under 
 the impression that, at present, the Zulu religion 
 consists almost exclusively of worship of ancestors. 
 Their ancestral spirits are called Aonatongo ^, and at 
 their head stands Unkulunkulu. 
 
 This Unkulunkulu, their great primal ancestor, has 
 come to be regarded as the Creator, though other 
 authorities deny that the Zulus have any idea of crea- 
 tion. The Rev. J. Macdonald ^, for instance, assures us 
 that ' they hold that the earth and the heavenly bodies 
 have always been as we see them now, and that they 
 will thus always continue, unless some terrestrial 
 catastrophe should set the whole on fire, or, in some 
 other way, disperse everything.' But even when 
 Unkulunkulu is regarded as the Creator, he is not 
 exactly an object of worship, awe, or reverence with 
 the Zulus. He is often supposed to have given place 
 to newer men of more recent times. The great objects 
 of fear and reverence to which they pray and sacri- 
 fice are the spirits of dead ancestors for the last few 
 generations. 
 
 'Ancestor- worship,' as the same intelligent observer, 
 the Rev. J. Macdonald, remarks^, 'is not only pro- 
 fessed by them, but they actually regulate their 
 conduct by it. If a man has a narrow escape from 
 accident and death, he says, " My father's soul saved 
 
 ^ Amatongo is the plural of itongo. 
 
 ^ Journal of the Anthropol, Institute, Nov. 1890, p. 128. 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 122. 
 
288 LECTUKE X. 
 
 me," and lie offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving accord- 
 ingly. In cases of sickness, propitiatory sacrifices are 
 offered to remove the displeasure of the ancestors, 
 and secure a return of their favour. Should any one 
 neglect a national custom in the conduct of his affairs, 
 he must offer sacrifice to avert calamity as the con- 
 sequence of his neglect. When offering propitiatory 
 sacrifices, the form of prayer used by the priest is: 
 " Ye who are above, accept our offering and remove 
 our trouble." In free-v^ill offerings, as in escape from 
 danger or at the ripening of crops, the prayer takes 
 the following form : " Ye who are above, accept the 
 food we have provided for you ; smell our offering 
 now burning, and grant us prosperity and peace." ' 
 
 Many missionaries who did not consider that 
 ancestor-worship could be considered as religion, 
 declared in consequence that the South African tribes 
 had no religion at all, and no belief in God. Even 
 Dr. Callaway, though fully aware of the religious 
 character of ancestral worship, seems to have been 
 doubtful for a time whether the Bantu tribes had 
 any knowledge of divine beings, apart from their 
 ancestral spirits. 
 
 AU observers^, however, agree now that these 
 tribes believe in other spirits also, besides those of 
 men. They speak of water or river spirits, whom 
 they describe as dwarfs or fairies. These are called 
 Incanti, and are always mischievous. 
 
 They have also a number of superstitions about 
 
 thunder, lightning, rain, the rainbow, eclipses of sun 
 
 and moon, and other physical phenomena. But all 
 
 this would not yet prove that they believed in any 
 
 ^ Macdonald, 1. c, p. 124. 
 
WHAT WAS THOUGHT ABOUT THE DEPARTED. 289 
 
 of the gods of physical religion, or in a Supreme 
 Being above the ancestral spirits. 
 
 However, in his last paper, ' On the Religious 
 Sentiment amongst the Tribes of South Africa,' Dr. 
 Callaway reports the statement made to him by an 
 intelligent Gqika chief. ' We used not to say,' he 
 told the bishop, ' Utikxo for God, but Ukqar)iata. 
 When men feared anything they used to say, "May 
 Ukqamata help us." ' ' Here then,' the bishop writes, 
 ' we have hidden in the language of the people a word 
 which shows that long ago, before the word Utikxo 
 was introduced amongst them for God, they had a 
 name representative to them of the Supreme — a being 
 not like Unkulunkula amongst the Zulus, who is 
 sometimes represented as having begun, died, and 
 passed away ; but one who is seen now with them, 
 and to whom they constantly appeal in time of 
 necessity, much in the same way as the devout 
 amongst ourselves appeal to God.' 
 
 Other people whom the bishop asked, told him that 
 Ukqamata is a living spirit, but that they knew not 
 where it dwells ; and if asked where it dwells, they 
 would answer, 'It goes beside me, and yet I see it 
 not.' And they said, ' Spirits go out of men to go 
 to Ukqamata, to the place where they dwell with 
 him. The corpse does not go to Ukqamata, it is the 
 spirit only which goes to him ; the corpse remains 
 in the earth.' 
 
 Dr. Callaway then continues : ' I have been long 
 aware that apparently apart from, above, and beyond 
 their mere ancestral worship, . . . the Kafir races . . . 
 universally speak of a Great Itongo, and appeal to it, 
 pretty much in the same way as these frontier Kafir 
 
 (3) U 
 
290 LECTURE X. 
 
 tribes are said to appeal to Ukqamata.' The bishop 
 also states that the Kafirs seem quite aware that the 
 various names applied to the Supreme Spirit are but 
 various names of the same Being. They admitted 
 that they had borrowed Utikxo as the name of the 
 Supreme Spirit from their neighbours, the Hottentots. 
 In spite of much confusion in these statements, one 
 thing is clear, that the Kafir races of South Africa 
 are not exclusively worshippers of ancestral spirits, 
 but that they recognise or remember a Supreme Spirit, 
 standing above their ancestors, and exercising a per- 
 sonal power over nature ^. 
 
 Belisrion of the IfTiassaus. 
 
 Another race which quite recently revived my 
 hopes of finding a religion consisting exclusively of 
 ancestor-worship are the Niassans. An interesting 
 description of the religion of the Niassans was 
 published lately by Kramer in the Tijdschrift vor 
 Indische Taal-, Land-, en Volkenkunde, deel xxxii, 
 1890. 
 
 These Niassans, who live in a solitary island 
 west of Sumatra, have more than a hundred idols. 
 Formerly they had less, now they go on adding to 
 their number. Priests and priestesses make a living 
 by serving these idols. 
 
 Their really important and permanent idols are the 
 images of ancestors and house-idols. The ancestors 
 are represented as human figures, about six to eight 
 inches high, and carefully carved. Poor people, how- 
 
 ^ Callaway, Bdigious System of the Amazulus, p. 117, ' The Lord of 
 Heaven.' 
 
WHAT WAS THOUGHT ABOUT THE DEPARTED. 291 
 
 ever, have to be satisfied with a piece of wood, with 
 holes for eyes and mouth. 
 
 The house-idols are in the shape of children, and 
 in the houses of rich chiefs these also are carefully- 
 executed. 
 
 After a man has been buried, the priest covers his 
 grave with a mat, and seeks till he find a six-legged 
 spider under it. That is taken as the soul of the 
 departed, deposited in a reed, and placed by the side 
 of the image. 
 
 Such images, however, are made of those only who 
 have left male descendants. They occasionally borrow 
 them from one another. 
 
 TheNiassans expect all blessings from their ancestors, 
 who likewise protect them against all dangers. But 
 for that purpose it is necessary that they should 
 receive constant ofierings. No event of any importance 
 takes place without some communication being made 
 or some honour shown to the ancestral images. On 
 some occasions their names have to be repeated. In 
 fact their whole life seems to be under the sway of 
 their ancestors. It is true they believe in evil spirits 
 also (Bechus), and even in a devil (Bela). But these 
 might be traced back to a belief in hostile ancestors, 
 or ancestors of hostile tribes. At all events, they 
 would not prove the existence of anything like a be- 
 lief in nature-gods. What are called their hazimas 
 (p. 492), and what many people would call fetishes, are 
 really nothing but amulets, stones, teeth, pieces of 
 lead, &c., which they wear as a protection against 
 evil spirits. They are often supposed to have fallen 
 from the sky, to have been the head of a serpent, or 
 to consist of condensed stormwind. 
 
 Ua 
 
292 . LECTUBE X. 
 
 However, within and above all this chaos of ances- 
 tral spirits, ghosts, and fetishes, there suddenly appears 
 our old friend, the sun. Yes, solar worship even 
 among the Niassans ! The owner, the lord and master 
 of all men is Lature, and he dwells in the sun. As we 
 are the possessors of our pigs, the Niassans say, Lature 
 is the possessor of all men. Nay, they are proud to 
 call themselves the pigs of the sun. Sacrifices are 
 offered to the sun-god that he may grant a long life 
 to his pigs. 
 
 But though we look in vain for a religion consisting 
 of ancestor-worship only, we often find that in the 
 same religion the worship of ancestral spirits and 
 the worship of the gods of nature exist side by side, 
 and, what is important, we find that they are never 
 confounded, but kept carefully distinct even in the 
 terminology that is applied to them (pp. 478, 490). 
 
 Worship of Gods and Worship of Ancestors kept distinct. 
 
 Professor Ch. de la Saussaye, in his . Manual of the 
 Science of Religion (p. 113), has pointed out that in 
 Greece, for instance, ' other names are applied to the 
 altars, sacrifices, and offerings connected with the dead 
 than those used in the worship of the Olympian gods. 
 The altar is called iaxapa, not j^o^xos ; the offering of 
 the sacrifice kvayiC^iv, kvriixveiv, not dv€iv ; the libations 
 themselves x^ac, not a-novhaC This is the rule, but 
 there are exceptions. 
 
 Dr. Rohde also, in his Psyche, p. 140, remarks that 
 ' the Greeks sacrificed to the gods by day, to the heroes 
 in the evening or by night, not on high altars, but on 
 a low sacrificial hearth, which was close to the ground, 
 
WHAT WAS THOUGHT ABOUT THE DEPAKTED. 293 
 
 and sometimes hollow. Black-coloured animals of the 
 male sex were killed for them, and their heads were 
 not, as in the case of victims intended for the gods, 
 turned towards the sky, but pressed down to the 
 ground. The blood was allowed to run on the ground 
 or on the sacrificial hearth, as a blood-feast (alfiaKovpCa) 
 to the heroes ; their body was burnt entire, so that no 
 man might eat of it. Sometimes cooked viands were 
 offered to the heroes, and they were invited to partake 
 of them.' 
 
 Much the same applies to Sanskrit. When ofterings 
 are made to the gods, the Brahmanic thread has to 
 hang from the left shoulder, under the right arm 
 (upavitin). When the offering is intended for the 
 departed spirits, the same thread has to be hung on 
 the right shoulder, and under the left arm (praMna- 
 vitin) 1. 
 
 The departed spirits are called Pitns, fathers, the 
 gods, Devas, the bright. 
 
 The exclamation used in sacrificing to the gods is 
 svaha ; in sacrifices to the departed it is svadha. 
 
 This shows among two nations, so widely separated 
 as Greeks and Hindus, but whose language is known 
 to us accurately, a clear recollection of the different 
 meaning with which from the very first, gods and 
 ancestors were worshipped by the Aryas. 
 
 Let us now see more in detail what some of the 
 Aryan nations thought on this subject, and what place 
 in their religion they assigned respectively to the wor- 
 ship of the gods and to the worship of ancestral 
 spirits. 
 
 ' Apastamba Paribhasha-sutras, Sutras 58 and 59 ; Zeitschri/t der 
 D. M. Q. 1850, p. Iv. 
 
294 LECTURE X. 
 
 It is easy to see that when we speak of worship of 
 ancestors and worship of gods, the meaning of worship 
 must be different according to the different nature of 
 those to whom it is addressed. The worship of the 
 dead began with acts of kindness shown to the 
 departed from the day of their death to the day of 
 their funeral ; the worship of gods was inspired by a 
 feeling of awe, and arose from a sense of what was 
 due to higher powers. In the end these two kinds of 
 worship may have become almost identical, but in 
 their first motives they stand wide apart. 
 
 Before we proceed further, however, we must 
 first try to find out by what process of reasoning, or, 
 it may be, unreasoning, people came to believe any- 
 thing about the dead beyond their mere existence. 
 The fact of their existence, as we saw, was proved, if 
 it required any proof at all, by an argument as irre- 
 sistible to-day as it was thousands of years ago. In the 
 absence of all proof to the contrary, the agent in man 
 was believed to exist on the same ground on which 
 the agents in nature were believed to exist. There 
 can be no action without an agent. Agni, the agent 
 of fii'e, was not believed to be destroyed and anni- 
 hilated, although the individual fire in which he 
 appeared might be extinguished. And the soul, the 
 agent in man, could not be believed to be destroyed 
 and annihilated, although the individual body in 
 which it appeared had fallen to dust and ashes. 
 
 But the human mind, and more especially the human 
 heart, is not satisfied with this general belief in the 
 mere existence of souls. It wants to know, what it 
 cannot possibly know, where and how the soul exists 
 after the body has left it, or rather, after it has left the 
 
WHAT WAS THOUGHT ABOUT THE DEPARTED. 295 
 
 body. Here we enter into the domain of mythology 
 as different from that of religion. A study of the 
 imaginations of ancient people with regard to the 
 state of the soul after death may be useful for a know- 
 ledge of the character of different nations, possibly for 
 a knowledge of human character in general. But it 
 can no longer influence our own convictions. What 
 Plato says in support of his belief in one God ' who 
 holds in His hands the beginning, middle, and end of 
 all that is, and moves according to His nature in a 
 straight line,' is said for us quite as much as for the 
 ancient Greeks, and even the name of Zeus, if we but 
 know its true meaning, need not offend us. But 
 the mythological stories told of Zeus and the other 
 Olympian gods, are nothing to us. They were very 
 little even to Plato. 
 
 It is the same with the mythology concerning the 
 souls of the departed. That these souls exist is as true 
 for us as it was for Plato. But where they exist and 
 how they exist is a question the various answers to 
 which may form an important subject of study to the 
 historian, but can hardly, if at all, influence our own 
 conviction that here, as in so many other things, 
 we must learn to wait, and for a while to remain 
 ignorant. 
 
 Such ignorance, however, was difficult to brook, and 
 we find, I believe, among all nations some attempts, 
 however futile, at lifting the veil and catching a few 
 glimpses of the life of the souls after death. 
 
 Where do the Departed exist? 
 
 With people who bum their dead, there can be 
 little doubt that the body, as such, has come to an 
 
296 LECTURE X. 
 
 end, when there is nothing left of it but dust and 
 ashes. Their views about the abode of the departed 
 souls are therefore generally less coarse and material 
 than the views of people who bury their dead near 
 their own abodes, sometimes beneath their own 
 houses ; or of the Egyptians and other races who 
 mummify the bodies and keep them daily before their 
 eyes. 
 
 When the Greeks say that the likenesses of men, 
 the eidola, mere shadows^ went to the realm of Hades, 
 we have only to restore the meaning of Hades, namely 
 Aides, the Invisible, and we could ourselves use their 
 language, that the likenesses of the departed go to the 
 realm of the Invisible. It is only a more poetical 
 expression for what we express in more homely 
 terms, when we say that the soul has departed and 
 has become invisible. You know, however, how very 
 soon this invisible world, this house of the Invisible, 
 becomes a Hades, with terrible rivers to be crossed in 
 Charon's boat ^ ; with a three-headed watch-dog, with 
 judges judging the souls, and punishments and tor- 
 tures inflicted on the wicked. 
 
 All this is mythology, and cannot affect us. 
 
 With people who buried their dead new ideas 
 sprang up, as we see, for instance, among the Jews, 
 who placed the abode of the dead below the earth. 
 Their Sheol was indeed a lower world, and the same 
 idea gained ground among other nations also. So 
 long as the souls of the departed were supposed to 
 exist in a place separated from the seats of the 
 gods, they were naturally considered as Inferi, living 
 
 ^ Charon, and the obolos to be put into the mouth of the departed, 
 are later. See Hermann, Griechische PrivaMterthumer, p. 368. 
 
WHAT WAS THOUGHT ABOUT THE DEPARTED. 297 
 
 below, in opposition to Superi, the gods, living 
 above. From this simple distinction have sprung 
 in time all the horrors of the infernal regions, which 
 are supposed to have influenced the lives of men 
 more powerfully than any other article of religious 
 faith. 
 
 Before this definite localisation of the departed 
 took place, we find another very general impression 
 prevailing among civilised and uncivilised nations, 
 that the departed went to the West. The Hervey 
 islanders believed that when a man died his spirit 
 returned to AvaiJci, the original home of their an- 
 cestors in the region of sunset. Sometimes this 
 region is called te-po, the night, i. e. the place where 
 the sun hides itself at night, or, in other words, the 
 West. Dr. William Wyatt Gill ^ thinks that this is 
 due to the fact that the Eastern Polynesians came 
 originally from the West, from Avaiki ( = Hawaiki, 
 Hawai'i, Savaiki, Savai'i, all forms of the same name). 
 This may be so. But Avaiki is conceived also as a 
 vast hollow beneath the earth. In it there are many 
 regions, bearing separate names, but all to be regarded 
 as parts of spirit-land. And in this sense Avaiki is 
 clearly the West, as the land of departed spirits. 
 
 It required but little poetical imagination to speak 
 of the sun as dying every day and vanishing in the 
 west, and no expression seemed more natural than 
 to speak of man's day having closed, of his life 
 having set, of his soul following the path of the sun 
 to the abode of the Blessed. The sun was even con- 
 ceived as the first who found the way to a realm 
 
 ^ Transactions of the Australian Association for the Advancement of 
 Science, Melbourne, 1890, p. 636. 
 
298 LECTURE X. 
 
 beyond, and under various names he soon assumed the 
 character of the Lord of the Departed, and then, by a 
 natural reaction, was claimed as a man, as the first of 
 men who had lived and died \ Sometimes, however, 
 as in the Veda, that realm of Yama, the first of the 
 departed, and the PitWs, the Fathers, is placed in 
 the highest heaven, an expression which almost 
 ceases to be local, and assumes something of an 
 ethical character. 
 
 Nor is this more exalted view as to the abode of 
 the departed confined to civilised races. Though the 
 Zulus, for instance, localise some of their spirits in 
 caverns, on the roofs of houses, and other places, yet 
 their general idea seems to be that at death the spirit 
 goes upwards to the spirit-land. This is best shown by 
 their own usual form of prayer, which is : ' Ye who 
 are above, ye who have gone before ^.' 
 
 So much with regard to the ideas as to where the 
 departed existed after death. 
 
 How do tlie Departed exist? 
 
 The answer to the question how they existed was 
 suggested, in the first place, by moral sentiments. 
 We know of several nations who, though they be- 
 lieved in the existence of the departed after death, did 
 not believe that they were liable to punishments or 
 rewards for what they had done in this life. 
 
 Belief in Punislmients and Rewards. 
 
 But suppose a crime had been discovered after the 
 death of the man who had committed it, how could 
 
 1 Rv. X. 14, 2 ; Ath. XVIII. 3, 13. Kaegi, pp. 69, 159. 
 ^ Macdonald, 1. c, p. 121. 
 
WHAT WAS THOUGHT ABOUT THE DEPARTED. 299 
 
 the thought be suppressed that he would be punished 
 in the next world? And if people stood at the 
 funeral pile of a father or a mother or a friend whose 
 kindness they had not been able to requite during life, 
 what was more natural for them than to hope and to 
 believe that their love would be rewarded in the next 
 world? And this did not remain a fond hope. It 
 was soon looked upon as a necessity and a certainty, 
 for without it there would be no justice in the world, 
 and that there is justice in the world is an inera- 
 dicable belief of the human heart. 
 
 I know that this expression, ' an ineradicable belief 
 of the human heart,' gives great offence to certain 
 philosophers. They either deny the existence of such 
 beliefs in toto, or they try to account for them as the 
 result of repeated experience. But in our case, how 
 could it be said that a belief in universal justice 
 arises from repeated experience? Surely, no one 
 would say that our experience teaches us again and 
 again that the good are rewarded and the bad pun- 
 ished in this life. One might even go so far as to say 
 that it is the repeated experience of the very con- 
 trary, namely, of the misfortunes of the good and the 
 triumphs of the bad, that provokes an appeal to and 
 a belief in a higher justice. 
 
 Plato. 
 
 Plato, in a famous passage in the Laws, p. 959, 
 says : * Now we must believe the legislator when he 
 tells us that the soul is in all respects superior to the 
 body, and that even in life what makes each one of 
 us to be what we are is only the soul ; and that the 
 body follows us about in the likeness of each of us, 
 
300 LECTUKE X. 
 
 and therefore, when we are dead, the bodies of the 
 dead are rightly said to be our shades or images ; for 
 the true and immortal being of each one of us, which 
 is called the soul, goes on her way to other gods, that 
 before them she may give an account — an inspiring 
 hope to the good, but very terrible to the bad, as the 
 law of our fathers tells us." 
 
 I quote this passage^ not because it is Plato's, but 
 because we see from it how even Plato submits to 
 the authority of this voixos ir&TpLos, this law of our 
 fathers, which without vouchsafing any proof, declares 
 that justice will prevail. 
 
 The Iiovr of Cause and Effect. 
 
 But though I call this an ineradicable belief of the 
 human heart, I do not mean to say that no proof can 
 be produced for it. I only mean that no proof is 
 required, until doubt has first been thrown on it. 
 When this belief in justice has been challenged, it 
 requires but little reflection to see that it is but 
 another form of the old law of causality which under- 
 lies the whole of our thoughts, nay, without which 
 no thought whatever would be possible. It may be 
 said that this law of causality is an abstraction, which 
 must of necessity belong to a much later phase in 
 the history of the human mind. So it does. But 
 it exists, nevertheless, even in the most ancient times, 
 and in the laws of our fathers ; nay, it exercises its 
 influence on the thoughts of men, even though they 
 have as yet no name for it. 
 
 We saw in our last course of Lectures how the same 
 hidden law of causality necessitated a belief in agents, 
 behind the acts of nature. In its most general form 
 
WHAT WAS THOUGHT ABOUT THE DEPAKTED. 301 
 
 this belief might be called the inevitable result of the 
 simple and universal proposition, Ex nihilo nihil fit. 
 Applied to the phenomena of nature, it would mean, 
 ' Nothing can be done without a doer.' 
 
 Now the ancient belief in justice is likewise but 
 another version of the same rule, namely, Ex aliquo 
 fit aliquid. If we call the former the law of causality, 
 we may call the latter the law of effect, which denies 
 in the most absolute way that anything can be anni- 
 hilated, can be without an effect. 
 
 Karma ua ksliiyate. 
 
 There is a saying among the old laws of our fathers 
 in India, which as applied to our moral actions ex- 
 presses this truth in the simplest and strongest words, 
 karma na kshiyate ^, ' a deed does not perish,' that 
 is to say, whatever guilt or merit there is in a human 
 action, man will not come out of it till he has paid or 
 received the uttermost farthing. 
 
 This idea of karma, which forms the foundation of 
 the system of Buddhist morality, does not belong to 
 the Buddhists only. In the Upanishads, karma has 
 become already a technical term, and its power and 
 influence must help to account for many things that 
 otherwise seem unaccountable. Thus in a dialogue 
 between Y%«avalkya and Garatkarava Artabhaga 
 (Brih.-Ar. Up. III. 2), the latter asks: 'When the 
 speech of this dead person enters into the fire, 
 breath into the air, the eye into the sun, the mind 
 into the moon, the hearing into space, into the earth 
 
 1 It occurs in Vasish^/«a XXII. 4, in Gautama XIX. 5, in Baudha- 
 yana III. 10, 4. 
 
302 LECTUEE X. 
 
 the body, into the ether the self, into the shrubs the 
 hairs of the body, into the trees the hairs of the head, 
 when the blood and the seed are deposited in the 
 water, where is the man himself ? ' 
 
 ' Y%;mvalkya answers : " Give me thy hand, O 
 friend. We two alone shall know of this ; let this 
 question of ours not be (discussed) in public." Then 
 these two went out and argued, and what they said 
 was karma, what they proclaimed was karma, viz. 
 that man becomes good by good karma, and evil by 
 evil karma.' 
 
 In the ancient codes of law the same idea occurs 
 again and again. In the Code of VishTiu, for instance, it 
 is fully placed before us among the words of comfort 
 to be addressed to the mourners at funeral ceremonies. 
 Here we read (XX. 28 seq.) : ' Every creature is seized 
 by Kala (time) and carried into the other world. It 
 is the slave of its actions. Wherefore then should you 
 wail ? ' (28.) ' As both his good and bad actions will 
 follow him like associates, what does it matter to 
 a man whether his relatives mourn over him or 
 nor (31.) 
 
 You see that here again there is no doubt in the 
 mind of the old lawgiver on this subject. It is simply 
 stated as a fact, that his good and his bad actions 
 follow a man into the next world, and that he is the 
 slave of his acts, that is, that he has to bear their 
 consequences. 
 
 The same idea meets us again, though in a more 
 mythological dress, in the Kaushitaki Upanishad (1. 4), 
 where the good and evil deeds are represented as fol- 
 lowing the depai-ted till he approaches the hall Vibhu 
 and the glory of Brahma reaches him. Then he 
 
WHAT WAS THOUGHT ABOUT THE DEPARTED. 303 
 
 shakes them all off, and his good deeds go to his 
 beloved, his evil deeds to his unbeloved relatives. 
 
 Still more mythological is the account given of the 
 soul after death in the Avesta (Vistasp Yast, 56). 
 Here the soul is represented as being met by a 
 beautiful maiden, white-armed, tall, and noble, as if 
 in her jGlfteenth year, and when he asks her who she 
 is, she replies : ' thou youth, of good thoughts, good 
 words, and good deeds, of good religion ! I am thy 
 own conscience.' 
 
 If, then, I call this belief in rewards and punish- 
 ments ' an ineradicable belief of the human heart,' I 
 mean that, if divested of its many mythological dis- 
 guises, it is but one of the many paraphrases of the 
 law of cause and effect, a law which for beings, such 
 as we are, is irresistible, which requires no proof, nay, 
 which admits of no proof, because it is self-evident. 
 
 Are tlie Departed conscious of what passes on Earth? 
 
 These two beliefs, the belief in the continued 
 existence of the soul after death, and that in its 
 liability to rewards and punishments, seem to me as 
 irresistible to-day as they were in the days of Plato. 
 We cannot say that a belief in rewards and punish- 
 ments is universal. We look for it in vain, for 
 instance, in the Old Testament or in Homer. But 
 when that belief has once presented itself to the 
 human mind, it holds its own against all objections. 
 It is possible, no doubt, to object to the purely human 
 distinction between rewards and punishments, because, 
 from a higher point of view, punishment itself may 
 be called a reward. Even eternal punishment, as 
 Charles Kingsley used to say, is but another name for 
 
304 LECTURE X. 
 
 eternal love, and the very fire of hell may be taken 
 as a childish expression only for the constant purifi- 
 cation of the soul. All this may be conceded, if only 
 the continuity of cause and efiect, between this life 
 and the next, is preserved. 
 
 But when we come to the next question, whether 
 the Departed, as has been fondly supposed, are able 
 to feel, not only what concerns them, but likewise 
 what concerns their friends on earth, we may call 
 this a very natural deduction, a very intelligible hope, 
 we may even admit that no evidence can be brought 
 forward against it, but beyond that we cannot go. 
 
 Still, if we have followed the thoughts of the early 
 Greeks so far, that they did not, like Homer, believe 
 the departed souls to be simply senseless, d(^/>a8eets, 
 or, like the Jews, simply to sleep and be at rest, but 
 capable of suffering from punishments, and rejoicing 
 in rewards, we can understand at least, even though 
 we cannot follow them, when they go a step beyond 
 and hold that the departed souls could be cognisant 
 of and take pleasure in the honours rendered to them 
 by their relatives and friends on earth. It is curious 
 to find that Plato (Laws xi. 927) admits that the 
 souls of the dead have the power after their death 
 of taking an interest in human affairs. It is true 
 he does not attempt any proof of this belief, but he 
 appeals to ancient tales and traditions, and to law- 
 givers who tell us that these things are true, nay, he 
 actually condescends to use the old, though by no 
 means extinct argument, that these ancient lav/givers 
 would have been utter fools, if they had said such 
 things, without knowing them to be true. 
 
 Sometimes we meet with a still lower, though 
 
WHAT WAS THOUGHT ABOUT THE DEPAETED. 305 
 
 likewise quite intelligible view, that the Departed 
 could actually be pleased by food and drink and such 
 other things as they enjoyed during their life on 
 earth. Here, no doubt, the evidence of the senses 
 would soon lead to a wholesome scepticism. Gifts 
 thrown into the ^^e and burnt in it, might be 
 supposed to reach the Departed, as the smoke of 
 sacrifices was believed to reach the nostrils of the 
 gods. But other gifts, left untouched on the graves, 
 could hardly be supposed to have benefitted the 
 Departed. However, even the savages of Rarotonga 
 have found a way out of these difiiculties. It is true, 
 they say, that the visible part of the food is eaten by 
 the rats, but the gods come at dusk and feed on the 
 essence of these offerings. This is not bad for a 
 Rarotongan casuist. 
 
 We have thus seen how the psyche, the breath, the 
 anima, had in the eyes of the ancients, whether 
 civilised or uncivilised, become endowed with all that 
 was implied by the thymds or animus, the mind, and 
 man's fancy was thenceforth set free to finish the 
 picture with such colours, and such light and shade, 
 as best suited the taste of poets, artists, philosophers, 
 and last, not least, of priests. 
 
 The poets would speak of the souls flitting about 
 in the air like birds, or hiding beneath the earth like 
 serpents. This was purely symbolical language. But 
 as soon as artists began to speak the same language, 
 we find in sculpture and paintings the souls of the 
 departed represented as small winged beings, others 
 also as serpents, dwelling near their graves. Such 
 symbolical representations are apt to become myths 
 and to be believed in their literal sense by a portion 
 (3) X 
 
306 LECTURE X. 
 
 at least of the people. But we must take care not to 
 see in them proofs of a former serpent-worship, as 
 little as of bird- worship. Their true explanation is 
 much more simple and natural. 
 
 Even philosophers remain poets. The Emperor 
 Hadrian, though initiated in Greek philosophy and in 
 the Greek mysteries, addressed his soul, when dying, 
 in words half-childish, half-poetical : 
 
 Animula, vagula, blandula, 
 Hospes comesque corporis, 
 Quae nunc abibis in loca ? 
 Pallidula, rigida, nudula, 
 Nee ut soles dabis jocos. 
 
 * Whither — thou wandering, fondling sprite, 
 The body's mate and guest — 
 Soon must thou fly? 
 Wan, robeless, homeless, formless mite ! 
 Thy mirth and wonted jest 
 With thee shall die.' 
 
 (Translated by the Hon. Lionel A. 
 
 Tollemache, in Safe Studies, p. 396.) 
 
 Influence of Priests. 
 
 Lastly, we must not forget, when we sometimes 
 wonder at the elaborate and extravagant offerings 
 made to the Departed, that there was somebody else 
 to be fed besides the spirits. The profession of a 
 priest is a very old one, and we find it almost every- 
 where. Now it stands to reason that if people want 
 to have priests, they must feed them, or, as we call it 
 by a slightly changed term, they must fee them. I 
 mean that fee is the same word as the Latin pecus, 
 and meant originally an animal, given by way of 
 payment. What is called a sacrifice to the gods and 
 to ancestral spirits was almost always an offering to 
 
WHAT WAS THOUGHT ABOUT THE DEPARTED. 307 
 
 the priest also. And if it did not mean a fee, it 
 always meant a feast, more particularly in the case of 
 funeral functions. A single case will serve to make 
 this clearer than any general theories. 
 
 The Rev. J. Macdonald ^ tells us that ' should a Zulu 
 dream the same dream more than once, he consults 
 the magicians, who profess to have much of their own 
 revelations through dreams. ... If a dreamer sees a 
 departed relative, the magician says oracularly, " He 
 is hungry." A beast is then killed as a quasi-sacrifice. 
 The blood is carefully collected and placed in a vessel 
 at the side of the hut, farthest from the door. The 
 liver is hung up in the hut and must not be eaten, 
 until all the flesh of the animal has been used. 
 During the night the spirit is regaled and refreshed 
 by the food thus provided, and eats or withdraws the 
 essence that goes to feed and sustain spirits. After a 
 specified time all may be eaten except the portions 
 the magician orders to be burned; generally bones 
 and fat.' 
 
 Is not all this simple human nature ? The man is 
 disturbed by a repeated dream. He asks the priest. 
 The priest says, ' the spirit is hungry,' the fact being 
 that he himself is hungry. He advises the killing of 
 an animal. The essence of the animal goes to the 
 spirit, the fat and bones are burnt, and the rest is 
 eaten by the hungry priest and his friend, who, after 
 a good feast, has probably another terrible dream, 
 and thus provides fresh employment to the priest. 
 
 It is easy to see how rapidly a stone will roll 
 downhill after the first impulse has been given. It is 
 that first impulse which interests the psychologist, 
 
 * Journal of the Anthropological Institute, Nov. 1890, p. 121. 
 
 X2 
 
308 LECTURE X. 
 
 and that must, if possible, be accounted for. To 
 discover the secret springs of the first movements of 
 the human mind, when brought face to face with the 
 problems of nature and the problems of its own 
 existence, has been my chief object throughout all 
 these lectures. Our progress, I know, has sometimes 
 been slow and tedious. But it seems to me that to 
 discover the sources of religion in the darkest antiquity 
 is a task worthy at least of the same devotion and the 
 same perseverance as to discover the sources of the 
 Nile in darkest Africa. 
 
LECTURE XI. 
 
 SOUL AFTER DEATH. 
 
 Greek Epic Poetry. 
 
 IF we wished to know what the ancient Greeks 
 thought about the departed, we should naturally 
 turn to the Homeric poems, and therein more parti- 
 cularly to the eleventh book of the Odyssey, or the 
 visit of Odysseus to the shades in Hades, the Nekyia. 
 We have no doubt a perfect right to take Homer 
 as expressing the earliest thoughts of the Greeks on 
 any subject. And this is the case all the more, if we 
 look upon his poetry, not simply as the work of one 
 individual, but as the result of the same growth of 
 popular poetry which we meet with everywhere, but 
 particularly in ancient times, and before the invention 
 of writing. To suppose that a single line of poetry 
 has ever grown up by itself, or by the combined 
 labour of a large number of poets, is of course abso- 
 lutely absurd. Every metrical line, every couple of 
 lines that rhymes or scans, is a work of art, and must 
 have been originally the work of one individual poet. 
 But during times when memory is the only guardian 
 of poetry, those for whom poetry is intended, I mean 
 the public, whether large or small, have a much / 
 
310 LECTURE XI. 
 
 greater influence on the life of poetry than in our 
 times. 
 
 If the work of a poet does not take the fancy of 
 others, it comes and goes, and is forgotten. It may 
 be an excellent poem, but unless it rouses the sym- 
 pathy of the hearers, it cannot live, or survive the 
 poet that made it. In that sense, therefore, the 
 people at large had a share and a very important 
 share in its poetry. Poetry had to be composed to 
 please the people, and poetry could not survive unless 
 it pleased the people. It was not exactly a survival of 
 the fittest or the best, but it was always a survival of 
 what best fitted the taste of the many. Think what 
 would be the effect on modern literature, if all books 
 of which the newspapers disapprove, were ipso facto 
 to vanish. Life would be lighter, no doubt, but it 
 would prove poorer also. The popular poetry of 
 England would be without its Wordsworth, its 
 Tennyson, and certainly without its Browning. 
 
 But the verdict of the many did not only determine 
 whether the childi-en of the Muses should live at all, 
 by either taking them up or rejecting them, but it 
 likewise exercised the strongest influence on their 
 later life. Those who had to preserve in theii* 
 memory the songs which had become popular, felt 
 themselves at liberty to leave out any lines that 
 fell flat, to add lines which might suit the views of 
 different audiences, nay to combine portions of poetry 
 which belonged to the same cycle, and this often 
 regardless of contradictions, such as have been de- 
 tected in the Homeric and other popular poems by 
 modern scholars. All this, if you think about it, 
 is so natural that it could hardly have been other- 
 
SOUL AFTER DEATH. 311 
 
 wise. Memory and oral tradition are indeed wonder- 
 ful keepers of popular poetry, and when once certain 
 productions of that popular poetry have been recog- 
 nised and invested with a sacred authority, I do not 
 hesitate to say that poems are safer in the memory 
 than in manuscripts. But there are certain influences 
 in the first gathering and in the later adaptation of 
 popular poetry to changing popular tastes, which 
 justify us in saying that in one sense the poetry of 
 the people is not the work of one poet, but the result 
 of the combined labour of many popular poets and 
 many popular critics. 
 
 It might seem as if this were mere theory, plausible, 
 no doubt, as accounting for the peculiar character 
 of popular poetry such as we find it, not only in 
 Greece, but among many other nations. Nor have 
 there been wanting objections. We are so little 
 aware of the powers of the human memory^ before 
 it was systematically ruined by the invention of 
 writing and reading, as Plato knew, and by the 
 invention of printing, as we all know, that many a 
 scholar has declared it absurd to suppose that the 
 Homeric poems could have been preserved by oral 
 tradition, and many a poet has added his testimony 
 that no man could write, — I mean, could compose, so 
 long a poem as the Iliad and the Odyssey, without 
 pen, paper, and ink. Facts, however, are stronger 
 than arguments. I have seen Hindus who knew the 
 Veda by heart, and who could detect by ear any 
 misprint, any false accent, in my edition of the Rig- 
 veda. As to the possibility of composing long poems 
 without writing them, I shall not argue like a lawyer 
 and point out that Homer, if he was blind, could not 
 
312 LECTURE XI. 
 
 possibly have written the Iliad and the Odyssey, but 
 could only have dictated them, always supposing that 
 writing had been known at his time. But here, too, 
 it is better to appeal to facts, and to facts coming 
 from a quarter where we should least have expected 
 them. 
 
 Pinnisli Epic Poetry. 
 
 You remember the Fins, of whom I spoke to you 
 in my first course of Lectures. They belong neither 
 to the Aryan nor to the Semitic stock. They speak 
 one of the Ural-Altaic group of languages. They 
 now live partly in Sweden, partly in Russia. You 
 may remember how Mr. Gladstone ^, when lately in 
 Scotland, stood up for them as one of the oppressed 
 nationalities of the world. Whether they are fit for 
 Home-rule, and whether Mr. Gladstone's advocacy is 
 likely to secure to them the benefits of Home-rule, 
 and at the same time seats in the Imperial Parliament 
 at St. Petersburg — whenever there is such a Parlia- 
 ment—are matters that do not concern us. But what 
 concerns us is, that among the peasants of Finland, 
 among people ignorant of reading and writing, large 
 fragments of epic poetry have been discovered during 
 the first half of our century, entirely preserved by 
 oral tradition, never written before, either by the 
 poet or by his admirers, and yet easily fitted together 
 into one epic poem. I wish I had time to explain to 
 you the process by which these poems had been 
 preserved, and at last have been collected, printed, 
 critically edited, and translated^. But I think you 
 
 1 See Times, Oct. 29, 1890. ^ See Appendix VIII. 
 
SOUL AFTER DEATH. 313 
 
 will have seen, even from these short remarks, in what 
 sense popular poetry, such as the Homeric poems, for 
 instance, may be said to reflect not only the thoughts 
 of one poetic mind, but at the same time the thoughts 
 of many people, who would not have listened to, that 
 is to say, who would not have allowed any poetry to 
 survive, except what they themselves approved of. 
 
 The Nekyia does not represent the popular Belief. 
 
 The question now arises. May we take what Homer 
 says or implies about the dead, may we, more par- 
 ticularly, take his Nekyia, as reflecting the general 
 ideas of the Greeks at his time 1 I doubt it. 
 
 First of all, what do people mean by his time? 
 That there may have been epic poetry, or Homeric 
 poetry, about 1000 B.C., among Asiatic and European 
 Greeks, need not be questioned. But that the Homeric 
 poems, as we now possess them, were reduced to 
 writing much before 700 B.C., has never been proved, 
 for the simple reason that the use of alphabetic writing 
 for literary purposes, in the full sense of that word, 
 before that date, has never been established, whether 
 in Greece, or anywhere else. 
 
