56
 
 COLLECTED WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. F. MAX MULLER 
 
 IV 
 
 THEOSOPHY OR PSYCHOLOGICAL 
 RELIGION
 
 THEOSOPHY 
 
 OB 
 
 PSYCHOLOGICAL RELIGION 
 
 C^e (Biffotli BiUtutie 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 BEFORE THE UNIVEFSITY OF GLASGOW 
 IN 1892 
 
 F. MAX MULLER, K.M. 
 
 FORMERLY FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE 
 
 NEW IMPRESSION 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 89 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 
 
 1911 
 
 [All rights restrved]
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 First Edition April, 1893; Second Edition October, 1895 
 
 Re-issued in the Collected Works June, 1898 
 
 Keprinted January, 1899 j July, 1903; January, 191 1
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 3L- 
 80 
 
 __ ...^ , 2- 
 
 rPHE discovery of God, the discovery of the Soul, 
 -'- and the discovery of the oneness of God and the 
 Soul, such have been the three principal themes of 
 my Gifford Lectures, and I have ventured to make 
 at least an attempt to treat each of them, not simply 
 as a philosopher, but as an historian. While the 
 philosophy of religion treats the belief in a First 
 Cause of the universe, and in an Ego or Self, and in the 
 true relation between the two, as matters of psycho- 
 logical development, or of logical consecution, it was 
 my purpose to show, not what the process of each of 
 these discoveries may or must have been, but what it 
 has been in the history of the world, so far as it is 
 known to us at present. I am fully aware that this 
 historical method is beset with grave difficulties, and 
 has in consequence found but little favour in the eyes 
 of speculative philosophers. So long as we look on 
 the history of the human race as something that 
 might or might not have been, we cannot wonder 
 that the student of religion should prefer to form his 
 opinions of the nature of religion and the laws of its 
 growth from the masterwork of Thomas Aquinas, 
 the Summa Sacrae Theologiae, rather than from the 
 Sacred Books of the East. But when we have learnt
 
 Vi PREFACE. 
 
 to recognise in history the realisation of a rational 
 pui-pose, when we have learnt to look upon it as in 
 the truest sense of the word a Divine Drama, the 
 plot revealed in it ought to assume in the eyes of the 
 philosopher also a meaning and a value far beyond the 
 speculations of even the most enlightened and logical 
 theologians. 
 
 I am not ignorant of the dangers of such an under- 
 taking, and painfully conscious of the imperfections 
 inevitable in a first attempt. The chief danger is 
 that we are very prone to find in the facts of 
 history the lesson which we wish to find. It is 
 well known how misleading the Hegelian method 
 has proved, because, differing in this respect from 
 Herder and from the historical school in general, 
 Hegel was bent on seeing in the history of 
 religion what ougJd to be there according to his 
 view of the logical necessity in the development of 
 the idea, if not of the psychological growth of the 
 human mind. The result has been that the historical 
 side in Hegel's Philosophy of Religion is almost 
 entirely untrustworthy. My endeavour has been on 
 the contrary to yield to no presumptions, but to 
 submit to facts only, such as we find them in the 
 Sacred Books of the East, to try to decipher and 
 understand them as we try to decipher and under- 
 stand the geological annals of the earth, and to 
 discover in them reason, cause and effect, and, if 
 possible, that close genealogical coherence which alone 
 can change empirical into scientific knowledge. This 
 genealogical method is no doubt the most perfect
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 when we can follow the growth of religious ideas, as 
 it were, from son to father, from pupil to teacher, 
 from the negative to the positive stage. But where 
 this is impossible, the analogical method also has its 
 advantages, enabling us to watch the same dogmas 
 springing up independently in various places, and to 
 discover from their similarities and dissimilarities 
 what is due to our common nature, and what must be 
 attributed to the influence of individual thinkers. 
 Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ah omnibus is not 
 necessarily what is true, but it is what is natural, it 
 constitutes what we have accustomed ourselves to call 
 Natural Religion, though few historical students would 
 now maintain that Supernatural Religion has no right 
 to the name of Natural Religion, or that it forms no 
 part of the Divine Drama of Man as acted from age 
 to acje on the historical stao-e of the world. 
 
 It has been my object in these three consecutive 
 courses of Lectures on Physical, Anthropological, and 
 Psychological religion to prove that what in my first 
 volume I put forward as a preliminary definition of 
 religion in its widest sense, namely the Perception of 
 the Infinite, can be shown by historical evidence to 
 have been the one element shared in common by all 
 religions. Only we must not forget that, like every 
 other concept, that of the Infinite also had to pass 
 through many phases in its historical evolution, be- 
 ginning with the simple negation of what is finite, 
 and the assertion of an invisible Beyond, and leading 
 up to a perceptive belief in that most real Infinite in 
 which we live and move and have our being. This
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 historical evolution of the concept of the objective 
 Infinite I tried to trace in my Lectures on Physical 
 Religion, that of the concept of the subjective Infinite 
 in my Lectures on Anthi'opological Religion, while 
 this last volume was reserved for the study of the 
 discovery of the oneness of the objective God and the 
 subjective Soul which forms the final consummation of 
 all religion and all philosophy. 
 
 The imperfections to which a first attempt in a 
 comparative study of religions is liable arise from the 
 enormous amount of the materials that have to be 
 consulted, and from the ever-increasing number of 
 books devoted to their interpretation. The amount 
 of reading that would be required in order to treat 
 this subject as it ought to be treated is more than any 
 single scholar can possibly force into the small span of 
 his life. It is easy to find fault and say. Qui trop 
 emhrasse, mal etreint, but in comparative studies it 
 is impossible to embrace too much, and critics must 
 learn to be reasonable and not expect from a scholar 
 engaged in a comparative study of many religions 
 the same thorough acquaintance with every one of 
 them which they have a right to expect from a 
 specialist. No one has felt more keenly than myself 
 the annoyance whenever I had to be satisfied with 
 a mere relata refero, or had to accept the judgments 
 of others, even when I knew that they were better 
 qualified to judge than myself. 
 
 This applies more particularly to my concluding 
 Lectures, Lect. XII to XV in this volume. These Lec- 
 tures contain the key to the whole series, and they
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 formed from the very beginning my final aim. They 
 are meant as the coping-stone of the arch that rests 
 on the two pillars of Physical and Anthropological 
 Religion, and unites the two into the true gate of the 
 temple of the religion of the future. They are to show 
 that from a purely historical point of view Christianity 
 is not a mere continuation or even reform of Judaism, 
 but that, particularly in its theology or theosophy it 
 represents a synthesis of Semitic and Aryan thought 
 which forms its real strength and its power of satis- 
 fying not only the requirements of the heart, but 
 likewise the postulates of reason. 
 
 My object was to show that there is a constant 
 action and reaction in the growth of religious ideas, 
 and that the first action by which the Divine was 
 separated from and placed almost beyond the reach 
 of the human mind, was followed by a reaction 
 which tried to reunite the two. This process, 
 though visible in many religions, more particularly 
 in that of the Vedanta, was most pronounced in 
 Judaism in its transition to Christianit}'. Nowhere 
 had the invisible God been further removed from 
 the visible world than in the ancient Jewish re- 
 ligion, and nowhere have the two been so closely 
 drawn together again and made one as by that 
 fundamental doctrine of Christianity, the divine 
 sonship of man. It has been my chief object to 
 show that this reaction was produced or at least 
 accelerated by the historical contact between Semitic 
 and Aryan thought, chiefly at Alexandi-ia, and on this 
 point I have to confess that I have ventured to go far
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 beyond Harnack, Drummond, Westcott, and others. 
 They seem to me to ascribe too little importance to 
 the influence of Greek philosophy in the formation of 
 the earliest Christian theology, while I feel convinced 
 that without that influence, the theology of Alexandria 
 would have been simply impossible, or would probably 
 never have advanced beyond that of the Talmud. What 
 weighs with me more than anything else in forming 
 this opinion are the facts of language, the philoso- 
 phical terminology which both Jews like Philo and 
 Christians like St. Clement employ, and which is clearly 
 taken over from Greek philosophy. Whoever uses 
 such words as Logos, the Word, Monogenes, the Only- 
 begotten, Prototokos, the First-born, Hyios tou theou, 
 the Son of God, has borrowed the very germs of his 
 religious thoughts from Greek philosophy. To suppose 
 that the Fathers of the Church took these words 
 without borrowing the ideas, is like supposing that 
 savages would carry away fire-arms without getting 
 at the same time powder and shot for firing them. 
 Words may be borrowed and their ideas may be 
 modified, purified, magnified by the borrower, but the 
 substance is always the same, and the gold that is 
 in a gold coin will always remain the same gold, 
 even though it is turned into a divine image. I 
 have tried to show that the doctrine of the Logos, the 
 very life-blood of Christianity, is exclusively Aryan, 
 and that it is one of the simplest and truest conclu- 
 sions at which the human mind can arrive, if the 
 presence of Reason or reasons in the world has once 
 been recognised.
 
 PREFACE. XI 
 
 We all know the words of Lucretius : 
 
 * Praeterca caeli rationes ordine certo 
 Et varia annorum cernebant tcmpora verti.' (v. 1182.) 
 
 If the human reason has once recognised Reason or 
 reasons (logoi) in the universe, Lucretius may call it 
 a fatal error to ascribe them to the gods, but are they 
 to be ascribed to no one ? Is the Reason or the Logos 
 in the world nothing but a name, a mere generalisa- 
 tion or abstraction, or is it a real power, and, if so, 
 whose power is it ? If the Klamaths, a tribe of Red 
 Indians, declared that the world was thought and 
 willed by the Old One on high, the Greeks went only 
 one step further by maintaining that this thought of 
 the Supreme Being, this Logos, as they called it, was 
 the issue, the offspring, the Son of God, and that it 
 consisted of the logoi or ideas or, as we now say, 
 the types of all created things. The highest of these 
 types being the type of manhood, the Alexandrian 
 Fathers of the Church in calling Christ the Logos 
 or the Word or the Son of God, were bestowing 
 the highest predicate which they possessed in their 
 vocabulary on Christ, in whom they believed that the 
 divine thought of manhood had been realised in all 
 its fulness. That predicate, however, was not of their 
 own workmanship, nor was it a mere modification of 
 the Semitic Wisdom, which in the beginning was with 
 God. That Wisdom, a feminine, may be recognised 
 in the Epiateme or knowledge with which the Father 
 begets the Son, but it cannot be taken at the same 
 time as the prototype of the masculine Logos or the 
 spoken Word or the Son of God.
 
 XU PREFACE. 
 
 This philosophical concept of the Son of God can- 
 not be derived from the Old Testament concept of 
 Israel as the son of God, nor from the occasional 
 expressions of personal piety addressed to Yahweh as 
 the Father of all the sons of man. ' Son of God,' as 
 applied to Jesus, loses its true meaning unless we take 
 it in its idiomatic Greek sense, as the Logos ^, and unless 
 we learn to understand what the Fathers of the Church 
 had fully understood, that the Logos or the Word of 
 God could become manifest to mankind in one form 
 only, namely, in that of man, the ideal or perfect man. 
 I am quite willing to admit, on the other hand, that 
 an expression such as ' Son of Man ' is of Semitic 
 growth. It is a solecism even when translated into 
 Greek. No Greek would ever have said son of man 
 in the sense of man, as little as any Roman would 
 ever have spoken of Agnus Dei, except under the 
 influence of Jewish thought. Son of man meant 
 simply man, before it was applied to the Messiah. 
 Thus only can we understand the antithesis which 
 meets us as early as the first century, ' the Son of God, 
 not the son of man ^.' 
 
 If we have once entered into the thoughts of Philo 
 and St. Clement as the representatives of Jewish and 
 Christian theology at Alexandria, we shall perceive 
 how closely the doctrine of the Incarnation is con- 
 nected with that of the Logos, and receives its true 
 historical explanation from it and from it alone. 
 
 ' In passages such as Matt. viii. 29, Mark xiv. 61, xvi. 39, 'Son of 
 God ' is used in its popular sense, which to the Jews was blasphemous. 
 ^ Barnabas, xii. 10, o^x' vl6s avdpwitov, dWa vios rod Qeov.
 
 PREFACE. xm 
 
 It was only on the strength of their old belief 
 in the Logos that the earliest Greek converts could 
 with perfect honesty, and, in spite of the sneers of 
 Celsus and other Greek philosophers, bring them- 
 selves to accept Jesus of Nazareth as the incarnate 
 Logos, as the Word or the Son of God. If they had 
 taken any lower view of Christ, if they had been 
 satisfied with a mythological Son of God, or with a 
 Nazarene Christ, and if they had held, as some theo- 
 logians held aftei*wards, nay as some hold even now, 
 that there was between Christ and His brethren what 
 they call a difference of kind, not of degree, however 
 wide, they could not have answered the taunts of 
 their former fellow-students, they could not have 
 joined the Catechetical School at Alexandria or 
 followed such teachers as Athenagoras, Pantaenus, 
 St. Clement, and Origen. 
 
 What Athenagoras, one of the earliest apologetes of 
 Christianity, thought about the Son of God, we can 
 learn from his defence which was addressed to 
 Marcus Aurelius, whore he says (cap. x) : ' Let no 
 one think it ridiculous that God should have a son. 
 For though the poets in their fictions represent the 
 gods as no better than men (that is, as begetting sons), 
 our mode of thinking is not the same as theirs, concern- 
 ing either God the Father or the Son. But the Son of 
 God is the Logos of the Father, in idea and in opera- 
 tion ; for after the pattern of Him and by Him were 
 all things made, the Father and the Son being one.' 
 
 All this refers to Christian theology or theosophy 
 only, and not to what we mean by Christian religion.
 
 XIV PREFACE. 
 
 This drew its life from another source, from the 
 historical personality of Jesus, and not from the 
 Alexandrian Logos This distinction is very im- 
 portant for the early history of Christianity, and we 
 must never forget that the Greek philosophers who 
 joined the Christian community, after they had once 
 made their peace with their philosophical conscience, 
 became true disciples of Christ and accepted with all 
 their heart the moral law which He had preached, 
 the law of love on which hang all His command- 
 ments. What that personality was they must have 
 known far better than we can, for Clement, having 
 been born in the middle of the second century, may 
 possibly have known Papias or some of his friends, 
 who knew the Apostles, and he certainly knew many 
 Christian writings which are lost to us ^. To restore 
 the image of that personality must be left to each be- 
 liever in Chi'ist, according to the ideals of which his 
 mind is capable, and according to his capacity of com- 
 prehending the deep significance of the few words of 
 Christ that have been preserved to us by the Apostles 
 and their disciples. What interests the historian is to 
 understand how the belief of a small brotherhood of 
 Galilean fishermen and their devotion to their Master 
 could have influenced, as they did, the religious beliefs 
 and the philosophical convictions of the whole of the 
 ancient world. The key to that riddle should be 
 sought for, I believe, at Alexandria rather than at 
 Jerusalem. But if that riddle is ever to be solved, it 
 is the duty of the historian to examine the facts and 
 
 ' Bigg, Christian Platonists, p. 46.
 
 PREFACE. XV 
 
 the facts only, without any bias whether of orthodoxy, 
 of rationalism, or of agnosticism. To the historian 
 orthodoxy has no existence. He has to deal with facts 
 only, and with deductions that can be justified by facts. 
 I cannot give here the names of all the books 
 which have been of use to me in preparing these 
 Lectures. Many of them are quoted in the notes. 
 My earliest acquaintance with the subject treated in 
 this volume goes back to the lectures of Weisse, Lotze, 
 and Niedner at Leipzig, and of Schelling and Neander 
 at Berlin, which I attended more than fifty years ago. 
 Since then the additions to our knowledge of ancient 
 religions, and of Christianity in its most ancient 
 form, have been so enormous that even a biblio- 
 graphical index would form a volume. I cannot, 
 however, conclude this preface without acknowledging 
 my obligations to the authors of some of the more 
 recent works which have been of the greatest use to 
 me. I feel deeply grateful to Professor Harnack, 
 whose Dogmen-gescJdchte, 1888^ is the most marvellous 
 storehouse of well-authenticated facts in the history 
 of the Christian Chm-ch, to Dr. Charles Bigg, whose 
 learned Bamj^ton Lectures on the Christian Platonists, 
 1888, make us regret that they were never continued, 
 and to Dr. James Drummond, whose work on Fhilo 
 Judaeus, 1888, has supplied me not only with most 
 valuable evidence, but likewise with the most careful 
 analysis of whatever evidence there exists in illus- 
 tration of the epoch of Philo Judaeus. That epoch 
 was an epoch in the true sense of the word, for it 
 made both Greeks and Jews pause for a time before
 
 Xvi PREFACE. 
 
 they went on, each on their own way. It was a real 
 epoch in the history of Christianity, for Philo's works 
 were studied by St. Clement and the other Fathers 
 of the Alexandrian Church, and opened their eyes to 
 see the truth in the inspired writings of Moses and 
 the Prophets, and likewise in the inspired writings of 
 Plato and Aristotle. It wt.s a real epoch in the history 
 of the world, if we are right in supposing that we owe 
 to the philosophical defenders of the Christian faith at 
 Alexandria the final victory of Christian philosophy 
 and Christian religion over the religion and philosophy 
 of the whole Roman Empire. 
 
 I ought, perhaps, to explain why, to the title of 
 Psychological Religion, originally chosen for this 
 my final course of GiSbrd Lectures, I have added 
 that of Theosophy. It seemed to me that this venera- 
 ble name, so well known among early Christian 
 thinkers, as expressing the highest conception of God 
 within the reach of the human mind, has of late been so 
 greatly misappropriated that it was high time to restore 
 it to its proper function. It should be known once for 
 all that one may call oneself a theosophist, without 
 being suspected of believing in spirit-rappings, table- 
 turnings, or any other occult sciences and black arts. 
 
 I am painfully aware that at seventy my eyes are 
 not so keen as they were at seventeen, and I must 
 not conclude this preface without craving the in- 
 dulgence of my readers for any misprints or wrong 
 references that may have escaped me. 
 
 F. M. M. 
 
 Oxford, February, 1893.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOE 
 
 Preface v 
 
 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
 The Historical Study of Religion. 
 
 Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht. — The Fundamental 
 Principle of the Historical School. — History of Religion is the True 
 Philosophy of Religion. — Natural Religion the Foundation of our 
 Belief in God. — The Real Purpose of the Biography of Agni. — 
 Natural Revelation. — The True Object of comparing the Christian 
 and other Religions. — Ancient Prayers. — Egyptian, Accadian, 
 Babylonian, Vedic, Avestic, Gfithas, Chinese, Mohammedan, 
 Modern Hindu Prayers. — Moses and the Shepherd. — Advantages 
 of a Comparative Study of Religions 1-26 
 
 LECTURE IL 
 The True Value of the Sacred Books Examined. 
 
 Historical Documents for Studying the Origin of Religion. — 
 Religious Language. — Literary Documents. — Modern Date of 
 Sacred Books. — Fragmentary Character of the Sacred Books of 
 (4) b
 
 XVIU TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 India. — Loss of the Sacred Literature of Persia. — The Relation 
 between the Avesta and the Old Testament. — ' I am that I am ' 27-57 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 The Histoeical Relationship of Ancient Religions 
 AND Philosophies. 
 
 How to compare Ancient Religions and Ancient Philosophies. — 
 Common Humanity. — Common Language. — Common History. — 
 Common Neighbourhood. — Relation between the Religions of 
 India and Persia. — Independent Character of Indian Philosophy. — 
 The Indian View of Life. — Language, the Common Background of 
 Philosophy. — Common Aryan Religion and Mythology. — Charites 
 = Haritas. — The later Growth of Philosophy. — Help derived by 
 Philosophy from Language. — Independent Character of Indian 
 Philosophy. — Was Greek Philosophy borrowed from the East ? — 
 Indian Philosophy autochthonous ..... 58-86 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 The Relation of Psychological to Physical and 
 Anthropological Religion. 
 
 The Constituent Elements of Religion. — My own Division. — 
 The meaning of Psychological Religion. — I. Return of the Soul to 
 God, after death. — II. Knowledge of the unity of the Divine and 
 the Human. — Veda and Vedanta. — XJpanishads. — Vedanta-Sfttras. 
 — Commentary by <Sankara^arya. — Commentary by Ramanu^a. — 
 Three Periods of Vedanta Literature. — Peculiar Character of 
 Indian Philosophy. — Philosophy begins with doubting the Evi- 
 dence of the Senses. — iSruti or Inspiration. — Tat tvam asi. — 
 Two Vedanta Schools. — The XJpanishads difficult to translate 87-112
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XIX 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 JOUBNEY OF THE SoUL AFTER DeATH. 
 
 PAOE 
 
 Different Statements from the Upauisliads. — Passages from the 
 Upanishads. — Difficulties of Interpretation.— Historical Progress 
 in the Upanishads. — Attempts to harmonise the different State- 
 ments of the Upanishads. — Vedanta-SCltras. — Independent State- 
 ments in the Mantras.— Mythological Language misunderstood. — 
 The Devayana or Path of the Gods. — Metempsychosis. — Reality 
 of Invisible Things. — Absence of Hells. — Transmigration as con- 
 ceived in the Laws of Manu. — The Three Qualities, Darkness, 
 Activity, and Goodness. — The Nine Classes. — Punishments of 
 the Wicked. — Bridges 113-176 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 The Eschatology of the Avesta. 
 
 General similarities in Eschatological Legends. — Peculiar re- 
 lation between the Religions of India and Persia. — Zoroaster 
 teaches neither Fire-worship nor Dualism. — The Problem of the 
 Origin of Evil. — The Angels, originally qualities of Ormazd. — 
 Asuras and Suras. — Abjuration of Daeva Worship. — Immortality 
 of the Soul in the Avesta. — The Vitris or Fathers as conceived in 
 the Vedic Hymns. — Fate of the individual Soul at the general 
 resurrection. — Rewards and Punishments after Death. — Good 
 Works in the shape of a Beautiful Maiden. — Influence on Moham- 
 medanism. — Extract from the Minokhired on the Weighing of 
 the Dead. — Arrival of the Soul before the throne of Bahman and 
 Ahuramazda. — Common backgiound of Avesta and Veda. — Pitaras, 
 the Fathers in the Veda, the Fravashia in the Avesta. — Wider 
 meaning of Fravashi . . ..... 177-207 
 
 b 2
 
 XX TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 ESCHATOLOGY OF PlATO. 
 
 PAaB 
 
 Plato's Authority. — Plato's Mythological Language. — The Tale 
 of the Soul. — The Charioteer and the Horses. — The Procession of 
 the Gods. — Belief in metempsychosis in Plato and the Upanishads. — 
 The Nine Classes of Plato and Manu. — Human Souls migrating 
 into Animal Bodies. — The Story of Er. — Coincidences and Dif- 
 ferences. — Truth underlying Myth. — The Haidas on the Immor- 
 tality of the Soul. — The Polynesians on the Immortality of the 
 Soul.— The last result of Physical Religion . . . 208-232 
 
 LECTURE VIIL 
 Teue Immoetality. 
 
 Judaism and Buddhism. — The Vedanta Doctririe on True 
 Immortality. — Personality, a Limitation of the Godhead. — 
 Struggle for higher conception of the Godhead. — Name for the 
 highest Godhead, Brahman, Purusha, Prawa, Spirit. — Other 
 Names of the Supreme Being, Skambha. — Names for the Soul. — 
 Aham, Ego. — Atman. — Dialogue from the ITAandogya-Upaiiishad. 
 — Deductions from the Dialogue. — iSankara's Eemarks. — The True 
 Nature of the Individual Soul. — The Phenomenal and the Real. — 
 The Atraan unchanged amidst the changes of the World. — 
 Nescience or Avidya the Cause of Phenomenal Semblance. — 
 Satyabhedavada and Bhedabhedavada. — The Approach of the 
 Soul to Brahmnn. — Later Speculations. — Identity of the Soul 
 with Brahmim 233-281 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 The Vedanta-Philosophy. 
 
 The Vedanta as a Philosophical System. — Identity of Soul and 
 Brahman. — Dialogue from the .ff'AS.ndogya-TJpanishad. — Union, not 
 Absorption. — Knowledge, not Love of God. — Avidya or Nescience.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XXI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 — Brahman as sat, as iit, and as ananda. — Philosophy and 
 Iteligion. —The Supreme Lord or Isvara. — Upadhis, Sftkshmaiarira, 
 and Sthftlasarira. — Creation or Euianation. — Brahman and Avidya 
 the Cause of the Phenomenal World. — The Essence of Man. — 
 Karuian or Apftrva. — Different States of the Soul. — Kramamukti. 
 G'lvanmukti. — Personality of the Soul .... 282-311 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 The Two Schools of the Vedanta. 
 
 Equivocal Passages in the Upanishads. — (Sankara and Ramanuga. 
 — Ramanu^a. — Sankara. — Moral Character of the Vedanta. — 
 Ascetic Practices. — Esotei-ic Doctrines. — Difference between India 
 and Greece 312-335 
 
 LECTURE XL 
 
 SUFIISM. 
 
 Religion, System of Relations between Man and God. — Sufiism, 
 its Origin. — Abstract of Sufi Doctrines. — Rabia, the earliest Sufi. — 
 Connection of Sufiism with Early Christianity. — Abu Said Abul 
 Cheir, Founder of Sufiism. — Abu Yasld and Junaid. — Sufi, Fakir, 
 Uarwish. — Asceticism.— The Mesnevi. — Moliammed's Opinion. — 
 The Four Stages. — The Poetical Language of Sufiism. — Morality 
 of Sufiism. — Extracts from Sufi Poets .... 336-300 
 
 LECTURE XIL 
 The Logos. 
 
 Religion a Bridge between the Visible and the Invisible. — 
 Oriental Influences in Early Christianity. — Borrowing of Religious 
 Thoughts. — Philo and his Allegorical Interpretation. — Synesius.
 
 XXU TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAQF 
 
 — Logos. — The Logos among the Klamaths. — Tlie Historical 
 Antecedents of the Logos. — The Origin of Species. — Heraclitus. — 
 Anaxagoras. — Socrates and Plato. — Aristotle. — The Stoics. — 
 Piiilo's Inheritance. — Philo's Philosophy. — The Logos a Bridge 
 between God and the World. — Logos as the Son of God. — 
 Wisdom or Sophia. — Monogenes, the Only Begotten. — Jupiter 
 as Son of God 361-423 
 
 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 Alexandrian Christianity. 
 
 Stoics and Neo-PIatonists. — Plotinus. — Letter froaa Plotinus 
 to Flaccus. — Ecstatic Intuition. — Alexandrian Christianity. St. 
 Clement.— The Trinity of St. Clement.— Origen.— The Alogoi 424-45S 
 
 LECTUEE XIV. 
 
 DiONYSIUS THE ArEOPAGITB. 
 
 The Logos in the Latin Church. — Tertulliau. — Dionysius the 
 Areopagite. — Writings of Dionysius. — Translation by Scotus 
 Erigena. — The Influence of the Dionysian Writings. — Sources of 
 Dionysius. — The Daimones. — Influence of Dionysius during the 
 Middle Ages. — The System of Dionysius. — Milman on Dionysius. — 
 Ileal Attraction of Dionysius. — The Fifth Century. — Five Stages 
 of Mystic Union. — Mysteries. — Mystic and Scholastic Theology. — 
 Mysticism, and Christian Mysticism. — Objections to Mystic 
 Religion reconsidered. — St. Bernard. — Love of God. — Ecstasis, 
 according to St. Bernard. — St. Bernard's Position in the Church 
 and State. — Hugo of St. Victor, Knowledge more certain than 
 Faith. — Thomas Aquinas 459-498
 
 TABT.E OF CONTENTS. XXlll 
 
 LECTURE XV. 
 Christian Theosophy. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Mystic Christianity. — The German Mystics. — The Fourteenth 
 Century in Germany. — The Interdict. — The People and the 
 Priesthood. — Dominicans and Franciscans. — Eckhart and Tauler. — 
 Eckhart's Mysticism. — Eckhiirt's Definition of the Deity. — Creation 
 is Emanation. — The Human Soul. — The Messiah and the Logos. — 
 The Approach to God. — Birth of the Son. — Passages from the 
 Fourth Gospel. — Objections to Mystic Eeligion. — Excessive As- 
 ceticism. — Sinlessness. — Want of Reverence for God. — Religion, 
 the Bridge between the Finite and the Infinite . . 499-644 
 
 Index 545
 
 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
 
 THE HISTORICAL STUDY OF RELIGION. 
 Die Weltgeschichte 1st das Weltgrericht. 
 
 J)ie 2BcIt9c[cf)icf)tc ift ba^ SBcftvjcnc^t— this is one of 
 those pregnant sayings of Schiller s which have 
 a far wider application than we at first suspect. It 
 is difficult to translate these words literally, without 
 depriving them of their idiomatic force. Literally 
 translated they mean, ' the history of the world is the 
 judgment of the world.' But in German, the judg- 
 ment of the world means at the same time ' the day 
 of judgment,' or 'doom's day.' 
 
 MHiat Schiller meant therefore was that every day 
 is a day of doom, that the history of the world, if 
 comprehended as a whole, is the true judgment of 
 the world, and that we must learn to understand that 
 judgment, and to accept it as right. If we adopt 
 this view of Schiller's, and learn to look upon the 
 history of the world as an unbroken vindication of 
 the highest wisdom, and of the most perfect justice 
 which, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, 
 govern the world, it would follow that what applies 
 to the history of the world in general, must likewise 
 apply to all that constitutes that history. Schiller's 
 
 (4) B
 
 2 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
 
 dictum would in fact express in general terms what I 
 have tried to explain to you in my former lectures as 
 the fundamental principle of the Historical School. 
 
 The Pundamental Principle of the Historical School. 
 
 The followers of that school hold with Schiller that 
 
 the history of religion, for instance, is the truest 
 
 vindication of religion, the history of philosophy the 
 
 best judgment of philosophy, the history of art the 
 
 highest and final test of art. If in this spiiit we study 
 
 the history of the world, or any part of it, we shall 
 
 learn that many things may seem wrong for the time 
 
 being, and may, nay must be right for the time to 
 
 come, for all time or for eternity. Many things which 
 
 seem imperfect, are seen to be most perfect, if only 
 
 understood as a preparation for higher objects. If 
 
 we have once brought ourselves to see that there is an 
 
 unbroken continuity, a constant ascent, or an eternal 
 
 purpose, not only a mechanical development, in the 
 
 history of the world, we shall cease to find fault with 
 
 what is as yet an imperfect germ only, and not yet 
 
 the perfect flower or the final fruit; we shall not 
 
 despise the childhood of the world, nor the childhood 
 
 of the religions of the world, though we cannot 
 
 discover therein that mature and perfect manhood 
 
 which we admire in later periods of history. We 
 
 shall learn to understand the imperfect or less perfect 
 
 as a necessary preparation for the more perfect. No 
 
 doubt such a view of the history of the world requires 
 
 faith; we have often to believe, even though we 
 
 cannot prove, simply from a firm conviction that it 
 
 cannot be otherwise, that there must be law aud 
 
 order and purpose in the world, and that there must
 
 THE HISTORICAL STUDY OF RELIGION. 3 
 
 be goodness and justice in the Godhead. That faith 
 was expressed by Friedrich Logau in the well-known 
 verse, as translated by Longfellow, ' Though the mills 
 of God gi'ind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small.' 
 And the same faith found utterance long ago in 
 Euripides also, when he said : ' 'Tis true the working 
 of the gods is slow, but it is sure and strong ^' 
 
 Anyhow, those philosophers who have l)ecome 
 reconciled to the idea of the survival of the fittest, 
 can hardly object to the principle that what is, is fit, 
 and will in the end prove right, or, to put it into 
 Schiller's words, that the ^ Weltgedchlchte ist das 
 Weltgericht.' 
 
 History of Religion is the True Philosophy of Religion. 
 
 You will understand now why I felt so strongly 
 that the most satisfactory way of carrying out the 
 intentions of the founder of this lectureship, the only 
 effective way of studying what is called the philo- 
 sophy of religion, or the philosophical criticism of 
 religion, is to study the history of religion. History 
 sifts and tests all forms and varieties of religion far 
 more effectively than any single philosopher could 
 possibly hope to do. I do not mean to say that a 
 purely theoretic, as distinguished from an historical 
 treatment of religion, is utterly useless. Far from 
 it. I know that Kant scouts the idea that the history 
 of philosophy is itself philosophy. But is not Kant's 
 own philosophy by this time part and parcel of the 
 history of philosophy ■? It is quite true that we can 
 study a science apart from its history. We can, 
 for instance, study the science of Political Economy 
 
 ' Bacchae, 882, 'Opi^arai fxoXts, dW oixcu^ Tnardv t6 y( Ouov a$fvos. 
 B 2
 
 4 INTEODUCTORY LECTURE. 
 
 apart from all history. We can learn what ought to 
 be and what ought not to be, according to the general 
 principles of that science. All I maintain is that it 
 is better to test the truth of these general principles 
 by history, and not by theory only. Certain theories 
 of Political Economy which seemed quite perfect in 
 the abstract, have been tried and found wanting. 
 We hear it said even now that the principles of free 
 trade and protection are on their trial. What does 
 that mean, except that they are being tried by the 
 judgment of history, by results, by facts, by statistics 
 against which there is no appeal, unless we say with 
 some philosophers ' tant pis pour lesfaits,' or ' tant pis 
 pour Vhistoire.' 
 
 A strategist in his study may know all the rules of 
 the science of war, but the great general must know 
 how these rules have stood the test of history; he 
 must study the actual battles that have been fought, 
 and thus learn to account for the victories and the 
 defeats of the greatest commanders. In the same 
 way then, as the true science of war is the history of 
 war, the true science of religion is, I believe, the 
 history of religion. 
 
 Natural Religion tlie roundation of our Belief in God. 
 
 To show that, given the human mind such as it is, 
 and its environment such as it is, the concept of God 
 and a belief in God would be inevitable, is something, 
 no doubt. Still you know how all the proofs of the 
 existence of God that have been framed by the most 
 eminent philosophers and theologians have been con- 
 troverted by equally eminent philosophers and theolo- 
 crians. You know that there survive even now some
 
 THE HI8T0KICAL STUDY OF RELIGION. O 
 
 half-petrified philosophers and theologians who call it 
 heresy to believe that unassisted human reason could 
 ever attain to a concept of or a belief in God, who 
 maintain that a special revelation is absolutely neces- 
 sary for that purpose, but that such a revelation was 
 granted to the human race twice only^ once in the 
 Old, and once in the New Testament. They point 
 triumphantly to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason 
 which has demolished once for all, they say, such poor 
 human cobwebs as the cosmological, the teleological, 
 and the ontological proofs of the existence of a Divine 
 Being, and has thus proved, from a quite unexpected 
 quarter, that unassisted human reason cannot possibly 
 attain to a sure knowledge even of the mere existence 
 of God. 
 
 It may be said that such views are mere survivals, 
 and not exactly survivals of the fittest. Those who 
 maintain them, certainly know not what they do. 
 But such views, though really subversive of all true 
 religion^ are very often preached as essential to Chris- 
 tianity, and many who know not the history of religion, 
 are deceived by their reiterated assertion. 
 
 You know that in a court of law a clever pleader 
 can defend almost anything ; and in the court of 
 philosophy also, I believe that pleaders can always 
 be found to argue most eloquently whether for the 
 plaintiff or for the defendant. The only evidence, 
 however, which safely tells in the end, consists in 
 facts. 
 
 The Real Purpose of the Biography of AgTii. 
 
 That being the case, I devoted the principal part of 
 my second course of lectures to placing before you 
 facts, — facts which cannot be controverted, or which,
 
 6 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
 
 at all events, have not been controverted, and which 
 show how the human mind, unassisted by what is 
 called special revelation, found its way step by step 
 from the lowest perception of something material and 
 visible to the highest concept of a supreme and 
 invisible God. I chose for that purpose what I 
 called the Biography of Agni or fire, that is the 
 succession of the various ideas called forth in the 
 human mind by the various aspects of fire, which be- 
 ginning with the simplest perception of the fire on the 
 hearth, as giving warmth and light and life to young 
 and old, culminated in the concept o^ Agni as the god 
 of light, the creator and ruler of the whole world. 
 
 This was an arduous task, and it may have proved 
 as tedious to my hearers as it proved laborious to 
 myself. Still, there was no other way of silencing 
 all gain say ers once for all. If any so-called Christian 
 Divine doubts the fact that in times past ' God did not 
 leave himself without witness, in that he did good, and 
 gave us rain from heaven, and fire also, that is light 
 and warmth, from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling 
 our hearts with food and gladness ' (Acts xiv. 17), 
 what I call the biography of Agni will in future supply 
 evidence that ought to convince both those who believe 
 and those who disbelieve the words of St. Paul and 
 Barnabas, and that anyhow cannot be gainsayed. I 
 can quite understand the anger that has been roused 
 by the production of this evidence, though I cannot 
 admire the efforts that have been made to discredit it. 
 It is quite possible that in putting together this 
 biography of Agni, I may have left out some passages 
 from the Veda which would have been helpful for my 
 purpose. Let them be produced, and I shall be most
 
 THE HISTORICAL STUDY OF RELIGION. 7 
 
 grateful. It is quite possible also that here and there 
 I may have misapprehended the exact meaning of a 
 verse taken from the Veda. Again, let it be proved, 
 and I shall be most grateful. I am the last man to 
 claim infallibility, not even in the interpretation of 
 the Veda. But if people wish to controvert any 
 statements of mine of which they disapprove, they 
 ought to know that there are two ways only of doing 
 it. They must show either that my facts are wrong, 
 or that my deductions from these facts are faulty. In 
 either case, no one will feel more grateful to them 
 than I myself For, if they can show that my facts 
 were wrong, they will of course supply us at the same 
 time with the true facts, and if my conclusions were 
 faulty, that can be settled once for all by the rules of 
 loffic. If critics would confine themselves to these 
 two tasks, they would be conferring a benefit on us 
 for which every true scholar would be truly grateful. 
 But if they deal, as so many do, in mere rhetoric or 
 invective, they must not be offended if no notice 
 is taken of their rage and vain imaginings. These 
 matters are far too serious, nay, to my mind, far too 
 sacred for mere wrangling. Though some excellent 
 divines may differ from me, they ought to know that 
 the cause of truth is never served by mere assertions, 
 still less by insinuations, and that such insinuations 
 are far more dishonouring to those who utter them 
 than they could possibly be to those against whom 
 they are uttered. 
 
 Natural Bevelation. 
 
 I maintain, therefore, until any of my statements have 
 been refuted by facts, that we can see in the history of 
 Vedic Religion, how the human mind was led by a
 
 8 INTRODUCTOKY LECTURE. 
 
 natui'al revelation, far more convincing than any so- 
 called special revelation, from the perception of the 
 great phenomena of nature to the conception of agents 
 behind these phenomena. The case of Agni or fire was 
 chosen by me as a typical case, as but one out of 
 many, all showing how the phenomena of nature forced 
 the human mind with a power irresistible to human 
 reason, to the conception of and a belief in agents 
 behind nature, and in the end to a belief in one Agent 
 behind or above all these agents ; to a belief in One 
 God of Nature, a belief in a cosmic or objective 
 Deity. Here was my answer to the statement repeated 
 again and again, that the human mind, unassisted by 
 a special revelation, was incapable of conceiving a 
 Supreme Being. My answer was not an argument, 
 nor a mere assertion. My answer consisted in his- 
 torical facts, in chapter and verse quoted from the 
 Veda ; and these facts are stubborn things, not to be 
 annihilated by mere clamour and chiding. 
 
 The True Object of comparing tlie Christian and other 
 Relig'ions. 
 
 I must confess, however, that I did not expect that 
 the attacks on what I called the historical proof of the 
 existence of a Supreme Being would have come froia 
 the quarters from which they came. I thought that 
 those who profess and call themselves Christians 
 would have welcomed the facts which confirm the 
 teaching of St. Paul. I hoped they would have seen 
 that the facts which I collected from the ancient 
 religions of the world formed in reality the only safe 
 foundation of Natural Religion, and indirectly the 
 strongest confirmation of the truth of the Christian
 
 THE HISTORICAL STUDY OF RELIGION. 9 
 
 religion. That religion, I say once more, should 
 challenge rather than deprecate comparison. If we 
 find certain doctrines -which we thought the exclusive 
 property of Christianity in other religions also, does 
 Christianity lose thereby, or is the truth of these 
 doctrines impaired by being recognised by other 
 teachers also ? You know that it has often been said 
 that almost every Christian doctrine could be traced 
 back to the Talmud. I am no judge on that subject ; but 
 if it were so, what should we lose ? All I can say is that 
 I have never met in the extracts from the Talmud with 
 the most characteristic, nay, the fundamental doctrine 
 of Christianity, the recognition of fhe divine element 
 in man, or the divine sonship of man. Many things 
 which Christianity shares in common with the Talmud, 
 it shares in common, as we know now, with other 
 religions likewise. It is true that Hillel. when asked 
 to describe the religion of the Jews in a few words, 
 replied, ' What thou wouldst not have done to thee, do 
 not that to others. This is the whole law ; all the 
 rest is but interpretation. Go, then, and learn what it 
 means ^.' But it is well known by this time that the 
 same doctrine occurs in almost every religion. Con- 
 fucius said : ' What I do not wish men to do to me, I 
 also wish not to do to men.' We read in the Mahabh^- 
 rata : 'Hear the sum total of duties, and having heard, 
 bear it in mind — Thou shalt not do to others what is 
 disagreeable to thyself ' (Pandit, 1871, p. 238). Why 
 then should Christians wish to claim an exclusive 
 property in this truth ? 
 
 The Talmud, we must remember, sprang from the 
 same historical soil as Chi-istianity, its authors breathed 
 
 ' Talmud babli, Sabbath, fol. 31 a. Kuenen, Hibbert Lectures, p. 211.
 
 10 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
 
 the same air as the disciples of Christ. Coincidences 
 between the two are therefore most natural, and it 
 does by no means follow that the Talmud can always 
 claim a priority in time. But whoever may claim 
 priority, whoever may have lent or borrowed, I confess 
 I rejoice whenever I meet with passages from the 
 Talmud or any other Sacred Book, that remind me of the 
 Old or the New Testament. We read, for instance, in the 
 Talmud : ' Be not as slaves that minister to the Lord 
 with a view to receive recompense ; but be as slaves 
 that minister to the Lord without a view to receive 
 recompense ; and let the fear of Heaven be upon you ' 
 (Antigonus of Sochow, in Pirkd Aboth I. 3 ; Kuenen, 
 L c. p. 212). And again, ' Do His will as if it were thy 
 will, that He may do thy will as if it were His will ' 
 (Gamaliel, I.e. II. 4). 
 
 These are Christian sentiments ; they may or may not 
 have been borrowed from the Talmud. They are rays 
 from a sun that lighteth the whole world. Marcus 
 Aurelius said : ' Love mankind, follow God' (vii. 31) ; 
 Epictetus said : 'Dare to look up to God and say: Do 
 with me henceforth as Thou wilt. I am of one mind 
 with Thee. I am Thine. I decline nothing that seems 
 good to Thee. Lead me whither Thou wilt. Clothe me 
 as Thou wilt. Wilt thou that I take office or live a 
 private life, remain at home or go into exile, be poor 
 or rich, I will defend Thy purpose with me in respect 
 of all these ' (Discourses, II. 16). These are truly 
 Christian sentiments, Christian, because eternal and 
 universal ; but it would be very difficult to prove that 
 they were borrowed either from or by Chiistianity. And 
 why should every truth be borrowed from Christianity ? 
 Why should not Christianity also have borrowed ?
 
 THE HISTOBICAL STUDY OF RELIGION. 11 
 
 And why should not certain truths be world-wide 
 and universal ? To me those truths seem to gain rather 
 than to lose in power, if we accept them as springing 
 up spontaneously in different minds, than if we main- 
 tain that they were conceived once only, and then 
 borrowed by others. 
 
 The reason why people will not see the identity 
 of a truth as enuntiated in different religions, is 
 generally the strangeness of the garb in which it is 
 clothed. No doubt the old heathen names of the 
 Gods, even of their Supreme God, are often offensive 
 to us by what they imply. But is it not all the more 
 interesting to see how, for instance, Aristides the 
 Sophist (176 A.D.), though retaining the name of 
 Jupiter, is striving with all his might for a higher 
 conception of the Deity, purer even than what we 
 find in many portions of the Old Testament. This is 
 how Aristides speaks of Jupiter : 
 
 ' Jupiter made all things ; all things whatever arc 
 the works of Jupiter — rivers, and the earth, and the 
 sea, and the heaven, and whatever is between or above, 
 or beneath them, and gods and men, and all living 
 things, and all things visible and intelligible. First 
 of all, he made himself ; nor was he ever brought up in 
 the caverns of Crete ; nor did Saturn ever intend to 
 devour him ; nor did he swallow a stone in his stead ; 
 nor was Jupiter ever in any danger, nor will he ever 
 be. . . . But he is the First, and the most ancient, and 
 the Prince of all things, and Himself from Himself.' 
 
 Why should we be less able and willing to see 
 through the mists of mythology than those who were 
 brought up with a belief in their own mythological 
 gods ? Why should we decline to recognise the higher
 
 12 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
 
 purpose that was in these divine names from the 
 beginning, and which the best among the pagans never 
 failed to recognise ? 
 
 Ancient Prayers. 
 
 It has often been said that what we mean by- 
 prayer does not or even cannot exist in any of the 
 pagan religions. It may be true that the loving re- 
 lation between man and God is absent in the prayers 
 of the heathen world. It is certainly true that there are 
 some religions unfavourable to prayer, particularly if 
 prayer is taken in the sense of praying for worldly 
 blessings. The Buddhists in general know of no 
 prayer addressed to a superintendent deity, because 
 they deny the existence of such a deity ; but even 
 prayers addressed to the Buddhas or Buddhist Saints 
 are never allowed to assume the character of petitions. 
 They are praises and meditations rather than solicita- 
 tions. Prayers in the sense of petitions are considered 
 actually sinful by the Sin-shiu sect of Buddhists in 
 Japan. It is different with the followers of Confucius. 
 They believe in a God to whom prayers might be 
 addressed. But Professor Legge tells us that we look 
 in vain for real prayers in their ancient literature, and 
 this is most likely due to that sense of awe and 
 reverence which Confucius himself expressed when he 
 said that we should respect spii-itual beings, but keep 
 aloof from them ^. 
 
 It is true also that when man has once arrived at 
 a philosophical conception of the Deity, his prayers 
 assume a form very different from the prayers ad- 
 dressed by a child to his Father in heaven. Still even 
 such prayers are full of interest. Almost the last 
 
 * Confucian Analects, VI. 20.
 
 THE HISTORICAL STUDY OF RELIGION. 13 
 
 word which Greek philosophy has said to the world, 
 is a prayer which we find at the end of the commen- 
 tary of Simplicius on Epictetus, a prayer full of honest 
 purpose : 
 
 ' I beseech Thee, O Lord, the Father, Guide of our 
 reason, to make us mindful of the noble origin Thou 
 hast thought worthy to confer upon us ; and to assist 
 us to act as becomes free agents ; that we may be 
 cleansed from the in'ational passions of the body and 
 may subdue and govern the same, using them as in- 
 struments in a fitting manner ; and to assist us to the 
 right direction of the reason that is in us, and to its 
 participation in what is real by the light of truth. 
 And thirdly, I beseech Thee, my Saviour, entirely to 
 remove the darkness from the eyes of our souls, in 
 order that we may know aright, as Homer says, both 
 God and men.' (See J. A. Farrer, Paganism and 
 Christianity, p. 44.) 
 
 I shall devote the rest of this introductory lecture 
 to reading some extracts which will show, I hope, 
 that the heathen also could utter prayers, and some 
 prayers which require but little modification before 
 we ourselves can join in them. 
 
 Egryptiau Prayer. 
 ' Hail to Thee, maker of all beings, Lord of law, Father 
 of the Gods ; maker of men, creator of beasts ; Lord of 
 
 grains, making food for the beasts of the field The 
 
 One alone without a second King alone, single among 
 
 the Gods ; of many names, unknown is their number. 
 
 I come to Thee, Lord of the Gods, who hast existed from 
 the beginning, eternal God, who hast made all things that 
 are. Thy name be my protection ; prolong my term of life
 
 14 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
 
 to a good age ; may my son be in ray place (after me) ; may 
 my dignity remain with him (and his) for ever, as is done to 
 the righteous, who is glorious in the house of his Lord. 
 
 Who then art Thou, O my father Amon 1 Doth a father 
 forget his son 1 Surely a wretched lot awaiteth him who 
 opposes Thy will ; but blessed is he who knoweth Thee, for 
 Thy deeds proceed from a heart full of love. I call upon 
 Thee, O my father Amon ! behold me in the midst of many 
 peoples, unknown to me ; all nations are united against me, 
 and I am alone ; no other is with me. My many warriors 
 have abandoned me, none of my horsemen hath looked 
 towards me ; and when I called them, none hath listened to 
 my voice. But I believe that Amon is worth more to me 
 than a million of warriors, than a hundred thousand horse- 
 men and ten thousands of brothers and sons, even were 
 they all gathered together. The work of many men is 
 nought ; Amon will prevail over them.' 
 