 But whether we place these poems in the form in 
 which we now possess them, 1000 or 700 B.C., it does 
 by no means follow that they represent, as it were, a 
 complete stratum of Greek thought, still less that all 
 we find in later times of Greek thought, language, 
 myth, religion, and philosophy must have passed 
 through that Homeric stratum. This would be taking 
 far too narrow a view of the ancient growth of the 
 Greek intellect. You know with what contempt some 
 of the ancient philosophers of Greece spoke of Homer 
 
314 LECTURE XT. 
 
 as one who had degraded the gods by what he sang 
 of them. That shows that they at all events did not 
 consider him as the only, as the earliest and truest 
 representative of the ancient religion of the Greeks. 
 And what applies to religion, applies to everything 
 else. The Homeric poems are a splendid fragment, 
 but they are a fragment only of ancient Greek thought. 
 It is because they are the only fragment left to us of 
 that ancient period, that we have so often been 
 tempted to take them as a complete image of that 
 period, and that we have forgotten that epic poetry in 
 describing the wars and adventures of an heroic race, 
 reflects chiefly the thoughts of one section of ancient 
 society, and does not necessarily reflect the thoughts, 
 the feelings, the customs, and superstitions of the 
 people at large. 
 
 The Homeric poems, as you know, tell us very little 
 about the state of the departed, except in that rhapsody 
 of the Odyssey which is called the Nehyia, the journey 
 of Odysseus to the realm of Hades. Many scholars in 
 describing to us what the ancient Greeks thought 
 about life after death, have taken that Nekyia for 
 their chief, nay for their only guide. But this very 
 rhapsody has by some excellent critics been considered 
 as very peculiar and exceptional, and as being possibly 
 the work of a different, probably a Boeotian poet. 
 
 These are points that admit of discussion, but 
 there is nothing to lead us to admit that what Homer 
 tells us about the state of the departed in Hades was 
 all that the Greeks believed about a future life. 
 
 Take so simple a question as the disposal of dead 
 bodies. If we took our information from Homer 
 only, we should say that the ancient Greeks burnt 
 
SOUL AFTEK DEATH. 315 
 
 the corpse. But there is a very well supported 
 tradition that in the days of Cecrops the Athenians 
 buried their dead ^. 
 
 I believe we may safely say that sacrifices in honour 
 of the dead, the pouring out of blood on the grass, and 
 the burning of victims dedicated to the departed, are 
 all unknown in the Homeric poems. Nay_, the same 
 applies to Hesiod also. Whenever a general remark 
 of this kind is made, it always provokes opposition, 
 and great efforts are made to discover some traces in 
 support of the opposite opinion. Thus in our case, the 
 games celebrated by Achilles in honour of Patroklos, 
 and again the pouring out of blood by Odysseus for 
 the shades in Hades, have been pointed out to show 
 that Homer knew of sacrifices for the dead, and of 
 worship of ancestral spirits. But it is too easily for- 
 gotten that when such beliefs and customs are once 
 recognised, they do not manifest themselves in a few 
 isolated cases only, but pervade the whole atmosphere 
 of a poem. The funeral honours paid to Patroklos 
 stand by themselves. They are clearly an excep- 
 tional event. And the blood poured out by Odysseus 
 to restore the shades of some departed heroes and 
 heroines to life for a short time only, is something 
 totally different from what is meant by ancestral wor- 
 ship 2. 
 
 But, in spite of this, I feel by no means inclined to 
 
 ' Kirchmanni, Be Funeribus Romanorunij Libri quatuor, 1672, p. 2 ; 
 Cicero, de Legibus, 2, * Nam et Athenis iam illo more a Cecrope, ut 
 aiunt, permanuit hoc ius terra condendi.' 
 
 2 What Kohde brings forward in his Psyche as proving the exist- 
 ence of ancestral worship in the Homeric poems, had been more fully 
 treated before by P. Stengel in Fleckeisen's JahrMcher fur Klass. 
 Philologie, 1883, p. 373, ' Einfiihrung der in Homerischer Zeit noch 
 nicht bekannten Opfer in Griechenland.' 
 
316 LECTURE XI. 
 
 say that these natural manifestations of human piety- 
 were altogether absent in ancient Greece, and took 
 their origin in post-Homeric times only. We are 
 told in fact on very good authority that one of the 
 laws collected by Drakon was ' to honour the gods and 
 the local heroes ^ '. Drakon collected his laws in the 
 seventh century b. c, and even in his time this was 
 called a perpetual law. 
 
 I doubt even whether a rhapsody like the Nekyia, 
 treating of so lugubrious a subject, could ever have 
 become very popular either at private or public fes- 
 tivals. It was preserved, however, probably for the 
 same reason for which the catalogue of the ships was 
 preserved. It became something like the golden book 
 of the Venetian republic. To have the names of 
 certain heroes or heroines entered in the Nekyia, 
 became like a title of nobility to the families or 
 localities to which the most illustrious of the departed 
 heroes and heroines belonged, and there can be little 
 doubt that this very natural ambition led to the sub- 
 sequent additions to the illustrious roll of the names 
 both of famous ancestors and of renowned cities. 
 
 If we keep all this in mind, we shall more easily 
 understand two things, — first, that the state of the 
 departed should be so rarely and only so vaguely 
 alluded to in the Homeric poems ; and secondly, that 
 the Nekyia should in a less degree than other portions 
 of the Iliad and Odyssey, reflect the universal thoughts 
 of the Greeks on the mysterious subject of death and 
 life after death. 
 
 ' Cf. Porphyrius, De Abstinentia, iv. 22, 'Eml koi ApaKovros vofios 
 fiVTjuovfveTai toiovtos, Oecr/xos alwvios toTs 'ArOiSa v^ixoixivois^ Kvpios rov 
 airavra xpovov, deovs Ti/xdv koI i^pwas l7x<wptouy. 
 
SOUL AFTER DEATH. 317 
 
 We know that this subject, the state of the dead, is 
 at all times and in all countries one of the vaguest, 
 one almost entirely determined by individual hopes 
 and fears and imaginations, one on which the human 
 heart is ready to believe almost anything, and one 
 on which human wisdom can say nothing. In the 
 Homeric Nekyia we may see a picture of the lower 
 world — if it is indeed a lower world — adapted to the 
 great epic drama of which it forms a part ; but I doubt 
 whether we can accept it as a true representation of 
 the ideas entertained by the fathers and mothers or 
 children in the small homes of ancient Greece, as to the 
 state of those for whom their hearts were bleeding and 
 yearning. 
 
 Homer does not reflect popular Opinion on Death. 
 
 Let US consider a few points only, on which it seems 
 to me quite clear that Homer does not reflect the 
 general feeling of the Greeks with regard to the dead. 
 One of the commonest names in Greek given to the 
 dead is fiaKapes, the blest. It is found in Hesiod, who 
 knows of the islands of the blest, [xaKapa^v vrjcroL, and 
 in nearly all subsequent writers. Homer, however, 
 never speaks of the dead as blest, but represents them 
 as utterly miserable. You remember, how even 
 Achilles, though honoured like a king among the 
 departed, would rather be ' a serf on the land of a poor 
 and portionless man than rule over all the dead who 
 have come to nought' (Od. xi. 488). 
 
 If the Greeks at large had really shared Homer's 
 idea that even the best of men were in the next world 
 eidola or shades, without energy, without real self-con- 
 sciousness, incapable of action and enjoyment, though 
 
318 LECTURE XI. 
 
 retaining their names and, so far, their identity (afxev-qva 
 Kaprjva), they could never have called them the blest. 
 
 It might seem indeed from a passage in the Odyssey, 
 beautifully, but yet not quite accurately, rendered by 
 Mr. Gladstone, as if Homer had sometimes admitted 
 in his heroes and heroines in Hades a continuance of 
 their human feelings of love. He translates the words 
 of Penelope (Od. xx. 79) : 
 
 'Would fair-haired Artemis had stayed my breath, 
 
 So might I pass below the hated earth, 
 Yearn for Odysseus, even there in death, 
 Nor live to cheer a soul of meaner worth/ 
 
 But the true meaning is, not that she might yearn 
 for Odysseus there, below the hated earth, but that 
 looking, yearning for Odysseus, she might pass below 
 the hated earth. This may seem a small difference, 
 but it involves important issues. 
 
 In spite of the popularity of the Homeric poems, I 
 doubt whether the Greeks really believed that their 
 favourite hero, Achilles, was such as Homer describes 
 him, mourning his di-eary fate in the realm of Hades. 
 Their thoughts are more truly reflected, I believe, in 
 the popular verses on Harmodius and Aristogiton, 
 where we read : 
 
 * Dearest Harmodius, thou art surely not dead, 
 Thou dwellest, they say, in the isles of the blest, 
 Where the swift-footed Achilles, 
 Where the son of Tydeus, the brave Diomedes, dwells.' 
 
 Here we see a very different Achilles from that of 
 Homer, dwelling in the isles of the blest with 
 Diomedes, the bravest of the brave, and with Har- 
 modius and Aristogiton, who delivered Greece from 
 her tyrants. 
 
 Small as Greece seems to us, it was always full of 
 
SOUL AFTER DEATH. 319 
 
 life, full of individuality, full of variety. As a rule, 
 we may say, no doubt, that all the Greeks looked at 
 death as the greatest of misfortunes. Yet no one 
 was so ready as the Greek to give up his life for his 
 country, and to prefer death with honour to life with 
 dishonour. Some of the Greeks also had soon dis- 
 covered the sorrow that is inseparable from life. 
 With all their enjoyment of life, even the Greeks 
 called mortal men 8etAot, wretched. Homer also calls 
 them frequently betXol ^poToC, miserable mortals! 
 And when we go a little further we find a poet like 
 Theognis in the sixth century proclaiming his convic- 
 tion that it is ' best for man not to be born and to see 
 the rays of the burning sun, and, if born, then as soon 
 as possible to pass through the gates of Hades, and to 
 lie down, having heaped up much earth as his grave.' 
 
 liavrcov fxlv fi-q <pvvai emx^ovioiaiv apiarov 
 M77S' kaideiv avyas o^ios -qeXiov, 
 ^vvTa 8' oTTCws uiKiara irvXas 'A'lSao ireprjcrat 
 Kal KeiaOcu ■noW'^v jrjv ktra/irjcrdjjievov. 
 
 Funishiuents. 
 
 And while Homer knows nothing of the blessedness 
 of the departed, he seems likewise ignorant of any 
 punishments inflicted on the dead for crimes com- 
 mitted in this life. This has often been denied, and the 
 sufierings of Sisyphos, Tantalos, and Tityos have been 
 quoted as instances of such punishments. But in all 
 these cases the sufferers are not ordinary mortals, nor 
 the crimes ordinary crimes. They are all crimes 
 committed against the gods, they belong to mythology 
 and not to ordinary life. Goethe ^ has called attention 
 
 * Polygnots GemcUde in der Lesche zu Delphi. 
 
320 LECTURE XI. 
 
 to the fact that the punishments are all of the same 
 peculiar character. ' The always returning stone of 
 Sisyphos/ he writes, ' the flying fruits of Tantalos, the 
 carrying water in broken vessels, all point to objects 
 not attained. Here there is no retribution corre- 
 sponding to the crime^ or any specific punishment. 
 No, the unhappy sufferers are all visited by the most 
 terrible of human fates, namely, to see the object of 
 serious and persevering endeavour frustrated.' 
 
 Post-Homeric Poets. 
 
 As soon, however, as we open the pages of post- 
 Homeric poets, whether of Pindar, or Aeschylus, or 
 Sophocles, all is changed. A belief in a continuance 
 of life after death, in rewards and punishments in 
 another life, meets us again and again. Even the idea 
 that the Departed receive their relatives and friends 
 when they come to die, is not unknown to Pindar. 
 We hear of sacrifices for the dead. Their spirits are 
 supposed to be capable of bringing blessings or mis- 
 fortunes on those who survive them. Hence they 
 must be pleased and appeased by offerings which are 
 supposed to belong to the dead, and are not therefore 
 partaken of by the living, as in the case of festival 
 sacrifices offered to the gods. Pindar expresses even 
 a belief in a kind of transmigration of souls, though 
 always in human bodies. He describes the happy 
 life of the just after death, but he also paints the 
 sufferings of evil-doers in thrilling words, and he adds 
 that those who thrice were able to keep the soul far 
 from evil, will reach the isles of the blessed. 
 
 Aeschylus constantly appeals to the retribution in 
 Hades, for ' there also,' he says, ' another Zeus among 
 
SOUL AFTER DEATH. 321 
 
 the departed gives the last judgment on crimes, as we 
 are told^.' 
 
 Plato. 
 
 Plato follows in the same strain. He even quotes 
 Pindar in the Meno (81, 6), where he says: 'I have 
 heard from certain wise men and women who spoke 
 of things divine. . . . Some of them were priests and 
 priestesses, who had studied how they might be able 
 to give a reason of their profession. There have been 
 poets also, such as the poet Pindar and other inspired 
 men. And they say that the soul of man is immortal, 
 and at one time has an end, which is termed dying, 
 and at another time is born again, but is never de- 
 stroyed. And the moral is, that a man ought to live 
 always in perfect holiness ; for in the ninth year 
 Persephone sends the souls of those from whom she 
 has received the penalty of ancient crime, back again 
 into the light of this world, and these are they who 
 become noble kings and mighty men, and great in 
 wisdom, and are called saintly (ayvoi) heroes in after 
 ages. The soul, then, as being immortal, and having 
 been born again many times, and having seen all 
 things that there are, whether in this world or in the 
 world below, has knowledge of them all ; and it is no 
 wonder that she should be able to call to remembrance 
 all that she ever knew about virtue, and about every- 
 thing.* Here we see again a belief in something like 
 metempsychosis. 
 
 Plato becomes even superstitious, when in the 
 Phaedo (113) he describes the different rivers of the 
 
 ^ Supplices, 230, Kd/ceF 8ik6,^€i rdix-nKaKrjixaO', ws \6yos, Z€U9 aWoi (v 
 Kanovaiv varaTas Sixas. 
 
 (3) Y 
 
322 LECTUKE XI. 
 
 lower world, the Acheron, the Pyriphlegethon^ and 
 the Stygian river, and the sufferings which are in- 
 flicted on different classes of evil-doers. But even 
 when he drops all mythological language, his belief 
 remains that ' there is a world below in which either 
 we or our posterity will suffer for our unjust deeds ' 
 (Rep. 366),while his belief in a blessed life is eloquently 
 expressed in the Phaedo (114) : ' Those who have been 
 pre-eminent for holiness of life are released from this 
 eai-thly prison, and go to their pure home which is 
 above, and dwell in the purer earth ; and those who 
 have duly purified themselves with philosophy, live 
 henceforth altogether without the body, in mansions 
 fairer far than these, which may not be described, 
 and of which the time would fail me to tell.' 
 
 The Mysteries. 
 
 There can be little doubt that in the so-called 
 Mysteries also the fate of the soul in a future life 
 formed the principal subject. Much has been written 
 about these Mysteries. The most learned work on the 
 subject is still Lobeck's Aglaopkavius, published in 
 1829. For our own purposes it suffices to quote here 
 the words of Cicero (Legg. ii. 14) : ' Thy Athens,' he 
 says, addressing Atticus, ' seems to have produced 
 many other excellent and divine things, but nothing 
 more excellent, and nothing better than those mys- 
 teries by which from a wild and savage life we have 
 been tamed and raised to a higher humanity. They 
 are truly called initia, for it is through them that we 
 have learnt to know the beginnings of life. And we 
 have received from them not only good reason why 
 
SOUL AFTER DEATH. 323 
 
 we should live with joy, but also why we should die 
 with a better hope.' 
 
 The purely mythological conception of the punish- 
 ments of the wicked in Hades becomes richer in hor- 
 rible detail with every generation. That given by 
 Plutarch can hardly be excelled by mediaeval moral- 
 ists. ' There are three lakes there side by side/ he 
 writes, * one of boiling gold, the other extremely cold 
 of lead, and the third of raw iron. Certain demons 
 are standing by, like smiths, who with their instru- 
 ments dip the wicked souls of the greedy and selfish 
 alternately into these lakes.' 
 
 Plato's Influence. 
 
 There were, no doubt, in Greece, as elsewhere, 
 philosophers who protested against the popular belief 
 in these infernal regions, nay who openly denied the 
 existence of souls after death. They either professed 
 ignorance of anything that did not rest on the evidence 
 of the senses, or they declared their belief that life 
 after death was an impossibility. But the general 
 convictions of the Greeks were not much influenced 
 by these philosophic schools. It is true that even 
 Sokrates and Plato often spoke hesitatingly, modestly, 
 conditionally, when they touched on the topic of a 
 future life. Plato, whose whole philosophy rests on 
 a belief in the divine nature of the human soul, pre- 
 serves nevertheless that intellectual reserve which is 
 peculiar to the Greek mind, when he introduces 
 Sokrates in the Apology as saying : ' If death is like 
 sleep, even then I say that to die is gain : for eternity 
 is then only a single night. But if death is the 
 journey to another place, and there, as men say (d 
 
 Y2 
 
324 LECTURE XI. 
 
 akr]0r] kari ra keyofxcva), all the dead are, what good, 
 O my friends and judges, can be greater than this ? 
 If, indeed, when the pilgrim arrives in the world 
 below, he is delivered from the professors of justice in 
 this world, and finds the true judges who are said to 
 give judgment there, Minos and Rhadamanthus and 
 Aeacus and Triptolemus, and other half-gods (^/xt^eot) 
 who were righteous in their own life, that pilgrimage 
 will be worth making. What would not a man give 
 if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and 
 Hesiod and Homer ? Nay, if this be true, let me die 
 again and again. Above all, I shall then be able to 
 continue my search into true and false knowledge ; as 
 in this world, so also in that ; and I shall find out 
 who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. 
 . . . Besides being happier in that world than in this, 
 they will be immortal, if what is said is true (ctTrep 
 ye TCL k€y6iJL€va aX.7]67J kariv)! 
 
 In the imaginary funeral oration, however, which 
 Sokrates delivers in the Menexenus^, and which he pro- 
 fesses to have learnt from Aspasia,he speaks very posi- 
 tively of the welcome which the departed ancestors will 
 give to their descendants when the hour of their destiny 
 has come (247). But immediately after he speaks 
 conditionally, and says : ' But, if the dead have any 
 knowledge of the living, they will displease us most 
 by making themselves miserable and by taking their 
 misfortunes to heart, and they will please us best, if 
 they bear their loss lightly and temperately.' 
 
 It is well known that Thucydides in his Funeral 
 Oration is altogether silent on the existence of the 
 
 ' The Menexenus is a spurious dialogue, but is included in the 
 Alexandrine catalogue of Plato's works. 
 
SOUL AFTER DEATH. 325 
 
 soul after death, while others, such as Demosthenes (De 
 Falsa Leg. 66), speak conditionally, like Plato, ' If the 
 departed see us, if they know what we are doing, they 
 will rejoice.' 
 
 Xeuoplion's Cyropaedia. 
 
 Another pupil of Sokrates, Xenophon, speaks in a 
 similar strain when he introduces the dying Cyrus 
 taking leave of his children : ' By the paternal gods, 
 my sons,' he says, ' respect one another, if you care to 
 please me. For you surely do not imagine that you 
 know clearly that I shall be nothing, when I have 
 finished with m^^ human life. For even now you 
 never saw my soul, but you knew its existence from 
 what it did. And have you not seen, what terrors 
 the souls of those who have suffered injustice bring 
 upon the criminals ; what avenging spirits they send 
 to the evil-doers ? And do you believe that the 
 honours paid to the dead would continue, if their souls 
 had no longer any power ? I, indeed, sons, have 
 never believed that the soul, while it is in a mortal 
 body, lives, and is dead when it is free from it : for 
 I see that even these mortal bodies live only so long 
 as the soul is in them. Nor can I believe that the 
 soul will be without reason (acfypodv), after it has been 
 separated from this unreasoning body ; but when the 
 mind has been separated, unmixed and pure from the 
 body, then it is likely that it will be most rational. 
 When man is dissolved, it is clear that everything has 
 gone to what is homogeneous, except the soul, which 
 alone, whether present or absent, is never seen. Con- 
 sider also that nothing is nearer to human death than 
 sleep, and that the soul of man seems then most divine, 
 and sees then something of the future, because it is then 
 
326 LECTURE XI. 
 
 most free. If then these things are as I believe, and 
 the soul leaves the body, do what I ask from reverence 
 for my soul. But if it is not so, and if the soul remains 
 in the body and dies, even then do not do or think 
 anything impious or unholy for fear of the eternal, the 
 omniscient, the omnipotent gods, who hold together 
 this order of all things, flawless, unfading, unfailing, 
 and inconceivable by its greatness and by its beauty.' 
 
 Influence of PMlosophers. 
 
 These may be called purely philosophical specula- 
 tions, confined to the schools, and not representative 
 of public opinion in Greece. This is true, to a certain 
 extent. No nation consists of philosophers only, but no 
 nation escapes their influence. How few people read 
 Kant, and yet such words as Das Ding an sich, the 
 categories of the understanding, the categorical im- 
 perative, have become current coin in Germany, and 
 not in Germany only. In Germany Goethe's novel, 
 Werthers Leiden, produced such an effect that the 
 number of suicides from an unhappy love became 
 alarming. In Greece we are told that Plato^s Phaedo 
 produced a similar eflfect. We read in Kallimachos 
 (Epigram 25) : ' With the words, Helios, farewell ! 
 Kleombrotos, the Ambrakiote, sprang from a high wall 
 into death, without having suffered anything worthy 
 of death ; he had only read one book, Plato's book on 
 the soul ^.^ 
 
 ^ Cic. Tusc. Quaest. i, 34 : 'A malis igitur mors abducit, non a 
 bonis, verum si quaerimus. Hoc quidem a Cyrenaico Hegesia sic 
 copiose disputatur, ut is a rege Ptolemaeo prohibitus esse dieatur 
 ilia in scholis dicere, quod multi, his auditis, mortem sibi ipsi con 
 sciscerent. Callemachi quidem epigramma in Ambraciotam Cleom- 
 brotum est : quem ait, quum nihil ei accidisset adversi, e muro se in 
 mare abiecisse, lecto Platonis libro.' 
 
SOUL AFTER DEATH. 327 
 
 Funeral Inscriptions. 
 
 But though the popular mind is certainly en- 
 lightened and guided by those who were I'ightly 
 called men of light and leading, we must carefully 
 distinguish between the form which their teaching as- 
 sumes in the language of the people, and the full and 
 accurate expression which they give to it themselves. 
 
 During historical times, if we may judge from 
 poetry, laws, customs, inscriptions, and all the rest, 
 the Greeks did not commit themselves to a belief in 
 a Homeric Hades^ in a Tartaros, or in Elysian fields. 
 All this belonged to mythology and to the past. 
 What they really cared for, and what they expressed 
 when it was necessary to speak of the departed, was 
 that, though the body was burnt or buried, their soul 
 was not destroyed. On the monument of those who 
 had fallen in 431 B.C., in the battle of Potidaea, the 
 following inscription was engraved : 
 
 Al6r)p fiev ipvxas virfde^aro, aco[fiaTa Se x^"^i'] 
 rwv 5€, UoTidaias 5' dfx(pl irvXas e8[a/xej/]. 
 
 ' The aether has received the souls, but the earth the bodies of 
 these men. They fell round the gates of Potidaea ^.' 
 
 The same sentiment is expressed again and again 
 with slight variations. 
 
 Thus a saying is ascribed to Epicharmos (Plat, 
 cons. Apoll. p. 110): 
 
 ovveKpiOrj koi SuKpiOr] KdTrfjvOfv 
 69ev ?jv6(.v irdXiv, yd fxkv ets 
 ydv, vvevfx dvoj' ri rouvde 
 Xa^eiTov ; ovde €v. 
 
 ' It was mixed together and was separated, it went again from 
 whence it came, earth to earth, the spirit upwards. What is difficult 
 here ? Nothing.' 
 
 ' Lehrs, Aufsatse, p. 341, conjectures aajfiara rvfi^os, and again, 
 aufiara 5' kodkSiv tuv be IIoTidaias dfjupl vv\as edaftev, or kSdftrj. 
 
328 LECTUBE XI. 
 
 Euripides, in the Supplices, 531, says : 
 
 'Edaar ■qSr] yfj KakvcpOrjvai vcKpovs, 
 oOev 5' €Ka(TTov Is to auifi' dcpiKero, 
 €VTav9' direXOeiv, nveviJLa fj.ev irpbs aiOepa, 
 TO au)/xa 5' Is y^v. 
 
 ' Let now the dead bodies be covered by the earth, and each go 
 away whence it came into the body ; the breath to the aether, the 
 body into the earth.* 
 
 The collection of Greek inscriptions contains many 
 lines inscribed on funeral monuments, all breathing 
 the same spirit ^. 
 
 ' The Moira seized him,' we read, ' who had been 
 kind-hearted to his fellows, gentle to the good, an 
 enemy to the wicked ; she gives the body here 
 beneath the earth, the soul high above to heaven.' 
 
 A daughter who has been killed by lightning says 
 to her mother : 
 
 ' Mother, leave thy grief, remembering the soul 
 which Zeus has rendered immortal and undecaying 
 to me for all time, and has carried now into the 
 starry sky.' 
 
 On a tomb of a drowned sailor we read : 
 
 ' Breakers have broken bones and flesh, but the 
 soul inhabits the aethereal roof (aWeptov ttoKov). 
 
 And again : 
 
 ' My name is Menelas, but what lies here is my 
 body, the soul dwells in the aether of the im- 
 mortals.' 
 
 Again : 
 
 'Even if thou hurriest by, stop a moment, dear 
 traveller ! The fate of death seized me, and the 
 
 ^ Many of these inscriptions, as here translated, have been col- 
 lected by Lehi-s, 1. c, p. 342. 
 
SOUL AFTEK DEATH. 329 
 
 earth covers my body, taking back the gift which 
 she had once bestowed. But my soul went to the 
 aether and to the halls of Zeus ; the unchanging law 
 took my bones only into Hades.' 
 
 Sometimes we read that the soul ' is at home with 
 the stars, and dwells in the sacred place of the 
 Blest.' Sometimes, that the dead dwells in the 
 place of life, by the side of the gods. A philosopher 
 declares from his grave, ' I inhabit the sacred abode 
 of the heroes, not that of Acheron ; for such a goal 
 of life is granted to the wise.' 
 
 I insert one more epitaph, taken from the Greek 
 Anthology, of which it has truly been said that it is, 
 as it were, a missing link between Paganism and 
 Catholicism, and that its creed is Christianity without 
 Christ. 
 
 OvK iOaves, JJpwTr], fiere^rjs 8' Is afxecvova x^pov, 
 Kal vaieis fiaKapouv vfjaovs OaKirj kvi troKkri' 
 "YAvOa Kar 'E-Xvaiuv weStW aKiprwaa yeyrjOas 
 ''AvOeaiv kv fxaKaKoTcri KaKwv eKTOffdev avdvTcov. 
 Ov xeLfxwv XvTTCi a' ov Kavfx' ov vovffos kvox^^i, 
 Ov TTfivys, ov diipos e'xft o' d\\' ' oiSe troOnvbs 
 'AvOpuTTcov €Ti aoi pioTos' (dieis yap dfiefivTajs 
 Avyais kv KaOapaTcnv 'OXvpnrov irKrjaiov ovros. 
 
 Dying, thou art not dead ! — thou art gone to a happier country, 
 
 And in the isles of the blest thou rejoicest in weal and abun- 
 dance, 
 
 There, Prote, is thy home in the peace of Elysian meadows, 
 
 Meadowsjwith asphodel strewn, and peace unblighted with sorrow. 
 
 Winter molests thee no longer, nor heat nor disease ; and thou 
 shalt not 
 
 Hunger or thirst any more ; but, unholpen of man and unheed- 
 ful, 
 
 Spotless and fearless of sin, thou exultest in view of Olympus ; 
 
 Yea, and thy gods are thy light, and their glory is ever upon 
 thee.' 
 
 (Translated by Hon. Lionel A. ToUemache, 
 
 Stones of Stumbling, p. 64.) 
 
330 LECTURE XI. 
 
 The Divinity of the SotQ. 
 
 But while these expressions of faith and hope satis- 
 fied the great mass of mourners in Greece, while to 
 them the departed were simply the Blest (jutaKapes, 
 also ixaKapirai, and rjpoies), dwelling on high with the 
 Blest or with the gods, a more philosophical, or, 
 I should say, a more Platonic view of the soul mani- 
 fests itself likewise in many places. 
 
 Plato's thoughts about the soul were not concerned 
 only with its fate after death, he looked upon the 
 soul as eternal, as pre-existent, as imprisoned in the 
 body, and as really delivered from her prison by 
 death. He himself does not call the soul a god, but 
 he never doubts her divine nature. His followers, 
 however, speak more boldly, perhaps more mytholo- 
 gically, and call the soul of man a god. 
 
 Cicero, who became the most active interpreter of 
 Plato at Rome, speaks likewise of the soul as divine, 
 because, as he adds, ' I do not dare, like Euripides, to 
 call it a god ^.' 
 
 It is difficult to say what real difference there is 
 between these two expressions. Can anything be 
 divine, and yet not participate in the nature of a 
 god ? It is language that confuses us, and leads us 
 to imagine that there is a difference, and that there 
 can be different kinds of divinity, one belonging to 
 the gods, the other to men. But if there is a divine 
 substance, it can be but one and the same, and 
 differences can be differences of manifestation only. 
 
 ' Cic. Tusc. Quaest. i. 26 : ' Ergo animus, ut ego dico, divinus est ; 
 ut Euripides audet dicere, deus : et quidem, si deus aut anima 
 aut ignis est, idem est animus hominis.' 
 
SOUL AFTER DEATH. 331 
 
 Cicero himself seems to have felt this, and he speaks 
 quite as boldly as Euripides when he relates the 
 ' Dream of Scipio ^.' 
 
 Somniuiu Scipionis. 
 
 ' Strive for that/ he says, ' and know that not 
 thou art mortal, but this thy body. For thou art 
 not what this bodily form shows, but the soul (mens) 
 is what everybody really is, and not the figure 
 which can be shown with the finger. Know there- 
 fore that thou art a god, for it is God who lives, 
 perceives, remembers, judges, and who governs, leads, 
 and moves this body over which he is placed, as the 
 principal God governs, leads, and rules this world. 
 As God himself moves this world which is partially 
 mortal, thus the eternal mind (animus) moves this 
 frail body. . . . 
 
 ' As it is clear that that is eternal which is moved by 
 itself, who would deny that this nature belongs to the 
 mind (animi) ? For mindless (inanimum) is every- 
 thing which is moved by an external impulse, but 
 what is living (animal) that is impelled by an inner 
 movement which is its own. and this is the proper 
 
 * De Re Publ. vi. 24 : ' Tu vero enitere et sic habeto, non esse te 
 mortalem, sed corpus hoc : nee enim tu es, quem forma ista de- 
 clarat ; sed mens cuiusque is est quisque, non ea figura, quae 
 digito demonstrari potest. Deum te igitur scito esse : si quidem 
 deus est, qui viget, qui sentit, qui meminit, qui providet, qui tarn 
 regit et moderatur et movet id corpus, cui praepositus est, quam 
 hune mundum ille prineeps deus : et ut mundum ex quadam parte 
 mortalem ipse deus aeternus, sic fragile corpus animus sempiternus 
 movet. . . . 
 
 *Quum pateat igitur aeternum id esse, quod a se ipso move- 
 atur ; quis est, qui hanc naturam animis esse tributam neget ? 
 Inanimum est enim omne, quod pulsu agitatur externo : quod 
 autem animal est, id motu cietur interiore et suo ; nam haec est 
 natura propria animi atque vis. Quae si est una ex omnibus, quae 
 sese moveat, neque nata est certe et aeterna est.' 
 
332 LECTURE XI. 
 
 nature and power of the mind (anirnus). If then the 
 soul alone of all things is moved by itself, it is cer- 
 tainly not born, and it is eternal.' 
 
 These are the words of Cicero, but the spirit, as 
 you perceive, is the spirit of Plato — and, will not 
 many of us add, the spirit of truth? 
 
LECTURE XII. 
 
 WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO ? 
 
 AT the end of my Lectures on Physical Rehgion 
 . I felt it necessary to answer the question, What 
 does it all lead to 1 The same question presents it- 
 self at the end of these Lectures on Anthropological 
 Religion ; and I shall try to answer it once more. 
 
 The Historical Proof. 
 
 You may remember how it was said that the fact 
 that all human beings believed in gods and God was 
 no proof whatever of the truth of that belief, and of 
 the real existence of divine beings, or of one Lifinite 
 Being. I tried to show, on the contrary, that what 
 I call the historical proof was really, if not the only, 
 at least the strongest argument for the belief in the 
 existence of God. 
 
 Leave man alone, I said, and he will believe in 
 something beyond this world. This has been proved 
 to be a fact by the modern study of the history of all 
 religions. There are no exceptions anywhere, except 
 those which arise from mental idiocy and moral de- 
 gradation. But as little as we take into account the 
 
334 LECTUEE XII. 
 
 large number of inmates of lunatic asylums when we 
 maintain that two and two make four, should we be 
 obliged to consider the case of some degraded tribes, 
 supposing they existed, who are said to be without 
 a name for gods or God, and whose only sign of 
 humanity is their language, a remnant and, at the 
 same time, a witness of their former higher state. 
 
 History, no doubt, teaches us that much of what 
 people in different stages of their historical progress 
 believed to be true about the gods was not true, was, 
 as they found out themselves, unworthy of the gods. 
 That is perfectly true, but it only serves to confirm 
 the lesson of all history, that truth is never the result 
 of a sudden communication, but the reward of patient 
 labour and honest search. The fact remains, that 
 men, as Homer expresses it, II. iii. 44, yearn for the 
 gods. The metaphorical expression which Homer 
 uses is full of meaning. As birds open their beaks 
 to be fed, because they are hungry, men open, xc^t^ovctl, 
 their hearts and minds, because they are hungry, be- 
 cause they hunger and thirst after God, because they 
 want to be fed. It is this hunger, this weakness, 
 if you like, this incompleteness of human nature, 
 attested by universal history, which is the best proof, 
 nay more than a proof, which is the very fact of the 
 existence of something beyond all finite knowledge, 
 call it by any name you like in all the numberless 
 languages and dialects and jargons of the world. 
 Those who maintain that this is a delusion, must 
 admit at all events that it is a universal delusion, 
 and a really universal delusion must be accepted as 
 true, in the only sense in which anything can be true 
 to human beings such as we are. We may readily 
 
WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO? 335 
 
 admit that our senses are imperfect ; but for all that, 
 all our knowledge must begin with the senses. We 
 know that our senses have often deceived us; but 
 for all that, we also know that our senses themselves 
 have helped us to discover and correct their errors. 
 What is quoted as one of the most glaring instances 
 of universal delusion, the belief in the central position 
 of the earth and the movement of the sun round the 
 earth, was after all an imperfect expression only of 
 the facts before us. In the same sense many of the 
 ancient religions, many of our modern theologies 
 also, may be called imperfect, and yet by no means 
 utterly false. As the sun rises and sets and gives 
 us light and warmth, whether we call it by central 
 or eccentric names, the light of the world, the 
 Infinite behind all finite phenomena, remains. Our 
 vision may be clouded by human ignorance, nay the 
 light that shines upon us may be so bright and fierce 
 that, unless veiled in passing clouds, it would burn 
 and blind the human eye. Yet the light is there ; we 
 feel and know it. Clouds, dark or radiant, may come 
 and go, but the light, reflected in ever so many mar- 
 vellous shapes, is, and remains our light. 
 
 The Two Wessons of History. 
 
 History teaches us two lessons. The Jews repre- 
 sent their God as jealous of all false or imperfect 
 gods. This is the first lesson: Man ought to be 
 jealous of all untruth in whatever form it meets 
 him. The Hindus, on the other hand, represent their 
 Supreme Being as saying, * Even those who worship 
 idols, worship me.' This is the second lesson, that 
 we ought to be tolerant, and try to discover some 
 
336 LECTURE XII. 
 
 grains of truth in all untruth, some honest endeavour 
 in all failures ; nay, what has been called a hidden 
 and divine education of man in the whole history 
 of the world/ 
 
 If we confine our study of history, and especially 
 of the history of religion, to one sacred book only, 
 say the Old Testament, we can never learn from that 
 single book, that a belief in God is universal, and 
 that it becomes more and more pure and perfect, not 
 by casual revelation, but by slow and irresistible 
 evolution. Here is a lesson which nothing but a 
 comprehensive study of the sacred books of the world, 
 an exploration of all the religions of mankind, can 
 possibly teach us. And yet that lesson seems to me 
 the only safe and sound foundation of a belief in 
 God. That belief may be very indefinite — and how 
 can human belief in the Infinite ever be anything but 
 indefinite"? And yet, what can be more convincing 
 than that simple argument, if it is not an intuition 
 rather than an argument, which underlies all religions 
 from beginning to end, and in every part of the world, 
 viz. that where there is an act there must be an agent, 
 where there is something finite, there must be some- 
 thing beyond the finite, by whatever name we like 
 to call it. This then is the historical proof of the 
 existence of God ; this was the outcome of our 
 Lectures on Physical Religion. 
 
 Recapitulation of Antliropolog'ical Religion. 
 
 If now we apply exactly the same reasoning to the 
 facts placed before us by a study of what I call An- 
 thropological Religion ; if we ask once more, What 
 does it all lead to ? my answer is the same. 
 
WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO? 337 
 
 Man, if left to himself, has everywhere arrived at 
 the conviction that there is something in man or of 
 man besides the material body. This was a lesson 
 taught, as we saw, not so much by life as by death. 
 Besides the body, besides the heart, besides the blood, 
 there was the breath. Man was struck by that, and 
 when the breath had left the body, he simply stated 
 the fact, that the breath or the psyche had departed. 
 The speculations on the true nature of that psyche 
 within, belong to the domain of Psychological Re- 
 ligion, which will form the subject of my next course 
 of Lectures. 
 
 A mere study of language sufficed to show us 
 how general, nay how universal, is the belief in some- 
 thing beside the body, in some agent within, or in 
 what in Sanskrit is called by a very general name, 
 the antaAkara^ia, the agency within. Every kind 
 of internal agency was ascribed to that something, 
 which showed itself not only as simply breathing and 
 living, but as feeling and perceiving, soon also as 
 naming, conceiving, and reasoning. 
 
 In these Lectures on Anthropological Religion we 
 have had chiefly to deal with the speculations which 
 arose from that psyche as no longer within, but as 
 after death without the body. Here also language 
 began with the name of breath. The breath had 
 gone, the psyche had departed. That psyche, how- 
 ever, was soon conceived, not as mere breath or air, but 
 as retaining most of those activities which had been 
 ascribed to it during life, such as feeling, perceiving, 
 naming, conceiving, and reasoning. 
 
 So far I do not see what can be brought forward 
 against this primitive and universal form of belief. 
 (3) Z 
 
338 LECTURE XII. 
 
 If there was a something in man that could receive, 
 perceive, and conceive, that something, whatever name 
 we call it_, was gone with death. But no one could 
 think that it had been annihilated — nusquami niJdl 
 ex aliquo. So long, therefore, as the ancient philo- 
 sophers said no more than that this something, called 
 breath or psyche, had left the body and had gone 
 somewhere else, I do not see what counter-argument 
 could be advanced against them. 
 
 Even during life, the body alone, though it could 
 live by itself, could not be said to see or hear or 
 perceive by itself. The eye by itself does not see, it 
 requires something else to receive and to perceive, and 
 that something, though itself invisible, was as real as 
 the invisible Infinite and the Divine behind the agents 
 in nature, whom the ancient nations called their gods. 
 It became in turn the soul, the mind, the agent, the 
 subject, till at last it was recognised as the Infinite 
 and the Divine in man ^. 
 
 The ancients knew all this as well as we do, nay, 
 they saw it and pronounced it more clearly than we 
 do. Thus Epicharmos said without hesitation : 
 
 Noos op^ KOI voos cLKOvei' rdWa Kucph. koX TV(p\d. 
 ' The mind sees, and the mind hears, all the rest is deaf and blind,' 
 
 — all the rest, including the body with eyes and ears 
 and other organs of sense. 
 
 So long again as these psyches or souls were 
 spoken of in the plural and were supposed after death 
 to be somewhere, the argument would still remain 
 unassailable. Remember, we are dealing here, not 
 with schooled metaphysicians, but with the so-called 
 
 1 Plut. de fort. 8, p. 98 ; see also Lucret. 8, 36 ; Cic. Tusc. i. 20 ; 
 Hatch, Hibhert Lectures, p. 178. 
 
WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO ? 339 
 
 sons of nature, though before these universal 
 problems of the world, even the best-schooled meta- 
 physicians are not much wiser than these so-called 
 sons of nature. If the ancient nations had been 
 satisfied with this simple faith that the psyches or 
 souls of their departed friends continued to exist 
 somewhere, there could have been no opposition of 
 any kind to this as an article of the universal faith 
 of mankind. It might have been called a self-evident 
 proposition. 
 
 But man, as we say, does not only reason. He has 
 also a heart, and that heart will believe many things 
 that cannot be proved, if only they cannot be dis- 
 proved. 
 
 First of all came the question, where do the souls of 
 the departed exist? All the answers returned are 
 equally natural, all are equally unobjectionable, but 
 likewise equally not proven, because they are beyond 
 the reach of proof. The best answer was perhaps that 
 contained in the most ancient Greek language and 
 mythology, that the souls had gone to the house of the • 
 Invisible, of Aides. No one has ever said anything 
 truer. That house of the Invisible was placed, as we 
 saw, either beneath the earth, or beyond the earth in 
 the west, in the land of the setting sun ; while others 
 who looked upon heaven as the abode of the gods, 
 placed the souls of the departed also in the same abode. 
 
 With regard to these fond hopes and imaginations, 
 all we can say is that they may be true, that they 
 may all be fulfilled, but that we are no better off 
 than the Vedic poets or the lowest of savages for pro- 
 nouncing a definite opinion. 
 
 Next came the question, hoiv the- souls fare after 
 
 j^^^^QH THE '*>^*^ 
 
 ((UHIVBESITTj 
 
340 LECTURE XTI. 
 
 death. We are inclined to smile at the idea that the 
 next life will be much the same as this, that there will 
 be hunting-fields, battle-fields, music, poetry, sweet 
 discourse with our friends, meditation, and adoration. 
 And yet there is again nothing utterly unreasonable 
 in all this. It is a deduction, it is true, based on one 
 precedent only, namely, on the precedent of this 
 present life. But as there can be no other precedent, 
 the belief so widely entei-tained that the next life will 
 be much like this, seems in reality the most reason- 
 able conclusion at which man^ whether in his child- 
 hood or in his old age^, could have arrived. 
 
 This conclusion was strengthened by two influences, 
 one purely imaginative^ the other, however, by no 
 means unreasonable. 
 
 It has generally been supposed that bows and 
 arrows, pots and pans, playthings and medicine 
 bottles, at last, even wives and servants, were burnt 
 or buried with the dead, because people believed that 
 the next would be some kind of continuation of the 
 present life. I tried to show, on the contrary, that 
 what is here represented as the cause, may far more 
 likely have been the efiect, that many things were 
 placed on the funeral pile, or in or on the grave, from 
 a mere desire to give up something to those whom one 
 had loved and served during life. When afterwards 
 a reason was asked to account for what was originally 
 a mere impulse, an unreasoning act, a belief was 
 expressed and very soon defended against all gain- 
 sayers, that all these things, down to the dolls and 
 medicine bottles of children, were not merely thrown 
 away, but would for ever prove useful in another life. 
 
 And when these offerings to the dead took in time 
 
WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO? 341 
 
 a more settled form, and became part of the religious 
 ceremonial among many nations, both civilised and 
 uncivilised, the idea that the dead were cognisant of 
 the honours paid to them, and could enjoy the gifts 
 offered to them, grew stronger and stronger^. Soon 
 also the thought arose that the dead resented the 
 neglect of what was due to them, that they would 
 find no rest till they had received their funeral 
 honours, and that they would haunt the abodes of 
 their relations and bring misfortune on their families 
 till their just demands had been fulfilled. 
 
 By this process of reasoning, if reasoning it may be 
 called, the question how the souls of the departed 
 existed in their new abodes, answered itself. They 
 were of necessity supposed to be capable of knowing 
 what passed in this life, of enjoying offerings, of 
 appreciating praise, of rewarding those who cared for 
 them, and punishing those who neglected them. 
 Thus, without actually ascribing to them a body like 
 the body that had been burnt or buried, they were 
 supposed to be conscious, to retain their names, and 
 to have what we call the faculties of feeling, perceiv- 
 ing, conceiving, and reasoning. We then saw how an 
 even more powerful impulse sprang from the belief in 
 a moral government of the universe, by whatever 
 name it might be called. The mere conviction that 
 no deed can die, that there must be an effect to every 
 cause, would irresistibly lead to the conclusion that 
 crimes, unpunished in this, will be punished in the 
 next life, and that the good deeds unrewarded here, 
 will receive their reward there. This idea soon 
 received an enormous development. It led to the 
 * Xenophon, Cyrop. 8, 7, 18. 
 
342 LECTURE XTI. 
 
 invention of sunny isles in the west, of a paradise in 
 the east, and of glorious abodes in heaven. It also 
 inspired both ancient and modern poets in their de- 
 scriptions of the terrors of the lower world, the fire of 
 hell, and the tortures of the Inferno. 
 
 We can distinguish three stages in the growth of 
 this belief. With some people, as with the Jews, and 
 with some of the Greeks, life after death was hardly 
 more than mere existence, without joy, but likewise 
 without suffering, without rewards, and without 
 punishments. It was a sleep with their fathers. 
 
 With others, as the Vedic Indians, for instance, life 
 after death was conceived chiefly as a happy life, a 
 state of enjoyment in company with the gods. 
 
 Then, by the side of those who reaped the reward 
 of their virtues in heaven, was imagined another place 
 for the punishment of the wicked. This took place at 
 a later time both in India and in Greece. 
 
 And lastly, a more philosophical theory prevailed, 
 that by a succession of new births the soul would 
 assume new bodies, having thus an opportunity given 
 it for rising to higher and higher perfection, and 
 reaching in the end the supreme goal, nearness to, 
 nay, likeness, or even oneness or atone-ness, with 
 God. 
 
 In all these thoughts which we find not only in 
 India, Greece, and Italy, but scattered all over the 
 world, wherever human beings have been living 
 together, we can distinguish between what is true, 
 true for us to-day as it was for the earliest thinkers 
 and speakers on earth, and what is merely imagina- 
 tion, often quite harmless, but having no claim to be 
 called either true or untrue. 
 
WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO? 343 
 
 What is true to us, as it was to our earliest ances- 
 tors, is that the soul does not die. In many languages 
 even the expression, ' He is dead,' is avoided, partly, it 
 may be, because it is an inauspicious expression, but 
 partly also because it is felt to contain an untruth. I 
 am told that in some parts of Scotland also, you will 
 never hear that a person has died. You are told that 
 he has been taken away. Mr. Macdonald, a missionary, 
 remarked the same among the Zulus in Africa. They 
 never say, ' He is dead,' they say, ' He is not here,* 
 and they speak of the departed spirits as 'ascending 
 to heaven,' or as ' gone home ^.' 
 
 It seems to me that they are right in this, at least 
 to a certain point. To die applies to the body ; it has 
 really no sense as applied to the soul, if only we dis- 
 tinguish rightly between what we mean by body and 
 what we mean by soul. The soul is neither born, as 
 the body is born, nor does it live, as the body lives ; nor 
 can it die, therefore, as the body dies. We do not say 
 that the soul is blind,^ because the eyes of the body have 
 been injured, or that it is deaf, because the tympanum 
 has been pierced, or even that the soul is mad, because 
 the central organ, whether we call it heart or brain, has 
 been injured. The soul is the witness only, it may be 
 the compassionate witness, of all that passes in the 
 body. It perceives what it perceives without eyes 
 and without ears, and even madness is only like a 
 darkening of the light, like a deep sleep that falls on 
 the body and cannot be shaken off. 
 
 And what applies to the soul within, applies also to 
 the souls without, I mean, to the souls, after the decay 
 
 ^ Macdonald, Journal of the Anthropological Institute, Nov. 1890, p. 
 121. 
 
344 LECTUKE XII. 
 
 and death of the body. It is because the ancient, and 
 many of the modern philosophers also, cannot dis- 
 tinguish between what is body and what is soul, 
 because, in fact, they do not believe in a soul, but 
 only talk about it, that they become involved in 
 endless contradictions in their utterances about the 
 souls of the departed. In our longings for the departed 
 we often think of them as young or old, we think of 
 them as man or woman, as father or mother, as husband 
 or wife. Even nationality and language are supposed 
 to remain after death, and we often hear expressions, 
 ' Oh, if the souls are without all this, without age, 
 without sex, without national character, without even 
 their native language, what will they be to us ? ' 
 
 The answer is, they will really be the same to us as 
 they were in this life. Unless we can bring ourselves 
 to believe that a soul has a beginning, and that our 
 soul sprang into being at the time of our birth, the 
 soul within us must have existed before. 
 
 ' Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, 
 
 The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
 Has had elsewhere its setting, 
 And Cometh from afar.' 
 
 But however convinced we may be of the soul's 
 eternal existence, we shall always remain ignorant as 
 to how it existed. And yet we do not murmur or 
 complain. Our soul on awakening here is not quite a 
 stranger to itself, and the souls who as our parents, 
 our wives, and husbands, our children, and our friends, 
 have greeted us at first as strangers in this life, but 
 have become to us as if we had known them for ever, 
 and as if we could never lose them again. If it were 
 to be so again in the next life, if there also we should 
 meet at first as strangers till drawn together by the 
 
WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO? 345 
 
 same mysterious love that has drawn us together 
 here, why should we murmur or complain *? Thousands 
 of years ago we read of a husband telling his wife, 
 'Verily a wife is not dear, that you may love the 
 wife, but that you may love the soul, therefore a wife 
 is dear.' What does that mean ? It means that true 
 love consists not in loving what is perishable, but in 
 discovering and loving what is eternal in man or 
 woman. In Sanskrit that eternal part is called by 
 many names ; the best seems that which is used in 
 this very passage, At ma. We translate it by soul, 
 but it is even higher and purer than soul, and it is 
 perhaps best translated by the word Self. That 
 which constitutes the true Self, the looker on, the 
 witness within us, that which is everywhere in the 
 body and yet nowhere to be touched, that which can- 
 not die or expire, because it never breathed, that is the 
 Infinite in man which philosophers have been groping 
 for, though ' he is not far from every one of us.' It is 
 the Divine or God-like in man. 
 
 Ka^/^a-upanisllad. 
 
 It might seem as if such speculations belonged to 
 modern times only, when there is leisure for the few 
 at least, to think, not of this life only, but also of the 
 next. But that is not the case. The curiosity as to 
 what awaits us in the next life, is very old. We find 
 among the Vedic Upanishads one that is entirely 
 devoted to this subject. It is called the Ka^/^a-upani- 
 shad. We may, I believe, safely say that this Upani- 
 shad is older than Buddha, and that, for our present 
 purposes, is enough. It is a strange mixture of 
 mythology and philosophy. Some portions of it are 
 
346 LECTURE XII. 
 
 probably later additions, and some scholars have 
 attempted, more or less successfully, to separate these 
 more modern from the more ancient parts. I shall 
 only attempt to give you a short abstract, and to 
 select those passages which are universally intelK- 
 gible, and can appeal to our own sympathies. 
 
 The Upanishad consists chiefly of a dialogue be- 
 tween Yama, the ruler of the dead, who has become 
 identified with Mrityu or death, and a young Brah- 
 manic student, of the name of Na/ciketas. 
 
 We are told in the beginning that the father of this 
 young Brahman performed a sacrifice in which he 
 professed to give away everything he possessed. The 
 son is represented as taunting his father that, after all, 
 he had not given away everything, because he did not 
 give away his own son. The father becomes angry at 
 last, and exclaims : 
 
 ' Well, I shall give thee unto Death.' 
 
 The son at once accepts his fate, and says : 
 
 ' Look back, how it was with those who came before, look for- 
 ward how it will be with those who come after. A mortal ripens 
 like corn, like corn he springs up again.' 
 
 It so happens that when the young Brahman enters 
 the abode of Death, Yama, the lord of the departed, is 
 absent. For three nights no hospitality is shown to 
 NaHketas, and this was looked upon as so great an 
 oflTence that Yama, when he returns, has to oflfer him 
 three boons to avert his anger. Na/dketas asks as his 
 first boon that his father may not be angry with him 
 when he returns from the mouth of death. This is 
 granted. 
 
 He then asks for the knowledge of a sacrifice by 
 which he may attain immortality in heaven, where 
 
WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO? 347 
 
 there is no death, no old age, no hunger or thirst, and 
 no sorrow. This too is granted. 
 
 And now it might be supposed that no more could 
 be asked for. But Na/(;iketas is not satisfied with the 
 ordinary immortality in heaven, though it gives ever- 
 lasting peace and happiness. He wants to know more 
 and to have more, and says : 
 
 ' There is that doubt, when a man is dead, some saying, he is ; 
 others, he is not. This I should like to know, taught by thee ; 
 this is the third of my boons.' 
 
 Then a fierce struggle begins between the young 
 Brahman and Death. Death offers him anything 
 rather than to tell him this mystery which, as he says, 
 even the gods do not know. He offers him health 
 and wealth, children and chariots, fair maidens and 
 music, but all in vain. NaA;iketas will have his third 
 boon, he will know what happens to man after he is 
 dead, and Yama has at last to yield. 
 
 Then follows the answer of Yama or Death : 
 
 'Fools,' he says, 'dwelling in darkness, wise in their own con- 
 ceit, and puffed up with vain knowledge, go round and round, 
 staggering to and fro, like blind men, led by the blind.' 
 
 ' The Hereafter never rises before the eyes of the careless child, 
 deluded by the delusion of wealth. "This is the world," he thinks, 
 " there is no other ; " and thus he falls again and again under my 
 sway (the sway of death).' II. 5 seq. 
 
 Then follows the explanation of what constitutes 
 the true being and the true immortality of man, what 
 is called Atma in Sanskrit, and is generally translated 
 by the soul, but which is better rendered by the self, 
 the self that lies behind the Ego, behind the mere per- 
 sonality of man, and which is really, when fully 
 known, the same as Brahman, the universal Self. 
 
 Yama continues : 
 
 'The knowing (Self) is not born, it dies not; it sprang from 
 
348 LECTURE XII. 
 
 nothing, nothing sprang from it. The ancient is unborn, eternal, 
 everlasting, he is never killed, though the body is killed.' II. 18. 
 
 ' The Self, smaller than small, greater than great, is hidden in 
 the heart of the creature. A man who is free from desires and 
 free from sorrow, sees the majesty of the Self by the grace of the 
 Creator (or, through the tranquillity of the senses).' 11. 20. 
 
 'That Self cannot be gained by the Veda, nor by understanding, 
 nor by much learning. He whom the Self chooses, by him the 
 Self can be gained. The Self chooses him as his own.' II. 23. 
 
 Then follows a parable which reminds one of a 
 well-known passage in Plato's Phaedros : 
 
 ' Know the Self to be sitting in the chariot, the body to be the 
 chariot, the intellect (buddhi) the charioteei', and the mind the 
 reins.' 
 
 ' The senses they call the horses, the objects of the senses their 
 roads. When he (the Highest Self) is in union with the body, the 
 senses, and the mind, then wise people call him the Enjoyer.' 
 
 ' He who has no understanding and whose mind (the reins) is 
 never firmly held, his senses (horses) are unmanageable, like vicious 
 horses of a charioteer.' 
 
 ' But he who has understanding and whose mind is always 
 firmly held, his senses are under control, like good horses of a 
 charioteer.' 
 
 ' He who has no understanding, who is unmindful and always 
 impure, never reaches that place, but enters into the round of 
 births.' 
 
 ' But he who has understanding, who is mindful and always 
 pure, reaches indeed that place, from whence he is not born again.' 
 III. 3-8. 
 
 ' Eise, awake ! having obtained your boons, understand them ! 
 The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over ; and thus the 
 wise say that the path (^that leads to the Self, or to Self-knowledge) 
 is hard.' III. 14. 
 
 ' He who has perceived that which is without sound, without 
 touch, without form, without decay, without taste, eternal, with- 
 out smell, without beginning, without end, beyond the Great, and 
 unchangeable, is freed from the jaws of death.' III. 15. 
 
 Here ends the first chapter. Then follows a second 
 which contains a collection of verses, all bearing on 
 our subject, but full of allusions to minute points of 
 Indian philosophy. It would require more time than 
 we can spare to make their real meaning quite clear, 
 
WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO? 349 
 
 and I must be satisfied with quoting a few of the more 
 simple and telling verses : 
 
 'No mortal lives'by the breath that goes up and by the breath 
 that goes down. We live by another, in whom these two repose.' 
 V. 5. 
 
 '■ He, the Highest Person, who is awake in us while we are 
 asleep, shaping one lovely sight after another, that indeed is the 
 Bright, that is Brahman, that alone is called the Immortal. All 
 words are contained in it, and no one goes beyond. This is that.' 
 V. 8. 
 
 'As the one fire, after it has entered the world, though one, 
 becomes different according to whatever it burns, thus the one 
 Self within all things becomes different, according to whatever it 
 enters, and exists also without.' V. 9. 
 
 ' As the sun, the eye of the whole world, is not contaminated by 
 the external impurities seen by the eyes, thus the one Self within 
 all things is never contaminated by the misery of the world, being 
 himself without.' 
 
 ' There is one ruler, the Self within all things, who makes the 
 one form manifold. The wise who perceive him within their Self, 
 to them belongs eternal happiness, not to others/ 
 
 'There is one eternal thinker, thinking non-eternal thoughts, 
 who, though one, fulfils the desires of many. The wise who per- 
 ceive him within their Self, to them belongs eternal peace, not 
 to others.' V. 11-13. 
 
 ' Beyond the senses is the mind, beyond the mind is the highest 
 (created) Being, higher than that Being is the Great Self, higher 
 than the Great, the highest Undeveloped.' 
 
 'Beyond the Undeveloped is the Person, the all-pervading and 
 entirely imperceptible. Every creature that knows him is liberated, 
 and obtains immortality.' 
 
 ' His form is not to be seen, no one beholds him with the eye. 
 He is imagined by the heart, by wisdom, by the mind. Those who 
 know this, are immortal.' VI. 7-9. 
 
 ' He (the Self) cannot be reached by speech, by mind, or by the 
 eye. How can it be apprehended except by him who says : 
 "He is?'" 
 
 'By the words "He is," is he to be apprehended, and by 
 (admitting) the reality of both (the invisible Brahman and the 
 visible world, as coming from Brahman). When he has been 
 apprehended by the words "He is," then his reality reveals itself.' 
 
 ' When all desires that dwell in his heart cease, then the mortal 
 becomes immortal, and obtains Brahman.' 
 
 ' When all the ties of the heart are severed here on earth, then 
 the mortal becomes immortal — here ends the teaching.' VI. 12-15. 
 
 We are then told that the young Brahman, after 
 
350 LECTURE XIT. 
 
 having received this instruction, became free and 
 obtained Brahman, and that everybody who knows 
 all this about his true Self, will be like him. 
 
 I doubt whether any literature, and more particu- 
 larly any ancient literature, has produced anything to 
 match this Upanishad. To those who can enter into 
 the spirit of its teaching, or, as Yama said, to those 
 whom the Self has chosen, it is perfectly marvellous. 
 But even those who shrink from following its doc- 
 trine, must admit that the discovery of such a work 
 among the so-called niggers of India, composed at 
 a time when neither Roman nor Saxon had as yet 
 set foot on these isles, is an important discovery, 
 as important at least as what has been discovered 
 in the hieroglyphic records of Egypt, and in the 
 cuneiform inscriptions of Babylon and Nineveh. We 
 may not find in the Veda so many names of kings, 
 so many accounts of battles and conquests, so many 
 dates carrying us back to three or four thousand years 
 before our era. But we find in the Veda, and more 
 particularly in the Upanishads, what has occupied the 
 thoughts of man at all times, what occupies them now 
 and will occupy them for ever — a search after truth, 
 a desire to discover the Eternal that underlies the 
 Ephemeral, a longing to find in the human heart the 
 assurance of a future life, and an attempt to re-unite 
 the bond which once held the human and the divine 
 together, the true atone-ment between God and man. 
 How this old problem was solved in certain religions, 
 we shall see in our next and last Lecture. 
 
LECTURE XIII. 
 
 THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 
 
 THE principal object of the study of Anthropologi- 
 cal Religion in its historical development is to 
 learn how man has been searching for the god-like 
 element in human nature, just as a study of Physical 
 Religion showed him to us as bent on discovering 
 something divine or infinite in that objective nature 
 by which he found himself surrounded. I have tried 
 therefore to place before you the various attempts by 
 which the human mind, whether in India, Greece, 
 and Rome, or in Palestine and Egypt, or even in 
 countries not yet illuminated by the rays of civilisa- 
 tion, arrived at the discovery of something more than 
 human in human nature, of something immortal in 
 mortal man, at a belief in a soul, and in the divine 
 kinship of that soul. It required an effort, perhaps 
 the greatest effort of which human nature is capable, 
 to bring the two concepts of the human and the 
 divine, which for a time seemed diametrically opposed 
 to each other, into one focus again. It is the history 
 of these efforts, and, at the same time, the justification 
 of these efforts, that forms the second great division of 
 
352 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 Natural Eeligion, nay of all religion — for what wow i4 
 religion be without this second article of faith- 4o 
 believe in my own soul and its divine sonship.' 
 
 Worship of tlie Departed leads to the Recog^nition of the 
 Divine in Man. 
 
 We saw that one of the most powerful helps to 
 bring the too widely distant concepts of the divine 
 and the human together again, was derived from 
 ancestor- worship. The worship of the spirits of the 
 departed which, under various forms, was so widely 
 spread over the ancient world, could not but accustom 
 the human mind to the idea that there was some- 
 thing in man which deserved such worship. The 
 souls of the departed were lifted higher and higher, 
 till at last they reached the highest stage which 
 existed in the human mind, namely that of divine 
 beinofs, in the ancient sense of that word. The 
 Romans had their Bivi Manes, their divine ancestral 
 spirits. In their ancient laws it was laid down that 
 the rights of these gods should be sacred, Deorurn 
 Maniwni jura sanda sunto j and that our friends, 
 when dead, should be held as gods. Sos (i.e. suos) 
 leto dato divos hahento ^. 
 
 In Greece the ancestral spirits of families became 
 6eo\ TrarpwoL, paternal gods, and the same name was 
 given to the ancestors of a race and the founders 
 of towns. 
 
 Among the Vedic Indians the Piti'is or fathers 
 became the companions of the Devas ; in later times 
 they are placed even above the Devas ^. 
 
 1 Cic. De Leg. 2, 9, 22. 
 
 ^ India, What can it teach us ? p. 372. 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 353 
 
 lilt ancient Persia the Fravashis, the Fravashis of 
 t'ft^ faithful, the awful and overpowering Fravashis, 
 helped Ahura Mazda in all his works. 
 
 Apotheosis. 
 
 This idea of apotheosis or deification of man, as 
 it meets us in many parts of the world, may seem 
 very strange to us. It would be more than strange, it 
 would be an idea simply impossible, unless there had 
 been preparatory steps leading up to it. It is to all 
 intents and purposes a transition in alteruni genus. 
 Nay, if there are two genera, which seem completely 
 to exclude one another, they are those of gods and 
 men. Gods might well have been defined as beings 
 who, whatever else they may be, are not men ; men 
 as beings who, whatever else they may be, are not 
 gods. Yet from very early times we saw how both 
 Greeks and Romans had accustomed their minds to 
 the idea, that a man may become a god. That gods 
 also may assume the form of men, and even appear to 
 man disguised in human shape, is more intelligible. 
 For after all, the gods, we are told, can do all things. 
 But to conceive that human nature could ever be 
 changed into divine nature, requires an eflfort that 
 seems at first beyond the powers at all events of those 
 whose idea of deity was represented by beings such as 
 Zeus, Apollo, and Athene. 
 
 Let us try whether we may still discover how the 
 Greeks, who must always remain a representative 
 race in the evolution of human thought, were helped 
 over this difficulty, how they came to reconcile their 
 reason, which was always so keen and vigorous, to 
 what must at first have appeared to them a contradic- 
 (3) A a 
 
354 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 tion in terms, an apotheosis of man, or an apanthro- 
 posis of God. Nowhere else, not even in India, can 
 we discover the vestiges of this transition more clearly 
 than in Greece. I propose therefore to examine it 
 more carefully, so that it may serve as an illustration 
 of similar processes which have taken place in other 
 countries also, but have not left us there the same 
 complete record which we find in the literature of 
 Greece. 
 
 Heroes as Aioyevcts. 
 
 We saw how the Greeks were led to a belief in 
 Zeus, as the supreme deity of nature. When Zeus 
 had once been recognised as the father of gods and 
 men, it was natural and intelligible that the ancient, 
 powerful kings of Greece should have been called, in 
 a special sense, the offspring of Zeus. When we find 
 these kings called ^loy^vels^ this need not at first 
 have implied much more than what was meant by our 
 ' Kings by the grace of God.' 
 
 The transition from this to actual sonship was very 
 easy. If Aeacus, for instance, was born in Aegina 
 or of Aegina, and if he was also a ^aa-tkevs Aioyevrjs, 
 9, Zeus-born king, it was almost inevitable that in 
 more or less poetical language Aegina should be 
 represented as his mother, and Zeus as his father. 
 And while in this case we see a mortal woman 
 married to a god, there are other cases where a 
 goddess is married to a mortal man. Thus Achilles 
 is represented as the son of the goddess Thetis and 
 of Peleus. 
 
 In all these cases, whenever there was some 
 Olympian blood in the veins of human heroes, they 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 355 
 
 were supposed to be half-way between the gods and 
 men, and in many cases they were believed not to 
 die like ordinary mortals, but to live in the Isles of 
 the Blest, in the Elysian Fields, or even with the 
 Olympian gods. Menelaos, though only the son-in- 
 law of Zeus, is told that it is not decreed for him by 
 the gods to die, but that the immortals will send him 
 to the Elysian plain, because he is the son-in-law 
 of Zeus ^. 
 
 This apotheosis or deification of heroes, though 
 purely mythological in its origin, may have helped 
 towards the discovery of something divine in man. 
 Only we must always bear in mind that these heroes 
 of the Theban and Trojan wars were exceptional 
 beings. In some cases it is almost certain that they 
 were not real men, but purely mythological creations. 
 If Dionysos, for instance, because he is the son of a 
 mortal woman, is represented to us as a hero, who 
 afterwards became a god, even an Olympian god^, 
 we must remember that Dionysos was probably an 
 ancient deity, before he was represented as a human 
 hero. He never died. Helena also was certainly 
 a goddess ^, before she was represented as the wife of 
 Menelaos, and the cause of the Trojan war. As to 
 Herakles, even the ancients admitted that there was 
 a mortal and an immortal Herakles. Herodotus, ii. 
 44, tells us that the one, the Olympian, received 
 divine honours, the other ancestral honours only ^. 
 
 The introduction of these new beings, half human, 
 
 1 Od. iv. 555. 
 
 2 Diod. Siculus, 4, 15 ; Eurip. Bacchae, 767. 
 8 Isocrates, 10, 61. 
 
 * Kat rw fX€V us deavdrq) 'ClKv/xmo) S^ kirMVVfJUTjVj Qvovai, r^ S« Irf/jy &s 
 
 A a 2 
 
356 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 half divine, could not but modify the whole character 
 of the religion of the Greeks. Religion is, no doubt, 
 a very general term, and it is difficult to lay hold of 
 it when, as in ancient Greece, it existed as yet in the 
 minds of individuals, or families, or villages only. 
 On this account Hesiod's works, containing the first 
 attempt at a systematic treatment of Greek religion, 
 deserve to be considered by students of religion 
 quite as carefully as the works of Homer. It may 
 be useful, therefore, before we proceed further, to cast 
 a glance at his Theogony, and at what he considered 
 the objects of religious belief and worship to have 
 been among the Greeks of his own time. 
 
 Whether the system of Greek religion which we 
 find in Hesiod, was entirely his own work or the 
 work of the Greek people at large, is difficult to say. 
 It is quite certain, no doubt, that neither Homer nor 
 Hesiod ' made ' the gods of the Greeks, but it is truer 
 of Hesiod than of Homer that he reduced them to 
 something like order. 
 
 Hesiod admitted gods and men, but he also 
 admitted intermediate beings. He seems to have 
 been the first to use the word and the concept of 
 rjixiOeos, half-god, which was probably unknown to 
 Homer (II. xii. 23). He applies it to those very 
 heroes of the Trojan and Theban wars, of whom we 
 have been speaking. But he never admits that an 
 ordinary man could become a god or even a half- 
 god. Between gods and men he placed the heroes, 
 r]p(*)€s, or half-gods, rjixideoi, and the Daimones, baifioves. 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 357 
 
 Heroes. 
 
 It is quite true, as I pointed out, that Hesiod's 
 heroes were exceptional beings, not ordinary mortals. 
 Yet the fact that these heroes were believed to have 
 lived on earth, like ordinary mortals, and had, after 
 their death, been transferred either to the isles of the 
 blessed, or had been admitted to the society of the 
 Olympian gods, made it easier in later times to imagine 
 that a real mortal, distinguished above the rest, might 
 share the same honours as those who were the direct 
 descendants of the gods {h 6iG>v yeyovores, Isocr. 4, 84). 
 We read of such men as receiving not only the usual 
 ancestral worship, but as worshipped, like the heroes, 
 and, in some cases, as worshipped like the gods. We 
 read of the Chersonitae, for instance, sacrificing to 
 Miltiades, the victor of Marathon, 490 B. c, after his 
 death, as to their founder (Herod, vi. 38). In Greece, 
 where the patriotic feeling was so strong, nothing 
 was more natural than that national honours should 
 be paid to those who had died for their country. 
 Pausanias tells us (i. 32, 4) that the Marathonians 
 worshipped all who had fallen in the battle of Mara- 
 thon, calling them Heroes, and especially Marathon, 
 from whom their Demos had its name. 
 
 Plutarch relates (Arist. 21) that after the battle of 
 Plataea, 479 B.C., the inhabitants performed funeral 
 sacrifices [ivayiCnv) every year to the Hellenes who 
 had fallen and been buried there. And they do so 
 still, he continues. 
 
 * On the 16th of the Attic month Maimakterion they have a great 
 procession, preceded at day- break by a trumpeter who gives the 
 sign to attack. Then follow carriages with myrtle and gai'lands, 
 a black bull, and free-born boys, carrying libations of wine and milk 
 
358 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 in amphoras, and oil and ointments in jugs. No slave is allowed 
 to take any part, because those Greeks once died for freedom. At 
 last follows the Archon of Plataea, walking through the town to the 
 graves. He is never allowed to touch a sword or to wear any but 
 white vestments, but on this occasion he is clothed in a red chiton, 
 carrying an urn which he has taken from the archive, and girded 
 with a sword. He takes water from a spring, washes the funeral 
 columns himself^ and anoints them with sweet oil. After he has 
 killed the bull on the altar, and prayed to Zevis and to the chthonic 
 Hermes, he invites the brave who have died for Hellas to the meal 
 and the partaking of the blood. He then mixes a goblet of wine, 
 and while pouring out the libation, he says : " I drink to men who 
 died for the liberty of the Hellenes." This festival is kept by the 
 Plataeensians to the present day.' 
 
 Thucydides (v. 11) tells us that ' Brasidas, who died 
 after gaining the victory at Amphipolis (422 B.C.), was 
 buried in the city with public honours in front of 
 what is now the Agora. The whole body of the allies 
 in military array followed him to the grave. The 
 Amphipolitans enclosed his sepulchre, and to this day 
 they sacrifice to him as to a hero, and also celebrate 
 games and yearly offerings in his honour. They 
 likewise made him their founder, and dedicated their 
 colony to him.' 
 
 Many similar cases might be quoted, all showing 
 how the distance which originally separated men 
 from the heroes as well as from the gods, became 
 smaller and smaller in the eyes of the Greeks. When 
 Demosthenes speaks of those who have fallen for 
 their country, he says in so many words ^: 'How 
 should one not consider men of such merit as blessed, 
 men who have received such recognition and honour ? 
 One may fairly say of them that they are the asses- 
 sors of the lower gods, and in the isles of the blessed 
 placed in the same rank as the brave men of former 
 times ^.' 
 
 1 Demosth. epitaph. 1399, § 36, p. 590, t. ii. Bekk. 
 ' Lehrs, Populdre Aufsdtze, p. 332. 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 359 
 
 Plutarch (Vita Lys. 18) tells us that Lysander 
 (died 394 B.C.) was the first to whom the Greeks 
 actually erected altars and offered sacrifices as to a 
 god. In later times even bodily strength, athletic 
 power, nay mere physical beauty, might raise a man 
 to the rank of heroes. Herodotus tells us that Philip 
 of Croton^, a contemporary of Lysander, obtained, on 
 account of his beauty, what no one else had obtained, 
 for the Egestans built a Heroion on his tomb, and 
 honoured him by sacrifices {6v(Tir\(n). This custom was 
 continued till at last ilpMs became the received name 
 for any departed spirit. On Boeotian tombstones 
 nothing is more common than the inscription, rjpo)? 
 Xatpf, hail, O hero ! 
 
 If then we find that an ordinary mortal could be 
 honoured like a hero, and a hero could be worshipped 
 like a god, it is easy to see that the mere likeness 
 would soon be forgotten, that the mortal would be 
 honoured as a hero, and the hero worshipped as a 
 god. And thus a transition was effected half-uncon- 
 sciously between the human and the divine, and the 
 existence of something divine in man would be ad- 
 mitted almost by necessity. 
 
 Daimoues. 
 
 The conception of Daimones led by another road 
 to the discovery of something divine in man. While 
 the heroes were originally human, the Daimones were 
 in the beginning purely divine beings with nothing 
 human about them. Plutarch^ tells us that Hesiod 
 
 ^ See Plut. Def. Orac. 10 : 'HctoSos hi KaOapws ml Sioipia/xfyajs nparros 
 f^iOrjKe tSjv XoyiKuv rirrapa yivt}, Oeovs, elra daifxovas iroWoi/s KayaOovs, 
 etra ijpooas, eira dv$pajirovs, twv ^fudioiv ds ^pojas dvoKpidivTOJV. 
 
360 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 was the first who divided all rational beings into 
 four classes, namely gods, daimones, many and good, 
 heroes, including the half-gods, and Tnen. 
 
 It may be doubtful whether Hesiod had this four- 
 fold division always clearly before his mind, and 
 whether it ever formed the recognised foundation 
 of the religion of the Greeks. His identifying the 
 daimones with the men of the golden race seems at all 
 events purely arbitrary. This name of Daimones is 
 in fact one of the most difficult names in the religious 
 phraseology of the ancient Greeks. We translate 
 the word by demons ^5 which gives of course a very 
 imperfect idea of its import. At first haiixoav clearly 
 meant a god, the same as 6^6s. Thus we read in 
 Homer of Athene returning from the earth to the 
 Daimones on Olympus. Aalixoiv is used more especially 
 when a god appears as an active power. It then 
 comes very near to the Latin numen, a divine power, 
 as distinguished from the more personal deus. Thus 
 Helios, the sun, is called by Aristophanes a great 
 demon among gods and men. 
 
 But we saw already how the same word haiixoav was 
 used in another sense too. It was applied by Hesiod to 
 the first or the golden race of men. This has caused 
 much confusion. 
 
 Hesiod's Four Races. 
 
 Hesiod speaks of four races of men who lived 
 before the present race, the golden, the silver, and 
 the copper race, and lastly, the race of heroes or half- 
 gods. 
 
 The first race, the golden, was made by the Olym- 
 
 ' See H. Spencer, Sociology, p. 323. 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 361 
 
 plan gods under Kronos. They lived a life of perfect 
 happiness ; and, without suffering from the evils of 
 old age, they passed away as in a sleep. But 
 after they had been buried, Zeus changed them 
 into Daimones, and they now roam about on earth, 
 clothed in air, and watching over laws and crimes. 
 
 The second or silver race was given up to folly, 
 and neglected the worship of the gods. After passing 
 away, they became the Blessed under the earth 
 {eTnyOoiioi jJiCLKapes OnjTol KoKiovrai). 
 
 Then Zeus made the third or copper race, in the 
 days when iron was not yet known. It is said that 
 these men were made out of ash-trees (ck ixeXiStv)^ and 
 it is curious to observe that the Germans also had a 
 tradition that men were made out of such trees. 
 They were warriors of enormous strength. After a 
 time they died and passed away. 
 
 After these three races, the golden, the silver, and 
 the copper races, we should expect the present or 
 iron race. But here Hesiod interpolates the race 
 of the heroes, the heroes of the Theban and Trojan 
 wars, who are called by him rjixiOeot or half-gods. 
 These, after they died, did not, as Homer represents 
 them, descend into the house of Hades, but, according 
 to Hesiod, Zeus allowed them to live in the isles of the 
 blessed, ruled by Kronos as their king. 
 
 Daimon therefore meant originally god, and was 
 probably on Greek soil as old a word as theos. Its 
 etymology is unfortunately uncertain, but its mean- 
 ing differs from that of the6s chiefly by its impersonal 
 and unmythological character. Daimones were divine 
 agents, at first, without any proper names, without 
 temples and sacrifices. Afterwards they were repre- 
 
362 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 sented as the followers (Plat. Legg. viii. p. 848 d), 
 the messengers, and the servants of the gods (Plut. 
 Def Orac. 13). 
 
 As these divine powers watch over man, it was 
 supposed after a time that every man had his own 
 daimon ^, likewise every family, and every town. 
 At first, these daimones were kind, tutelary beings. 
 Hence the ayaObs baLfxaiu, the good genius, of a man. 
 But we also hear of an evil daimon, who is account- 
 able for the misfortunes that befall a man. It is diffi- 
 cult for us to connect any clear ideas with these 
 daimones who determined the fates of man. But 
 how familiar this idea was to the Greeks, we see 
 from such expressions as baifjiovLos. A haiyiovio^ avrip 
 was meant for a man possessed, strange, luckless, 
 wretched, sometimes also for an inspired and marvel- 
 lous person ^. Our awful comes often very near to 
 8atjuoz'6os. 
 
 Tlie Daimouiou of Sokrates. 
 
 We shall now better understand what Sokrates 
 really meant by his Daimonion, and why he held 
 that a belief in this Daimonion involved a belief in 
 gods and even in sons of gods or heroes. This is 
 what Plato puts into the mouth of Sokrates in his 
 Apology (Apol. 27 d) : 
 
 ' You say that I teach and believe in ^aijuoVta, new 
 or old, no matter for that. . . . But if I believe in 
 batfjiovia, I must believe in batixoves ; is not that 
 true ? . . . Now, what are baCixoves ? are they not 
 either gods or the sons of gods? Is that true?' 
 
 ' Yes, that is true.' 
 
 ^ Phokylides, Fragm. 17 b. 
 
 * Lehrs, Aufsdtze aus dem Alterthum, p. 146. 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 363 
 
 ' But this is just the ingenious riddle of which I 
 was speaking: the batfjLoves are gods, and you say- 
 first that I do not believe in gods, and then again 
 that I do believe in gods ; that is, if I believe in 
 baCfjioves. Or, if the baifjioves are the illegitimate 
 sons of gods, whether by the nymphs or by any 
 other mothers, as is thought, that, as all men 
 will allow, necessarily implies the existence of their 
 parents. You might as well affirm the existence of 
 mules, and deny that of horses and asses. . . . But 
 no one who has a particle of understanding will 
 ever be convinced by you that the same man can 
 believe in baiixovia and ^eta, and yet not believe that 
 there are baiixov€<s, O^oi, and rjpoies.' 
 
 This Daimonion or this Daimon became under 
 various names more and more important in later 
 philosophical systems, particularly in the widespread 
 system of the Stoics. With them the rational part of 
 the human soul was considered as a part of the divine 
 reason, given to every man as the god within, or as 
 his baijicov. 
 
 All this is clear and intelligible. The only dis- 
 turbing element in the history of the word baCixoav is 
 the idea of Hesiod that the men of the golden race 
 were raised by Zeus to the rank of daimones. It is 
 hardly ever mentioned as an article of national belief 
 by other representative thinkers of Greece, and it 
 utterly perverts the original character of the daimones 
 which is divine from the beginning and remains 
 divine to the end, when it has been recognised as the 
 Divine, dwelling in man. 
 
364 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 The Three Boads leading' to the Discovery of somethingf 
 Divine in Man. 
 
 We have thus discovered three roads on which the 
 Greeks were conducted to the discovery of something 
 more than human, something superhuman, something 
 divine or infinite in man. The most important road 
 was that of ancestor-worship, beginning with the 
 honours paid to departed parents, grandparents, and 
 great-grandparents, then leading on to the worship 
 of the ancestors of a family, of a clan, of a town, and 
 of a state, and ending in the recognition of a world of 
 spirits, not far removed from the world of the gods. 
 