 (From Le Page Eenouf. Hihbert Lectures, p. 227^ 
 An Accadian Prayer. 
 "O my God, the lord of prayer, may my prayer address 
 
 thee ! 
 O my goddess, the lady of supplication, may my supplica- 
 tion address thee! 
 O Mato (Matu), the lord of the mountain, may my prayer 
 
 address thee ! 
 O Gubarra, lady of Eden (sic), may my prayer address thee ! 
 O Lord of heaven and earth, lord of Eridu, may my 
 
 supplication address thee ! 
 Merodach (Asar-mula-dag), lord of Tin-tir (Babylon) 
 
 may my prayer address thee ! 
 O wife of him, (the princely offspring (?) of heaven and 
 
 earth), may my supplication address thee ! 
 O (messenger of the spirit) of the god who proclaims (the 
 good name), may my prayer address thee!
 
 THE HISTOKICAL STUDY OF RELIGION. 15 
 
 O (bride, first-born of) Uras (1), may my supplication 
 
 address thee ! 
 O (lady, who binds the hostile (?) mouth), may my prayer 
 
 address thee ! 
 (exalted one, the great goddess, my lady Nana) may 
 
 my supplication address thee ! 
 May it say to thee : ' (Direct thine eye kindly unto me).' 
 May it say to thee : * (Turn thy face kindly to me).' 
 (May it say to thee : ' Let thy heart rest.') 
 (May it say to thee: 'Let thy liver be quieted.') 
 (May it say to thee : ' Let thy heart, like the heart of a 
 
 mother who has borne children, be gladdened.') 
 (' As a mother who has borne children, as a father who 
 
 has begotten a child, let it be gladdened.') " 
 
 (Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, p. 336.) 
 A Babylonian Prayer. 
 ' my God who art violent (against me), i*eceive (my 
 
 supplication). 
 my Goddess, thou who art fierce (towards me), accept 
 
 (my prayer). 
 Accept my prayer, (may thy liver be quieted). 
 O my lord, long-suffering (and) merciful, (may thy heart 
 
 be appeased). 
 By day, directing unto death that which destroys me, O 
 
 my God, interpret (the vision). 
 my goddess, look upon me and accept my prayer. 
 IMay my sin be forgiven, may my transgression be cleansed. 
 Let the yoke be unbound, the chain be loosed. 
 May the seven winds carry away my groaning. 
 May I strip off my evil so that the bird bear (it) up to 
 
 heaven. 
 May the fish carry away my trouble, may the river bear 
 
 (it) along. 
 May the reptile of the field receive (it) from me; may 
 
 the waters of the river cleanse me as they flow.
 
 16 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
 
 Make me shine as a mask of gold. 
 
 May I be precious in thy sight as a goblet (?) of glass. 
 
 Burn up (?) my evil, knit together my life ; bind together 
 
 thy altar, that I may set up thine image. 
 Let me pass frwn my evil, and let me be kept with thee. 
 Enlighten me and let me dream a favourable dream. 
 May the dream that I dream be favourable ; may the 
 
 dream that I dream, be established. 
 Turn the dream that I dream into a blessing. 
 May Makhir the god of dreams rest upon my head. 
 Yea, let me enter into E-Sagil, the palace of the gods, 
 
 the temple of life. 
 To Merodach, the merciful, to blessedness, to prospering 
 
 hands, entrust me. 
 Let me exalt thy greatness, let me magnify thy divinity. 
 Let the men of my city honour thy mighty deeds.' 
 
 (Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, p. 355.) 
 
 ▲ Vedic Prayer. 
 
 Rig-veda VII. 89 : 
 
 1. Let me not yet, Varuwa, enter into the house of 
 clay; have mercy, almighty, have mercy! 
 
 2. If I go along trembling, like a cloud driven by 
 the wind; have mercy, almighty, have mercy! 
 
 3. Through want of strength, thou strong and bright 
 god, have I gone to the wrong shore ; have mercy, almighty, 
 have mercy ! 
 
 4. Thirst came upon the worshipper, though he stood 
 in the midst of the waters; have mercy, almighty, have 
 
 mercy ! 
 
 5. Whenever we men, O Varuwa, commit an offence 
 before the heavenly host; whenever we break the law 
 through thoughtlessness ; hurt us not, God, for this offence ! 
 
 (M. M., History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 540.)
 
 THE HISTORICAL STUDY OF RELIGION. 17 
 
 Another Vedlo Prayer. 
 
 'Let us be blessed in thy service, O Varuna, for we 
 always think of thee and praise thee, greeting thee day 
 by day, like the fires lighted on the altar, at the approach 
 of the rich dawns.' 2. 
 
 ' O Yarima, our guide, let us stand in thy keeping, thou 
 who art rich in heroes and praised far and wide ! And you, 
 unconquered sons of Aditi, deign to accept us as your friends, 
 gods ! ' 3. 
 
 'Aditya, the ruler, sent forth these rivers; they follow 
 the law of Varuna. They tire not, they cease not ; like birds 
 they fly quickly everywhere.' 4. 
 
 ' Take from me my sin, like a fetter, and we shall increase, 
 O Varuna, the spring of thy law. Let not the thread (of 
 life) be cut while I weave my song ! Let not the form of the 
 workman break before the time ! ' 5. 
 
 ' Take far away from me this terror, O Varu?ia ! Thou, O 
 righteous king, have mercy on me ! Like as a rope from a 
 calf, remove from me my sin ; for away from thee I am not 
 master even of the twinkling of an eye.' 6. 
 
 ' Do not strike us, Varuna, with weapons which at thy will 
 hurt the evil-doer. Let us not go where the light has 
 vanished ! Scatter our enemies, that we may live.' 7. 
 
 'We did formerly, O Varuna, and do now, and shall in 
 future also, sing prai&es to thee, mighty one! For on 
 thee, unconquerable hero, rest all statutes, immovable, as if 
 established on a rock.' 8. 
 
 'Move far away from me all self-committed guilt, and 
 may I not, king, sufl"er for what others have committed ! 
 Many dawns have not yet dawned; grant us to live in them, 
 O Varuna.' 9. 
 
 (M. M., India, p. 195, from Rig-veda II. 28.) 
 (4) C
 
 18 INTRODUCTOKY LECTURE. 
 
 An Avestic Prayer. 
 
 1. 'Blessed is he, blessed is every one, to whom Ahura- 
 mazda, ruling by his own will, shall grant the two ever- 
 lasting powers (health and immortality). For this very 
 good I beseech Thee. Mayest Thou through Thy angel of 
 piety, give me happiness, the good true things, and the 
 possession of the good mind. 
 
 2. I believe Thee to be the best being of all, the source of 
 light for the world. Every one shall believe in Thee as 
 the source of light; Thee, O Mazda, most beneficent spirit! 
 Thou createdst all good true things by means of the power 
 of Thy good mind at any time, and promisedst us a long life. 
 
 4. I will believe Thee to be the powerful benefactor, O 
 Mazda ! For Thou givest with Thy hand, filled with helps, 
 good to the righteous man, as well as to the wicked, by 
 means of the warmth of the fire strengthening the good 
 things. For this reason the vigour of the good mind has 
 fallen to my lot. 
 
 5. Thus I believed in Thee, O Ahuramazda! as the 
 furtherer of what is good ; because I beheld Thee to be the 
 primeval cause of life in the creation ; for Thou, who hast 
 rewards for deeds and words, hast given evil to the bad and 
 good to the good. I will believe in Thee, O Ahura ! in the 
 last period of the world. 
 
 6. In whatever period of my life I believed in Thee, O 
 Mazda, munificent spirit ! in that Thou camest with wealth, 
 and with the good mind through whose actions our settle- 
 ments thrive ' 
 
 (M. Haug, Essays on the Parsis, p. 155 seq., from Yasna XLIII. 
 1-6 ; see also Mills, S. B. E., vol. xxxi. p. 98.)
 
 THE HISTORICAL STUDY OF RELIGION. 19 
 
 Verses from Zoroaster's Oathas. 
 
 ' This I ask Thee, Ahura ! tell me aiight : "When praise 
 is to be offered, how (shall I complete) the praise of One 
 like You, j\Iaz(la 1 Let one like Thee declare it earnestly 
 to the friend who is such as T, thus thiough Thy righteous- 
 ness to offer friendly help to us, so that One like Theo may 
 draw near us through Thy good mind. 1. 
 
 This I ask Thee, O Ahura ! tell me ai'ight: Who by genera- 
 tion was the first father of the righteous order 1 Who gave 
 the (recuri'ing) sun and stars their (undeviating) way ? Who 
 established that whereby the moon waxes, and whereby she 
 wanes, save Thee? Tlicse things, Great Creator! would I 
 know, and others likewise still. 3. 
 
 Tliis I ask Thee, O Ahura ! tell me aright : "Who from 
 beneath hath sustained the earth and the clouds above that 
 they do not fain Wlio made the waters and the plants'? Who 
 to the wind has yoked on the storm-clouds, the swift and 
 fleetest ? Who, O Great Creator ! is the inspirer of the good 
 thoughts (within our souls) 1 4. 
 
 This I ask Thee, Ahura ! tell me aright : AVho, as a 
 skilful artizau, hath made the lights and the darkness? 
 Who, as thus skilful, has made sleep and the zest (of waking 
 hours) 1 Who spread the dawns, the noontides, and the mid- 
 night, monitors to discerning (man), duty's true (guides) ? 5. 
 
 This I ask Thee, Ahura ! tell me aright : These things 
 which I shall speak forth, if they are truly thus. Doth the 
 piety (which we cherish) increase in reality the sacred 
 orderliness within our actions ? To these Thy true saints 
 hath she given the realm thruugh the Good Mind. For 
 whom hast Thou made the mother-kine, the producer of 
 joy? 6. 
 
 This I ask Thee, Ahura! tell me aright, that I may 
 ponder these which are Thy revelations, Mazda ! and tho 
 
 C2
 
 20 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
 
 words which were asked (of Thee) by Thy Good Mind (within 
 us), and that whereby we may attain through Thine order, 
 to this life's perfection. Yea, how may my soul with joy- 
 fulness increase in goodness ? Let it thus be. 8. 
 
 This I ask Thee, O Ahura ! tell us aright : How shall I 
 banish this Demon of the Lie from us hence to those beneath 
 who are filled with rebellion 1 The friends of righteousness 
 (as it lives in Thy saints) gain no light (from their teachings), 
 nor have they loved the questions which Thy Good Mind 
 (asks in the soul)/ 13. 
 
 (Yasna XLIV : L. H. Mills, S. B. E., vol. xxxi. pp. Ill seq.) 
 
 Chinese Prayer. The Emperor's Prayer. 
 
 *To Thee, mysteriously- working !Maker, I look up in 
 thought. How imperial is the expansive arch, where Thou 
 dwellest . . . Thy servant, I am but a reed or willow ; my 
 heart is but as that of an ant ; yet have I received Thy 
 favouring decree, appointing me to the government of the 
 empire. I deeply cherish a sense of my ignorance and blind- 
 ness, and am afraid lest I prove unworthy of Thy great 
 favours. Therefore will I observe all the rules and statutes, 
 striving, insignificant as I am, to discharge my loyal duty. 
 Far distant here, I look up to Thy heavenly palace. Come 
 in Thy precious chariot to the altar. Thy servant, I bow 
 my head to the earth, reverently expecting Thine abundant 
 grace. All my officers are here arranged along with me, 
 joyfully worshipping before Thee. All the spirits accom- 
 pany Thee as guards, (filling the air) from the East to the 
 West. Thy servant, I prostrate myself to meet Thee, and 
 reverently look up for Thy coming, O god. that Thou 
 wouldest vouchsafe to accept our offerings, and regard us, 
 while thus we worship Thee, whose goodness is inexhaus- 
 tible!'
 
 THE HISTORICAL STUDY OF RELIGION. 21 
 
 ' Thou hast vouchsafed, O God, to hear us, for Thou 
 regardest us as a Father. I, Thy child, dull and unen- 
 lightened, am unable to show forth my dutiful feelings. I 
 thank Thee that Thou hast accepted the intimation. 
 Honourable is Thy great name. With reverence we spread 
 out these gems and silks, and, as swallows rejoicing in the 
 spring, praise Thine abundant love.' 
 
 (From the Imperial Prayer-book in the time of the Emperor Kea- 
 tsing. See James Legge, On the Notions of the Chinese concerning God and 
 Spirits, Hong-kong, 1852, p. 24. The date of tliis prayer is modern.) 
 
 Moliamiuedan Profession. 
 
 Quran, II. 255-256 : 
 
 ' O ye who believe ! expend in alms of what we have be- 
 stowed upon you, before the day comes in which is no barter, 
 and no friendship, and no intercession; and the misbelievers, 
 they are the unjust. 
 
 God, there is no god but He, the living, the self-sub- 
 sistent. Slumber takes Him not, nor sleep. His is what is 
 in the heavens and what is in the earth. Who is it that 
 intercedes with Him save by His permission? He knows 
 what is before them and what behind them, and they com- 
 prehend not aught of his knowledge but of what He pleases. 
 His tkrone extends over the heavens and the earth, and it 
 tires Him not to guard them both, for He is high and grand.' 
 
 (Palmer, S. B. E., vi. 89 seq.) 
 
 Modern Hindu Prayer. 
 
 1. * Whatsoever hath been made, God made. Whatsoever is 
 to be made, God will make. Whatsoever is, God maketh, — 
 then why do any of ye afflict yourselves? 
 
 2. Dadu sayeth. Thou, God ! art the author of all 
 things which have been made, and from thee will originate 
 all things which are to be made. Thou art the maker, and 
 the cause of all things made. There is none other but Thee.
 
 22 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
 
 3. He is my God, who maketli all things perfect. Meditate 
 upon him in whose hands are life and death. 
 
 4. He is my God, who created heaven, earth, hell, and the 
 intermediate space ; who is the beginning and end of all 
 creation ; and who i^rovideth for all. 
 
 5. I believe that God made man, and that he maketh 
 everything. He is my friend. 
 
 6. Let faith in God characterize all your thoughts, words, 
 and actions. He who serveth God, places confidence in 
 nothing else. 
 
 7. If the remembrance of God be in your hearts, ye will 
 be able to accomplish things which are impracticable. But 
 those who seek the paths of God are few ! 
 
 8. He who understandeth how to render his calling sinless, 
 shall be happy in that calling, provided he be with God. 
 
 9. foolish one ! God is not far from you. He is near 
 you. You are ignorant, but he knoweth everything, and 
 is careful in bestowing. 
 
 10. Whatever is the will of God, will assuredly happen; 
 therefore do not destroy yourselves by anxiety, but listen. 
 
 11. Adversity is good, if on account of God; but it is 
 useless to pain the body. Without God, the comforts of 
 wealth are unprofitable. 
 
 12. He that believeth not in the one God, hath an un- 
 settled mind ; he will be in sorrow, though in the pos- 
 session of riches : but God is without price. 
 
 13. God is my clothing and my dwelling. He is my 
 ruler, my body, and my soul. 
 
 14. God ever fostereth his creatures; even as a mother 
 serves her offspring, and keepeth it from harm. 
 
 15. God, thou who art the truth, grant me content- 
 ment, love, devotion, and faith. Thy servant Dadu prayeth 
 for true patience, and that he may be devoted to thee.' 
 
 (Verses from Dadu, the founder of the Dadupanthi sect, about 
 
 1600 A.D.)
 
 THE HISTORICAL STUDY OP RELIGION. 23 
 
 I confess that my heart heats with joy whenever I 
 meet with such utterances in the Sacred Books of the 
 East. A sudden brightness seems to spread over the 
 darkest valleys of the earth. We learn that no human 
 soul was ever quite forgotten, and that there are no 
 clouds of superstition through which the rays of 
 eternal truth cannot pierce. Such moments are the best 
 rewards to the student of the religions of the world — 
 they are moments of true revelation, revealing the fact 
 that God has not forsaken any of his children, if only 
 they feel after Ilim, if haply they may find him. I 
 am quite awaro how easy it is to find fault with these 
 childish gropings, and how readily people join in a 
 laugh when some strange and to us grotesque expres- 
 sion is pointed out in the prayers of the old world. 
 We know how easy it is to pass from the sublime to 
 the ridiculous, and nowhere is this more the case than 
 in religion. Perhaps Jelaleddin's lesson in his Mesnevi 
 may not be thrown away even on modern scoffers. 
 
 Moses and the Shepherd. 
 
 " Moses once heard a shepherd praying as follows : 
 * O God, show me where Thou art, that I may become 
 Thy servant. I will clean Thy shoes and comb Thy 
 hair, and sew Thy clothes, and fetch Thee milk.' 
 When Moses heard him praying in this senseless 
 manner, he rebuked him, saying, ' foolish one, 
 though your father was a Mussulman, you have be- 
 come an infidel. God is a Spirit, and needs not such 
 gross ministrations as, in your ignorance, you suppose.' 
 The shepherd was abashed at his rebuke, and tore his 
 clothes and fled away into the desert. Then a voice 
 from heaven was heard, saying, ' O Moses, wherefore 
 have you driven away my servant ■? Your office is to
 
 24 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
 
 reconcile my people with me, not to drive them away 
 from me. I have given to each race different usages 
 and form_s of praising and adoring me. I have no 
 need of their praises, being exalted above all such 
 needs. I regard not the words that are spoken, but 
 the heart that offers them. I do not require fine 
 words, but a burning heart. Men's ways of showing de- 
 votion to me are various, but so long as the devotions 
 are genuine, they are accepted.' " 
 
 Advantages of a Comparative Stndy of Religions. 
 
 I have never disguised my conviction that a com- 
 parative study of the religions of the world, so far 
 from undermining the faith in our own religion, serves 
 only to make us see more clearly what is the distinctive 
 and essential character of Christ's teaching, and helps 
 us to discover the strong rock on which the Christian 
 as well as every other religion must be founded. 
 
 But as a good general, if he wishes to defend a 
 fortress, has often to insist that the surrounding villas 
 and pleasure grounds should be razed, so as not to 
 serve as a protection to the enemy, those also who 
 wish to defend the stronghold of their own religion 
 have often to insist on destroying the outlying in- 
 trenchments and useless ramparts which, though they 
 may be dear to many from long association, offer no 
 real security, nay, are dangerous as lending a support 
 to the enemy, that is to say, to those who try to sap 
 the rock on which all true religion, call it natural or 
 supernatural, must be founded. 
 
 It is quite true, for instance, that the fact that we 
 meet with so-called miracles in almost every religion, 
 cannot but tell upon us and change our very concep-
 
 THE HISTORICAL STUDY OP RELIGION. 25 
 
 tion of a miracle. If Comparative Theology has taught 
 us anything, it has taught us that a belief in miracles, 
 so far from being impossible, is almost inevitable, and 
 that it springs everywhere from the same source, a 
 deep veneration felt by men, women, and children 
 for the founders and teachers of their religion. This 
 gives lo all mii-acles a new, it may be, a more profound 
 meaning. It relieves us at once from the never-ending 
 discussions of what is possible, probable, or real, of 
 what is rational, irrational, natural, or supernatural. It 
 gives us true oiiira, instead of small miracula, it makes 
 us honest towards ourselves, and honest towards the 
 founder of our own religion. It places us in a new and 
 real world where all is miraculous, all is admirable, 
 but where there is no room for small surprises, a world 
 in which no sparrow can fall to the ground without the 
 Father, a world of faith, and not of sight ^. If we 
 compare the treatment which miracles received from 
 Hume with the treatment which they now receive from 
 students of Comparative Theology, we see that, after 
 all, the world is moving, nay even the theological Avorld. 
 Few only will now deny that Christians can be Chris- 
 tians without what was called a belief in miracles; 
 nay, few will deny that they are better Christians 
 without, than with that belief. What the students 
 of Comparative Theology take away with one hand, 
 they restore a hundredfold with the other. That in 
 our time a man like Professor Huxley should have 
 had to waste his time on disproving the miracle of 
 the Gergesenes by scientific arguments, will rank 
 hereafter as one of the most curious survivals in the 
 history of theology. 
 
 ' See some excellent remarks on this point in the Rev. Charles 
 
 Gore's Eampton Lectures, p. 130.
 
 26 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
 
 When delivering these lectures, I confess that what 
 I feared far more than the taunts of those who, like 
 Henry "VIII, call themselves the defenders of the faith, 
 were the suspicions of those who might doubt my 
 perfect fairness and impartiality in defending Chris- 
 tianity by showing how, if only properly understood, 
 it is infinitely superior to all other religions. A good 
 cause and a sacred cause does not gain, it is only 
 damaged, by a dishonest defence, and I do not blame 
 those who object to a Christian Advocate, an office till 
 lately maintained at Cambridge, pleading the cause of 
 Christianity against all other religious. It is on that 
 account that the attacks of certain Christian Divines 
 have really been most welcome to me, for they have 
 shown at all events that I hold no brief from them, 
 and that if I and those who honestly share my con- 
 victions claim a perfect right to the name of Chris- 
 tians, we do so with a good conscience. We have sub- 
 jected Christianity to the severest criticism and have 
 not found it wanting. We have done what St. Paul 
 exhorts every Christian to do, we have proved every- 
 thing, we have not been afraid to compare Christianity 
 with any other religion, and if we have retained it, we 
 have done so, because we found it best. All religions, 
 Christianity not excepted, seem really to have sutFered 
 far more from their defendei's than from their assail- 
 ants, and I certainly know no greater danger to 
 Christianity than that contempt of Natural Religion 
 which has of late been expressed with so much vio- 
 lence by those who have so persistently attacked both 
 the founder of this lectureship on Natural Religion 
 and the lecturers, nay even those who have ventured 
 to attend their lectures.
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 THE TRUE VALUE OF THE SA.CRED BOOKS 
 EXAMINED. 
 
 Historical Documents for Studying' the Origfin of ReligrioQ- 
 
 ORIENTAL scholars have often been charged with 
 exaggerating the value of the Sacred Books 
 of the East for studying the origin and growth of 
 religion. It cannot be denied that these books are 
 much less perfect than we could wish them to be. 
 They are poor fragments only, and the time when 
 they were collected and reduced to writing is in 
 most cases far removed from the date of their original 
 composition, still more from the times which they 
 profess to describe. All this is true ; but my critics 
 ought to have known that, so far from wishing to 
 hide these facts, I have myself been the first to call 
 attention to them again and again. Wherever we 
 meet with a religion, it has always long passed its 
 childhood ; it is generally full-grown, and presup- 
 poses a past which is far beyond the reach of any 
 historical plummet. Even with regard to modern 
 religious, such as Christianity and Islam, we know 
 very little indeed about their real historical begin- 
 nings or antecedents. Though we may know their 
 cradle and those who stood around it, the powerful
 
 28 LECTURE 11. 
 
 personality of the founders seems in each case to have 
 overshadowed all that was around and before them ; 
 nay, it may sometimes have been the object of their 
 disciples and immediate followers to represent the new 
 religion as entirely new, as really the creation of one 
 mind, though no historical religion can ever be that ; 
 and to ignore all historical influences that are at 
 work in forming the mind of the real founder of an 
 historical religion ^, With regard to more ancient 
 religions, we hardly ever reach their deepest springs, 
 as little as we can hope to reach the lowest strata 
 of ancient languages. And yet religion, like language, 
 exhibits everywhere the clear traces of historical an- 
 tecedents and of a continuous development. 
 
 Beligious ^angtiage. 
 
 It has been my object in my former lectures to 
 show that there is but one way by which we may 
 get, so to say, behind that phase of a religion which 
 is represented to us in its sacred or canonical books. 
 Some of the most valuable historical documents of 
 religion lie really imbedded in the language of re- 
 ligion, in the names of the various deities, and in the 
 name which survives in the end as that of the one 
 true God. Certain expressions for sacrifice also, for 
 sin, for breath and soul and all the rest, disclose occa- 
 sionally some of the religious thoughts of the people 
 among whom these Sacred Books grew up. I have 
 also tried to show how much may be gained by a 
 comparison of these ancient religious terminologies, 
 and how more particularly the religious terminology 
 
 * See Kuenen, Hihhert Lectures, p. 189 seq.
 
 THE TRUE VALUE OF THE SACRED BOOKS. 29 
 
 of ancient India sheds the most welcome light on 
 many of the religious expressions that have become 
 obscure or altogether unmeaning even in Greek and 
 Latin. 
 
 How should we have known that Zeus meant 
 originally the bright light of the sky, and that deus 
 was at first an adjective meaning bright, but for the 
 evidence supplied to us in the Veda? This lesson 
 of Zeus or Jupiter cannot be dinned too often into 
 the ears of the incredulous, or rather the ignorant, 
 who fail to see that the Pantheon of Zeus cannot be 
 separated from Zeus himself, and that the other Olym- 
 pian gods must have had the same physical beginnings 
 as Zeus, the father of gods and men. There are still a 
 few unbelievers left who shake their wise heads when 
 they are told that I]riuys meaut the dawn, Agni 
 fire, and Marut or Mars the stormwind, quite as cer- 
 tainly as that Eos meant the dawn, Helios the sun, 
 and Selene the moon. If they did not, what did 
 these names mean, unless they meant nothing at all! 
 
 When we have once gained in this, the earliest 
 germinal stage of religious thought and language, a 
 real historical background for the religions of India, 
 Greece, and Rome, we have learnt a lesson which we 
 may safely apply to other religions also, though no 
 doubt with certain modifications, namely that there 
 is a meaning in every divine name, and that an 
 intimate relation exists between a religion and the 
 language in which it was born and sent out into 
 the world. When that is done, we may proceed to 
 the Sacred Books and collect from them as much in- 
 formation as we can concerning the great religions of 
 the world in their subsequent historical development.
 
 30 LECTUEE II. 
 
 Ifiterary Docnments. 
 
 And here, whatever may be said to the contrary, 
 we have nothing more important, nothing that can 
 more safely be relied upon than the literary docu- 
 ments which some of the ancient religions of the 
 world have left us, and which were recognised as 
 authoritative by the ancients themselves. These 
 materials have become accessible of late years only, 
 and it has been my object, with the assistance of some 
 of my friends, to bring out a very large collection 
 of translations of these Sacred Books of the East. 
 That collection amounts now to forty-two volumes, 
 and will in future enable every student of Comparative 
 Theology to judge for himself of the true nature of the 
 religious beliefs of the principal nations of antiquity. 
 
 Ilodexn Bate of Sacred Books. 
 If people like to call these books modern, let them 
 do so, but let them remember that at all events there 
 is nothing more ancient in any literature. In almost 
 every country it may be said that the history of 
 literature begins with Sacred Books, nay, that the very 
 idea of literature took its origin from these Sacred 
 Books. Literature, at least a written literature, and, 
 most of all, a literature in alphabetic writing is, 
 according to its very nature, a very modern inven- 
 tion. There can be no doubt that the origin of all 
 the ancient religions of the world goes back to a 
 time when writing for literary purposes was as yet 
 entirely unknown. I still hold that book-writing or 
 writing for literary purposes does not appear any- 
 where in the history of the world much before the
 
 THE TRUE VALUE OF THE SACRED BOOKS. 31 
 
 seventh century B.C. I know that I stand ahiiost 
 alone in dating the existence of a written literature, 
 of real books that were meant to be read by the 
 people at large, from so late a period. But I do 
 not know of any facts that enable us to speak with 
 confidence of a literature, in the true sense of the 
 word, before that date. I have been told that the 
 very latest date unanimously assigned by all com- 
 petent Semitic scholars to the E documents of the 
 O.T. is 750 B.C. But no one has shown in what alpha- 
 bet, nay, even in what dialect they were then written. 
 I have been reminded also of the much earlier date of 
 an Egyptian and Babylonian literature, but I thought 
 I had carefully guarded against such a reminder, 
 by speaking of books in alphabetic writing only. 
 Books presuppose the existence not only of people 
 who can write, but likewise of people who can read, 
 and their number in the year 750 B.C. must have 
 been very small indeed. 
 
 To those who are not acquainted with the powers 
 of the human memory when well disciplined, or rather 
 when not systematically ruined, as ours has been, it 
 may seem almost incredible that so much of the 
 ancient traditional literature should have been com- 
 posed, and should have survived during so many 
 centuries, before it was finally consigned to writing. 
 Still we have got so far, that everybody now admits 
 that the poets of the Veda did not write theii' hymns, 
 and that Zoroaster did not leave any written documents. 
 There is no word for writing in the Veda, neither is 
 there, as Dr. Haug {Essays on the Parsis, p. 136 n.) 
 has shown, in the Avesta. I have myself pointed out 
 how familiar the idea of writing seems to have been to
 
 32 LECTURE II. 
 
 the authors of some of the books of the Old Testament, 
 and how this affects the date of these books. 
 
 We read in the First Book of Kings iv. 3, of scribes 
 and recorders at the court of King Solomon, and the 
 same officers are mentioned again in 2 Kings xviii. 18, 
 at the court of Hezekiah, while in the reign of Josiah 
 we actually read of the discovery of the Book of the 
 Law. But we find the same anachronisms elsewhere. 
 Thrones and sceptres are ascribed to kings who never 
 had them, and in the Shahnameh (910, 5) we read of 
 Feridun as having not only built a fire-temple in 
 Baikend, but as having deposited there a copy of the 
 Avesta written in golden (cuneiform ?) letters. Kir- 
 jath-sepher, the city of letters, mentioned in the Book 
 of Joshua XV. 15, refers probably to some inscription, 
 in the neighbourhood, not to books. 
 
 Of Buddha also it may now be asserted without fear 
 of contradiction that he never left any MSS. of his 
 discourses^. If it had been otherwise, it would cer- 
 tainly have been mentioned, as so many less important 
 things concerning Buddha's daily life and occupations 
 have been mentioned in the Buddhist canon. And 
 although to us it may seem almost impossible that 
 long compositions in poetry, nay even in prose, 
 should have been elaborated and handed down by 
 oral tradition only, it is important to observe that 
 the ancients themselves never express any surprise 
 at the extraordinary achievements of the human 
 memory, whereas the very idea of an alphabet, of 
 alphabetic writing, or of paper and ink, is entirely 
 absent from their minds. 
 
 I readily admit therefore that whatever we possess 
 
 * See Der Buddhismus, von Wassiljew, p. 247.
 
 TUE TRUE VALUE OF THE S.VCRED BOOKS. 33 
 
 of sacred litercaturo in writing is comparatively 
 modern ; also that it represents a very small por- 
 tion only of what originally existed. We know that 
 even after a book had been written, the danger of 
 loss was by no means past. Wc know how much of 
 Greek and Latin literature that was actually consigned 
 to writing has been lost. Aeschylus is said to have 
 composed ninety plays. Wc possess MSS. of seven 
 only. And what has become of the works of Berosus, 
 Manetho, Sanchoniathan? What of the complete 
 MSS. of Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Dionysius of 
 Halicarnassus, Dio Cassius ? what of those of Livy 
 and Tacitus ? 
 
 If therefore people will have it that what we possess 
 of sacred books is modern, I do not object, if only 
 they will define what they mean by modern. And 
 if they insist on calling what has been saved out of 
 the general shipwreck mere flotsam and jetsam, we 
 need not quarrel about such names. Much has been 
 lost of the ancient literary monuments of almost 
 every religion, but that makes what is left all the 
 more valuable to us. 
 
 Frag'mentary Character of tlie Sacred Books of India. 
 
 In Sanskrit literature we frequently meet with 
 references to lost books. It is not an uncommon 
 practice in theological controversy in India to appeal 
 to lost >Sakhas of the Veda, particularly when customs 
 for which there is no authority in the existing Vedas 
 have to be defended. When, for instance, European 
 scholars had proved that there was no authority for 
 the burning of widows in the Veda, as known to us, 
 native scholars appealed to lost /S'akhas of the Veda 
 
 (4) J)
 
 34 LECTURE II. 
 
 in support of this cruel custom. However, native 
 casuists themselves have supplied us with the right 
 answer to this kind of argument. They call it ' the 
 argument of the skull,' and they remark with great 
 shrewdness that you might as well bring a skull into 
 court as a witness, as appeal to a lost chapter of 
 the Veda in support of any prevailing custom or 
 doctrine. /Sakha means a branch, and as the Veda 
 is often represented as a tree, a >S'akha of the Veda 
 is what we also might call a branch of the Veda. 
 
 We must not imagine, however, that what we now 
 possess of Vedic literature is all that ever existed, or 
 that it can give us anything like a complete image of 
 Vedic religion. 
 
 The Buddhists are likewise in the habit of speaking 
 of some of the words or sayings of Buddha as being 
 lost, or not recorded. 
 
 In the Old Testament we have the well-known 
 allusions to the Book of Jasher (2 Sam. i. 18), and 
 the Wars of God (Num. xxi. 14), the Chronicles of 
 David, and the Acts of Solomon, which prove the 
 former existence, if not of books, at least of popular 
 sono:s and leo;ends under those titles. 
 
 And with regard to the New Testament also, not 
 only does St. Luke tell us that ' many had taken in 
 hand to draw up a narrative concerning those matters 
 which have been fulfdled among us, even as they 
 delivered them unto us, which from the beginning- 
 were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word,' but 
 we know that there existed in the early centuries 
 other Gospels and other Epistles which have either 
 been lost or have been declared apocryphal by later 
 authorities, such as the Gospels according to the
 
 THE TRUK VALUE OF THE SACRED BOOKS. 35 
 
 Hebrews and the Egyptians, the Acts of Andrew, 
 John, and Thomas, the Epistles of St. Paul to the 
 Laodiceans, the Epistles of Barnabas and of St. 
 Clement, &c.^ We read besides, at the end of the 
 Fourth Gospel, that 'there were also many other 
 things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be 
 written every one, I suppose that even tlie world 
 itself would not contain the books that, should be 
 written.' This may be an exaggeration, but it ought 
 to be at the same time a warning against the supposi- 
 tion that the New Testament can ever give us a com- 
 plete account of the religious teaching of Christ. 
 
 Loss of the Sacred ]^iterature of Persia. 
 
 There is no religion, however, where we can study 
 the loss of a great portion of its sacred literature so 
 closely as in the religion of Zoroaster and his disciples, 
 and it is well that we should learn a lesson from it. 
 What by a very erroneous name we call the Zend 
 Avcsta is a book of very moderate dimensions. I 
 explained to you, I believe^ in a former lecture, why 
 Zend Avesta is an erroneous name. The Persians call 
 their sacred writings not Zend Avesta, but Avesta 
 Zend, or in Pehlevi Avistak va Zand, and this 
 means simply text and commentary. Avesta is the 
 text, Zend the commentary. Avesta is probably 
 derived from vid, to know, from which, you may 
 remember, we have also the name Veda-. But 
 avesta is a participle passive, originally a + vista 
 (for vid-ta), and meant therefore what is known or 
 
 ' See J. E. Carpenter, The First Three Gospels, p. 3. 
 ^ Oppert {Journ. Asial., 1872, March) compares the old Pcrbian 
 abasta, law. 
 
 D2
 
 36 LECTURE II. 
 
 what has been made known, while Zend is derived 
 from the Aryan root *zeno, to know, in Sanskrit 
 gn^, Greek yL-yvca-a-KO), and meant therefore originally 
 likewise knowledge or understanding of the Avesta. 
 While avista was used as the name of Zarathushtra's 
 ancient teachings, Zend was applied to all later 
 explanations of those sacred texts, and particularly 
 to the translations and explanations of the old text 
 in Pehlevi or Pahlavi, the Persian language as 
 spoken in the Sassanian kingdom. In spite of this, 
 it has become the custom to call the ancient language 
 of Zarathushtra Zend, literally, commentary, and to 
 speak of what is left us of the sacred code of the 
 Zoroastrians as the Zend Avesta. This is one of 
 those mistakes which it will be difficult to get rid 
 of; scholars seem to have agreed to accept it as 
 inevitable, and they will probably continue to speak 
 of the Zend Avesta, and of the Zend language. Some 
 writers, who evidently imagine that Zoroaster wor- 
 shipped the fire instead of Ormazd, his supreme deity, 
 and who suppose that Vesta was originally a deity 
 of the fire, have actually gone so far as to spell Zenda 
 Vesta as if Vesta was the name of the sacred fire of the 
 Parsis. If we wish to be correct, we should speak of 
 the Avesta as the ancient texts of Zarathushtra, and 
 we should call Zend all that has been written at a 
 later time, whether in the ancient Avestic language 
 or in Pehlevi, bj'' way of translation and interpreta- 
 tion of the Avesta. This Pehlevi is simply the old 
 name for the Persian language, and there can be little 
 doubt that Pehlevi, which is the Persian name for 
 what is ancient, was derived from pahlav, a hero- 
 warrior, which pahlav again is a regular modification
 
 THE TRUE VALUE OF THE SACKED BOOKS. 37 
 
 of parthav, the name of the Partliians who wero the 
 rulers of Persia for nearly five hundred years (256 
 B.C.-226 A.D.). But though Pehlevi would thus seem 
 to mean the language of the Parthians, it is really 
 the name of the Persian language, as spoken in Persia 
 when under Parthian rule. It is an Aryan language 
 written in a peculiar Semitic alphabet and mixed 
 with many Semitic words. The first traces of Pehlevi 
 have been discovered on coins referred to the third 
 or fourth century B.C., possibly even on some tablets 
 found in Nineveh, and ascribed to the seventh century 
 B.C. (Haug's Essays, p. 81). We find Pehlevi written 
 in two alphabets, as in the famous inscriptions of 
 Hajiabad (third century A.D.), found near the ruins of 
 Persepolis^. Besides the language of the Avesta, 
 which we call Zend, and the language of the glosses 
 and translations, which we call Pehlevi, there is the 
 Pazend, originally not the name of a language, as 
 little as Zend was, but the name of a commentary on 
 a commentary. There are such Pazends written in 
 Avestic^ or in Pehlevi. But when used as the name of a 
 language, Pazend means mediaeval Iranian, used chiefly 
 in the transcriptions of Pehlevi texts, written eitlier 
 in Avestic or Persian characters, and freed from all 
 Semitic ingredients. In fact the language of the 
 great epic poet Firdusi (1000 a.d.) does not differ 
 much from that of Pazend ; and both are the lineal 
 descendants of Pehlevi and ancient Persian. 
 
 One thing, however, is quite certain, namely, that 
 the sacred literature which once existed in these three 
 
 ^ See Ilaiig, 1. c. p. 87, and Friodricli Miiller, Die Pahlaici Inschriflcn 
 ion Hadzidbdd. 
 
 =» Haug, 1. c. p. 122.
 
 38 LECTURE II. 
 
 successive languages, Avestic, Pehlevi, and Pazend, 
 must have been infinitely larger than what we now 
 possess. 
 
 It is important to observe that the existence of this 
 much larger ancient sacred literature in Persia was 
 known even to Greeks and Romans, such as Her- 
 mippos^, who wrote his book 'On the Magi' while 
 residing at Smyrna. He lived in the middle of the 
 third century B.C. Though this book is lost, it is 
 quoted by Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, and Pliny. 
 Pliny (H. N. xxx. 2) tells us that Hermippos studied 
 the books of Zoroaster, which were then said to 
 comprise two millions of lines. Even so late an 
 authority as Abu Jafir Attavari (an Arabic historian) 
 assures us that Zoroaster's writings covered twelve 
 hundred cowhides (parchments). 
 
 These statements of classical writers are confirmed 
 to a great extent by the traditions current among the 
 followers of Zoroaster in Persia, who agree in accusing 
 Alexander the Great of having destroyed or carried 
 off their sacred MSS. We read in the Binksird (West, 
 p. 412) that the first collection of the sacred texts of 
 Zoroaster took place at the time .of Vistasp, the 
 mythical ruler who accepted the religion of Zoroaster. 
 Afterwards, we are told, Darai commanded that two 
 complete copies of the whole Avesta and Zend should 
 be preserved, one in the treasury of Shapigan, and 
 one in the fortress of written documents. This Darai 
 is likewise more or less mythical, but he is generally 
 considered by the Persian poets as the predecessor of 
 Alexander. We are on more historical ground when 
 we are told in the Dink&rd (West, p. xxxi) that the 
 * Diogenes Laertius, Prooem. 6.
 
 THE TRUE VALUE OF THE SACRED BOOKS. 30 
 
 MS. which was in tho fortress of documents came to 
 be burnt, while that in the treasury of Shapigan fell 
 into the hands of the Greeks and was translated b}' or 
 for Alexander into the Greek language, as ' information 
 connected with ancient times.' Now tho fact that the 
 Royal Palace at Persepolis was burnt by Alexander 
 in a drunken frolic is confirmed by Greek historians, 
 though nothing is said by them of a Greek translation 
 of the Avestic writings. It is quite possible, however, 
 that Hermippos had before him the very MS. that 
 had been carried away from the treasury of Shapigan 
 by Alexander's soldiers. 
 
 We hear nothins more about the Avesta till we 
 come to the time of Valkhas, evidently a Vologeses, 
 possibly Vol ogeses I, the contemporary of Nero. Though 
 he was a Parthian ruler, we are told in the Dinkan^ 
 that he ordered * the careful preservation and making 
 of memoranda for the royal city, of the Avesta and 
 Zend as it had purely come unto them, and also of 
 whatever instruction, due to it, had remained written 
 about, as well as deliverable by the tongue through a 
 high-priest, in a scattered state in the country of 
 Iran, owing to the ravages and devastations of Alex- 
 ander, and the cavalry and infantry of the Ariimans 
 (Greeks).' 
 
 Whatever the exact meaning of these words may 
 be, they clearly imply that an attempt had been made, 
 even before the rise of the Sassanian dynasty, to 
 collect what could still be collected of the old sacred 
 writings, either from scattered fragments of MSS. or 
 from oral tradition. It does not appear that any 
 attempt of the same kind had been made before that 
 time, and after the devastations ascribed to Alexander.
 
 40 LECTURE ir. 
 
 It does not seem to me to follow that, as M. Dar- 
 mesteter suggests (>S^. B. E. iv. Introd.), the Parthian 
 rulers had actually embraced Zoroastrianism as the 
 state-relio-ion of their kinordom. That was reserved for 
 the Sassanians. But it shows at all events that they 
 valued the ancient faith of their subjects, and it is 
 a fact that some of the Philhellenic Parthian princes 
 had actually adopted it. 
 
 The real revival, however, of Zoroastrianism as the 
 national religion of Persia and the final constitution 
 of the Avestic canon were due, no doubt, to the 
 Sassanians. We read in the Dinkav'cZ that Arta- 
 kshatar (Ardeshir), the son of Papak, king of kings 
 (a.d. 226-240), summoned Tosar and other priests to 
 the capital to settle the true doctrine of the old 
 religion. His son, Shahpuhar(A.D. 240-271), followed 
 his example, and brought together a number of secular 
 writings also, scattered about, as we are told, in the 
 country, in India, Greece, and elsewhere, and ordered 
 their collocation with the Avesta. After that a correct 
 copy was deposited once more in the treasury of 
 Shapigan. 
 
 Shahpuhar II (Sapores), the son of Auharmazd 
 (a.d. 309-379), seems to have done for the Avestic 
 religion very much what Constantine was doing about 
 the same time for Christianity. He convoked a 
 ' tribunal for the controversy of the inhabitants of all 
 regions, and brought all statements to proper con- 
 sideration and investigation.' The heresy with which 
 Shahpuhar II and Aturpad had to deal was probably 
 that of Manichaeism. The doctrines of Mani had 
 been spi'eading so widely during the third century 
 iihat even a king, Shahpuhar I, was supposed to have
 
 THE TRUE VALUE OF TUE SACIIED BOOKS. 41 
 
 embraced them. Thus while Constantino and Atha- 
 nasius settled the orthodox doctrines of Christianity at 
 Nicaea, 325 a.d,, Shahpuhar II and Aturpad, the son of 
 Maraspand.were engaged in Persia in extinguishing the 
 heresy of Mani and restoring Mazdaism to its original 
 purity. The collecting of the Nasks and the num- 
 bering of them as twenty-one, is ascribed to Aturpad. 
 Prof. Darmesteter (Introd. p. xxxix) supposes that at 
 his time it was still possible to make additions to the 
 Avestic texts, and he points out passages in the 
 Vendidad which may have reference to the schism of 
 Mani, if not even to Christianity, as known in the 
 East. 
 
 At a still later time, under Khusvoi (Khosroes), 
 called Anosharuvan, the son of Kavad (a.d. 531-579), 
 we read that new heresies had to be suppressed, and 
 that a new command was given for ' the proper con- 
 sideration of the Avesta and Zend of the primitive 
 Magian statements.' 
 
 Soon after followed the Arab conquest, when we 
 are told that the archives and treasures of the realm 
 were once more devastated. Still the Mohammedan 
 conquerors seem to have been far less barbarous than 
 Alexander and his Greek soldiers, for when, after the 
 lapse of three centuries, a new effort was made to 
 collect the Avestic writings, Atur-farnbagi Farukho- 
 zac/an was able to make a very complete collection of 
 the ancient Nasks. Nay, even at the end of the ninth 
 century, when another high-priest, Aturpad, the son 
 of Himid, the author, or, at all events, the finisher of 
 the Dinkan/, made a final collection of the Avesta 
 and Zend, MSS. of all the Nasks seem to have been 
 forthcoming with very few exceptions, whether in the
 
 42 LECTURE II. 
 
 ancient Avestic language or in Pehlevi, so that Atui'pad 
 could give in his Dinkar(i an almost complete ac- 
 count of the Zoroastrian religion and its sacred 
 literature. According to some authorities it was 
 Atur-farnbagi Farukho-zacJJan who began the Dirika,rd, 
 while Aturpad, the son of Himid, finished it. This 
 would place the work between 820 and 890 A. D. 
 Aturpad, or whoever he was, speaks of the twenty-one 
 Nasks or books of the A. vesta, as if he had read them 
 either in the original language or in their Pehlevi 
 translation. The only Nask he failed to obtain was 
 the Vastag Nask, and the Pehlevi version of the Nadar 
 Nask. We owe all this information partly to Dr. Haug, 
 partly to Dr. West, who has recovered large portions 
 of the MS. of the DinkarcZ and translated them in 
 volume xxxvii of the Sacred Books of the East. 
 
 Of these twenty-one Nasks which, since the days 
 of Aturpad, the son of Maraspand, constituted the 
 Avestic canon, and which are reckoned to have con- 
 sisted of 345,700 words in Zend, and of 2,094,200 
 words of Pehlevi (West, 1. c. p. xlv), three only, the 
 14th, 19th, and 21st, have been saved complete. We 
 are told in' one of the Persian Rivayats {S. B. E. xxxvii. 
 p. 437), that even at the time when the first attempt 
 was made to collect the sacred literature which had 
 escaped the soldiers of Alexander, portions only of 
 each Nask were forthcoming, and none in its original 
 completeness, except the Vindad, i. e. the Vendidad. If 
 we could trust to this statement, it would prove that 
 the division in the Nasks existed even before the time 
 of Aturpad, the son of Maraspand (325 A.D.), and was 
 possibly of Achaemenian origin. 
 
 There are fragments of some other Nasks in exist-
 
 THE TRUE VALUE OF THE SACRED BOOKS. 43 
 
 ence, such as the Vistjisp sAsto, HacZokhto and Bako, 
 but what the Parsis now consider as their sacred 
 canon, consists, besides the Vendidad, of no more than 
 the Yasna, Vispered, Yashts, &c.. which contain the 
 bulk of the two other extant Nasks, the Stod and 
 Bakan Yashts, 
 
 The Vendidad contains religious laws and old 
 legends. The Vispered contains litanies, chiefly for 
 the celebration of the six season-festivals, the so-called 
 Gahanbars. The Yasna also contains litanies, but its 
 most important portion consists of the famous Gathas 
 (stem gatha^ nom. sing, gatha), metrical portions, 
 written in a more ancient dialect, probably the oldest 
 nucleus round which all the rest of the Avestic litera- 
 ture gathered. The Gathas are found in the Yasna, 
 xxviii-xxxiv, xliii-xlvi, xlvii-1, li, and liii. Each of 
 these three collections, the Vendidad, Vispered, and 
 Yasna, if they are copied singly, are generally accom- 
 panied by a Pehlevi translation and glosses, the so- 
 called Zend. But if they are all copied together, 
 according to the order in which they are required 
 for liturgical purposes, they are without the Pehlevi 
 translation, and the whole collection is then called the 
 Vendidad Sadah, i.e. the Vendidad pure and simple, 
 i. e. without commentary. 
 
 The remaining fragments are comprehended undei- 
 the name of Khorda Avesta or Small Avesta. They 
 consist chiefly of prayers such as the five Gah^ the 
 Sirozeh, the three Afringan, the five Nyayish, the 
 Yashts, lit. acts of worship, hymns addressed to the 
 thirty Izads, of which twenty only have been pre- 
 served, and some other fragments, for instance, the 
 Iladhokht Nask (>S'. B. E, iv. p. xxx ; xxiii. p. 1).
 
 44 LECTURE II. 
 
 The Parsis sometimes divide the twenty-one Nasks 
 into three classes : (1) the Gathic, (2) the Hadha- 
 mathric, (3) the Law. The Gathic portion represents 
 the higher spiritual knowledge and spiritual duty, the 
 Law the lower worldly duty, and the Hadha-mathric 
 what is between the two (Dinkard, VIIL 1. 5). In 
 many cases, however, these subjects are mixed. 
 
 The Gathas are evidently the oldest fragments of 
 the Avestic religion, when it consisted as yet in a 
 simple belief in Ahuramazda as the Supreme Spirit, 
 and in a denial of the Daevas, most of them known to 
 us as worshipped by the poets of the Veda. If Zara- 
 thushtra was the name of the founder or reformer of 
 this ancient religion, these Gathas may be ascribed to 
 him. As their language differs dialectically from that 
 of the Achaemenian inscriptions, and as the Pehlevi 
 interpreters, though conversant with the ordinaiy 
 Avestic language, found it difficult to interpret these 
 Gathas, we are justified in supposing that the Gathic 
 dialect may have been originally the dialect of Media, 
 for it was from Media that the Magi ^, or the teachers 
 and preachers of the religion of Ahuramazda, are said 
 to have come ^. It has been pointed out that certain 
 deities, well known in the Veda, and in later Avestic 
 texts, are absent from the Gathas ; for instance, Mithra 
 and Homa ; also Anahita and the title of Ameshaspenta 
 (Haug, 1. c. p. 259). Many abstract concepts, such as 
 Asha, righteousness, Vohumano, good thought, have 
 not yet assumed a definite mythological personality in 
 
 * Magi, the Magavas of the Gathas, the Magush in the cuneiform 
 inscription, tlie Mog of later times, Haug, p. 169 n., possibly the 
 rab mag of Jerem. xxxix. 3. 
 
 ^ Darmesteter, S. B. E., iv. p. xlvi, gives all the evidence for 
 assigning the origin of Zoroaster's religion to Media.
 
 THE TRUE VALUE OF THE SACRED BOOKS. 45 
 
 the chapters composed in the Gathic dialect (Hang, 
 p. 171). And what is more important still, the Angro 
 Mainyu or Ahriman of the later Avestic writings has 
 in the Gathas not yet been invested with the character 
 of the Evil Spirit, the Devil, the constant opponent 
 of Ahuramazda^ (Haug, I.e. pp. 303-4). I call this 
 important, because in the cuneiform inscriptions also 
 this character does not, and we may probably be justi- 
 fied in saying, does not yet occur. The early Greek 
 writers also, such as Herodotos, Theopompos, and Her- 
 mippos, though acquainted with the Alagian doctrine 
 of a dualism in nature and even in the godhead, do 
 not seem to have known the name of Ahriman. Plato 
 knew the name of Ahuramazda, for he calls Zoroaster 
 the son of Oromasos, which must be meant for Ahura- 
 mazda, but he too never mentions the name of Angro 
 Mainyu or Areimanios. Aristotle may have known 
 the name of Areimanios as well as that of Oromasdes, 
 though we have only the authority of Diogenes Laer- 
 tius (Prooem. c. 8) for it. Later writers, both Greek 
 and Roman, are well acquainted with both names. 
 
 I mention all this chiefly in order to show that there 
 are signs of historical growth and historical decay in 
 the various portions of what we call Avestic literature. 
 If with Dr. Haug we place the earliest Gatha literature 
 in about 1000 to 1200 b. c, which of course is a purely 
 hypothetical date, we can say at all events that the 
 Gathas are in thought, if not in language also, older 
 than the inscriptions of Darius ; that they belonged to 
 Media, and existed there probably before the time of 
 Cyrus and his conquest of the Persian empire. 
 
 When we come to the time of Alexander, we see 
 
 * Ancra occurs in the Guthas in the sense of evih
 
 46 LECTURE II. 
 
 that there existed then so large an amount of sacred 
 literature, that we cannot be far wrong in ascribing 
 the whole of the twenty-one Nasks to a pre-Achae- 
 menian period, before 500 B.C. Here we can dis- 
 tinguish again between the old and the later Yasna. 
 The Vendidad, Vispered, the Yashts, and the smaller 
 prayers may be ascribed to the end of the Avestic 
 period. Dr. Haug places the larger portion of the 
 original Vendidad at about 1000-900 b. c, the com- 
 position of the later Yasna at about 800-700 b. c. 
 
 The Pehlevi literature may have begun soon after 
 Alexander. Linguistic chronology is, no doubt, of a 
 very uncertain character. Still, that there is an his- 
 torical progress both in language and thought from the 
 Gathas to the Yasna, and from the Yasna to the Yashts, 
 can hardly be doubted. Real historical dates are unfor- 
 tunately absent, except the mention of Gaotama in the 
 Fravardin Yasht (16). If this is meant for Gautama, 
 the founder of Buddhism, we can hardly be wrong in 
 supposing that this name of Buddha had reached 
 Bactria during the first century after Buddha's death, 
 say 477-377 B.C. In later times the presence of 
 Buddhists in Bactria cannot be doubted ^. About the 
 same time coins had been struck with inscriptions in 
 Pehlevi, which must have been the language of the 
 
 1 The presence of Buddhists in Bactria in the first century B.C. 
 is attested by several authorities. Alexander Polyhistor, who wrote 
 between 80-60 b. c. (as quoted by Cyrillus contra Julian.), mentions 
 among philosophers the Samanyioi among the Persian Bactrians, 
 the Magoi among the Persians, and the Gymnosophists among the 
 Indians. These Samanyioi were meant for Buddhists. Later still 
 Clemens of Alexandria, Strom, i. p. 359, speaks of Samanaioi among 
 the Bactrians and of Gymnosophists .among the Indians, while Euse- 
 bius (Praep. Ev. vii. 10) speaks of thousands of Brahmans among 
 Indians and Bactrians. See Lassen, hid. Alter thumskunde, ii. p. 1075 ; 
 Spiegel, Eran. Alterthumskunde, i. 671.
 
 THE TRUE VALUE OF THE SACRED BOOKS. 47 
 
 people about the time of Alexander's conquests. The 
 Avestic language, however, continued to be under- 
 stood for a long time after, so that, under the Parthian 
 and the Sassauian dynasties, interpreters could be 
 found, able to translate and explain the ancient sacred 
 texts. Nay, if M. Darmesteter is right, additions in 
 Avestic continued to bo made as late as the fourth 
 century A. D., provided that the passages which he has 
 pointed out in the Vendidad refer to the suppression 
 of the heresy of Mani by king Shahpur II. 
 
 The Relation between the Avesta and the Old Testament. 
 
 I thought it necessary to enter thus fully into the 
 history of the rise and decline of the sacred literature 
 of Persia, because I wanted to show how impossible it 
 is to institute a satisfactory comparison between the 
 Persian and any other religion, unless we are fully 
 aware of the historical growth of its sacred canon. 
 Though much light had been shed on this subject by 
 Dr. Haug, it is but lately that the valuable translation 
 of the Dinka7'cZ, contributed by Mr. West to my Sacred 
 Books of the Ead, has enabled us to form an indepen- 
 dent judgment on that subject. The Persian religion 
 has often been the subject of comparison both with 
 the religion of India and with that of the Jews, par- 
 ticularly after their return from the exile. The chief 
 doctrines which the Jews are supposed to have bor- 
 rowed from the followers of Zoroaster are a belief in 
 the resurrection of the body, a belief in the immor- 
 tality of the soul, and a belief in future rewards and 
 punishments. It is well known that these doctrines 
 were entirely, or almost entirely, absent from the oldest 
 phase of religion among the Jews, so that their presence
 
 48 LECTURE II. 
 
 in some of the Psalms and the Prophets has often 
 been used as an argument in support of the later date 
 now assigned to these compositions. Here there are no 
 chronological difficulties. These doctrines exist, as we 
 shall see, at least in their germinal stage, in the Gathas, 
 while of the more minute details added to these old 
 doctrines in the later portions of the Avesta, or in the 
 still later Pehlevi writings, there is no trace even in 
 post-exilic books of the Old Testament. This point 
 has been well argued by Prof. Cheyne in the Exposi- 
 tory Times, June, July, August, 1891 ^. 
 
 But there is another point on which we can observe 
 an even more striking similarity between the Old Testa- 
 ment and the Avesta, namely, the strong assertion of 
 the oneness of God. Here, however, it seems to me 
 that, if there was any exchange of thought between 
 the followers of Moses and of Zoroaster, it may 
 have been the latter who were influenced. The sudden 
 change from the henotheism of the Veda to the mono- 
 theism of the Avesta has never been accounted for, and 
 I venture to suggest, though not without hesitation, 
 that it may have taken place in Media, in the original 
 home of the Zoroastrian religion. It was in the cities of 
 Media that a large Jewish population was settled, after 
 the king of Assyria had carried away Israel, and put 
 them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, 
 and in the cities of the Medes (2 Kings xviii. 11). 
 Now, however difficult an exchange of religious ideas 
 may be between people speaking different languages, 
 the fact of their worshipping either one God or many 
 gods could hardly fail to attract attention. If then the 
 
 ^ On Possible Zoroastrian Influences on the Btligion of Israel. See also 
 Spiegel, Ecanischc Alfcrfliumskunde, vol. i. pp. 446 seq. I am not con- 
 vinced by Prof. Cheyue's remarks in the Academy, July, 1893, p. 44.
 
 THE TRUE VALUE OF THE SACKED BOOKS. 49 
 
 Jews impressed their neighbours with the conviction 
 that there could be but one God, a conviction which 
 in spite of many backslidings, seems never to have 
 ceased altogether to form part of the national faith of 
 Israel, everything else would naturally have followed, 
 exactly as we find it in the Avesta, as compared 
 with the Veda. One of the ancient gods, the Asura 
 Varu-yia, was taken as the one and supreme God, 
 the God above all gods, under the name of Ahura 
 Mazda ; the other Devas, if they claimed to be gods, 
 were renounced, and those only who could be treated 
 as secondary spirits, were allowed to remain, nay, 
 were increased in number by such spirits or angels 
 as Ameretat, Haurvatat, Vohumano, and all the rest. 
 I am far from saying that this can be strictly proved. 
 Neither can it be proved that the belief in a resurrec- 
 tion and immortality was necessarily borrowed by the 
 Jews from the Zoroastrians. For, after all, people 
 who deny the immortality of the soul, can also assert 
 it. All I say is that such a supposition being his' 
 torically possible, would help to explain many things 
 in the Avesta and its development out of Vedic or 
 pre-Vedic elements, that have not yet any satisfactory 
 explanation. 
 
 I am that I am. 
 
 But there is a still more startling coincidence. 
 You may remember that the highest expression of 
 this Supreme Being that was reached in India, was 
 one found in the Vedic hymns, ' He who above all gods 
 is the only God.' I doubt whether Physical Religion 
 can reach a higher level. We must remember that 
 each individual god had from the first been invested 
 (4) E
 
 50 LECTUKE II. 
 
 with a character high above any human character. 
 Indra, Soma, Agni, and whatever other Devas there 
 were in the Vedic Pantheon, had been described as 
 the creators of the world, as the guardians of what 
 is good and right, as all-powerful, all-wise, and 
 victorious over all their enemies. What more then 
 could human language and religious devotion achieve 
 than to speak of one Supreme Being, high above all 
 these gods, and alone worthy of the name of God ? 
 
 We saw that in Greece also a similar exalted con- 
 ception of the true God had at a very early time found 
 expression in a verse of Xenophanes, who in the face 
 of Zeus, and Apollo, and Athene ventured to say, 
 'There is but one God, the beat among mortals and 
 immortals, neither in form nor in thought like unto 
 mortals.^ This again seems to me to mark the highest 
 altitude which human language can reach in its desire 
 to give an adequate description of the one true God. 
 For though the existence of other immortals is 
 admitted, yet He is supposed to hold his own pre- 
 eminent position among or above them, and even a 
 similarity with anything human, whether in shape or 
 thought, is distinctly denied, thus excluding all those 
 anthropomorphic conceptions from which even in the 
 best of religions the Deity seems unable altogether to 
 divest itself. The Hebrew Psalmist uses the same 
 exalted language about Jehovah. ' Among the gods,' 
 he says, as if admitting the possibility of other gods, 
 'there is none like unto Thee.' And again he calls 
 Jehovah, the great King above all gods, using almost 
 the same expressions as the Vedic Kishi and the old 
 Greek philosopher. The conception of the Supreme 
 Being as we find it in the Avesta, is by no means
 
 THE TRUE VALUE OP THE SACRED BOOKS. 51 
 
 inferior to that of Jehovah in the Old Testament. 
 Dr. Haug (Essays, p. 302) goes so far as to say that 
 it is perfectly identical. Ahura Mazda is called by 
 Zarathushtra 'the Creator of the earthly and spiritual 
 life, the Lord of the whole universe, in whose hands 
 are all creatures. He is the light and the source of 
 light; he is the wisdom and intellect. He is in 
 possession of all good things, spiritual and worldly, 
 such as the good mind (vohu-mano), immortality 
 (amereta(Z), health (haurvatac?), the best truth (asha 
 vahishta), devotion and piety (armaiti), and abundance 
 of earthly goods (khshathra vairya), that is to say, he 
 grants all these gifts to the righteous man, who is 
 upright in thoughts, words, and deeds. As the ruler 
 of the whole universe, he not only rewards the good, 
 but he is a punisher of the wicked at the same time. 
 All that is created, good or evil, fortune or misfortune, 
 is his work. A separate evil spirit of equal power 
 with Ahura Mazda, and always opposed to him, is 
 foreign to the earlier portions of the Avesta, though 
 the existence of such a belief among the Zoroastrians 
 may be gathered from some of the later writings, such 
 as the Vendidad.' 
 
 Coincidences such as these are certainly startling, 
 but to a student of comparative theology they only 
 prove the universality of truth ; they necessitate by 
 no means the admission of a common historical origin 
 or the borrowing on one side or the other. We ought 
 in fact rejoice that with regard to these fundamental 
 truths the so-called heathen religions are on a perfect 
 level with the Jewish and the Christian religions. 
 
 But suppose we found the same name, the same 
 proper name of the Deity, say Jehovah in the Avesta, 
 
 E2
 
 52 LECTUKE II. 
 
 or Ahura Mazda in the Old Testament, what should 
 we say? We should at once have to admit a borrowing 
 on one side or the other. Now it is true we do not 
 find the name of Ahura Mazda in the Old Testament, 
 but we find something equally surprising. You may 
 remember how we rejoiced when in the midst of many 
 imperfect and more or less anthropomorphic names 
 given to the deity in the Old Testament, we suddenly 
 were met by that sublime and exalted name of 
 Jehovah, ' I am that I am.' It seemed so different 
 from the ordinary concepts of deity among the ancient 
 Jews. What then should we say, if we met with exactly 
 the same most abstract appellation of the deity in the 
 Avesta ? Yet, in the Avesta also there is among the 
 twenty sacred names of God, the name *Ahmi ya^ 
 ahmi,' 'I am that I am.' Shall we read in this co- 
 incidence also the old lesson that God has revealed 
 Himself to all who feel after Him, if haply they may 
 find Him, or is the coincidence so minute that we have 
 to admit an actual borrowing ? And if so, on which 
 side is the borrowing likely to have taken place 1 In 
 the Avesta this name occurs in the Yashts. In the 
 Old Testament it occurs in Exodus iii. 13. Chrono- 
 logically therefore the Hebrew text is anterior to the 
 Avestic text. In Exodus we read : 
 
 'And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come 
 unto the children of Israel, and sha,ll say unto them, 
 The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you ; and 
 they shall say to me. What is his name? what shall 
 I say unto them ? And God said unto Moses, / am 
 that I am : and he said. Thus shalt thou say unto the 
 children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you.' 
 
 This passage, as I am informed by the best authori-
 
 THE TRUE VALUE OF THE SACRED BOOKS, 53 
 
 ties, is now unanimously referred to the Elohistic 
 section. Dillmann, Driver, Kuenen, Wellhausen, Cor- 
 nill, Kittel, &c., all agree on that point. But does it 
 not look like a foreign thought ? What we expect as 
 the answer to the question of Moses, is really Avhat 
 follows in ver. 15, 'And God said [moreover] unto 
 Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, 
 Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, 
 the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob hath sent me 
 unto you ; this is my name for ever. . . .' This is what 
 we expect, for it was actually in the name of Jehovah, 
 the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that Moses 
 brought the people out of Egypt ; nor is there any 
 trace of Moses having obeyed the divine command 
 and having appealed to ' I am that I am,' as the God 
 who sent him. Nay, there is never again any allusion 
 to such a name in the Old Testament, not even where 
 we might fully expect to meet with it. 
 
 If we take ver. 14 as a later addition, and the 
 Rev. J. Estlin Carpenter informs me that this is 
 quite possible, in the Elohistic narrative, everything 
 becomes clear and natural, and we can hardly doubt 
 therefore that this addition came from an extraneous, 
 and most likely from a Zoroastrian source. In Zend 
 the connection between Ah lira, the living god, and 
 the verb ah, to be, might have been felt. In Sanskrit 
 also the connection between asura and as, to be, could 
 hardly have escaped attention, particularly as there 
 was also the word as-u, breath. Now it is certainly 
 very strange that in Hebrew also ehyeh seems to 
 point to the same root as Jehovah, but even if this 
 etymology were tenable historically, it does not seem 
 to have struck the Jewish mind except in this passage.
 
 54 LECTUEE II. 
 
 But let us look now more carefully at our autho- 
 rities in Zend. The passage in question occurs in the 
 Ormazd Yaslit, and the Yashts, as we saw, were some 
 of the latest productions of Avestic literature, in some 
 cases as late as the fourth century B. c. The Elohistic 
 writer, therefore, who is supposed to be not later than 
 750 B, c, could not have borrowed from that Yasht. 
 The interpolator, however, might have done so. Be- 
 sides we must remember that this Ormazd Yasht is 
 simply an enumeration of the names of Ahura. The 
 twenty names of Ahura are given, in order to show 
 their efficacy as a defence against all dangers. It 
 cannot be doubted, therefore, that these names were 
 recognised as sacred names, and that they had 
 existed long before the time of their compilation. I 
 shall subjoin the translation of the introductory para- 
 graphs from the S. B. E., vol. xxiii. p. 23 : 
 
 Zarathushtra asked Ahura Mazda : ' O Ahura Mazda, 
 most beneficent Spirit, Maker of the material world, 
 thou Holy One, what Holy Word is the strongest? 
 "What is the most victorious? What is the most 
 glorious ? What is the most effective ? What is 
 the most fiend-smiting? What is the best-healing? 
 What destroyeth best the malice of Daevas and men ? 
 What maketh the material world best come to the 
 fulfilment of its wishes? What freeth the material 
 world best from the anxieties of the heart ? ' Ahura 
 Mazda answered : 'Our name, O Spitama Zara- 
 thushtra, who are the Ameshaspentas, that is the 
 strongest part of the Holy Word, that is the most 
 victorious, that is the most glorious, that is the most 
 effective,' &c. 
 
 Then Zarathushtra said : ' Reveal unto me that name
 
 THE TRUE VALUE OF THE SACRED BOOKS. 55 
 
 of thine, O Ahura Mazda ! that is tho greatest, the best, 
 the fairest, the most effective,' &c. 
 
 Ahura Mazda replied unto him : 'My name is the One 
 of whom questions are asked, O Holy Zarathushtra ! ' 
 
 Now it is curious to observe that Dr. Haujr trans- 
 lates the same passage freely, but not accurately, by : 
 'The first name is Ahmi, I am.' 
 
 The text is Frakhshtya nama ahmi, and this 
 means, ' One to be asked by name am I.' ' To ask ' 
 is the recognised term for asking for revealed truth, so 
 that spcnto frasna, the holy question, including the 
 answer, came to mean with the Parsis almost the same 
 as revelation. Dr. Haug seems to have overlooked 
 that word, and his translation has therefore been 
 wrongly quoted as showing that / am was a name of 
 Ahura Mazda. 
 
 But when we come to the twentieth name we find 
 that Haug's translation is more accurate than Darme- 
 steter's. The text is visastemo ahmi yai ahmi 
 Mazdau nama. This means, 'the twentieth, I am 
 what I am, Mazda by name.' Hero Darmesteter 
 translates: 'My twentieth name is Mazda (the all- 
 knowing one),' Dr. Haug more accurately : ' The 
 twentieth (name is) I am who I am, Mazda ^.' 
 
 Here then in this twentieth name of Ahura Mazda, 
 'I am that I am,' we have probably the source of the 
 verse in Exodus iii. 14, unless we are prepared to 
 
 ' Another translation of tlio words visastcm5 ahmi ya< ahmi 
 Mazdau niima has been suggested by West. Ahmi in Zend, ho 
 ^Vl•ites, is not only the samo as Sk. as mi, I am, but is used also 
 as the locative of tho first personal pronoun, corresponding to tho 
 Sk. mayi. It is possible, therefore, to translate 'the twentiotii 
 name for me is that I am Mazda,' though most scholars would 
 prefer to take tho two ahmi's for tho same, and to translate, 'the 
 twentieth is I am what I am, Mazda by name.'
 
 56 LECTURE II. 
 
 admit a most extraordinary coincidence, and that 
 under circumstances where a mutual influence, nay 
 actual borrowing, was far from difficult, and where 
 the character of the passage in Exodus seems to give 
 clear indication on which side the borrowing must 
 have taken place. 
 
 I hope I have thus made it clear in what the real 
 value of the Sacred Books of the East consists with 
 regard to a comparative study of religions. We must 
 freely admit that many literary documents in which 
 we might have hoped to find the traces of the earliest 
 growth of a religion, are lost to us for ever. I have 
 tried to show how, more particularly in the case of 
 the Zoroastrian religion, our loss has been very 
 great, and the recent publication of the Dinka?^(i by 
 Mr. E. W. West {S.B. E., vol. xxxvii) has made us realise 
 more fully how much of the most valuable information 
 is lost to us for ever. We read, for instance (Book ix. 
 cap. 31, 13), that in the Varstmansar Nask there was 
 a chapter on ' the arising of the spiritual creation, the 
 first thought of Auharma^cZ ; and, as to the creatures 
 of Auha7^ma0(i, first the spiritual achievement, and 
 then the material formation and the mingling of 
 spirit with matter ; [the advancement of the creatures 
 thereby, through his wisdom and the righteousness 
 of Vohuman being lodged in the creatures,] and all 
 the good creatures being goaded thereby into purity 
 and joy fulness. This too, that a complete under- 
 standing of things arises through Vohuman having 
 made a home in one's reason (varom).' 
 
 To have seen the full treatment of these questions 
 in the Avesta would have been of the greatest value 
 to the students of the history of religions, whether
 
 THE TRUE VALUE OF THE SACRED BOOKS. 57 
 
 they admit a direct influence of Persian on Jewish and 
 Christian thought, or -whether they look upon the 
 Zoroastrian idea of a spiritual followed by a material 
 creation as simply an instructive parallel to the 
 Philonic concept of the Logos, its realisation in the 
 material world, or the aap^, and on Vohuman as a 
 parallel to the Holy Ghost. But there is now no hope 
 of our ever recovering what has been lost so long. We 
 must admit, therefore, that, with all the Sacred Books 
 of the East, our knowledge of ancient religions will 
 always remain very imperfect, and that we are often 
 forced to depend on writings, the date of which 
 as writings is very late, if compared with the times 
 which they profess to describe. It does not follow 
 that there may not be ancient relics imbedded in 
 modern books, but it does follow that these modern 
 books have to be used with great caution, also that 
 their translation can never be too literal. There is a 
 dangerous tendency in Oriental scholarship, namely 
 an almost unconscious inclination to translate certain 
 passages in the Veda, the Zend Avesta, or the Buddhist 
 Canon into language taken from the Old or New Testa- 
 ment. In some respects this may be useful, as it brings 
 the meaning of such passages nearer to us. But there is 
 a danger also^ for such translations are apt to produce 
 an impression that the likeness is greater than it really 
 is, so great in fact that it could be accounted for by 
 actual borrowing only. It is right that we should try 
 to bring Eastern thought and language as near as 
 possible to our own thought and language, but we must 
 be careful also not to obliterate the minute features 
 peculiar to each, even though the English translation 
 may sometimes sound strange and unidiomatic.
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIP OF ANCIENT RELIGIONS 
 AND PHILOSOPHIES. 
 
 How to compare Ancient Religions and Ancient Philosophies. 
 
 WE saw in the case of the Avesta how absolutely 
 necessary it is that we should have formed to 
 ourselves a clear conception of the relation in which 
 the religions and philosophies of the ancient world 
 stand to each other before we venture to compare 
 them. 
 
 In former days, when little was known of the more 
 distant degrees of relationship by which the historical 
 nations of the world were bound together, the tempta- 
 tion was great, whenever some similarity was pointed 
 out between the beliefs of different nations, to suppose 
 that one had borrowed from the other. The Greeks, 
 as we saw, actually persuaded themselves that they 
 had borrowed the names of some of their gods from 
 Egypt, because they discovered a certain similarity 
 between their own deities and those of that ancient 
 country. But we know now that there was no 
 foundation whatever for such an opinion. Christian 
 theologians, from the days of Clement of Alexandria to 
 our own time, were convinced that any startling coin-
 
 ANCIENT RELIGIONS AND nilLOSOPHIES. 59 
 
 cidences between the Bible and the Sacred Books of 
 other religions could be due to one cause only, namely, 
 to borrowing on the part of the Gentiles ; while there 
 were not wanting Greek philosophers who accused 
 Christian teachers of having taken their best doctrines 
 from Plato and Aristotle. 
 
 Common Humanity. 
 
 We must therefore, at the very outset, try to clear 
 our mind on this subject. We may distinguish, I 
 believe, between four different kinds of relationship. 
 The most distant relationship is that which is simply 
 due to our common humanity. Homines sumus, nihil 
 humani a nobis alienuni indannis. Much of what 
 is possible in the Arctic regions is possible in the 
 Antarctic regions also ; and nothing can be more 
 interesting than when we succeed in discovering co- 
 incidences between beliefs, superstitions, and customs, 
 peculiar to nations entirely separated from each other, 
 and sharing nothing but their common humanity. 
 Such beliefs, superstitions, and customs possess a 
 peculiar importance in the eye of the psychologist, 
 because, unless we extend the chapter of accidents 
 very far indeed, they can hardly be deprived of a 
 claim of being founded in human nature, and, in that 
 case, of being, if not true, at all events, humanly 
 speaking, legitimate. It is true that it has been 
 found very difficult to prove any belief or any custom 
 to be quite universal. Speech, no doubt, and, in one 
 sense, certain processes of grammar too, a conception 
 of number and an acceptance of certain numerals, may 
 be called universal ; a belief in gods or supernatural 
 powers is almost universal, and so is a sense of shame
 
 60 LECTURE III. 
 
 ■with regard to sex, and a more or less accurate obser- 
 vation of the changes of the moon and the seasons 
 of the year. 
 
 But there is one point which, as anthropologists, 
 we ought never to forget. We gain nothing, or very- 
 little, by simply collecting similar superstitions or 
 similar customs among different and widely distant 
 nations. This amounts to little more than if, as com- 
 parative philologists, we discover that to be in love is 
 in French amoureux and in Mandshu in Northern 
 China amourou. This is curious, but nothing more. 
 Or, if we compare customs, it is well known that a 
 very strange custom, the so-called Couvade, has been 
 discovered among different nations, both in ancient 
 and modern times. It consists, as you know, in the 
 father being put to bed when the mother has given 
 birth to a child. But, besides the general likeness of 
 the custom, which is certainly very extraordinary, its 
 local varieties ought to have been far more carefully 
 studied than they hitherto have been. In some cases 
 it seems that the husband is most considerately nursed 
 and attended to, in others he is simply kept quiet and 
 prevented from making a noise in the house. In 
 other countries, again, quite a new element comes in. 
 The poor father is treated with the greatest malignity 
 — is actually flogged by the female members of his 
 household, and treated as a great criminal. Until we 
 can discover the real motive of those strange varieties 
 of the same custom, the mere fact that they have 
 been met with in many places is no more than 
 curious. It has no more scientific value than the 
 coincidence between the French amoureux and the 
 Mandshu amourou. Or, to take another instance,
 
 ANCIENT RELIGIONS AND PIIILOSOrillES. 01 
 
 the mere fact that the Sanskrit Ilaritas is letter by 
 letter the same word as the Greek Charitcs, teaches 
 us nothing. It is only when we are able to show 
 why the Ilaritas in India and the Charites in Greece 
 received the same name, that these outward similar- 
 ities gain a truly scientific value. To say that some- 
 thing like the Couvade existed till very lately in 
 Spain and likewise in China explains nothing, or 
 only explains ignotuvi per ignotius. Not till we can 
 discover the common motive of a custom or a super- 
 stition, founded in our common humanity, can we 
 claim for these studies the name of Anthropology, can 
 we speak of a real Science of Man ^. 
 
 Common 'La.nguB.ge. 
 
 The second kind of relationship is that of a common 
 language. Most people would think that community 
 of blood was a stronger bond than community of 
 language. But no one has ever defined what is meant 
 by blood ; it is generally used as a mere metaphor ; 
 and there remains in most cases the difficulty, or I 
 should rather say the impossibility, of proving cither 
 the purity or the mixture of blood in the most ancient 
 periods of man's existence on earth. Lastly, when we 
 are concerned with beliefs and customs, it is after all 
 the intellect that tells and not the blood. Now the 
 outward or material form of the intellect is language, 
 and when we have to deal with nations who belong 
 to the same familj^ of language, Semitic or Aryan or 
 Polynesian, we ought to be prepared for similarities 
 in their customs, in their religions, nay in their philo- 
 sophical expressions also. 
 
 1 On the Couvade sec Academy 1802, Nos. 1059, 1072, 1075.
 
 62 LECTUEE III. 
 
 Common History. 
 
 Thirdly, there is what I should call a real historical 
 relationship, as when nations, whether speaking related 
 or unrelated languages, have been living together for 
 a certain time before they became politically separated. 
 The inhabitants of Iceland, for instance, not only speak 
 a dialect closely connected with the Scandinavian 
 languages, but they actually passed through the early 
 periods of their history under the same political sway 
 as the people of Norway. Common customs, there- 
 fore, found in Iceland and Norway admit of an his- 
 torical explanation. The same applies to existing 
 American customs as compared with earlier English 
 or Irish customs. 
 
 Common Neighljonrbood. 
 
 Different from these three relationships is that of 
 mere neighbourhood which may lead to a borrowing 
 of certain things ready made on one side or the other, 
 very different from a sharing in a common ancestral 
 property. We know how much the Fins, for instance, 
 have borrowed from their Scandinavian neighbours in 
 customs, legends, religion, and language. It happens 
 not unfrequently that two, if not three, of these rela- 
 tionships exist at the same time. Thus, if we take 
 the Semitic and the Aryan religions, any coincidences 
 between them can be due to their common humanity 
 only, except in cases where we can prove at a later 
 time historical contact between an Aryan and a 
 Semitic race. No one can doubt that the Phenicians 
 were the schoolmasters, or at least the writing masters, 
 of the Greeks ; also that in several parts of the world
 
 ANCIENT RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES. G3 
 
 Greeks and Phenicians were brought into close rela- 
 tions by commercial intercourse. Hence we can 
 account by mere borrowing for the existence of 
 Semitic names, such as Melikertes in Greek mytho- 
 logy ; likewise for the grafting of Semitic ideas on 
 Greek deities, as in the case of Aphrodite or Heracles. 
 No Greek scholar, however, would suppose that the 
 Greeks had actually borrowed their original concept 
 and name of Aphrodite or Heracles from Semitic 
 sources, though the grafting of Semitic ideas on Greek 
 stems may have led in certain cases to a complete 
 transfusion of Semitic thought into Greek forms. 
 Generally the form of a name, and the phonetic laws 
 which determine the general character of Semitic 
 and Aryan words, are sufficient to enable us to decide 
 who was the borrower and who was the lender in 
 these exchanges ; still, there are some cases where for 
 the present we are left in doubt. 
 
 Though no satisfactory Aryan etymology of Aphro- 
 dite has yet been discovered, yet no one would claim 
 a Semitic origin for such a word, as little as one would 
 claim a Greek etymology for Melikertes. It is dis- 
 appointing when we see the old idea of deriving Greek 
 mythological names straight from Hebrew, not even 
 from Phenician, revived and countenanced by so 
 respected a Journal as the Jahrbilcher fur classische 
 Philologie. In the volume for 1892, pp. 177 seq., an 
 article is published in which Dr. Heinricli Lewy derives 
 Elysion from 'Elisha., one of the four sons of Javan 
 (Gen. X. 4), and supposed to be a representative of 
 Sicily and Lower Italy ^. Suppose it were so, are we to 
 
 * The Sirens are supposed by Dr. Lewy to have derived their 
 name from Shir-chon, song of favour; Eileiihyias from chilith,
 
 64 LECTURE III. 
 
 believe that not only the Greeks, but other Aryan 
 nations also, derived their belief in the West, as the 
 abode of the Blessed, inHesperia and the MaKapcav vijaoi, 
 from the Jews ? I do not mean to say that we have 
 a satisfactory etjanology of Elysion in Greek ; all I 
 say is, that there is nothing to suggest a foreign origin. 
 Elysion seems to be connected with the Greek rjKvO 
 in r]\v9ov^ -npoa-i^XvTos, Qjnd -with. Sk. ruh, to rise and to 
 move. In Sk. we have both a -ruh, to mount, and 
 ava-ruh, to descend. We actually find Ev. I. 52, 9, 
 rohatiam diva/i, the ascent or summit of heaven, and 
 Rv. I. 105, 11, madhye arodhane diva^, where, if 
 we could take rudh for ruh, we should have a strong 
 analogy of an Elysion, as a heavenly abode ; while in 
 IX. 113, 8, avarodhanam divaA is another expres- 
 sion for the abode of the blessed. The Greek rikvaiov 
 would stand for rjXvO-TLov ^. 
 
 We saw in our last lecture that if there are any coin- 
 cidences between the ancient philosophy of the Greeks 
 and that of the Brahmans, they should be accounted 
 for by their common humanity only. In some cases 
 we may perhaps appeal to the original community 
 of language between Brahman and Greek, for language 
 
 travails of birth ; Upis in Artemis Upis from chop hi th, the goddess 
 of choph, seashore; 6Un from Hebrew cholem, a seer; Belkro- 
 phon from 'El raphon, the El of healing; Sarpedon from Zar- 
 padon, the rock of rescue ; Europe from 'Arubha, the darkened; 
 Jfmos from Mone, the ordainer ; Radamanthys from Rode'emeth, 
 ruling in truth ; Adrasteia from Dorcsheth, requiring vengeance; 
 JEndymion from 'En dimyon, non-destruction ; Kronos from Garon, 
 the jaws ; Orion from Orari'on, the hurler of strength, or, as we 
 are now told, fi'om the Accadian Ur-ana, light of heaven {Athe- 
 naeum, June 25, 1892, p. 816) ; Niohe from Ni-iyyobhe, the com- 
 plaint of the persecuted; Apollon, Etruscan Ap>lun from Abln, the 
 son. What should we say to such derivations, if they were from 
 Sanskrit, and not from Hebrew ? 
 ^ See Fick in K. Z., xix, note.
 
 ANCIENT RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES. 65 
 
 forms a kind of inclined plane determining the general 
 direction or inclination of any intellectual structure 
 erected upon it. Communication, however, or ex- 
 change in historical times seems here, so far as we can 
 judge, to be entirely out of the question. 
 
 Belation between the Beligions of India and Persia. 
 
 If on the contrary we compare the ancient religious 
 and philosophical ideas of India with those of Persia, 
 we have to admit not only what may be called an under- 
 lying community of language, but an historical com- 
 munity between the ancestors of Indians and Persians, 
 that lasted long after the other Aryan nations had been 
 finally separated. The mere occurrence of such technical 
 names, for instance, as zaotar, the title of the supreme 
 priest, the Vedic hotar, or atharvan, fire-priest, the 
 Sanskrit atharvan, or of haoma, name of a plant used 
 for sacrificial purposes both in the Veda and in the 
 Avesta, while no trace of them occurs in any of the 
 other Aryan languages, are sufficient to show that the 
 believers in the Veda and the believers in the Avesta 
 remained socially united up to a time when a minute 
 sacrificial ceremonial had been fully elaborated. Of a 
 later borrowing between the two, except in quite 
 modern times, there is no evidence whatever. 
 
 A comparison of the ancient Indian and Persian 
 religions must therefore be of a totally different 
 character from a comparison of the earliest religious 
 and philosophical ideas in India and Greece. There 
 is the common deep-lying linguistic substratum in both 
 cases, but whereas the Greek and the Indian streams 
 of thought became completely separated before there 
 was any attempt at forming definite half-philosophical 
 half-religious concepts, the Indian and Persian streams
 
 66 LECTURE III. 
 
 of thought continued running in the same bed, long 
 after the point had been reached where the Greek 
 stream had separated from them. 
 
 That being the case, it follows that any coincidences 
 that may be discovered between the later phases of 
 religious or philosophical thought of Greeks and 
 Hindus, should not be accounted for by any historical 
 contact, while coincidences between Indian and Persian 
 thought, whether religious or philosophical, admit of 
 such an explanation. 
 
 Independent Character of Indian Philosophy. 
 
 This, from one point of view, may seem disappoint- 
 ing. But it lends a new charm to the study of Indian 
 philosophy, as compared with the philosophy of Greece 
 — because we can really recognise in it what may be 
 called a totally independent venture of the human mind. 
 
 The discovery of a rich philosophical literature in 
 India has never attracted as yet the attention which 
 it deserves. Most of our philosophers cannot get over 
 the idea that there is one way only of treating 
 philosophy, namely that which was followed in 
 Greece and was afterwards adopted by most of the 
 philosophers of Europe. Nearly all our philosophical 
 terminology comes to us from Greece, but without 
 wishing to say a word against its excellence, we 
 ought not to look upon every other philosophy that 
 does not conform to our own formulas, as unworthy 
 of serious attention. 
 
 I shall try therefore to bring this Indian philosophy, 
 and more particularly the Vedanta philosophy, as 
 near as I can to our own sphere of philosophical 
 interests. I shall try to show that it treats the same
 
 ANCIKNT RELIGIONS AND rUILOSOnilES. 0)7 
 
 problems which have occupied the thoughts of Greek 
 philosophers, nay, which occupy our own thoughts, 
 though it treats them in a way that at first sight may 
 seem to us strange or even repellent. This very 
 strangeness, however, exercises its own peculiar attrac- 
 tion, for whatever we possess of philosophy, whether it 
 comes from Greece or Italy or Germany, or now from 
 America and the most distant colonies, has been touched 
 directly or indirectly by the rays of those great lumin- 
 aries that arose in Greece in the fifth century B.C. 
 In India alone philosophy was never, so far as we 
 know, touched by any external influences. It sprang 
 up there spontaneously as it did in Greece, and if the 
 thinkers of Greece strike us as a marvel, because we 
 know nothing like them in any other part of the 
 world, we are filled with the same surprise, if we 
 meet with complete systems of philosophy south of 
 the Himalayan mountains, in a country where, till 
 it was subdued by nations, superior to the inhabitants 
 of India in physical strength and military organisation, 
 though by no means in intellectual vigour or origin- 
 ality, religion and philosophy seem to have formed 
 during centuries the one absorbing subject of medita- 
 tion. If we form our notion of the ancient Aryan 
 settlers in India from what they have left us in their 
 literature, no doubt we have to remember that nearly 
 all we have comes from one source, or has passed 
 through one channel, that of the Brahmans. There 
 is therefore no doubt some danger that we may draw 
 too bright, too ideal a picture of these Indian Aryas, 
 as if they had been a nation consisting entii-ely of 
 pious worshippers of the gods, and of philosophers 
 bent on solving the great problems of this life and of 
 the realities that lie behind it, or beneath it. There 
 
 F a
 
 68 LECTURE III. 
 
 must have been dark sides to their life also, and we 
 catch glimpses of them even in their own sacred litera- 
 ture. But these darker sides of human life we can 
 study everywhere ; — what we can study nowhere but 
 in India is the all-absorbing influence which religion 
 and philosophy may exercise on the human mind. So 
 far as we can judge, a large class of people in India, 
 not only the priestly class, but the nobility also, 
 not only men but women also, never looked upon 
 their life on earth as something real. What was 
 real to them was the invisible, the life to come. 
 What formed the theme of their conversations, what 
 formed the subject of their meditations, was the real 
 that alone lent some kind of reality to this unreal 
 phenomenal world. Whoever was supposed to have 
 caught a new ray of truth was visited by young and 
 old, was honoured by princes and kings, nay, was 
 looked upon as holding a position far above that of 
 kings and princes. That is the side of the life of 
 ancient India which deserves our study, because there 
 has been nothing like it in the whole world, not even 
 in Greece or in Palestine. 
 
 The Indian View of Life. 
 
 Our idea of life on earth has always been that of 
 a struggle for existence, a struggle for power and 
 dominion, for wealth and enjoyment. These are the 
 ideas which dominate the history of aU nations whose 
 history is known to us. Our own sympathies also are 
 almost entirely on that side. But was man placed on 
 this earth for that one purpose only 1 Can we not 
 imagine a different purpose, particularly under condi- 
 tions such as existed for many centuries in India and
 
 ANCIENT RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES. 69 
 
 nowhere else ? In India the necessaries of life were 
 few, and those which existed were supplied without 
 much exertion on the part of man, by a bountiful nature. 
 Clothing, scanty as it was, was easily provided. Life 
 in the open air or in the shades of the forest was more 
 delightful than life in cottages or palaces. The danger 
 of inroads from foreign countries was never dreamt 
 of before the time of Darius and Alexander, and then 
 on one side only, on the north, while more than a silvei- 
 streak protected all around the far-stretching shores 
 of the country. Why should the ancient inhabitants of 
 India not have accepted their lot ? Was it so very un- 
 natural for them, endowed as they were with a tran- 
 scendent intellect, to look upon this life, not as an arena 
 for gladiatorial strife and combat, or as a market for 
 cheating and huckstering, but as a resting-place, a mere 
 waiting-room at a station on a journey leading them 
 from the known to the unknown, but exciting for that 
 very reason their utmost curiosity as to whence they 
 came, and whither they were going. I know quite well 
 that there never can be a whole nation of philosophers 
 or metaphysical dreamers. The pleasures of life and 
 sensual enjoyments would in India as elsewhere dull the 
 intellect of the many, and make them satisfied with a 
 mere animal existence, not exempt from those struggles 
 of envy and hatred which men share in common with 
 the beasts. But the ideal life which we find reflected 
 in the ancient literature of India, must certainly have 
 been lived by at least the few, and we must never 
 forget that, all through history, it is the few, not the 
 many, who impress their character on a nation, and 
 have a right to represent it, as a whole. What do we 
 know of Greece at the time of the Ionian and Eleatic
 
 70 LECTURE III. 
 
 philosophers, except the utterances of Seven Sages? 
 What do we know of the Jews at the time of Moses, 
 except the traditions preserved in the Laws and the 
 Prophets ? It is the Prophets, the poets, the lawgivers 
 and teachers, however small their number, who speak 
 in the name of the people, and who alone stand out 
 to represent the nondescript multitude behind them, to 
 speak their thoughts and to express their sentiments, 
 I confess it has always seemed to me one of the sad- 
 dest chapters in the history of the world to see the early 
 inhabitants of India who knew nothing of the rest of the 
 world, of the mighty empires of Egypt and Babylon, of 
 their wars and conquests, who wanted nothing from 
 the outside world, and were happy and content in their 
 own earthly paradise, protected as it seemed by the 
 mountain ramparts in the north, and watched on every 
 other side by the jealous waves of the Indian ocean, to 
 see these happy people suddenly overrun by foreign 
 warriors, whether Persians, Greeks or Macedonians, or 
 at a later time, Scythians, Mohammedans, Mongolians, 
 and Christians, and conquered for no fault of theirs, 
 except that they had neglected to cultivate the art of 
 killing their neighbours. They themselves never 
 wished for conquests, they simply wished to be left 
 alone, and to be allowed to work out their view 
 of life which was contemplative and joyful, though 
 deficient in one point, namely the art of self-defence 
 and destruction. They had no idea that a tempest 
 could break upon them, and when the black clouds 
 came suddenly driving across the northern and western 
 mountain-passes, they had no shelter, they were simply 
 borne down by superior brute force. They remind us 
 of Archimedes imploring the cruel invader, not to dis-
 
 ANCIENT RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES. 71 
 
 turb his philosophical circles, but there was no help 
 for them. That ideal of human life which they had 
 pictured to themselves, and which to a certain extent 
 they seemed to have realised, before they w^ere dis- 
 covered and disturbed by the ' outer barbarians,' had 
 to be suiTendered. It was not to be, the whole world 
 was to be a fighting and a huckstering world, and 
 even the solution of the highest problems of religion 
 and philosophy was in future to be determined, not 
 by sweet reasonableness, but by the biggest battalions. 
 We must all learn that lesson, but even to the hardened 
 historian it is a sad lesson to learn. 
 
 But it may be said, What then are these dreamers 
 to us? We have to learn our lessons of life from 
 Greeks and Romans. They are our light and our 
 leaders. The blood that runs in our veins is the blood 
 of vigorous Saxons and Normans, not of the pensive 
 gymnosophists of India. 
 
 True, and yet these pensive gymnosophists are not 
 entire strangers to us. Whatever the blood may be 
 that runs through our veins, the blood that runs 
 through our thoughts, I mean our language, is the 
 same as that of the Aryas of India, and that language 
 has more to do with ourselves than the blood that 
 feeds our body and keeps us alive for a time. 
 
 Itaji.gna,ge, the Common Backgiround of Pliilosophy. 
 
 Let us therefore try, before we begin to compare the 
 philosophy of the Hindus with our own, or with that 
 of Greeks and Romans, to make it quite clear to our- 
 selves, first of all, whether there may be a common 
 foundation for both, or secondly whether we shall 
 have to admit a later historical contact between the
 
 7.2 LECTURE III. 
 
 philosophers of the East and those of the West. I 
 think people have learnt by this time to appreciate 
 how much we are dependent in all our thoughts on 
 our language, nay how much we are helped, and, of 
 course, hindered also by our language in all our 
 thoughts, and afterwards in the deeds that follow on 
 our thoughts. Still we must be careful and distin- 
 guish between two things, — the common stock of 
 words and thoughts which the Aryan nations shared 
 in common before they separated, and the sj'stems of 
 thought which in later times they elaborated each on 
 their own soil. The common intellectual inheritance 
 of the Aryan nations is very considerable, — much 
 larger than was at one time supposed. There are 
 sufficient words left which, as they are the same in 
 Greek and Sanskrit, must have existed before the 
 Aryan family broke up into two branches, the one 
 marching to the West and North, the other to the South 
 and East. It is possible with the help of these words 
 to determine the exact degree of what may be called 
 civilisation, which had been reached before the great 
 Aryan separation took place, thousands of years before 
 the beginning of any history. We know that the only 
 real historical background for the religion, the mytho- 
 logy and the laws of the Greeks and Romans has 
 been discovered in the fragments left to us of the 
 common stock of words of the Aryan nations. 
 
 Common Aryan Beligion and Mytliolo^. 
 
 To treat of Greek religion, mythology, nay even of 
 legal customs without a consideration of their Aryan 
 antecedents, would be like treating of Itahan without 
 a knowledge of Latin. This is now a very old truth,
 
 ANCIENT RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES. 73 
 
 though there are still, I believe, a few classical scholars 
 left, who are shocked at the idea that the Greek Zeus 
 could have anything to do with the Vedic Dyaus, 
 You know that there are some people who occasion- 
 ally publish a pamphlet to show that, after all, the 
 earth is not round, and who even offer prizes and 
 challenge astronomers to prove that it is round. It 
 is the same in Comparative Philology and Religion. 
 There are still some troglodytes left who say that Zeus 
 may be derived from (Tiv, to live, that Varu7ia shows 
 no similarity to Ouranos, that deva, bright and god, 
 cannot be the Latin deus, that >Sarvara is not 
 Kerberos, and that Sara7iyu cannot be Erinys. 
 To them Greek mythology is like a lotus swimming 
 on the water without any stem, without any roots. 
 I am old enough to remember the time when the 
 world was startled for the first time by the discovery 
 that the dark inhabitants of India should more than 
 three thousand years ago have called tlieii' gods by 
 the same names by which the Romans and the 
 Romanic nations called God and still call Him to the 
 present day. But the world has even been more 
 startled of late at the recrudescence of this old 
 classical prejudice, which looked upon an Aryan 
 origin of Greek thought and Greek language as 
 almost an insult to classical scholarship. One of the 
 greatest discoveries of our century, a discovery in 
 which men such as Humboldt, Bopp, Grimm and 
 Kuhn have gained their never-fading laurels, was 
 treated once more as schoolmasters would treat the 
 blunders of schoolboys, and that by men ignorant of 
 the rudiments of Sanskrit, ignorant of the very ele- 
 ments of Comparative Philology. I call it one of the
 
 74 LECTURE III. 
 
 greatest discoveries of our age, for it has thrown light 
 on one of the darkest chapters in the history of the 
 world, it has helped us to understand some of the most 
 perplexing riddles in the growth of the human mind, 
 it has placed historical facts, where formerly we had 
 nothing but guesses as to the history of the Aryan 
 nations, previous to their appearance on the historical 
 stage of Asia and Europe. 
 