 The second road started from a kind of mytholo- 
 gical belief in human heroes, as the offspring of Zeus. 
 Afterwards ordinary mortals also were raised to the 
 same level, and thus another approach was made to 
 the discovery of something divine, or, at least, god- 
 like in man. 
 
 The third road started from a belief in divine 
 powers^ called Daimones. These spirits were supposed 
 to watch over the destiny of a man, then to become 
 his destiny. A man being possessed by his daimon, 
 was at last identified with it, and the divine in man 
 was thus once more recognised as the haiixovtov of 
 Sokrates and other philosophers. 
 
 Nearness, likeness, and oneness with the Divine are 
 the three goals which the human mind reached in 
 Greece. In each case we see that a belief in nature- 
 gods is pre-supposed, nay that without that belief 
 anthropological religion would be simply impossible. 
 
 Plato on G-ods, Daimones, Heroes, and Ancestral Spirits. 
 
 We cannot find a better summing-up of the last 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 365 
 
 results of Greek religion than what is given us by 
 Plato. 
 
 ' First,' he says (Laws, 716 seq.), ' comes a belief in 
 God, in that God who, as the old tradition declares, 
 holds in His hand the beginning, middle, and end of 
 all that is, and moves according to His nature in a 
 straight line (Wta) towards the accomplishment of His 
 end. Justice always follows Him, and is the punisher 
 of those who fall short of the divine law. Every man 
 therefore ought to make up his mind that he will be 
 one of the followers of God — and he who would be 
 dear to God, must, as far as possible, be like Him and 
 such as He is.' 
 
 Now this may seem a very philosophical religion, 
 but this belief in God, quite apart from a belief in the 
 many Olympian gods, can be discovered in Homer 
 quite as much as in Plato. In the Iliad, ix. 49, 
 Diomedes says ^ : ' Let all flee home, but we two, I 
 and Sthenelos, will fight till we see the end of Troy : 
 for we came with God.' In the Odyssey (xiv. 444 • 
 X. 306), the swineherd says to Ulysses : ' Eat and enjoy 
 what is here, for God will grant one thing, but another 
 He will refuse, whatever He will in His mind, for He 
 can do all things.' 
 
 And Plato himself, after he has thus spoken of God, 
 continues : ' This is the conclusion, which is also the 
 noblest and truest of all sayings, that for the good 
 man to offer sacrifices to the gods, and hold converse 
 with them by means of prayers and offerings and every 
 kind of service, is the noblest and best of all things, 
 and also the most conducive to a happy life, and very 
 fit and meet.' 
 
 ^ Lectures on the Science of Language, ii. 460. 
 
366 LECTUKE XIII. 
 
 He then continues : ' Next after the Olympian gods, 
 and the gods of the state, honour should be given to 
 the gods below. 
 
 ' Next to these gods, a wise man will do service to 
 the daimones or spirits, and then to the heroes, and 
 after them will follow the sacred places of private and 
 ancestral gods, having their ritual according to law. 
 
 ' Next comes the honour of living parents, to whom, 
 as is meet, we have to pay the first and greatest and 
 oldest of all debts. . . . And all his life long a man 
 ought never to utter an unbecoming word to them ; for 
 of all light and winged words he will have to give an 
 account; Nemesis, the messenger of Justice, is ap- 
 pointed to watch over them. When they are angry 
 and want to satisfy their feelings in word or deed, he 
 should not resist them ; for a father who thinks that 
 he has been wronged by his son may be reasonably 
 expected to be very angry. 
 
 ' At their death, the most moderate funeral is best. 
 . . . And let a man not forget to pay the yearly 
 tribute of respect to the dead, honouring them chiefly 
 by omitting nothing that conduces to a perpetual 
 remembranceof them, and giving a reasonable portion 
 of his fortune to the dead.' 
 
 Whatever in this account of Greek religion in its 
 widest sense may be ascribed to Plato personally, one 
 thing seems very clear, that at his time a belief in the 
 Olympian gods, and a belief in the spirits of the de- 
 parted, existed peaceably side by side, and that funeral 
 ceremonies, and a continued commemoration of the 
 dead were considered essential elements of a truly 
 religious life, quite as much as the sacrifices and 
 praises of the great gods of nature. 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 367 
 
 Our own Problems. 
 
 And now you will perceive how near these prob- 
 lems which occupied the ancient world, approach the 
 problems of our own time. We need not look upon 
 the struggles through which, as we saw, the Greek 
 mind passed in its search for the divine in man, to 
 Oelov €v av6p(oiT(o, as the immediate antecedents of our 
 own struggles. These searchings after truth, whether 
 in Greece and Rome, or in India and Persia, need not be 
 more to us than parallel instances, historical lessons, 
 showing us how others toiled at the same task at 
 which we ourselves are toiling still. But even thus 
 they are full of import, for, after all, the same heart 
 beats in every human breast. 
 
 Belief in Immortality in tlie Old Testament. 
 
 But there is one religion, which forms not only a 
 parallel, but is in one sense the real antecedent of our 
 own religion, supplying the historical background of 
 our faith, and still feeding the thoughts of many 
 Christians. I mean, of course, the Jewish. 
 
 Now it is well known that in no religion is the 
 abyss which separates the divine from the human 
 greater than in that of the Jews. An idea such as that 
 expressed in a verse ascribed to Hesiod (Opera et 
 Dies, 108), &)? ofxoOev yeyaaai Oeol Orrjroi t avOpoiTroL, 
 could hardly be expressed in Hebrew. 
 
 The question therefore which we have to answer is, 
 "whether the ancient Jews ever bridged over that abyss, 
 whether they also discovered something divine in man, 
 whether they believed in a life after death or in the 
 immortality of the soul. This question has been dis- 
 
368 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 cussed by the most learned theologians for many 
 centuries, and, strange to say, they have not arrived 
 at a unanimous conclusion yet. Unfortunately this 
 question, like many others connected with religion, 
 has been dragged out of the quiet field of historical 
 research into the noisy arena of theological gladiator- 
 ship. Some theologians considered it orthodox to 
 deny the existence of a belief in immortality in the 
 Old Testament, because, if the Jews had believed in 
 the immortality of the soul, St. Paul could not have 
 said that it was ' Christ who abolished death and 
 brought life and immortality to light by the gospel ' 
 (2 Tit. i. 10). Others equally eager to appear ortho- 
 dox held the opposite opinion, because Christ Him- 
 self had appealed to the Old Testament, in which God 
 calls Himself 'the God of Abraham, and the God of 
 Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and God is not the God 
 of the dead, but of the living ' (Matt. xxii. 31). 
 
 But quite apart from the delusive influence which 
 theological prepossessions always exercise on historical 
 research, the reason why these answers have hitherto 
 proved so unsatisfactory must be sought for in the 
 indefinite character of the question itself. First of 
 all, the Old Testament is a very general and be- 
 wildering term. The Old Testament, as is now gener- 
 ally admitted, .comprehends a number of books, 
 written by different authors and at different times. 
 Secondly, even immortality, though it seem at first 
 sight a very simple and clear term, may mean many 
 things and requires therefore a very careful definition. 
 
 Meaningr of Imxiiortality. 
 
 If immortality is meant for no more than a continu- 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 369 
 
 ance of existence, if by a belief in immortality on the 
 part of the Jews is meant no more than that the Jews 
 did not believe in the annihilation of the soul at the time 
 of death, we may confidently assert that^ to the bulk of 
 the Jewish nation, this very idea of annihilation was as 
 yet unfamiliar. Dr. H. Schultz, to whose learned work, 
 Alttestamentliche Theologie, I feel greatly indebted, 
 seems to think (p. 698) that it is the more highly 
 developed races only who cannot conceive a personal 
 being as absolutely coming to an end. But the fact is 
 that the idea of absolute annihilation and nothingness 
 is hardly ever found except among people whose mind 
 has received some amount of philosophical cultivation, 
 certainly more than what the Jews possessed in early 
 times. The Jews did not believe in the utter destruc- 
 tion of the soul, but, on the other hand, their idea of 
 life after death was hardly that of life at all. It was 
 existence, without life. Death was considered by them 
 as by the Greeks as the greatest of misfortunes. To 
 rejoice in death is a purely Christian, not a Jewish 
 idea. It may be that expressions such as ' Abraham 
 was gathered unto his people' (Gen. xxv. 8), or the 
 words of David, ' I shall go to my son, but he will not 
 return to me ' (2 Sam. xii. 23), show that a certain 
 degree of personal identity was supposed by the Jews 
 also to remain after death. This is indicated also by 
 the recalling of the ghosts of the dead, as in the case 
 of Samuel. The very name given to these ghosts, 
 elohim, seems to show that they were supposed to 
 have retained their personal character, while the 
 strict injunctions against such superstitious customs 
 serve only to prove that they existed. But beyond 
 this, all is vague and dark. 
 (3) B b 
 
370 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 Sheol. 
 
 The place in which the departed were believed to 
 dwell was called by the Jews Sheol (i'^^f), which 
 seems originally to have meant no more than grave 
 or cave. Assyrian scholars derive it from an 
 Accadian word, shual, but it can hardly be considered 
 as a foreign word in Hebrew. Sheol is not meant for 
 an individual grave (bor, keber), though its first idea 
 may have been borrowed from it, but for a vast space 
 in the interior of the earth. It is the land of shadows, 
 of the Kephaim, where there is no work, nor device, 
 nor knowledge, nor wisdom. The dead lie down and 
 are at rest. They have fewer interests than even the 
 Greek shades in Hades. All distinctions are gone, 
 though sometimes kings are mentioned as sitting 
 there on thrones (Jes. xiv. 9). But though the Jews 
 believed that the souls continued to exist in Sheol, 
 they did not believe that the wicked would there be 
 punished and the good rewarded. All rewards and 
 punishments for virtue or vice were confined to this 
 world, and a long life was regarded as the surest 
 proof of the favour of Jehovah. It may, no doubt, 
 be taken as a sign of wonderful humility that, with 
 two exceptions, Enoch and Elijah, the greatest of the 
 Jewish saints and heroes should have been satisfied 
 with this meagre reward. But it was their conception 
 of God, as infinitely removed from this world, that 
 made a belief in true immortality almost impossible 
 for them, and excluded all hope for a nearer approach 
 to God, or for any share in that true immortality 
 which belonged to Him and to Him alone. 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 371 
 
 Controversy as to tlie Jewish Belief in Immortality. 
 
 To most students of religion it seems, indeed, as if a 
 religion without a faith in immortality was impos- 
 sible. Many years ago (1865)^, and in opposition to 
 the very highest authorities, I ventured to say: 
 'Without a belief in personal immortality, religion 
 surely is like an arch resting on one pillar only, like 
 a bridge ending in an abyss. We cannot wonder at 
 the great difficulties felt and expressed by Bishop 
 Warburton and other eminent divines, with regard to 
 the supposed total absence of the doctrine of immor- 
 tality or personal immortality in the Old Testament, 
 and it is equally startling that the Sadducees who sat 
 in the same council with the high -priest, openly 
 denied the resurrection. However, though not ex- 
 pressly asserted anywhere, a belief in personal immor- 
 tality is taken for granted in several passages of the 
 Old Testament, and it is difficult to think of Abraham 
 or Moses as without a belief in life and immortality.' 
 
 For this passage I was severely taken to task by 
 one of the greatest classical scholars of our age, Pro- 
 fessor K. Lehrs. In his Populdre Aufsdtze ecus dem 
 Alterthum, p. 304, he wrote : ' No one would be 
 more disgusted than Lessing by the words boldly 
 uttered by M. M., that, though not expressly asserted 
 anywhere, a belief in personal immortality is taken 
 for granted in several passages of the 0. T.' This is 
 as strong in language as weak in argument. Lehrs 
 knew that Lessing had denied the possibility of any 
 religion existing without a belief in a future life, 
 future rewards and punishments. He likewise knew, 
 
 * * Chips from a German Workshop, vol. i. p. 45. 
 
 Bb2 
 
372 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 or ought to have known, how disparagingly Kant^ 
 and Schopenhauer ^ had spoken of the Jewish religion 
 on account of the very absence of that belief. 
 
 It was not likely, therefore, that I should have 
 ventured to say what I said without having what I 
 believed to be some good reason on my side. If, there- 
 fore, Professor Lehrs felt disgusted, the easiest way to 
 get over his disgust would have been to read once 
 more the book of which he spoke so rashly. 
 
 I quite agree with him, and other scholars, that a 
 belief in immortality does not appear on the surface 
 of the Old Testament, as it appears in the New Testa- 
 ment, and in the sacred books of other religions. We 
 should look in vain in the Old Testament for such an 
 utterance as ' He that believeth in me, though he were 
 dead, yet shall he live.' We could not match the 
 words of a Vedic poet, who exclaims : * Who will 
 restore me to the great Aditi, that I may see father 
 and mother.' No heroine in the Old Testament would 
 have said what Antigone is made to say : ' Departing 
 hence, I strongly cherish the hope that I shall be 
 fondly welcomed by my father, and by my mother, 
 and by my brother.' 
 
 But though a belief in immortality does not pervade 
 the whole organism of the Old, as it pervades that of 
 the New Testament, I still hold that we can catch, by 
 what I ventured to call a kind of microscopic analysis, 
 
 ^ Kant meint, da ohne Glauben an ein kiinftiges Leben gar keine 
 Religion gedacht werden konne, so enthalte das Judentlium, als 
 salches genommen, gar keine Religion. 
 
 ^ Schopenhauer, Parol, i. p. 137, writes : '■ Die eigentliche Juden- 
 religion, wie sie in der Genesis und alien historischen Biichern bis 
 zuna Ende der Chronica dargestellt und gelehrt wird, ist die 
 roheste aller Religionen, weil sie die einzige ist, die durchaus 
 keine Unsterblichkeitslehre, noch irgend eine Spur da von hat.' 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 373 
 
 hidden germs, at least, of that belief in many passages 
 of the sacred writings of the Jews. I shall mention 
 a few of these passages, in order to show that I did 
 not, like Professor Lehrs, speak at random. 
 
 I am well aware that certain passages which have 
 been most frequently quoted as showing a belief in 
 immortality in the Old Testament, have to be sur- 
 rendered. The first is the passage from Job xix. 25. 
 This was formerly translated : ' For I know that my 
 redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter 
 day upon the earth.' Most scholars, however much 
 they differ on the exact interpretation of these diffi- 
 cult lines, agree now that they cannot mean what 
 they seemed to mean to former translators ^, and 
 that what is meant by a redeemer is a vindicator, 
 here God Himself, who will stand up for the inno- 
 cence of Job. Professor Schultz translates : ' For 
 I know my vindicator lives, and a revenger (Blut- 
 racher) will rise up on the dust (the grave), and, 
 after this my skin has been devoured, and I am de- 
 nuded of my flesh, I see God (i. e. the revenger on 
 the dust), Him whom I see (fighting) for me, and my 
 e^^es see Him — no longer angry ; the heart in my 
 bosom fails. If ye say, how shall we persecute him, 
 and that the root of the matter is found in me, Be ye 
 afraid for yourselves of the sword, for sword-guilt in 
 anger — that ye know (the Almighty).' 
 
 Another passage. Psalm xvi. ver. 10, which was 
 formerly translated : ' Thou wilt not leave my soul in 
 hell,' is rendered in the Revised Version by ' Thou 
 wilt not leave my soul to Sheol,' that is, ' Thou wilt 
 
 ^ Schultz, 1. c, p. 705 : Voraussetzungen der chrisilichen Lehre von der 
 UmterhUchkeit, Gottingen, 1861, pp. 219-223. 
 
374 LECTUEE XIII. 
 
 not surrender my soul to Sheol,' or ' Thou wilt not let 
 me die yet.' 
 
 As passages, however, which seem to me to contain 
 a silent recognition of something divine, and therefore 
 immortal in man, I should mention Gen. i. 26, ' And 
 God said, Let us make man in our image, after our 
 likeness.' And again, Gen. ii. 7, ' And the Lord God 
 formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed 
 into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a 
 living soul.' Now a God-like being that lives by the 
 breath of God, cannot have been conceived at the 
 same time as something totally different from God. 
 Nay, we are told distinctly that when the dust returns 
 to dust, the spirit or breath returns to God who gave it. 
 
 A verse like that in Psalm viii. 5, ' For thou hast 
 made man but little lower than the Elohim (angels),' 
 could hardly have been written by one who believed 
 man to be but dust, and no better than the beasts of 
 the field. 
 
 Again, when we read in Gen. iii. 22, that the Lord 
 sent Adam and Eve forth from the garden of Eden, 
 we are told that this was done, lest he put forth his 
 hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live 
 for ever. This seems to imply that man, if he had 
 remained in the garden of Eden, would have been 
 capable of eternal life. 
 
 The two cases of Enoch and Elijah are, no doubt, 
 too exceptional to prove a belief in immortality, but 
 they show, at all events, that the mind of the Hebrews 
 was familiar with the idea of a human being return- 
 ing to God, without suffering the penalty of death. 
 
 I do not mean to say that passages such as these 
 prove that the Jews had anticipated the Christian 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 375 
 
 belief in the immortality of the soul. I only maintain 
 that they contain the germs of such a belief, and that 
 they are incompatible with a belief in the utter 
 annihilation of the soul, which Lehrs, Schopenhauer, 
 and others would force on the religion of the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 But it would be as easy, nay, much easier, to collect 
 a number of passages from the Old Testament which 
 seem to contain a distinct denial of immortality. To 
 those who believe in a complete unity of the Old 
 Testament, who ignore its composite character and 
 its historical growth, and who look upon the whole 
 of it as miraculously revealed, such contradictions 
 must be perplexing, and can only be removed by a 
 great effort of special pleading. In the eyes of the 
 historian, however, they only serve to confirm the 
 truly historical character of that collection of ancient 
 and modern books. Thus the author of Psalm xxxix. 
 14, says, ' Before I go hence and am no more.' We read 
 in the Book of Job, vii. 8-1 0, ' The eye of him that 
 seeth me shall behold me no more : thine eyes shall 
 be upon me, but I shall not be. As the cloud is con- 
 sumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to 
 Sheol shall come up no more. He shall return no 
 more to his house, neither shall his place know him 
 any more.' 
 
 Job xiv. 7, ' For there is hope for a tree, if it be 
 cut down — But man dieth and wasteth away, yea, 
 man giveth up the ghost, and where is he ? As the 
 waters fall from the sea, and the river decayeth 
 and drieth up ; so man lieth down and riseth not. 
 Till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, 
 nor be roused out of their sleep.' 
 
376 LECTUEE XIII. 
 
 If we turn to Ecclesiastes, his utterances become 
 more and more despairing. ' That which befalle^h 
 the sons of men befalleth beasts ; even one thing 
 befalleth them : as the one dieth, so dieth the other ; 
 yea, they have all one breath ; so that man hath no 
 pre-eminence above a beast.' 
 
 Such sceptical utterances, however, could not but 
 provoke resistance. In the later history of the Jews, 
 whether from their own heart's desire, or from their 
 intercourse with foreign nations, we find that a belief 
 in a life after death became more and more prominent. 
 
 Thus, while at the very dawn of Christianity the 
 Sadducees openly denied that ' there was any resur- 
 rection or spirit or angel,' the Pharisees, according to 
 Josephus, believed that ' the souls have an immortal 
 strength in them, and that in the under- world they 
 will experience rewards or punishments, according as 
 they have lived well or ill in this life.' 
 
 Still there always remained in the Jewish mind the 
 idea of the unapproachable majesty of Jehovah. The 
 souls might have their rewards and punishments in 
 the lower world, but true immortality, a communion 
 of the soul with God, was beyond the horizon of the 
 Jewish mind. The idea of anything approaching 
 apotheosis was, and remained to the last, blasphemy 
 in the eyes of the Jews. Adam, though created by 
 Jehovah, is never called the son of God, in a genealo- 
 gical sense, except once in the Gospel of St. Luke. 
 Here the genealogy of Joseph is traced back to David, 
 and that of David to Enos, Seth, and Adam, 'who 
 was the son of God.' If we may recognise Rabbinical 
 influences in this genealogy, they are at all events 
 very modern, and we know that at the very same 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 377 
 
 time the fact that Jesus called Himself the Son of 
 God was enough to condemn Him to death. 
 
 Beactiou. 
 
 But it is exactly among the Jews, where the two 
 ideas of the Divine and the Human had been most 
 widely wrenched apart, that we witness the strongest 
 reaction. The desire for nearness to God, likeness to 
 God, oneness or atone-ment with God, may be sup- 
 pressed for a time. It may be silenced by the awe 
 with which the majesty of the Divine fills the human 
 heart. But it is always there. Though the Jew lies 
 prostrate before Jehovah, yet his soul always panted 
 for Him, as the hart panteth after the waterbrook ; 
 and it was, after all, the Jew who, in the great 
 history of the world, was destined to solve the riddle 
 of the Divine in man. 
 
 But how was it to be solved? Not one of the 
 three roads that led the Greek to the discovery of the 
 Divine in man was open to the Jew. 
 
 The first road which led man through the worship 
 of ancestral spirits to the recognition of something 
 Divine in man was barred to the Jew. The ghosts 
 of his departed friends were in Sheol, and to offer 
 sacrifices to them was unlawful. 
 
 The second road was too mythological. The Jew 
 knew no AioyeveXs, no sons of Jehovah, like Herakles, 
 or Dionysos, or Menelaos. Abraham w^as the friend, 
 Moses was the servant, David was the anointed of 
 God, and if they were never raised to a divine, or 
 even half-divine rank, much less could ordinary 
 mortals hope for such an elevation. 
 
 And yet there are passages, scattered about in the 
 
378 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 Old Testament, in which some idea of a divine son- 
 ship seems very clearly expressed. Thus we read in 
 Deuteronomy, xiv. 1, 'Ye are the children of the 
 Lord, your God.' But the full meaning of these pas- 
 sages seems never to have been realised. ' Father and 
 son' were used in a poetical, often also in a moral 
 sense, as when we read in 2 Sam. vii. 14, the words 
 meant for David : ' I will be his father, and he shall 
 be my sono If he commit any iniquity, I will chasten 
 him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the 
 children of men.' But we never see it used in the 
 Old Testament as St. John used it, when he wrote 
 (1 John iii. 1), ' Behold, what manner of love the 
 Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be 
 called the sons of God.' 
 
 The third road also was not likely to tempt the 
 Jewish mind. Their belief in angels might have 
 helped them, as the belief in daimones helped the 
 Greek, in their first faltering steps towards that goal. 
 But though the Jewish angels of the Lord mi<>ht 
 indeed ' encamp round about them that fear him, 
 and deliver them^,' they would never become indwell- 
 ing spirits, like the daimonion of Sokrates, and 
 never point the way to the discovery of the Divine 
 in human nature. 
 
 Christianity, the Revelation of the Divine Sonship of 
 Chfist and Man. 
 
 And yet it was the soil of Jewish thought that in 
 the end gave birth to the true conception of the 
 relation between the Divine in nature and the Divine 
 in man. In what I am going to say, I shall pay little 
 
 ^ Psalm xii. 7. 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 379 
 
 regard to the miraculous events in which the birth of 
 that concept is supposed to have been manifested. 
 What are those miraculous wrappings to us "? When 
 the Divine in the outward world has once been fully 
 recognised, there can be nothing more or less divine, 
 nothing more or less miraculous, either in nature or 
 in history. Those who assign a divine and miraculous 
 character to certain consecrated events only in the 
 history of the world, are in great danger of desecrat- 
 ing thereby the whole drama of history, and to make 
 it, not only profane, but godless. 
 
 It is easy to call this a pantheistic view of the 
 world. It is pantheistic, in the best sense of the 
 word, so much so that any other view would soon 
 become atheistic. Even the ancient Greeks suspected 
 the ubiquity or omnipresence of the Divine, when, as 
 early as the time of Thales^ they declared that all is 
 full of the gods. The choice here lies really between 
 Pantheism and Atheism. If anything, the greatest or 
 the smallest, can ever happen without the will of God, 
 then God is no longer God. To distinguish between a 
 direct and indirect influence of the Divine, to admit a 
 general and a special providence, is like a relapse into 
 polytheism, a belief in one and many gods. 
 
 What we call Christianity embraces several funda- 
 mental doctrines, but the most important of them all 
 is the recognition of the Divine in man, or, as we call 
 it, the belief in the divinity of the son. The belief in 
 God, let us say in God the Father, or the Creator and 
 Kuler of the world, had been elaborated by the Jews. 
 It was ready to hand. Greeks and Romans, most of 
 the civilised and uncivilised nations of the world had 
 arrived at it. 
 
380 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 But when the Founder of Christianity called God 
 His Father, and not only His Father, but the Father 
 of all mankind, He did no longer speak the language 
 of either Jews or Greeks. To the Jews, to claim 
 divine sonship for man would have been blasphemy. 
 To the Greeks divine sonship would have meant no 
 more than a miraculous, a mythological event, such as 
 the birth of Hercules. Christ spoke a new language, 
 a language liable, no doubt, to be misunderstood, as all 
 language is ; but a language which to those who 
 understood it, has imparted a new glory to the face of 
 the whole world. It is well known how this event, 
 the discovery of the Divine in man, which involves a 
 complete change in the spiritual condition of mankind, 
 and marks the great turning-point in the history of the 
 world, has been surrounded by a legendary halo, has 
 been obscured, has been changed into mere mythology, 
 so that its real meaning has often been quite forgotten, 
 and has to be discovered again by honest and fearless 
 seeking. Christ had to speak the language of His 
 time, but He gave a new meaning to it, and yet that 
 language has often retained its old discarded meaning 
 in the minds of His earliest, nay sometimes of His latest 
 disciples also. 
 
 The Divine sonship of which He speaks was not 
 blasphemy, as the Jews thought ; it was not mythology, 
 as so many of His own followers imagined, and still 
 imagine. Father and son, divine and human, were 
 like the old bottles that could hardly hold the new 
 wine ; and yet how often have the old broken bottles 
 been preferred to the new wine, that was to give new 
 life to the world. 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 381 
 
 The Words Father and Son. 
 
 Let us first examine the words father and son a little 
 more closely. They seem the best-known words of our 
 language, and yet it would be difficult to find two 
 words more full of mystery, even in their every-day 
 acceptation. Again, nothing seems at first more natural 
 than to apply these words to God and man. In many, 
 if not in most religions, man has addressed God as his 
 father, and has looked upon himself as his son. The 
 expression has become so familiar that we hardly feel 
 that it is, and can only be. a metaphor. And yet it is 
 really the boldest metaphor in the whole of human 
 language. The two words must be almost completely 
 emptied of their contents, before they become fit to 
 express the relation between God and man. Such is 
 human language. We cannot help it, only we should 
 not forget it. 
 
 Parable of the King's Son. 
 
 But now, let us go a step further. It can easily be 
 seen that true sonship depends mainly on knowledge. 
 A man may be the son of a king, but if he is brought 
 up by an old shepherd with his other children, he is a 
 shepherd-boy, and not a prince. And yet as soon as 
 he discovers and knows that the king is his father, 
 and not the shepherd, he at once becomes a prince, he 
 is a prince, he feels himself a prince, the son of a king. 
 
 It is in the same way that man must discover that 
 God is his father, before he can become a son of God. 
 To know is here to be, to be to know. No mere 
 miracle will change the shepherd-boy into a prince ; 
 no mere miracle will make man the son of God. That 
 
382 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 sonship can be gained througli knowledge only, 
 ' through man knowing God, or rather being known of 
 God ^,' and till it is so gained, it does not exist, even 
 though it be a fact. 
 
 If we apply this to the words in which Christ 
 speaks of Himself as the Son of God, we shall see that 
 to Him it is no miracle, it is no mystery, it is no ques- 
 tion of supernatural contrivance ; — it is simply clear 
 knowledge ; and it was this self-knowledge which 
 made Christ what He was, it was this which constituted 
 His true, His eternal divinity. This is not Apotheosis, 
 a word which by its formation seems to imply a 
 removal from the level of humanity to that of deity ; 
 it is rather, if I may be allowed to coin a new word, 
 Anatheosis, a taking back, or a taking up of the human 
 into the divine nature. What can be clearer than the 
 words of Christ Himself : ' No man knoweth the Son, 
 but the Father ; neither knoweth any man the Father, 
 save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal 
 Him' (Lukex. 22). 
 
 But we must remember that though Christ uses the 
 homely words of father and son, He Himself warns His 
 disciples against the wrong use of these words. ' Call 
 no man your father upon the earth,' He says, ' for one is 
 your father, which is in heaven ' (Matth. xxiii, 9). — 
 Can anything be clearer and stronger? Instead of 
 saying, as we should say, 'Call not God father, 
 because father means your father upon the earth,' He 
 says, ' Call no man father, for father has now assumed 
 a new and higher meaning, and can no longer be used 
 in its old familiar sense.' 
 
 ' Gal. iv. 9. 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 383 
 
 The Position of Christianity in the History of the World. 
 
 If we have learnt to look upon Christianity, not as 
 something unreal and unhistorical, but as an integral 
 part of history, of the historical growth of the human 
 race, we can see now how all the searchings after the 
 Divine or the Infinite in man, which we watched in 
 our former Lectures, were fulfilled in these simple 
 utterances of Christ. His preaching, we are told, 
 brought life and immortality to light. Life, the life of 
 the soul, and immortality, the immortality of the soul, 
 were there, and had always been there. But they 
 were brought to light, man was made fully conscious 
 of them, man remembered his royal birth, when the 
 word had been spoken by Christ. 
 
 The Second Birth. 
 
 This was called a new birth, and it was so as much 
 as it would be a new birth to the shepherd-boy, when 
 he knew that he was a born prince. This expression, 
 a new birth, or a second birth, which so staggered 
 Nicodemus, is a very familiar expression in Sanskrit. 
 One feels surprised at first when one sees Dvi^a, 
 twice-born, as the regular name for the higher castes 
 in India. The Brahmans themselves, to judge from 
 the various explanations they give of that title, seem 
 to have forgotten its true meaning. But its original 
 conception can hardly have been different from that 
 of a new birth, that is, the recognition of something 
 superhuman, divine, and immortal in man, which marks 
 to every man the beginning of a new life. 
 
 For we must never forget that it was not the 
 principal object of Christ's teaching to make others 
 believe that He only was divine, immortal, or the 
 
384 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 Son of God. He wished them to believe this for 
 their oivn sake, for their own regeneration. Thus we 
 read, 'As many as received him, to them gave he 
 power to become the sons of God, even to them that 
 believe in his name : which were born, not of blood, 
 nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, 
 but of God' (St. John i. 12). The same doctrine is 
 repeated again and again. 'He that believeth in 
 the Son, has everlasting life ' (St. John iii. 36 ; vi. 
 47). ' He that heareth my word, hath everlasting 
 life' (St. John v. 24). 'He giveth life unto the 
 world ' (St. John vi. 33). Can we doubt what was 
 the meaning of that life ? It was immortality, an 
 immortality which need not wait for death, but has 
 its surety even in this life. 'If a man keep my 
 saying, he shall never see death ' (St. John ix. 52). 
 'Whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never 
 die' (St. John xi. 26). 'As thou, Father, art in me, 
 and I in thee, that they also may be one in us' 
 (St. Johnxvii. 21). 
 
 It might be thought, at first, that this recognition 
 of a divine element in man must necessarily lower 
 the conception of the Divine. And so it does in one 
 sense. It brings God nearer to us ; it brings the 
 Divine from the clouds to the earth. It bridges over 
 the abyss by w^hich the Divine and the human were 
 completely separated in the Jewish and likewise in 
 many of the Pagan religions. It rends the veil of the 
 temple. This lowering, therefore, is no real lowering of 
 the Divine. It is an expanding of the concept of the 
 Divine, and at the same time a raising of the concept 
 of humanity, or rather a restoration of what is called 
 human to its true character, a regeneration, or a 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 385 
 
 second birth, as it is often called by Christ Himself; 
 — 'except a man be born again, he cannot see the 
 kingdom of God.' 
 
 Christ's TeacMusf and its Later Interpretation. 
 
 The endless theological discussions which, beginning 
 from the first, and not yet ended in the nineteenth 
 century, were^ meant to define the words of Christ 
 and to draw new limits between the Divine and the 
 human, have fortunately no interest for us. The 
 amount of learning spent on these speculations is 
 incredible. The Church has been rent asunder by 
 them. Hundreds, nay thousands, who thought too 
 freely and spoke too boldly on this subject were sent 
 to prison and to the stake ; and, when all other argu- 
 ments failed, the argument of the biggest battalions 
 has often been invoked for a final solution. These 
 are sad chapters in the history of the world, written 
 in blood and tears. They would never have been 
 written if the Church had been satisfied with the 
 words of Christ. We have not many of His own 
 words. We cannot even be certain that we always 
 have them exactly as He spoke them. Christ never 
 wrote. He never composed a treatise on the true 
 relation between the Divine and the human, either 
 with regard to Himself or with regard to humanity 
 at large. His utterances were always short and 
 complete. Nothing can be left out in them, and 
 nothing ought to be added. A truth does not gain 
 by many words. Often it is completely strangled by 
 them. You have only to read some of those heavy 
 folios of the so-called Fathers of the Church, or of the 
 great theological authorities of the middle ages, and 
 
 (3) C c 
 
386 LECTUKE XIII. 
 
 you will be appalled at the havoc which, with all 
 their logic and all their piety, these learned Rabbis 
 have wrought in the simple words of Christ. I do 
 not mean to say that His words are not full of 
 meaning, or that they would not supply texts for 
 thousands of sermons and commentaries. But we 
 must not forget that they were meant to be what 
 they are, that they were meant to say exactly what 
 they say, neither more nor less, and that to add one 
 jot or tittle to them, is often to destroy them alto- 
 gether. As early a witness as Justin Martyr, when 
 speaking of the teaching of Christ, says : ' His speeches 
 were brief and cut short, for He was not a sophist, but 
 His speech was the power of God^.' 
 
 It is quite true that to the student of history it is 
 of the deepest interest to discover the antecedents 
 and parallels of these short utterances, to watch the 
 previous struggles of the human mind, while searching 
 for the true expression of these nascent truths. But 
 when that expression has at last been found, it ought 
 to suffice. The historian may descend once more 
 into the shaft from which the ore has been raised, 
 and examine once more the ore from which the gold 
 has been extracted. But it is the small ounce of 
 precious gold, purified, weighed, and coined, that is 
 wanted for our daily life, and to tamper with it, or 
 to mix it up once more with the slags from which 
 it has been extracted, or cast it back into the shaft 
 from which it has been raised, would be sheer 
 madness. And yet that is what so many theological 
 writers, both in ancient and modern times, are con- 
 
 ^ Apol. i. 14 : Bpax^ts S^ «at cvvrofxoi vap' avrov X6yoi yiydvaaiv ov 
 yap ao(piaTr)s virrjpxfv, dWcL SvvafJiis Ocov 6 \6yos avrov ^v. 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 387 
 
 stantly doing. Christ, when speaking of Himself and 
 His relation to God, expressed all He wished to say 
 in a few words. ' I and my Father are one ' (St. John 
 X. 30), and ' My Father is greater than I ' (St. John 
 xiv. 28). And when addressing His disciples, and 
 through them the whole of mankind. His words are 
 again as short and telling as words can be : 'As thou, 
 Father, art in me, and I in thee, they also may be one 
 in us.' 
 
 And as if to protest once more against the too 
 human interpretation of such purely symbolical words 
 as father and mother, son and brother, you remember 
 the words which sounded so startling to many ears. 
 When His mother and His brethren were seeking for 
 Him, ' He answered, saying, Who is my mother, or my 
 brethren ? And he looked round about on them 
 which sat about him, and said : Behold my mother 
 and my brethren ! For whosoever shall do the will 
 of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and 
 mother' (Mark iii. 32-35 ; Luke viii. 21). 
 
 These utterances are very short, but why will 
 people imagine that short utterances contain less 
 than long treatises? There are subjects on which 
 but little can be said. When treating of Physical 
 Religion, we found that after all had been said in 
 different sacred books about God in nature, there re- 
 mained in the end but that one short name, ' I Am 
 that I Am.' In treating of Anthropological Religion 
 we arrive at the same result. We see how, starting 
 from different points, the deepest thinkers in every 
 part of the world suspected in man something more 
 than the body, something not mortal, soon something 
 immortal ; something not merely human, soon some- 
 
 Cc 2 
 
388 LECTUKE XIII. 
 
 thing superhuman, divine, and infinite. They called 
 it by ever so many names, the breath, the soul, the 
 spirit, the self ; but in the end no words seemed to 
 express the relation between the Divine in man and 
 the Divine in nature better than that of father and 
 son, though even that expression had to be carefully 
 guarded against mythological corruption. 
 
 Objections considered. 
 
 I know full well the objections that will be raised 
 against the line of argument which I have fol- 
 lowed in this course of Lectures on Anthropological 
 Religion. 
 
 It will be said on one side that I have deserted the 
 impartial standpoint from which the student of the 
 Science of Religion should never flinch, and that 
 my chief object has been to magnify Christianity, by 
 showing that it is the fulfilment of all that the world 
 has been hoping and striving for. In one sense that 
 is true. But if I hold that Christianity has given 
 the best and truest expression to what the old world 
 had tried to express in various and less perfect ways, 
 I have at least given the facts on which I rely. If 
 my facts can be proved to be wrong, my conclusions 
 will fall ; and if any better expression can be given 
 to what the witness within calls the truth, I should 
 be most ready to accept it. Nor should I ever wish 
 to convey the impression that, because the teaching 
 of Christ is true, therefore all the teachings of other 
 religions are false. It has been, on the contrary, my 
 constant endeavour to show how much truth there 
 is in other religions, nay, to use the words of St. 
 Augustine, that there is not one which does not con- 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 389 
 
 tain some grains of truth. But because in Christian 
 countries Christianity has often been exalted by ex- 
 aggerated and meaningless praise, there is no reason 
 why we should be ashamed to claim for it that place 
 which, not only the voice of our own heart, but the 
 voice of history, assigns to it among all the religions 
 of the world. At some times silence may be the 
 truest homage, but if there is a time to be silent, 
 there is also a time to speak. 
 
 When in my last course of Lectures on Physical 
 Religion I endeavoured to trace the various roads 
 which led to the discovery and the naming of the 
 Infinite in nature, I did not say that the different 
 names and concepts of the gods or agents in nature 
 which we find in non-Christian religions were all 
 wrong. On the contrary, I tried to show in all of 
 them the earnest endeavour to feel after God, if haply 
 they might find Him. I still hold therefore that the 
 whole of Physical Religion may best be summed up 
 in the words : ' I believe in God the Father Almighty, 
 maker of heaven and earth.' That language is re- 
 ligious, and, if you like, mythological, but it is never- 
 theless the highest expression that human language 
 can devise. 
 
 In the present course of Lectures I have likewise 
 endeavoured to describe the various attempts at dis- 
 covering something infinite in man, and I have 
 shown that a belief in something within us, different 
 from the body, is universal. I hold to this till one 
 single language can be produced which is without a 
 name for soul. There is not the same jealousy here. 
 On the contrary, there is great readiness to accept 
 the different names for soul and the different forms of 
 
390 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 belief in its perpetuity or immortality, as supports of 
 our own belief in something immortal within us. 1 
 go even further, and am quite willing to admit that 
 there are certain philosophies which have entered more 
 deeply into this problem of the Divine in man or the 
 immortality of the soul than any religion. But philo- 
 sophy, we must remember, is not religion. Philosophy 
 is for the few, religion for the many, nay for all, and 
 the question which concerns us is whether any religion 
 has discovered a truer expression for the relation 
 between man and God than Christianity. Here also 
 the words, ' I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God,' 
 may, if properly understood, serve to sum up nearly 
 all that has been thought on the Divine element in 
 human nature, on the Infinite in man. 
 
 But while on one side I shall incur the displeasure 
 of those who carry impartiality to the brink of injus- 
 tice, I expect even stronger objections from the 
 opposite side. So far from accepting the position 
 which I have assigned to Christianity in the historical 
 growth of religion, many theologians will hold that 
 Christianity stands altogether outside the stream of 
 history, and beyond the reach of any comparison 
 with other religions. The true divinity which, as I 
 tried to show, Christ claimed for Himself and for 
 His brethren, would not satisfy them at all. They 
 want, not a real, but a miraculous divinity, a divinity 
 not very different, in fact, from that which, soon after 
 his death, was ascribed to Plato, as the son of Apollo, 
 or which was claimed for other founders of religions. 
 If people are satisfied with such a belief, it probably 
 contains all that they require, because it is all they 
 can as yet comprehend. Nor do I deny that they 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 391 
 
 have a warrant for their belief in some of the earliest 
 documents of the Christian Church. But the very 
 fact that by the side of the three Synoptical Gospels 
 we find the Gospel according to St. John, should teach 
 us that there is a natural progress and easy transition 
 from the one to the other, and that the same lesson 
 may be conveyed to some in parables, to others in all 
 plainness of thought and speech. 
 