 I should not venture to say that some mistakes 
 have not been made in the reconstruction of the 
 picture of the Aryan civilisation previous to their 
 separation, or in identifying the names of certain 
 Greek and Vedic gods ; but such mistakes, as soon as 
 they were discovered, have easily been corrected. 
 Besides, we know that what were supposed to be 
 mistakes, were often no mistakes at all. One of the 
 strongest arguments against a comparison of Greek 
 and Vedic deities has always been that the Greeks of 
 Homer's time, for instance, had no recollection that 
 Zeus was originally a name of the bright sky or 
 Erinys a name of the dawn. Nothing is so easy as 
 to disprove what no one has ever wished to prove. 
 No Frenchman is conscious that the name epicier has 
 anything to do with species, and in the end, with 
 Plato's ideas; and yet we know that an unbroken 
 historical chain connects the two names. Mytho- 
 logical studies wall never gain a safe scientific basis, 
 unless they are built up on the same common Aryan 
 foundation on which all linguistic studies are admitted 
 to rest. It is now the fashion to explain the similari- 
 ties between the religion, the mythology, the folklore 
 of the Aryan nations, not by their common origin, but 
 by our common humanity, not by historical evidence,
 
 ANCIENT RELIGIOXS AND nilLOSOPHIES. 75 
 
 but by psychological speculation. It is perfectly true 
 that there are legends, stories, customs and proverbs 
 to be found among the South Sea Islanders and the 
 inhabitants of the Arctic regions which bear a 
 striking likeness to those of the Aryan nations. 
 Many such had been collected long ago by anthro- 
 pologists such as Bastholm, Klemm, Waitz, and more 
 recently by Bastian, Tylor and others. I have myself 
 been one of the earliest labourers in this interesting 
 field of Psychological Mythology. But the question 
 is, What conclusions have we a right to draw from 
 such coincidences'? First of all, we know by sad 
 experience how deceptive such apparent similarities 
 have often proved, for the simple reason that those 
 who collected them misunderstood their real import. 
 Secondly, we must never forget the old rule that if 
 two people say or do the same thing, it is not 
 always the same. But suppose the similarity is 
 complete and well made out, all we have a right to 
 say is that man, if placed under similar influences, 
 will sometimes react in the same manner. We have 
 no right as yet to speak of universal psychological 
 instincts, of innate ideas and all the rest. Psycho- 
 logical Mythology is a field that requires much more 
 careful cultivation than it has hitherto received. 
 Hitherto its materials have mostly proved untrust- 
 worthy, and its conclusions, in consequence, fanciful 
 and unstable. 
 
 We move in a totally different atmosphere when 
 we examine the legends, stories, customs and proverbs 
 of races who speak cognate languages. We have here 
 an historical background, we stand on a firm historical 
 foundation.
 
 76 LECTURE III. 
 
 Charites = Haritas. 
 
 Let me give you one instance. I proposed many 
 years ago the mythological equation H aritas = CAari- 
 tes. All sorts of objections have been raised against 
 it, not one that I had not considered myself, before I 
 proposed it, not one that could for one moment shake 
 my conviction. If then the Sanskrit Haritas is the 
 same word, consonant by consonant and vowel by 
 vowel, as the Greek Charites or Graces, have we not 
 a right to say that these two words must have had 
 the same historical beginning, and that however widely 
 the special meaning of the Greek Graces has diverged 
 from the special meaning of Haritas in Sanskrit, 
 these two diverging lines must have started from a 
 common centre? You know that in Sanskrit the 
 Haritas are the bright horses of the sun, while in 
 Greek the Charites are the lovely companions of 
 Aphrodite. The common point from which these two 
 mythological conceptions have started must be dis- 
 covered and has been discovered in the fact that in 
 the Veda Haritas meant originally the brilliant rays 
 of the rising sun. These in the language of the Vedic 
 poets became the horses of the sun-god, while in 
 Greek mythology they were conceived as beautiful 
 maidens attending on the orient sun, whether in its 
 male or its female character. If therefore we compare 
 the Vedic Haritas with the Greek Charites, all we 
 mean is that they have both the same antecedents. 
 But when the Greek Charis becomes the wife of 
 Hephaistos, the smith, there is no longer any contact 
 here between Greek and Indian thought. This legend 
 has sprung from the soil of Greece, and those who
 
 ANCIENT RELIGrONS AND PHILOSOPHIES. n 
 
 framed it had no recollection, however vague, of the 
 Vedic Haritas, the horses of the Vedic sun-god. 
 
 The later Orowth of Philosophy. 
 
 Now with regard to the early philosophy of the 
 Greeks no one would venture to say that, such as we 
 know it, it had been developed previous to the Aryan 
 separation. If I say, no one, this is perhaps too 
 strong, for how can we guard against occasional out- 
 breaks of hallucination, and what strait jacket is there 
 to prevent anybody who can drive a pen from rushing 
 into print? Only it is not fair to make a whole 
 school responsible for one or two black sheep. Greek 
 philosophy and Indian philosophy are products re- 
 spectively of the native soil of Greece and of India, 
 and to suppose that similarities such as have been dis- 
 covered between the Vedanta philosophy and that of 
 the Eleatic philosophers, between the belief in metem- 
 psychosis in the Upanishads and the same behef in 
 the schools of the Pythagoreans, were due to borrowing 
 or to common Aryan reminiscences, is simply to con- 
 found two totally distinct spheres of historical research. 
 
 Help derived by Philosophy from Iianernage. 
 
 The utmost we can say is that there is an Aryan 
 atmosphere pervading both philosophies, different from 
 any Semitic atmosphere of thought, that there are 
 certain deep grooves of thought traced by Aryan 
 language in which the thoughts both of Indian and 
 Greek philosophers had necessarily to move. I shall 
 mention a few only. You know what an important 
 part the verbal copula acts in all philosophical opera- 
 tions. There are laucruases which have no verbal
 
 78 LECTURE III. 
 
 copula, while the Aryan languages had their copula 
 ready made before they separated, the Sanskrit asti, 
 the Greek eori, the Latin est, the Teutonic ist. The 
 relative pronoun too is of immense help for the close 
 concatenation of thought; so is the article, both definite 
 and indefinite. The relative pronoun had been ela- 
 borated before the Aryans separated, the definite 
 article existed at least in its rudimentary form. We 
 can hardly imagine any philosophical treatment with- 
 out the help of indicative and subjunctive, without 
 the employment of prepositions with their at first 
 local and temporal, but very soon, causal and modal 
 meanings also, without participles and infinitives, 
 without comparatives and superlatives. Think only 
 of the difficulty which the Romans experienced and 
 which we ourselves experience, in finding an equivalent 
 for such a participle as to 6v, still more for the Greek 
 ova-Ca. Sanskrit has no such difficulty. It expresses 
 TO ov by sat, and ovdia by sat-tva. All this forms 
 the common property of Greek and Sanskrit and the 
 other Aryan languages. There are many other in- 
 gredients of language which we accept as a matter of 
 course, but which, if we come to consider it, could 
 only have been the result of a long intellectual 
 elaboration. Such are, for instance, the formation of 
 abstract nouns. Without abstract nouns philosophy 
 would hardly deserve the name of philosophy, and we 
 are justified in saying that, as the suffixes by which 
 abstract nouns are formed are the same in Greek and 
 in Sanskrit, they must have existed before the Aryan 
 separation. The same applies to adjectives which may 
 likewise be called general and abstract terms, and 
 which in many cases are formed by the same suffixes
 
 ANCIENT RELIGIONS AND rillLOSOPHIES. 71) 
 
 in Greek and in Sanskrit. The genitive also was 
 originally a general and abstract term, and was called 
 yeviKT] because it expressed the genus to which certain 
 things belonged. A bird of the water was the same 
 as an aquatic biixl, ' of the water ' expressing the class 
 to which certain birds belong. There are languages 
 deficient in all or many of these points, deficient also 
 in infinitives and participles, and these deficiencies 
 have clearly proved fetters in the progress of philo- 
 sophical thought, while Aryan philosophers were 
 supplied by their common language with wings for 
 their boldest flights of speculation. There are even 
 certain words which contain the result of philosophical 
 thought, and which must clearly have existed before 
 the Greek language separated from Sanskrit. Such 
 common Aryan words are, for instance, man, to think, 
 {ixefiova, memini), manas, mind (jueVos), as distinguished 
 from corpus (Zend Kehrp), body ; nam an, name ; va/o, 
 speech; veda, I know, olha; sraddadhau, I believe, 
 credidi; mrityu, death; avaritu, immortal. 
 
 All this is true and justifies us in speaking of a 
 kind of common Aryan atmosphere pervading the 
 philosophy of Greeks and Hindus, — a common, though 
 submerged stratum of thought from which alone the 
 materials, whether stone or clay, could be taken with 
 which to build the later temples of religion, and the 
 palaces of philosophy. All this should be remembered ; 
 but it should not be exaggerated. 
 
 Independent Character of Indian Philosophy. 
 
 Real Indian philosophy, even in that embryonic 
 form in which we find it in the Upanishads, stands 
 completely by itself. We cannot claim for it any
 
 80 LECTURE Til. 
 
 historical relationship with the earliest Greek philo- 
 sophy. The two are as independent of each other as 
 the Greek Charis, when she has become the wife of 
 Hephaistos, is of the red horses of the Vedic dawn. 
 
 And herein, in this very independence, in this 
 autochthonic character, lies to my mind the real 
 charm of Indian philosophy. It sprang up when the 
 Indian mind had no longer any recollection, had no 
 longer even an unconscious impression, of its original 
 consanguinity with the Greek mind. The common 
 Aryan period had long vanished from the memory of 
 the speakers of Sanskrit and Greek, before Thales 
 declared that water was the beginning of all things; 
 and if we find in the Upanishads such passages as 
 * In the beginning all this was water,' we must not 
 imagine that there was here any historical borrowing, 
 we have no right even to appeal to prehistoric Aryan 
 memories — all we have a right to say is that the 
 human mind arrived spontaneously at similar con- 
 clusions when facing the old problems of the world, 
 whether in India or in Greece. The more the horizon 
 of our researches is extended, the more we are driven 
 to admit that what was real in one place was possible 
 in another. 
 
 Was Greek Philosophy borrowed from the East? 
 
 In taking this position I know I am opposed to 
 men of considerable authority, who hold that the 
 ancient Greek philosophers borrowed their wisdom 
 from the East, that they travelled in the East, and 
 that whenever we find any similarity between early 
 Greek and Oriental philosophy it is the Greeks who 
 must be supposed to have borrowed, whether from
 
 ANCIENT RELTGIOXS AND PHILOSOPHIES. 81 
 
 Egypt or from Babylon, or even from India. This 
 question of the possibility of any influence having 
 been exercised on early Greek philosophy by the 
 philosophers of Egypt, Persia, Babylon and India 
 requii'es a more careful consideration before we proceed 
 further. It has been very fully discussed by Zeller in 
 his great -work Die Philosophie der Griechen. I en- 
 tirely agree with his conclusions, and I shall try to 
 give you as concisely as possible the results at which 
 he has arrived. He shows that the Greeks from very 
 early times were inclined to admit that on certain 
 points their own philosophers had been influenced by 
 Oriental philosophy. But they admitted this with 
 regard to special doctrines only. That the whole of 
 Greek philosophy had come from the East was main- 
 tained at a later time, particularly by the priests 
 of Egypt after their first intercourse with Greece, and 
 by the Jews of Alexandria after they had become 
 ardent students of Greek philosophy. It is curious, 
 however, to observe how even Herodotus was com- 
 pletely persuaded by the Egyptian priests, not indeed 
 that Greek philosophy was borrowed from the Nile, 
 but that certain gods and forms of worship such as 
 that of Dionysos, and likewise certain religious doc- 
 trines such as that of metempsychosis, had actually 
 been imported into Greece from Egypt. He went so 
 far as to say that the Pelasgians had originally wor- 
 shipped gods in general only, but that they had 
 received their names, with few exceptions, from 
 Egypt. The Egyptian priests seem to have treated 
 Herodotus and other Greek travellers very much in 
 the same way in which Indian priests treated Wilford 
 and Jacolliot, assuring them that everything they 
 
 (4) G
 
 8fi LECTUEE III. 
 
 asked for, whether in Greek mythology or in the 
 Old Testament, was contained in their own Sacred 
 Books. If, however, the study of Egyptian antiquities 
 has proved anything, it has proved that the names 
 of the Greek gods were not borrowed from Egypt. 
 Krantor, as quoted by Proclus (in Tim. 24 B), was 
 perhaps the first who maintained that the famous 
 myth told by Plato, that of the Athenians and the 
 Atlantidae, was contained in inscriptions still found 
 in Egypt. In later times (400 A. D.) Diodorus Siculus 
 appealed freely to books supposed to be in the pos- 
 session of Egyptian priests, in order to prove that 
 Orpheus, Musaeus, Homer, Lykurgus, Solon, and 
 others had studied in Egypt ; nay, he adds that relics 
 of Pythagoras, Plato, Eudoxus, Demokritus were 
 shown there to attest their former presence on the 
 shores of the Nile. Pythagoras is said to have ac- 
 quired his knowledge of geometry and mathematics and 
 his belief in metempsychosis in Egypt ; Demokritus, 
 his astronomy ; Lykurgus, Solon, and Plato, their 
 knowledge of laws. What was first stated by Egyp- 
 tian priests from national vanity was afterwards, 
 when the East was generally believed to have been 
 the cradle of all wisdom, willingly repeated by the 
 Greeks themselves. The Neo-Platonists, more par- 
 ticularly, were convinced that all wisdom had its 
 first home in the East. The Jews at Alexandria 
 readily followed their example, trying to prove that 
 much of Greek religion and philosophy had been 
 borrowed from their sacred writings. Clement spoke 
 of Plato as the philosopher of or from the Hebrews 
 (6 e^^E^paicov ^tAo(7oc/)os, Strom, i. 274 B). 
 
 Zeller has shown how little historical value can be
 
 ANCIENT RELIGIONS AND nilLOSOrillES. 83 
 
 ascribed to these statements. He might have pointed 
 out at the same time that the more critical Greeks 
 themselves were very doubtful about these travels of 
 their early philosophers and lawgivers in the East. 
 Thus Plutarch in his life of Lykurgus says that it 
 was told that Lykurgus travelled not only to Crete 
 and Asia Minor, where he became acquainted for the 
 first time with the poems of Homer, but that he went 
 also to Egypt. But here Plutarch himself seems 
 sceptical, for he adds that the Egyptians themselves 
 say so, and a few Greek writers, while with regard to 
 his travels to Africa, Spain, and India, they rest, he 
 adds, on the authority of one writer only, Aristokrates, 
 the son of Hipparchus. 
 
 On the other hand there seems to be some kind of 
 evidence that an Indian philosopher had once visited 
 Athens, and had some personal intercourse with 
 Sokrates. That Persians came to Greece and that 
 their sacred literature was known in Greece, we can 
 gather from the fact that Zoroaster's name, as a 
 teacher, was known perfectly well to Plato and 
 Aristotle, and that in the third century B.C. Her- 
 mippus had made an analysis of the books of Zoro- 
 aster. This rests on the authority of Pliny (Science 
 of Language, i. p. 280). As Northern India was 
 under Persian sway, it is not impossible that not only 
 Persians, but Indians also, came to Greece and made 
 there the acquaintance of Greek philosophers. There 
 is certainly one passage which deserves more atten- 
 tion than it has hitherto received. Eusebius {Pre}). 
 Ev., xi. 3) quotes a work on Platonic Philosophy by 
 Aristoeles, who states therein on the authority of 
 Aristoxenos, a pupil of Aristotle, that an Indinn 
 
 G2
 
 84 LECTURE III. 
 
 philosopher came to Athens and had a discussion 
 with Sokrates. There is nothing in this to excite 
 our suspicion, and what makes the statement of Aris- 
 toxenos more plausible is the observation itself which 
 this Indian philosopher is said to have made to 
 Sokrates. For when Sokrates had told him that his 
 philosophy consisted in inquiries about the life of 
 man, the Indian philosopher is said to have smiled 
 and to have replied that no one could understand 
 things human who did not first understand things 
 divine. Now this is a remark so thoroughly Indian 
 that it leaves the impression on my mind of being 
 possibly genuine. 
 
 But even granting this isolated case, I have no 
 doubt that all classical scholars will approve of 
 Zeller's judicious treatment of this question of the 
 origin of Greek philosophy. Greek philosophy is 
 autochthonous, and requires no Oriental antecedents. 
 Greek philosophers themselves never say that they 
 borrowed their doctrines from the East. That Pytha- 
 goras went to Egypt may be true, that he became 
 acquainted there with the solutions of certain geo- 
 metrical problems may be true also, but that he 
 borrowed the whole of his philosophy from Egypt, is 
 simply a rhetorical exaggeration of Isokrates. The 
 travels of Demokritus are better attested, but there is 
 no evidence that he was initiated in philosophical 
 doctrines by his barbarian friends. That Plato 
 travelled in Egypt need not be doubted, but that 
 he went to Phoenicia, Chaldaea, and Persia to study 
 philosophy, is mere guesswork. What Plato thought 
 of the Egyptians he has told us himself in the Republic 
 (436) when he says that the special characteristic of
 
 ANCIENT RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES. 85 
 
 the Greeks is love of knowledge, of the Phoenicians 
 and Egyptians love of money. If he borrowed no 
 money, he certainly borrowed no philosophy from his 
 Egyptian friends. 
 
 When of late years the ancient literature of Egypt, 
 Babylon, Persia, India, and China, came to be studied, 
 there were not wanting Oriental scholars who thought 
 they had discovered some of the sources of Greek 
 philosophy in every one of these countries. But this 
 period also has passed away. The opinions of Bohlen, 
 Roth, Gladisch, Lorinsor, and others, are no longer 
 shared by the best Oriental scholars. They all admit 
 the existence of striking coincidences on certain points 
 and special doctrines between Oriental and Occidental 
 philosophical thought, but they deny the necessity of 
 admitting any actual borrowing. Opinions like those 
 of Thales that water is the origin of all things, of 
 Heraclitus that the Divine pervades all things, of 
 Pythagoras and Plato that the human soul migrates 
 through animal bodies, of Aristotle that there are five 
 elements, of Empedokles and the Orphics that animal 
 food is objectionable, all these may easily be matched 
 in Oriental philosophy, but to prove that they were 
 borrowed, or rather that they were dishonestly ap- 
 propriated, would require far stronger arguments than 
 have yet been produced. 
 
 Indian FMlosophy antochtlionoTis. 
 
 Let us remember then that the conclusion at which 
 we have arrived enables us to treat Indian pliilosophy 
 as a perfectly independent witness. It was different 
 with Indian religion and mythology. In comparing 
 Indian religion and mythology with the religion and
 
 86 LECTURE III. 
 
 mj'thology of Greeks and Romans^ Celts and Teutons, 
 the common Aryan leaven could still be clearly per- 
 ceived as working in all of them. Their rudiments 
 are the same, however different their individual 
 growth. But when we come to compare Indian 
 philosophy with the early philosophies of other Aryan 
 nations, the case is different. M. Reville, in his learned 
 work on the American religions, has remarked how 
 the religions of Mexico and Peru come upon us like 
 the religions of another planet, free from all suspicion 
 of any influence having ever been exercised by the 
 thought of the old on the thought of the new world. 
 The same applies not indeed to the religion, but to 
 the philosophy of India. Apart from the influence 
 which belongs to a common language and which must 
 never be quite neglected, we may treat the earliest 
 philosophy of India as an entirely independent witness, 
 as the philosophy of another planet ; and if on certain 
 points Indian and Greek philosophy arrive at the 
 same results, we may welcome such coincidences as 
 astronomers welcomed the coincidences between the 
 speculations of Leverrier and Adams, both working 
 independently in their studies at Paris and Cambridge. 
 We may appeal in fact to the German proverb, Aus 
 zweier Zeugen Mund, Wird alle Wahrheit Jcund, 
 and look upon a truth on which Badarayaiia and 
 Plato agree, as not very far from proven.
 
 LECTURE rV. 
 
 THE RELATION OF PSYCHOLOQICAL TO PHYSICAL 
 AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL RELIGION. 
 
 The Constituent Elements of Beligion. 
 
 ONE of the greatest difficulties in studying ancient 
 religions is the entire absence of any systematic 
 arrangement in their Sacred Books. We look in vain 
 for anything like creeds, articles of faith, or a well- 
 digested catechism. It is left therefore to ourselves 
 to reduce the chaos of thoughts which they contain 
 to some kind of order. 
 
 This has been attempted in various ways. 
 
 Sometimes the doctrines contained in them have 
 been arranged in two classes, as dogmas to be believed 
 (theology), and as rules of conduct to be obeyed 
 (ethics). Sometimes scholars have collected all that 
 refers to the outward ceremonial, and have tried to 
 separate it from what was believed about the gods. 
 But in most religions it would be almost impossible 
 to separate ethics from dogma, while in its origin at 
 least ceremonial is always the outward manifestation 
 only of religious belief. Of late these outward or 
 sacrificial elements of religion have received great 
 attention, and a long controversy has been carried on
 
 88 LECTURE IV. 
 
 as to whether sacrifice was the real origin of all 
 religion, or whether every sacrifice, if properly under- 
 stood, presupposes a belief in gods to whom the 
 sacrifices were ofiered. 
 
 The theory, supported chiefly by Professor Gruppe, 
 that sacrifice comes fii'st and a belief in gods after- 
 wards seems to me utterly untenable, if not self- 
 contradictory. An off'ering surely can only be an 
 oflfering to somebody, and even if that somebody has 
 not yet received a name of his own, he must have 
 been conceived under a general name, such as celestial, 
 immortal, divine, powerful, and all the rest. 
 
 It is no new discovery, for instance, that many of 
 the hymns of the Rig-veda presuppose the existence 
 of a highly developed ceremonial, but to say that this 
 is the case with all, or that no hymns were composed 
 except as auxiliary to a sacrifice, betrays a strange 
 ignorance of palpable facts. Even the hymns which 
 were composed for sacrificial purposes presuppose a 
 belief in a number of gods to whom sacrifices are 
 offered. If a hymn was to be used at the morning 
 sacrifice, that very morning sacrifice owed its origin 
 to a belief in a god manifested in the rising sun, or in 
 a goddess of the dawn. The sacrifice was in fact as 
 spontaneous as a prayer or a hymn, before it became 
 traditional, technical, and purely ceremonial. On this 
 point there cannot be two opinions, so long as we 
 deal with facts and not with fancies. 
 
 My own Bivision. 
 
 In my Lectures on Natural Religion, I have pre- 
 ferred a different division, and have assigned one 
 course to each of what I consider the constituent
 
 CIJAHACTER OF PSYCHOLOaiCAL RELIGION. 89 
 
 parts of all religions. My first cour.se of Lectures was 
 purely introductory, and had for its object a defini- 
 tion of Natural Religion in its widest sense. I also 
 thought it necessary, before approaching the subject 
 itself, to give an account of the documents from which 
 we may derive trustworthy information about Natural 
 Religion as it presents itself to us in the historical 
 growth of the principal religions of the world. 
 
 My second course, which treated oi Physical Religion, 
 was intended to show how different nations had 
 arrived at a belief in something infinite behind the 
 finite, in something invisible behind the visible, in 
 many unseen agents or gods of nature, till at last, by 
 the natural desire for unity, they reached a belief in 
 one god above all those gods. We saw how what I 
 called the Infinite in nature, or that which underlies 
 all that is finite and phenomenal in our cosmic experi- 
 ence, became named, individualised, and personified, 
 till in the end it was conceived again as beyond all 
 names. 
 
 My third course, which treated of Anthropological 
 Religion^ was intended to show how different nations 
 arrived at a belief in a soul, how they named its 
 various faculties, and what they imagined about its 
 fate after death. 
 
 While thus my second course was intended as a 
 history of the discovery of the Infinite in nature, my 
 third course was intended to explain the discovery 
 of the Infinite in man. 
 
 It remains for me to treat, in this my last course, of 
 the relation between these two Infinites, if indeed 
 there can be two Infinites, or to explain to you the 
 ideas which some of the principal nations of the world
 
 90 LECTURE IV. 
 
 have formed on this relation between the soul and 
 God. It has been truly said, and most emphatically 
 by Dr. Newman, that neither a belief in God by itself, 
 nor a belief in the soul by itself^ would constitute 
 religion, and that real religion is founded on a true 
 perception of the relation of the soul to God and of 
 God to the soul. What I want to prove is that all this 
 is true, not only as a postulate, but as an historical fact. 
 
 Nor can it be doubted that our concept of God 
 depends to a great extent on our concept of the soul, 
 and it has been remarked that it would have been 
 better if I had treated Anthropological before Physical 
 Religion, because a belief in the Infinite in nature, in 
 invisible powers, behind the great phenomena of the 
 physical world, and at last in a soul of the Universe 
 would be impossible, without a previous belief in the 
 Infinite in man, in an invisible agent behind the acts 
 of man, in fact, in a soul or a spirit. The same idea 
 was evidently in the mind of Master Eckhart, when 
 he said, ' The nearer a man in this life approaches to 
 a knowledge of the nature of the soul, the nearer he 
 approaches to a knowledge of God ^' 
 
 From an historical point of view, however, the great 
 phenomena, perceived in the objective world, seem to 
 have been the first to arouse in the human mind the 
 idea of something beyond, of something invisible, yet 
 real, of something infinite or transcending the limits 
 of human experience. And it was probably in this 
 sense that an old Rabbi remarked: 'God sees and is 
 not seen ; so the soul sees and is not seen ^.' The 
 
 * ' Als vil ein mensche in disem leben mit sinem bekenntnisse je 
 naher kamt dem wisen der sele, je naher er ist dem bekenntnisse 
 gotes ' (ed. Pfeiffer, p. 617, 1. 32). 
 
 * Bigg, Bampton Lectures, pp. 8 ; 10, n. 3.
 
 CHARACTER OF TSYCHOLOaiCAL RELIGION. 91 
 
 two processes, leading to a belief in an invisible 
 God, the Infinite in its objective character, and to a 
 belief in an invisible soul, or the Infinite in its sub- 
 jective character, are really so intimately connected 
 that it is difficult to say which of the two ought to be 
 treated first, or which of the two came first in the 
 historical development of religion. What is quite 
 clear, however, is this, that Psychological Religion 
 presupposes both Physical and Anthropological Reli- 
 gion, and that before the soul and God can be brought 
 into relation with each other, both the concept of God 
 and the concept of soul had to be elaborated. Nay, 
 God had to be conceived as soul-like, and the soul of 
 man as God-like, for like only can know like, like 
 only can love like, like only can be united with like. 
 
 The meaning of Psychological Beligion. 
 
 If I use the name of Psjxhological Religion in order 
 to comprehend under it all attempts at discovering the 
 true relation between the soul and God, it is because 
 other names, such as Theoso2Jhic,Psychic,or3fystic,h&\e 
 been so much misused that they are sure to convey 
 a false impression. Theoi<opkic conveys the idea of wild 
 speculations on the hidden nature of God ; Psychic 
 reminds us of trances, visions, and ghosts ; Mystic 
 leaves the impression of something vague, nebulous, 
 and secret, while to the student of Psychological Reli- 
 gion the true relation of the two souls, the human 
 soul and the divine, is, or ought to be, as clear as the 
 most perfect logical syllogism. I shall not be able to 
 avoid these names altogether, because the most promi- 
 nent representatives of Theosophy and mj'stic religion 
 have prided themselves on these names, and they are
 
 92 LECTURE IV. 
 
 very appropriate, if only clearly defined. Nothing, 
 of course, is easier, and therefore to certain minds more 
 tempting than to use the same word in its opprobrious 
 sense, and thus by a mere name to condemn doctrines 
 which have been held by the wisest and best of men. 
 This kind of criticism need not detain us, or keep us 
 from adopting the name of Theosophy for our own 
 purposes. 
 
 In most of the religions of the ancient world, the 
 relation between the soul and God has been repre- 
 sented as a return of the soul to God. A yearning 
 for God, a kind of divine home-sickness, finds expres- 
 sion in most religions. But the road that is to lead us 
 home, and the reception which the soul may expect 
 in the Father's house, have been represented in very 
 different ways, in different countries and different 
 languages. 
 
 I. Return of tlie Soul to God, after death. 
 
 We can divide the opinions held and the hopes ex- 
 pressed on this subject into two classes. According 
 to some religious teachers, a return of the soul to God 
 is possible after death only, and we shall see ever so 
 many attempts, ever so many bridges thrown by hope 
 and faith across the gulph which seems to separate 
 the Human from the Divine. Most of these bridges, 
 however, lead only to the home, or to the throne of God, 
 and there leave the soul wrapt in intuition and adora- 
 tion of an unrelated objective deity. Everything is stiU 
 more or less mythological. The deity sits on a golden 
 throne, and the souls, though divested of their material 
 bodies, are still like the shadows of their earthly bodies, 
 approaching the foot of the throne, but always kept at 
 a certain distance from its divine occupant.
 
 CHARACTER OF PSYCHOLOQICAL RELIGION. 93 
 11. Xnowledgre of the unity of the Divine and the Human. 
 
 According to other religious teachers, the final 
 beatitude of the soul can be achieved even in this life, 
 nay must be achieved in this life, if it is to bear fruit 
 in the next. That beatitude requires no bridges, it 
 requires knowledge only, knowledge of the necessary 
 unity of what is divine in man with what is divine in 
 God. The Brahmans call it self-knowledofe, that is to 
 say, the knowledge that our true self, if it is anything, 
 can only be that Self which is All in All, and beside 
 which there is nothing else. Sometimes this concep- 
 tion of the intimate relation between the human and 
 the divine natures comes in suddenly, as the result of 
 an unexplained intuition or self-recollection. Some- 
 times, however, it seems as if the force of logic had 
 driven the human mind to the same result. If God 
 had once been recognised as the Infinite in nature, and 
 the soul as the Infinite in man, it seemed to follow 
 that there could not be two Infinites. The Eleatics 
 had clearly passed through a similar phase of thought 
 in their own philosophy. 'If there is an infinite,' they 
 said, ' it is one, for if there were two, they could not 
 be infinite, but would be finite one towards the other. 
 But that which exists is infinite, and there cannot be 
 more such (iovra). Therefore that which exists is 
 one ^.' 
 
 Nothing can be more decided than this Eleatic 
 Monism, and with it the admission of a soul, the Infi- 
 nite in man, as different from God, the Infinite in 
 nature, would have been inconceivable. In India the 
 
 ' El Si arrtipov, tv d ydp 5vo urj, ovk hv Svvairo dnftpa (Tvar dA\* 
 e,\ot &.V niipaTa irpus dWrjXa' dvupov hi to idv, ovk dpa irXiu rd ivvra' 
 tv dpa TO ivy. (Molissus, Fragm. 3.)
 
 94 LECTURE IV. 
 
 process was not quite the same, but it led in the end 
 to the same result. The infinite in nature or Brah- 
 man had been recognised as free from all predicates 
 except three, sat, being, ^it, perceiving, ana n da, 
 blessedness. When it was afterwards discovered that 
 of the infinite in man also, the soul, or rather the self, 
 Atman, nothing could be predicated except the same 
 triad of qualities, being, perceiving, and rejoicing, the 
 conclusion was almost irresistible that these two, 
 Brahman and Atman, were in their nature one. 
 The early Christians also, at least those who had been 
 brought up in the schools of Neo-platonist philosophy, 
 had a clear perception that, if the soul is infinite and 
 immortal in its nature, it cannot be anything beside 
 God or by the side of God, but that it must be of God 
 and in God. St. Paul gave but his own bold expres- 
 sion to the same faith or knowledge, when he uttered 
 the words which have startled so many theologians : 
 ' In Him we live and move and have our being.' If 
 anyone else had uttered these words, they would at 
 once have been condemned as pantheism. No doubt 
 they are pantheism, and yet they express the very 
 key-note of Christianity. The divine sonship of man 
 is only a metaphorical expression, but it was meant 
 originally to embody the same idea. Nor was that 
 sonship from the first restricted to one manifestation 
 only of the Divine. The power at all events to become 
 the sons of God was claimed for all men. And when 
 the question was asked how the consciousness of this 
 divine sonship could ever have been lost, the answer 
 given by Christianit}'^ was, by sin, the answer given 
 by the Upanishads was, by avidy a, nescience. This 
 marks the similarity, and at the same time the charac-
 
 CHARACTER OF I'SYCHOI.OfilCAL RELIGION. 95 
 
 teristic difference between these two religions. The 
 question how nescience laid hold of the human soul, 
 and made it imagine that it could live or move or 
 have its true being anywhere but in Brahman, remains 
 as unanswerable in Hindu philosophy as in Christi- 
 anity the question how sin first came into the world'. 
 
 Veda and Vedanta. 
 
 If for the study of Physical Religion, more par- 
 ticularly of the initial phases of Physical Religion, we 
 depended chiefly, if not entirely, on the Veda, you 
 will find that for a study of Psychological Religion 
 also and its first beginnings, the Veda is likewise, 
 nay, even more, our most important, if not our only 
 authority. It is no longer, however, in the hymns 
 of the Veda that we shall have to discover the fullest 
 realisation of Psychological Religion, but in what is 
 called the Vedanta, the end of the Veda. That is 
 the name, as you may remember, given to the Upani- 
 shads or to the Giian&'ka.nda., the knowledge-portion 
 as opposed to the Karmaka?i(:Za, the work-portion of 
 the Veda. It is doubtful whether Vedanta was meant 
 originally for the end, i. e. the last portion of the Veda, 
 or, as it is sometimes explained, for the end, that is 
 the highest object of the Veda. Both interpretations 
 can be defended. The Upanishads have really their 
 place as the last portions of the Veda, but they are 
 also looked upon as conveying the last and highest 
 lesson of the religion and philosophy of the Veda. 
 
 * Harnack, i. p. 103. Clemens Alex. (Stiom. v. 14, 113) says : 
 ovTcuy SvvaiJ.tv Aa/JoCaa KVpiaxfjy tJ ^vxt) fxfXfrq, (Ivai 0(6s, Kanov fiiv ovSiv 
 aWo nXrjv dyi oias uvai vo^'i^ovaa.
 
 96 LECTURE IV. 
 
 The ITpauishads. 
 
 What these Upanishads are is indeed not easy to 
 describe. I have published in the Sacred Books of 
 the East the first complete translation of the twelve 
 most important Upanishads. The characteristic fea- 
 ture of them, to which I wish to call your attention 
 now, is their fragmentary style. They are not sys- 
 tematic treatises, such as we are accustomed to in 
 Greek philosophy, but they are fragments, they are 
 mere guesses at truth, sometimes ascribed to sages 
 whose names are given, sometimes represented in the 
 form of dialogues. They are mostly in prose, but 
 they contain frequent remnants of philosophical poetry 
 also. It is curious, however, that though unsystematic 
 in form, they are not without a system underlying 
 them all. We often find that the same subjects are 
 treated in a similar, nay, in the same manner, some- 
 times in the same words, in different Upanishads, 
 reminding us in this respect of the three synoptic 
 Gospels with their striking similarities and their no 
 less striking dissimilarities. In some cases we see 
 even opinions diametrically opposed to each other, 
 maintained by different authorities. While in one 
 place we read, 'In the beginning there was Sat,' tu 
 01', we read in another, ' In the beginning there was 
 As at,' TO fxi] ov. Other authorities say, ' In the begin- 
 ning there was darkness ; In the beginning there was 
 water ; In the beginning there was Pra^apati, the lord 
 of all created things ; In the beginning there was 
 Brahman ; In the beginning there w^as the Self,' 
 
 It would seem difficult at first sight to construct 
 a well-arranged building out of such heterogeneous
 
 CHARACTER OF PSYCHOLOGICAL RELTOION. 97 
 
 materials, aDd yet that is the very thing that has 
 been achieved by the builders of what is called the 
 Vedcinta system of philosophy. 
 
 The difhculties of the framers of that system were 
 increased a hundredfold by the fact that they had to 
 accept every word and every sentence of the Upani- 
 shads as revealed and as infallible. However con- 
 tradictory at first sight, all that was said in the 
 Upanishads had to be accepted, had to be explained, 
 had to be harmonised somehow (samanvaya). And 
 it was harmonised and welded into a system of philo- 
 sophy that for solidity and unity will bear comparison 
 with any other system of philosophy in the world. 
 This was done in a work which is called the Vedanta- 
 sutras. 
 
 Vedanta-Sutras . 
 
 Siitra means literally a string, but it is here used 
 as the name of short and almost enigmatical sentences 
 which contain the gist, as it were, of each chapter in 
 the most concise language, forming a kind of table of 
 contents of the whole system of philosophy. I do 
 not know anything like this Sutra-style in any 
 literature, while in India there is a whole period of 
 literature during which everything that is elsewhere 
 treated, either in prose or in poetry, has been reduced 
 to these short aphorisms. The earlier of these Siitras 
 are still to a certain extent intelligible, though always 
 difficult to understand. But after a time they became 
 so condensed, their authors employed so many merely 
 algebraic contrivances, that it seems to me that by 
 themselves they must often have been utterly useless. 
 It would seem that they were meant to be learnt by 
 heart at first, and then to be followed by an oral 
 
 '4^ H
 
 98 LECTURE IV. 
 
 explanation, but it is difficult to say whether they 
 ■were composed independently, or whether they were 
 from the beginning a mere abstract of an already 
 existing work, a kind of table of contents of a com- 
 pleted work. I must confess that whether these Sutras 
 were composed at a time when writing was as yet 
 unknown, or whether they were meant at first as the 
 headings of written treatises, their elaboration seems 
 to me far beyond anything that we could achieve 
 now. They must have required a concentration of 
 thought which it is difficult for us to realise. As 
 works of art they are of course nothing, but for the 
 purpose for which they were intended, for giving a 
 complete and accurate outline of a whole system of 
 philosophy, they are admirable ; for, if properly ex- 
 plained, they leave no doubt whatever as to the exact 
 meaning of the authors of systems of philosophy on 
 any point of their teaching. The same applies to the 
 manuals of grammar, of ceremonial, of jurisprudence, 
 and all the rest, composed likewise in the form of 
 Sutras. 
 
 The number of these Sutras or headings for the 
 system of the Vedanta philosophy amounts to about 
 555. They form four books (adhyayas), each divided 
 into four chapters (pada). 
 
 Besides Vedanta-siitras this gigantic work is also 
 known by the name of Mimamsa-sutras. Other 
 names are Brahma-sutras, or >S'ariraka Mima-wisa- 
 sutras, or Vyasa-sutras. Mimamsa is a desiderative 
 form of the root man, to think, and a very appro- 
 priate name, therefore, for philosophy. A distinc- 
 tion, however, is made between the Purva and the 
 Uttar^ Mtmamsa, that is^ the former and later
 
 CHARACTER OF PSYCHGLOQICAL RELIGION. 99 
 
 Mtmrujisfi, the former Mimai^isA, being an attempt 
 to reduce the ceremonial and the sacrificial rules of 
 the Veda to a consistent system, the latter having 
 for its object, as we saw, the systematic arrangement 
 of the utterances scattered about in the Upanishads 
 and having reference to Brahman as the Self of the 
 universe and at the same time the Self of the soul. 
 The Sutras of the former Mimfujisa are ascribed to 
 Gaimini, those of the latter to Badarayaiia. 
 
 Who Badaraya7?a was and when he lived, as usual 
 in Indian literature, we do not know. All we can 
 say is that his Sutras presuppose the existence not 
 only of the principal Upanishads, but likewise of a 
 number of teachers who are quoted by name, but 
 whose works are lost to us. 
 
 Commentary by Sankard.A:d,rya. 
 
 The most famous, though possibly not the oldest 
 extant commentary on these Sutras is that by ^aiikara 
 or >SankarS,/carya. He is supposed to have lived in 
 the eighth or seventh century a. d.^ His commentary 
 has been published several times in Sanskrit, and 
 there are two translations of it, one in German by 
 Professor Deussen, the other in English by Professor 
 Thibaut, forming the XXXIV th volume of the Sacred 
 
 ' Mr. Pathaka in the Ind.Ant. XI, 174, fixes his date as Kaliyuga 
 3889 to 3921 =787 to 789 a.d., a date accepted by Weber (History of 
 India7i Literature, p. 61) and other schohirs. Saiikara's birth is generally 
 supposed to have taken place at Kalapi in Kerala in the Kaliyuga 
 year 3889, in the Vikrama year 845, that is about 788 a.d. (Deussen, 
 System, p. 37). Mr. Telang, however, fixes Saiikara's date as early as 
 590 A.D., and Fleet places the Nepalose King Vrishadeva, who know 
 Sankara and called liis son after liim Saiikaradeva, between (j;30- 
 655 A.D. (Deussen, Sidras, p. vii). See Fleet in l7ul. Ant., Jan. 1887, 
 p. 41. 
 
 Ha
 
 100 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Boohs of the East. There is one more volume still to 
 follow. But though >S'ankara's commentary enjoys 
 the highest authority all over India, there are other 
 commentaries which hold their own by its side, and 
 which differ from it on some very essential points. 
 
 Commentary by Hkva.knxLga,. 
 
 The best known is the so-called /S^ri-bhashya by 
 K^manuf/a, a famous Vaish^ava theologian who is 
 supposed to have lived in the twelfth century A.D. 
 He often opposes >S'ankara's theories, and does it not 
 in his own name only, but as representing an altogether 
 independent stream of tradition. In India, where, 
 even long after the introduction of writing, intellectual 
 life and literary activity continued to run in the old 
 channels of oral teaching, we constantly meet with a 
 number of names quoted as authorities, though we 
 have no reason to suppose that they ever left anything 
 in writing. Eamanu^a does not represent himself as 
 starting a new theory of the Vedanta, but he appeals 
 to Bodhayana, the author of a V7"itti or explanation 
 of the Brahma-sutras, as his authority, nay he refers 
 to previous commentaries or V7^^ttikaras on Bodhayana, 
 as likewise supporting his opinions. It has been sup- 
 posed that one of these, Dramic/a, the author of a 
 Dramic/abhashya or a commentary on Bodhayana, 
 is the same as the DravicZa whose Bhashya on the 
 liT/iandogya-upanishad is several times referred to 
 by /S'ankara in his commentary on that Upanishad 
 (p. 1, 1. 2 infra), and whose opinions on the Vedanta- 
 sutras are sometimes supported by >S'ankara (see 
 Thibaut, S. B. E. XXXIV, p. xxii). Badaraya-Tia 
 himself, the author of the Vedanta-sutras, quotes a
 
 CHARACTER OF rSYCHOLGQICAL RELIGION. 101 
 
 number of earlier authorities ^, but it does by no 
 means follow that there ever existed Sutras in the 
 form of books composed by them. 
 
 Three Periods of Ved&uta Iiiteratnre. 
 
 In studying the Vedanta philosophy, we have to 
 distinguish three successive layers of thought. We 
 have first of all the Upanishads, which presuppose a 
 large number of teachers, these teachers often differing 
 from each other on essential, and likewise on trivial 
 points. We have secondly the Sutras of Badarayaiia, 
 professing to give the true meaning of the Upanishads, 
 reduced to a systematic form, but admitting the exis- 
 tence of different opinions, and referring to certain 
 authors as upholding divergent views. We have 
 thirdly the commentaries of >Sankara, Bodhayana, 
 Ramanu(/a, and many, others. These commentaries, 
 however, are not mere commentaries in our sense of 
 the word, they are really philosophical treatises, each 
 defending an independent view of the Sutras, and 
 indirectly of the Upanishads. 
 
 Fecnliar Character of Indian Philosophy. 
 
 It is not surprising that philosophers, on reading 
 for the first time the Upanishads or the Vedanta-sutras 
 should find them strange, and miss in them that close 
 concatenation of ideas to which they are accustomed 
 in the philosophy of the West. It is difficult to over- 
 come the feeling that the stream of philosophical 
 thought, as we know it in Europe, passing from Greece 
 
 * For instance, Atreya, Asmarathya, Aiu/ulomi, Kaishxai/iui. 
 Kasakrj'tsna, Gaimini, Badari. Thibaut, XXXIV, p. xix.
 
 102 LECTURE IV. 
 
 through the middle ages to our own shores, is the only 
 stream on which we ourselves can freely move. It is 
 particularly difficult to translate the language of 
 Eastern philosophy into the language of our own 
 philosophy, and to recognise our own problems in 
 their philosophical and religious difficulties. Still we 
 shall find that beneath the smface there is a similarity 
 of purpose in the philosophy of the East and of the 
 West, and that it is possible for us to sympathise 
 with the struggles after truth, even though they are 
 disguised under a language that sounds at first strange 
 to students of Aristotle and Plato^ of Descartes and 
 Spinoza, of Locke and Hegel. 
 
 Philosophy hegius with douhtiug the Evidence of the Senses. 
 
 Both philosophies, that of the East and that of the 
 West, start from a common point, namely from the 
 conviction that our ordinary knowledge is uncertain, 
 if not altogether wrong. This revolt of the human 
 mind against itself is the first step in all philosophy. 
 The Vedanta philosophy represents that revolt in all 
 its fulness. Our knowledge, according to Hindu 
 philosophers, depends on two prama^ias, that is, 
 measures or authorities, namely, pratyaksha, sensu- 
 ous perception, and anumana, that is, deduction. 
 
 Sruti or Inspiration. 
 
 The orthodox philosopher, however, adds a third 
 authority, namely >S'ruti, or revelation. This, from a 
 philosophical point of view, may seem to us a weak- 
 ness, but even as such it is interestiug, and we know
 
 CHARACTER OF rSYCIIOLOGICAL RELIGION. 103 
 
 that it is shared by other philosophers nearer home. 
 Srnti means hearing or ^Yhat has been heard, and it is 
 generally explained as meaning simply the Veda. 
 The Veda is looked upon, from the earliest times of 
 which we know anything in India, as superliuman ; 
 not as invented and composed, but only as seen by 
 men, that is, by inspired seers, as eternal, as infallible, 
 as divine in the highest sense. 
 
 \Vc are apt to imagine that the idea of inspiration 
 and a belief in the inspired character of Sacred Books 
 is our own invention, and our own special property. 
 It is not, and a comparative study of religion teaches 
 us that, like the idea of the miraculous, the idea 
 of inspiration also is almost inevitable in certain 
 phases in the historical growth of religion. This does 
 not lower the meaning of inspii-ation, it only gives it 
 a larger and a deeper meaning. 
 
 If we take Veda in the ordinary sense in which it 
 is generally taken liy Indian philosophers, we must 
 admit that to place its authority on a level with the 
 evidence of the senses and the conclusions of reason, 
 seems difficult to understand. It is reason alone that 
 calls inspiration inspiration ; reason therefore stands 
 high above inspiration. But if we take Veda as know- 
 ledge, or as it sometimes is explained as aptava/^'ana, 
 i. e. language, such as it has been handed down to us, the 
 case is different. The language which has come down 
 to uSj the words in which thought has been realised, 
 the world of ideas in which we have been brought up, 
 form an authority, and exercise a sway over us, second 
 only, if second at all, to the authority of the senses. 
 If the Hindu philosopher looks upon the great words 
 of our language as eternal, as communicated from
 
 104 LECTURE IV. 
 
 above, as only seen, not as made by us, he does no 
 more than Plato when he taught that his so-called 
 ideas are eternal and divine. 
 
 But though this more profound concept of /Sruti 
 breaks forth occasionally in Hindu philosophy, the 
 ordinary acceptation of >S'ruti is simply the Veda, such 
 as we possess it, as consisting of hymns and Brahmawas, 
 though no doubt at the same time also, as the ancient 
 depository of language and thought, not so much in 
 what it teaches, but in the instruments by which it 
 teaches, namely in every word that conveys an 
 idea. 
 
 But the Vedanta philosopher, after having recognised 
 these three authorities, turns against them and says 
 that they are all uncertain or even wrong. The or- 
 dinary delusions of the senses are as familiar to him 
 as they are to us. He knows that the sky is not blue, 
 though we cannot help our seeing it as blue ; and as 
 all deductions are based on the experience of the senses, 
 they are naturally considered as equally liable to erroi . 
 
 As to the Veda, however, the Vedantist makes an 
 important distinction between what he calls ' the 
 practical portion, the Karmaka^icZa,' and ' the theore- 
 tical portion, the G;7anaka7icZa.' The former comprises 
 hymns and Brahma-nas, the latter the Upanishads. 
 The former, which includes all that a priesthood would 
 naturally value most highly, is readily surrendered. 
 It is admitted that it may be useful for a time, that it 
 may serve as a necessary preparation, but we are told 
 that it can never impart the highest knowledge which 
 is to be found in the second portion alone. Even 
 that second portion, the Upanishads, may seem to 
 contain many imperfect expressions of the highest
 
 CHARACTER OF rSYCHOLOGICAL RELIGION. 105 
 
 truth, but it is the object of the Vedanta philosopher 
 to explain away these imperfect expressions or to 
 bring them into harmony with the general drift of the 
 Vedanta. This is done with all the cleverness of the 
 philosophical pleader, though it often leaves the 
 unprejudiced student doubtful whether he should 
 follow the philosophical pleader, or whether he should 
 recognise in these imperfect expressions traces of an 
 historical growth, and of individual efforts which in 
 different Brahmanic settlements need not always have 
 been equally successful. 
 
 Tat tvam asi. 
 