 I am prepared for these objections from two oppo- 
 site quarters, and while I never notice mere abuse, I 
 shall always feel most grateful if any of my opponents 
 will point out when my facts are wrong historically, 
 or my deductions faulty logically. I know but too 
 well how easy it is to err in treating of the origin 
 and history of religions, and no pioneer need be 
 ashamed if he has sometimes missed the right road. 
 But I may repeat at the end of this course what I 
 said when I began it : 'Do you think it is possible to 
 lecture on religion, even on natural religion, without 
 giving offence either on the right or on the left? 
 And do you think that a man would be worth his salt 
 who, in lecturing on religion, even on natural religion, 
 were to look either right or left, instead of looking all 
 facts, as they meet him, straight in the face to see 
 whether they are facts or not, and, if they are facts, 
 to find out what they mean ? ' 
 
 It is possible that to some philosophers the subject 
 which I have treated under the name of Anthropolo- 
 gical Religion may seem to form no part of religion at 
 all. It is true that ^ I believe in the existence of the 
 soul,' forms as yet no part of any creed ; and yet what 
 would it profit a man if he believed all the creeds, and 
 did not believe in his own soul 1 But if I should not 
 
392 LECTUEE XIII. 
 
 have succeeded in showing how the belief in some- 
 thing infinite, immortal, and divine in man forms an 
 essential part of all religions, I may, in conclusion, 
 appeal to three authorities in my support. 
 
 The first is Lord Gifibrd himself. His opinions have 
 a right to be considered by those who have been 
 entrusted with carrying out the intentions of his 
 Will. 
 
 Lord Gifibrd, in his remarkable essay on Substance 
 (p. 207), says : ' God must be the very substance and 
 essence of the human soul. The human soul is 
 neither self-derived nor self-subsisting. It would 
 vanish if it had not a substance, and its substance 
 is God.' 
 
 What Lord Gifibrd asserts simply as a fact, is ex- 
 pressed in more diffident language by one who had 
 all his life been almost face to face with the workings 
 of God in nature, and to whom, if to any one, the 
 heavens had declared not only the glory, but the 
 eternal msdom of God. Kepler, the discoverer of 
 the three laws on which our planetary system is 
 founded, declared ' that it was his highest wish to 
 find within the God whom he had found everywhere 
 without^.'' 
 
 The third witness is Kant. He expresses the same 
 thought, though again from a difierent point of 
 view. 
 
 Before the tribunal of his own critical philosophy 
 both the Divine in nature and the Divine in man 
 were treated as transcendent, and as beyond the reach 
 of our categories, while all the arguments for the 
 existence of God, the cosmological, the teleological, 
 
 ^ Philosophy and Theology, by J. H. Stirling, p. 32. 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 393 
 
 and the ontological, were summarily dismissed. And 
 yet he says, in a passage that has often been quoted : 
 
 ' Two things fill the mind with ever new and grow- 
 ing admiration and awe, the more frequently and the 
 more intensely we ponder on them : the starry firma- 
 ment above me, and the moral law within me. 
 Neither of them is hidden in darkness, so that I 
 need look for it or could only suspect it in what is 
 beyond. I see them both before me, and I connect 
 them directly with the consciousness of my own 
 existence. The former begins with the place which 
 I myself occupy in the external world of sense, and 
 enlarges my connection here into the infinitely great, 
 with worlds beyond worlds, and systems of systems, 
 nay, also into the unlimited time of their periodical 
 motion, their beginning and their continuance. The 
 latter begins with my own invisible self, my per- 
 sonality, and places me in a world of true infinitude, 
 perceptible to the understanding only, with which I 
 know myself to be connected, not, as before, by a 
 casual bond only, but by a general and necessary- 
 union^.' 
 
 The divine presence which Kant beheld in the 
 starry firmament is the Infinite in nature. The 
 divine presence which he perceived in his conscience 
 or in his own invisible self is the Infinite in man. 
 
 The historical development of our belief in the 
 Infinite in nature I tried to explain in my Lectures 
 in 1890. The gradual growth of a belief in some- 
 thing infinite, immortal, and divine in man, formed 
 the subject of my present course. If life and strength 
 be spared I hope to treat of the true nature of 
 
 ^ Works, ed. Rosenkranz and Schubert, vol. viii. p. 812 seq. 
 
394 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 the soul, and of the relation between the Infinite in 
 man and the Infinite in nature in my next and, what 
 will be, I am sorry to say, my last course of Lectures 
 before the members of the -University and the citizens 
 of this busy town of Glasgow, 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 P. 87. 
 
 INDRA OR ANDRA. 
 
 The reason why I protest against scientific levity is 
 because it does real mischief in retarding the progress of 
 our science. There is so much still to do, and there are, 
 no doubt, so many real dangers lurking on every side, that 
 we cannot afford to waste time in attending to false alarms. 
 Some of these alarms are most objectionable. If a scholar 
 comes forward and gives his facts and reasons why he differs 
 from other scholars, he may be right or wrong, and, unless 
 his objections arise from sheer ignorance, he may claim an 
 answer. But a custom has sprung up of late which is much 
 to be deprecated. We are told that A. says one thing, but 
 B., often an unknown writer in an unknown journal, says 
 quite another, and that therefore no one knows anything. 
 If those who indulge in this kind of warfare would give their 
 reasons why they consider A. wrong and B. right, that would 
 be useful work. But simply to say B. differs from A., 
 therefore A. is wrong, or B. differs from A., therefore both 
 are wrong, is unworthy, if not of a scholar, at least of a 
 logician. Here is an example of what I mean. 
 
 When we have an etymology which is invulnerable on 
 phonetic grounds, and perfectly satisfactory so far as the 
 meaning of the word is concerned, it requires very strong 
 arguments to replace it by another. 
 
 The derivation of the name of Indra, a god who is con- 
 
396 APPENDIX I. 
 
 stantly represented as bringing rain, from the same root 
 which yielded ind-u, rain-drop, is beyond the reach of 
 reasonable criticism. To say that we have in Sanskrit no 
 verb ind or id, is saying no more than that there are 
 hundreds of words in Sanskrit the root of which has not 
 been preserved in a verbal base. But even supposing, what 
 would be a mere guess, that Indra was derived from some 
 unknown pre-Aryan or un-Aryan root, there can be no 
 doubt that in the mind of the Vedic poets ind-u and ind-ra 
 were inseparably connected^. However, a certain amount 
 of free and easy scepticism might be tolerated, if some other 
 very plausible etymology of Indra had been suggested, for 
 with such ancient names as the names of Vedic gods it is 
 not unfrequently difficult to decide which of two equally 
 possible etymologies is to be considered as the real one. 
 But what shall we say to the following criticism ^ ? ' It is 
 right to call attention to the fact that Indra is not said to 
 rain in the sense in which Par^anya, or Zeus, or Jupiter 
 was said to rain ; and the etymology which was supposed to 
 prove his name to have made him a pluvial divinity has been 
 superseded by a better one which has nothing to do with rain.' 
 
 No Vedic scholar, so far as I know, has ever maintained 
 that Indra rained in the sense in which Parpranya was said 
 to rain ; but no Vedic scholar, so far as I know, has ever 
 denied that Indra conquered the rain and sent it down 
 on the parched earth. An etymology, therefore, which has 
 nothing to do with rain, cannot well be called a better one 
 on that ground. 
 
 But what is this better etymology? It was suggested 
 many years ago by Bezzenberger, and I should be surprised 
 
 ^ In the same manner as Soma is connected with suta, Indra 
 is connected with indu, e. g. Rv. IX. 101, 5, Indu/i Indraya pavate ; 
 Rv. I. 139, 6, Vn'shan Indra vnshap^nasa^ indava/i ime suta/i adri- 
 sutasa/i udbhida/i ; see also IX. 37, 6 ; 62, 15 ; 85. 4 ; 96, 9 ; 101, 5 ; 
 110, 11. 
 
 ^ Hibbert Lectures, by J. Rhys, p. 295. 
 
INDRA OR ANDRA. 397 
 
 if that conscientious scholar attached much value to it, and 
 would still wish to defend it, particularly when the reading 
 of the Zend Aiidra for liidra has become more than doubt- 
 ful. This Zend form Andra was supposed to be the Old 
 High-German antra, and this antra was supposed to mean 
 giant, and to be derived from a root and, standing for nad, 
 to howl. Now, first, there is no such root as and for nad. 
 Secondly, there is no such word in Old High-German as 
 antra, but antra is a purely imaginary word, invented in 
 order to account for O. H. G. antrisc and entrisc, which 
 means old, strange, wild, &c. But by the side of antrisc 
 there is in 0. H. G. another word, antisc. It is by no means 
 certain that these are two forms of the same word. It is far 
 better to keep them distinct. 
 
 Schade, in his Altdeutsche Worterhuch, gives antisc, andisk, 
 entisk, entisch. 
 
 And antrisc, entrisc, eintrisk, endirisk, enderisk ahd., 
 amhd. entrisch, adj. antiquus, priscus, antiquatus ; barbarus, 
 fremd ; befremdlich, sonderbar. N. H. G. bair. entrisch, 
 Schmeller 1, 77, Myth. 491. 
 
 Nor is it at all certain that either of these words has 
 anything to do with the Germanic word for giant, O. E. ent 
 (see Bosw.-ToUer, p. 252), adj. entisc (Beow., 1. 2980), German 
 £nz, and enzerisch, ungeheuer, pointing to a stem *dntiz. 
 
 With such a form as 0. H. G. *antra, supposing it ever 
 existed, or *antiz, we should never get at Sanskrit Indra; 
 we might possibly get at Andhra, an ancient Vedic race, 
 the name of which would be about as appropriate as that of 
 the Indi, which Mone is said to have connected with A. S. 
 ent, plur. entas^. When will people learn that vowels are 
 quite as important as consonants 1 
 
 ^ Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahriman, p. 268 ; v. Bradke, Dyaus Asura, 
 p. 84. See Vendidad X. 9 ; XIX. 43. 
 
 ^ For other etymologies of ant, see Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 
 p. 491. 
 
398 APPENDIX I. 
 
 This new etymology of Indra is therefore phonetically 
 faulty, but it is likewise semantically untenable. If any 
 Vedic Deva was ever a real Deva it was Indra, and to 
 represent him as originally human, or as an old giant, is the 
 wildest Euhemerism. 
 
 If the etymology which connects indu and indra had 
 really been thought objectionable, several other etymologies 
 far less objectionable than the O. H. G. ^ antra might have 
 been quoted. For, as I say again, and as everybody familiar 
 with these researches is aware of, it is by no means easy, in 
 tracing ancient names of gods and heroes to their probable 
 source, to exclude all other etymologies as simply impos- 
 sible. Professor Ludwig^ one of our best Vedic scholars, 
 suggested the Old Slavonic jedrii, quick ; Professor Roth 
 seems still to be in favour of deriving Indra from in or inv, 
 with an epenthetic d, so that it should have meant tamer or 
 conqueror. But the epenthesis of d between n and r is 
 possible in Greek, not in Sanskrit. Ever so many more 
 guesses proceeding from ancient Sanskrit scholars may be 
 seen in the Nirukta, X. 8. But none of them is so entirely 
 free from objections, whether phonetic or semantic, as that 
 which derives Indra from the same root which yielded 
 indu, and thus vindicates for Indra the original meaning 
 of the Rain-god. To say, therefore, that that etymology has 
 been superseded by Professor Bezzenberger's ingenious but 
 rash guess, is dealing in indolent assertions that can only 
 be prejudicial to the interests of true scholarship. 
 
 Professor Jacobi in Kuhn's ZeMschrift, xxxi. p. 316, has 
 proposed a new etymology of Indra, by comparing it with 
 cLvrip, avbpo-s, and indirectly with Sk. nara, man. Apart 
 from other objections, the phonetic difficulty pointed out 
 before, the absence of an epenthetic d in Sanskrit, is decisive 
 against this etymology. 
 
 ^ Rig-veda, vol. iii. p. 824. 
 
HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE. 399 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 p. 88. 
 
 HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE. 
 
 In criticising the labours of comparative philologists, 
 great stress has been laid on the fact that comparative 
 philologists sometimes diifer from each other. It is difficult 
 to imagine a weaker, not to say a meaner, argument. It was 
 the same argument that was used against the decipherers of 
 hieroglyphic, cuneiform, Umbrian, and Oscan inscriptions. 
 They were laughed at because they differed from each other, 
 and they were laughed at because they differed from them- 
 selves; as if progress, or, as it is now called, evolution, were 
 possible without scholars differing from themselves and differ- 
 ing from others. 
 
 When learned argument was impossible or troublesome, 
 squibs have often had to take its place in order to throw 
 ridicule on serious students. I still remember the time 
 when the late Sir George Cornewall Lewis published his 
 famous squib, ' Inscriptio antiqua in Agro Bruttio nuper 
 reperta : edidit et interpretatus est Johannes Brownius, A. M. 
 Aedis Christi quondam alumnus, Oxoniae, 1862.' All the 
 laughers were then on his side, and comparative scholars 
 were assured that an English Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 had disposed of such men as ChampoUion, Bunsen, Burnouf, 
 Eawlinson, Kirchhoff, Aufrecht, Mommsen, et hoc genus omne, 
 in the short hours of leisure left him by his official duties. 
 It seems to be a common failing of Chancellors of the Ex- 
 chequer that they imagine that in the few hours of leisure 
 left them by their arduous duties they can do infinitely more 
 than ordinary mortals who spend all their time over Greek 
 and Latin. I was truly sorry for Sir George Cornewall 
 Lewis at the time, and I believe he lived long enough to be 
 truly sorry himself for this jeu d'esprit, which, I confess, 
 reminded me always of an elephant trying to dance on a 
 
400 APPENDIX II. 
 
 rope. In his Astronomy of the Ancients he had tried to show 
 that, wherever the tradition of a language had once been 
 broken, it was impossible, by means of the comparative 
 method, to decipher an ancient inscription, whether in 
 Egypt, Persia, Italy, or anywhere else. In his squib he 
 gave a practical illustration, showing that, by employing the 
 same comparative method, he was able to interpret any inscrip- 
 tion, even the following, which he proved to be Umbrian : — 
 
 HEYDIDDLEDIDDLE 
 
 THECATANDTHEFIDDLE 
 
 THECOWJUMPEDOVEKTHEMOON 
 
 THELITTLEDOGLAUGHED 
 
 TOSEESUCHFINESPOKT 
 
 ANDTHEDISHRANAWAYWITHTHESPOON. 
 
 Often was I asked at the time — now nearly thirty years 
 ago — why I did not answer these attacks; but, with all 
 respect for Sir George Cornewall Lewis, I felt that no 
 answer was deserved. Would an astronomer feel called 
 upon to answer, if the most learned Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer asked him, in his most solemn way, whether he 
 really thought that the sun did not rise % Would a chemist 
 feel disturbed in his experiments if he were told, even by the 
 most jocular of journalists, that by profusely mixing oxygen 
 and hydrogen he had never succeeded in producing a single 
 drop of water % It is no doubt the duty of a journalist to 
 give his opinion about everything; and if he does it with 
 real esprit, no one finds fault with him. He may even, if he 
 is persevering, stir up a certain amount of what is called 
 public opinion : but what is public opinion to a scholar and 
 to a lover of truth? Of course, if it can be shown that 
 Bopp and Grimm have completely changed their opinion, or 
 that those who followed after them have convicted these 
 great scholars of many an error, the ignorant crowd will 
 always say, ' Aha ! aha ! ' But those who are quiet in the 
 
HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE. 401 
 
 land would, on the contrary, be utterly disheartened if it 
 were otherwise, and if, in spite of constant moil and toil, the 
 best scholars were always to remain in the same trench, 
 never advancing a step in the siege of the strong fortress of 
 truth. What seems to me intolerable is that persons who 
 avowedly cannot form an independent opinion of two views, 
 the one propounded by Bopp, the other by Grimm, should 
 think that they can dispose of two such giants by simply 
 saying, ' Aha ! aha ! they contradict each other.' 
 
 It is strange that some of these ready critics, who, though 
 ignorant of Sanskrit, pride themselves on their knowledge of 
 Greek and Latin, should be unaware that fortunately in Greek 
 and Latin philology also great scholars contradict themselves 
 and contradict others quite as much as in Sanskrit, Zend, 
 Gothic, or comparative philology. The Greek classics have 
 been interpreted now for nearly two thousand years — at 
 Alexandria, at Eome, at Constantinople, at Paris, Oxford, 
 Cambridge, and Berlin. No doubt a schoolboy, when read- 
 ing his Homer, imagines that the construction of every line 
 is settled by his tutor, and the meaning of every word by his 
 Liddell and Scott. But every true scholar knows how 
 different the real state of the case is, how much uncertainty 
 attaches to the meaning of many words ; how often scholars 
 have changed their interpretation of certain lines ; and how 
 fiercely the highest authorities contradict each other as to 
 the true purport of Homeric poetry and Homeric mythology. 
 Let us open the Odyssey, and in the very first line the best 
 scholars differ as to the meaning of TroXvTponos and the gram- 
 matical analysis of eupene. Ennius was right in rendering 
 ii/vene (i. e. ep-(r€7re) by insece, an etymologically-identical 
 form, identical also with the German ansagen, English to 
 say. But, if he was right in this, it follows that we must 
 change co-ncTe, say, into eo-Trere, because it stands for o-e-o-eV- 
 €T€, and there is no excuse for dropping the aspirate. As a 
 matter of fact some of the MSS. read eo-Trcre. However, La 
 (2) Dd 
 
402 APPENDIX II. 
 
 Roche and other Homeric interpreters differ on this point, as 
 on many others. 
 
 But if Ennius was right in rendering euucne by insece, he 
 was probably wrong in taking noXvTpoTTos in the sense of 
 versatus, as if it were iroXv/jiTjTis. TIoXvTponos in our passage 
 means no more than os fxaXa ttoXXo nXdyx^rj, according to a 
 very common peculiarity of Homeric diction. Still this 
 again is an open question. 
 
 The very next word, nXdyxBrj, gives rise to a new contro- 
 versy as to whether it means ' he was tossed ' or ' made to 
 wander.' I decidedly prefer the first meaning, but far 
 greater authorities prefer the second. 
 
 And so we could go on from page to page, pointing out 
 words and whole sentences on which doctors disagree, and 
 yet without any scholar venturing to say that it is useless 
 therefore to read Homer ^. 
 
 There are two classes of readers for Homer, as there are 
 two classes of readers for the Vedas. One class must accept 
 what either Indian or European commentators have laid 
 down as the law, just as schoolboys must accept what their 
 master tells them, whether out of Aristarchus or out of 
 Merry and Munro. Another class of more advanced students 
 must judge for themselves. But no one would even pass 
 moderations by simply saying that SayaTia differed from 
 Ludwig and Aristarchus from La Eoche, and that therefore 
 they were probably both wrong. If two doctors disagree, it is 
 surely no proof of superior knowledge and judgment to smile 
 at those who honestly try to form their own opinion. It does 
 not follow that both are wrong, because an indolent looker- 
 on cannot decide which of them is right. It rather follows 
 
 ^ What is the true meaning of dairepxfs, Od. I. 20 ; of drpeKeoos, Od. 
 I. 169 ? How should we interpret 6(a/v kv yovvaai Keirai, Od. I. 267 ? 
 how ecSva in Od. I. 277 ; dvotraTa, Od. I. 320 ; d\(pT](TT^s, Od. I. 349 ; 
 dpySs, Od. II. 11 ; evdcUXos, Od. II. 167 ; fjXeos, Od. II. 243, &c. ? Might 
 we not say to some recent translators of Homer, Hie Rhodos, hie 
 salta ? 
 
ON TOTEMS AND THEIR VARIOUS ORIGIN. 403 
 
 that the mere looker-on should keep at a respectful distance, 
 and that he should not try to act as umpire, unless he knows 
 the difference between a hit and a miss. Squibs are amusing 
 for the time, but they are very apt to turn into boomerangs. 
 
 APPENDIX III. 
 
 P. 126. 
 
 ON TOTEMS AND THEIK VARIOUS OBIGIN. 
 
 Mr. Hoskyns Abrahall gives a curious extract from a paper, 
 written by an Ottawa Indian ^, where he states that ' the 
 Indians to whom he himself belonged, were divided into 
 tribes, and a tribe was again subdivided into sections, or 
 families, according to their ododams, that is, their devices, 
 signs, or what may be called, according to the usages of 
 civilised communities, " coats of arms." The members of a 
 particular family kept themselves distinct, at least nominally, 
 from the other members of the tribe; and, in their large 
 villages, all people claiming to belong to the same ododam, 
 or sign, were required to dwell in that section of the village 
 set apart for them specially, and which, from the mention of 
 gates, we may suppose was enclosed by wickets or some sort 
 of fence. At the principal entrance into this enclosure there 
 was the figure of an animal, or some other sign, set up on the 
 top of one of the posts. By means of this sign everybody 
 might know to what particular family the inhabitants of 
 that quarter claimed to belong. For instance, those whose 
 ododam was the bear, would set up the figure of that animal 
 at their principal gate. Some of the families were called 
 after their ododam. For example, those who had the gull 
 for their ododam, were called the Gull family, or simply, 
 
 ^ Academy, 1884, Sept. 27 ; TTie Canadian Journal (Toronto), New 
 Series, No. 14 (March 1858). 
 
 Dd2 
 
404 APPENDIX III. 
 
 the Gulls ; they would, of course, put up the figure of that 
 bird at their gate. Others did not adopt this custom ; for 
 instance, the family who set up the bear, were called the Big 
 Feet. Many of the village gates must have been adorned 
 with very curious carvings, in consequence of parts only of 
 different animals being frequently joined together to make up 
 the ensigns armorial of a family ; for instance, the ododam of 
 one particular section consisted of a small* hawk and the fins 
 of a sturgeon (pp. 119-120).' 
 
 Here, however, as in most cases, where we try to discover 
 the origin of certain customs ^ we ought to be on our guard 
 against supposing that, if we discover one plausible origin, 
 the whole problem is solved. Like rivers, most customs 
 have more than one source. We saw already how one clan, 
 called the Big Feet, had for their sign the Bear. Here the 
 Big Feet may have suggested the Bear quite as well as the 
 Bear might have suggested the Big Feet. When we meet 
 with a sign consisting of the wing of a hawk and the fins of 
 a sturgeon, it is difficult to imagine what couple of ancestors 
 this clan could have claimed. We know how many purely 
 accidental circumstances have led to the foundation of certain 
 armorial bearings among ourselves, and we must be prepared 
 for the same variety among the Red Indians. 
 
 If scholars can prove that early races really believed that 
 they were descended from bears, or dogs, and serpents and 
 birds, I have nothing to say, though to my mind such con- 
 ceptions, far from being original, seem generally later 
 superstitions due to misunderstandings, and often to super- 
 stitions only. Even if it pleased a certain school to see in 
 such superstitions a recollection of our pre-historic animal 
 ancestors, no harm can be done so long as the door is left 
 
 1 How the totem is only one out of many manifestations of Sign- 
 language (ideography), may be seen from an excellent paper by E. 
 Curtius, tjher Wappengebrauch und Wappeiistil im gnechiscJien Alterthunij 
 Berlin, 1874. 
 
ON TOTEMS AND THEIR VARIOUS ORIGIN. 405 
 
 wide open for other explanations. A student familiar with 
 the customs of uncivilised races would probably consider 
 these marks or names of clans so natural, and, at the same 
 time, so much under the influence of historical events which 
 baffle all conjecture, that he would abstain from attempting 
 a general explanation of them, except where by some accident 
 the key to one or other of these names had actually fallen 
 into his hands. What could seem more natural than that, 
 as we name and number our houses, people in their earliest 
 settlements should have tried to distinguish their lairs or 
 abodes by some visible signs. And if they marked their 
 abode with a dead crow or a live wolf, would they not soon be 
 called the Crows or the Wolves 1 
 
 What could seem more natural than, for some reason or 
 other, to call a man a donkey or a bear 1 And in this case 
 also, might not his descendants have been called the Donkeys 
 or the Bears 1 
 
 Again, what could seem more natural than that people 
 living in a country inhabited by snakes or bears, should them- 
 selves be called Nagas (snakes), or Arkades (Ursini or Bears) ? 
 And as Bears could only be descended from some primitive 
 or divine Bear, what is there irrational or even surprising in 
 such myths as the descent of the Arcadians from a she-bear 
 and Zeus 1 
 
 All this, however, is only guess-work, and on closer exam- 
 ination we should find again and again that our guesses 
 were wrong. The Shoshoni tribe, for instance ^ according to 
 Bushmann, an offshoot of the northern branch of the Nahuatl 
 linguistic division, goes by the name of Snakes, Gens des 
 Serpents, Serpentine Indians. But there seems to be no 
 trace of their worshipping a snake or claiming descent from 
 a snake, and our author tells us that their name was taken 
 from the Snake river flowing through the country of this 
 
 ^ Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, April 1886, p. 206. 
 
406 APPENDIX III. 
 
 tribe, on account of the numerous puff-adders found upon its 
 banks ^. The gesture-sign by which the Shoshonis are known 
 is formed by placing the closed right hand near the right hip, 
 forefinger extended and pointing forward, palm down ; then 
 the hand is pushed to the front and toward the left, the 
 hand is rotated from side to side, giving the index a serpen- 
 tine motion, which is the sign for snake, as a reptile. The 
 word Shoshoni, however, does not mean snake, and Dr. 
 Hoffmann believes that the gesture-sign of snake refers to the 
 weaving or building of the grass lodges in which these tribes 
 lived. The question becomes still more complicated when we 
 are told that the Shoshonis always ride on horseback, and 
 that, if they lose their horse and have to walk on foot, they 
 become Shoshocoes. 
 
 Another tribe is now called Tejon, a Spanish translation of 
 the Indian word Tin'liu, a badger-hole. This name, however, 
 does not originate with the many depressions found in the 
 country occupied by this people, but from a myth having 
 allusion to their origin in peopling the country by coming 
 out of the earth through badger-holes, and consequently call- 
 ing themselves Badger-hole People. 
 
 Another tribe is called the Crows, Absarokas, but the true 
 Absaroka is said to have been white. 
 
 I only mention these few facts in order to show that if 
 we want to know the real origin of totems we must study 
 well-authenticated cases, such, for instance, as Mr. Brinton 
 has placed before us in his valuable publications on American 
 folk-lore. 
 
 Having shown why the White One, or the Eising Sun, and, 
 in the end, the Creator of the "World, was called the Great 
 Hare or Eabbit, and having proved the prevalence of a belief 
 among the Eed Indians and other tribes that they were 
 ' Children of the Sun,' Mr. Brinton finds no difficulty in 
 
 ^ In Malay ular is a snake, but ular vlar a brook. 
 
ON TOTEMS AND THEIR VARIOUS ORIGIN. 407 
 
 accounting for the Hare as a clan-mark, or for the great 
 respect which was paid to that mark and to that clan ^. 
 
 If the Athapascan tribes west of the Kocky Mountains — 
 the Kenai, the Kolushes, and the Atnai — claim descent from 
 a raven, Mr. Brinton has shown that with them the Raven 
 was the name of the mighty cloud-bird, who in the beginning 
 of things seized the elements and brought the world from the 
 abyss of the primitive ocean (p. 229). How different, and 
 how much more real, is this explanation than the vague 
 theory, lately propounded again by Lippert ^, that * a totem 
 is the same as a fetish in which the soul of some departed 
 ancestor has taken up its abode.' What evidence is there 
 that any Red Indian ever held such an opinion ? 
 
 It may seem strange to us that the Dogribs, the Chepe- 
 wyans, the Hare Indians, and also the west-coast Eskimos, 
 with the natives of the Aleutian Isles, should claim descent 
 from a Dog. But this animal again is known to have been 
 the fixed symbol of the water-goddess from whom, as well as 
 from the sun or the winds, all life on earth was supposed to 
 spring ^ (p. 229). Need we wonder then that the Dog should 
 have become one of the family signs ! 
 
 ' Though hasty writers,' as Mr. Brinton writes, ' have often 
 said that the Indian tribes claim lineal descent from different 
 wild beasts, probably . . . this will prove, on examination, to 
 be an error resting on a misapprehension arising from the 
 habit of the natives of adopting as their totem or clan-mark 
 the figure and name of some animal, or else in an ignorance 
 of the animate symbols employed with such marked preference 
 
 ^ In a Lecture, lately delivered by Dr. Brinton (1885, p. 9), he 
 goes so far as to say : ' The word for rabbit in Algonkin is almost 
 identical with that for light, and when these savages applied the 
 word to their divinity, they agreed with him who said, " God is 
 Light, and in Him is no darkness at all." ' 
 
 ^ Die Beligionen, p. 12. 
 
 3 See also Horatio Hale, < The Iroquois Sacrifice of the White Dog,' 
 American Antiquarian, Jan. 1886. 
 
408 APPENDIX III. 
 
 by the red race to express abstract ideas. In some cases, 
 doubtless, the natives themselves came, in time, to confound 
 the symbol with the idea, by that familiar process of personi- 
 fication and consequent debasement exemplified in the history 
 of every religion ; but I do not believe that a single example 
 could be found where an Indian tribe had a tradition whose 
 real purport was that man came by natural process of descent 
 from an ancestor, a brute' (p. 232). 
 
 How modern some of these so-called totems may be, can be 
 seen from a communication made to me by an English 
 traveller, who resided for a long time among the Red Indians. 
 He saw in the centre of a village belonging to the Mandans 
 as their totem, or object of tutelary worship, a boat, and their 
 head Priest or Medicine Man was called ' The Old Man of the 
 Boat.' The legend they told of the boat was exactly that of 
 Noah in the Old Testament, and so closely did they follow 
 it that they always kept two pigeons near the boat in com- 
 memoration of the service they had rendered during the big 
 flood. 
 
 Some scholars would no doubt feel inclined to use this 
 coincidence as a proof that the Red Indians brought this 
 legend away from the primeval centre of humanity ; but it is 
 by no means impossible that we have here a totem which is 
 due to a Christian Missionary, and perhaps not more than a 
 hundred years old. Such facts teach caution, however difficult 
 that lesson may be. 
 
 Totemism is one of those pseudo scientific terms which 
 have done infinite harm to the study of mythology. I have 
 often protested, but, I am afraid, in vain, against the habit of 
 using a name, which is applicable to certain objects in a certain 
 country and at a certain time, as a general appellation. 
 
 I protested many years ago against the custom of calling 
 all monuments, consisting of three stones and a fourth on 
 the top, cromlechs, in whatever part of the world they are 
 found. Cromlech is the Celtic name of Celtic monuments, 
 
ON TOTEMS AND THEIK VAKI0U8 OKIGIN. 409 
 
 and to apply it to similar monuments found in Africa, Egypt, 
 the Lebanon, in India or in Hawaii, is, to say the least, ex- 
 tremely misleading ^. 
 
 I protested once more against the slovenly use of the term 
 fetish, a name assigned by Portuguese sailors to certain 
 objects of worship (feitipos) among the negroes of the Gold 
 Coast, but afterwards so widely extended that hardly any 
 tangible object of worship can now escape the name of fetish, 
 or any religion the bye word of fetishism ^. The stone swal- 
 lowed by Jupiter and afterwards preserved at Delphi, the 
 anvils fastened to the feet of Hera, the stone found in the 
 coffin of Alkmene, the stone which Jacob took for his 
 pillow, and afterward consecrated as a Beth-el, the Corona- 
 tion-stone at Westminster Abbey, all have lately been pro- 
 miscuously labelled as 'fetishes,' as if that taught us 
 anything, instead of making confusion only worse con- 
 founded. 
 
 All this is thoroughly unscientific. To take a foreign 
 word, without accurately defining it, and then to add to 
 it the magical termination of ism, may save a great deal 
 of trouble, but what is here called trouble, is in reality 
 accurate thought. 
 
 Totemism^ is no doubt, a very convenient term. I have 
 often used it myself, and should have been the last per- 
 son to cavil at its barbarous form*, if only its meaning 
 were accurately defined. It was simply in order to hint 
 at the danger of using such terms without knowing even 
 their etymology and meaning, that I lately recalled the 
 remarks of Father Cuoq. The word totem is properly 
 ote, meaning ' clan-mark/ The possessive form is otem, and 
 with the personal pronoun nind otem, 'my clan-mark,' kit 
 
 ^ Chips from a German Workshop, iii. p. 279. 
 ^ Hibbert Lectures, p. 54 seq. 
 
 '^ "Waitz, Anthropologie, iii. p. 190 seq. ; Bancroft, Native RaceSf 
 p. 130 seq. * Selected Essays, ii. p. 376, etc. 
 
410 APPENDIX IV. 
 
 otem^ 'thy clan-mark \' Nothing was further from my 
 thoughts than to wish to abolish the old familiar term of 
 totem, when it is used in its legitimate sense. There are 
 much stronger reasons why we should abolish such terms as 
 Zend, A vesta, Pdli, Aryan, and Turanian, yet if only we 
 define clearly what we mean by them, it is far better to 
 retain them. All I wish for is that those who write about 
 Totem and Totemism should tell us exactly what they mean 
 by those words, and that they should not take it for granted 
 that religion must everywhere pass through the phases of 
 fetishism, totemism, animism or any other ism. 
 
 APPENDIX IV. 
 P. 168. 
 DUKGA. 
 
 Durga, as a goddess, occurs for the first time in one of the 
 Khilas of the Rig-veda, if indeed we may assign to these 
 poor compilations a greater antiquity than to the Ara9^yakas. 
 This Khila is a hymn to Ratri, the night. It is found in the 
 MSS. of the Eig-veda after the 127th hymn of the 10th 
 Mawc^ala (see my edit, princ, vol. vi. p. 23). After four 
 verses addressed to Ratri, follow some verses addressed to 
 Durga. I give the translation of the hymn, as far as it can 
 be translated in its imperfect form ^ : 
 
 ' O Night, the terrestrial air has been filled by the father's 
 powers; thou, the mighty, traversest the mansions of the 
 sky, and awful darkness returns. 
 
 *0 Night, may thy man-beholding seers (the stars) be 
 ninety-nine, eighty-eight, and seventy-seven. 
 
 ' I approach the Night, the mother, who brings rest to all 
 creatures, the kindly ^, holy, dark night of the whole world. 
 
 ' I have approached the fortunate (siva) night, who quiets 
 
 ^ Academy, 1884, Sept. 20. =^ See Muir, Sanskrit Texts, iv. p. 498. 
 2 Some MSS. read Durgam. 
 
durgA. 411 
 
 and composes (all things), adorned with a garland of plants 
 and stars. kind one, may we reach the other side ! kind 
 one, may we reach the other side ! Om, adoration ! ' 
 
 Now begins the hymn to Durga, though there is as yet 
 nothing in these verses that points directly to this goddess as 
 described in the Markan(ieya Furkna. "We have had the 
 epithets siva and durga in the preceding verses, as applied 
 to Eatri, we now see her called Durga, but without any 
 definite mythological character. 
 
 ' I shall eagerly praise the divine (devi) Durga, who yields 
 a refuge, who is beloved by the BahvnA;as (priests of the 
 E,ig-veda), who is equal to a thousand^. Let us pour out 
 Soma to (xatavedas (Fire) ^. 
 
 'Thou art approached^ by i?^shis for the peace of the 
 twice-born, thou art born in the Rig-veda. May she (or 
 Agni) burn up the wealth of the enemy. 
 
 'Whatever Brahmawas, learned or ignorant, approach 
 thee, Goddess (devi), the carrier of oblations, may she (or 
 he) carry us over all obstacles (durgani). 
 
 * Whatever twice-born men shall celebrate the fire-coloured, 
 beautiful, gentle (goddess), she will carry them over obstacles, 
 — Agni (carries) across all evils, as in a boat across a river. 
 
 'All who are bewildered in obstacles, in misfortune, in 
 fearful war, in trouble from enemies, in visitations from fire 
 or thieves, in escape from evil stars, in troublesome obstacles, 
 in wars and wildernesses, approach thee. Give us security 
 from these, give us security from these. Om, adoration ! 
 
 ' The long-haired (kesini), whose name among all creatures 
 is Pan^ami (the Fifth, or Beautiful), may she, the good 
 Night, the goddess (devi), preserve us always, may she 
 preserve us always. Om, adoration ! 
 
 ^ Could it be sahasra samgrnitam, with a thousand names ? 
 2 The last lines in this and the three following verses are borrowed 
 from Rv. I. 99. 
 ^ Samupasrita. 
 
412 APPENDIX IV. 
 
 'I approach as my refuge Durga, the goddess, the fire- 
 coloured, flaming with heat, the daughter of the sun (Viro- 
 ^ana), who is welcome for the rewards of good works. O 
 thou well-speeding, adoration to thy speed ! 
 
 ' May Durga, the goddess (deviA), be propitious for our 
 success ! 
 
 ' He who always recites this praise of Durga night after 
 night [viz. a ratri, Kusika Saubhara, the poet, or Ratri 
 Bharadv%i, praise of the Night, metre Gayatri], he who 
 mutters the hymn to Eatri, he succeeds at that very time.' 
 
 This is clearly a compilation made on purpose for a 
 goddess Durga. What we can recognise behind her, are the 
 night and the fire. The epithet durga, difficult to pass, or 
 difficult to approach, would be applicable to both. 
 
 In the Taittiriya-aranyaka, X. 7, we find a verse addressed 
 to the same goddess, but under the name of DurgiA : 
 
 Katyayanaya vidmahe, Kanyakumari dhimahi, tan no 
 Durgi/i pro^odayat. 
 
 I doubt whether the text is correct. "We expect the names 
 Katyayani, the accusative Kanyakumarim, and Durga. The 
 commentator, however, explains Durgi for Durga as linga- 
 vyatyayas Mandasa^, and it has to be observed that all the 
 preceding deities are masculine, namely, Rudra, Vinayaka, 
 Nandi, Kartikeya, Garuc^a, Brahma, Vishnu, Narasimha, 
 Aditya, Agni, and lastly Durgi. In the text of the Maha- 
 naraya^ia Upanishad, III. 12 (ed. G. A. Jacob, 1888, p. 4), 
 the text is more correct : 
 
 Katyayanyai vidmahe, Kanyakumarim dhimahi, tan no 
 Durga prakadayat. 
 
 Again, in Taitt.-Ar. X. 26 and 30, we find invocations 
 addressed to Gayatri, which strongly remind us of Durga. 
 In the 26th Anuvaka, Gayatri is called varada, boon-giving, 
 and in the 30th Anuvaka she is spoken of as uttame sikhare 
 ^ata (or devi) bhumyam parvata-murdhani, *born on the 
 highest peak, on the earth, on the summit of the mountain,' 
 
ANTHBOPOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 413 
 
 which epithets might refer to Parvati, but are by tradition 
 referred to Gayatri or Sarasvati. 
 
 Several of the names given to Rudra in the Taittiriya- 
 Arawyaka, point to him as the husband of Durga. Thus we 
 read, X. 18 : 
 
 Namo hirawyabahave, hirawyavarwaya, hirawyarupaya, 
 hira^iyapataye, Ambikapataye, Umapataye, Pasupataye, namo 
 namay^. 
 
 'Adoration to the golden-armed, golden-coloured, golden- 
 shaped, the lord of gold, the lord of Ambika, the lord of 
 Uma, the lord of cattle ! ' 
 
 This Ambika is mentioned as the sister of Rudra in Yig. 
 Samh. III. 57, and his name Tryambaka is derived from 
 stri-ambika (iSatap-'Br. II. 6, 2, 9), because Ambika, his 
 sister, shared the sacrifice with him. This Ambika is in 
 Taitt.-Br. I. 6, 10, 4, identified with iS'arad, the autumn. 
 
 The name Tryambaka has also been explained as ' having 
 three mothers, or sisters.' But this can hardly be, as his 
 wife also is called Tryambaka. Most likely it was meant as 
 another expression for TriloA;ana, three-eyed, one of the most 
 general names of A^iva in later times. 
 
 APPENDIX V. 
 P. 180. 
 
 ON THE UNTRUSTWORTHINESS OP ANTHEOPOLOGICAL 
 EVIDENCE. 
 
 As it has been suggested that my representation of the 
 untrustworthy character of much of the evidence on which 
 students of comparative theology and of anthropology have 
 to rely is exaggerated, I give here some of the pieces justifi- 
 catives. I do not blame anybody. On the contrary, I highly 
 appreciate the labours of those who have given us their 
 accounts of what they have seen and heard among savage 
 
414 APPENDIX V. 
 
 tribes. Nor have I any right to find fault with others who 
 in their study of language, customs, and religions have 
 trusted these accounts, as I myself have but too often shared 
 their fate. All I say is that now that we have found out 
 by sad experience how untrustworthy some of these accounts 
 are, and how often they flatly contradict each other, we ought 
 to discard all evidence that does not come to us either from 
 a man who was able himself to converse with native races, 
 or who was at least an eye-witness of what he relates. 
 Even then, I know full well, there still remain many 
 dangers. Savages, when brought into conversational inter- 
 course with white people, are generally very anxious to 
 please. They never like to disappoint or contradict their 
 questioners. Mr. Ellis in his charming Polynesian Re- 
 searches, published many years ago, remarks that almost in 
 the same breath a Malagasy will express his belief that 
 when he dies he ceases altogether to exist, and yet confess 
 the fact that he is in the habit of praying to his ancestors 
 who are supposed to hover about their tombs. 
 
 It was Darwin, I believe, who remarked very truly, ' that 
 the effects of false inferences are but of little moment, for 
 every one feels a pleasure in setting them straight, but that 
 false facts are most dangerous, because there may be but few 
 who can point out their untruth \' When we have to deal 
 with the evidence taken from language or from literary- 
 works, everybody can form his own opinion, or, if he cannot, 
 he can abstain. But when we have to deal with evidence 
 even of eye-witnesses from the Andaman Islands, and if these 
 eye-witnesses not only differ, but contradict each other, what 
 shall we do 1 Shall we go to the Andaman Islands, before 
 finishing a sentence 1 And if we did go, would it not take 
 years before we could learn the native dialects in order to 
 be able freely to converse with the natives, and thus to guard 
 
 ^ Journal of Anthropological Institute, Aug. 1890, p. 43. 
 
ANTHEOPOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 415 
 
 against the very mishaps that have befallen those who came 
 before us ? All we can do is to follow strictly the two 
 principles which I laid down in my Lecture, never to quote 
 any but eye-witnesses, and never to trust even eye-witnesses 
 unless they were familiar with the language. This, no doubt, 
 will very considerably reduce the bulk of what has been 
 written on anecdotic anthropology, and more particularly, 
 on comparative theology, but what we lose in quantity we 
 shall certainly gain in quality. 
 
 It is unfortunate that this subject cannot be discussed 
 without exciting personal resentments. I sometimes wish 
 that all learned works could be written anonymously. 
 "Whenever one scholar arrives at results different from those 
 hitherto accepted, it is looked upon as a kind of slur thrown 
 on those who hold the old opinion. It does not seem to 
 be so in other sciences. If a new planet is discovered by 
 one observer, the other astronomers do not consider them- 
 selves disgraced, or bound in honour to defend their old 
 map of the stars. When spectral analysis showed that 
 former theories on the constituent elements of the sun were 
 imperfect and erroneous, no one felt ashamed of his former 
 ignorance. 
 
 Why should it be different with scholars ? The difficulty 
 of gaining a clear conception of a religion by addressing 
 some questions on religious topics to a few savages is 
 enormous. It is not easy, as we all know, to draw an 
 intelligent answer on the most common subjects from a 
 ploughboy. But a native of Australia stands on a much 
 lower level than most English ploughboys. And if he is 
 asked any question by a white man, he is frightened. He 
 does not know why he should be asked such questions, 
 and he is at once afraid of mischief. When he gives an 
 answer, the questioner himself is often at a loss to under- 
 stand, or, thinking he does understand it, he entirely misappre- 
 hends its real meaning. 
 
416 APPENDIX V. 
 
 Karnes of Places. 
 
 What can be simpler than to ask the name of a place'? 
 But though wandering tribes may have names for any re- 
 markable spot in their territories, they seldom feel the 
 necessity of naming larger areas, and when they are asked 
 their names, they are as much at a loss as if we were asked 
 the name of a long extent of downs or forests. Thus it is 
 extremely probable that the name of what is now called the 
 Manera Plains arose from a Sydney black being asked the 
 name, and replying manyer, that is, / do not know. Ever 
 since the place has been called Manera. 
 
 Mr. Threlkeld, in his Australian Grammar (1834), tells us 
 that a naturalist one day requested the name of a native cat 
 from M'Gill, his aboriginal, who replied minnaring. The 
 person was about to write down the word ^minnaring, a 
 native cat,' when Mr. Threlkeld prevented him, observing 
 that the word was not the name of the native cat, but a 
 question, namely, 'What' (is it you say"? being understood), 
 the black man not understanding what was said. 
 
 A similar accident is said to have occurred with regard to 
 the inhabitants of the Andaman islands, the so-called Min- 
 copies. When they were asked their name, they answered 
 Min kaich (come here), or Kdmin Mpi (stand here), and 
 this, according to Mr. E. H. Man {The Andaman Islanders, 
 p. 3), may have been corrupted to Mincopie. 
 
 A similar case is mentioned by Chamisso in his Voyage 
 Bound the World. It is a well-known Polynesian custom to 
 exchange names in token of friendship. One of Chamisso's 
 companions, Dr. Eschholtz, wished to exchange his name with 
 a person sitting on the left of the chief. The chief being 
 asked his name, replied Teridili, ' he on the left ? ' i. e. ' Do 
 you mean him on the left ? ' This Teridili was, however, 
 mistaken for the man s name, and adopted by Chamisso's 
 friend. When Chamisso's friend, Dr. Eschholtz, was asked by 
 Teridili for his name, he did not quite understand either. 
 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 417 
 
 Chamisso interpreted, saying, Dein Name, i. e. ' he wants to 
 know your name.' Upon which Teridili laid hold of Dein 
 Name, and was called in future Deinnam \ 
 
 These may seem extreme cases, but even as extreme cases, 
 they are far more frequent than we should suspect. It is 
 only by remembering this difficulty of a free exchange of 
 ideas between civilised and uncivilised people that we can 
 account for the constant contradictions between eye-witnesses 
 who have spent years in Africa, Australia, or New Zealand, 
 who have observed the same scenery and the same customs, 
 who have even acquired a slight familiarity with the spoken 
 dialects of the natives, and who nevertheless give the most 
 conflicting accounts of what they have seen with their own 
 eyes and heard with their own ears. 
 
 The Australian Blacks as descrilied by Different Observers. 
 
 Mr. Curr's book on the Australian Race is a strong case 
 in point. He has lived in Australia for many years. He 
 seems to be a man of an observant mind, and free from any 
 preconceived theories. He tells us that since the year 1866 
 he has been paying attention to the dialects spoken in 
 Australia, and that he began his own collection of lists of 
 words in 1873. He has had help from many quarters, and 
 has been a diligent reader of the more important books that 
 have been published on the languages, the customs, and 
 religious opinions of the natives of Australia. He has had 
 much intercourse with the blacks, though what that inter- 
 course between Europeans and the natives of Australia 
 amounts to, we may gather from a remark made by Mr. Curr 
 (i. 26), that the conversation between the two is generally 
 carried on with a vocabulary of probably not more than 250 
 words and 50 phrases. 
 
 1 Chamisso, Werke, i. p. 247. 
 (3) Ee 
 
418 APPENDIX V. 
 
 The Australian as the Lowest Savag'e. 
 
 The Australian is often supposed to be the nearest 
 approach to primitive man. Leaving the so-called primi- 
 tive man out of the question, for I am afraid we shall never 
 know anything about him, it is certainly of extreme import- 
 ance to know, how low a human being may sink, without 
 ceasing to be a human being. 
 
 Are there Fireless Savages? 
 
 Let us begin with the question whether there are any 
 human beings without a knowledge of kindling and keeping 
 fire. Some anthropologists, it is well known, are as anxious to 
 prove that primitive man must have been fireless as that he 
 must have been godless. If then a missionary states that he 
 has actually met with tribes that had no knowledge of kindling 
 fire, no one surely would blame the anthropologist who accepts 
 so welcome a statement in support of his own theory. But 
 what is he to do, if another traveller asserts that he has seen 
 the same tribe in the same locality kindling a fire ? He can 
 only turn away in disgust, or learn the lesson that from the 
 days of Herodotus even to our own time ' the testimony of 
 travellers is extremely doubtful.' 
 
 This is not an imaginary case. The natives of Tasmania, 
 for instance, who, like the Australians, have often sat for the 
 portrait of the primordial man, were declared by Calder in 
 his Journal, pp. 19-20, to have been unacquainted with the 
 art of kindling fire. Other authorities, such as Dove and 
 Backhouse, confirmed this statement. However, it was 
 proved by Fourneaux that the Tasmanians could not have 
 been ignorant of fire, and that they knew at least two 
 methods of kindling fire. For he found in one of their huts 
 ' the stone they strike fire with, and tinder made of bark.' 
 Others discovered flints and dried grass kept in baskets. 
 Davies (p. 419) was informed that 'they obtained fire by 
 
ANTHKOPOLOOICAL EVIDENCE. 419 
 
 rubbing round rapidly in tbeir hands a piece of hard pointed 
 stick, the pointed end being inserted into a notch in another 
 piece of dry wood/ As this process was not always success- 
 ful, they generally, as Melville states, p. 347, and especially 
 in wet weather, carried on their peregrinations a fire-stick, 
 lighted in their last encampment. Mrs. Meredith (p. 139) 
 relates that when the natives crossed over to Maria Island, 
 they provided a little raised platform on the raft, on which 
 they carried some lighted fuel to kindle their fire when they 
 arrived there. Is not that the rudimentary type of the ship 
 that brought every year the sacred fire from Delos ? It may 
 be, but it may also be something totally different. 
 
 Frometlieus-leg'end in Australia. 
 
 It would seem as if the Tasmanians possessed even a kind 
 of Prometheus-legend, though in a very primitive form. It 
 was related by a native of the Oyster Bay tribe. 
 
 ' My father,' he said, ' my grandfather, all of them lived a 
 long time ago, all over the country ; they had no fire. Two 
 black fellows came. They were seen by my fathers, my 
 countrymen, on the top of a hill. They threw fire like a 
 star — it fell among the black men, my countrymen. They 
 were frightened, they fled away, all of them. After a while 
 they returned, they hastened and made a fire, a fire with 
 wood; no more was fire lost in our land.' The legend then 
 goes on to say that the two black fellows are now in the 
 clouds, and are seen in the clear nights like two stars. 
 Mr. Milligan, who tells this story in the Papers of the Royal 
 Society of Tasmania, vol. iii. p. 274, identifies these two 
 stars with Castor and Pollux. And he adds another legend 
 about some other stars near them, given him by the same 
 black. 
 
 ' The two black men,' he related, ' stayed awhile in the 
 land of my fathers. Two women (Lowanna) were bathing ; 
 it was near a rocky shore, where mussels were plentiful. 
 
 Ee 2 
 
420 APPENDIX V. 
 
 The women were sulky, they were sad ; their husbands were 
 faithless, they had gone with two girls. The women were 
 lonely ; they were swimming in the water, they were diving 
 for cray-fish. A sting-ray lay concealed in the hollow of a 
 rock — a large sting-ray ! The sting-ray was large, he had 
 a very long spear ; from his hole he spied the women, he saw 
 them dive ; he pierced them with his spear, he killed them, 
 he carried them away. Awhile they were gone out of sight. 
 The sting-ray returned, he came close on shore, he lay in still 
 water, near the sandy beach ; with him were the women, they 
 were fast on his spear — they were dead. 
 
 ' The two black men fought the sting-ray ; they slew him 
 with their spears ; they killed him ; the women were dead ! 
 The two black men made a fire — a fire of wood. On either 
 side they laid a woman, — the fire was between : the women 
 were dead ! The black men sought some ants, some blue 
 ants (puggany eptietta); they placed them on the bosoms 
 (parugga poingta) of the women. Severely, intensely they 
 were bitten. The women revived, — they lived once more. 
 Soon there came a fog (mayen-tayana), a fog dark as night. 
 The two black men went away, the women disappeared; 
 they passed through the fog, the thick, dark fog ! Their 
 place is in the clouds. Two stars you see in the clear cold 
 night; the two black men are there, the women are with 
 them : they are stars above ! ' 
 
 Here you have the rudiments of a ballad, it may be of an 
 epic poem. Nothing was wanting but a vates sacer, and 
 instead of two black fellows we should have had a Prome- 
 theus ; instead of two women, diving for cray-fish, another 
 black Helen. 
 
 Let us now return to Australia, and examine a few cases 
 in which Mr. Curr, as an eye-witness, contradicts other 
 witnesses point blank, with regard to the black fellows of 
 Australia. 
 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 421 
 
 Colour of Australians. 
 
 Are these black fellows black 1 No, says Mr. Curr, 
 Australians bave a dasb of copper colour, never the sooty 
 tinge of tbe African negro (p. 37). 
 
 Name of Australians. 
 
 Mr. Eidley says that Murri is tbe general name for 
 Australian blacks. Mr. Curr says No, and maintains tbat 
 it is confined to tbe eastern portion of tbe continent (p. 114). 
 He also bolds tbat tbis Murri must be carefully distinguisbed 
 from Murri, tbe name given to children in certain families 
 (p. 114). 
 
 Moral Ideas. 
 
 Are tbey devoid of moral ideas 1 Most missionaries say 
 Yes ; Mr. Curr says No, and be ascribes tbeir borror of con- 
 sanguineous marriages to some undefined moral sentiment. 
 
 Property in Land. 
 
 There may be some excuse for a difference of opinion as to 
 whether tbe Australians recognise land either as communal 
 or as private property. It may have been the arrival of 
 European settlers that served to arouse in the native mind 
 the idea of personal property in land, while in former times, 
 when there was enough and more than enough of land for 
 all, every one took what he required, and defended it vi et 
 armis against all intruders, as long as he liked to keep it. 
 That tbe Australians did not till the soil before the arrival 
 of Europeans, nor tried to domesticate any animals, seems 
 admitted on all sides. But Mr. Curr does not consider this 
 as a proof of savagery, but explains it by tbe fact tbat, like 
 tbe Andamanese, tbey had abundance of food ready to their 
 hands, and tbat there was hardly an animal or plant worth 
 domestication and cultivation in Australia (p. 79). 
 
422 APPENDIX V. 
 
 Moveable Property. 
 "With regard to moveable property, there is again conflict 
 of evidence. Taplin, when describing the Narrinyeris, says 
 (p. 66), that weapons, implements, and ornaments belong to 
 the tribe in common. Mr. Curr maintains that they are 
 private property without any exception. He also narrates 
 that the man whose spear first wounds the animal, is con- 
 sidered as its owner when slain, according to a principle 
 which is recognised by Manu also. Among other tribes 
 traditional rules seem to fix the portion which different rela- 
 tives may claim of a slain animal. 
 
 Tribal Customs. 
 
 Sir George Grey had maintained that if a man marries two 
 or more wives, each belonging to a different family, his sons 
 will often rise against each other, in fighting the battles of 
 the families to which their respective mothers belong. Mr. 
 Curr (p. 67) entirely denies the fact, and tries to show that 
 it is impossible. No young man of a tribe, he says, could 
 ever be at war with his brothers or fathers. Yet Mr. 
 McLennan has built a whole social theory on the statement 
 made by Sir George Grey. 
 
 It has often been said that some blacks gave the masonic 
 sign to a white man. Again Mr. Curr denies it altogether. 
 
 We now come to the much discussed question, whether the 
 Australians had any idea of a God. 
 
 Belig'ions Ideas. 
 
 Again, most missionaries would say No, others Yes. But 
 how can such a question even be asked ? How could these 
 blacks possibly have an idea of what we call God 1 One of 
 the missionaries at New Norcia in Western Australia stated 
 that the blacks in his neighbourhood have a very remote and 
 vague idea of a Maker of all things, or rather of a great and 
 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 423 
 
 strong man who made all things by the power of his word. 
 The Eev. W. Eidley says that the tribes on the Namoi and 
 the neighbouring rivers (who had long had missionaries 
 among them) believe in a Creator, whom they call Bayame 
 or Maker ; that he made man, whom he will judge, reward, 
 and punish. 
 
 If a missionary asked some of the black fellows in our own 
 mining districts, I doubt whether he would receive any better 
 answer. The idea of all things being made by the power of 
 his word, even though he be conceived as a great and 
 strong man only, is far beyond the capacity of thousands of 
 Christians. 
 
 But what does Mr. Curr say 1 He found that the people 
 whom he asked whether they had a knowledge of God, were 
 much surprised by the few simple questions which he put to 
 them. And he expresses his conviction that the blacks, 
 before they had come in contact with missionaries, had no 
 knowledge of God, practised no prayers, and believed in no 
 places of reward and punishment beyond the grave. 'As 
 regards religion and morality,' he says, p. 105, 'passing over 
 a little outward show, it seems to me that they do not exist 
 among them.' Here he really contradicts himself, for on 
 another occasion he accounts for their horror of certain 
 marriages as dictated by moral principles ^. 
 
 Ohosts. 
 
 The Australians believe that man has a spiritual part. 
 This is admitted even by Mr. Curr, who denies them every- 
 
 ^ See also p. 100, where Mr. Curr writes : * Morality is but little 
 regarded by the Australian black, though he is not by any means 
 free from remorse consequent on infractions of the laws of that 
 natural morality with the perception of which it seems every human 
 being is born. From my own observations, I have no doubt that 
 the black feels, in the commencement of his career at least, that 
 murder, infanticide, adultery, lying, and tj 
 
 that their committal brings remorse.' 
 
 '^'^05 THE 
 
 UHIVBESITTi 
 
424 APPENDIX V. 
 
 thing else that other authorities have allowed them, such as 
 a belief in God as maker of the world, and as judge of men. 
 * "When a man dies,' he writes, 'it is a very widely-spread 
 custom for the relatives to tie up the limbs of the corpse 
 securely, so as to prevent his coming out of the grave in the 
 shape of a ghost. Even when the body of a relative or friend 
 has been burnt to ashes, the same fear of seeing the deceased, 
 or of being injured or frightened by him, still haunts the 
 survivors, who always leave the spot at which a death has 
 occurred, for a time at least. A man s ghost is accredited 
 with all sorts of powers which the person himself did not 
 possess while alive. Only the ghosts of men lately dead are 
 feared.' 
 
 Social Institutions. 
 
 That the Australian, however savage in some respects, was 
 under certain social restraints, could not be denied. ' The 
 male (p. 51) must commonly submit, without hope of escape, 
 to have one or more of his teeth knocked out, to have the 
 septum of his nose pierced, to have certain painful cuttings 
 made into his skin, and to other hardships which have to be 
 undergone, before he is allowed the rights of manhood.' 
 These restraints are not resisted. Boys who are not allowed 
 to eat certain kinds of meat, are seldom tempted even by 
 white people to break this rule. "Where then is the con- 
 trolling power to uphold these artificial restraints? Mr. 
 Brong Smyth in his work, The Aborigines of Australia^ 
 declares that it was done by regular councils of old men. 
 Mr. Curr (p. 52) flatly denies the existence of such councils, 
 and maintains that the delegation of authority to chief or 
 council belongs notoriously to a stage of progress which 
 the Australian race has not reached. Even when another 
 writer, Mr. James Dawson, comes forward in his work 
 entitled Australian Aborigines, as an additional witness to 
 the existence of chiefs and councils, Mr. Curr declares that 
 
ANTHROPOLOaiCAL EVIDENCE. 425 
 
 he was imposed on by the blacks, and that his statements 
 are impossible. He himself appeals to his long and familiar 
 intercourse with the natives, and to the account of one 
 William Buckley, an escaped convict, who lived for thirty- 
 two years with one of the Western tribes, and who states 
 that the tribes acknowledge no particular chief as being 
 superior to the rest, and that they have no chiefs claiming or 
 possessing any superior right over the soil. 
 
 Next comes the E,ev. George Taplin. In a work of his 
 called Folk-lore, published in 1879, he maintains that the 
 eighteen clans of the Narrinyeri are governed by a chief 
 called Rupulli, or landholder, and that there is at the same 
 time a supreme council. 
 
 Mr. Curr, however, again contradicts this statement, and 
 quotes Mr. E. J. Eyre, who in his Journals of Exjpeditions of 
 Discovery in Central Australia asserts that among none of 
 the tribes yet known, have chiefs ever been found to be 
 acknowledged, though in all there are always some men who 
 take the lead, and whose opinions and wishes have great 
 weight with others. . . . Each father of a family rules 
 absolutely over his own circle. Mr. Curr finishes up by 
 saying (p. 60) that he ha.s made inquiries and received 
 written replies from the observers of about a hundred tribes 
 to the effect that no government, no habitual exercise of 
 authority by one or a few individuals, exists anywhere in 
 Australia. He himself ascribes all the restraints which exist 
 to custom, education, and particularly to superstition and 
 the fear of sorcery. 
 
 Marriag-e. 
 
 It seems almost incredible that there should be this 
 conflict of witnesses on points which one imagines might 
 be settled by the most direct evidence. But it is not only 
 on the question of government that witnesses contradict each 
 other flatly. We flnd even more of hard swearing with 
 
426 APPENDIX V. 
 
 regard to marriage. And here a new element comes in. 
 Several anthropologists in Europe and America have started 
 the theory that marriage was originally communal, that is to 
 say, that all the women of a tribe were the wives of all the 
 men, and all the men the husbands of all the women. To 
 call this marriage, even communal marriage, has always 
 struck me as a bold euphemism. "We may speak of poly- 
 gamy, where one husband marries several wives, or of 
 polyandry, where a wife is married to several husbands ; 
 but promiscuous intercourse between all the men and all the 
 women of a tribe, between fathers, mothers, sisters, and 
 brothers should hardly be spoken of as marriage. Whether 
 such a state of things exists now anywhere, or whether it ever 
 has existed, is a question that depends entirely on testimony. 
 And here one would imagine that such a state of things, if 
 it existed, could hardly be disguised. The exact form of 
 government may withdraw itself from observation, and dif- 
 ferent facts may here be interpreted in different ways. A 
 man might live many years in England without being able 
 to give an intelligible account of the English constitution. 
 But a state of promiscuous sexual intercourse prevailing 
 among the members of a whole tribe, could hardly admit 
 of misinterpretation. There are vague allusions to some 
 such state of things in the epic poetry of the Indians. But 
 when people are charged with living in a state of godharma, 
 that is, with living like bulls and cows, that implies a charge 
 of immorality, and it involves at all events a recognition of 
 the lawfulness of marriage. This is very different from a 
 supposed stage of civilisation in which the very idea of 
 marriage was yet not known. 
 
 Now it is well known that among many savages, marriages, 
 so far from being promiscuous, are under the most minute 
 and complicated restrictions, restrictions so inexplicable, not 
 to say irrational, that their very existence seems to require 
 the admission of a long-continued tradition. In order to 
 
ANTHKOPOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 427 
 
 believe, therefore, that the same savages should at any time 
 have heen utterly ignorant of the meaning of marriage, 
 would require the very strongest evidence. 
 
 Mr. Curr thinks that there is a very strong tendency in 
 observers abroad, if they have become acquainted with a 
 new and startling theory that has become popular at home, 
 to see confirmations of it everywhere. In fact, if so many 
 accounts of the life of savages are untrustworthy, the fault, 
 according to Mr. Curr, lies with the whites quite as much 
 as with the blacks. ' Every one acquainted with the blacks,' 
 he writes, p. 131, 'will, I think, bear me out when I say 
 that the greatest care is necessary in taking their statements ; 
 for their desire to please, and their disregard of truth are 
 such that, if a white man making inquiries allows his views 
 or wishes to be known, he is almost certain to find the 
 aboriginal agreeing with him in every particular. . . . But 
 it is not the evidence of the blacks only which requires to 
 be cautiously sought and well sifted before acceptance ; for it 
 seems to me that, when a statement has been pronounced 
 important in scientific circles, there are not wanting educated 
 white men who will support it on very insufficient grounds.' 
 
 The system of intricate restrictions regulating the mar- 
 riages of Australians has been the subject of most learned 
 treatises. It was first pointed out by Sir George Grey 
 (1841), but it was displayed in all its fulness by the Rev. 
 Lorimer Fison and Mr. A. W. Howitt, in their work, 
 Kamtlaroi and Kurnai, 1880. It was headed by a preface 
 from the pen of Professor Lewis M. Morgan, the well-known 
 author of the System of Consanguinity and Affinity of the 
 Human Family. We must remember that similar systematic 
 restrictions on marriage had been discovered in Asia, Africa, 
 and America, and hence, as Mr. Curr remarks, the inclination 
 of later writers to discover among the Australian blacks as 
 near an approach as possible to the marriage systems in 
 other parts of the world. That inclination, no doubt, exists. 
 
428 APPENDIX V. 
 
 and has to be carefully guarded against. But Mr. Curr 
 assures us that what Mr. Fison has written, and what has 
 been so largely utilised by anthropologists, 'contains im- 
 portant statements quite at variance with fact' (p. 119). 
 Mr. Curr entirely denies the existence of what has been 
 called communal or class marriage in Australia, as opposed 
 to the very principle of Australian marriage, though he 
 fully admits that the peculiar restrictions placed on marriage 
 in Australia exhibit strong points of similarity with the 
 restrictions accepted by uncivilised races in Africa, Asia, and 
 America. 
 
 Every kind of evidence is made to tell by writers who 
 have a theory to defend. Thus, because in the Australian 
 language, the names for son and nephew are alike, it was 
 argued that the system of communal marriage must have 
 prevailed, which rendered it impossible for a man to 
 distinguish his children from those of his brothers. But 
 it was forgotten that women also call their own and their 
 sisters' children by the same name. Was that because they 
 did not know whether their own children were their own 1 
 That the use of such terms of endearment proves nothing as 
 to the former existence of communal marriage is best shown 
 by the fact, that in many dialects they are used in familiar 
 conversation only, while if fathers speak of, not to, their 
 nephews, they have a distinct name for each (p. 136). 
 
 ON THE UNTBUSTWOKTHINESS OF THE ACCOUNTS OF 
 THE KELIGIOUS IDEAS OF SAVAGES. 
 
 Tasmania. 
 
 If there is so much uncertainty as to what would seem to 
 be clear and palpable matters in the life of savage races, we 
 must not be surprised that, with regard to their religious 
 ideas, the evidence even of eye-witnesses should be altogether 
 confused and contradictory. There is one excuse for this 
 
ANTHKOPOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 429 
 
 whicli deserves consideration. Each witness can speak of 
 those persons only with whom he has been brought into 
 personal contact. "What he relates, therefore, may possibly 
 be true of a family, or of a clan, or of a whole tribe. But in 
 a country like Australia, with so many tribes scattered about, 
 it would seem to be impossible to say anything in general of 
 the religious opinions of the Australians. 
 
 I have therefore chosen the small island of Tasmania, with 
 its sparse and uniform population, and we shall find that even 
 in this limited area accounts of different observers vary very 
 considerably when they attempt to describe the religious 
 customs and beliefs of the Tasmanian aborigines. I take a 
 book lately published by Mr. H. L. Koth on the Aborigines 
 of Tasmania. It is an honest, unpretentious, but very useful 
 book. He first of all gives us on pp. 2-8 a very complete 
 bibliography of all works treating of Tasmania, and then 
 proceeds to place before us the quintessence distilled from 
 that little library. In the fourteen chapters of his book Mr. 
 Roth treats of the country, the form and size of its inha- 
 bitants, the psychology of the natives, their wars, their 
 knowledge of fire, hunting, and fishing, their nomadic life, 
 their personal habits, their scientific and artistic acquire- 
 ments, their manufactures, their trade, their customs, good 
 and bad, their language, their osteology, and lastly their 
 origin. 
 
 It would be impossible to give an idea of the wealth of 
 information on all these subjects which Mr. E,oth has rendered 
 accessible in this volume. It is well-arranged, and all his 
 statements can readily be verified, for he always gives his 
 references, and a complete index renders its use easy at all 
 times. si sic omnes ! 
 
 I shall confine my remarks to one subject only, the Tas- 
 manian religion, and, with the help of Mr. Roth, I shall 
 undertake to show that there is not one essential feature in 
 the religion of the Tasmanians on which different authorities 
 
430 APPENDIX V. 
 
 have not made assertions diametrically opposed to each 
 other. 
 
 No Religion. — Nothing staggers a savage — perhaps even 
 an educated man — so much as when he is asked what his 
 religion is. No wonder that many of the Tasmanians, when 
 asked that question, answered, with a broad grin, 'Don't 
 know.' What should we say if we were asked whether we 
 believe in Raegoo Wrapper or Namma 1 Widowson, however, 
 assures us that the Tasmanians had really no religion at all. 
 ' It is generally supposed,' he says, ' that they have not 
 the slightest idea of a Supreme Being.' Briton adds, ' They 
 do not appear to have any rites or ceremonies, religious or 
 otherwise.' 
 
 Dualism. — That the Tasmanians were Dualists, believing, 
 like the followers of Zoroaster, in a good and an evil spirit, is 
 attested by numerous authorities. Leigh says : — ' Their 
 notions of religion are very obscure. However, they believe 
 in two spirits : one, they say, governs the day, whom they 
 call the good spirit; the other governs the night, and him 
 they think evil. To the good spirit they attribute everything 
 good, and to the evil spirit everything hurtful.' Jeffreys 
 says : — ' They have but a very indistinct notion of their 
 imaginary deity, who, they say, presides over the day, an 
 evil spirit making its appearance in the night. This deity, 
 whosoever it is, they believe to be the giver of everything 
 good.' He adds, however, that they appear to acknowledge 
 no more than one god, thus furnishing an exact parallel to 
 the Parsis, who, though they admit two spirits, acknowledge 
 Ormazd only as their true god. Milligan confirms this view. 
 He admits that the Tasmanians believed in many spirits, but 
 he adds that 'they considered one or two spirits to be of 
 omnipotent energy, though they do not seem to have invested 
 even these last with attributes of benevolence.' Robinson 
 maintains that Hhey were fatalists (whatever that may 
 mean in their language), and that they believed in the 
 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 431 
 
 existence both of a good and evil spirit. The latter they 
 called Raegoo Wrajpper, to whom they attributed all their 
 afflictions, and they used the same word to express thunder 
 and lightning.' 
 
 Nature-gods. — That the Tasmanians derived some of their 
 ideas of the godhead from the great phenomena of Nature 
 we have seen already from their identifying day and night 
 with their good and evil spirits. Thunder and lightning 
 were their names for the evil spirit, or their devil, as some 
 observers call him. Besides day and night, thunder and 
 lightning, the moon also is mentioned as an object of their 
 worship. Thus, Lloyd tells us, ' that it was customary 
 among the aborigines to meet at some time-honoured trysting- 
 place at every full moon, a period regarded by them with 
 most profound reverence.' Indeed, he adds, 'judging from 
 their extraordinary gestures in the dance, the upturned eye 
 and outstretched arm, apparently in a supplicating spirit, I 
 have been often disposed to conclude that the poor savages 
 were invoking the mercy and protection of that planet as 
 their guardian deity.' 
 
 Devil-worship. — "We now come to the testimony in support 
 of an exclusive devil-worship. Davies asserts that the 
 aborigines certainly believed in the existence of an evil 
 spirit, called by some tribes Namma, who has power by night. 
 Of him they are much afraid, and never will willingly go out 
 in the dark. But, he adds, *I could never make out that 
 they believed in a good deity, for although they spoke of one, 
 it struck me that it was what they had been told ; they may, 
 however, believe in one who has power by day.' 
 
 Backhouse speaks in the same hesitating tone : 
 
 * These people,' he says, ' have received a few faint ideas 
 of the existence and superintending providence of God ; but 
 they still attribute the strong emotions of their minds to the 
 devil, who, they say, tells them this or that, and to whom 
 they attribute the power of prophetic communication. It is 
 
432 APPENDIX V. 
 
 not clear that by the devil they mean anything more than a 
 spirit ; but they say he lives in their breasts, on which 
 account they shrink from having the breast touched/ 
 
 If we could fully trust this statement, and it is confirmed 
 to some extent by Horton, it would be most important as 
 showing the germs of moral ideas among the Tasmanians. To 
 believe in a devil, not simply with horns and hoofs, but living 
 within our hearts, is an advance which, even in Europe, has 
 as yet been made by a small minority only. The majority of 
 Tasmanians evidently represented their devil in a more 
 material form. Thus Dove says that, ' while they had no 
 term in their native language to designate the Creator of all 
 things, they stood in awe of an imaginary spirit who was 
 disposed to annoy and hurt them. The appearance of this 
 maligant demon in some horrible form, was especially dreaded 
 in the season of night.' 
 
 Monotheism. — But while some authorities seem inclined to 
 reduce the Tasmanian religion to a belief in a devil only, 
 others seem to look upon it as almost monotheism. Thus 
 Jeffreys, though he admits that the Tasmanians (like most 
 Agnostics) have a very indistinct notion of their imaginary 
 deity, relates that they have a kind of song which they chant 
 to him. He knows that they believe in a good and an evil 
 spirit, but he adds, that they believe the good spirit to be the 
 giver of everything good, and that they do not appear to 
 acknowledge any more than one god. That good spirit had, 
 as we saw, no name, and this, which to some may seem to be 
 a serious defect, is again a feature which the Tasmanian 
 religion shares in common with the religion of far more 
 advanced races. 
 
 Spirit -worship. — Those who hold that religion began 
 everywhere with a belief in spirits may likewise find some 
 support for their theory in the accounts given of the Tas- 
 manians. Henderson states : 
 
 ' A common belief prevails in Tasmania and New South 
 
ANTHEOPOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 433 
 
 Wales regarding the existence of inferior spirits, who conceal 
 themselves in the deep woody chasms during the day, but 
 who wander forth after dark, with power to injure or even 
 to destroy. Their rude encampments are frequently alarmed 
 by these unearthly visitors, whose fearful moanings are at 
 one time borne on the midnight breeze, and at another are 
 heard mingling with the howling tempest.' 
 
 This does not prove as yet that these spirits are always 
 believed to be the spirits of the departed. Milligan, however, 
 after telling us that the Tasmanians were polytheists — that 
 is, that they believed in guardian angels or spirits, and in a 
 plurality of powerful but generally evil-disposed beings, 
 inhabiting crevices and caverns of rocks, and making tem- 
 porary abode in hollow trees and solitary valleys, adds * that 
 the aborigines were extremely superstitious, believing most 
 implicitly in the return of the spirits of their departed 
 friends and relations to bless or injure them, as the case 
 might be. To their guardian spirits, the spirits of their 
 departed friends or relations, they gave the generic name 
 Warrawah, an aboriginal term signifying shade, shadow, 
 ghost, or apparition.' 
 
 Immortality of the Soul. — One point on which nearly all 
 witnesses seem to agree is the belief of the Tasmanians in 
 the immortality of the soul. They evidently had not yet 
 advanced so far as to be able to doubt it. Milligan had 
 ascertained that the aborigines of Tasmania, previous to 
 their intercourse with Europeans, distinctly entertained the 
 idea of immortality, as regarded the soul or spirit of man. 
 Eobinson, who was present at the burning of a dead body, 
 received the following explanation from a native : — ' Native 
 dead, fire ; goes road England, plenty natives England. 
 What he meant to say was that when a black fellow was 
 dead and had been burnt, he went to England, where there 
 are many black fellows. The name of England, Breany, as 
 a distant country, and the home of white people, had become 
 (3) Ff 
 
434 APPENDIX V. 
 
 with them the name of a new Elysium. Others expected to 
 reappear on an island in the Straits, and to jump up white 
 men. They anticipated in another life the full enjoyment of 
 what they coveted in this. Backhouse declares that they 
 have some vague ideas of a future existence. Dove remarks 
 that they were persuaded of their being ushered by death 
 into another and happier state, and he considers this as 
 almost the only remnant of a primitive religion which main- 
 tained a firm abode in their minds. However, as if to show 
 that no account of their religious persuasions should go 
 uncontradicted, Davies remarks that, ' though it is hard to 
 believe that the natives have no idea of a future state, yet 
 from every inquiry, both from themselves and from whites 
 most conversant with them, I have never been able to 
 ascertain that such a belief exists.' 
 
 Prayers. — Of course those who maintain that the Tas- 
 manians have no religion, maintain at the same time that 
 they have no kind of worship, no sacrifices, no prayers. But 
 Leigh tells us that, ' when any of the family are on a journey, 
 they are accustomed to sing to the good spirit for the purpose 
 of securing his protection over their absent friends, and that 
 they may be brought back in health and safety.' Jeffreys 
 relates that it frequently happens that the sealers . . . are 
 compelled to leave their native women for several days 
 together. On these occasions these affectionate creatures 
 have a kind of song, which they chant to their imaginary 
 deity. 
 
 Charms. — It is known also that the Tasmanians carried 
 charms, mostly a bone, or even the skull of their relatives 
 and friends. In some cases they ascribed healing powers to 
 these bones, or at all events they put them by their side or 
 on their head when they felt sick. This, after all, is no more 
 than our preserving a lock of hair, and looldng at it when 
 we are in trouble or grief. 
 
 Negative evidence is always less trustworthy than positive. 
 
ANTHKOPOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 435 
 
 Still it may be taken for what it is worth, that observers 
 seem never to have discovered idols (p. 69), totems (p. 75), 
 or fetishes, among the natives of Tasmania. 
 
 Such is the nature of the evidence bearing on the religious 
 ideas of the Tasmanians, which Mr. E,oth has collected so 
 carefully and so conscientiously. Nothing can be more 
 full of contradictions, more doubtful, more perplexing. 
 With such materials anthropologists and sociologists have 
 had to build up their systems, and yet they look down with 
 contempt on the evidence supplied by the Veda, the Old 
 Testament, and the Homeric poems, because they contain 
 various readings and because some passages admit of different 
 translations ! 
 
 We saw that there is hardly any kind of religion that 
 could not be proved to have been the original religion of the 
 Tasmanians. If it were desired to prove that, prior to the 
 advent of Europeans, they were atheists, without any reli- 
 gious ideas or ceremonial usages, we have several excellent 
 witnesses to prove it. We could prove equally well that 
 they believed in a devil only, that they were Dualists, 
 believing in a sfood and an evil spirit, that they had deified 
 the powers of Nature, that they had arrived at a belief in 
 one God, that they were polytheists, that they believed in 
 ghosts, in the return of the spirits of their friends, in the 
 immortality of the soul, and in the efficacy of prayers and 
 charms. Nay, if it were desired to produce perfectly unpre- 
 judiced evidence in favour of the descent of man from some 
 higher animal, Lord Monboddo might have appealed to the 
 Tasmanians. For, according to Mr. Horton, they believed 
 * that they were formed with tails and without knee-joints, 
 by a benevolent being, and that another descended from 
 heaven, and compassionating the sufferers, cut off their tails, 
 and with grease softened their knees.' 
 
 Ff 2 
 
436 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 P. 244. 
 EAJENDEALAL MITKA's NOTES ON VEDIC FUNEBALS. 
 
 Note 1. Pajendralal Mitra has collected the following rules 
 from other Sutras. Immediately after death of a person who 
 has always maintained the sacrificial fires in his house, a homa 
 should be performed, accompanied by a mantra. According to 
 Bodhayana four offerings should be made, while touching the 
 right hand of the dead, to the Garhapatya-fire, with a spoon 
 overflowingly full of clarified butter. Bharadva^a prefers the 
 Ahavaniya-fire, and is silent as to whether the offering should 
 be fourfold or not. Asvalayana recommends the rite to be 
 performed at a subsequent stage of the funeral. 
 
 Rajendralal Mitra makes here the following important 
 remark ! Nothing is said regarding the taking of the dying 
 to the river-side, or of the ceremony of immersing the lower 
 half of the body in water at the moment of death, which forms 
 so offensive a part of the modern ceremonial in Bengal. 
 