 If we ask what was the highest purpose of the 
 teaching of the Upanishads we can state it in three 
 words, as it has been stated by the greatest Vedanta 
 teachers themselves, namely Tat tvam asi. This 
 means. Thou art that. That stands for what I called 
 the last result of Physical Religion which is known 
 to us under different names in different systems of 
 ancient and modern philosophy. It is Zeus or the 
 Els 0eos or to 6v in Greece : it is what Plato meant 
 by the Eternal Idea, what Agnostics call the Un- 
 knowable, what I call the Infinite in Nature. This 
 is what in India is called Brahman, as masculine or 
 neuter, the being behind all beings, the power that 
 emits the universe, sustains it and draws it back ajxain 
 to itself. The Thou is what I called the Infinite in 
 Man, the last result of Anthropological Religion, the 
 Soul, the Self, the being behind every human Ego, 
 free from all bodily fetters, free from passions, free 
 from all attachments. The expression Thou art that, 
 means Thine Atman, thy soul, thy self is the Brahman,
 
 106 LECTURE IV. 
 
 or, as we can also express it, the last result, the highest 
 object discovered by Physical Religion is the same as 
 the last result, the highest subject discovered by 
 Anthropological Religion ; or, in other words, the 
 subject and object of all being and all knowing are 
 one and the same. This is the gist of what I call 
 Psychological Religion, or Theosophy, the highest sum- 
 mit of thought which the human mind has reached, 
 which has found different expressions in different 
 religions and philosophies, but nowhere such a clear 
 and powerful realisation as in the ancient Upanishads 
 of India. 
 
 For let me add at once, this recognition of the 
 identity of the tliat and the thou, is not satisfied with 
 mere poetical metaphor such as that the human soul 
 emanated from the divine soul or was a portion of it ; 
 no, what is asserted and defended against all gain- 
 sayers is the substantial identity of what had for a 
 time been wrongly distinguished as the subject and 
 object of the world. 
 
 The Self, says the Vedanta philosopher, cannot be 
 different from Brahman, because Brahman compre- 
 hends all reality, and nothing that really is can 
 therefore be different from Brahman. Secondly, the 
 individual self cannot be conceived as a modification 
 of Brahman, because Brahman by itself cannot be 
 changed, whether by itself, because it is one and 
 perfect in itself, or by anything outside it. Here we 
 see the Vedantist moving in exactly the same stratum 
 of thought in which the Eleatic philosophers moved 
 in Greece. ' If there is one Infinite,' they said, ' there 
 cannot be another, for the other would limit the one, 
 and thus render it finite.' Or, as applied to God, the
 
 CHARACTER OP TSYCHOLOaiCAL RELIGIOX. 107 
 
 Eleatics argued, ' If God is to Le the mightiest and the 
 best, he must be one \ for if there were two or more, 
 he would not be the mightiest and best.' The Eleatics 
 continued their monistic argument by showing that 
 this One Infinite Being cannot be divided, so that 
 anything could be called a portion of it, because there 
 is no power that could separate anything from it-. 
 Nay, it cannot even have parts, for, as it has no 
 beginning and no end •\ it can have no parts, for a 
 part has a beginning and an end *. 
 
 These Eleatic ideas — namely, that there is and there 
 can be only One Absolute Being, infinite, unchange- 
 able, without a second, without parts and passions — 
 are the same ideas which underlie the Upauishads 
 and have been fully worked out in the Vedanta- 
 sutras. 
 
 Two Ved&uta Schools. 
 
 But they are not adopted by all Vedantists. Though 
 all Vedantists accept the Upanishads as inspired and 
 infallible, and though they all recognise the authority 
 of the Vedanta-sutras, they, like other orthodox 
 philosophers, claim the freedom of interpretation, and 
 by that freedom, have become divided into two schools 
 which to the present day divide the Vedantist philo- 
 sophers of India into the followers of /Sankara, and 
 the followers of Eamrmuf/a. The latter, Eamanu(/a, 
 
 I Zeller, p. 453. 
 
 » Zeller, p. 472 ; Farm. v. 78, 
 
 ovoi BiaiptTuv kariv, litii nav (arlv o/ioiov 
 ovSe Ti TTJ ixaWov TuKfv upyoi fiiv ^vvtxfcOai 
 ov5e Ti x«'po''*po>'' nav d( -nKiov iarlv euvros. 
 ' Zeller, p. 611, fiagm. 2. 
 
 * Mclissus, Fr. 16, el fxev lof tart, Su avri tv (Tvar tv Si tov SeiavTc^ 
 auifia fit) ix^i''' *' 5« ex"' Trax"^) ^X^' "'' l^"p'0- xal ovKtrt &v ut] tv. 
 
 Fr. 3, (i 5i OLTTiipov, iv' (I yap Svo fu], ovx ar Svvatro dwfipa ficai" 
 dXA' e YOi av vupara vpbs aWrjKa' anupov hi to iov, ovK apa nAt'cu TCl 
 iovra- tv dpa to kuv.
 
 108 LECTURE IV. 
 
 holds to what we should call the theory of evolution ; 
 he looks upon Brahman as the cause, upon the world 
 as the effect; the two being different in appearance, 
 though in reality one and the same. Everything that 
 is, is Brahman, but Brahman contains in itself the real 
 germs of that variety which forms the object of our 
 sensuous perception. The Brahman of Ramanu^a may 
 almost be called a personal God, and the soul an indi- 
 vidual being sprung from Brahman. Though never 
 really apart from him, it is supposed to remain for 
 ever a personality by itself. The former, >S'ankara, 
 holds to the theory of illusion (vivarta) or nescience 
 (avidya). He also maintains that everything that 
 exists is Brahman, but he looks upon the world, with 
 its variety of forms and names, as the result of illusion. 
 Brahman with >S'ankara is impersonal and without 
 attributes. It becomes personal (as isvara, or the 
 Lord) when under the influence of avidya, just as the 
 individual soul deems itself personal when turned 
 awa}^ from the highest Brahman, but is never in reality 
 anything else but Brahman. These two doctrines 
 continue to divide the Vedantists to the present day, 
 and the school of Ramanu^a is the more popular of 
 the two. For it must not be supposed that this 
 ancient Vedanta philosophy is extinct, or studied by 
 professed philosophers only. It is even now the pre- 
 vailing philosophy and almost religion of India, and no 
 one can gain an insight into the Indian mind, whether 
 in the highest or in the lowest ranks of society, who 
 is not familiar with the teachings of the Vedanta. 
 
 In order to explain how the same texts, the Upa- 
 nishads, and even the Vedanta-sutras, could lend 
 themselves to such different explanations, it will be
 
 CHARACTER OF rSYCIIOLOGICAT, RELIGION. 109 
 
 necessary to say a few words on the difficulty of 
 rightly understanding these ancient sacred texts of 
 the Brahmans. 
 
 The TTpanishads difficult to translate. 
 
 In my lectures on Physical Religion, when quoting 
 from the hymns of the Rig-veda, I had often to warn 
 you that there are many passages in these ancient 
 hymns which are as yet obscure or extremely difficult 
 to translate. The great bulk of these hymns is clear 
 enough, but whether owing to corruptions in the text, 
 or to the boldness of ancient thought, all honest 
 scholars are bound to confess that their translations 
 do not quite reach the originals, and are liable to 
 correction in the future. To an outsider this may 
 seem to be a desperate state of things, and if he finds 
 two Vedic scholars differing from each other, and 
 defending each his own interpretation with a warmth 
 that often seems to arise from conceit rather than 
 from conviction, he thinks he is justified in thanking 
 God that he is not as other men are. Of course, this 
 is simply childish. If we had waited till every 
 hieroglyphic text had been interpreted from beginning 
 to end, or till every Babylonian inscription had been 
 fully deciphered, before saying anything about the 
 ancient religion of the Egyptians and Babylonians, 
 we should not now possess the excellent works of 
 Lepsius, Brugsch, Maspero, of Schrader, Smith, Sayce, 
 Pinches and Haupt. The same applies to Vedic 
 literature. Here also the better is the enemy of the 
 good, and as long as scholars are careful to distinguish 
 between what is certain and what is as yet doubtful, 
 they need not mind the jeers of would-be critics, or the 
 taunts of obstructionists. The honest labourer must not
 
 110 LECTURE IV. 
 
 wait till he can work in the full light of the noontide 
 sun — he must get up early, and learn to find his way 
 in the dim twilight of the morning also. 
 
 I think it right therefore to warn you that the 
 texts of the Upanishads also, on which we shall have 
 chiefly to depend in our lectures, are sometimes very 
 obscure, and very difficult to translate accurately into 
 English or any other modern language. They often 
 lend themselves to difl:erent interpretations, and even 
 their ancient native commentators who have written 
 long treatises on them, often differ from each other. 
 Some hold this opinion, they often say, others that, 
 and it is not always easy for us to choose and to say 
 positively which of the ancient interpreters was right 
 and which was wrong. When I undertook to publish 
 the first complete translation of the twelve most im- 
 portant Upanishads, I was well aware that it was no 
 easy task. It had never before been carried out in its 
 completeness by any Sanskrit scholar. As I had myself 
 pointed out that certain passages lent themselves to 
 different explanations, nothing was easier to the fault- 
 finding critic than to dwell on these passages and to 
 point out that their translation was doubtful or that the 
 rendering I had adopted was wrong, or that at all events 
 another rendering was equally possible. My translation 
 has not escaped this kind of criticism, but for all 
 that, even my most severe critics have not been able to 
 deny that my translation marked a decided progress 
 over those that had been hitherto attempted, and this, 
 as Professor Boehtlingk has truly remarked, is after 
 all, all that an honest scholar should care for. The 
 best authority on this subject, Professor Deussen, has 
 warned our ill-natured and ill-informed critics that in
 
 CHARACTER OF PSYCHOLOGICAL RETJOION. Ill 
 
 the translation of the Upanishads, as in other works 
 of the same tentative character, le iniieux est Vennenil 
 du Men. We ought to advance step by step beyond 
 our predecessors, well knowing that those who come 
 after us will advance beyond ourselves. Nor do I 
 wonder that native scholars should be amazerl at our 
 hardihood in venturing to differ from such men as 
 /Sankara, Ramatirtha, and others, whom they look 
 upon as almost infallible. All I can say in self-defence 
 is that even the native commentators admit the 
 possibility of different explanations, and that in claim- 
 ing for ourselves the right to choose between them, we 
 do no more than what they would wish us to do in 
 giving us the choice. I have a great respect for native 
 commentators, but I cannot carry my respect for these 
 learned men so far as a native Indian scholar who 
 when I asked him which of two conflictinsr inter- 
 pretations he held to be the right one, answered with- 
 out any misgivings, that probably both were right, 
 and that otherwise they would not have been men- 
 tioned by the ancient commentators. 
 
 I have often been told that it is not wise to lay so 
 much stress on the uncertainties attaching to the 
 translation of Oriental texts, particularly of the 
 Vedas, that the same uncertainties exist in the inter- 
 pretation of the Bible, nay even of Greek and Latin 
 classics, to say nothing of Greek and Latin inscriptions. 
 The public at large, they say, is sufficiently incredulous, 
 as it is, and it is far better to give the last results of 
 our researches as certain for the time beins:, leavincr 
 it to the future to correct such mistakes as are inevit- 
 able in the deciphering of ancient texts. This advice 
 has been followed by many students, more particularl}'
 
 112 LECTURE IV. 
 
 by the decipherers of hieroglyphic and cuneiform 
 inscriptions; but what has been the result? As every 
 year has corrected the results of the previous year, 
 hardly anyone now ventures to make use of the results 
 of these researches, however confidently they are put 
 forward as final, and as beyond the reach of doubt. 
 It is quite true that the warnings given by con- 
 scientious scholars as to the inevitable uncertainty 
 in the translation of Vedic texts, may produce the 
 same effect. My having called the Veda a book with 
 seven seals has been greedily laid hold of by certain 
 writers to whom the very existence of the Veda was 
 an off'ence and a provocation, in order to show the 
 insecurity of all systems of comparative philology, 
 mythology and theology, based on evidence derived 
 from this book with seven seals. True scholars, 
 however, know better. They know that in a long 
 Latin inscription certain words may be quite illegible, 
 others difficult to decipher and to translate, and that 
 yet a considerable portion may be as clear and as 
 intelligible as any page of Cicero, and may be used 
 for linguistic or historical purposes with perfect 
 safety. Scholars know that the same applies to the 
 Veda, and that many words, many lines, many pages 
 are as clear as any page of Cicero. 
 
 "When I am asked what can be the use of a book 
 with seven seals for a comparative study of religion 
 and mythology, my answer is that it stimulates us to 
 remove those seals. In the case of the Veda I may 
 safely say that several of these seals have by this 
 time been broken, and there is every reason to hope 
 that with honesty and perseverance the remaining 
 seals also will in time be removed.
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 
 Different Statements from the TTpanlshads. 
 
 WE have now to consider what the Upani shads 
 themselves teach on the relation of the soul to 
 God, and more particularly of the return of the soul 
 to Brahman. Here we shall find that both schools 
 of the Vedantists, that of Ramanu^a and that of 
 >S'ankara, can appeal to texts of tho Upanishads 
 in support of their respective opinions, so that it 
 seems as if the Upanishads combined both and re- 
 jected neither of the leading Vedanta theories. Of 
 course there have been long discussions among 
 Vedantists in India, and likewise among students 
 of the Vedanta in Europe, as to which of the two 
 schools represents the true spirit of the Upanishads. 
 If we take the Upanishads as a whole, I should say 
 that /Sankara is the more thorough and faithful 
 exponent of their teaching ; but if we admit an histo- 
 rical growth in the Upanishads themselves, Ramanur/a 
 may be taken as representing more accurately an 
 earlier period of Upanishad doctrines, which were cast 
 into the shade, if not superseded, by a later growth 
 of Vedantic speculation. That later growth, repre- 
 sented by the denial of any reality except that of the 
 highest Brahman, is almost ignored by Ramanuf/a or 
 interpreted by him with great freedom. If we under- 
 W I
 
 114 LECTURE V. 
 
 stand Eamanu^'a rightly, he would seem satisfied 
 with the soul being at death emancipated from 
 sa77isara or further births, passing on to the world of 
 Brahman, masc, and there enjoying everlasting bliss 
 in a kind of heavenly paradise. /Sankara, on the con- 
 trary, goes beyond, and looks upon final emancipation 
 as a recovering of true self-consciousness, self-con- 
 sciousness meaning with him the consciousness of the 
 self as being in reality the whole and undivided 
 Brahman. 
 
 We shall best be able to follow this twofold de- 
 velopment of Vedantic thought, if we first examine 
 the more important passages in the Upanishads 
 which treat of the return of the soul to the Lower 
 Brahman, and then see how these passages have been 
 harmonised in the Vedanta-sutras ^. 
 
 We begin with the descriptions of the road that is 
 to be taken by the soul after death. Here we find 
 the following more or less differing accounts in dif- 
 ferent Upanishads. 
 
 Passages from the Upanishads. 
 
 I. Br^had-aranyaka VI. (8) 2, 13 : 
 
 ' A man lives so long as he lives, and then when 
 he dies, they take him to the fire, (the funeral pile) ; 
 and then the fire is his fire, the fuel is his fuel, the 
 
 1 The translations here given differ in several places from those 
 given in my translation in the S. B. E., vols, i and xv. In my 
 translation in the S. B. E. I placed myself more completely on the 
 standpoint of Sankara, except in cases where he was clearly wi-ong. 
 In the present translations I have tried, as much as possible, not 
 to allow myself to be influenced by Sankara, in order to be quite 
 fair towards Ramanu^a and other interpreters of the Upanishads 
 and the Vedanta-sutras. I have also availed myself of some con- 
 jectural emendations, proposed by other scholars, wherever they 
 seemed to me reasonable.
 
 JOURNEY OF TJIK SOUL AFTER DEATH. 115 
 
 smoke his smoke, the liglit his liglit, the coals his 
 coals, and the sparks his sparks. In that fire the 
 DevaSj the gods, offer man (as a sacrifice), and from 
 that sacrifice man (purusha) rises, brilliant in colour. 
 
 ' Those who thus know this and those who in the 
 forest worship the True as faith \ go to light, from 
 light to day, from day to the waxing half of the moon 
 (new moon), from the waxing half of the moon to the 
 six months when the sun goes North 2, from those 
 six months to the world of the Devas, from the world 
 of the Devas to the sun, from the sun to the place of 
 lightning ^ When they have reached the place of 
 lightning, a person, not a man^, comes near them 
 
 ' Ya(/;7avalkya III. 192 explains this by sraddhaya paraya yuta/(, 
 endowed with the highest faitli. The exact meaning is not clear. 
 The Ti'uo is meant for Brahman. 
 
 ' Cf. Deussen, Sutr., p. 19 ; SysL, p. 509. 
 
 ' On the connection of lightning with the moon, see Hillebrandt, 
 Ved. Mythologie, vol. i. pp. 345, 421. 
 
 * The right reading here and in the Z/tandogya-Up.anishad IV. 
 15, 5, seems to be purusho amanava/i. We have, however, for 
 the other reading manasa/t the authority of Ya^/lavalkya III. 194, 
 but amanava/j is strongly supported by the Vedanta-sutraa and by 
 the commentators isee p. 134). Professor Boehtlingk prefers 
 manasa/i, and translates: 'Now comes the spirit who dwells in 
 the thinking organ and takes them to the places of Brahman.' 
 This cannot be. 
 
 Sankara here explains purusho manasaA as a man produced by 
 Brahman through his mind. This is possible, and better at all 
 events than Boehtlingk's translation. For purusho manasaft, 
 if it means the spirit that dwells in the thinking organ, as, for 
 instance, in Taitt. Up. I, 6, could not bo said to approach the 
 souls, for thoy would be themselves the pm-ushas who have 
 reached the lightning. If we read manasa, we could only take 
 it for a purusha, a person, though not a material being, wlio 
 may therefore be called manasa/j, either as a being visible to the 
 mind (manas) only, or as a being created by the mind, in fact 
 a kind of spirit in the form of a man, though not a real man. 
 I prefer, however, to read amanava. What confirms me in this 
 belief is that in the Avesta also, which shares many ideas about 
 the journey of the souls after death with tlie Upanis'hads, we read 
 that when the soul of the departed approaches the Paradise of the 
 
 I 2
 
 116 LECTURE V. 
 
 and leads them to the worlds of Brahman. In these 
 worlds of Brahman they dwell for ever and ever 
 (para/i paravata/i) ^, and there is no return for them.' 
 
 Here you see a distinctly mythological view of a 
 future life, some of it hardly intelligible to us. The 
 departed is supposed to rise from the pile on which 
 his body was burnt, and to move on to the light 
 (ar^is) ^. This is intelligible, but after the light follows 
 the day, and after the day the six months of the sun's 
 journey to the North. What can be the meaning of 
 that 1 It might mean that the departed has to wait 
 a day and then six months before he is admitted to 
 the world of the Devas, and then to the sun, and then 
 to the place of lightning. But it may mean also that 
 there are personal representatives of all these stations, 
 and that the departed has to meet these half- divine 
 beings on his onward journey. This is BadarayaTia's 
 view. Here you see the real difficulties of a trans- 
 Endless Lights, a spirit, or, as we read in one of the Yashts (S. B. E., 
 xxiii. p. 317), one of the faithful, who has departed before him, 
 approaches the new comer and asks him several questions, before 
 Ahura Mazda gives him the oil and the food that are destined in 
 heaven for the youth of good thoughts, words, and deeds. This 
 shows how careful we should be not to be too positive in our 
 translations of difficult passages. We may discard the authority 
 of Saiikara, possibly even that of Biidarayawa, who takes purusho 
 amanava/t as a person, not a man. But before we can do this, we 
 ought to show by parallel passages that purusho manasa/», not 
 manomaya/^, has ever been used in the Upanishads in the sense of 
 the spirit who dwells in the thinking organ. Till that is done, it 
 would be better for Professor Boehtlingk not to treat the traditional 
 interpretations of Badarayana and Saiikara with such undisguised 
 contempt. 
 
 ' This seems to correspond to sasvati/j sama/i in V. 10, 1, and to 
 have a temporal rather than local meaning. 
 
 2 This cannot be meant for the fire of the funeral pile by which 
 he has been burnt, for the dead is supposed to bo in the fire, and 
 consumed by it. It is sometimes supposed to be meant for the 
 Agniloka, the world of Agni.
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 117 
 
 lation. The words are clear enough, but the difficulty 
 is how to connect any definite ideas with the words. 
 
 So much for those who pass on the Devayana, tha 
 Path of the Gods, from the funeral pile to the worlds 
 of Brahman, and who are not subject to a return, 
 i. e. to new births. If, however, the departed has not 
 yet reached a perfect knowledge of Brahman, he 
 proceeds after death on the Pit^-iya-na, tho Path of the 
 Fathers. Of them the Brihad-ara?iyaka (VI. (8) 2, 
 16) says : 
 
 ' But they who conquer the worlds by sacrifice, 
 charity, and austerity go to smoke, from smoke to 
 night, from night to the waning half of the moon, 
 from the waning half of the moon to the six months 
 when the sun moves South ; from these months to the 
 world of the Fathers, from the world of the Fathers to 
 the moon. Having reached the moon, they become 
 food, and the gods consume them there, as they con- 
 sume Soma (moon) the King, saying, Wax and wane ! 
 But when this is over, they go back to the same 
 ether ^, from ether to air, from air to rain, from rain 
 to the earth. And when they have reached the earth, 
 they become food, they are offered again in the fire 
 which is man, and thence are born in the fire of 
 woman 2. Then they rise upwards to the worlds, 
 and go the same round as before. Those, however, 
 who know neither of the two paths, become worms, 
 insects, and creeping things.' 
 
 We have now to examine some other passages in the 
 Upanishads, where the same two paths are described. 
 
 ' See KhUnd. Up. V. 10, 4. 
 
 ^ This sentence is left out by Boehtlingk ; wlijr? See A7i;\nd 
 Up. V. 7 and 8.
 
 118 LECTURE V. 
 
 II. Br/had-ara7iyaka V. (7) 10, 1: 
 
 ' When the person goes away from this world, he 
 comes to the wind. Then the wind makes room for 
 him, like the hole of a wheel, and through it he 
 mounts higher. He comes to the sun. Then the sun 
 makes room for him, like the hole of a lambara 
 (drum ?), and through it he mounts higher. He comes 
 to the moon. Then the moon makes room for him, 
 like the hole of a drum, and through it he mounts 
 higher, and arrives at the world where there is no 
 sorrow, and no snow. There he dwells eternal years ' 
 (sasvati^ samaA). 
 
 III. iiT/^andogya-Upanishad VIII. 6, 5 : 
 
 'When he departs from this body he mounts up- 
 wards by those very rays (the rays of the sun which 
 enter the arteries of the body), or he is removed while 
 saying Om^. And quickly as he sends off his mind 
 (as quick as thought), he goes to the sun. For 
 the sun is the door of the world (lokadvaram), an 
 entrance for the knowing, a bar to the ignorant.' 
 
 IV. /f/mndogya-Upanishad V. 10, 1: 
 
 ' Those who know this, and those who in the forest 
 follow austerity as faith, go to the light (ar/ds), from 
 light to day, from day to the waxing half of the 
 moon, from the waxing half of the moon to the six 
 months when the sun goes to the North, from the 
 six months when the sun goes to the North to the 
 year, from the year to the sun, from the sun to the 
 moon, from the moon to the lightning. There is a 
 person, not a man, he leads them to Brahman. This 
 is the Path of the Gods. 
 
 ' Boehtlingk's conjectural emendations of this passage seem to 
 me unnecessary.
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 119 
 
 * But those who in their village practise charity as 
 sacrifice and pious works, go to the smoke, from smoke 
 to night, from night to the other (waning) half of the 
 moon, from the other half of the moon to the six 
 months when the sun moves to the South. But they 
 do not reach the year. From the months they go to the 
 world of the Fathers, from the world of the Fathers to 
 the ether, from the ether to the moon. That is Soma, 
 the King. That is the food of the gods, the gods 
 feed on it. Having tarried there, as long as there is 
 a rest (of works), they return again on the way on 
 which they came, to the ether, from the ether to the 
 air (vayu). When he has become air he becomes 
 smoke, having become smoke he becomes mist, having 
 become mist he becomes a cloud, having become a 
 cloud he rains down. Then they are born ^ as rice 
 and corn, herbs and trees, sesamum and beans. From 
 thence the escape is very difficult. For whoever 
 they are who eat that food and scatter seed, he be- 
 comes like unto them. Those whose conduct has 
 been good will probably attain some good birth, the 
 biith of a Brahraa7?a, or a Kshatriya, or a Vai.sya. 
 But those whose conduct has been evil will probably 
 attain an evil birth, the birth of a dog, or a hog, or a 
 ka,ndvda,. On neither of these two roads do those 
 small, oft-returning creatures proceed. Theirs is the 
 third state, of which it is said, " Live and die." ' 
 
 V. iT/amdogya-Upanishad VIII. 4, 3 : 
 
 ' To those only who find that Brahma-world by 
 means of Brahma^arya (study and abstinence), does 
 
 * It should be remembered that in the Rig-veda already Soma 
 is the retodhti/i, tlie giver of seed and fertility.
 
 120 LECTURE V. 
 
 that Brahma-world belong, and they move about 
 freely in all worlds.' 
 
 VI. ^Aandogya-Upanishad VIII. 13 : 
 
 ' I go from /S'yama, the black (the moon), to the 
 /S'abala, the speckled (the sun), and from the speckled 
 to the black. Like a horse shaking his hairs (I shake 
 off) evil, like the moon, freeing himself from the 
 mouth of Rahu, having shaken off the body, I go 
 purified in mind to the eternal world of Brahman ^.' 
 
 VII. MuncZaka-Upanishad I. 2, 11 : 
 
 ' But those who practise penance and faith in the 
 forest, tranquil, wise, and living on alms, depart, free 
 from passions (dust), through the gate of the sun, 
 where that immortal Person dwells whose nature is 
 imperishable.' 
 
 Vni. Kaushitaki-Upanishad I. 2 : 
 
 ' And ifitra said : All who depart from this world 
 (or this body) go to the moon. In the former, (the 
 waxing) half, the moon waxes big by their vital 
 spirits, but in the other, (the waning) half, the moon 
 causes them to be born. Verily, the moon is the door 
 of the Svarga-world (heavenly world). Now, if a man 
 answer the moon (rightly) ", the moon sets him free. 
 But if a man does not answer the moon, the moon 
 showers him down, having become rain, upon this earth. 
 And according to his deeds, and according to his know- 
 ledge, he is born again here as a worm, or as an 
 insect, or as a fish, or as a bird, or as a lion, or as a 
 boar, or as a serpent (?), or as a tiger, or as a man, or 
 
 " See Bloomfield, Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. xv. 
 p. 108 ; Boehtlingk, A'/iandogya-Upanishad, p. 92. 
 
 - Cf. Boehtlingk, tjber eine bisher arg missverstandene Stelle 
 in del- Kaushitaki-Brahmana-Upanishad.
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 121 
 
 as somebody else in clifFerent places. But when be has 
 arrived, the moon asks him : " Who art thou ? " And 
 he shall answer : " seasons ^, the seed was brought 
 from the bright moon who was poured forth (in rain) ; 
 who consists of fifteen parts, who harbours our fathers 2; 
 raise me now in a vigorous man, and pour me through 
 a vigorous man into a mother. 
 
 '"Then I am born as the twelfth or thirteenth 
 additional month through the twelve- or thii-teen-fold 
 father (the year). I know that, I remember that. 
 O seasons, bring me then to immortality. By this 
 truth and by this penance I am a season ^ a child 
 of the seasons. I am thou." Thereupon the moon 
 sets him free. 
 
 ' Having reached the Path of the gods, he comes 
 to the world of Agni (fii'e), to the world of Vayu (air), 
 to the world of Varu?ia, to the world of Indra, to the 
 world of Pra(/apati, to the world of Brahmaa In 
 that world there is the lake Ara, the moments called 
 Yeshriha, the river Vic/ara (ageless), the tree Ilya, the 
 city Salar/ya, the palace Apar%ita (unconquerable), 
 the door-keepers Indra and Prar/apati, the hall of 
 Brahman, called Vibhu, the throne Ai/i-akshaim (intel- 
 ligence), the couch Amitau^as (endless splendour), and 
 the beloved Manasi (mind), and her image A'akshushi 
 (eye), who, taking flowers, are weaving the worlds, 
 and the Apsaras, the Ambas (scriptures ?), and Amba- 
 yavis (understanding?), and the rivers Ambayas. To 
 this world he who knows this approaches. Brahman 
 
 ' The seasons are sometimes called the brothers of Soma, the moon. 
 
 ^ When only the fifteenth part is left of the moon, the Pitr/s 
 enter it. Lvulwig takes the ii/bhus also fur the genii of tlie seasons. 
 
 ^ The seasons are part.s of the lunar year that seem to come and 
 go like the lives of mortal men.
 
 122 LECTURE V. 
 
 says, " Run towards him with such worship as is due 
 to myself. He has reached the river Vi^rara (ageless), 
 he will never age." 
 
 ' Then five hundred Apsaras go towards him, one 
 hundred with fruit in their hands, one hundred with 
 ointments in their hands, one hundred with ofarlands 
 in their hands, one hundred with garments in their 
 hands, one hundred with perfumes in their hands. 
 They adorn him with an adornment worthy of 
 Erahman, and when thus adorned with the adornment 
 of Brahman, the knower of Brahman moves towards 
 Brahman. He (the departed) approaches the lake Ara, 
 and crosses it by the mind, while those who come to 
 it without knowing the truth, are drowned in it. He 
 comes to the moments called Yeshifiha, and they flee 
 from him. He comes to the river Vigrara, and crosses 
 it by the mind alone, and then shakes off his good 
 and evil deeds ^ His beloved relatives obtain the 
 good, his unbeloved relatives the evil he has done. 
 And as a man driving in a chariot, might look at the 
 two wheels, thus he will look at day and night, thus 
 at good and evil deeds, and at all pairs (correlative 
 things). Being freed from good and evil he, the 
 knower of Brahman, moves towards Brahman. 
 
 ' He approaches the tree Ilya, and the odour of 
 Brahman reaches him. He approaches the city 
 Salaf/ya, and the flavour of Brahman reaches him. 
 He approaches the palace Apar%ita, and the splen- 
 dour of Brahman reaches him. He approaches the 
 door-keepers Indra and Pra^apati, and they run away 
 from him. He approaches the hall Vibhu, and the 
 
 » Cf. Z/tand. Up. VIII. 13.
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOIL AFTFTl DEATH. 123 
 
 glory of Brahman reaches him. He approaches tho 
 throne Vi/i;aksha?ia. The Saman verses, Brihat and 
 Rathantara, are the eastern feet of that throne ; the 
 Saman verses, >S)y^aita and Naudhasa, its western feet ; 
 the Saman verses, Vairiipa and Vairar;a, its sides, 
 lengthways ; the Saman verses, ^akvara and Raivata, 
 its sides, crosswaj's. That throne is Pra^/Ta (know- 
 ledge), for by knowledge he sees clearly. He ap- 
 proaches the couch Amitau(7as. That is pra-na (breath, 
 speech). The past and the future are its eastern feet ; 
 prosperity and earth its w^estern feet ; the Saman 
 verses, Brihat and Rathantara, are the two sides 
 lengthways of the couch ; tlie Saman verses, Bhacb-a 
 and Ya/7^7ayaY7yaya, are the cross-sides at the head 
 and feet (east and west) ; the Rik and Saman are 
 the long sheets, the Yar/us the cross-sheets, the moon- 
 beams the cushion, the Udgitha the coverlet; pros- 
 perity the pillow. On this couch sits Brahman, and 
 ho who knows this, mounts it first with one foot. 
 Then Brahman says to him : " Who art thou ? " and he 
 shall answer: "I am a season, and the child of the 
 seasons, sprung from the womb of endless space, tho 
 seed of the wife, the light of the year, the self of all 
 that is. Thou art the self of all that is ; what thou 
 art, that am I." ' 
 
 Difflcnlties of Interpretation. 
 
 This is as close a translation as I can give. But I 
 must confess that many of tho names here used in 
 describing the reception given by the god Brahman 
 to the departed, are unintelligible to me. They were 
 equally unintelligible to the native commentators, who, 
 however, try to discover a meaning in some of them,
 
 124 LECTDKE V. 
 
 as when they explain the lake Ara, which the departed 
 has to ci'oss, as derived from Ari, enemy, these enemies 
 being the passions and inclinations of the heart. We 
 are told afterwards that those who come to that lake 
 without knowing the truth, are drowned in it. When 
 the throne, on which Brahman is seated, is called Vi- 
 /taksha-na, this seems to mean Intelligence, and Manasi 
 also is probably a personification of the mind of which 
 iTakshusht, representing the eye, may well be called 
 the image. But there is such a mixture of symbolical 
 and purely picturesque language in all this, and the 
 text seems so often quite corrupt, that it seems hope- 
 less to discover the original intention of the poet, who- 
 ever he was, that first imagined this meeting between 
 the departed and the god Brahman. On some points 
 we gain a little light, as, for instance^ when we are 
 told that the departed, after having crossed the river 
 Vi^ara (the ageless) by his mind, shakes off his good 
 and his evil deeds, and that he leaves the benefit of 
 his good deeds to those among his relatives who are 
 dear to him, while his evil deeds fall to the share of 
 his unbeloved relations. We also see more clearly 
 that the throne on which Brahman sits is meant for 
 Pra^;1a or wisdom, while the couch Amitau(/as is iden- 
 tified with prawa, that is breath and speech, and the 
 coverings with the Vedas. 
 
 Though there is a general likeness in these different 
 accounts of the fate of the soul after death, still we 
 see how each Upanishad has something peculiar to say 
 on the subject. In some the subject is treated very 
 briefly, as in the MuTicZaka-Upanishad I. 2, 11, where 
 we are only told that the soul of the pious man passes 
 through the gate of the sun where the immortal Person
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 125 
 
 (spirit) dwells. In the 7v7<andogya-Upanisliad VIII. 
 6, 5, one account is equally brief". Here we are told 
 that the soul departs upwards by the rays of the sun, 
 reaches the sun, which is the door to the worlds (loka) 
 for the wise, but a bar to the foolish. The Brihad- 
 ara'Jiyaka also gives in one passage (V. 10, 1} a short 
 account of the soul's journey from the body to the air, 
 from the air to the sun, from the sun to the moon, 
 from the moon to the painless world where the soul 
 dwells for eternal years. Similar short accounts 
 occur in Taitt. Up. I. G, and Prasna Up. I. 9. 
 
 Historical Progress in the Upanishads. 
 
 If we look at the fuller accounts, we can easily 
 perceive that the earliest conception of life after death 
 was that represented by the Pitr/ya7?a, the Path of 
 the Fathers, that is, the path which led the soul to the 
 moon, where the Fathers, or those who have gone before 
 him, dwell. The description of this path is much the 
 same in the B^'ibad-ara-Jiyaka and in the /vAandogya- 
 Upanishad. The soul enters into smoke (probably of 
 the funeral pile), then comes to the night, then to the 
 waning half of the moon, then to the six months 
 when the sun moves towards the South. But it does 
 not reach the year, but moves straight to the abode 
 of the Fathers and to the moon. When this abode in 
 the moon came to be considered as temporary only, 
 and as followed by a new cycle of existences, it was 
 natural to imagine a Devayana which led beyond 
 to the gods and to eternal happiness without any 
 return to new transmigrations. But this abode in the 
 Devaloka also did not satisfy all desires, and a further 
 progress was admitted from the sun to the moon, or
 
 126 LECTURE V. 
 
 direct from the sun to the abode of lightning, from 
 whence a spirit led the souls to the world of Brahman. 
 This world, though still conceived in mythological 
 phraseology, was probably for a long time the highest 
 point reached by the thinkers and poets of the Upa- 
 nishads, but we shall see that after a time even this 
 approach to a personal and objective God was not 
 considered final, and that there was a higher bliss 
 which could be reached by knowledge only, or by 
 the consciousness of the soul's inseparateness from 
 Brahman. We see traces of this in passages of the 
 Upanishads such as Brih. Ar. Up. V. 4, 8, 'Wise 
 people who know Brahman go on this road (devayana) 
 to the heaven-world (svarga), and higher up from 
 thence, as quite freed.' Or Maitr. Brahm. Up. VI. 30, 
 ' Stepping over the world of Brahman, they go by it 
 to the highest path.' 
 
 While to our minds the belief in the soul's journey 
 to the world of the Fathers, the world of the gods, and 
 the world of the mythological Brahman (masc), seems 
 to present an historical development, it was not so 
 with Vedanta philosophers. They looked upon every 
 passage in the Upanishads as equally true, because 
 revealed, and they tried to combine aU the accounts 
 of the soul's journey, even when they clearly differed 
 from one another, into one harmonious whole. 
 
 Attempts to harmonise the different Statements of the 
 Upanishads. 
 
 How they achieved this, I shall best be able to 
 show you by translating some portion of the Vedanta- 
 sfitras with the commentary by >Sankara. Though 
 some of it may seem tcdiouS; yet it will bo u&eful in
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 127 
 
 giving you some idea of the style and spirit of the 
 later Vedant^ philosophers. You will observe how the 
 Siitras by themselves are almost unintelligible, though 
 we see, after reading >Sankara"s comments, that they 
 really contain the gist of the whole argument. 
 
 VEDANTA-SUTEAS. 
 
 FOUKTH BOOK, THIBD CHAPTER. 
 FlEST SC'TKA. 
 
 On the road beginning with light, ^c, because this is 
 widely recognised. 
 
 iS^ankara explains : From the beginning of the 
 journey (of the departed) the process, as stated, is the 
 same. But the actual journey is revealed differently 
 in different sacred texts. One, by means of the junction 
 of the arteries with the solar rays, is found in the 
 Khknd. Up. VIII. 6, 5, ' Then he mounts upwards by 
 those very rays.' Another, beginning with the light 
 (arMs) is found in Khknd. Up. V. 10, 1, ' They go to 
 the light, from light to day.' Another occurs in the 
 Kaush. Up. I. 3, ' Having reached the path of the 
 gods, he comes to the world of Agni, or fire.' Again, 
 another occurs in the Brlh. Ar. V. 10, 1, ' When the 
 person goes away from this world, he comes to the 
 wind.' And one more in the MuikZ. Up. I. 2, 11, says, 
 ' They depart free from passions through the gate of 
 the sun.' 
 
 Here then a doubt arises, whether these roads are really 
 different from each other, or whether it is one and the 
 same road, only differently described. It is assumed, 
 by way of argument, that they are different roads, be-
 
 128 LECTURE V. 
 
 cause they occur intheUpanishads under different heads 
 and belong to different kinds of religious meditation 
 (upasana) ; also because the limitation that he mounts 
 upward by these very rays, would be contradicted, if 
 we regarded what is said about light (ar/ds) and the 
 rest ; and the statement about the quickness, when it 
 it said, ' as quickly as he sends off the mind i, he goes 
 to the sun,' would also be upset. If on these grounds 
 it is said that these roads are different from one 
 another, we reply : No, ' On the road beginning with 
 light ; ' that is, We answer that every one who desires 
 Brahman, hastens on by the road that begins with the 
 light. And why ? — Because that road is so widely 
 recognised. For that road is known indeed to all 
 sages. Thus it is said in the chapter on the Five Fires, 
 ' And those also, who in the forest worship the True 
 (i. e. Brahman) as faith,' &c., clearly proclaiming that 
 this road beginning with the light, is meant for those 
 also who practise other kinds of knowledge. This 
 might pass, we are told, and with regard to those 
 kinds of knowledge for which no road whatever is 
 mentioned, the road beginning with the light might 
 be admitted. But if another and another road are pro- 
 claimed, why should the road beginning with the light 
 be accepted ? Our answer to all this is simply this. 
 This might be so, if these roads were entirely different, 
 but it is really one and the same road with different 
 
 • The words sa yavat kshipyen manas tavat are difficult to 
 translate. They are meant to express quickness (kshipratvam 
 from kship), wind, mind, and horse being the general representa- 
 tions of quickness. I had ti'anslated formerly, and ' while his 
 mind is failing,' which Boehtlingk should not have adopted, ren- 
 dering it by ' Wahrend das Denkorgan verschwindet' ; but it is clear 
 that quickness, and not fainting, was intended, and it was so 
 understood by the author of the Vedanta-siitras.
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 129 
 
 attributes, leading to the world of Brahman, and 
 sometimes determined by one, sometimes by another 
 predicate. For whenever one part has been recognised, 
 the relation should be that as between what determines 
 and what is^o be determined ^, and the various deter- 
 minations of the road must be summed up together, 
 just as we sum up the several attributes of a science 
 which is one and the same, though its treatments may 
 vary. And even if the subject (under which a certain 
 road to Brahman is taught) is different, the road is the 
 same, because its goal is the same, and because one part 
 of the road has been recognised (as the same). For in all 
 the following passages one and the same object, viz. the 
 obtainment of the Brahma-world, is clearly shown. 
 We read (Brih. Ar. VI. 2, 15) : ' In these worlds of 
 Brahman they dwell for ever and ever;' — (Br^'h. V, 
 10, 1): 'There he dwells eternal years;' — (Kaush. I. 7) : 
 * Whatever victory, whatever greatness belongs to 
 Brahman, that victory he gives, that greatness lie 
 reaches ; ' — (Kliixnd. VIII. 4, 3) : ' That world of Brahman 
 belongs to those only who find it by Brahma/i;arya.' 
 And if it is said that in admitting the approach to the 
 light, there would be no room for the i-estriction ex- 
 pressed in the words, * By these very rays,' that is no 
 fault ; for its true object is the reaching of these rays. 
 The same word which includes the obtainment of 
 the rays, need not exclude the light, &c. Therefore 
 we must admit that this very union with the rays is 
 here emphasised. And what is said about the speed is 
 
 * The technic.il meaning of ekadcsa is a part, while ekadosin is 
 the whole. But the translation is unsatisfactory, nor does Pro- 
 fessor Deussen make the drift of the sentence clearer. The ekadosa 
 here is simply meant for the beginning and the end of the ruad. 
 (4) K
 
 130 LECTURE V. 
 
 rot upset, if we confine ourselves to the road beginning 
 with light, for the object is quickness, as if it were 
 said, one gets there in the twinkling of an eye. 
 
 And the passage {Khknd. V. 10, 8): 'On neither of 
 these two ways,' which attests the third or the evil place, 
 shows at the same time that besides the Pitriya?ia, 
 the road to the Fathers, there is but one other road, 
 the Devayana, the road to the Gods, one station of 
 which is the light. And if in the passage on the 
 light, the road-stations are more numerous, while 
 elsewhere they are less numerous, it stands to reason 
 that the less numerous should be explained in con- 
 formity with the more numerous. On these grounds 
 also the Sutra says, 'On the road beginning with 
 light, &c., because this is widely recognised.' 
 
 Second Sutka. 
 
 From the year to the wind, on account of the presence and 
 
 absence of determinants. 
 
 /S'ankara explains : But by what peculiar combina- 
 tion or insertion can there be the mutual relation of 
 what determines (attributes), and what is determined 
 (subject) between the various attributes of the road? 
 The teacher out of kindness to us, combines them as 
 follows. By the Kaushitaka (I. 3) the Devayana is 
 described in these words : ' He, having reached the 
 path of the gods, comes to the world of Agni (fire), to 
 the world of Vayu (air), to the world of VaruTia, to the 
 world of Indra, to the world of Pra(/apati (Vir%), to 
 the world of Brahman (Hira^iyagarbha).' Now here 
 the words light and world of Agni mean the same 
 thing, as both express burning, and there is no 
 necessity here for looking for any succession. But
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 131 
 
 V^yu (the wind) is not mentioned in the road 
 beginning with light, how then is he here to be 
 inserted ? The answer is : In the passage {Khknd. V, 
 10, 1) we read : ' They go to the light, from light to 
 day, from day to the waxing half of the moon, from 
 the waxing half of the moon to the six months when 
 the sun goes to the North, from the six months when 
 the sun goes to the North to the year, from the year 
 to the sun.' Here then they reach Vayu, the wind, 
 after the year and before the sun ; and why ? Because 
 there is both absence and presence of determinants. 
 For in the words, ' He goes to the world of Vayu ' 
 (Kaush. I. 3), Vayu is mentioned without any deter- 
 minant, while in another passage a determinative 
 occurs, where it is said (Brih. V. 10, 1): 'When the 
 person goes away from this world, he comes to the 
 wind. Then the wind makes room for him, like the 
 hole of a wheel, and through it he mounts higher, he 
 comes to the sun.' Therefore from the determination, 
 showing the priority of Vayu before the sun, Vayu is 
 to be inserted between the year and the sun. 
 
 Why then, as there is a determination, showing his 
 following after light, is not Vayu inserted after light 1 
 Because we see that there is no determination here. 
 But was there not a text quoted (Kaush. I. 3) : ' Having 
 reached the path of the gods, he comes to the world of 
 Agni, to the world of Vajni.' Yes, but here the sooner 
 and later only is enunciated, but there is not a word 
 said about direct succession. A simple statement of 
 facts is here made, in saying that he goes to this and 
 to that, but in the other text a regular succession is 
 perceived, when it is said, that after having mounted 
 on high through an opening as large as the wheel of 
 
 K 2
 
 132 LECTURE V. 
 
 a chariot, supplied by Vayu, he approaches the sun. 
 Hence it is well said in the Sutra, ' on account of the 
 presence and absence of determinants.' 
 
 The V%asaneyins (Brih. VI. 2, 15), however, say 
 that he proceeds from the months to the world of the 
 gods, and from the world of the gods to the sun. 
 Here, in order to maintain the continuity with the 
 sun, he would have to go from the world of the gods 
 to Vayu. And when the Sutra says, from the year 
 to Vayu, this was done on account of the text in the 
 Khandogysb. As between the Va^asaneyaka and the 
 KJiRndogya,, the world of the gods is absent in the 
 one, the year in the other. As both texts have to be 
 accepted, the two have to be combined, and then 
 on account of the connection with the months, the 
 distinction has to be made that the year comes first, 
 the world of the gods last. (1) Year (Khknd.), (2) 
 World of gods (Brih.), (3) World of Vayu (Kaush.), 
 (4) Sun {Khknd.}. 
 
 Third Sutra. 
 
 Above the lightning Varuwa, on account of the 
 connection. 
 
 >S'ankara explains : When it is said {Khkud. V. 10, 2) : 
 ' From the sun to the moon, from the moon to 
 lightning,' Varuna is brought in so that above that 
 lightning he goes to the world of Varutia. For there 
 is a connection between lightning and Varuna, there 
 being a Brahma?ia which says : ' When the broad 
 lightnings dance forth from the belly of the cloud 
 with the sound of deep thunder, the water falls down, 
 it lightens, it thunders, and it will rain.' But the 
 lord of water is Varuna according to /Sruti and
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 133 
 
 Smriti. And above Vaiuna follow Indra and Prar/a- 
 pati, because there is no other place for them, and 
 according to the meaning of the text. Also Varuna, 
 &c,, should be inserted at the end, because they are 
 additional, and because no special place is assigned to 
 them. As to the lightning, it is the last on the road 
 that begins with light. 
 
 Fourth Sutra. 
 
 They are conductors, because this is indicated. 
 
 /S'ankara explains : With regard to those beginning 
 with light there is a doubt, whether they are signs of 
 the road, or places of enjoyment, or leaders of travellers. 
 It is supposed at first that light and the rest are signs, 
 because the information has this form. For as in the 
 world a man wishing to go to a village or a town is 
 told, ' Go from hence to that hill, then thou wilt come 
 to a fig-tree, then to a river, then to a village, then to 
 the town,' thus he says here also, ' From light to day, 
 from day to the waxing half of the moon.' Or it is 
 supposed that they are meant for places of enjoyment. 
 For he connects Agni and the rest with the word loka 
 (world), as when he says, he comes to the world of 
 Agni. And world is used for places of enjoyment of 
 living beings, as when they say, the world of men, 
 the world of the Fathers, the world of the gods. And 
 there is also a Brahma^ia which says (iS'at. Br. X. 2, 6, 
 8) : ' They remain fixed in the worlds which consist of 
 day and night.' Therefore light and the rest are 
 not conductors. Besides, they cannot be conductors, 
 because they are without intelligence. For in this 
 world intelligent men are appointed by the king to
 
 134 LECTURE V. 
 
 conduct those whom they have to conduct over 
 difficult roads. 
 
 In answer to all this we say : After all, they are 
 meant for conductors, because this is clearly indicated. 
 For we read : ' From the moon to the lightning ; 
 there a person not being a man, leads them to Brah- 
 man,' and this shows clearly their conductorship. If 
 you think that according to the rule that a sentence 
 says no more than what it says, this sentence, being 
 restricted to its own object (the person, not being a 
 man), falls to the ground, we say No, for the predicate 
 (amanava/i) is only intended to exclude his supposed 
 humanity. Only if with regard to lights &c., personal 
 conductors are admitted, and these human, is it right, 
 that in order to exclude this (humanity), there should 
 be the attribute, amanava, not being a man. 
 
 If it is objected that a mere indication is not 
 sufiicient, because there is no proof, we say there is 
 no fault in this. 
 
 Fifth Sutea. 
 Because as both are bewildered, this is right. 
 
 ^ankara explains: Those who go on the road 
 beginning with light, as they are without a body, and 
 as all their organs are wrapt up, are not independent, 
 and the light, &c., as they are without intelligence, are 
 likewise not independent. Hence it follows that the 
 individual intelligent deities who represent light and 
 the rest, have been appointed to the conductorship. 
 For in this world also drunken or fainting people 
 whose sense-organs are wrapt up, follow a road as 
 commanded by others. Again, light and the rest cannot 
 be taken for mere signs of the road, because they are 
 not always there. For a man who dies in the night.
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 135 
 
 cannot como* to the actual manifestation of the day. 
 For there is no waiting, as we said before. But as 
 the nature of the gods is eternal, this objection does 
 not apply to them. And it is quite right to call the 
 gods light and all the rest, because they represent 
 light and the rest. And the expression from light to 
 day, &c., is not objectionable if the sense of con- 
 ductorship is adopted, for it means, through the light, 
 as cause, they come to the day, through the day, as 
 cause, to the waxing half of the moon. And such an 
 instruction is seen also in the case of conductors as 
 known in the world, for they say, Go hence to 
 Balavarman, thence to Gayasiinha, thence to K^-^'shiia- 
 gupta. Besides in the beginning, when it is said they 
 go to the light, a relation only is expressed, not a 
 special relation ; at the end, however, when it is said, 
 he leads them to Brahman, a special relation is 
 expressed, that betvv^een conducted and conductor. 
 Therefore this is accepted for the beginning also. 
 And as the organs of the wanderers are wrapt up 
 together, there is no chance of their enjoying anything, 
 though the word world (loka) may be applied to 
 wanderers also who do not enjoy anything, because 
 the worlds may be places of enjoyment for others who 
 dwell there. Therefore we must understand that he 
 who has reached the world of Agni is conducted by 
 Agni, and he who has reached the world belonging to 
 Vayu, by Vayu. But how, if we adopt this view that 
 they are conductors, can this apply to Varuiia and the 
 rest 1 For above the lightning Varu ?ia and the rest were 
 inserted, and after the lightning till the obtainment of 
 Brahman the leadership of the person who is not a man, 
 has been revealed. This objection is answered by
 
 136 LECTURE V. 
 
 The Sixth Sutka. 
 
 Frovi thence hy him who belongs to the lightning, because 
 the Veda says so. 
 >Sankara explains : It must be understood that from 
 thence, that is, after they have come to the lightning, 
 they go to the world of Brahman, having been con- 
 ducted across the worlds of Varu'na, &c., by the person 
 who is not a man, and who follows immediately after 
 the lightning. That he conducts them is revealed by 
 the words, ' When they have reached the place of 
 lightning, a person, not a man^, leads them to the 
 world of Brahman' (Br/h. VI. 2, 15). But Varu-na 
 and the rest, it must be understood, are showing their 
 kindness either by not hindering, or by assisting him. 
 Therefore it is well said that light and the rest are 
 the gods who act as conductors. 
 
 These extracts from >S'ankara's commentary on the 
 Vedanta-sutras, difficult to follow as they are, may serve 
 to give you some idea how almost impossible it is to 
 reduce the component parts of ancient sacred literature 
 to a consistent system, and how the Vedic apologists 
 endeavoured vainly to remove contradictions, and to 
 bring each passage into harmony with all the rest. 
 With us this difficulty does not exist, at least not to the 
 same degree. We have learnt that sacred books, like 
 all other books, have a history, that they contain the 
 thoughts of different men and different ages, and that 
 instead of trying to harmonise statements which vary 
 from each other, nay which even contradict each 
 other, we should simply accept them and see in them 
 ^ Here amanava/j, but in the text manasa/i.
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 137 
 
 the strongest/ proof of the historical origin and genuine 
 character of these books. Brahmanic theologians, 
 however, after once having framed to themselves an 
 artificial conception of revelation, could not shake off 
 the fetters which they had forged themselves, and 
 had therefore to adopt the most artificial contrivances 
 in order to prove that thei'e was no variance, and no 
 contradiction between any of the statements contained 
 in the Veda. As they were convinced that every 
 word of their /S'ruti came direct from the deity, they 
 concluded that it must be their own fault, if they 
 could not discover the harmony of discordant utter- 
 ances. 
 
 Independent Statements in the Mantras. 
 
 It is strange, however, to observe that while so 
 great an effort is made to bring all the passages which 
 occur in the Upauishads into order and harmony, 
 hardly any attempt has been made to reconcile the 
 statements of the Upanishads with passages in the 
 hymns which allude to the fate of the soul after 
 death. These passages are by no means in harmony 
 with the passages in the Upanishads, nor ai'e they 
 always in harmony with themselves. They are simply 
 the various expressions of the hopes and fears of 
 individual poets, and free, as yet, from the elaborate 
 details concerning the journey to the Fathers, to the 
 gods, and to Brahman with which the Upanishads 
 abound. 
 
 If we examine the hymns of the Rig-veda we find 
 there the simple belief that those who have led a good 
 life go with a new and perfect body to the Fathers in 
 the realm of Yama ; Yama being originally a represen-
 
 138 LECTURE V. 
 
 tative of the setting sun ^. the first immortal, and after- 
 wards the first mortal, who entered the blessed abode 
 beyond the West. Thus in a hymn used at the 
 funeral, we read, Rv. X. 14, 7 ^ : 
 
 ' Go forth, go forth on those ancient paths on which 
 our forefathers departed. Thou shalt see the two 
 kings delighting in Svadha (libation), Yama and the 
 god Y&vunsb. 
 
 ' Come together with the Fathers^ and with Yama 
 in the highest heaven, as the fulfilment of all desires. 
 Having left all sin, go home again, and radiant in thy 
 body, come together with them.' 
 
 Yama is never called the first of mortals except in 
 the Atharva-veda ^. In the Rig-veda we can still 
 clearly perceive his divine character, and its physical 
 substratum, the setting sun. Thus we read X. 14, 2: 
 
 ' Yama was the first to find the path for us, a 
 pasture that can never be taken from us, whither our 
 fathers have travelled formerly, being born there, 
 each according to his ways.' 
 
 That path of the departed (prapatha) is conceived 
 as dangerous, and Pushan's protection is implored on 
 it (Rv. X. 17, 4). In one place a boat is spoken of for 
 crossing a river (X. G3, 10), two dogs also are men- 
 tioned which the departed has to pass. Another 
 verse introduces an entirely new thought. There 
 (Rv. X. 16, 3) we read : 
 
 ' May the eye go to the sun, the breath to the 
 wind; go to the sky and the earth, as is right, or 
 
 ' According to Professor Hillebrandt, the physical background 
 of Yama is the Moon, and not the nocturnal Sun. This is not 
 impossible. 
 
 ^ Anthropological Religion, p. 250. 
 
 ^ Ath.-veda XVIII. 3, 13, is a corruption of Rv. X. 14, 1.
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 139 
 
 go to the waters, if it is good for thee there, rest in 
 the plants.' 
 
 It has been supposed that some of the Vedic poets 
 placed the abode of the blessed not in the West but 
 in the East, but that depends simply on the right inter- 
 pretation of one passage, Rv. I. 115, 1, 2. Here 
 a sunrise is described, 'The bright face of the gods 
 has risen, the eye of Mitra, Varu/(a, Agni ; it filled 
 heaven and earth and the air, the sun is the self of all 
 that moves and stands ; 
 
 ' The sun goes from behind towards the Dawn, as a 
 man follows a woman, in the place where pious people 
 prolong the generations from happiness to happiness.' 
 
 This last line has been translated in various ways, 
 but the general idea has always been that the pious 
 people are here as elsewhere meant for the departed ^. 
 There is, however, no necessity for this interpretation. 
 I see in these words an idea often expressed in the 
 Veda, that the pious worshippers prolong their lives 
 or their progeny by offering sacrifices to the gods in 
 the morning, the morning-sun being the symbol of 
 renewal and prolonged life. Anyhow, the abode of 
 Yama and of the departed is near the setting, not 
 near the rising of the sun. 
 
 The abode of the departed, however, is by no means 
 described as dark or di*eary. At all events when 
 Soma, the moon, is implored to grant immortality, we 
 read (IX. 113, 7): 
 
 ' Where there is imperishable light, in the world 
 where the sun is placed, in that immortal, eternal 
 world place me, Soma ! 
 
 i, Sicbmzirj Lieder, p. 55 ; Ziimncr, Altind. Lchcn, p. 410.
 
 140 LECTURE V. 
 
 ' Where Vaivasvata (Yama) is king, where there is 
 the descent (or the interior) of heaven, where the ever- 
 flowing waters are, there make me immortal, O Soma ! 
 
 ' Where one moves as one listeth, in the third light, 
 the third heaven of heaven, where every place is full 
 of light, there make me immortal, O Soma ! 
 
 ' Where there are all wishes and desires, where the 
 red sun culminates, where there are offerings and 
 enjoyment, there make me immortal, Soma ! 
 
 'Where there are delights and pleasures, where joys 
 and enjoyments dwell, where the wishes of the heart 
 are fulfilled, there make me immortal, O Soma ! ' 
 
 It does not follow, however, that the abode of the 
 departed to which they are led by Soma, is always 
 conceived in exactly the same manner. The poetic 
 fancy of the Vedic poets is still very free. Thus we 
 read in another hymn (I. 24, 1, 2) that Agni, the first 
 among the immortal gods, is to restore man to Aditi 
 (the infinite), where the son may see his father and 
 mother again. In another hymn (X. 15) the departed 
 are actually divided into different classes, as dwelling 
 either in the air, or on the earth, and in the villages. 
 Dirghatamas (I. 154, 5) speaks of the beloved place 
 of Vish-nu, where pious men rejoice, as the abode of 
 the blessed. This place of Vishiiu would be the place 
 where the sun culminates, not where it sets. Another 
 poet (X. 135, 1) speaks of a beautiful tree, where Yama 
 is drinking with the gods. In the Atharva-veda we 
 get still more details. There we read of milk-cows, 
 soft" winds, cooling rain, cakes of ghee, rivers running 
 with milk and honey, and a large number of women, 
 all meant for the enjoyment of the departed. 
 
 It seems very strange that not one of these statements
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 141 
 
 resrardinof the fate of the soul after death which are 
 contained in the hymns of the Rig-veda, is discussed 
 in the Vedanta-sutras. No effort is made to bring 
 them into harmony with the teaching of the Upani- 
 shads. The same applies to many passages occurring 
 in the Erahma^ias, though they can claim the character 
 of &uti or revelation with the same right as the 
 Upani shads, nay, from an historical point of view, 
 with even a better right. This is a point which native 
 Vedantists should take into consideration, before they 
 represent the Vedanta philosophy as founded on Svut'i 
 or revelation in the general sense of that word. 
 
 Mythological Iianguage misixnderstood. 
 
 Another weak point in the authors of the Vedanta- 
 sutras seems to me their inability to understand that 
 in the early periods of language it is impossible to 
 express any thought except metaphorically, hierogly- 
 phically, or, what is the same, mythologically. Ancient 
 sages think in images rather than in concepts. With 
 us these images have faded, so as to leave nothing 
 behind but the solid kernel. Thus when we speak 
 of approaching or drawing near to God, we do no 
 longer think of miles of road which we have to 
 traverse, or of bridges and lakes which we have to 
 cross. Nor when we speak of a throne of God do we 
 allow ourselves to picture a royal throne with legs 
 and supports and canopies. But with the ancient 
 speakers it was different- Their thoughts were not 
 yet free of the imagery of language. Their approach 
 to God could only be represented as a long journey 
 along steep roads and narrow bridges, and the throne 
 of God or Brahman was graphically described as
 
 142 LECTURE V. 
 
 golden, and as covered with precious shawls and 
 cushions. We must say, however, to the credit 
 of the poets of the Upanishads that they soon began 
 to correct themselves. They tell us that the throne 
 of Brahman is not a golden throne, but is meant for 
 intelligence, while its coverings represent the sacred 
 scriptures or the Vedas. In the same way a river 
 which the soul in its journey to Brahman has to cross 
 is called Vi^ara, that is, the Age-less ; a man who 
 has crossed it, casts off old age, and never grows old 
 again. He is supposed to have shaken off his good 
 and evil deeds, and to leave the benefit of the former 
 to those among his relatives on earth who were dear 
 to him, while his evil deeds fall to the share of his 
 unbeloved relations. A lake again which bars the 
 way to Brahman is called Ai^a, and this name is 
 supposed to be derived from Ari, enemy, these enemies 
 being the passions and attachments of the heart, all 
 of which must be left behind before an entrance can 
 be found into the city of God, while those who do not 
 know the truth, are believed to be drowned in that 
 lake. 
 
 Even at present there are few, if any, among 
 the most enlightened students of Vedic literature in 
 India, who would admit the possibility of an historical 
 growth with regard to the Veda, and would not prefer 
 the most artificial interpretations to the frank ad- 
 mission that, like other sacred books, the Veda also 
 owes its origin to different localities, to different ages, 
 and to different minds. 
 
 Unless we learn to understand this metaphorical 
 or hieroglyphic language of the ancient world, we 
 shall look upon the Upanishads and on most of the
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 143 
 
 Sacred Books of the East as mere childish twaddle; 
 but if we can see through the veil, we shall discover 
 behind it, not indeed, as many imagine, profound 
 mysteries or esoteric wisdom, but at all events in- 
 telligent and intelligible efforts in an honest search 
 after truth. 
 
 We must not imagine, however, that we can always 
 reach the original intention of mythological phrase- 
 ology, nor does it follow that the interpretation 
 accepted by Indian commentators is always the right 
 one. On the contrary, these native interpretations, 
 by the very authority which naturally might seem 
 to belong to them, are often misleading, and we must 
 try to keep ourselves, as much as possible, independent 
 of them. 
 
 In the circumstantial accounts, for instance, which 
 I read to you from some of the Upanishads as to the 
 return of the soul to Brahman, the soul rising with 
 the smoke of the funeral pile and reaching the night, 
 and then the waning half of the moon, and then the 
 six months during which the sun travels to the 
 South, and then only arriving in the world of the 
 Fathers, we find it difficult, if not impossible, to 
 connect any definite thoughts with these wanderings 
 of the soul. What can be meant by the six months 
 during which the sun travels to the South or to the 
 North ■? It might seem to imply that the soul has to 
 tarry for six months while the sun is moving South, 
 before it can hope to reach the world of the Fathers 
 and the Moon. But this is by no means the inter- 
 pretation of native commentators. They are impressed 
 with a passage where it is said that the soul travels 
 onward witli the quickness of thought, and they there-
 
 144 LECTURE V. 
 
 fore would object to admit anything like delay in the 
 soul's joining the northern or the southern progress 
 of the sun. They may be right in this, but they leave 
 the difficulty of the six months as a station in the 
 soul's journey unexplained. I can only produce one 
 parallel that may perhaps throw some light on this 
 point. 
 
 It occurs in Porphyrins, De Antro IfympharuTri. 
 This cave of the nymphs, mentioned by Homer (Odyss. 
 XIII. 104), was taken by Porphyrins and other 
 philosophers, such as Numenius and Cronius, as a 
 symbol of the earth with its two doors, — 
 
 5i;w Se T6 ot Ovpai dcriv 
 at fitv irpos Bopiao, KarailSarai avOpuj-noiaiv, 
 at S' av TTpbs Notou dal Otumpai,' ovSe ri Kf'tv^ 
 avSpes kaipxovrai, dW' adavaruv o5os kanv. 
 
 These doors of the cave have been explained as the 
 gates leading from and to the earth. Thus Porphyrins 
 says that there are two extremities in the heavens, 
 viz. the winter solstice, than which no part is nearer 
 to the South, and the summer solstice which is 
 situated next to the North. But the summer tropic, 
 that is the solstitial circle, is in Cancer, and the winter 
 tropic in Capricorn. And since Cancer is the nearest 
 to the earth, it is deservedly attributed to the Moon, 
 which is itself proximate to the earth. But since 
 the southern pole by its greatest distance is incon- 
 spicuous to us, Capricorn is ascribed to Saturn, who 
 is the highest and most remote of all the planets . . . 
 Theologians admitted therefore two gates, Cancer and 
 Capricorn, and Plato also meant these by what he calla 
 the two mouths. Of these they affirm that Cancer is the 
 gate through which souls descend, but Capricorn that
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 145 
 
 through which they ascend [and exchange a material 
 for a divine condition of being]. And indeed the 
 gates of the cave which look to the South are with 
 great propriety said to be pervious to the descent of 
 men: but the noi-thcrn gates are not the avenues of 
 the gods, but of souls ascending to the gods. On this 
 account the >poet does not say it is the passage of the 
 gods, but of immortals, which appellation is also 
 common to our souls, which by themselves or by their 
 essence are immortal ^ 
 
 The idea that the place to which the sun returns, 
 whether in its northward or southward progress, is a 
 door by which the souls may ascend to heaven, is at 
 least conceivable, quite as much as the idea which 
 Macrobius in the twelfth chapter of his comment on 
 Scipio's dream ascribes to Pythagoras, who, as he tells 
 us, thought that the empire of Pluto began downwards 
 with the Milky Way, because souls falling from thence 
 appear already to have receded from the gods. 
 
 It should also be stated, as Mr. Bal GangadharTilak 
 in his Researches into the antiquity of the Vedas re- 
 marks, that 'the summer solstice which begins the 
 southern passage of the sun is called the ayana of the 
 'Pitris, and that the first month or fortnight in this 
 ayana of the Pit?'is is pre-eminently the month or the 
 fortnight of the Pitr/s or the Fravashis or the Manes. 
 The Hindus, he adds, up to this day regard the dark 
 half of Bhadrapada as the fortnight of the Manes, and 
 likewise the Parsis whose year commenced with the 
 summer solstice, the first month of the year being 
 dedicated to the Manes.' (Geiger, Civilization of 
 East Iranians, vol. i. p. 153.) 
 
 ' See Aelian, Porphyrins, P/iilo, cd. Didot, p. 94, § 21. 
 
 (4) L
 
 146 LECTURE V. 
 
 He ffoes still further and calls attention to the fact 
 that, when the vernal equinox was in Orion, that 
 constellation, together with the Milky Way and Canis, 
 formed, so to speak, the boundary of heaven and hell, 
 the Devaloka and Yamaloka which, in Vedic works, 
 mean the hemispheres North and South of the equator. 
 This would also explain, he thinks, why heaven and 
 hell are separated by a river according to the Parsic, 
 the Greek, and the Indian traditions, and why the 
 four-eyed or three-headed dogs came to be at the 
 gates of hell to guard the way to Yama's regions, 
 these being the constellations of Canis Major and 
 Minor. He undertakes to explain several more of 
 the ancient Vedic traditions by a reference to these 
 constellations, but he has hardly proved that these 
 constellations and their names as Canis Major and 
 Minor were known so early as the time of the poets 
 of the Rig-veda. 
 
 Whatever may be uncertain in these speculations, 
 so much seems clear, that originally the place where 
 the sun turned on its northern course was conceived 
 as the place where the soul might approach the world 
 of the Fathers. 
 
 But it is the fate that awaits the soul while in the 
 moon that is most difficult to understand. For here 
 in the moon we are told the departed become the food 
 of the gods. The literal meaning is, they are eaten 
 by the gods, but the commentators warn us not to 
 take eating in its literal sense, but in the more general 
 sense of assimilating or enjoying or loving. The 
 departed, they say, are not eaten by the Devas by 
 morsels, but what is meant is that they form the 
 delight of the gods, as food forms the delight of men.
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 147 
 
 Nay, one commentator goes still further, and says, 
 ' If it is said that women are loved by men, they are 
 in being loved loving themselves. Thus these souls 
 also, being loved by the gods or Devas love the gods 
 in return, and are happy rejoicing with the Devas.' 
 This seems at first a rational explanation, and wo 
 know that in the language of the New Testament 
 also eating and drinking or feeding on must be under- 
 stood in cerjtain well-known passages in the sense of 
 receiving, enjoying, or loving. 
 
 Still this does not explain the whole of this legend, 
 and it is clear that some other mythological con- 
 ceptions of the moon must have influenced the 
 thoughts of the poets of the Upanishads. It was 
 evidently a familiar idea with the common people in 
 ancient India that the moon was the source of life 
 and immortality, and that it consisted of something 
 like the Greek nectar which gave immortality to the 
 sods. The waning of the moon was ascribed to this 
 consumption of Soma (moon-juice) by the gods, while 
 its waxing was accounted for by the entrance of the 
 departed spirits into the moon, the recognised abode 
 of the Fathers. If then after the moon was full again, 
 the gods were supposed to feed on it once more, it is 
 conceivable that the gods should be supposed to be 
 feeding on the souls of the departed that had entered 
 into the moon ^. I do not mean to say that this 
 explanation is certain, nor is it hinted at by the 
 commentators of the Upanishads, but it is at all events 
 coherent and intelligible, which is more than can be 
 said of >S^ankara's interpretation. 
 
 It is not impossible, however, that some older 
 
 ' See Hillebrandt, Vedische Mythologic, vol. i. p. 394. 
 L 2
 
 148 LECTURE V. 
 
 mythological conceptions of the moon may have in- 
 fluenced the thoughts of the poets of the Upanishads. 
 It is not in India only that the moon was looked 
 upon as a symbol of life and immortality. When 
 people counted by moons, the moon became naturally 
 the source and giver of life. People asked for more 
 moons, they lived so many moons, so that moon and 
 life became almost synonymous. Next, as to the 
 idea of immortal life after death, this was seen 
 symbolised in the waning or dying of the moon and 
 in the resurrection of the new moon. Traces of this 
 have been discovered even among the lowest races, 
 such as the Hottentots, who have a well-known 
 legend of the moon sending a messenger to men to 
 tell them, ' As I die and dying live, so shall ye also 
 die and dying live ^.' 
 
 By combining these two conceptions, people were 
 easily led on to the idea that as the departed went to 
 the moon, and as the moon increased and decreased, 
 they also increased and decreased with the moon. 
 Then again, there was in India another tradition that 
 the moon, the giver of rain and fertility, constituted 
 the favourite food of the gods, so that it required no 
 more than a combination of these traditions to arrive 
 at the saying that, during the waning half, the gods fed 
 on the departed who were dwelling in the moon. Some 
 of these thoughts are expressed in the Rv. X. 85, 19: 
 
 Nava/t nava74 bhavati gayamanafe 
 Ahnam ketu^ ushasam eti agram 
 Bhagam devebhya^t vi dadhati a-yan 
 Pra AandramaA tirate dtrgham ayuh. 
 
 •He (the moon) becomes new and new when born ; the light of 
 days, he goes at the head of the dawns ; when he arrives, he dis- 
 tributes to the gods their share, the moon prolongs a long life.' 
 
 ' Selected Essarjs, i. p. 610.
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 149 
 
 Here it is clear that the moon is considered as the 
 source and giver of life, particularly of a long life, 
 while the share which he distributes to the gods may 
 mean either the sacrificial share for each god, which 
 is determined by the moon, as the regulator of seasons 
 and sacrifices, or the rain as the support of life, 
 which is supposed to come from the moon and to be 
 almost synonymous with it. 
 
 I do not ^naintain that all these ideas were clearly 
 present to the minds of the authors of the Upani- 
 shads. I only suggest that they formed the component 
 elements of that legendary language in which they 
 expressed their doctrines, trusting that they would be 
 understood by the people to whom their doctrines 
 were addressed. 
 
 We now come to a new phase of half-legendary, 
 half-philosophical speculation. 
 
 The Devayana or Path of the Gods. 
 
 The souls of those who form the delight of the 
 gods, or who enjoy the company of the gods and 
 Fathers while dwelling in the moon, are said to have 
 reached this blessedness by their pious works, by 
 sacrifice, charity, and austerity, not by real know- 
 ledge. Hence, when they have enjoyed the full 
 reward of their good works they are supposed to 
 return again to this life, while those who have 
 acquired true knowledge, or what wo should call true 
 faith, do not return, but press forward till they reach 
 Brahman, the Supreme God. This they achieve by the 
 Devayana or the Path of the Gods, as distinct from 
 the Fitriyixna,, or the Path of the Fathers. For those 
 who have discovered this Path of the gods that leads
 
 150 LECTURE V. 
 
 to Brahman, and which can be discovered by know- 
 ledge only, there is no return, that is to say, they are 
 not born again. To be born again and to enter once 
 more into the vortex of cosmic existence is to the 
 authors of the Upanishads the greatest misfortune that 
 can possibly be conceived. The chief object of their 
 philosophy is therefore how to escape from this cosmic 
 vortex, how to avoid being born again and again. 
 
 It seems to me that, if we take all this into account, 
 we can clearly distinguish three successive stages in 
 the thoughts which the authors of the Upanishads 
 formed to themselves as to the fate of the soul after 
 death. In the Upanishads themselves these different 
 theories stand side by side. No attempt is made to 
 harmonise them, till we come to the Vedanta philo- 
 sophers, who looked upon all that is found in the 
 Veda as one complete revelation. But if we may 
 claim the liberty of historical criticism, or rather of 
 historical interpretation, we should ascribe the simple 
 belief in the so-called Pitr^ya7^a, the path of the 
 Fathers, and the journey of the soul to the moon, as 
 the home of the Fathers, to the earliest period. It is 
 no more than a popular belief, which we find else- 
 where also, that the soul will go where the Fathers 
 went, and that their abode is, not in the sun, but in 
 the moon, the luminary of the dark night. 
 
 Then came the new idea that this happy life with 
 the gods and the Fathers in the moon was the reward 
 for good works on earth, and that the reward for these 
 good works must after a time become exhausted. 
 What then ? If in the meantime the concept of One 
 Supreme God, of an objective Brahman, had been 
 gained, and if it had been perceived that true blessed-
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTP.R DEATH. 151 
 
 ness and immoi-tality consisted, not in such half- 
 earthly enjoyments as were in store for the departed 
 in the moon, and must after a time come to an end, 
 but in an approach to and an approximative know- 
 ledge of the Supreme Being, the conclusion fidlowed 
 by itself that there must be another path besides that 
 of the Fathers leading to the moon, namely the path 
 of the gods (Devayana), leading through different 
 worlds of the gods, to the throne of Brahman or the 
 Supreme God. That road was open to all who had 
 gained a true knowledge of Brahman, and even those 
 who for a' time had enjoyed the reward of theii- good 
 works in the moon might look forward after having 
 passed through repeated existences to being born 
 once more as human beings, gaining in the end a 
 true knowledge of the One Supreme God, and then 
 proceeding on the path of the gods to the throne 
 of the Supreme Deity, whether they call it Braliman, 
 Hira7iyagarbha, or any other name, from whence 
 there is no return. 
 
 We shall see, however, that even this was not final, 
 but that there followed afterward a third phase of 
 thought, in which even this approach to the throne of 
 God was rejected as unsatisfactory. But before we 
 proceed to consider this, we have still to dwell for a 
 few moments on what was supposed to be the fate of 
 the souls, when they had to leave the moon and to 
 enter on a new course of being born and reborn, till 
 at last they gained complete freedom from cosmic 
 existence through a truer knowledge of God. 
 
 Metempsychosis. 
 
 This is a curious and important chapter, because we 
 can clearly discover in it the first beginnings of a
 
 152 LECTURE V. 
 
 belief in Metempsychosis, or the transmigration of 
 souls. The ancients were convinced that this belief 
 came from the East, and they imagined that Pytha- 
 goras and others could have got their belief in 
 Metempsychosis from India only. We saw how little 
 foundation there was for this, and it can easily be 
 shown that a belief in the transmigration of souls 
 sprang up in other countries also, which could not 
 possibly have been touched by the rays of Indian or 
 Greek philosophy. But it is interesting nevertheless 
 to watch the first beginnings of that belief in India, 
 because we have here to deal with facts, and not 
 with mere theories, such as have been started by 
 recent students of Anthropology as to the origin of 
 Metempsychosis. They consider that a belief in the 
 migration of souls, particularly the migration of 
 human souls into animal bodies, has something to do 
 with what is called Animism. Now Animism is a 
 very useful word, if only it is properly defined. It is 
 a translation of the German Beseelung, and if it is 
 used simply as a comprehensive term for all attempts 
 to conceive inanimate objects as animate subjects, 
 nothing can be said against it. There is, however, 
 a very common mistake which should be carefully 
 guarded against. When travellers meet with tribes 
 that speak of trees or stones as sentient beings, and 
 attribute to them many things which of right belong 
 to animate or human beings only, we are told that 
 it is a case of Animism. No doubt, it is. But is not 
 Animism in this case simply another name for the 
 belief that certain inanimate objects are animate? 
 It may sound more learned, but of course, the name 
 explains nothing. What we want to know is hoiu
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 153 
 
 human beings, themselves animate, could be so mis- 
 taken as to treat inanimate things as animate. Even 
 animals seldom mistake a lifeless thing for a living 
 thing. I believe that this tendency of the human 
 mind to attribute life and soul to lifeless and soulless 
 objects, can be and has been accounted for by a more 
 general tendency, nay, by what may almost be called 
 a necessity under which the human mind is laid by 
 human language, which cannot form names of any 
 objects except by means of roots, all of which are 
 expressive of acts. It was impossible to name and 
 therefore to conceive the sun or the moon, or a tree 
 or even a "stone, except as doers of something, which 
 something is expressed in one of those four or five 
 hundred roots that formed the capital of language. 
 This, which has been called Energism, is the highest 
 generalisation, and comprehends, and at the same 
 time accounts for Animism, Personification, Anthropo- 
 morphism, Spiritism, and several other isms. 
 
 But the question now before us is this. Did a belief 
 in Transmigration of souls have anything to do with 
 Animism, or that general belief that not only animals 
 have souls like men, but that inanimate objects also 
 may be inhabited by souls'? for it must be remem- 
 bered that from the very first Metempsychosis meant 
 the migration of the souls, not only into animals, but 
 likewise into plants. 
 
 Whatever may have been the origin of a belief in 
 Metempsychosis in other parts of the world, in India, 
 at all events so far as we may judge by the Upani- 
 shads, this belief had nothing to do with the ordinary 
 Animism. Its deepest source seems to have been 
 purely ethical. The very reason why the soul, after
 
 154 LECTURE V. 
 
 having dwelt for some time in the world of the 
 Fathers, had to be born again was, if you remember, 
 that the stock of its good works had been exhausted. 
 Let us hear then what the ancient Hindus thought 
 would happen to the soul after its descent from the 
 moon. Here we must be prepared again for a great 
 deal of childish twaddle ; but you know that philo- 
 sophers, to say nothing of fond fathers and grand- 
 fathers, are able to discover a great deal of wisdom 
 even in childish twaddle. The soul, we read in the 
 Upanishads, returns through ether or through space, 
 and then descends to the earth in the form of rain. 
 On earth something that has thus been carried down 
 in the rain, becomes changed into food. This food, 
 it is said, is offered in a new altar-fire, namely in 
 man, and thence born of a woman, that is to say, 
 man eats the food and with it the germs of a new 
 life. These germs are invisible, but according to the 
 Upanishads, not the less real. 
 
 Reality of Invisible Things. 
 
 This belief in invisible realities is fully recognised in 
 the Upanishads. It applied not only to the invisible 
 agents in nature, their Devas or gods, whom they 
 carefully distinguished from their visible manifesta- 
 tions. They believed in a visible Agni or fire who 
 performed the sacrifice, but they carefully distin- 
 guished him from the invisible and divine Agni who 
 was hidden in the dawn, in the morn, nay even in 
 the two fire-sticks, unseen by any human eye, but 
 ready to appear, when the priests had properly 
 rubbed the fire-sticks. The same belief gave them 
 their clear concept of the soul, never to be seen or
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 155 
 
 to be touched, yet more real to them than anything 
 else. Lastly their belief in something invisible that 
 constituted the life of every part of nature, meets us 
 on every page of the Upani shads. Thus we read in 
 the ii/iandogya-Upanishad a dialogue between a son 
 and his father, who wants to open the eyes of his 
 son as to the reality of the Unseen or the Infinite in 
 nature, which is also the Unseen and Infinite in man, 
 which is in fact both Brahman and Atman, the Self: 
 
 The father said: 'My son, fetch me a fruit of the 
 fig-tree.' 
 
 The son replied : ' Here is one, sir.' 
 
 ' Break it,' said the father. 
 
 The son replied : * It is broken, sir.' 
 
 The father : ' What do you see there ? ' 
 
 The son : ' These seeds, almost infinitesimal.' 
 
 The father : ' Break one of them.' 
 
 The son : ' It is broken, sir.' 
 
 The father : ' What do you see there ? ' 
 
 The son : ' Not anything, sir.' 
 
 The father: 'My son, that subtle essence, which 
 you do not see there, of that very essence this great 
 fig-tree exists.' 
 
 ' Believe it, my son. That which is the invisible, 
 subtle essence, in it all that exists, has its self. It 
 is the True, it is the Self, and thou, son, art it.' 
 
 If people have once arrived at this belief in subtle, 
 invisible germs, their belief in the germs of living 
 souls descending in rain and being changed into 
 grains of corn, and being, when eaten, changed into 
 seed, and at last being born of a mother, whatever we, 
 as biologists, may think of it, is not quite so un- 
 meaning metaphysically as it seems at first sight.
 
 156 LECTURE V. 
 
 But while in this case we have only a transmigration 
 of the human soul across rain and food into a new 
 human body, we find in another passage (Khandogya. 
 V. 10, 3) far more minute details. Here we are told 
 that the rain which carries the soul back to earth is 
 taken up into rice, barley, herbs of every kind, trees, 
 sesamum, or beans. It is very difficult to escape 
 from these vegetable dwellings, and whoever the 
 persons may be that eat this food and afterwards 
 beget offspring, the germ of the soul, becomes like 
 unto them. And yet we are told that everything 
 is not left to accident, but that those whose conduct 
 has been good will quickly attain a good birth in 
 the family of Brahman as or Kshatriyas or Vaisyas, 
 while those whose conduct has been bad, will quickly 
 attain an evil birth in the family of a Ksindala,, an 
 outcast, or, — and here we come for the first time on 
 the idea of a human soul migrating into the bodies 
 of animals, — he will become a dog or a hog. I think 
 we can clearly see that this belief in a human soul 
 being reborn as an outcast, or as a dog or a hog, 
 contains what I called an ethical element. This is 
 very important, at least as far as an explanation of 
 the idea of metempsychosis in India is concerned. 
 Whatever the influence of Animism may have been in 
 other countries in suggesting a belief in metempsy- 
 chosis, in India it was clearly due to a sense of moral 
 justice. As a man, guilty of low and beastly acts, 
 might be told even in this life that he was an out- 
 cast, or that he was a dog or a hog, so the popular 
 conscience of India, when it had once grasped the 
 idea of the continued existence of the soul after death, 
 would say in good earnest that he would hereafter
 
 .lOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 157 
 
 be an outcast or a dog or a hog. And after this idea 
 of metempsychosis had once been started, it soon 
 set the popular mind thinking on all the changes and 
 chances that might happen to the soul in her strange 
 wanderings. Thus we read that the soul may incur 
 great dangers, because while the rain that falls from 
 the moon (retodha/i) on the earth, fructifies and 
 passes into rice, corn, and beans, and is eaten and 
 then born as the offspring of the eater, some of the 
 rain may fall into rivers and into the sea, and be 
 swallowed by fishes and sea-monsters. After a time 
 they will be dissolved in the sea, and after the sea- 
 water has been drawn upwards by the clouds, it may 
 fall down again on desert or dry land. Here it may 
 be swallowed by snakes or deer, and they may be 
 swallowed again by other animals, so that the round 
 of existences, and even the risk of annihilation 
 become endless. For some rain-drops may dry up 
 altogether, or be absorbed by bodies that cannot be 
 eaten. Nay, even if the rain has been absorbed and 
 has become rice and corn, it may be eaten by children 
 or by ascetics who have renounced married life, and 
 then the chance of a new bii'th seems more distant than 
 ever. Fortunately the soul, though it is conscious 
 in its ascent, is supposed to be without consciousness 
 in its descent through all these dangerous stages. 
 The Brahmans have always some quaint illustrations 
 at hand. The soul is like a man, they say, who in 
 climbing up a tree is quite conscious, but on falling 
 headlong down a tree loses his consciousness. Well, 
 in spite of all this folly or childish twaddle, there are 
 nevertheless some great thoughts running through it 
 all. First of all. there is the unhesitating belief that
 
 158 LECTURE V. 
 
 the soul does not die when the body dies ; secondly, 
 there is the firm conviction that there is a moral 
 government of the world, and that the fate of the 
 soul hereafter is determined by its life here on earth, 
 to which was soon added as an inevitable corollary, 
 that the fate of the soul here on earth, must have 
 been determined by its acts of a former life. All 
 these thoughts, particularly on their first spontaneous 
 appearance, are full of meaning in the eyes of the 
 student of religion, and there are few countries where 
 we can study their spontaneous growth so well as in 
 ancient India. 
 
 Absence of HeUs. 
 
 This belief in metempsychosis accounts for the ab- 
 sence of hells as places of punishment, at least in the 
 earlier phases of the Upanishads. A difference is made 
 between souls that only pass through the manifold 
 stao-es of animal and vegetable life in order to be born 
 in the end as human beings, and those who are made to 
 assume those intermediate forms of rice and corn and 
 all the rest as a real punishment for evil deeds. The 
 latter remain in that state till their evil deeds are com- 
 pletely expiated, and they have a real consciousness of 
 their state of probation. But when their debts are 
 paid and the results of their evil deeds are entirely 
 exhausted, they have a new chance. They may 
 assume a new body, like caterpillars when changed 
 into butterflies. Even then the impressions of their 
 former misdeeds remain, like dreams. Still in the 
 end, by leading a vii'tuous life they may become men 
 once more, and rise to the world of the Fathers in 
 the moon. Here a distinction is made, though not
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 159 
 
 very clearly, between those whom the moon sets free 
 and those whom he showers down for a new birth. 
 Those who can answer the moon well, and assert 
 their identity with the moon, as the source of all 
 things, are set free to enter the Svargaloka by the 
 Path of the gods. Those who cannot, return to the 
 earth, may in time gain true knowledge, and finally 
 likewise reach the Path of the gods and the world 
 of the Devas, the home of the lightnings, and the 
 throne of Brahman. Some of the later Upanishads, 
 particularly the Kaushitaki-Upanishad, enter into far 
 fuller details as to this last journey to the throne of 
 Brahman. * But, as is generally the case, though there 
 may be some rational purpose in the general plan, 
 the minor details become almost always artificial and 
 unmeaning. 
 
 Now, however, when the soul has reached the 
 world of the gods and the abode of Brahman, from 
 whence there is no return to a new circle of cosmic 
 existence, a stream of new ideas sets in, forming a 
 higher phase philosophically, and probably a later 
 phase historically, as compared with the Path of the 
 Fathers and the Path of the Gods. We are introduced 
 to a dialogue, similar to that between the soul and the 
 moon, but now between the departed, standing before 
 the throne of Brahman, and Brahman himself. 
 
 Brahman asks him : ' Who art thou ? ' 
 
 And he is to answer in the following mysterious 
 words : 
 
 ' I am like a season, and the child of the seasons, 
 sprung from the womb of endless space, sprung from 
 light. This light, the source of the year, which is the 
 past, which is the present, which is all living things
 
 160 LECTURE V. 
 
 and all elements, is the Self. Thou art the Self, and 
 what thou art, that am I.' 
 
 The meaning of this answer is not quite clear. But 
 it seems to mean that the departed when asked by 
 Brahman what he is or what he knows himself to be, 
 says that he is like a season ^, that is, like something 
 that comes and goes, but that he is at the same time 
 the child of space and time or of that light from which 
 all time and all that exists in time and space proceeds. 
 This universal source of all existence he calls the Self, 
 and after proclaiming that Brahman before him is that 
 Self, he finishes his confession of faith, by saying, 
 ' What thou art, that am I.' 
 
 In this passage, though we still perceive some traces 
 of mythological thought, the prevailing spirit is clearly 
 philosophical. In the approach of the soul to the throne 
 of Brahman we can recognise the last results that can 
 be reached by Physical and Anthropological Rehgion, 
 as worked out by the Indian mind. In Brahman sit- 
 ting on his throne we have still the merely objective 
 or cosmic God, the highest point reached by Physical 
 Religion ; in the soul of the departed standing face to 
 face with God, we see the last result of Anthropological 
 Religion. We see there the human soul as a subject, 
 still looking upon the Divine Soul as an object. But 
 the next step, represented by the words, 'What thou 
 art, that ami /,' opens a new vista of thought. The 
 human soul, by the very fact that it has gained true 
 knowledge of Brahman, knows that the soul also is 
 Brahman, recovers its own Brahmahood, becomes in 
 fact what it always has been, Brahman or the Universal 
 Self. Knowledge, true knowledge, self-knowledge 
 
 * The Sufi also calls himself the son of the season, see p. 357.
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. IGl 
 
 suffices for this, and there is no longer any necessity 
 of toilsome travellings, whether on the Path of the 
 Fathers or on the Path of the Gods. 
 
 Transmigration as conceived in the laaws of Manu. 
 
 Before, however, we enter on a consideration of this 
 highest flight of Indian philosophy, and try to discover 
 to what phases of thought this similarity or rather this 
 oneness with God, this Homoiosis or Henosis, corre- 
 sponds in other religions, we have still to dwell for a 
 short time on the later development of the theory of 
 transmijrration as we find it in the Laws of Manu and 
 elsewhere, amd as it is held to the present day by 
 millions of people in India. These Laws of Manu are, 
 of course, much later than the Upanishads. Though 
 they contain ancient materials, they can hardly, in 
 their present metrical form, be assigned to a much 
 earlier date than about the fourth century A.D. In their 
 original form they must have existed as Sutras ; in 
 their present metrical form, they belong to the >S'loka- 
 period of Indian literature. There existed many 
 similar collections of ancient laws and custom?, com- 
 posed both in Sutras and afterwards in metre, but as 
 the Laws of Manu, or, as they ought to be more cor- 
 rectly called, the Laws of the Manavas, have acquired 
 a decided pre-eminence in India, it is in them that we 
 can best study the later development of the belief in 
 metempsychosis. 
 
 As I said before, when the idea of the migration of 
 the soul through various forms of animal and vege- 
 table life had once been started, the temptation was 
 great to carry it out in fuller detail. Whereas in the 
 Upanishads we are only told that a man who has led 
 
 (4) M
 
 162 LECTURE V. 
 
 an evil life, attains an evil birth, and may actually 
 come to life again as a dog or a hog, Manu is able to 
 tell us in far more minute detail what particular birth 
 is assigned to any particular crime. Thus we read in 
 V. 164, IX. 30, that a wife who has violated her duty 
 towards her husband is born as a jackal. In another 
 passage (VI. 63) we read of ten thousand millions of 
 existences through which the soul passes after it has 
 left this body. A Brahma^ia, we are told (XI. 25), who 
 has begged any property for a sacrifice, and does not 
 use the whole of it for the sacrifice, but keeps some of 
 it for himself, becomes for a hundred years a vulture 
 or a crow. In the last book of Manu this subject is 
 most fully treated. We read there, XII. 39 : 
 
 I will briefly declare in due order what transmigra- 
 tions in the whole world a man obtains through each 
 of the three qualities. These qualities have been 
 defined before (35-37) as darkness, activity, and 
 goodness. 
 
 The Three Qualities — Darkness, Activity, and Goodness. 
 
 Acts of darkness are those of which a man feels 
 ashamed. 
 
 Acts of activity or selfishness are those by which a 
 man hopes to gain profit or fame in the world, but of 
 which he need not feel ashamed. They may be called 
 selfish acts, but, from a moral point of view, they are 
 indifferent. 
 
 Acts of goodness are when a man desires knowledge, 
 with his whole heart, and his soul rejoices, and there 
 is no sense of shame. 
 
 Manu then continues : 
 
 Those endowed with goodness reach the state of 
 gods, those endowed with activity the state of men,
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 1C3 
 
 and those endowed with darkness sink to the condi- 
 tion of beasts ; this is the threefold course of trans- 
 migration. But know this threefold course of trans- 
 migration that depends on the -three qualities to bo 
 again threefold, low, middling, and high, according to 
 the particular nature of the acts and of the knowledge 
 of each man. 
 
 The Nine Classes. 
 
 Immovable beings, insects both small and great, 
 fishes, snakes, tortoises, cattle, and wild animals are 
 the lowest condition to which the quality of darkness 
 leads. 
 
 Elephants, horses, >S'iidras, and despicable barbarians, 
 lions, tigers, and boars are the middling states caused 
 by the quality of darkness. 
 
 iTaraTias (probably wandering minstrels and jug- 
 glers), Suparnas (bird-deities) and hypocrites, Raksha- 
 sas and Pi^a/jas (goblins) belong to the highest rank 
 of conditions among those produced by darkness. 
 
 G/mllas, Mallas, Na^as, men who subsist by despic- 
 able occupations and those addicted to gambling and 
 drinkins: form the lowest order of conditions caused 
 by activity. 
 
 Kings and Kshatriyas (noblemen), the domestic 
 priests of kings, those who delight in the warfare of 
 disputants constitute the middhng rank of the states 
 caused by activity. 
 
 The Gandharvas, Guhyakas, and the sei*vants of the 
 gods, likewise the Apsaras, belong to the highest rank 
 of conditions produced by activity. 
 
 Hermits, ascetics, Brahmaiias, the crowds of the 
 Vaimanika deities (spirits moving in mid-air on their 
 
 M a
 
 164 LECTURE V. 
 
 vimanas, or chariots), the gods of the lunar mansions 
 and the Daityas form the first and lowest rank of the 
 existences caused by goodness. 
 
 Sacrificers, the sages, the gods, the Vedas, the 
 heavenly lights, the years, the manes, and the Sadhyas 
 constitute the second order of existences caused by 
 goodness. 
 
 The sages declare Brahma, the creators of the 
 Universe, the law, the Great One, and the Undiscern- 
 ible One to constitute the highest order of things 
 produced by goodness. 
 
 Thus the result of the threefold action, the whole 
 system of transmigrations which consists of three 
 classes, each with three subdivisions, and which in- 
 cludes all created things, has been explained. 
 
 This systematic statement of the different stages of 
 transmigration is obscure in some points, particularly 
 when not only living beings, but heavenly lights, the 
 years, and even the Veda are mentioned as the result 
 of acts of goodness. We shall hereafter meet with 
 something very similar in the Hierarchies of Proclus 
 and of Dionysius the Areopagite. The place assigned 
 to certain classes of men, gods, and demi-gods is 
 curious and instructive, as showing the estimation in 
 which each of them was held at the time. 
 
 I am afraid it was rather tedious to follow Manu 
 through all the nine classes of beings through which 
 the human soul may pass. Yet these nine classes of 
 Manu acquire some interest, if we remember that 
 Plato also gives us a similar scheme of nine classes 
 into which the human soul may be reborn. 
 
 This coincidence in the number nine need not be more 
 than accidental. A comparison, however, of these two
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 165 
 
 lists (Enneads) is instructive, as showing the different 
 estimation in which certain occupations were held in 
 India and in Greece. In India the nine steps of the 
 ladder of existences rise from the lowest animals to 
 the world of human beings in their various occupa- 
 tions, then to the demons, to the Vedas, the heavenly 
 lights, the years, the Fathers, and the gods, in their 
 various spheres of action, and lastly to the creator of 
 the world and to Brahman himself In this we are 
 often reminded not only of the nine classes of Plato, 
 but likewise of the nine stages of the so-called heavenly 
 Hierarchy, as we find them in Proclus, and in Diony- 
 sius the Areopagite. There also, the number is nine, 
 nay the thi-ee triads are here, exactly as in India, sub- 
 divided each into three stages, and room is made as 
 in India, not only for animate beings, whether men or 
 angels, but likewise for inanimate, such as Thrones, 
 Powers, and Dominions. Whether these coincidences 
 are too great to be accepted as mere fortuitous coinci- 
 dences, we shall be better able to judge when we come 
 to consider the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, 
 and their extraordinary influence both on the scholastic 
 and the mystic, that is, the psychological theology of 
 the Middle Ages. 
 
 Fnnisliiuents of the Wicked. 
 
 Another important feature which marks the later 
 date of Mann's Laws is his acquaintance not only 
 with metempsychosis, but with punishments in- 
 flicted on the wicked in places which we must 
 call hells — for hells are a late invention in most 
 religions. Thus we read (XII. 54), ' Those who have 
 committed mortal sins (mahapatakas) having passed
 
 166 LECTUKE V. 
 
 through a large number of years through dreadful 
 hells, obtain after the expiration of that term of 
 punishment, the following births : 
 
 'The slayer of a Brahnia7ia enters the womb of a 
 dog, a pig, a camel, a cow, a goat, a sheep, a deer, 
 a bird, a K&ndkla,, and a Pukkasa.' 
 
 Here we have clearly the idea of punishment in 
 hell, apart from the punishment entailed by simply 
 being born again as a low animal. And what is 
 curious is that Yama, who at first was only conceived 
 as the ruler among the departed, as a kind deity 
 with whom the Pit7^/s enjoyed themselveSj is now 
 mentioned as inflicting torments on the wicked (XII. 
 17), a part which he continues to act in the later 
 literature of India. 
 
 In the hymns of the Rig-veda we find very little 
 that could be compared to the later ideas of hell. 
 Nor is there any reason to suppose, as both Roth and 
 Weber seem to do, that the Vedic Indians had realised 
 the idea of annihilation, and that they believed anni- 
 hilation to be the proper punishment of the wicked. 
 As they spoke of the abode of the blessed in very 
 general terms as the realms of light, they speak of the 
 wicked as being thrown or falling into karta, a pit 
 (Rv. II. 29, 6 ; IX. 73, 8-9). They also speak of a 
 deep place (padam gabhiram, IV. 5, 5) and of lower 
 darkness (adharam tama/i, X. 152, 4) as their abode. 
 