 Note 2. Hajendralal Mitra adds the following details : 
 'A cot of Udumbara wood is to be provided, and, having 
 spread on it a piece of black antelope skin with the hairy 
 side outwards and the head pointing to the south, the corpse 
 is to be laid thereon with the face upwards. A son, brother, 
 or other relative, or in his absence whoever takes the lead, 
 should next address the corpse to give up its old clothing, 
 and dress it in a new suit. The body is then covered with a 
 piece of unbleached, uncut cloth, having fringes on both 
 sides, the operation being performed while repeating a 
 mantra. Then, wrapping it in its bedding or mat, it is to 
 be borne on its cot to the place of cremation. The removal, 
 according to some authorities, should be made by aged 
 slaves ; according to others, on a cart drawn by two bullocks. 
 The road from the house to the burning-ground used to be 
 divided into three stages, and at the end of each, the proces- 
 
NOTES ON VEDIC FUNERALS. 437 
 
 sion used to halt, deposit the body on its cot on the ground, 
 and address a mantra/ 
 
 Note 3. Eajendralal Mitra adds here again some details 
 which are interesting. ' Leaving the funeral pile to smoulder, 
 the chief mourner excavates three trenches to the north of 
 the pyre, and lining them with pebbles and sand, fills them 
 with water brought in an odd number of jars. The people 
 who had followed the procession are then requested to purify 
 themselves by bathing in them ; which being done, a yoke is 
 put up with three palasa branches stuck in the ground and 
 tied at the top with a piece of weak string, and they are 
 made to pass under it. The chief mourner passes last, and 
 then, plucking out the yoke, offers a prayer to the sun. 
 Thereupon, the party proceed to the nearest stream, and 
 without looking at each other, purify themselves by bathing 
 and a prayer to Pra^apati.* 
 
 Note 4. Eajendralal Mitra adds : ' Subsequently, a proper 
 place having been selected, a funeral procession should 
 proceed to it in the morning, and the chief mourner should 
 begin the operations of the day by sweeping the spot with 
 a piece of leather, or a broom of palasa wood. Then, 
 yoking a pair of bullocks to a plough, he should dig six 
 furrows running from east to west, and, saluting them with 
 a mantra, deposit the urn in the central furrow. The bullocks 
 should now be let loose by the south side, and water sprinkled 
 over the place with an udumbara branch, or from a jar. The 
 covering of the urn is then removed, some aromatic herbs, 
 sarvaushadhi, are put into the urn, and subsequently closed 
 with pebbles and sand ; each of the operations being per- 
 formed while repeating an appropriate mantra. A mantra 
 should likewise be pronounced for every one of the operations- 
 which follow, and these include, (1) the putting of bricks 
 around the urn; (2) the throwing thereon some sesamum 
 seed and fried barley; (3) placing some butter on an un- 
 baked plate on the south side; (4) spreading there some 
 
438 APPENDIX VII. 
 
 darbha grass ; (5) surrounding the tumulus with a palisade 
 of palasa branches, and (6) crowning the whole by sticking on 
 the top of it a flowering head of the nala reed — arundo 
 karka. The operator then anoints his body with old ghee, 
 and, without looking at the urn, places it on the spread 
 grass, invokes the manes, wipes the urn with a bit of old rag, 
 sprinkles some water with an udumbara branch, or from a 
 jar, having covered his own person with an old cloth, and 
 then buries the urn with bricks laid over it. 
 
 ' Some ^aru rice is then cooked, sanctified by a mantra, and 
 while the chief mourner repeats five others, is put on the five 
 sides of the urn. Sesamum seed and barley are now scattered 
 around, some herbs put on the mound, and more bricks added. 
 Water should subsequently be sprinkled on the place, a 
 prayer should be addressed to the gods, a branch of the 
 varuna tree and a lot of brick-bats, a sami branch and some 
 barley, should be placed on the mound, and the dead be 
 invoked to translate himself to whichever region he likes . . . 
 A few holes being dug round the mound, the ceremony of 
 burial is completed.' 
 
 APPENDIX VII. 
 
 P. 268. 
 
 rUNEEAL CEEEMONIES. 
 
 Let us examine a few cases in point. Mr. A. Werner, in 
 the Academy of Dec. 28, 1889, called attention to what he 
 called ' Survivals in Negro Funeral Ceremonies.' They were 
 collected among the Negroes in Cleveland, and traced back 
 to similar customs among the Negroes in Africa. At a 
 funeral in Cleveland 'a stalwart Negro was seen to take 
 from one of the carriages a small coffin. With the ceremony 
 of a short and simple prayer it was deposited in the earth. 
 
FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 439 
 
 Six or eight friends of the dead babe stood with tearful eyes 
 during the few minutes occupied in filling the little grave. 
 Then they re-entered the carriages and drove away. Just 
 before leaving, a woman, whom I judged to be the bereaved 
 mother, laid upon the mound two or three infant toys. 
 Looking about among the large number of graves of children, 
 I observed this practice to be very general. Some were 
 literally covered with playthings. Upon inquiring I was 
 told that this custom is almost universal among the coloured 
 people in the South . . . Upon fully half the small graves, lying 
 or standing, partly buried in the earth, were medicine-bottles 
 of every size and shape. Some were nearly full, and all con- 
 tained more or less of medicine which had no doubt been 
 used in the effort to ward off the visit of death . . . One old 
 woman who was loitering about the cemetery said, in answer 
 to my question : " I kain t tell ye why, mister, but dey allers 
 does it. When I was a chile, I libed down in ole Virginny, 
 an' it was jes de same dar. I d'no, but mebbe dey t'inks de 
 medisun '11 he'p de chiren arter dey's buried, but I don't see 
 no good in it nohow." ' Mr. Werner then proceeds to show 
 that this custom is clearly a continuation of the native West- 
 African one (mentioned by Burton, Stanley, and others) of 
 placing crockery and other household utensils on the grave 
 for the use of the deceased . . . ' The American negroes,' he 
 concludes, 'while continuing the practice, have evidently 
 forgotten its origin — which is perhaps not to be wondered 
 at, seeing that most of them are two or three generations 
 removed from contact with African soil.' 
 
 Now, first of all, there is a peculiar Nemesis that seems to 
 track the steps of lorists in all parts of the world. While 
 Mr. Werner asserts that this custom exists widely among the 
 coloured people in the South, Mr. W. J. Brown in the Academy 
 of June 29, 1890, states that his inquiries have only resulted 
 in finding that, so far as the persons questioned, both white 
 and coloured, knew, no such custom as leaving medicine- 
 
440 APPENDIX VIII. 
 
 bottles or playthings on the graves of children had been 
 heard of or seen in the Valley of Virginia. But in a visit to 
 Petersburg, Virginia, he came across a coloured burial- 
 ground, and noticed upon the children's graves, medicine- 
 bottles, dolls, tea-sets, a psalter, and ornaments of various 
 kinds. When he pressed the people for an explanation, some 
 said it was done that the dead might see what they had 
 taken, others said it was to mark the site of the grave 
 (some kind of totemism), others again that it was mere 
 foolishness. 
 
 Of course, if we press for an answer, we generally receive 
 an answer. But is there any necessity to ask for an expla- 
 nation? You know that to imagine fondly, means to 
 imagine foolishly, and when the custom was called mere 
 foolishness, it might with equal truth have been called mere 
 fondness. 
 
 APPENDIX VIII. 
 
 P. 312. 
 (From the Atherumm.) 
 
 THE 'KALEVALA.' 
 
 Oxford, Oct. 1, 1888. 
 Looking through some of the recent numbers of the 
 Athenceum, my eye was caught by the name of Dr. Krohn, 
 of Viborg. I had been for some time expecting a letter from 
 him, and now I see that he has been drowned. He was 
 engaged in translating my Hihhert Lectures, ' On the Origin 
 and Growth of Keligion,' into Finnish, to be published by 
 the Finnish Literary Society. Dr. Krohn was an excellent 
 Finnish scholar, and, as you mention in your notice, he 
 obtained a prize from the French Academy in 1881 for his 
 History of Finnish Literature. Finnish literature has been 
 
THE 'KALEVALA.' 441 
 
 a subject of interest to me ever since I met my friend 
 Kelgren at Paris, nearly forty years ago. He also is dead 
 long ago, but the impulse which he gave at Helsingfors to 
 a comparative study of Finno-Ugric and Aryan traditions 
 has continued to the present day. I deeply regret that 
 I have not been able myself to continue the study of Finnish, 
 but my interest in the subject has never flagged. In one of 
 my earliest courses of lectures delivered at Oxford, I gave a 
 full account of the now famous Finnish epic poem, the ' Kale- 
 vala,' and I pointed out the important collateral light which 
 the collection of these songs from the mouths of the people 
 by Lonnrot and others might throw on the collection of other 
 epic poems, whether in Greece or Germany or Persia or 
 India. I felt most anxious that a full and accurate account 
 of Lonnrot's labours should be published before it was too 
 late, and I was carrying on a correspondence with Dr. Krohn 
 on this very subject, little suspecting that, like so many 
 delightful correspondences, this, too, was to be cut short 
 by death. 
 
 I send you a few extracts from Dr. Krohn's last letter, 
 which will show you how much important information on 
 some of the most interesting questions of what I may still 
 call the Wolfian controversy we might have expected from 
 Dr. Krohn's labours. 
 
 I had asked whether no more various readings had been 
 discovered, and whether the separate ballads always began 
 and ended in the same way. After telling me that a large 
 collection of various readings existed in the archives of the 
 Finnish Literary Society, Dr. Krohn continues : 
 
 ' It is a mistake to imagine that the " Kalevala " is sung 
 without a settled division of ballads. The doi86s does not 
 sing to-day, say from a to d, and to-morrow from c to /. 
 Though there is unity in our epic poem, it consists, never- 
 theless, of separate songs, and these are always repeated from 
 the same beginning to the same end. When, however, they 
 
442 APPENDIX VIII. 
 
 are transferred from one place to another, their skeleton, so 
 to say, may be considerably modified. 
 
 ' The component elements of the " Kalevala " are all inde- 
 pendent short poems, and whatever people may say about 
 the impossibility of such short poems growing into a com- 
 plete poem, here are the facts to show how it can be and has 
 been done. The poems, often originally very short, grow 
 longer and longer by the singer inserting short pieces known 
 to him from other poems. Sometimes whole episodes are 
 thus added, but very seldom does the singer add anything of 
 his own. He will sometimes join two quite isolated poems, 
 and this can be shown to have been done in many parts 
 of the "Kalevala." Some of these rhapsodies thus joined 
 together remain afterwards as a complete and independent 
 poem, and attract further additions. Sometimes poems 
 referring to different heroes are combined, and what was 
 said and sung originally of different heroes is now said and 
 sung of one and the same. For instance, in the song of 
 Lemminkainen's second expedition to Pohjola (songs 26-29), 
 the original hero Kauko has been superseded by Lemmin- 
 kainen, who originally was killed in his first expedition to 
 Pohjola, though afterwards called back to life (songs 12-15). 
 When, however, several songs have thus been united into 
 one, passages are often omitted or abbreviated, for the 
 memory of the Finnish rhapsodes is not very strong and 
 cannot hold beyond a certain number of verses. We can 
 clearly see that the separate epos of Kullervo has been added 
 to the Sampo epos, which forms the principal subject of the 
 " Kalevala." In doing this the bad wife of the smith, against 
 whom Kullervo had vowed vengeance, has received the name 
 of the hostess of Ilmarinen. Into one account of the wooing 
 of the rivals Wainambinen and Ilmarinen certain verses have 
 been introduced by which the daughter of Pohjola declares 
 that she would follow him, whoever he was, who had made 
 the Sampo. Here, therefore, the song of the Sampo is pre- 
 
THE 'KALEVALA.' 443 
 
 supposed, though the two songs are but seldom sung as 
 outwardly joined. Many such instances might he added, but 
 they would require long extracts from the *' Kalevala." 
 
 ' Our Finnish rhapsodes are generally void of all poetic 
 gifts, and they proceed in their work almost mechanically. 
 One of the best of them received some years ago a small 
 pension from Helsingfors, but the verses in which he con- 
 veyed his thanks were miserable both in thought and 
 form. 
 
 'In some respects this is fortunate. Much, however, 
 depends on their memory. A strong memory preserves the 
 poems intact ; a weak memory causes variation, and in con- 
 sequence further development. Nothing is ever changed on 
 purpose, but in a weak head poems get mixed, and a trait 
 from one poem may travel into another unawares. By repe- 
 tition such mistakes may become permanent, particularly in 
 localities in which the poem from which the singer has 
 borrowed is not known. 
 
 ' Again, when a certain hero becomes very popular in one 
 locality many stories are attracted towards him. If he has 
 achieved one great exploit why should he not have achieved 
 others 1 The same applies to events. The description of 
 the Paivola feast was evidently a favourite subject, and in 
 order to spin it out many traits have been added from 
 Scandinavian and Russian songs — nay, even from the feast 
 of Cana in the Bible. 
 
 ' Thus we can see how originally in his dialogue with Anni 
 (eighteenth song). Wainamoinen spoke only of his intention 
 to go fishing. But afterwards he is made to add that he 
 means to shoot geese, or that he is on the war-path. Again, 
 in the original Finnish poem the creator was represented as 
 being assisted by a bird. But if there was once a bird, it 
 was supposed that the bird ought to lay an egg^ and thus 
 the Lituanian legend of the mundane egg was superadded. 
 Thus we can watch the gradual genesis of the " Kalevala." 
 
444 APPENDIX VIIT. 
 
 Much of the ancient Finnish poetry has, no doubt, been lost, 
 but what survived was what was most liked by the people, 
 possibly, therefore, what was the most beautiful. If a nucleus 
 had once been formed, such as the story of the Sampo, every- 
 thing else was drawn into the same vortex. It is generally 
 supposed that some popular excitement produced by great 
 political events is favourable to the growth of epic poetry. 
 If so, it must have been when the Fins migrated into their 
 present seats and came in contact for the first time with an 
 entirely new civilisation, the Scandinavian, that the growth 
 of their epic poetry took place. Many of their legends 
 betray Scandinavian influences. This contact with new ideas 
 and new characters may even have told on the characters of 
 the ancient Finnish heroes. Thus we see in the charm- 
 songs, in the song of Sampo, and in the creation story how 
 the old Wainambinen is only a kind of wise and brave 
 prophet. In some of the later songs he appears as shrewd 
 and tricky, and his amorous propensities make him ridi- 
 culous. Some passages, such as the touching answer which 
 his mother gives to her despairing son Kullervo, or the 
 charming reply of the Pohjola maid, "that she cared far 
 more for the brightness of the forehead than for the bright- 
 ness of her wooers' gold," can be explained by individual 
 poetical genius only, but the names of those true poets are 
 lost for ever. Other passages, again, are bare of all poetic 
 beauty, unmeaning, even absurd. Yet they are listened to 
 with the same reverence, and are never exposed to any 
 disparaging criticism. 
 
 'The first work of uniting separate ballads into an epic 
 story must be done by the people themselves. Where this 
 has not been done, attempts made in the same direction by 
 individual collectors or scholars have generally proved 
 failures. This was the case with Macpherson ; with Ave- 
 narius, who tried to unite the Russian popular songs into an 
 epic poem ; and even with Kreutzwald, who has given us a 
 
THE *KALEVALA.' 445 
 
 more or less artificial collection of the Estonian ballads about 
 Kalevipoeg. But when, as in Finland, the people had per- 
 formed the first sifting of the floating materials, a scholar 
 like Lonnrot had no difficulty in imparting to these materials 
 the last finishing touch. It cannot be denied that our 
 Lonnrot has in several passages made the somewhat loose 
 unity of the poem more perfect. He has drawn certain songs 
 into the general frame of the poem which had as yet been left 
 outside by the rhapsodes. He has added also a number of 
 interpolations taken from other songs, which were meant to 
 render the story more complete, and has arranged the songs 
 in order, so that the unity of the whole poem should become 
 more apparent. All this should be known in order to prevent 
 misunderstandings. It is a mistake to imagine that Lonnrot 
 learned the songs of the " Kalevala " as a child. In his native 
 place they had long been forgotten. He began his studies 
 with a small collection which had been made by Topelius, 
 but afterwards collected so many, and knew them so well by 
 heart, that he claimed for himself the privileges as other 
 rhapsodes. " As I am convinced," he said, " that not a single 
 rune-singer knows more songs than I do, I used the right, 
 which every rhapsode claims, of joining the songs as they 
 seemed to require it." How right his judgment was in these 
 matters, and how sure his tact, is proved by the fact that the 
 rhapsodes afterwards united the same songs. Nor can this be 
 ascribed to their acquaintance with Lonnrot's printed edition, 
 for the simple reason that in Russian Karelia and Ingerman- 
 land, where these songs are found, the population is as yet 
 ignorant of reading and writing. It is fortunate also that 
 Lonnrot himself was not a poet any more than other rhap- 
 sodes, though no doubt his taste, cultivated by classical 
 studies, was more refined than theirs. 
 
 ' Thus, though a certain influence exercised by the final 
 collector of the Finnish runes cannot be denied, we seem to 
 possess these poems in a far more primitive form than the 
 
446 APPENDIX VIII. 
 
 Homeric poems or the epic poem of the Nibelungs. The 
 diaskeuasts of these two epics have reduced the popular 
 elements to a far more artificial unity than Lbnnrot attempted 
 in dealing with the Finnish ballads. We have only to com- 
 pare the " Nibelungenlied " of the twelfth century with the 
 few remaining ballads of the "Edda" in order to see how much 
 we have lost.' 
 
 While I was waiting for fuller information, especially with 
 regard to Lonnrot's collectanea, and the exact manner in 
 which he learnt these songs by heart and afterwards reduced 
 them to writing, my kind informant was snatched away. Let 
 us hope that the Societe Finno-Ougrienne at Helsingfors, 
 w'hich has done such excellent work already, may soon give us 
 a complete history of the discovery and collection of the 
 Finnish epic ballads by Lonnrot and others. It will be one 
 of the most important contributions to a comparative study 
 of epic literature, and may throw light on some of the darkest 
 problems of the Wolfian controversy. May I also express a 
 hope that such essays as are meant to be read by scholars all 
 over Europe might be written in French or German, and not 
 in Finnish or Swedish 1 
 
 F. Max Muller. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A AU, Tahitian for heart, mind, &c. . 
 
 204. 
 Abstraction inherent in language. 
 
 183. 
 Acheron, 322. 
 Achilles in Hades, 318. 
 
 — his parents, 354. 
 
 Active and passive spheres, 68. 
 
 Acts, first consciousness of our, 66. 
 
 Adevistic, 132. 
 
 Adonai, 107. 
 
 Adoration and veneration, 157. 
 
 Aeacus, 354. 
 
 Aeschylus' belief in life after death, 
 
 320. 
 African tribes now use the word 
 
 fetishism, 120 n. 
 Agent, the, 216. 
 
 — a living, self-conscious, can alone 
 
 satisfy the mind, 232. 
 Agents, gods as, 65. 
 
 — in nature, 71. 
 
 — human, transition to, 72. 
 A^ta with the garment of hair, 3S. 
 Agni, biography of, representative 
 
 only, 76. 
 
 — terrible flames of, 1 64. 
 
 — identified with Rudra, 166 n. 
 
 — names for, 166 n. 
 Agnosticism, true, 102. 
 
 — the only safe foundation of re- 
 
 ligion, 102. 
 Ahaz, the dial of, 56. 
 Aides, house of the Invisible, 339. 
 Ajax Oileus and the Lokrians, 270. 
 All Souls celebration at Athens, 266. 
 Ambika, sister of Rudra, 163, 413. 
 
 Ambika, name of Durga, 167, 168. 
 
 Ana, breath, and pra«a, 202, 
 
 Analysis of language, 67. 
 
 Ancestor, the first, 284. 
 
 — worship, 127, 364. 
 
 the root of every religion, 128. 
 
 presupposes a belief in gods, 
 
 128. 
 
 Von Strauss on, 131. 
 
 did it exist among Aryan 
 
 nations? 141. 
 
 peculiar to inferior races, 141 , 
 
 is there any religion consisting 
 
 exclusively of? 286. 
 Ancestors never become real gods, 
 
 131. 
 Ancestral religion, germs of, 283. 
 — worship in Greece, four stages of, 
 271. 
 
 among Zulus, 282. 
 
 unlawful to Jews, 377. 
 
 Andaman islanders, 173-175. 
 
 height of, 1 74. 
 
 could not produce fire, 175. 
 
 lowest stratum of humanity, 
 
 175. 
 
 Col. Cadell on the, 176, 177. 
 
 Andra and Indra, 397. 
 Angamanain, 173. 
 Angels, 65. 
 
 — as the real causes of motion, 65. 
 
 — Newman on, 65. 
 
 — their wings, 228. 
 
 — Jewish belief in, 378. 
 Anglo-Indians, 156. 
 Angula, a measure, 243 n. 
 Anima, breath, 183. 
 
448 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Anima, air, 200. 
 
 Animal worship, has many sources, 
 
 123. 
 Animism, true meaning of, 73. 
 
 — presupposes an anima, 184. 
 Anit avat^m, 217. 
 Annihilation, 195. 
 
 — not known to the Jews, 369. 
 AntaAkarawa, the working within, 
 
 203. 
 Anthesteria at Athens, 266. 
 Anthropic religion, 113. 
 Anthropological evidence untnist- 
 
 worthy, 413. 
 
 — religion, the name, 115. 
 
 nothing to do with Anthro- 
 pology ,11 6. 
 
 recapitulation of, 336. 
 
 its results, 387. 
 
 no religion at all, 391. 
 
 Anthropology, the Science of Man 
 and Civilisation, 116. 
 
 — now discriminates rather than 
 
 compares, 122. 
 Antigone, the, 143. 
 
 — and funeral ceremonies, 239. 
 Anustarawl, the animal brought to 
 
 the funeral pile, 247. 
 Apotheosis, 353. 
 
 — blasphemy to the Jews, 376. 
 Arabic expression, 'The soul flows 
 
 from the wound,' 190, 
 Arawyakas, or Forest-books, 30, 
 Ar-atni, fore-arm, from AR, 242 n. 
 Aristotle on the Supreme Being, 100. 
 Arrows shot to bring rain, 138. 
 Aryan and Semitic religions, literary 
 
 documents of, 145. 
 -^ funeral, first account of, 239. 
 -^ funeral ceremonies, 241, 260. 
 Ai^ani (lightning), name of Agni, 
 
 166 n. 
 Ascension of Christ, 50. 
 
 — of the dead, 231. 
 Asoka, edicts of, 40. 
 
 — tolerant spirit of, 42. 
 Asrig, blood, 201. 
 Astronomical chronology, beginning 
 
 of, 56- 
 
 Asu, breath, 201. 
 
 Asura, breathing, 75. 
 
 Asuras, their form of burial, 240. 
 
 A^valayana, Vedic funeral described 
 
 by, 240. 
 Ata, soul, Maori, and ata, shadow, 
 
 220. 
 Atheist, Socrates and the early 
 
 Christians called so, 15. 
 Athenagoras, his defence of the 
 
 Christians, 15. 
 Athene lengthens the night, 54. 
 Athens, funeral meal at, 265. 
 
 — Anthesteria at, 266. 
 
 — All Souls celebration at, 266. 
 Atma, life, 201. 
 
 — soul, 347. 
 Atman, soul, 200. 
 
 — etymology doubtful, 800, 
 
 — breath, 201. 
 
 — body, 201. 
 
 — Supreme Being, 202. 
 Auraka, the deep chasm of, 279. 
 Australia, property in land in, 421. 
 
 — moveable property in, 422. 
 Australian Blacks, 417. 
 Australians, how they deal with 
 
 their dead, 275, 276. 
 
 — as the lowest savages, 418. 
 
 — Curr on the, 417 et seq. 
 
 — Brong Smyth on, 424. 
 
 — Dawson on, 424. 
 
 — Taplin on, 425. 
 
 — man'iage customs, 425. 
 
 — colour of, 421. 
 
 — name of, 421. 
 
 — moral ideas of, 421. 
 
 — tribal customs of, 422. 
 
 — religious ideas of, 422. 
 
 — belief in ghosts, 423, 
 
 — social institutions of, 424. 
 avTos, meaning of, 210, 211. 
 Avaiki, the, of the Harvey Islanders, 
 
 297. 
 Avesta, account of the soul after 
 death in the, 303. 
 
 BANTU tribes, 286. 
 Bar of the teeth, 209. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 449 
 
 Basar, Heb., body, flesh, 197. 
 
 Bastholm, 117. 
 
 Bastian on the Benin negroes, 223. 
 
 Bears or Big Feet, 404. 
 
 Bechus, the evil spiiits of the Nias- 
 
 sans, 291. 
 Beetles, larvae of, as food, 178. 
 Beginnings beyond our ken, 186. 
 Begriff, 97. 
 
 Bela, the devil of the Niassans, 291. 
 'Belsittha,, Saw^aya son of, 38. 
 Belief in God inevitable, 94. 
 
 — in gods and God, history of the, 
 
 96. 
 
 — in a soul, why necessary, 229. 
 
 — in future rewards and punish- 
 
 ments is not universal, 303. 
 Benin negroes and shadows^ 223. 
 
 Bastian on the, 223. 
 
 Berkeley, Bishop, 18. 
 
 Bhana, name for Agni among the 
 
 Bahik^s, 166 n. 
 Bible, Jewish interpretation of the, 
 
 47- 
 Biblical expressions. Dr. Fiirst on, 46. 
 Big Feet or Bears, 404. 
 Bishop of Glasgow, speech of, 58, 59, 
 Blood as life, 190. 
 views of Homer, Kritias, 
 
 and the Arabs, 190. 
 
 — drinking the, 191. 
 Blood-oath, 191. 
 
 Bobadilla and the Indians of Ni- 
 caragua, 192. 
 
 Bodhism, 132. 
 
 Body, to die applies to the, 343. 
 
 Bones and body mean soul in the 
 Psalms, 200. 
 
 — collection of the, after burning 
 the dead, 255. 
 
 Books, authoritative, 169. 
 
 Bopp on sounds, 68. 
 
 Brahmanic thread, how worn at 
 
 offerings to the gods and the 
 
 dead, 293. 
 Brahmanism, cause of its downfall, 
 
 31- 
 Brain, hardly ever mentioned as 
 seat of the soul, 194. 
 
 Brasidas, sacrifices to, 358. 
 Breath, 75, 194, 201. 
 
 — or psyche, 209. 
 
 Bribu, chief of the i^tbhus, 164. 
 
 Bridling the tongue, 43. 
 
 Brinton on the Clan marks of 
 
 Indians, 403 et seq. 
 BWsaya and Briseis, 79. 
 Brong Smyth on the Australians, 
 
 424. 
 Brown, Dr. David, on St. Paul at 
 
 Athens, 90. 
 Buckley on gesture, 67 w. 
 Buddhism, a consequence of the four 
 
 stages, 31. 
 
 — antecedents of, 31. 
 
 — originally a Brahmanic sect, 35. 
 
 — toleration preached by, 39. 
 
 — nature gods used up in, 132. 
 
 — has outgrown Devas, 132. 
 
 — Mahayana division of, 132. 
 Bunsen, Baron, letter to, on the 
 
 Turanian languages, 148. 
 Burial forms of the Asuras, 240. 
 
 — with and without burning in 
 
 Greece, 264. 
 
 — in Greece, near the hearth, 
 
 originally, 264. 
 Burning the dead, 283. 
 
 CADELL, Colonel, on the Anda- 
 
 manese, 176, 177. 
 Cain, the wife of, 48. 
 Callaway, Bishop, 152. 
 
 — and the Zulu belief about shadows, 
 
 226. 
 
 — on the religion of the Zulus, 
 
 286, 287. 
 Carr on the Australians, 417 etseq. 
 Cat, Australian name for, 416. 
 Causality, category of, 71. 
 Cause, origin of the concept of, 62. 
 
 — and effect, the law of, 300. 
 Cemetery, smaftSna, 243. 
 Charms differ from totems, 134. 
 
 — in Tasmania, 434. 
 Chiaramonti quoted, 53. 
 Children, religious education of, 25. 
 
 Gg 
 
450 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Children have no language but a 
 
 cry, 66. 
 China and Egypt, 131. 
 Xoai and avovdai, 292. 
 Christ, ascension of, 50. 
 
 — as Son of God, 382. 
 
 — divinity of, 390. 
 
 Christ's teaching and its later inter- 
 pretation, 385. 
 
 — short words, 386, 387. 
 
 — Justin Martyr on, 386. 
 Christian God, the, loi, 
 
 — Theology, negative definition in, 
 
 ibi. 
 Christians called atheists, 15. 
 
 — defended by Athanagoras, 15. 
 Christianity, the revelation of the 
 
 Divine Sonship of Christ and 
 Man, 378, 379. 
 
 — position of, in the history of the 
 
 world, 383. 
 
 — the fulfilment of all the world 
 
 has striven for, 388. 
 Church, question of an established, 
 
 14. 
 Cicero on the dead, 274. 
 
 — on the mysteries, 322. 
 
 — on the soul, 330, 331. 
 Ci-prbs in language, the, 226. 
 Clan-marks of Indians, Brinton on 
 
 the, 403 et seq. 
 Clement of Alexandria, loi. 
 Cobban, Rev. G. M., on Tamil 
 
 words for soul, 202. 
 Code of Vishwu, on future justice, 
 
 302. 
 Codrington, Dr., 153. 
 Colenso, 18, 286, 
 Colenso's Zulu, 3. 
 Common fund of thought in all 
 
 mythologies and all religions, 
 
 149. 
 Communal marriage system, 175. 
 Comparative study of religions, 5. 
 
 — mythology, principles of, 78. 
 
 — Study of Languages, 147. 
 of non-Aryan and non-Semitic 
 
 religions, 149. 
 Comte, 117. 
 
 Concept of Cause, origin of, 62. 
 
 Conscience, freedom of, 22. 
 
 Copernican Theory, 83. 
 
 Copernicus, the discovery of, 8. 
 
 Copper race, the, 361. 
 
 Cornewall Lewis, his squib, 399, &c. 
 
 Corpse throws no shadow, 224. 
 
 Cosmological proofs, 92. 
 
 Cousin, on Indian Philosophy, 36. 
 
 Crantz, on Greenland beliefs, 224. 
 
 Cremation or burial among Austra- 
 lians, 275. 
 
 Cretans used dia for ^fifpa, 86. 
 
 Cromlechs, 408. 
 
 Cuoq, Father, 121. 
 
 Curr on the Australians, 417 etseq. 
 
 Cusanus, his Docta Ignorantia, 103. 
 
 Customs, import of, 235. 
 
 — motives of, 236. 
 
 Cutter, a ship, 70. 
 
 Cutting, a slice, 70. 
 
 Cyrus, on the soul, and the dead, 
 325- 
 
 DAIMONES, the, 356, 359, 360, 
 
 364- 
 
 — originally meant gods, 361. 
 
 — at first good, 362. 
 
 — Zeus raises the men of the golden 
 
 race to, 363. 
 Daimonion of Sokrates, 362. 
 
 — of the Stoics, 363. 
 Dan^kils, the, 138. 
 
 Dante, his use of Giove, 113. 
 Darwin on false facts, 414. 
 Dawson on the Australians, 425. 
 Day and night, as robbers, 33. 
 Dayaks on sleep, 222. 
 Dead, Tertullian on the, 273. 
 
 — Cicero on the, 274. 
 
 — how the Australians treat^fcheir, 
 
 275, 276. 
 
 — the West as the home of, 297. 
 
 — sacrifices in honour of the, 315. 
 
 — offerings to the, 340, 341. 
 
 — the, to be held as gods, 352. 
 
 — the, kept seven days at Rome, 
 
 271. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 451 
 
 Dead, the, are near the gods, 274. 
 
 — various names for, among the 
 
 Romans, 273, 274. 
 
 — continuance of feelings towards 
 
 the, 281. 
 
 — burning the, 283. 
 Death, 139. 
 
 — Sk, mrttyu, 140. 
 
 — lessons of, 189. 
 
 — soul after, 195. 
 
 — made a house impure in Greece, 
 
 263. 
 
 — popular opinion on, not reflected 
 
 by Homer, 317. 
 
 — Aeschylus' belief in life after, 
 
 320. 
 
 — Sokrates on, in the Apology, 323. 
 
 — Jewish ideas of life after, 342. 
 
 — Greek ideas, 342. 
 
 — Vedic Indians, ideas of, 342. 
 
 — a misfortune to the Jews, 369. 
 De Brosses, 117. 
 
 De Coulanges, 134. 
 
 Definition of terms, the sine qua 
 
 non of accurate thought, 215. 
 Deification or apotheosis, 130. 
 * Dein Name,' 417. 
 Deluge, universality of the, 10. 
 Departed, reverence for the, 141- 
 
 143- 
 
 — the, where do they exist? 295, 
 
 339- 
 
 — the, how do they exist ? 298. 
 
 — the, are they conscious of what 
 
 passes on earth ? 303. 
 
 — how do they fare ? 339, 341. 
 
 — worship of the, leads to the re- 
 
 cognition of the Divine in Man, 
 
 352. 
 
 — the. Homer's view, 304. 
 
 — Jews belief, 304. 
 
 — Plato's view, 304. 
 
 Deus Optimus Maximus, 113. 
 
 — the personal, 360. 
 Deva, bright, 75. 
 
 Devas, Buddhism has outgrown, 
 
 132. 
 Devas, and PitWs, 352. 
 Devil-worship in Tasmania, 431. 
 
 G 
 
 Devlmah^tmya, the, 160. 
 
 Die, to, applies to the body, 343. 
 
 Diggings, meaning mine, 70. 
 
 Dii manes, or dii, 273. 
 
 Diique . . . terrestres vosque infemi 
 
 85. 
 Ding an sich, das, 95. 
 Dionysos, 355. 
 
 Disputants staking their heads, 36. 
 Dium fulgur, 86. 
 
 Diversity of opinion inevitable, 57. 
 Divestment, process of, in language, 
 
 205. 
 Divi Manes, 352. 
 Divine, no race without a'word for 
 
 the, 90. 
 
 — sonship of man, 115. 
 
 — education of man, 336. 
 
 — and the Human, 351. 
 
 — in man, recognised through the 
 
 worship of the Departed, 352. 
 how found by the Jew, 
 
 378. 
 
 — Kant on the, 392, 393. 
 Divinity of Christ, 390. 
 Divum, 84. 
 
 Divus pater, 85. 
 
 Dlvus and dlus, 85. 
 
 Docta Ignorantia of Cusanus, 103. 
 
 Dogma, mere Vorstellung, 97. 
 
 Dream signs, 126. 
 
 Dreams, 221. 
 
 Drinking blood, 191. 
 
 mentioned by Herodotus, 191. 
 
 forbidden by Mohammed, 191. 
 
 Dual in Mohawk, 170. 
 Dualism in Tasmania, 430. 
 Durga or K^ll, the Goddess, 158, 
 410. 
 
 — higher conception of, 160. 
 
 — as /Sakti or power, 160. 
 
 — is Mother-God, 161. 
 
 — origin of, 162, 163. 
 
 — various names of, 164, 165. 
 
 — conquers K&nda and Munrfa, 
 
 165. 
 
 — her name Ksk-mxind^, 165. 
 
 — worshipped by wild tribes, 165. 
 
 — and K&ndi, 165. 
 
 g2 
 
452 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Durga, or R^tri, the night, 165. 
 
 — and Siva,, importations from non- 
 
 Brahman ic neighbours, 166. 
 
 — as highest divine wisdom, 1 66, 167. 
 
 — names for, 167, 
 
 — true nature of, 167. 
 
 — Ambika, name for, 167, 168. 
 Dus, 84. 
 
 Dyaus and Zeus, 80. 
 
 — the sky, 81. 
 
 — Eddie name Tyr, gen, Tys, 82 n. 
 
 EARLY Christians as Greeks, not 
 
 Jews, Dr. Hatch on the, loi. 
 Edicts of Asoka, 40. 
 Eid61a, likeness, 228. 
 
 — the, in Hades, 296, 
 Elijah, ascent of, 47, 49. 
 
 — prayer of, 199. 
 
 Ell, Germ. EUe, wKevr), ulna, 242 n. 
 Elohim, 107. 
 
 — ghosts, 369. 
 Elpenor, the soul of, 237. 
 kvayi^dv, 265. 
 
 — kvTinv€iv and 6vuv, 292. 
 fvara, 265. 
 
 kvdvT'qp, a cloak, 70. 
 evverre, Ennius on, 401. 
 Ennius on ewene, 401. 
 Enoch and Elijah, 370. 
 Epaminondas quoted, 129. 
 Epic poetry, Greek, 309. 
 
 Finnish, 312. 
 
 Epicharmos, 74. 
 
 — on the spirit, 327. 
 
 — on the mind, 338. 
 Epicureans, no. 
 
 — gods of the, 182. 
 
 Epitaph from Greek Anthology, 329. 
 
 eaxapa and l3ojfji6s, 292. 
 
 Esoteric and exoteric religion, 21. 
 
 Esquimaux take glass for ice, 226. 
 
 Essays and Reviews, Newman's 
 letter on, 9. 
 
 Esse with the Infinite is percipi, no. 
 
 Eternal part of man mentioned in 
 the Hindu funerals, 253. 
 
 Eternal punishment, Charles Kings- 
 ley on, 303. 
 
 Euhemeristic explanation of Zeus, 
 
 134- 
 
 of other gods, 137. 
 
 Euripides, and the ' sacred temples 
 
 of the dead,' 239. 
 
 — calls the soul a god, 330. 
 Eva, or dirge, 279. 
 
 Evidence tested, with regard to civi- 
 lised races, 154. 
 
 with regard to illiterate races, 
 
 169. 
 
 Evil spirit, believed in by the Min- 
 copies, 180. 
 
 Ex aliquo fit aliquid, 301. 
 
 Ex nihilo nihil fit, 301. 
 
 Exclamations atVedic sacrifices, 293. 
 
 Expiatory service in Vedic funerals, 
 
 257- 
 Eyes, eating the, 192. 
 
 FALSE facts, Darwin on, 414. 
 Farrar, Archdeacon, 49. 
 Fasti Temporis Catholici, 56. 
 Father and Son, dialogue in the 
 Mahabh^rata, 32. 
 
 — in heaven, 231. 
 
 — and Son, the words, 381, 387, 
 
 388. 
 
 — as used by Christ, 382. 
 Fee = pecus, 306. 
 
 Feralia, or Parentalia, feast of the, 
 
 272. 
 Feriae denicales, 272. 
 Fetish-name for sky, 81. 
 
 — slovenly use of the word, 408. 
 Fetishism, 117, 121. 
 
 — Herbert Spencer surrenders, 118. 
 
 — is primordial, 119. 
 
 — the word used by African tribes, 
 
 120 w. 
 
 — from fetiso, 1 20 n. 
 
 — a late phase of superstition, 121. 
 
 — defined, 118. 
 
 Finnish epic poetry, 312, 442, 443. 
 
 Fireless savages, 175, 418. 
 
 ' Fires love the village,' proverb, 
 
 242. 
 First beginnings beyond the reach 
 
 of history, 185. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 455 
 
 Fison on Australian marriages, 427. 
 Five spiritual potentiae in man, 
 
 199 n. 
 
 this division of Persian origin, 
 
 200 w. 
 
 — Kohut on, 200 n. 
 
 Four stages of life in India, 18. 
 
 — Buddhism a consequence of these, 
 
 31- 
 Fravashis, the, 353. 
 Freedom of conscience, 22. 
 
 — the educated clergy long for it, 
 
 22. 
 Friend, H., in Folk Lore Kecord, 
 
 105 n. 
 Funeral, Vedic, 239, 240. 
 
 — ceremonies in the Antigone, 
 
 239. 
 
 ceremonies in India, 241. 
 
 the animal used in, 247. 
 
 in Greece, 261-267. 
 
 in Rome, 271. 
 
 among savages, 274. 
 
 among negroes, 438. 
 
 — honours paid to Patroklos, 315. 
 
 — inscriptions, 327-329. 
 
 — meal at Athens, 265. 
 Funerals, Rajendralal Mitra's notes 
 
 on Vedic, 435. 
 Funeribus Romanorum, De, Kirch- 
 
 mann, 271. 
 Fiirst, Dr., on biblical expressions, 
 
 46. 
 Future rewards and punishments, 
 
 301-303- 
 
 — life, Sokrates and Plato on, 323. 
 
 GA, the act of going, 68. 
 
 (raina sect, the founder, 38. 
 
 Galileo, discovery of, 8. 
 
 Generalisation, the highest, or Mono- 
 theism, 75. 
 
 Gesture, Buckley on, 67 ». 
 
 Ghost, Geist, from Sk. hldj hed&, 
 anger, 215. 
 
 Ghosts, Oxford Debating Society on, 
 225. 
 
 — elohim, 369. 
 
 Ghosts, belief in, in Australia, 423. 
 Gifford, Lord, his foundation, 5. 
 
 conditions of, 16. 
 
 his Essay on Substance, 392. 
 