 There are some more passages in the Rig-veda 
 which may refer to punishment after death. Thus 
 we read (II. 29, 6), ' Protect us, gods, from being 
 devoured by the wolf, or from falling into the pit.' 
 And again (IX. 73, 8-9), ' The wise guardian of the 
 law is not to be deceived; he has placed purifiers
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 167 
 
 (conscience) in the heart ; he knowing looks upon all 
 thino-s, and hurls the wicked and lawless into the 
 pit.' 
 
 In the Atharva-veda the description of the abode 
 of the wicked becomes more and more minute. We 
 read (II. 14, 3) of a house (griha) for evil spirits, and 
 even the modern name of Naraka for hell occurs in 
 it. All this agrees with what we know from other 
 sources of the chronological relation of Vedic hymns, 
 Upanishads, and Manu's Laws. The Upanishads speak 
 of a third path, besides the two paths that lead to the 
 Fathers and to the Gods, and they say (Brih. Ar. VI. 2, 
 16): ' Those who do not know these tw^o paths become 
 worms, birds and creeping things.' We also read in 
 some Upanishads, that there are unblessed or asurya 
 worlds, covered with blind darkness whither fools go 
 after death. The Brahma77as are sometimes more 
 explicit in their accounts of hell ^ and in one passage 
 of the 5^atapatha Brahma^ia (XL 7, 2, 33), we actually 
 find a mention of the weighing of the soul, a concep- 
 tion so well known from Egyptian tombs. 
 
 Bridges. 
 
 The more we advance, the fuller the details become 
 about the two roads, the road leading to the Pitr/s 
 and the road leading to the Devas. I shall here call 
 your attention to one passage only in the Mahabha- 
 rata which is higldy important, because the two roads 
 are here for the first time - called Setus, or bridges (Anu- 
 
 > Weber, Z. D. M. G., ix. p. 240. 
 
 ■■^ How familiar the idea of a bridge behvecn this world and the 
 next must have been in Vcdic times also, is shown by the frequent 
 allusions to the Atman, as the true bridge from Schein to Sein ; 
 A7iand. Up. VIII. 4, 1, &c.
 
 168 LECTURE V. 
 
 gita, XX. p. 316), bridges of virtue or piety. It was 
 generally supposed that the idea of a bridge connect- 
 ing this world with the next was peculiar to Persia, 
 where the famous iiinvai bridge forms so prominent 
 a feature in the ancient religion. But the relation 
 between the Veda and the Avesta is so peculiar and so 
 intimate, that we can hardly doubt that the belief in 
 bridges between this world and the next was either 
 borrowed directly by the Persians from the Vedic 
 poets, or that it was inherited by both from their 
 common ancestors. It is quite true that the same idea 
 of a bridge between this and the next world occurs 
 in other countries also, where a direct influence of 
 Indian thought is out of the question, as, for instance, 
 among some North- American Indians ^. But it is not 
 a bridge of virtue or of judgment as in India and 
 Persia. The idea of a bridge or a mere communica- 
 tion between this and the next world is in fact so 
 natural that it may be called the easiest and probably 
 the earliest solution of the problem with which, though 
 from a higher point of view, we are occupied in this 
 course of lectures, the relation between the natural and 
 the supernatural. When people had once learnt to 
 believe in a Beyond, they felt a gap between the here 
 and the there, which the human mind could not brook, 
 and which it tried, therefore, to bridge over, at first 
 mythologically, and afterwards philosophically. The 
 earliest, as yet purely mythological, attempt to connect 
 the world of men and the world of the gods is the belief 
 in a bridge called Bi frost, Ut. trembling rest, such as 
 we find it in Northern mythology. It was clearly in- 
 
 ' Jones, TradHions of the North-American Indians, vol. i. p. 227.
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 169 
 
 tended originally for the rainbow. We are told that 
 it was created by the gods, and was called the bridge 
 of the Ases or the gods, the As-bru. It had three 
 colours, and was supposed to be very strong. But 
 however strong it was, it is believed that it will 
 break at the end of the world, when the sons of 
 Muspel come to ride across it. The Ases or gods 
 ride every day across that bridge to their judgment 
 seat near the well of Urd. It has a watchman also, 
 who is called Heimdall. 
 
 This is a purely mythological expedient to connect 
 heaven and earth, for which Physical Religion chose 
 very naturally \he emblem of the rainbow. 
 
 In India and Persia, however, the case is different. 
 First of all the bridge there is not taken from any- 
 thing in nature. It is rather an ethical postulate. 
 There must be a way, they argued, on which the 
 soul can approach the deity or by which it can be 
 kept away from the deity, — hence they imagined that 
 there was such a way. That way in India was the 
 Road of the Fathers and afterwards the Road of the 
 Gods. But it is very important to observe that in 
 India also this road (yana) was called setu, bridge, 
 though it had not yet received a proper name. In 
 the Veda, Rv. I. 38, 5, the path of Yama is mentioned, 
 which is really the same as the Road of the Fathers, 
 for Yama was originally the ruler of the Fathers. If 
 therefore the poets say, ]\Ia vo r/arita patha Yamasya 
 gad upa. May your worshipper not go on the path of 
 Yama, they simply mean, may he not yet die. When 
 there was once a bridge, a river also would soon be 
 imajrined which the bridge was to cross. Such a 
 river, though it does not occur iu the hymns, occurs
 
 170 LECTURE V. 
 
 in the Biahma^as under the name of Vaitara«i, which 
 simply means 'what leads on or what has to be crossed/ 
 It is probably but another name for the river Vir/ara, 
 the ageless, which, as we saw in the Upanishads, the 
 departed had to pass. 
 
 You may remember that at the funeral ceremonies 
 of the Vedic Indians a cow (Anustara-ni) had to be 
 sacrificed. This cow was supposed to carry the de- 
 parted across the Vaitaram river, and later it became 
 the custom in India, and, I am told, it is so now, to 
 make a dying man lay hold of the tail of a cow, 
 or, as amoDg the Todas, of the horns of a buffalo. 
 But though in India the belief in a Road of the 
 Fathers and a Road of the Gods seems to have arisen 
 from a moral conviction that there must be such a 
 path to lead the departed, whether as a reward or as 
 a punishment, to the world of the Fathers, and to the 
 world of the Gods, that path was identified in India 
 also not only with the rainbow, but likewise, as Pro- 
 fessor Kuhn has tried to show [K. Z., ii. p. 318), with 
 the Milky Way. In the Vishwu-puraiia (p. 227) the 
 Devayana is placed north of Taurus and Aries, and 
 south of the Great Bear, which is the exact situation 
 of the starting-point of the Milky Way. Professor 
 Kuhn has pointed out a most curious coincidence. 
 Let us remember that in order to reach the Devaj^ana, 
 supposed to be the Milky Way, the departed had to 
 be carried across the Vaitara^i river by a cow. Is it 
 not strange that in the North of Germany to the 
 present day the Milky Way should be called Kaupat, 
 that is, cow-path, and that the Slavonians should call 
 it Mavra or Mavriza, which means a black speckled 
 cow. Nay, in the poem of Tundalus (ed. Hahn, pp.
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 171 
 
 49-50), we read that the soul has to drive a stolen 
 cow across that bridge. Such coincidences are very 
 startling. One hardly knows how to account for 
 them. Of course, they may be due to accident, 
 but, if not, what an extraordinary pertinacity would 
 they show even in the folklore of the Aryan nations. 
 
 However, though in some places the Devayana has 
 been identified with the Milky Way, in others and 
 more ancient passages it was clearly conceived as the 
 rainbow, as when we read in the Brihad-ara^iyaka 
 Upanishad IV. 4, 8 : 
 
 'The small, old path stretching far away (vitataA 
 or vitara/i) has been found by me. On it, sages who 
 know Brahman move on to the Svargaloka (heaven), 
 and thence higher, as entirely free. 
 
 ' On that path they say that there is white and 
 blue, yellow, green, and red ; that path was found by 
 Brahman, and on it goes whoever knows Brahman, 
 and who has done good, and obtained splendour.' We 
 have here the five colours of the rainbow, while the 
 Bifrost rainbow had only three. 
 
 The idea that the wicked cannot jBnd the path of 
 the Fathers or the Gods is not entirely absent in the 
 Upanishads. For we read (Bnh. Ar. IV. 4, 10) : 
 
 ' All who worship what is not knowledge, enter into 
 blind darkness ; ' and again, ' There are indeed those 
 unblessed worlds covered with blind dai'kness. Men 
 who are ignorant, not enlightened, go after death to 
 these worlds.' Nay, in the >Satapatha BrahmaTia I. 9, 
 3, 2, we actually read of flames on both sides of the 
 path which burn the wicked, but do not touch the 
 pure soul. 
 
 ' The same path leads either to the Gods or to the
 
 173 LECTURE V. 
 
 Fathers. On both sides two flames are ever burning : 
 they scorch him who deserves to be scorched, and 
 allow him to pass who deserves to pass.' 
 
 There is also a line quoted in the Nirukta which 
 may refer to this path, where women say : 
 
 neg grihinayantyo narakam patama. 
 
 ' May we not walk crooked and fall into hell.' 
 
 It is, however, in the ancient religion of Persia that 
 this bridge becomes most prominent. It has there 
 received the name of Kinva.t, which can only mean 
 the searching, the revenging, the punishing bridge, 
 k'l being connected with Greek r^co, tlvu), and rto-ts. 
 
 Of this bridge we read in the Vendtdad, XIX. 29 : 
 
 'Then the fiend, named Vizaresha, carries off in 
 bonds the soul of the wicked Daeva-worshippers who 
 live in sin. The soul enters the way made by time, 
 and open both to the wicked and to the righteous. 
 And at the head of the K'mv&t bridge, the holy 
 bridge made by Mazda, they ask for their spirits and 
 souls the reward for the worldly goods which they 
 gave away here below.' 
 
 This bridge, which extends over hell and leads to 
 paradise, widens for the soul of the righteous to the 
 length of nine javelins, for the souls of the wicked it 
 narrows to a thread, and they fall into helP. 
 
 When we find almost the same circumstantial 
 account among the Mohammedans, it seems to me 
 that we shall have to admit in this case an actual 
 historical borrowing, and not, as in the case of 
 
 I Arda Viraf, V. 1. Darmesteter, Vendidad, S. B. E., iv. p. 212 
 
 note.
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 173 
 
 Indians and Persians, a distant common origin. The 
 idea of the bridge was probably adopted by the Jews 
 in Persia \ and borrowed by Mohammed from his 
 Jewish friends. It is best known under the name of 
 Es-Sirat. The seventh chapter of the Koran, called 
 Al Aaraf, gives the following account of the bridge : 
 
 ' And betwixt the two there is a veil, and on 
 al Aarfif are men who know each (the good and the 
 wicked) by marks, and they shall cry out to the 
 fellows of Paradise : Peace be upon you ! They cannot 
 enter it, although they so desire. But when their 
 sight is turned tojvards the fellows of Fire, they say : 
 O Lord, place us not with the unjust people! And 
 the fellows in al Aaraf will cry out to the men 
 whom they know by their marks, and say, Of no 
 avail to you were your collections, and what you 
 were so big with pride about ; are these those ye 
 swore that God would not extend mercy to ? Enter 
 Paradise, there is no fear for you, nor shall ye be 
 grieved. But the fellows of Fire shall cry out to the 
 fellows of Paradise, " Pour out upon us water, or 
 something of what God has provided you with," ' 
 
 When we find a similar account among the Todas 
 in Southern India, it is difficult to say whether they 
 derived it from the Brahmans or possibly from a 
 Mohammedan source. It resembles the latter more 
 than the former, and it might be taken by some 
 ethnologists as of spontaneous growth among the 
 Dravidian inhabitants of India. According to a writer 
 
 * In the fourth or tho beginning of the fifth centuiy, Jewish 
 doctors are known to liave been all-powcrfnl at the Sassanian 
 court, under Sapor II and Yazdagard. Academy, Nov. 28, 1891, 
 p. 483.
 
 174 LECTURE Y. 
 
 in the Nineteenth Century, June, 1892, p. 959, the 
 Todas have a heaven and a hell, the latter a dismal 
 stream full of leeches, across which the souls of the 
 departed have to pass upon a single thread, which 
 breaks beneath the weight of those burdened with 
 sin, but stands the slight strain of a good man's soul. 
 In the Talmud, as I am informed by the Rev. Dr. 
 Gaster, this bridge does not seem to be known. It 
 is mentioned, however, in the 21st chapter of the 
 Jana dehe Eliahu^ a work of the tenth century, but 
 containing fragments of much earlier date. Here we 
 read: 'In that hour (of the last judgment) God calls 
 back to life the idols of the nations, and he says: "Let 
 every nation with their god cross the bridge of 
 Gehinom, and when they are crossing it, it will 
 appear to them like a thread, and they fall down into 
 Gehinom, both the idols and their worshippers." ' 
 The passage occurs once more in the Yalkut Shim- 
 eani, ii. § 500, ed. pr. (Salonica, 1526), f. 87 seq., and 
 according to the best judges, the legend itself goes 
 back to pre-islamitic times. 
 
 So far we are still on safe and almost historical gTound. 
 But the belief in such a bridge is not confined to the 
 East ; and yet, when we are told that the peasants in 
 Yorkshire spoke not so long ago of a ' Brig o' Dread, 
 Na broader than a thread^,' we can hardly believe that 
 this Brig o' Dread is the modern representative of 
 the northern Bifrost bridge, because that bridge was 
 never a very narrow bridge, to be crossed by the good 
 only. I think we must here again admit a real his- 
 torical communication. It is more likely, I think, that 
 
 * J. Thorns, Anecdotes and Traditions, pp. 89-90 ; Grimm, Deutsche 
 Myfkologie, p. 794.
 
 JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 175 
 
 the idea of this bridge caught the fancy of some crusa- 
 der, and that he spoke or sang of it on his return to 
 France, and that with the Normans the Brig o' Dread 
 travelled into England. In France also the peasants 
 of Nievre know of this bridge as a small plank which 
 Saint Jean d'Archange placed between the earth and 
 paradise, and of which they sing : 
 
 Pas pu longue, pas pu large 
 Qu'un ch'veu de la Sainte Viarge, 
 Ceux qu'savont la raison d' Dieu, 
 Par dossus passeront, 
 Ceux qu' la sauront pas 
 Au bout mourront. 
 
 ' Not longer, not larger than a hair of the Holy Virgin, those 
 who know the reason of God (or tlie prayer of God) will pass over 
 it ; those who do not know it, will die at the end.' 
 
 From the folk-lore of the peasants this belief in a 
 bridsre leading from this to a better world found its 
 way into the folk-lore of mediaeval theologians, and 
 we read of a small bridge leading from purgatory to 
 paradise in the Legenda Aurea, c. 50 (De S. Patricio), 
 and in other places ^. 
 
 Is it not curious to see these ideas either cropping 
 up spontaneously in different parts of the world, or 
 handed on by a real historical tradition from India 
 to Persia, from Persia to Palestine, from Palestine to 
 France, and from France even to Yorkshire 1 And at 
 the root of all, there is that simple but ineradicable 
 belief that the Human and the Divine cannot be 
 separated for ever, and that as the rainbow bridges 
 heaven and earth, or as the galaxy shows us a bright 
 way through myriads of stars to the highest Empy- 
 rean, there must be a bridge between Earth and 
 
 ' Cf. Liebrecht zu Gervasius, Olta Imperialia, Hanover, 1S5C, p. 90.
 
 176 LECTURE V. 
 
 Heaven, between the soul and God ; there must be 
 a Way, and a Truth, and a Life to guide the soul to 
 its real home, or, as another religion expresses it, 
 there must be a faith to take us home, and to makt- 
 us all one in God. (Cf. St. John xvii. 21.)
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 THE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE AVESTA. 
 General similarities in Escliatological Legends. 
 
 I MENTIONED at the end of my last Lecture a 
 number of traditions gathered from different parts 
 of the world, and all having reference to a bridge 
 between earth and heaven. Some of these traditions 
 were purely mythological, and were suggested, as it 
 seemed, by actual phenomena of nature, such as the 
 rainbow and the Milky Way. Others, on the contrary, 
 sprang evidently from a moral conviction that there 
 must be a way by which the human soul could return 
 to God, a conviction which, however abstract in its 
 origin, could not altogether resist being likewise 
 clothed in the end in more or less fanciful and mytho- 
 logical phi-aseology. 
 
 When we have to deal with common traditions 
 found in India, Greece, and Germany, we must 
 generally be satisfied if we can discover their simplest 
 germs, and show how these germs grew and assumed 
 a different colouring on Indian, Greek, or German 
 soil. I explained this to you before in the case of 
 the Greek Charites, the Sanskrit Haritas. Here we 
 find that the words are identically the same, only 
 pronounced differently according to the phonetic pecu- 
 liarities of the Greek and the Sanskrit languages.
 
 178 LECTURE VI. 
 
 The common germ was found in the bright rays of 
 the sun, conceived as horses in the Veda, as beautiful 
 maidens in Greece. The same applies, as I showed 
 many years ago, to the Greek Daphne. Daphne would 
 in Sanskrit be represented by D ah an a, and this 
 would mean the burning or the bright one. This 
 root dah has yielded the name for day and dawn in 
 German. In Sanskrit it has been replaced by Ah ana ^. 
 There is in the Veda a clear reference to the Dawn 
 dying whenever the sun tries to approach her, and we 
 have a right therefore to interpret the Greek legend 
 of Daphne, trying to escape from the embraces of 
 Phoebus, as a repetition of the same story, that the 
 Dawn, when she endeavours to fly from the ap- 
 proaches of the sun, either dies or is changed into a 
 laurel tree. This change into a laurel tree, however, 
 was possible in a Greek atmosphere only, where 
 daphne had become the name of the laurel tree, which 
 was called daphne because the wood of the laurel 
 tree was easy to kindle and to burn. 
 
 The lessons which we have learnt from Comparative 
 Mythology hold good with regard to Comparative 
 Theology also. If we find similar religious or even 
 philosophical ideas or traditions in Greece and in 
 India, we must look upon them simply as the result 
 of the common humanity or the common language of 
 the people, and be satisfied with very general features ; 
 but when we proceed to compare the ideas of the 
 ancient Parsis with those of the Vedic poets, we 
 have a right to expect coincidences of a different 
 and a much more tangible nature. 
 
 1 See Hopkins, On English day and Sanskrit (d)ahan. Pro- 
 ceedings of American Oriental Society, 1892.
 
 THE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE AVESTA. 179 
 
 Peculiar relation between the Relig-ions of India and Persia. 
 
 The exact historical relation, however, between the 
 most ancient religions of India and Persia is very 
 peculiar, and by no means as yet fully elucidated. 
 It has been so often misconceived and misrepresented 
 that we shall have to examine the facts very carefully 
 in order to gain a clear conception of the real re- 
 lationship of these two religions. No religion of the 
 ancient world has been so misrepresented as that con- 
 tained in the Avesta. We shall therefore have to enter 
 into some details, and examine the ipsissima verba of 
 the Avesta. In doing this I am afraid that my lec- 
 ture to-day on the Avesta and its doctrines touching 
 the immortality of the soul, wiU not contain much 
 that can be of interest to any but Oriental scholars. 
 But what I have always been most anxious about, 
 is that those who follow these lectures should get an 
 accurate and authentic knowledge of the facts of the 
 ancient religions. Many people are hardly aware how 
 difficult it is to give a really accurate account of any of 
 the ancient Oriental religions. But think how difficult 
 it is to say anything about the real teaching of Christ, 
 without being contradicted by some Doctor of Divinity, 
 whether hailing from Rome or from Edinburgh. And 
 yet the facts lie here within a very narrow compass, 
 very diflferent from the voluminous literature of the 
 religions of the Brahmanist or Buddhists. The lau- 
 guage of the New Testament is child's play compared 
 to Vedic Sanskrit or Avestic Zend. If then one 
 sees the wrangling going on in churches and chapels 
 about the right interpretation of some of the simplest 
 passages in the Gospels, it might seem almost hopeless 
 
 N 2
 
 180 LECTURE VI. 
 
 to assert anything positive about the general cha- 
 racter of the Vedic or Avestic religions. Yet, strange 
 to say, it has happened that the same persons who 
 seem to imagine that no one but a Doctor of Divinity 
 has any right to interpret the simplest verses of the 
 New Testament, feel no hesitation in writing long 
 essays on Zoroaster, on Buddhism and Mohammedan- 
 ism, without knowing a word of Zend, Pali^ or Arabic. 
 They not only spread erroneous opinions on the 
 ancient Eastern rehgions, but they think they can 
 refute them best, after having thus misrepresented 
 them. If the Avestic religion has once been repre- 
 sented as Fire-worship and Dualism, what can be 
 easier than to refute Fire-worship and Dualism ? But 
 if we consult the original documents, and if we dis- 
 tinofuish. as we do in the case of the New Testament, 
 between what is early and what is late in the sacred 
 canon of the Zoroastrians, we shall see that Zoroaster 
 taught neither fire-worship nor dualism. 
 
 Zoroaster teaches neither Pire-worship nor Dualism. 
 
 The supreme deity of Zoroaster is Ahuramazda, not 
 Atar, fire, though Atar is sometimes called the son of 
 Ahuramazda ^ Fire no doubt is a sacred object in all 
 ancient sacrifices, but the fire, as such, is no more 
 worshipped as the supreme God in the Avesta than it 
 is in the Veda. 
 
 If we want to understand the true nature of the 
 religion of Zoroaster we must remember, first of all, 
 that the languages in which the Veda and Avesta are 
 composed are more closely related to each other than 
 any other language of the Aryan family. They are 
 
 * Physical Ueligion, p. iSl.
 
 THE ESCHATOLOQY OP THE AVESTA. 181 
 
 in fact dialects, rather than two different languages. 
 We must also remember that the religions of Zoroaster 
 and of the Vedic Rishis share a certain number of 
 their deities in common. It used to be supposed that 
 because deva in the Veda is the name for gods, and 
 in the Avesta the name for evil spirits, therefore the two 
 religions were entirely antagonistic. But that is not 
 the case. The name for gods in the Veda is not only 
 deva, but likewise asura. This name, if derived 
 from asu, breath, meant originally the living, he who 
 lives and moves in the gi-eat phenomena of nature, 
 or, as we should say, the living God. Certain Vedic 
 gods, particularly Varuiia, are in the Veda also 
 called Asura in the good sense of the word. But 
 very soon the Sanskrit asura took a bad sense, for 
 instance, in the last book of the Rig-veda and in the 
 Atharva-veda, and particularly in the Brahmanas. 
 Here we constantly find the Asuras fighting against 
 the Devas. Deva, as you remember, was the common 
 Aryan name for gods, as the bright beings of nature. 
 But while Asura became the name of the highest deity 
 in the Avesta, namely Ahuramazda or Ormazd, deva 
 occurs in the Avesta always in a bad sense, as the 
 name of evil spirits. These D evas (daevas),the modern 
 Persian div, are the originators of all that is bad, of 
 every impurity, of sin and death, and are constantly 
 thinking of causing the destruction of the fields and 
 trees and of the houses of religious men. The spots 
 most liked by them, according to Zoroastrian notions, 
 are tho.se most filled with dirt and filth, and especially 
 cemeteries, which places are therefore objects of the 
 greatest abomination to a true Ormazd worshipper ^. 
 
 * Haug, Essays on the Parsis, p. 268.
 
 182 LECTURE VI. 
 
 It is difficult to account for these facts, but we 
 must always remember that while some of the prin- 
 cipal Vedic deities, such as Indra\ for instance, occur 
 in the Avesta as demons, other Devas or divine beings 
 in the Veda have retained their original character in 
 the Avesta, for instance Mithra, the Vedic Mitra, 
 the sun, Airyaman, the Vedic Aryaman, likewise a 
 name of the sun, a deity presiding over marriages. 
 Bhaga, another solar deity in the Veda, occurs in 
 the Avesta as bagha, and has become there a general 
 name for god. This word must be as old as deva, 
 for it occurs in the Slavonic languages as bog, god. 
 It is known also from the name of Behistun, the 
 mountain on which Darius engraved his great in- 
 scriptions, in cuneiform letters. The Greeks call it 
 Bayaarava, i.e. the place of the gods. Other divine 
 names which the Avesta and the Veda share in 
 common are the Avestic Armaiti, the Vedic Ara- 
 mati, the earth, Narasamsa, lit. renowned among 
 men (a name of Agni, Pushan, and other gods in the 
 Veda), the Avestic NairyasaTiha, a messenger of 
 Ormazd. Lastly, we find that while Indra has become 
 a demon under the name of Andra, one of his best- 
 known Vedic epithets, namely, Vritrahan, slayer of 
 VWtra, occurs in the Avesta as Verethraghna, mean- 
 ing simply the conqueror, the angel who grants 
 victory. His name becomes in the end B eh ram, and 
 one of the Yashts is addressed to him, the Behram 
 Yasht. It has generally been supposed, therefore, 
 that a religious schism took place, and that Zara- 
 thushtra seceded from the worshippers of the Vedic 
 
 1 Also Saurva daeva, i.e. Sarva, and NAonhaithya daeva, the 
 Nasatyau.
 
 THE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE AVESTA. 183 
 
 Devas. There is some truth in this, but though there 
 was a severance, there always remained a common 
 background for the two religions. Many of the Vedic 
 deities were retained, subject only to the supremacy 
 •of Ahuramazda. It is the idea of one supreme God, 
 the Ahuramazda, which forms the characteristic dis- 
 tinction between the Avestic and the Vedic religions. 
 Only Zarathushtra's monotheism does not exclude a 
 belief in a number of deities, so long as they are not 
 conceived as the equals of Ahuramazda. In his moral 
 character Ahuramazda may really be looked upon as 
 a development of the Vedic Varu?ia, but the moral 
 character of this deity has become far more prominent 
 in the Avesta than in the Veda. 
 
 The Avestic religion, as we know it from its own 
 sacred books, is in fact a curious mixture of mono- 
 theism, polytheism, and dualism. Ahuramazda is no 
 doubt the supreme God, the creator and ruler of all 
 things, but there are many other divine beings who, 
 though subject to him, are yet considered worthy of 
 receiving adoration and sacrificial worship. Again, 
 Ahuramazda, so far as he represents the good spirit, 
 spenta mainyu, the spirit of light, is constantly 
 opposed by Angra mainyu, best known in our times 
 as Ahriman, the evil spirit, the spirit of darkness. 
 But these two spirits were not originally conceived as 
 two separate beings. In the ancient Gathas there is 
 no trace as yet of a personal conflict between Ormazd 
 and Ahriman. The enemy against whom Ormazd 
 fights there, is Drukh, the Vedic Druh, 'the lying- 
 spirit.' Darius also in the cuneiform inscriptions does 
 not yet mention Ahriman as the opponent of Ormazd.
 
 184 LECTURE YI, 
 
 The Proljlem of the Origin of Evil. 
 
 Dr. Haug seems quite right in stating that Zara- 
 thushtra, having arrived at the idea of the unity and 
 indivisibihty of the Supreme Being, had afterwards to 
 solve the great problem which has engaged the atten- ' 
 tion of so many wise men of antiquity and even of 
 modern times, namely, how to reconcile the imperfec- 
 tions discernible in the world, the various kinds of 
 evil, wickedness, and baseness, with the goodness and 
 justice of the one God. He solved this question philo- 
 sophically, by the admission of two primeval causes, 
 which, though different, were united, and produced 
 the world of material things as well as that of the 
 spirit. This doctrine may best be studied in the 
 thirtieth chapter of the Yasna. The one who pro- 
 duced all reality (gaya) and goodness is called there 
 the good mind (vohu mano), the other, through whom 
 the unreality (agyaiti) originated, bears the name 
 of the evil mind (akem mano). All good, and true, 
 and perfect things, which fall under the category of 
 reality, are the productions of the ' good mind,' while 
 all that is bad and delusive belongs to the sphere 
 of ' non-reality,' and is traced to the evil mind. These 
 are the twa moving .causes in the universe, united 
 from the beginning, and therefore called twins (yema, 
 Sk. yamau). They are present everywhere, in Ahura- 
 mazda as well as in men. These two primeval prin- 
 ciples, if supposed to be united in Ahuramazda himself, 
 are called spenta maiuyu, his beneficent spirit, and 
 angra mainyu, his hurtful spirit. That Angra mainyu 
 was not conceived then as a separate being, opposed 
 to Ahuramazda, Dr. Haug has proved from Yasna 
 XIX. 9, where Ahuramazda is mentioning these two
 
 THE ESCHATOLOQY OF THE AVESTA. 185 
 
 spirits as inherent in his own nature, though he dis- 
 tinctly called them the ' two masters ' (payu), and the 
 ' two creators.' But while at fii-st these two creative 
 spirits were conceived as only two parts or ingre- 
 dients of the Divine Being, this doctrine of Zara- 
 thushtra's became corrupted in course of time by 
 misunderstandings and false interpretations. Spenta 
 mainyu, the beneficent spirit, was taken as a name 
 of Ahuramazda himself, and the Angra mainyu, by 
 becoming entirely separated from Ahuramazda, was 
 then regarded as the constant adversaiy of Ahura- 
 mazda. This is Dr. Haug's explanation of the Dualism 
 in the later portions of the Avesta, and of the constant 
 conflict between God and the Devil which we see 
 for instance in the fii'st fargard of the Vendidad. The 
 orio-in of sood and evil would thus have been trans- 
 ferred unto the Deity itself, though there the possible 
 evil was always 6vercome by the real good. Zoroaster 
 had evidently perceived that without possible evil 
 there can be no real good, just as without temptation 
 there can be no virtue. The same contest which 
 is supposed to be carried on within the deity, is also 
 carried on by each individual believer. Each be- 
 liever is exhorted to take part in the fight against 
 the evil spirit, till at last the final victory of good 
 over evil will be secured. 
 
 This, of course, is not stated in so many words, 
 but it follows from passages gathered from different 
 parts of the Avesta. 
 
 The Angels, originaUy qualities of Ormazd. 
 
 The same process of changing certain qualities of 
 the Divine Being into separate beings can be clearly
 
 186 LECTURE VI. 
 
 watched in the case of the Ameshaspentas. The 
 Ameshaspentas of the Avesta are lit. the immortal 
 benefactors. These were clearly at first mere quali- 
 ties of the Divine Being, or gifts which Ormazd might 
 grant to his worshippers, but they became afterwards 
 angelic or half-divine beings, such as Vohu mano 
 (Eahman), good mind, Asha vahishta (Ardi bahisht), 
 the best truth, Armaiti (Spendarmad), devotion and 
 piety, AmeretacZ (Amardad), immortality, Haurva- 
 tkd (Khordad), health, Kshathra vairya (Shahri- 
 var), abundance of earthly goods. 
 
 As these angels formed in later times the great 
 council of Ormazd, Ahriman also was supposed to be 
 surrounded by a similar council of six. They were 
 Akem mano, the evil spirit, India, ^aurva, NaoTi- 
 haithya, and two personifications of Darkness and 
 Poison. In this way the original Monotheism of the 
 Zoroastrian religion came to be replaced by that Dual- 
 ism which is wrongly supposed to be the characteristic 
 feature of the ancient Persian religion, and offers many 
 points of similarity with the belief in God and His 
 angels, and in a devil also, as we find it in the later 
 portions of the Old Testament. From thence this 
 belief w^as transferred to the New Testament, and 
 is still held by many as a Christian dogma. Whether 
 this belief in God and a devil and the angels forming 
 their respective councils was actually borrowed by 
 the Jews from Persia, is still an open question. If 
 any of the Persian names of these angels or devils 
 had been discovered in the Old Testament, the ques- 
 tion would at once have been settled ; but there is 
 only one really Persian name of one of these evil 
 spirits attached to Ahriman, which actually has found
 
 THE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE AYESTA. 187 
 
 its way into the Old Testament in the apocryphal 
 book of Tobit, iii. 8, namely Asmodeus, which is the 
 Persian Aeshma daeva, the demon of anger and 
 wrath. This name could have been borrowed from 
 a Persian source only, and proves therefore the exis- 
 tence of a real historical intercourse between Jews 
 and Persians at the time when the book of Tobit was 
 written. We look in vain for any other Persian name 
 of a good or an evil spirit in the genuine books of 
 the Old Testament \ though there is no douVjt great 
 similarity between the angels and archangels of the 
 Old Testament and the Ameshaspentas of the Avesta, 
 as has been shown by Dr. Kohut in his very learned 
 essay on this subject. 
 
 Of all this, of the original supremacy of Ahura- 
 mazda, of the later dualism of Ahuramazda and 
 Angra mainyu, and of the councils of these two hos- 
 tile powers therJ is no trace in the Veda. Traces, 
 however, of a hostile feeling against the Asuras in 
 general appear in the change of meaning of that word 
 in some portions of the Rig-veda and the Atharva- 
 veda, and more particularly in the BrahmaTias. 
 
 Asuras and Suras. 
 
 A new change appears in the later Sanskrit litera- 
 ture. Here the Asuras, instead of fighting with the 
 Devas, are represented as fighting against the Suras ; 
 that is to say, by a mere mistake the ' A ' of Asura 
 has been taken as a negative 'a,' whereas it is the 
 radical 'a' of asu, breath, and a new name has been 
 formed, Sura, which seemed to be connected with 
 
 * See, however, my remarks on p. 52, on the appellation Ahmi 
 ya< ahmi.
 
 188 LECTURE VI. 
 
 svar, the sky, and was used as a name of the gods, 
 opposed to the Asuras, the Non-gods ^ This is how 
 mythology is often made. All the fights between the 
 Suras and Asuras, of which we read so much in the 
 Puranas, are really based on a misunderstanding of 
 the old name of the living God, namely Asu-ra, not 
 A-sura. 
 
 In whatever way we may try to account for the 
 change of the Vedic Devas, gods, into the Avestic 
 Daevas, evil spirits, there can be no doubt that we 
 have to deal here with an historical fact. For some 
 reason or other the believers in the true Asuras and 
 in Ahuramazda must have separated at a certain 
 time from the believers in the Vedic Devas. They 
 difiered on some points, but they agreed on others. 
 In fact, we possess in the Yasna, in one of the more 
 ancient remnants of Zarathushtra's religion, some 
 verses which can only be taken as an official formula 
 in which his followers abjured their belief in the 
 Devas. There (Yasna XII) we read : 
 
 Abjnration of Da^va Worship. 
 
 • I cease to be a Deva (worshipper). I profess to 
 be a Zoroastrian Mazdayaznian (a worshipper of 
 Ahuramazda), an enemy of the Devas, and a devotee 
 of Ahura, a praiser of the immortal benefactors 
 (Ameshaspentas). In sacrificing to the immortal 
 Ameshaspentas I ascribe all good things to Ahura- 
 mazda, who is good and has (all that is) good, who 
 is righteous, brilliant, glorious, who is the originator 
 of all the best things, of the spirit of nature (gaush), 
 
 ^ By the same process, sita, bright, seems to have been formed 
 from asita, dark.
 
 THE ESCIIATOLOGY OF THE AVE8TA. 189 
 
 of righteousness, of the luminaries, and the self- 
 shininsr brightness which is in the luminaries. 
 
 'I forsake the Devas, the wicked, bad, wrongful 
 originators of mischief, the most baneful, destructive, 
 and basest of beings. I forsake the Devas and those 
 like Devas, the sorcerers and those like sorcerers, and 
 any beings whatever of such kinds. I forsake them 
 with thoughts, words, and deeds, I forsake them 
 hereby publicly, and declare that all lies and false- 
 hood are to be done away with.' 
 
 I do not see how after this any one can doubt that 
 the separation of the followers of Zarathushtra, the 
 believers in Ahuramazda, from the worshippers of the 
 Vedic Devas, was a real historical event, though it 
 does by no means follow that their separation was 
 complete, and that the followers of Zoroaster surren- 
 dered every behef which they formerly shared in 
 common with th^ Vedic Rishis. 
 
 I think we shall be perfectly right if we treat the 
 Avestic as a secondary stage, as compared with the 
 old Vedic religion, only we must guard against the 
 supposition that the Avesta could not have preserved 
 a number of ideas and religious traditions older even 
 and simpler than what we find in the Veda. The 
 Vedic poets, and more particularly the Vedic philo- 
 sophers, have certainly advanced much beyond the 
 level that had been reached before they were de- 
 serted by the Zoroastrians, but the Zoroastrians may 
 have preserved much that is old and simple, much 
 that dates from a period previous to their separation, 
 much that we look for in vain in the Veda.
 
 190 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Immortality of tlie Soul in the Avesta. 
 
 This seems certainly to be the case when we com- 
 pare the Persian accounts of the immortality of the 
 soul and its migrations after death with those which 
 we examined before in the Upanishads. The idea 
 that knowledge or faith is better than good works, 
 and that a higher immortality awaits the thinker 
 than the doer, an idea so familiar to the authors 
 of the Upanishads, is quite foreign to the Avesta. 
 The Avestic religion is before all things an ethical 
 religion. It is meant to make people good. It holds 
 out rewards for the good, and punishments for the 
 bad in this life and in the life to come. It stands 
 in this respect much more on the old level of the 
 Vedic hymns than on that of the Upanishads. In 
 the hymns, as we saw, the departed was simply told 
 to run on the good path, past the two dogs, the brood 
 of Sarama, the four-eyed, the grey, and then to go 
 towards the wise 'Pitris or Fathers who were happily 
 rejoicing with Yama. Or the departed was told to 
 go forth on those ancient roads on which his fore- 
 fathers had departed, and to meet the two kings 
 delighting in (svadha) offerings, Yama and the god 
 Varu^a. Nothing is said there of the smoke carrying 
 him to the sky, nor of the sun moving towards the 
 south or the north, or of the departed rising upwards 
 till he reaches the moon or the place of lightning. 
 The goal of the journey of the departed is simply the 
 place where he will meet the Fathers, those who 
 were distinguished for piety and penance, or those 
 who fell in battle, or those who during life were 
 generous with their wealth.
 
 THE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE AVESTA. 191 
 
 The Pitri's or Fathers as conceived in the Vedio Hymns. 
 
 All this is much more human than the account 
 given in the Upanishads. And when we read in the 
 Riof-veda the invocations addressed to the Pitr/s or 
 the three generations of ancestors, we find there too 
 again a much more childlike conception of their 
 abode than what is given us in the Upanishads. 
 Sometimes the great-grandfathers are supposed to be 
 in heaven, the grandfathers in the sky, and the 
 fathers still somewhere on the earth, but all are 
 invited together to accept the offerings made to them 
 at the ^'raddhas, nay, they are supposed to consume 
 the viands placed before them. Thus we read (Rig- 
 veda X. 15): 
 
 1. May the Soma-loving Fathers \ the lowest, the 
 highest, and the middle arise ! May the gentle and 
 righteous Fathei^ who have come to life (again), pro- 
 tect us in these invocations ! 
 
 2. May this salutation be for the Fathers to-day, 
 for those who have departed before or after ; whether 
 they now dwell in the sky above the earth, or among 
 the blessed people ! 
 
 3. I invited the wise Fathers .... may they come 
 hither quickly, and sitting on the grass readily par- 
 take of the poured-out draught ! 
 
 4. Come hither to us with your help, you Fathers 
 sitting on the grass ! We have prepared these liba- 
 tions for you, accept them ! Come hither with your 
 most blessed protection, and give us health and wealth 
 without fail ! 
 
 ^ The Fathers who have reached the moon.
 
 192 LECTURE VI. 
 
 5. The Soma-loving Fathers have been called 
 hither to their dear viands which are placed on the 
 grass. Let them approach, let them listen, let them 
 bless, let them protect us ! 
 
 6. Bending your knee and sitting on my right 
 accept all this sacrifice. Do not hurt us, O Fathers, 
 for any wrong that we may have committed against 
 you, men as we are ! 
 
 7. When you sit down on the lap of the red dawns, 
 grant wealth to the generous mortal! O Fathers, 
 give of your treasure to the sons of this man here, 
 and bestow vigour here on us ! 
 
 8. May Yama, as a friend with friends, consume 
 the offerings according to his wish, united with those 
 old Soma-loving Fathers of ours, the Vasish^Aas, who 
 arranged the Soma di'aught ! 
 
 9. Come hither, O Agni, with those wise and truth- 
 ful Fathers who like to sit down near the hearth, 
 who thirsted when yearning for the gods, who knew 
 the sacrifice, and who were strong in praise with 
 their songs! 
 
 10. Come, O Agni, with those ancient Fathers who 
 like to sit down near the hearth, who for ever praise 
 the gods, the truthful, who eat and drink our obla- 
 tions, making company with Indra and the gods ! 
 
 11. O Fathers, you who have been consumed by 
 Agni, come here, sit down on your seats, you kind 
 guides ! Eat of the ofierings which we have placed 
 on the turf, and then grant us wealth and strong 
 offspring ! 
 
 12. O Agni, O Gatavedas, at our request thou hast 
 carried the offerings, having first rendered them 
 sweet. Thou gavest them to the Fathers, and they
 
 THE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE AVESTA. 193 
 
 fed on their share. Eat also, O god, the proffered 
 oblations ! 
 
 13. The Fathers who are here, and the Fathers 
 who are not here, those whom we know, and those 
 whom we know not, thou, (ratavedas, knowest how 
 many they are, accept the well-made sacrifice with 
 the sacrificial portions ! 
 
 14. To those who, whether burnt by fire or not 
 burnt by fire, rejoice in their share in the midst of 
 heaven, grant thou, O King, that their body may take 
 that life which they wish for ! 
 
 Compared with these hymns, the Upanishads repre- 
 sent a decidedly later development and refinement ; 
 they represent, in fact, the more elaborate views of 
 speculative theologians, and no longer the simple 
 imagininos of sorrowing mourners. 
 
 If we now turn to examine the ideas which the 
 followers of Zoroaster had formed to themselves about 
 the fates of the soul after death and its approach to 
 God, we shall find that they also represent a much 
 simpler faith, though there are some points on which 
 they are clearly dependent on, or closely allied with 
 the Upanishads, unless we suppose that both the 
 Zoroastrians and the authors of the Upanishads 
 axrived independently at the same ideas. 
 
 Fate of tlie individual Soiil at the g'eneral resurrection. 
 
 We read in the Vendidad XIX. 27 ^ : 
 
 * Creator of the settlements supplied with creatures, 
 righteous one ! What happens when a man shall 
 give up his soul in the world of existence? 
 
 ' Then said Ahuramazda : After a man is dead, when 
 
 ' S.B.E., vol. iv. p. 212. 
 C4) O
 
 194 LECTURE VI. 
 
 his time is over, then the hellish evil-doing Daevas 
 assail him, and when the third night ^ is gone, when 
 the dawn appears and brightens up, and makes 
 Mithra, the god with the beautiful weapons, reach 
 the all-happy mountains and the sun is rising — 
 
 ' Then the fiend, named Vizaresha, carries off in 
 bonds the souls of the wicked Daeva-worshippers who 
 live in sin. The soul enters the way made by time, 
 and open both to the wicked and to the righteous. 
 At the head of the Kinxsit bridge made by Mazda, 
 they ask for their spirits and souls the reward for the 
 worldly good which they gave away here below.' 
 
 This Kinv&t bridge of which I spoke in a former 
 lecture, is known as early as the Gathas (XLVI. 12), 
 and it is called there the judgment bridge (p. 133)^, 
 also the bridge of earth (p. 183). In one place (p. 173) 
 we read of the bridges, just as in the Upanishads we 
 read of two roads, one leading to the Fathers, the 
 other leading to the gods. There can be little doubt 
 therefore that this bridge of the Avesta has the same 
 origin as the bridge in the Upanishads. We read in 
 the Khand. Up. VIII. 4, 2, that 'day and night do not 
 pass this bridge, nor old age, death and grief, neither 
 good nor evil deeds ; that all evil-doers turn away 
 from it, because the world of Brahman is free from 
 all evil. Therefore he who has crossed that bridge, if 
 blind, ceases to be blind ; if wounded, ceases to be 
 wounded ; if afflicted, ceases to be afflicted. There- 
 fore when that bridge has been crossed, night be- 
 comes day indeed.' It is true that here this bridge 
 
 ' This shows that rising after the third night, or on the fourth 
 day, was the recognised belief in Persia ; not on the third day, as 
 among the Jews. 
 
 " S.B.E., voh xxxi.
 
 THE ESCHATOLOGY OP THE AYESTA. 195 
 
 is already taken in a more metaphysical sense and 
 identified with the Atman, the self; which, from a 
 Vedanta point of view, is called the only true bridge 
 between the self and the Self ; still the original con- 
 ception of a bridge which separates (vidh?'<ti) and at 
 the same time connects this and the other world, 
 which evil-doers fear to cross, and where all that is of 
 evil is left behind, is clearly there. As the commen- 
 tary explains that this bridge is made of earth, and as 
 in the Avesta also, it is called the bridge of earth, we 
 must take it as having been conceived originally as 
 a bank of earth, a pathway (a 2)ons) across a river 
 {Khknd. Up. VIII. 4, 1, note), rather than a suspended 
 bridge over an abyss. 
 
 Bewards and Pnnishiuents after Death. 
 
 I shall now read you another and fuller account of 
 what the Zoroaistrians have to say about that bridge, 
 and about the fate of the soul after death, and more 
 particularly about rewards and punishments. This 
 account is taken from the Hadhokht Nask ^ : 
 
 1. Zarathushtra asked Ahuramazda: '0 Ahuramazda, 
 most beneficent Spirit, Maker of the material world, 
 thou Holy One! 
 
 ' When one of the faithful departs this life, where 
 does his soul abide on that night ? ' 
 
 2. Ahuramazda answered: 'It takes its seat near the 
 head, singing (the Ustavaiti Gatha) and proclaiming 
 happiness: "Happy is he, happy the man, whoever 
 he be, to whom Ahuramazda gives the full accom- 
 plishment of his wishes ! " On that night his soul 
 tastes as much of pleasure as the whole of the living 
 world can taste.' 
 
 • Cf. Haug, p. 220 ; Darmesteter, ii. 314. 
 a
 
 196 LECTURE VI. 
 
 3. ' On the second night, where does his soul abide ? ' 
 
 4. Ahuraraazda answered : ' It takes its seat near the 
 head, singing (the Ustavaiti Gatha) and proclaiming 
 happiness : " Happy is he, happy the man, whoever 
 he be, to whom Ahuramazda gives the full accom- 
 plishment of his wishes ! " On that night his soul 
 tastes as much of pleasure as the whole of the living 
 world can taste.' 
 
 5. 'On the third night, where does his soul abide?' 
 
 6. Ahuramazda answered : ' It takes its seat near the 
 head, singing (the Ustavaiti Gatha) and proclaiming 
 happiness : " Happy is he, happy the man, whoever 
 he be, to whom Ahuramazda gives the full accom- 
 plishment of his wishes ! " On that night his soul 
 tastes as much of pleasure as the whole of the living 
 world can taste.' 
 
 7. At the end of the third night, when the dawn 
 appears, it seems to the soul of the faithful one, as if 
 it were brought amidst plants and scents : it seems as 
 if a wind were blowing from the region of the south, 
 from the regions of the south, a sweet-scented wind, 
 sweeter- scented than any other wind in the world. 
 
 8. And it seems to the soul of the faithful one as if 
 he were inhaling that wind with the nostrils, and he 
 thinks : ' Whence does that wind blow, the sweetest- 
 scented wind I ever inhaled with my nostrils'? ' 
 
 9. And it seems to him as if his own conscience 
 were advancing to him in that wind, in the shape of 
 a maiden fair, bright, white-armed, strong, tall-formed, 
 high-standing, full-breasted, beautiful of body, noble, 
 of a glorious seed, of the size of a maid in her fifteenth 
 year, as fair as the fairest thing in the world. 
 
 10. And the soul of the faithful one addressed her.
 
 THE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE AVESTA. 197 
 
 asking : ' What maid art thou, who art the fairest 
 maid I have ever seen 1 ' 
 
 11. And she, being his own conscience, answers 
 him : ' O thou youth of good thoughts, good words, 
 and good deeds, of good religion, I am thy own con- 
 science ! 
 
 ' Everybody did love thee for that greatness, good- 
 ness, fairness, sweet-scentedness, victorious strength, 
 and freedom from sorrow, in which thou dost appear 
 to me; 
 
 12. ' And so thou, youth of good thoughts, good 
 words, and good deeds, of good religion ! didst love me 
 for that greatness, goodness, fairness, sweet-sccnted- 
 ness, victorious strength, and freedom from sorrow, 
 in which I appear to thee. 
 
 13. ' When thou wouldst see a man making derision 
 and deeds of idolatry, or rejecting (the poor) and 
 shutting his door, then thou wouldst sit singing^ the 
 Gathas and w^orshipping tlie good waters and Atar, 
 the son of Ahuramazda, and rejoicing the faithful 
 that would come from near or from afar. 
 
 14. ' I was lovely and thou madest me still love- 
 lier ; I was fair and thou madest me still fairer ; I was 
 desirable and thou madest me still more desirable; 
 I was sitting in a forward place and thou madest me 
 sit in the foremost place, through this good thought, 
 through this good speech, through this good deed of 
 thine ; and so henceforth men worship me for having 
 long sacrificed unto and conversed with Ahuramazda. 
 