 Gifts produced a belief that they 
 
 would be used by the dead, 
 
 269. 
 Gill, Rev. W.W., 152. 
 
 — on Polynesian funerals, 276. 
 Giove, as used by Dante, 113. 
 
 — as used by Petrarca, 113. 
 Gladstone on * imperfect compre- 
 hension and expression,' 14. 
 
 — on the changes worked by time, 
 
 in the sense of words, 20. 
 
 Gladstone's translation of Penelope's 
 words, 318. 
 
 Glass taken for ice by the Esqui- 
 maux, 226. 
 
 God, a Being without body, parts, 
 or passions, 26. 
 
 — Philo on, 26. 
 
 — of the sky, 77. 
 
 — belief in, inevitable, 94. 
 
 — and gods, history of the belief in, 
 
 96. 
 
 — idea of, to the Early Christians, 
 
 loi, 102. 
 
 — Philo on the name of, 102. 
 
 — in Chinese Tien, sky, 104. 
 
 — as Father or Mother, i6l. 
 
 — Mincopie name for, 1 79. 
 
 — of the Jews, 182. 
 
 — thunder the voice of, 198. 
 
 — storm the breath of, 198. 
 
 — Gqika name for, 289. 
 
 — Kafir name for, 289, 290. 
 
 — Hottentot name for, 290. 
 
 — historical proof of the existence 
 
 of, 333. 
 
 — belief in, universal, 336. 
 
 — as apart from Grods in Greek 
 
 writings, 365. , , ^ 
 
 — the Creator, elaborated by the 
 
 Jews, 379. 
 
 — the Father, the new language of 
 
 Christianity, 380. 
 
 — Kepler on, 392, 
 Goddess Durga or Kail, 158. 
 
454 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Gods, nothing true of them, that is 
 not worthy of them, 29. 
 
 — called superi by the Romans, 46. 
 
 — Plato on the, 64. 
 
 — all things are full of the, 65. 
 
 — as agents, 65. 
 
 — Thales on the, 65 n. 
 
 — the, not invented by the priests, 
 
 94. 
 
 — ancestors never become, 131. 
 
 — of the Epicureans, 182. 
 
 — above Superi, 297. 
 
 — men yearn for the, 334. 
 
 — and men, 353. 
 
 — daimones, heroes, men, 360. 
 Goethe on the sufferings of Sisyphos, 
 
 Tantalos, &c., 319, 320. 
 Golden calf, the, 151. 
 
 — race, the, 360. 
 
 raised by Zeus to Daimones, 
 
 363. 
 Gosala, the son of Makkhali, 38. 
 Gqika name for God, 289. 
 Grandfather Rentap, 135. 
 Greece, funeral ceremonies in, 261- 
 
 267. 
 
 — burial with and without burning 
 
 in, 264. 
 
 — the dead originally buried near 
 
 the hearth, 264. 
 
 — the tombs a place for family 
 
 gatherings, 264. 
 
 — purification after a funeral in, 
 
 265. 
 
 — funeral feast in honour of the 
 
 dead in, 265. 
 
 — length of mourning in, 265. 
 
 — four stages of ancestral worship 
 
 in, 271. 
 Greek philosophy, negative definition 
 
 in, 99. 
 • — different words in, for the service 
 
 of the gods or of the dead, 292. 
 
 — epic poetry, 309. 
 
 — thought, ancient, 314. 
 ■ — ideas on death, 342. 
 
 — view of human nature turned 
 
 into divine, 354. 
 
 — religion in Homer, 356. 
 
 Greek religion in Hesiod, 356. 
 Greeks burnt and buried, 315. 
 
 — call mortal men deiXoi, wi-etched, 
 
 319- 
 
 — believed in the future life of the 
 
 soul, 327. 
 Greenlanders and shadows, 224. 
 
 — Crantz on their beliefs, 224. 
 Greswell, Rev. R., 56. 
 
 Grey, Sir George, 125. 
 
 — on savages and nightmares, 222. 
 Gruppe, 117. 
 
 — his view of religion, 126. 
 
 HADES, 238. 
 
 — Aides, the Invisible, 296. 
 
 — Achilles in, 318. 
 
 dyvoi, saintly heroes, souls sent back 
 
 to earth, 321. 
 Hahn, Dr., 152. 
 atfjiaKovpia, 293, 
 
 Haimavatl, name of Durga, 164. 
 Hale, Horatio, 153. 
 Halfpenny with a hole, 121. 
 Hallucination, 126. 
 Harmodius and Aristogiton after 
 
 death, 318. 
 Haruspex, a, 273. 
 Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 100 w, 
 
 102 ». 
 
 — on the Early Christians as Greeks, 
 
 not Jews, 1 01. 
 Hazimas, or fetishes of the Niassans, 
 
 291. 
 Heart, the, 192. 
 
 — eating the, 192. 
 
 — seat of the soul, 199. 
 
 — mind, &c., in Tahitian, 204. 
 Hearth, burial in Greece near the, 
 
 264. 
 Heaven, a cubic city, 49, 
 Hebrew, words for soul in, 197-200. 
 Helena, 355. 
 Henotheism, 76. 
 Hera sending Helios against his 
 
 will into the ocean, 54. 
 Herakles, 355. 
 Heroes dyvoi, saintly souls sent back 
 
 to earth, 321. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 455 
 
 Heroes as AioyeveTs, 354. 
 
 — of the Trojan War, 355, 356, 357. 
 
 — not ordinary mortals, 357. 
 
 — the fourth race, 361. 
 
 — as the offspring of Zeus, 364. 
 ^pojs, departed spirit, 359. 
 Hervey Islanders, their Avaiki, 297. 
 Hesiod, Greek religion in, 356. 
 Hesiod's islands of the blest, 317. 
 
 — works, importance of, 356. 
 
 — four races, 360. 
 
 Himalaya, different names for the, 
 
 106. 
 Himavat, the daughters of, 167. 
 Hindu funerals, the eternal part of 
 
 man mentioned in, 253. 
 Hindus, different accounts of their 
 
 religious beliefs, 156. 
 Hinengaro, Maori for intestines and 
 
 heart, 204. 
 Historical religions, 146. 
 
 — proof of the existence of God, 
 
 333- 
 
 History, two lessons of, 335. 
 
 Homer uses blood and life synony- 
 mously, 190. 
 
 — psychological terminology of, 210. 
 
 — silent on future rewards and 
 
 punishments, 303. 
 
 — thought the dead were senseless, 
 
 304- 
 
 — despised by some of the Greek 
 
 philosophers, 314. 
 
 — does not reflect popular opinion 
 
 on death, 317. 
 
 — Greek religion in, 356. 
 Homeric poems, how preserved, 31 1. 
 
 when reduced to writing, 313, 
 
 a splendid fragment, 314. 
 
 and the departed, 314. 
 
 ancestral worship not found 
 
 in the, 315. 
 Hottentot name for God, 290. 
 Human agents, transition to, 72. 
 
 — and superhuman agents, difference 
 
 between, 72. 
 
 — nature turned into divine nature, 
 
 353. 
 Greek view, 354. 
 
 Hume, question of miracles in his 
 
 day, 13. 
 Hurakan, 77. 
 Hutchinson Stirling, his Gifford 
 
 Lectures, 48, 97. 
 
 I AM that I Am, 107, 114, 387. 
 
 I am thine own conscience, 303. 
 
 * I, by name,' 107. 
 
 Idolators, 112. 
 
 Immortality of the soul, 187. 
 
 — belief in, in Old Testament, 367. 
 
 — meaning of, 368, 
 
 — controversy as to the Jewish 
 
 belief in, 371, 372. 
 Lehrs on, 371. 
 
 — passages on, in Old Testament, 
 
 373-376. 
 
 — of the soul in Tasmania, 433, 434. 
 Imperfect, gradual elimination of 
 
 what is, 99. 
 Incanti, fairies, 288. 
 India, four stages of life in, 18. 
 
 — toleration in, 18. 
 
 — no general religion of the natives 
 
 of, 157. 
 Indian philosophy, Cousin on, 36. 
 Indians of Nicaragua and Bobadilla, 
 
 192. 
 
 — Brinton on the Clan-marks of, 
 
 403 et seq. 
 
 Indo-European and Semitic nations 
 never made a religion of the 
 worship of the dead, 141. 
 
 Indra, derivation of, 395-398. 
 
 — and Andra, 397. 
 Inferi, souls below, 296. 
 Inferno, tortures of the, 342. 
 Infinite, names of the, 106. 
 
 — wider than Unknowable, 106. 
 
 — as He, not She, or It, iii. 
 
 — in man, the, 227, 387, 389, 390, 
 
 393. 
 Initia, beginnings, 322. 
 Intolerance, more common in modem 
 
 times, 17. 
 Invisible, Aides, house of the, 339. 
 Isana (sun), name of Agni, 166 ». 
 
456 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 JEHOVAH, the God of Abraham, 
 
 lOI. 
 
 — or Jah, 107. 
 
 Jehu and Jezebel, 155. 
 
 Jericho, the walls of, 48. 
 
 Jewish religion, toleration in the, 
 
 .45. 
 
 — interpretation of the Bible, 47. 
 
 — Rabbis, names for soul, 199 n. 
 , — belief in angels, 378. 
 
 Jews, thought the dead asleep and 
 at rest, 304, 342. 
 
 — annihilation unknown to the, 
 
 369- 
 
 — ancestral worship unlawful to 
 
 the, 377. 
 Joshua, solstice of, 53. 
 Julio, a, 193. 
 Jupiter, the lesson of, 82. 
 
 — as a real person, 113. 
 
 — or Zeus, 134. 
 Justa facere, 272. 
 
 Justice, an ineradicable belief in, 
 
 299. 
 Justin Martyr on the descent and 
 
 ascent of God, 47. 
 on Christ's words, 386. 
 
 KA, soul, 202, 
 
 Kafir name for God, Great Itongo, 
 
 289. 
 KaMayan, of the Pakudha tree, 
 
 38. 
 Kalevala, the, 440 et seq. 
 Kail, the dark flame, 163, 164, 165. 
 
 — the Vedic, is the Pauramc Durga, 
 
 163. 
 
 — Ksi-mvLnda., name of Durga, 165. 
 Kanda, and Munda, conquered by 
 
 Durga, 165. 
 KancZala, or Kanda, 165. 
 Kandl, name for Durga, 160, 164. 
 
 — goddess of mountaineers, 165. 
 Kant on the Divine, 392, 393. 
 Karali, 164, 165. 
 
 Karma na kshiyate, 301. 
 Ka^Aa-upanishad, 345. 
 
 parable in, like Plato's Phae- 
 
 dros, 348. 
 
 Kaushltaki Upanishad, on future 
 
 justice, 302. 
 Kena-upanishad, 166. 
 Kepler on God, 392. 
 Kfp^epos and sarvara, 248. 
 Kerberos, 248. 
 Keteus, the wives of, 240. 
 Kings by the grace of God, 354. 
 King's son, parable of the, 38 1 . 
 Kingsley, Charles, 18. 
 
 on eternal punishment, 303. 
 
 Kiratl, name of Durg^, 1 64. 
 Kirchmann, De Funeribus Roma- 
 
 norum, 271. 
 Knowing, 103. 
 Kobong, the, 125. 
 Kohut on the fivefold division in 
 
 man, 200 n. 
 Kramer on the religion of the 
 
 Niassans, 290. 
 Kritias' saying, 'the soul was the 
 
 blood,' 190. 
 Krohn, Dr., 440 et seq. 
 Kumara (boy), name of Agni, 166 n. 
 KClttan, a dancer, word for soul, 
 
 203. 
 
 LABEO, on the gods who derive 
 their origin from human souls, 
 274. 
 
 Language and thought inseparable, 
 64. 
 
 — postulate of Psychology fulfilled 
 
 by, 67. 
 
 — analysis of, 67. 
 
 — abstraction inherent in, 183. 
 
 — metaphorical, 205. 
 
 — divestment inherent in, 205. 
 
 — the ci-prfes in, 226. 
 Languages, comparative study of, 
 
 147. 
 Lar, a, 274. 
 Lares, or kind manes, 273. 
 
 — derive their origin from human 
 
 souls, 274. 
 
 — public and private, 274. 
 Larva, a, 274. 
 
 Larvae, or unkind manes, 273. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 457 
 
 Latin, controversial books should 
 be written in, 6. 
 
 Lature, solar god of the Niassans, 
 292. 
 
 Lehrs, on Jewish belief in immor- 
 tality, 371. 
 
 Lemur, a, 274. 
 
 Levity, protest against, 86. 
 
 Life after death believed in by post- 
 Homeric poets, 320, 
 
 Lippert, Dr., 80, 117. 
 
 — on the name Zeus, 94. 
 
 — defines fetishism, 118. 
 
 — on totems, 123. 
 
 Literary documents of Aryan and 
 Semitic religions, 145. 
 
 of other religions, 146. 
 
 Living soul, 189, 
 
 Lokrians and Ajax Oileus, 2 70. 
 
 Long on totems, 123. 
 
 Lonnrot, 441, 445. 
 
 Lux Mundi, 6. 
 
 Lyall, A. C, 142, 143, 164. 
 
 Ly Sander, altars to, 359. 
 
 MACAULAY on toleration, 59. 
 Maccoll, Canon, 9. 
 
 — article on Dean Church, 89 n. 
 Macdonald, Eev. J., 287. 
 Mahabh^rata, dialogue between 
 
 father and son in the, 32. 
 Mahalmaya, Durga as, 167. 
 Mahan Deva (moon), name of Agni, 
 
 i66n. 
 Mahavlra Nataputta, 38. 
 Mahayana division of Buddhism, 
 
 ^ 132. 
 Maison, 70. 
 fi&Kapes, the blest, 31 7' 
 Makkhali of the cattle-pen (gosala), 
 
 38. 
 
 — Gosala, the son of, 38, 
 Man, problem of, 189. 
 
 — must be jealous of all untruth, 
 
 335. 
 tolerant, 335. 
 
 — the measure of all things, 242. 
 Manawa, Maori for belly, heart, 
 
 lungs, &c., 203. 
 
 Manes, the, 272. 
 
 — offerings to, 272. 
 
 — dwelling-place of the, 273. 
 
 — various names for, 273. 
 Maori dictionary, Tregear's, 203. 
 
 — for intestines and heart, 204. 
 
 — words for soul, 204, 205. 
 
 — for soul and shadow, 220. 
 MAK, the root, 68. 
 
 Marriage system, communal, 175. 
 
 — among the Austrahans, 425. 
 Mar-ut, the smashers, 71. 
 Maruts or Storm- winds, 77. 
 Masculine or neuter, no. 
 Material beginnings, 204. 
 Materials for our studies, 186. 
 Maximus of Tyre, 78, 90 n, 100. 
 Meaning, differentiation of, 2 1 5. 
 Measures, 242, 243, 24371. 
 Men yearn for the gods, 334. 
 
 — honoured as heroes, 357. 
 Mendelssohn, the philosopher, 3. 
 Menelaos, 355. 
 
 Menos, nofis, and bould within the 
 phrenes, 213. 
 
 Metaphor, radical and poetical, 220. 
 
 Metaphorical language, 205. 
 
 Milligan on Polytheism in Tas- 
 mania, 433. 
 
 Mincopies, 177, 179, 416. 
 
 — religion of the, 179, 180. 
 Mind, growth of the, 27. 
 
 — Epicharmos on the, 338. 
 Minimum, the, 112. 
 
 Minos, Rhadamanthus, &c,, 324, 
 Miracles, physical, impossible, 13. 
 
 — the question of, in Hume's day, 
 
 13. 
 
 — inevitable, 14. 
 Mohammed, his toleration, 57. 
 
 — descriptions of, 17a. 
 Mohawk, grammatical analysis of 
 
 the, 148. 
 
 — grammar, 169. 
 systematic, 1 70. 
 
 — dual in, 170. 
 
 Monotheism, or the highest gene- 
 ralisation, 75, 76. 
 
 — in Tasmania, 432. 
 
458 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Moses and Elijah, ascent of, 47. 
 Motion, angels as the real causes of, 
 
 65. 
 Mourning, length of, in Greece, 265. 
 MWtyu, Sk., death, 140. 
 Munda, tribes, 165. 
 Mundus and orchus, 273. 
 Mysteries, the, 322. 
 
 — Cicero on the, 322. 
 Mythology, principles of compara- 
 tive, 78. 
 
 NAAU, Hawaian for intestines, 
 memory, and wisdom, &c., 204. 
 NaAriketas and Yama, 346. 
 Names, well meant, 103. 
 
 — return to the old, iii. 
 
 — and what is named, 113. 
 Naming of objects, 69. 
 Napoleon, 173. 
 
 Nataputta, founder of the G^aina 
 
 sect, 38. 
 Natural Religion, 115. 
 Nature, agents in, 71. 
 general names of the, 75. 
 
 — Unity of, 233. 
 
 — gods used up in Buddhism, 132. 
 
 in Tasmania, 43 1 . 
 
 Neanderthal skull, 186. 
 
 Negative and positive evidence, 
 
 180. 
 Nekyia, the, 309> 3i6, 317. 
 ' — does not represent the popular 
 
 belief, 313. 
 iNephesh, Heb. , living self-conscious 
 
 soul, 198. 
 Heshamah, Heb., vital breath, soul, 
 
 198. 
 Newman, Cardinal, on private 
 
 judgment, 4. 
 letter on Essays and Reviews, 
 
 9- 
 
 on angels, 65. 
 
 why he left the English 
 
 Church, 89. 
 influence of St. Augustine's 
 
 words on, 89. 
 Ngakau, Maori for bowels and 
 
 heart, 204. 
 
 Niassans, religion of the, 290-292. 
 
 Nicaragua, Indians of, and Boba- 
 dilla, 192. 
 
 Nigart^Aa Nataputta, founder of 
 the (xaina sect, 38. 
 
 Night, sarvari, a name for the, 248. 
 
 Nightmares, savages and, 222. 
 
 Nllkanth, name of <Siva, 159. 
 
 Non- Aryan and non-Semitic reli- 
 gions, 149. 
 
 No man without a word for the 
 divine, 90. 
 
 Noumenon, 95. 
 
 Numen, a divine power, 360. 
 
 OBBA, goblet, 273. 
 
 Objections considered, 388. 
 
 Odin or Wodan, 77. 
 
 Ododams, 122. 
 
 Old Testament ignores future re- 
 wards and punishments, 303. 
 
 a confusing name, 368. 
 
 passages on immortality in, 
 
 373-376. 
 
 composite character of, 373. 
 
 Ontological proofs, 92. 
 
 — argument, 109. 
 
 Oxford Debating Society on ghosts, 
 225. 
 
 PALMERSTON, funeral of Lord, 
 
 268. 
 Pantheistic views, 379. 
 Parable of the King's Son, 381. 
 Paradise, 342. 
 Parentare, offerings to the Manes, 
 
 272. 
 Parvatl, name of Durga, 164, 167. 
 Pastinam pati, name of Agni, 1 66 n. 
 Pasupati, name of Agni, 166 n. 
 Patroklos, funeral honours paid to, 
 
 315- 
 
 — the soul of, 238. 
 
 PauraTjic Durga is the Vedic Kail, 
 163. 
 
 Penates, 274. 
 
 Penelope's words, Gladstone's trans- 
 lation of, 318. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 459 
 
 Persephone sending back the souls 
 
 into life, 321. 
 Peruvian Inca, 98. 
 Petrarca uses Giove, 113. 
 Phaedo, future life in the, 322. 
 
 — influence of the, 326, 
 
 Philo, on the concept of God, 26. 
 
 — on the name of God, 102. 
 Philosophers, influence of, 326. 
 Phren, singular, the mind, 214. 
 Phrenes, 213. 
 
 — the midriff, 213. 
 
 — menos, nofts, and boul6 within 
 
 the, 213. 
 
 — psyche never within the, 2 14. 
 Physical miracles impossible, 13. 
 
 — Religion, 93, 115. 
 
 outcome of, 61, 336. 
 
 incomplete, 181. 
 
 were there races without ? 
 
 285. 
 
 the teaching of, 387, 389. 
 
 ' Pigs of the sun,' 292, 
 Pindar quoted by Plato, 321. 
 Pindar's belief in life after death, 
 
 320. 
 
 — belief in the transmigration of 
 
 souls, 320. 
 Pitj'is rejoicing with Yam a, 248, 250. 
 
 — fathers, as companions of the 
 
 Devas, 352. 
 
 above the Devas, 352. 
 
 Pity and love are passions, 26. 
 
 Places, names of, 416. 
 
 Plataea, sacrifices to those who fell 
 
 at, 357- 
 Plato on the gods, 64. 
 
 — on the existence of the Soul, 65, 
 
 299. 
 
 — on the Supreme Being, 100. 
 
 — and the soul of the sky, 104. 
 
 — on the divine powers, 129. 
 
 — on belief in One God, 295. 
 
 — on rewards and punishments in 
 
 a future life, 300. 
 
 — thinks the dead take an interest in 
 
 human affairs, 304. 
 
 — on the rivers of the lower world, 
 
 321. 
 
 Plato quotes Pindar, 321. 
 
 — on gods, dainiones, heroes, and 
 
 ancestral spirits, 364. 
 
 — on Greek religion, 365, 366. 
 Plato's descriptions of Sokrates, 
 
 172. 
 
 — influence, 323. 
 
 — Phaedros like a parable in the 
 
 Ka^Aa-upanishad, 348. 
 Plenary inspiration, a Protestant 
 
 question, 10. 
 Plutarch, on belief in the gods, 15. 
 
 — on the punishments of the wicked 
 
 in Hades, 323. 
 Poetical metaphor, 218. 
 Pollinctor, the, 273. 
 Polynesian words for soul, 203. 
 
 — funerals, 276-280, 
 
 Rev. W. W. Gill on, 276. 
 
 — exchange of names, Chamisso's 
 
 account of, 416. 
 Polytheism, 76. 
 Portraits, suggested by shadows, 
 
 219. 
 Post-Copernican times, 231. 
 Post-Homeric poets, 320. 
 their belief in a future life, 
 
 320. 
 Potidaea, inscription to those who 
 
 fell at, 327. 
 Prayers in Tasmania, 434. 
 Preachers do not preach all they 
 
 know, 13. 
 Priests did not invent the gods, 94. 
 
 — influence of, 306. 
 
 Primitive and savage, not the same, 
 150. 
 
 — man, 184, 187. 
 
 seen in his earliest works, 185. 
 
 on primitive man, 185 w. 
 
 means speaking man, 186. 
 
 Principles of anthropology, the two 
 new, 151. 
 
 — three, for the future, 153. 
 Private judgment, 4. 
 
 Cardinal Newman on, 4. 
 
 Problem of man, 189. 
 Problems, our own, 367. 
 Prometheus-legend inAu8tralia,4i8, 
 
460 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Proofs, cosmological, ontological, 
 
 and teleological, 92. 
 Property in Australia, land and 
 
 moveable, 421, 422. 
 Proverb, ' Fires love the village,' 
 
 242. 
 Psyche, Rohde on, 134. 
 
 — original meaning of, 209. 
 
 — meant breath, 209. 
 
 — and Menos, 211. 
 
 — never localised, 211. 
 
 — something subjective, 212. 
 
 — a something active, 213. 
 
 — never within the phrenes, 214. 
 
 — not the abode of the mind, 214. 
 
 — the, and the dead body, 216. 
 
 — breath, and thym<5s, mind, 305. 
 
 — after death, no longer within, 
 
 but without the body, 337. 
 Psychological religion, 116. 
 Psychology, postulate of, fulfilled 
 
 by language, 67. 
 
 — three stages of early, 207. 
 Pudgala, soul, 202. 
 Pulindas, a wild tribe, 165. 
 Ptlluga, Mincopie name for God, 
 
 179. 
 Punishments and rewards, belief in, 
 298. 
 
 — for the dead, 319. 
 Pfirawa Kassapa, 38. 
 Pyriphlegethon, 332. 
 Pythagoras, golden words ascribed 
 
 to, 129. 
 
 RABBI Josd, on the descent on 
 
 Sinai, 47, 
 Rahasya, or secret teaching, 30. 
 Rain, Shaddai giver of, 106. 
 — arrows shot to bring, 138. 
 Rajendralal Mitra's notes on Vedic 
 
 funerals, 435. 
 RajputS^na, the, 143. 
 Rammohun Roy, 3. 
 Rathakaras, the ^tbhus assigned 
 
 to the, 164. 
 Rationalists, as a name, 48. 
 Ratrl, the night, 165. 
 
 Reaction, 377. 
 Real as phenomenal, 95. 
 Religion, difficulty of lecturing on, 
 without giving oflence, i. 
 
 — what it appeals to, i. 
 
 — esoteric and exoteric, 21. 
 
 — three stages of, 76. 
 
 — agnosticism, the only safe founda- 
 
 tion of, 102. 
 
 — anthropic, 115. 
 
 — anthropological, 115. 
 
 recapitulation of, 336. 
 
 its results, 387, 
 
 no religion at all, 391. 
 
 — natural, 115. 
 
 — physical, 115. 
 
 — psychological, 1 1 6. 
 
 — former opinions on the sources 
 
 of, 116. 
 
 — had many sources, 117. 
 
 — Gruppe's view of, 126. 
 
 — ti-ibes without, 172. 
 
 — of the Niassans, 290-292. 
 
 Kramer on the, 290. 
 
 Religions, comparative study of, 5. 
 
 — bright side of all, 29. 
 
 — are all true, 98. 
 
 — historical, 146. 
 
 — of illiterate races, 147. 
 
 — study of non- Aryan and non- 
 
 Semitic, 149. 
 Religious discussions, 36. 
 
 — hopes, 207. 
 
 — ideas of Australians, 422. 
 
 — ideas of savages, untrustworthi- 
 
 ness of the accounts of, 428. 
 Rephaim, the, 370. 
 Result of an act, passive, 68. 
 Retrogressio in infinitum, 284. 
 i2tbhus, assigned to the Rathakaras, 
 
 164. 
 
 — their chief, Bribu, 164. 
 Robertson Smith, 146. 
 Rodasl, wife of Rudra, 164, 165. 
 Rohde, on Psyche, 134. 
 
 Rome, funeral ceremonies in, 271- 
 
 274. 
 Romulus, disappearance of, 51. 
 Roots, expressive of actions, 62. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 461 
 
 Roth OD the Tasmanians, 429 et seq. 
 Rfiach, Heb., wind or breath, 198. 
 Rudra and Agni, 163, 166. 
 
 — and his sister Ambika, 163, 41 3. 
 
 — wife of, 164. 
 
 — and Agni, distinct concepts, 166. 
 
 — as a name for Agni, 166 n. 
 
 — identified with Umapati, 167. 
 
 fi'ABARAS, a wild tribe, 165. 
 
 Sacrifices in honour of the dead not 
 known to Homer, 315. 
 
 Sacrificiam novendiale, 272. 
 
 Sadducees and Pharisees, 376. 
 
 St. Augustine's words, their influ- 
 ence on Newman, 89. 
 
 St. John on the Dayak's view of 
 sleep, 222. 
 
 St. John's Gospel, 391. 
 
 St. Paul at Athens, Dr. D. Brown 
 on, 90. 
 
 Saivala, Gothic, soul, 203. 
 
 Sa^-Hd-ananda, 114. 
 
 iSakti or power, Durga as, 160. 
 
 Salome, 155. 
 
 Safi^aya, the son of the Belaf^Aa, 38. 
 
 Sanskrit, words for soul in, 200-202. 
 
 San tec Indians, 124. 
 
 Sapinrfas, near relatives, 255. 
 
 Sarameya, sons of Saram^, 248. 
 
 jSarva, name of /Siva, 165. 
 
 /Sarv^ and Sa.v\^n\, names of Durga, 
 165. 
 
 — name of Agni, 166 n. 
 
 — among eastern people, 166 n. 
 /Sarvarl, a name of the night, 248. 
 Savage and primitive not the same, 
 
 150. 
 Savages, the lowest have names for 
 body and soul, 187. 
 
 — funeral ceremonies among, 274. 
 Scholars and their differences, 401. 
 Schoolcraft on totems, 123. 
 Scientific levity, 395. 
 
 Second birth, 383, 384. 
 
 Securis, an axe, 69. 
 
 Securus Judicat Orbis Terrarum, 89. 
 
 Sentient soul, 189. 
 
 Serpentine Indians, 405. 
 
 Shaddai, giver of rain, 106. 
 Shade, and concept of soul, 219. 
 Shades or images of man after death, 
 
 300. 
 Shadow, 218. 
 
 — from a root meaning to cover, 219. 
 
 — a corpse throws no, 224. 
 
 — shortening as man decays, 226. 
 
 — Zulu belief about the, 2 26. 
 'Shadowed,' 224. 
 
 Shadows suggested portraits, 219. 
 
 — superstitious sajnngs about, 223. 
 
 — Wanika afraid of their own, 223. 
 
 — Benin-negroes and, 223. 
 
 — Greenlanders and, 224. 
 Shang-te, supreme god, 105. 
 Sheol, 370. 
 
 Shoshoni, gesture-sign of the, 406. 
 Silicernium, 272. 
 Silver race, the, 361. 
 Simpulum, the, 273. 
 Sinai, descent of God on, 47. 
 Sisyphos, Tantalos, &c., sufferings 
 of, 319. 
 
 — Goethe on, 319, 320. 
 /Siva, husband of Durga, 163. 
 Six-legged spider, or soul, 291. 
 Skial, shades, 220. 
 
 Sky, fetish-name of the, 81. 
 
 — god of the, 77. 
 Sky-fetish, 84. 
 
 — soul of the, 231. 
 
 Sleep, Dayaks* view of, 222. 
 Sneezing, yawning, and hiccup, 139. 
 Sokrates, called an atheist, 15. 
 
 — Plato's descriptions of, 172. 
 
 — and Plato speak hesitatingly of 
 
 a future life, 323. 
 
 — in the Apology, on death, 323. 
 
 — his Daimonion, 362. 
 Somnium Scipionis, 331. 
 Somyas, the fathers, 249, 
 Sophocles' belief in life after death, 
 
 320. 
 Soul, Plato on the existence of the, 
 65, 299, 330. 
 
 — of the sky, Plato's, 104. 
 
 — of man, 182. 
 
 — names for, 187. 
 
462 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Soul and body, lowest savages have 
 words for, 187. 
 
 — immortality of the, 187. 
 
 — what is meant by, 188, 189. 
 
 — as seat of the passions, 189. 
 
 — organ of thought, 189. 
 
 — immortal element in man, 189. 
 
 — the living, 189. 
 
 — placed in the liver, kidneys, &c., 
 
 193- 
 
 — hardly ever mentioned as seated 
 
 in the brain, 194. 
 
 — after death, 195. 
 
 — words for, 196. 
 
 in Hebrew, 197-200. 
 
 in Sanskrit, 200-202. 
 
 in Tamil, 202, 203. 
 
 in Polynesian, 203, 204. 
 
 — called bones and body in the 
 
 Psalms, 200. 
 
 — and dancer, same word in Tamil, 
 
 206. 
 
 — and ghost, 214. 
 
 — Seele, saivala, 214. 
 
 — connected with names for sea, 
 
 Gothic saiv-s, 215. 
 
 — different origin of other names 
 
 for, 217. 
 
 — an eidolon on likeness, 219. 
 
 — why the belief in a soul is neces- 
 
 sary, 229. 
 
 — is to man what God is to the 
 
 universe, 230. 
 
 — the, in Man and in Nature, 230. 
 
 — of the sky, 231. 
 
 — an airy breath, 232. 
 
 — of Patroklos, 238. 
 
 — minus the body, 281. 
 
 — where and how it exists out of 
 
 the body, 294. 
 
 — after death, in the Avesta, 303. 
 
 — and the dead, Cyrus on, 325. 
 
 — the, does not die, 343. 
 
 — Zulus speak of it as gone home, 
 
 343- 
 
 — the true Self, 345. 
 
 — or Atma, 347. 
 
 — not destroyed by death, belief of 
 
 the Greeks, 327. 
 
 Soul, divinity of the, 330. 
 
 — called a god by Euripides, 330. 
 
 — Cicero on the, 331. 
 
 — immortality of, in Tasmania, 434. 
 Souls, our, before our birth, 344. 
 Sounds, Bopp on, 68. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, 73, 117, 224, 226. 
 
 — surrenders fetishism, 118. 
 Spirit, Epicharmos on the, 327. 
 Spirit- worship in Tasmania, 432. 
 Spirits eating, 307. 
 
 Spiritual only, 52. 
 
 — body, 52. 
 
 * Spitting with rain,' 227, 
 
 'Spittle of the stars,' 227. 
 
 Spurgeon, 18. 
 
 ^Sraddha offering, 256, 257. 
 
 Stanley, Dean, 18. 
 
 Stanley, found blood-drinking in 
 Africa, 191. 
 
 Stethos, the chest, 213. 
 
 Stha, the act of standing, 68. 
 
 Stoics, Daimonion of the, 363. 
 
 Storm, the breath of God, 198. 
 
 Strauss and Torney, on ancestor- 
 worship, 131. 
 
 Sub divo, 84. 
 
 (SCldra, or Vrishala, 247. 
 
 Sun, hasting not to go down about 
 a whole day, 55. 
 
 — and moon, worship of, among 
 
 the Mincopies, 1 79. 
 
 — as the first being who lived and 
 
 died, 298. 
 Superi, gods above, 297. 
 Supreme Being, Zenophon, Plato, 
 
 and Aristotle on, 100. 
 
 — Spirit of the Hottentots, 290. 
 Sui-vivals, theory of, 267. 
 Svaha and svadha, 293. 
 
 TABULATED evidence of anthro- 
 pology, 133. 
 Tahitian for heart, mind, &c., 204. 
 Tamil, words for soul, 202, 
 
 — soul and dancer, same word for, 
 
 in, 206, 
 Tapa, the creator, 136. 
 Taplin on the Australians, 425. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 463 
 
 Tasmania, religious ideas in, 428. 
 
 — H. L. Eoth on, 429. 
 
 — Dualism in, 430. 
 
 — Devil-worship in, 431. 
 
 — Monotheism in, 432. 
 
 — Spirit-worship in, 432. 
 
 — belief in the immortality of the 
 
 soul, 433, 434. 
 
 — polytheism in, 433. 
 
 — prayers in, 434. 
 
 — charms in, 434, 
 Tasmanians had no religion, 430. 
 
 — nature-gods among, 431, 
 Teeth, bar of the, 209. 
 Teleological proofs, 92. 
 
 Te-po, the night, or place of souls, 
 
 297. 
 Tertullian, 112. 
 
 — on honour paid to the dead, 273, 
 Thales on the gods, 65 n. 
 
 06.1TTO}, to bury, also to burn, 261. 
 Theognis on the lot of man, 319. 
 Theogonic process, 77. 
 Oiol narpwoi, paternal gods, 352, 
 Theologia affirmativa, 27. 
 
 — negativa, 27. 
 
 Theophilus, on the Christian God, 
 
 lOI. 
 
 Oeos, 360. 
 
 Three stages of religion, 76. 
 
 ■ found together in the Veda, 
 
 76. 
 of early psychology, 208. 
 
 — roads lead to the discovery of the 
 
 Divine in Man, 364. 
 Thucydides' funeral oration, 324. 
 Thunder, the voice of God, 198. 
 Thymos, 212. 
 
 — from thyein, 212. 
 
 — inward commotion, 212. 
 
 — thoughts and mind, 212. 
 
 — an activity, 213. 
 Tiele, Prof., 153. 
 
 Tien, sky, Chinese for god, 104. 
 Timid counsels, 6. 
 Tolerance, Archdeacon Wilson on, 
 22. 
 
 — taught by a comparative study 
 
 of religions, 59. 
 
 Tolerant spirit of Asoka, 42. 
 Toleration in other religions, 1 8. 
 
 — in ancient India, 1 8. 
 
 — preached by Buddhism, 39. 
 
 — in the Jewish religion, 45. 
 
 — Macaulay on, 59. 
 
 Tombs in Greece a place for family 
 
 gatherings, 264. 
 Tongue, bridling the, 43. 
 Totemism, 121, 408, 409. 
 Totems in Canada, 121. 
 
 — or clan mark, 121. 
 
 — their meaning, 123. 
 
 — are not charms, 1 24. 
 
 — their origin, 403. 
 Transmigration of souls held by 
 
 Pindar, 320. 
 Tregear, 152. 
 
 — his Comparative Dictionary of 
 
 Maori, 203, 
 Tribal customs of the Australians, 
 
 422. 
 rpira, 265. 
 
 True, a strong word, 94. 
 Truth, danger of keeping it secret, 
 
 30. 
 
 — in all religions, 388. 
 Tryambaka, 413. 
 
 Turanian languages, letter to Baron 
 
 Bunsen on, 148. 
 Two lessons of history, 335. 
 
 tJBERZTEHER, an overcoat, 70. 
 Ugra (Vayu), name of Agni, 166 n. 
 Ukqamata, the living spirit, 289. 
 Uma Haimavatl, 166. 
 
 — andGanga, daughters of Hima vat, 
 
 167. 
 Umane, or prepared soil, 1 24. 
 Umapati, husband of Durga, 167. 
 Uncivilised races, new epoch in the 
 
 study of, 149. 
 as showing the primitive state 
 
 of man, 150. 
 Unit, in ourselves or nature, 334. 
 Unity of Nature, 233. 
 
 an abstract term, 233. 
 
 Universality of a belief in God does 
 
 not prove its truth, 91. 
 
464 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Unkulunkulu, the creator and ruler 
 
 of the world, 285, 286, 287. 
 Upanishads, 30, 107. 
 
 — secret teaching of the, 30. 
 Utikxo, or Ukqamata, Gqika name 
 
 for God, 289. 
 Uyir, Tamil for life, 202. 
 
 VARVARAS, a wild tribe, 165. 
 
 Vaau, brilliant, 75. 
 
 Veda, the three stages of religion, 
 henotheistic, polytheistic, and 
 monotheistic, seen together in 
 the, 76. 
 
 — importance of, 145. 
 
 Vedanta predicates, the three, 109. 
 Vedic funeral, 240. 
 
 — Indians burnt and buried the 
 
 dead, 256. 
 their ideas of death, 342. 
 
 — funerals, Rajendralal Mitra's 
 
 notes on, 435 et seq. 
 
 — sacrifices, exclamations at, 293. 
 Veneration and adoration, 157. 
 Venison, 70. 
 
 Via Media, the, 90. 
 
 Virchow on primitive man, 185 n. 
 
 Vishita-Stuka, dishevelled locks, 
 
 name of Ka,ndi, 165. 
 Vitasti, a measure, 243 n. 
 Vomer, a ploughshare, 69. 
 Vyama, a measure, 242. 
 
 WAIRUA, spirit and shadow in 
 
 Maori, 220. 
 'Walls sweating,' 227. 
 War-charms, 125. 
 
 Werthers Leiden, influence of, 326. 
 West, the, as the home of the dead, 
 
 297. 
 Widow-burning, 239, 240. 
 recognisedin4th cent. B.C., 240 
 
 Widow-burning, not known in Vedic 
 times, 246, 
 
 founfled on a spurious read- 
 ing, 259. 
 
 Wilson, Archdeacon, on tolerance, 
 22. 
 
 Wolfian controversy, 441, 446. 
 
 Words, changes worked by time in 
 the sense of, 20. 
 
 Worship of the dead not a religion 
 in Aryan and Semitic nations, 
 141. 
 
 — of gods and ancestors distinct, 
 
 292. 
 different words for, in 
 
 Greek, 292. 
 Writing, a book, 70. 
 
 XENOPHANES on one God, 181. 
 Xenophon on the Supreme Being, 
 
 100. 
 Xenophon's Cyropaedia, 325. 
 
 YA(?J^AYALKYA and G'aratka- 
 
 rava Artabhaga, 301. 
 Yama, god of the fathers, 245. 
 
 — Pitris rejoicing with, 248, 250. 
 
 — in the highest heaven, 250, 
 Yeh, Commissioner, 105. 
 
 ZEUS, the name of, 94. 
 
 — from (rjv, to live, 81. 
 
 — euhemeristic explanation of, 1 34. 
 
 — or Jupiter, 134. 
 
 — father of gods and men, 354. 
 
 — heroes the offspring of, 364. 
 fcuCTiy/), a girder, 69. 
 
 Zulu, Colenso's, 3. 
 
 — belief about the shadow, 226. 
 
 — ancestral worship, 282. 
 Zulus, religion of, 286. 'A - 
 
 — speak of a soul as gone home^ 
 
 343- 
 
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