 15. ' The first step that the soul of the faithful man 
 made, placed him in the Good-Thought Paradise ; 
 
 ' The second step that the soul of the faithful man 
 made, placed hiui in the Good- Word Paradise.
 
 198 LECTURE VI. 
 
 ' The third step that the soul of the faithful man 
 made, placed him in the Good-Deed Paradise ; 
 
 ' The fourth step that the soul of the faithful man 
 made, placed him in the Endless Lights.' 
 
 16. Then one of the faithful, who had departed 
 before him, asked him, saying : ' How didst thou de- 
 part this life, thou holy man ? How didst thou come, 
 thou holy man ! from the abodes full of cattle and full 
 of the wishes and enjoyments of love 1 From the 
 material world into the world of the spirit? From 
 the decaying world into the undecaying one? How 
 long did thy felicity last 1 ' 
 
 17. And Ahuramazda answered : ' Ask him not 
 what thou askest him, who has just gone the dreary 
 way, full of fear and distress, where the body and the 
 soul part from one another. 
 
 18. ' [Let him eat] of the food brought to him, of the 
 oil of Zaramaya: this is the food for the youth of 
 good thoughts, of good words, of good deeds, of good 
 religion, after he has departed this life ; this is the 
 food for the holy woman, rich in good thoughts, good 
 words, and good deeds, well-principled and obedient 
 to her husband, after she has departed this life.' 
 
 The fate of the soul of the wicked is throughout the 
 opposite of what happens to the soul of a righteous 
 man. During three nights it sits near the skull and 
 endures as much suffering as the whole of the living 
 world can taste. At the end of the third night, when 
 the dawn appears, it seems as if it were brought amidst 
 snow and stench, and as if a wind were blowing from 
 the North, the foulest-scented of all the winds in the 
 world. The wicked soul has to inhale that wind and 
 then to pass through the Evil-Thought Hell, the Evil-
 
 THE ESCHATOLOaY OF THE AVESTA. 199 
 
 Word Hell, and the Evil-Deed Hell. The fourth step 
 lays the soul in Endless Darkness. Then it has to 
 eat food of poison and poisonous stench, whether it 
 was the soul of a wicked man or of a wicked woman. 
 You will have perceived how much of real truth 
 there is, hidden beneath all this allegorical language 
 of the Avesta. The language is allegorical, but no 
 one could have used that language who was not con- 
 vinced of its underlying truth, namely, that the soul 
 of the righteous will be rewarded in the next life by 
 his own good thoughts, his own good words, and hi.s 
 own good deeds. The idea that these good thoughts, 
 words, and deeds meet him in the shape of a beautiful 
 maiden, whom at first he does not know, till she tells 
 him who she is, is peculiar to the Avesta, though some 
 faint indications of it may again be discovered in 
 the Upanishads. 
 
 Good Works in the shape of a Beantifal Maiden. 
 
 For we read in the Kaushitaki-Upanishad, I. 3, that 
 when the departed approaches the hall of Brahman he 
 is received by beautiful maidens, called Apsaras. But 
 what we look for in vain in the Upanishads is the 
 ethical character which pervades the whole Avesta. 
 It is good thoughts, words, and deeds that are rewarded 
 in the next world, not knowledge which, as we saw, 
 carried otf the highest reward according to the teaching 
 of the Upanishads. The sweet scents also by which 
 the departed is greeted in the next world form a 
 common element shared by the Upanishads and 
 by the Avesta. 
 
 Influence on Uohammedanlsm. 
 
 It would be curious to find out whether this alle- 
 gorical conception of the rewards of men in Paradise
 
 200 LECTURE VT. 
 
 may have influenced the mind of Mohammed, when 
 he promised his warriors that they would be received 
 there by beautiful maidens. It would seem a curious 
 misapplication of a noble conception. But it is per- 
 fectly true that even in the Avesta the beauty of the 
 young maiden who receives the righteous soul, is 
 painted in what we should call warm and sensuous 
 colours, though there was nothing in her description 
 that would seem objectionable to an Oriental mind. 
 Such changes have happened in the history of other 
 religions also. The most probable historical channel 
 between Mohammed and the Avesta would be the 
 same again as that through which the idea of the 
 bridge Es Sirat reached Mohammed, namely, his 
 Jewish friends and teachers. 
 
 It is true there is no trace of a belief in Houris among 
 the Jews, but Dr. Kohut pointed out many years ago, 
 in the Zeitschrift der DeutscJien Morgenl. Gesellschaft, 
 xxi. p. 566, that the Rabbis believed and taught that 
 when man comes near death, all his acts appear before 
 his soul, and that his good works promise to guide 
 him to the judgment-seat of God. They hold that 
 the souls of the pious are not admitted at once into 
 Paradise, but that they have first to render an account 
 and to suffer punishment for some defects that still 
 cling to them. This lasts for a twelvemonth, when the 
 body is supposed to be entirely decayed, so that the 
 soul may rise freely and remain in heaven. ' The body,' 
 says God, ' is taken from the earth, not from heaven, 
 but thou, soul, art a citizen of heaven, thou knowest 
 its laws and thou alone shalt render an account.' This 
 shows no doubt clear traces of Persian influence, but 
 at the same time an independent treatment of Persian
 
 THE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE AVESTA. 201 
 
 ideas, such as we find them first in the Avesta. At all 
 events these Rabbis had advanced far beyond the 
 ideas which are found in the Old Testament as to 
 the fate of the soul after death. 
 
 There is another curious passage quoted by Dr. 
 Kohut from the Talmud (Synhedr. 91b, Midrash, Genes. 
 Rabba 169), for which, however, I know no parallel in 
 the Avesta. There we are told that at the time of the 
 resurrection the soul will justify itseK and say : • The 
 body alone is guilty, he alone has sinned. I had 
 scarcely left it when, pure like a bird, I flew through 
 the air.' But the body will say : ' The soul alone was 
 guilty, she has driven me to sin. She had scarcely 
 left me, when I lay on the ground motionless and 
 sinned no more.' Then God places the soul once more 
 into the body and says : ' See, how you have sinned, 
 now render an account, both of you.' 
 
 Extract from the Minokbired on tlie Weighing of the Dead. 
 
 In the Minokhired we get a still fuller account than 
 in the Avesta of the journey of the soul across the 
 bridge. There we read, II. 100 : 
 
 ' Thou shouldest not become presumptuous through 
 life, for death cometh upon thee at last, the dog, the 
 bird lacerate the corpse, and the perishable part (sa^i- 
 nako) falls to the ground. During three days and nights 
 the soul sits at the crown of the head of the body. And 
 the fourth day, in the light of dawn, (with the) co- 
 operation of Srosh the righteous, Vai the good, and 
 Vahram the strong, and with the opposition of Astovi- 
 dacZ, Vai the bad, Frazishto the demon, and Nizisto 
 the demon, and the evil-designing Aeshm, the evil- 
 doer, the impetuous assailant, it goes up to the awful
 
 202 LECTURE \t. 
 
 jffinclvar bridge (here Kin\a,t has been corrupted into 
 ^indvar), to which every one, righteous and wicked, 
 is coming. And many opponents have watched there, 
 with the desire of evil of Aeshm, the impetuous 
 assailant, and AstovidacZ, who devours creatures of 
 every kind and knows no satiety, and the mediation 
 of Mitro and Srosh and Rashnu, and the weighing of 
 Rashnu, the just, with the balance of spirits which 
 renders no favour on any side, neither for the righteous 
 nor yet the wicked, neither for the lords nor yet the 
 monarchs. As much as a hair's breadth it will not 
 turn and has no partiality, and he who is a lord and 
 monarch it considers equally in its decision with him 
 who is the least of mankind. And when a soul of the 
 righteous passes upon the bridge the width of the 
 bridge becomes as it were a league, and the righteous 
 soul passes over with the co-operation of Srosh the 
 righteous.' Then follows what we had before, namely, 
 his meeting a maiden who is handsomer a^id better 
 than any maiden in the world. And the righteous 
 soul speaks thus, ' Who mayest thou be, that a maiden 
 who is handsomer and better than thou was never 
 seen by me in the worldly existence.' In reply that 
 maiden says : ' I am no maiden, but I am thy virtuous 
 deeds, thou youth who art well thinkings well speaking, 
 well doing, and of good religion.' 
 
 The only new feature in this account is the weighing 
 of the soul by Rashnu, the righteous. Of this there 
 is no trace in the Upanishads, though we saw that it 
 is alluded to in the Brahmawas (see p. 167). It is an 
 idea well known in Egypt, but it is impossible to 
 suppose that at that early time there was any com- 
 munication between Egypt and Persia. It is one of
 
 THE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE AVESTA. 203 
 
 those coincidences which can only be accounted for 
 by our remembering that what was natural in one 
 country may have been natural in another also. 
 
 Arrival of the Soul before the throne of Bahman and Ahuramazda. 
 
 Let us now follow the fate of the soul, after it has 
 crossed the Kinvat bridge. When the Kinvsit bridge 
 has been crossed, the archangel Bahman (Vohu-mano) 
 i-ises from a golden throne, and exclaims : ' How hast 
 thou come hither to us, O righteous one ! from the 
 perishable life to the imperishable life.' 
 
 The souls of the righteous then proceed joyfully to 
 Ahuramazda, to the Ameshaspentas, to the golden 
 throne, to paradise (Garo-nemana), that is the residence 
 of Ahuramazda, the Ameshaspentas, and of the other 
 righteous ones. 
 
 Thus we see that the journey of the soul from this 
 life to a better life ends in the Avesta very much as 
 it ended in the Upanishads. The soul stands before 
 the throne of Ahuramazda in the Avesta as it stands 
 before the throne of Brahman in the Upanishads. 
 Only while the Upanishads say very little about the 
 punishments inflicted on the wicked, the Avesta ex- 
 plains that the unrighteous soul is received with scorn 
 even 'by the damned, its future fellow-sufferers, and 
 is tormented at the command of Angra mainyu, though 
 himself the spirit of evil, with poison and hideous 
 viands. 
 
 Common backg^roond of Avesta and Veda. 
 
 If we compare the theories on the soul and its fate 
 after death, as we find them in the Upanishads and 
 in the Avesta, we see that a general belief in a soul
 
 204 LECTURE VI. 
 
 and its life after death is common to both, and that 
 they likewise agree in believing that the righteous 
 soul is led to the throne of God, whether he is called 
 Brahman or Ahui-amazda. But in several respects 
 the account of the soul's journey seems more simple 
 in the Avesta than in the Upanishads. We saw that 
 it agrees more with the notions which we find ex- 
 pressed in the Vedic hymns about the departed, it 
 insists more on the virtuous character of the soul, 
 and distributes rewards and punishments in strict 
 accordance with the good thoughts, words, and deeds 
 of the departed. It says little or nothing about the 
 different stations on the two roads that lead to the 
 Fathers or to the gods, but it is more full in the de- 
 scription of the bridge and the weighing of the soul. 
 The idea that knowledge or faith is better than good 
 thoughts, words, and deeds has not yet dawned on the 
 Persian mind, still less is there a trace of the belief in 
 metempsychosis or the migration of the human soul 
 into the bodies of lower animals. 
 
 The common background of the two religions is 
 clear enough, though whether what is peculiar to each 
 is a remnant of an earlier period or the result of later 
 thoughts is more difficult to determine. 
 
 Pitaras, the Fathers in the Veda, the Fravashis in the Avesta. 
 
 We saw that in the hymns of the Veda the departed 
 were often spoken of as Pitaras, the Fathers, and 
 that after receiving for three generations the sraddha 
 ofi'ering of their descendants, they were raised to 
 a rank equal almost to that of the Devas, nay at 
 a later time even superior to them. In the place of 
 these Pitaras we find in the Avesta the Fravashis, or
 
 THE ESCHATOLOQY OF THE AVESTA. 205 
 
 in an earlier form the Fravardin. This would corre- 
 spond to a Sanskrit word pravartin, which; however, 
 does not occur in Sanskrit. Pravartin might mean 
 what moves forward or sets in motion, like pra- 
 vartaka, a promoter, but it is explained in Zend as 
 meaning protector. The Persian name Phraortes is 
 probably a Greek corruption of Pravarti. 
 
 It is curious that the name of Pitaras should not 
 occur in the Avesta, nor that of Pravartin in the Veda, 
 though the two were clearly meant at first for exactly 
 the same thing. 
 
 Wider meaning' of Fravashl. 
 
 The Fravashis, however, are not restricted to the 
 departed, though their Fravashis are most frequently 
 invoked. Every being, whether living or dead, has 
 its Fravashi, its unseen agent, which is joined to the 
 body at the time of birth, and leaves it again at the 
 time of death. The Fravashis remind us of the Greek 
 Daimones and the Roman Genii. The Fravashis 
 belong to the spiritual, the body to the material crea- 
 tion. Not only men, but the gods also, Ormazd, the 
 sacred word, the sky, the water, the plants, all have 
 their Fravashis. We may call the Fravashi the genius 
 of anything. Dr. Haug. however, goes further and 
 identifies the Fravashis with the ideas of Plato, which 
 is going too far, for the Fravashis are always self- 
 conscious, if not personal beings. Thus we read in 
 the Fravardin Yasht ^ : 
 
 ' Ahuramazda spake to Spitama Zarathushtra : To 
 thee alone I shall tell the power and strength, glory, 
 usefulness, and happiness of the holy guardian angels. 
 
 » Haug, p. 20r.
 
 206 LECTURE VI. 
 
 the strong and victorious, O righteous Spitama Zara- 
 thushtra ! how they come to help me. By means of 
 their splendour and glory I uphold the sky, which 
 is shining so beautifully and which touches and 
 surrounds this earth ; it resembles a bird which is 
 ordered by God to stand still there ; it is high as 
 a tree, wide-stretched, iron-bodied, having its own 
 light in the three worlds. Ahuramazda, together 
 with Mithra, Rashnu, and Spenta Armaiti, puts on 
 a garment decked with stars, and made by God 
 in such a way that nobody can see the ends of 
 its parts. By means of the splendour and glory of 
 the Fravashis, I uphold the high strong Anahita (the 
 celestial water) with bridges, the salutary, who drives 
 away the demons, who has the true faith and is to be 
 worshipped in the world 
 
 12. ' If the strong guardian-angels of the righteous 
 should not give me assistance, then cattle and men, 
 the two last of the hundred classes of beings, would 
 no longer exist for me ; then would commence the 
 devil's power, the deviFs origin, the whole living 
 creation would belong to the devil. 
 
 16. 'By means of their splendour and glory^ the 
 ingenuous man Zarathushtra, who spoke such good 
 words, who was the source of wisdom, who was 
 born before Gotama, had such intercourse with God. 
 By means of their splendour and glory, the sun goes 
 on his path ; by means of their splendour and glory, 
 the moon goes on her path ; by means of their 
 splendour and glory, the stars go on their path.' 
 
 Thus we see that almost everything that Ahura- 
 mazda does is done by him with the assistance of the 
 FravashiSj originally the spirits of the departed, after-
 
 THE ESCHATOLOOY OF THE AYESTA. 207 
 
 wards the spirits of almost everything in nature. But 
 that they were originally, like the Vedic Pitaras, the 
 spirits of the departed, we see from such passages as : 
 
 'I praise, I invoke, and extol the good, strong, 
 beneficent guardian angels of the righteous. We 
 praise those who are in the houses, those who are in 
 the countries, those who are in the Zoroastrian com- 
 munities, those of the present, those of the past, those 
 of the future, righteous, all those invoked in countries 
 where invocation is practised. 
 
 ' Who uphold heaven, who uphold water, who ujd- 
 hold earth, who uphold nature, &c. 
 
 ' We worship the good and beneficent guardian 
 angels of the departed, who come to the village in the 
 season called Hamaspathmaeda. Then they roam 
 about there ten nights, wishing to learn what assist- 
 ance they might obtain, saying, " Who will praise us ? 
 who will worship us? who will adore us? who will 
 pray to us? who will satisfy us with milk and clothes 
 in his hand and with a prayer for righteousness? 
 whom of us will he call here? whose soul is to 
 worship you? To whom of us will he give that 
 offering in order to enjoy imperishable food for ever 
 and ever ? " ' 
 
 Nowhere perhaps can the process by which the 
 spirits of the departed were raised to the rank of 
 gods be perceived more clearly than in the case of the 
 Persian Fravashis, but nowhere again is there stronger 
 evidence for what I hold against Mr. Herbert Spencer, 
 namely that this deification of the departed spirits 
 presupposes a belief in gods to whose rank these 
 spirits could be raised.
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 ESCHATOLOQY OF PLATO. 
 
 Plato's Authority, 
 
 BEFORE I proceed to explain to you more in 
 detail the ideas of the later Hindu philosophers 
 on the fate of the soul after death, it may be useful, 
 if only to refresh our memory, to devote one lecture 
 to a consideration of the best and highest thoughts 
 which the same problem has elicited in Greece. If 
 we should find hereafter that there are certain simi- 
 larities between the thoughts of Plato and the thoughts 
 of the poets and prophets of the Upanishads and the 
 Avesta, such similarities are no doubt interesting, 
 and perhaps all the more so because, as I pointed out 
 before, we cannot ascribe them either to the com- 
 munity of language or to historical tradition. We 
 can only account for them by that common human 
 nature which seems to frame these ideas by some 
 inward necessity, though without any tangible evi- 
 dence in support of any of them. You will not be 
 surprised if I turn at once to Plato. 
 
 Plato, though called a philosopher only, speaks 
 of the fate of the soul after death with authority, 
 with the same authority at least as the authors 
 of the Upanishads. Both Plato, however, and the
 
 ESCHATOLOGY OF PLATO. 209 
 
 authors of the Upanishads were far too deeply im- 
 pressed with the real truth of their teaching to 
 claim for it any adventitious or miraculous sanction. 
 Unfortunately they could not prevent their less inspired 
 and less convinced followers from ascribing to their 
 utterances an inspired, a sacred, nay a miraculous 
 character. 
 
 Plato's Mythologrical Iiangraage. 
 
 It cannot be denied that the similarity between 
 Plato's language and that of the Upanishads is some- 
 times very startling. Plato, as you know, likes to 
 clothe his views on the soul in mythological phrase- 
 ology, just as the authors of the Upanishads do, nor 
 can I see what other language was open to them. It 
 is an absurd anachronism, if some would-be critics of 
 ancient religions and ancient philosophies fasten with 
 an air of intellectual superiority on this mj'thological 
 phraseology, and speak contemptuously of the childish 
 fables of Plato and other ancient sages as unworthy 
 of the serious consideration of our age. Who could 
 ever have believed, they say, that a soul could grow 
 wings, or lose her wings. Who could have believed 
 that there was a bridge between earth and heaven, 
 and that a beautiful maiden was standing at the end 
 of it to receive the soul of the departed ? Should we 
 not rather say, Who can be so obtuse as not to see 
 that those who used such language were trying to 
 express a deep truth, namely, that the soul would be 
 lifted up by noble thoughts and noble deeds, as if by 
 wings, and that the highest judge to judge the 
 soul after death would be a man's own conscience, 
 standing before him in all its beauty and innocence, 
 like the most beautiful and innocent maiden of fifteen 
 
 (4) P
 
 210 LECTURE VII. 
 
 years. Think only of the intellectual efforts that 
 •were required before even such parables could have 
 been thought of, and then instead of wondering at the 
 language in which they were expressed, we shall 
 wonder rather that anybody could have misunder- 
 stood them, and have asked to have such simple and 
 transparent parables declared. 
 
 The Tale of tlie Soul. 
 
 Plato asserts without fear of contradiction that the 
 soul is immortal. The Upanishads hardly assert it, 
 because they cannot conceive that doubt is possible 
 on that point. ' Who could say that the soul was 
 mortal?' Mortal means decay of a material organic 
 body, it clearly has no sense if applied to the soul. 
 
 ' I have heard,' Plato writes, ' from men and women 
 wise in divine matters a true tale as I think, and a 
 noble one. My informants are those priests and 
 priestesses whose aim is to be able to render an ac- 
 count of the subjects with which they deal. They 
 are supported also by Pindar and many other poets — 
 by all, I may say, who are truly inspired. Their 
 teaching is that the soul of man is immortal ; that it 
 comes to an end of one form of existence, which men 
 call dying, and then is born again, but never perishes. 
 Since then the soul is immortal ^, and has often been 
 born, and has seen the things here on earth and the 
 things in Hades ; all things, in short there is nothing 
 which it has not learned, so that it is no marvel that 
 it should be possible for it to recall what it certainly 
 knew before, about vii'tue and other topics. For since 
 all nature is akin, and the soul has learned all things, 
 
 ^ Westcott, Religious Thought in the West, p. 27. See also Anthro- 
 pological Religion, p. 321.
 
 ESCHATOLOGY OF PLATO. 211 
 
 there is no reason why a man who has recalled one 
 fact only, which men call learning, should not by his 
 own power find out everything else, should he be 
 couraofeous, and not lose heart in the search. For 
 seeking and learning is all an art of recollection.' 
 
 The next passage occurs in the Phaedrus, where wo 
 meet with the myth of the chariot, guided by a 
 charioteer, and drawn by two winged steeds, of which 
 in the case of man, the one is good, the other bad. 
 I must give you some of Plato's sentences in full, in 
 order to be able to compare them afterwards with 
 certain passages from the Upanishads. 
 
 The Charioteer and the Horses. 
 
 Plato (Phaedrus 246, transL, p. 123) says : ' Enough 
 of the soul's immortality, her form is a theme of 
 divine and large discourse ; the tongue of man may, 
 however, speak of this briefly, as in a figure. Let our 
 figure be a composite nature — a pair of winged horses 
 and a charioteer. Now the winged horses and the 
 charioteer of the gods are all of them noble, and of 
 noble breed, but our horses are mixed ; moreover, our 
 charioteer drives them in a pair, and one of them is 
 noble and of noble origin, and the other is ignoble 
 and of ignoble origin, and the driving, as might be 
 expected, is no easy matter with us.' 
 
 If we turn to the KaiAa-Upanishad III. 3, we read 
 there : ' Know the soul to be sitting in the chariot, 
 the body to be the chariot, the intellect (buddhi) the 
 charioteer, and the mind the reins. The senses they 
 call the horses, the objects of the senses their roads . . . 
 He who has no understanding, and ho whose mind 
 (the reins) is never firmly held, his senses (horses) are 
 
 Pa
 
 212 LECTUKE VII. 
 
 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 under- 
 
 o 
 
 standing, who is unmindful and always impure, never 
 reaches the goal, but enters into the round of births 
 (sa^isara). But he who has understanding, who is 
 mindful and always pure, reaches indeed the goal, 
 from whence he is not born again' (from whence 
 there is no return). 
 
 Some people have thought that the close coincidence 
 between the simile used by Plato and by the Upani- 
 shad, and the resemblance is certainly very close, 
 shows that there must have been some kind of his- 
 torical contact even at that early time between the 
 religious thought of India and the philosophical 
 thought of Greece. We cannot deny the possibility of 
 such a view, though we must confess our ignorance as 
 to any definite channel through which Indian thought 
 could have reached the shores of Greece at that period. 
 
 The Procession of the Gods. 
 
 Let us now explore Plato's speculations about the 
 soul a little further. There is his splendid description 
 of the procession of the gods in heaven, a myth, if you 
 like, but a myth full of meaning, as every myth was 
 meant to be. 
 
 Zeus, w^e read, advances first, driving his winged 
 car, ordering all things and superintending them. A 
 host of deities and spirits follow him, marshalled in 
 eleven bodies, for Hestia remains alone in the dwell- 
 ing of the gods. Many then and blessed are the 
 spectacles and movements within the sphere of heaven
 
 ESCHATOLOGY OP PLATO. 213 
 
 which the gods go through, each fulfilliDg his own 
 function ; and whoever will and can, follows them, for 
 envy is a stranger to the divine company. But when 
 they afterwards proceed to a banquet, they advance 
 by what is now a steep course along the inner cir- 
 cumference of the heavenly vault. The chariots of 
 the gods being well balanced and well driven, advance 
 easily, others with difficulty ; for the vicious horse, 
 unless the charioteer has thoroughly broken it, weighs 
 down the car by his proclivity towards the earth. 
 Whereupon the soul is put to the extremity of toil 
 and effort. For the souls of the immortals, when they 
 reach the summit, go outside and stand upon the sur- 
 face of heaven, and as they stand there, the revolution 
 of the sphere bears them round, and they contemplate 
 the objects that are beyond it. That supercclestial 
 realm no earthly poet ever yet sung or will sing in 
 worthy strains. It is occupied by the colourless, 
 shapeless, intangible, absolute essence which reason 
 alone can contemplate, and which is the one object 
 of true knowledge. The divine mind, therefore, when 
 it sees after an interval that which really is, is 
 supremely happy, and gains strength and enjoyment 
 by the contemplation of the True (Satyam), until the 
 circuit of the revolution is completed, in the course of 
 which it obtains a clear vision of the absolute (ideal) 
 justice, temperance, and knowledge ; and when it has 
 thus been feasted by the sight of the essential truth of 
 all things, the soul again enters within the vault of 
 heaven and returns home. 
 
 Now here I must again stop for a moment, to point 
 out a significant coincidence between Plato and the 
 Upanishads.
 
 214 LECTURE vir. 
 
 Belief in metempsychosis in Plato and the ITpanishads. 
 
 You may remember that the ITpanishads represent 
 the soul, even after it has reached the abode of the 
 Fathers, as liable to return to a new round of exist- 
 ences, and how this led in India to a belief in metem- 
 psychosis. Now let us see how Plato arrives by the 
 same road, yet quite independently, at the same con- 
 clusion ^ : 
 
 ' This is the life of the gods,' he says, ' but of other 
 souls that which follows God best and is likest to him 
 lifts the head of the charioteer into the outer world 
 and is carried round in the revolution, troubled indeed 
 by the steeds and with difficulty beholding true being 
 (to oy = satyam), while another rises and falls, and sees 
 and again fails to see, by reason of the unruliness of the 
 steeds. The rest of the souls are also longing after 
 the upper world, and they all follow ; but not being 
 strong enough, they are carried round in the deep 
 below, plunging, treading on one another, striving to 
 be first, and there is confusion and extremity of effort, 
 and many of them are lamed and have their wings 
 broken through the ill driving of the charioteer ; and 
 all of them after a fruitless toil depart, without being 
 initiated into the mysteries of the true being (tt/? tov 
 ovTos Bias), and departing feed on opinion. The reason 
 of their great desire to behold the plain of truth is 
 that the food which is suited to the highest part of 
 the soul comes out of that meadow ; and the wing on 
 which the souls soar is nourished with this. And 
 there is a law of destiny that the soul which attains 
 any vision of truth in company with the god is 
 
 ' Phaedrus, p. 248, translated by Professor Jowett.
 
 ESCHATOLOGY OF PLATO. 215 
 
 preserved from harm until the next period, and it' 
 attaining, is always unharmed. But when she is un- 
 able to follow, and fails to behold the vision of truth, 
 and through some ill hap sinks beneath the double 
 load of forgetfulness and vice, and her feathers fall 
 from her, and she drops to earth, then the law ordains 
 that this soul shall at her first birth pass, not into 
 any other animal but only into man, and the soul 
 which has seen most of truth shall come to the birth 
 as a philosopher or artist, or some musical and loving 
 nature ; that which has seen truth in the second degree 
 shall be a righteous king or lordly warrior ; the soul 
 which is of the third class shall be a politician or 
 economist or trader ; the fourth shall be a lover of 
 gymnastic toils or a physician ; the fifth a prophet or 
 hierophant; to the sixth a poet or some other imitative 
 artist will be appropriate ; to the seventh the life oi 
 an artisan or husbandman ; to the eighth that of a 
 sophist or demagogue ; to the ninth that of a tyrant ; 
 all these are states of probation, in which he who 
 lives righteously improves, and he who lives un- 
 righteously deteriorates his lot.' 
 
 The ITine Classes of Plato and Manu. 
 
 I have already pointed out in a former lecture the 
 curious parallelism between Indian and Greek thought. 
 You may remember that JManu also establishes ex- 
 actly the same number of classes, namely nine, and 
 that we could judge of the estimation in which his 
 contemporaries held certain occupations by the place 
 which he assigned to each. Plato places the philoso- 
 pher first, the tja'ant last ; Manu places kings and 
 warriors in the fifth class, and assigns the third class
 
 216 LECTURE VII. 
 
 to hermits, ascetics, and Brahmans, while he reserves 
 the first class to Brahman and other gods. Thus you 
 find here also as before a general similarity, but like- 
 wise very characteristic differences. 
 
 Plato then continues : ' Ten thousand years must 
 elapse before the soul can return to the place from 
 whence she came, for she cannot grow her wings in 
 less ; only the soul of a philosopher, guileless and true, 
 or the soul of a lover, who is not without philosophy, 
 may acquire wings in the third recurring period of a 
 thousand years ; and if they choose this life three 
 times in succession, then they have their wings given 
 them, and go away at the end of three thousand years. 
 But the others receive judgment, when they have com- 
 pleted their first life, and after the judgment they go, 
 some of them to the houses of correction which are 
 under the earth, and are punished ; others to some 
 place in heaven, where they are lightly borne by 
 justice, and then they live in a manner worthy of the 
 life which they led here when in the form of men. 
 And at the end of the first thousand years the good 
 souls and also the evil souls both come to draw lots 
 and choose their second life, and they may take any 
 which they like.' 
 
 Here there are not many points of similarity be- 
 tween Plato and Manu, except that we see how 
 Plato also admits places of punishment and correc- 
 tion which we may call Hells, in addition to the 
 inevitable chain of cause and effect which determines 
 the fate of the soul in its migrations after death. In 
 another passage Plato (Phaedo 113) gives a more de- 
 tailed account, not quite worthy of a philosopher, of 
 these hells and of the punishments inflicted on evil-
 
 ESCHATOLOaY OF PLATO. 217 
 
 doers. Here the souls are supposed to become purified 
 and chastened, and when they have suffered theii- well- 
 deserved penalties, they receive the rewards of their 
 good deeds according to their deserts. ' Those, however, 
 wdio are considered altogether incorrigible, are hurled 
 into Tartarus, and they never come out. Others, after 
 suffering in Tartarus for a year, may escape again if 
 those whom they have injured pardon them. Those 
 on the contrary who have been pre-eminent for holiness 
 of life are released from this earthly 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 withoutthe body, 
 in mansions faii'er than these, — which may not be de- 
 scribed and of which the time would fail me to tell.' 
 
 Etuuan Sonls vaigxating into Animal Bodies. 
 
 We now come to w^hat has always been considered 
 the most startling coincidence between Plato and the 
 philosophers of India, namely, the belief in the migra- 
 tion of souls from human into animal bodies. Though 
 ice have become accustomed to this idea, it cannot be 
 denied that its first conception was startling. Several 
 explanations have been attempted to account for it. 
 It has often been supposed that a belief in ancestral 
 spirits and ghosts haunting their former homes is at 
 the bottom of it all. But judging from the first 
 mention of this kind of metempsychosis in the Upa- 
 nishads, we saw that it was really based on purely 
 moral gi-ounds. We find the first general allusion to 
 it in the Ka^Aa-Upauishad. 
 
 There we read (11. 5) : ' Fools dwelling in darkness, 
 wise in their own conceit and puff*ed up wnth vain
 
 218 LECTURE VII. 
 
 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). 
 
 The speaker here is Yama, the ruler of the Fathers, 
 afterwards the god of death, and he who punishes 
 the wicked in Hell. 
 
 With Plato also the first idea of metempsychosis or 
 the migration of human souls into animal bodies seems 
 to have been suggested by ethical considerations. At 
 the end of the first thousand years, he says, the good 
 souls and also the evil souls both come to draw lots 
 and choose their second life, and they may take any 
 which they like \ The soul of man may pass into the 
 life of a beast, or from the beast return again into the 
 man. Here it is clearly supposed that a man would 
 choose according to his taste and character, so that his 
 next life should correspond to his character, as formed 
 in a former life. This becomes still clearer when we 
 read the story of Er at the end of the Republic. 
 
 The Story of Er. 
 
 You all remember Er^ the son of Armenius, the 
 Pamphylian, who was slain in battle, and ten days 
 afterwards when the bodies of the dead were taken 
 up ah-eady in a state of corruption, his body was 
 found unaflfected by decay and carried away home to 
 
 1 Phaedrus, p. 249. 
 
 ^ For similar stories see Liebrecht in his Notes to GeiV;\siu3 
 of Tilbury, p. 89.
 
 ESCHATOLOOY OF PLATO. 219 
 
 be burnt. But on the twelfth day, as he was lying 
 on the funeral pile, he returned to life and told all he 
 had seen in the other world. His soul, he said, left 
 the body and he then went on a long journey with a 
 great company. I cannot read to you the whole of 
 this episode — you probably all know it — at all events 
 it is easily accessible, and a short abstract will suffice 
 for our purposes. Er relates how he came first of all 
 to a mysterious place, where there were two openings 
 in the earth, and over against them two openings in 
 the heaven. And there were judges sitting between, 
 to judge the souls, who sent the good souls up to 
 heaven, and the bad down into the earth. And while 
 these souls went down into the earth and up to heaven 
 by one opening, others came out from the other 
 opening descending from heaven or ascending from 
 the earth, and they met in a meadow and embraced 
 each other, and told the one of the joys of heaven, and 
 the others of the sufferings beneath the earth durino- 
 the thousand years they had lived there. After 
 tarrying seven days on the meadow the spirits had 
 to proceed further. This further journey through the 
 spheres of heaven is fully described, till it ends with 
 the souls finding themselves in the presence of the 
 three Fates, Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos. But here, 
 instead of receiving their lot for a new life as a 
 natural consequence of their former deeds, or mis- 
 deeds, they are allowed to choose their own lot, and 
 they choose it naturally according to their experience 
 in a former life, and according to the bent of their 
 character as formed there. Some men, disgusted with 
 mankind, prefer to be born as animals, as lions or 
 eagles, some animals delight in trying their luck as
 
 220 LECTURE VII. 
 
 men. Odysseus, the wisest of all, despises the lot of 
 royalty and wealth, and chooses the quiet life of a 
 private person, as the happiest lot on earth. Then 
 after passing the desert plain of Forgetfulness, and 
 the river of Unmindfulness, they are caught by an 
 earthquake, and driven upwards to their new birth. 
 Plato then finishes the vision of the Pamphylian Er 
 with the following words : ' Wherefore my counsel is 
 that we hold for ever to the heavenly way, and follow 
 after justice and virtue, always considering that the 
 soul is immortal and able to endure every sort of good 
 and every sort of evil. Then shall we live dear to 
 one another and to the gods, both while remaining 
 here and when, like conquerors in the games who go 
 round to gather gifts, we receive our reward. And 
 it shall be well with us both in this life and in the 
 pilgrimage of a thousand years which we have been 
 describing.' 
 
 Coincidences and Differences. 
 
 This has justly been called the most magnificent 
 myth in the whole of Plato, a kind of philosophical 
 apocalypse which has kept alive a belief in immor- 
 tality among the Greeks, and not among the Greeks 
 only, but among all who became their pupils. There 
 is no doubt a certain similarity in the broad outlines 
 of this Platonic myth, illustrating the migration of 
 the soul after death, with the passages which we 
 quoted before from the Upanishads. The fact that 
 Er was a Pamphylian has even been supposed to in- 
 dicate an Eastern origin of the Platonic legend, but I 
 cannot persuade myself that we should be justified in 
 tracing the source of any of Plato's thoughts to India 
 or Persia. The differences between the Indian and
 
 ESCIIATOLOGY OF PLATO. 221 
 
 the Greek legends seem to me quite as great as their 
 coincidences. It may seem strange, no doubt, that 
 human fancy should in Greece as well as in India 
 have created this myth of the soul leaving the body, 
 and migrating to the upper or lower regions to receive 
 its reward or its punishment ; and more particularly 
 its entrance into animal bodies seems very startling, 
 when we find it for the first time in Greece as well as 
 in India. Still it is far easier to suppose that the 
 same ideas burst forth spontaneously from the same 
 springs, the fears and hopes of the human heart, than 
 to admit an exchange of ideas between Indian and 
 Greek philosophers in historical times. The strongest 
 coincidence is that between the nine or three times 
 three classes of the soul's occupations as admitted by 
 Manu and by Plato ; and again between the river 
 Vigrara, the Ageless, where a man leaves all his good 
 and his evil deeds behind him, and the draught of the 
 Zaramaya oil by which in the Avesta the soul is 
 supposed to become oblivious of all worldly cares and 
 concerns before entering paradise ; and again the plain 
 of Forgetfulness and the river of Unmindfulness 
 mentioned by Plato ; or still more the river Lethe or 
 forgetfulness in general Greek mythology. Still, even 
 this may be a thought that presented itself indepen- 
 dently to Greek and Indian thinkers. All who be- 
 lieved the soul to be immortal, had to believe likewise 
 in the pre-existence of the soul or in its being without 
 a beginning, and as no soul here on earth has any 
 recollection of its fonner existences, a river of Lethe 
 or forgetfulness, or a river Vi(/ara and the oil of forget- 
 fulness, were not quite unnatural expedients to account 
 for this.
 
 222 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Truth underlying Myth. 
 
 No one would go so far as to say, because some of 
 these theories are the same in India and in Greece, 
 and sprang up independently in both countries, that 
 therefore they are inevitable or true. All we have 
 any right to say is that they are natural, and that 
 there is something underlying them which, if ex- 
 pressed in less mythological language, may stand the 
 severest test of philosophical examination. 
 
 In order to see this more clearly, in order to satisfy 
 ourselves as to what kind of truth the unassisted 
 human mind may reach on these subjects, it may be 
 useful to examine here the theories of some of the 
 so-called savage races. In their case the very possi- 
 bility of an historical intercourse with India or Greece 
 is excluded. 
 
 The Haidas on the Immortality of the Soul. 
 
 I choose for this purpose first of all the Haidas, 
 who inhabit the Charlotte Islands and have lately 
 been described to us by the Rev. C. Harrison, who is 
 thoroughly conversant vdth their language. 
 
 According to his description the religion of these 
 savage Haidas would seem to be very like the religion 
 of the ancient Persians. They believe in two prin- 
 cipal deities, one the god of light, who is good, the 
 other the god of darkness, who is evil. Besides these 
 two, there are a number of smaller deities whom the 
 Haidas pray to and to whom they offer small sacri- 
 fices. They fear these' smaller deities, such as the 
 god of the sun and of the sea, more than the two 
 great powers of light and darkness, though these two 
 are supposed to have created everything, not exclud- 
 ing even these smaller deities.
 
 ESCHATOLOGY OF PLATO. 223 
 
 The Haidas believe in the immortality of the soul, 
 and their ideas about the journey of the soul after 
 death are nearly as elaborate as those of the Upani- 
 shads. When a good Haida is about to die, he sees a 
 canoe manned by some of his departed friends, who 
 come with the tide to bid him welcome to their 
 domain. They are supposed to be sent by the god of 
 death. The dying man sees them and is rejoiced to 
 know that after a period passed within the city of 
 death, he will with his friends be welcomed to the 
 kingdom of the god of light. His friends call him 
 and bid him come. They say: 'Come with us, come 
 into the land of light ; come into the land of great 
 things, of wonderful things ; come into the land of 
 plenty where hunger is unknown ; come with us and 
 rest for evermore. . . . Come with us into our land 
 of sunshine and be a great chief attended with 
 numerous slaves. Come with us now, the spirits say, 
 for the tide is about to ebb and we must depart.' At 
 last the soul of the deceased leaves his body to join 
 the company of his former friends, while his body is 
 buried with great pomp and splendour. The Haidas 
 believe that the soul leaves the body immediately 
 after death, and is taken possession of either by Chief 
 Cloud or Chief Death. The good soul is taken pos- 
 session of by Chief Death, and during its sojourn in 
 the domain of Death, it is taught many wonderful 
 things and becomes initiated into the mysteries of 
 heaven (just as the soul of Na/ciketas was in the 
 domain of Yama). At last he becomes the essence of 
 the purest light and is able to revisit his friends on 
 earth. At the close of the twelve months' probation 
 the time of his redemption from the kingdom of
 
 224 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Death arrives. As it is impossible that the pure 
 essence of light should come into contact with a 
 depraved material body, the good Indian assumes 
 its appearance only, and then the gates are thrown 
 open and his soul which by this time has assumed 
 the shape of his earthly body, but clothed in the light 
 of the kingdom of light, is discovered to the Chief of 
 Light by Chief Death, in whose domains he has been 
 taught the customs to be observed in heaven. 
 
 The bad Indian in the region of the clouds is tor- 
 tured continually. In the first place his soul has to 
 witness the chief of that region feasting on his dead 
 body until it is entirely consumed. Secondly, he is 
 so near to this world that he evinces a longing desire 
 to return to his friends and gain their sympathy. 
 Thirdly, he has the dread of being conducted to Hell 
 (Hetywanlana) ever before his mind. No idea of 
 atonement for his past wicked life is ever permitted, 
 since his soul after death is incapable of reformation 
 and consequently incapable of salvation. This is 
 very different from Plato and the Upanishads, where 
 there is always a hope of final salvation. 
 
 Sometimes permission is granted to souls in the 
 clouds to revisit the earth. Then they can only be 
 seen by the Saaga, the great medicine man, who 
 describes them as destitute of all clothing. They are 
 looked upon as wicked and treacherous spirits, and 
 the medicine man's duty is to prevent them entering 
 any of the houses ; and not only so, but as soon as the 
 Saaga makes the announcement that a certain soul 
 has descended from the clouds, no one will leave their 
 homes, because the sight of a wicked soul would cause 
 sickness and trouble, and his touch death. Some-
 
 ESCHATOLOGY OF PLATO. 225 
 
 times it happens that the souls in the domain of 
 Death are not made pure and holy within twelve 
 months, and yet when their bodies died they were 
 not wicked enough to be captured by Chief Cloud. 
 Then it becomes necessary that the less sanctified 
 souls return to earth and become regenerated. Every 
 soul not worthy of entering heaven is sent back to 
 his friends and reborn at the first opportunity. The 
 Saaga enters the house to see the newly-born baby, 
 and his attendant spirits announce to him that in 
 that child is the soul of one of their departed 
 friends who died during the preceding years. Their 
 new life has to be such as will subject them to 
 retribution for the misdeeds of their past life (the 
 same idea which we met with in India and in 
 Greece), and thus the purgation of souls has to bo 
 carried on in successive migrations until they are 
 suitable to enter the reo;ion of eternal liijht. 
 
 It sometimes happens that some souls are too 
 depraved and wicked after twelve months in the 
 clouds to be conducted to Hetywanlana ; they also 
 are sent back to this earth, but they are not allowed 
 to re-enter a human body. They are allowed to enter 
 the bodies of animals and fish, and compelled to 
 undergo great torture. 
 
 We see here how the Haidas arrived at the idea of 
 metempsychosis very much by the same road on 
 which the Hindus were led to it. It was as a 
 punishment that human souls were supposed to enter 
 the bodies of certain animals. We likewise meet 
 among the Haidas with the idea which we discovered 
 in the Upanishads and in Plato, that certain souls 
 are born again as human beings in order to undergo 
 (4) Q
 
 226 LECTURE VII. 
 
 a new purgation before they could be allowed to 
 enter the region of eternal light. This intermediate 
 stage, the simplest conception of a purgatory, for souls 
 who are neither good enough for heaven nor bad 
 enough for hell, occurs in the later Persian literature 
 also. It is there called the place of the Hamistakan, 
 the intermediate place between heaven and hell, 
 reserved for those souls whose good works exactly 
 counterbalance their sins, and where they remain in 
 a stationary state till the final resurrection^. 
 
 The Polynesians on the Immortality of the Soul. 
 
 I have chosen the Haidas, the aborigines of the 
 North-west coast of America, as a race that could 
 not possibly have been touched by one single ray of 
 that civilisation which had its seat in Mesopotamia, 
 or in Persia, or in Egypt or Greece. Their thoughts 
 on the immortality of the soul, and of the fate which 
 awaits the soul after death, are clearly of independent 
 growth, and if on certain important points they agree 
 with the views of the Upanishads, the Zendavesta, or 
 Plato, that agreement, though it does not prove their 
 truth, proves at all events what I call their natural- 
 ness, their conformity with the hopes and fears of the 
 human heart. 
 
 I shall now take another race, equally beyond the 
 reach of Mesopotamian, Persian, Egyptian, and Greek 
 thought, and as far removed as possible from the 
 inhabitants of North-western America, I mean the 
 races inhabiting the Polynesian Islands. I choose 
 them because they give us a measure of what amount 
 of similarity is possible on religious or philosophical 
 
 1 Haijg, I.e. p. 389 n.
 
 ESCHATOLOQY OF PLATO. 227 
 
 topics without our having to admit either a common 
 historical origin, or an actual borrowing at a later 
 time. I choose them for another reason also, namely, 
 because they are one of the few races of whom we 
 possess scholarlike and trustworthy accounts from 
 the pen of a missionary who has thoroughly mastered 
 the language and thoughts of the people, and who 
 has proved himself free from the prejudices arising 
 from theological or scientific partisanship. I mean 
 the Rev. \V. Wyatt Gill. Speaking more particularly 
 of the islands of the Hervey group, he says : 
 
 ' Each island 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, 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.' 
 
 But what did these islanders think about the life 
 to come? It is seldom that we can get a clear 
 account of the ideas of savages concerning the fate 
 of their departed friends. Many avoid the subject 
 altogether, and even those who are ready to com- 
 municate their thoughts freely to white men, often 
 fail to be understood by theii* questioners. Mr. Gill 
 is in this respect a favourable exception, and this is 
 what he tells us about the conception of the spirit- 
 world, as entertained by his Polynesian friends : 
 
 ' Spirit-land proper is underneath, where the sun- 
 god Ra reposes when his daily task is done.' This 
 reminds us of Yama, the son of Vivasvat (the sun), 
 
 Q2
 
 228 LECTURE VII. 
 
 who by the Vedic Indians was believed to dwell in 
 the world of the Fathers and to be the ruler of 
 the spirits of the departed. This spirit-world ' is 
 variously termed Po (Night), Avaiki, Hawai^i, Ha- 
 waiki, or home of the ancestors. Still, all warrior 
 spirits, i.e. those who have died a violent death, are 
 said to ascend to their happy homes in the ten 
 heavens above. Popularly, death in any form is 
 referred to as "■ going into night," in contrast with 
 day (ao), i.e. life. Above and beneath are numerous 
 countries and a variety of inhabitants — invisible to 
 mortal eye ; but these are but a facsimile of what 
 we see around us now. 
 
 ' The Samoan heaven was designated Pulotu or 
 Purotu, and was supposed to be under the sea. The 
 Mangaian warrior hoped to "leap into the expanse," 
 '^to dance the warrior's dance in Tairi" (above), "to 
 inhabit Speck-land (Poepoe)" in perfect happiness. 
 The Rarotongan warrior looked forward to a place 
 in the house of Tiki, in which are assembled the brave 
 of past ages, who spend their time in eating, drinking, 
 dancing, or sleeping. The Aitutakian brave went to 
 a good land (Iva) under the guardianship of the be- 
 nevolent Tukaitaua, to chew sugar-cane for ever with 
 uncloyed appetite. Tahitians had an elysium named 
 " Miru." Society Islanders looked forward to " Rohutu 
 noanoa," i.e. " sweet-scented Rohutu," full of fruit and 
 flowers. 
 
 ' At Mangaia the spirits of those who ignobly " died 
 on a pillow"^ wandered about disconsolately over the 
 rocks near the margin of the ocean, until the day 
 appointed by their leader comes (once a year), when 
 
 * I te urunga piro, i. e. a natural death.
 
 E8CHAT0LOGY OF PLATO. 229 
 
 they follow the sun-god Ra over the ocean and de- 
 scend in his train to the under-world. As a rule, these 
 ghosts were well disposed to their own living relatives; 
 but often became vindictive if a pet child was ill- 
 treated by a step-mother or other relatives, Szc. But 
 the esoteric teaching of the priests ran thus : Unhappy ^ 
 ghosts travel over the pointed rocks round the island 
 until they reach the extreme edge of the cliff facing 
 the setting sun, when a large wave approaches to the 
 base, and at the same moment a gigantic " bua" tree 
 
 ' DO 
 
 {Fagraea herteriana), covered with fragrant blossoms, 
 springs up from Avaiki to receive these disconsolate 
 human spirits. Even at this last moment, with feet 
 almost touching the fatal tree, a friendly voice may 
 send the spirit-traveller back to life and health. 
 Otherwise, he is mysteriously impelled to climb the 
 particular branch reserved for his own tribe, and 
 conveniently brought nearest to him. Immediately 
 the human soul is safely lodged upon this gigantic 
 " bua," the deceitful tree goes down with its living 
 burden to the nether-world. Akaanga and his assis- 
 tants catch the luckless ghost in a net, half drown it in a 
 lake of fresh water, and then usher it into the presence 
 of dread Miru, mistress of the nether-world, where it is 
 made to drink of her intoxicating bowl. The drunken 
 ghost is borne off to the ever-burning oven, cooked, 
 and devoured by Miru, her son, and four peerless 
 daughters. The refuse is thi'own to her servants, 
 Akaanga and others. So that, at Mangaia, the end of 
 the coward is annihilation, or, at all events, digestion. 
 'At Rarotonga the luckless spirit-traveller who had 
 
 ' Because they had the misfortune 'to die on a pillow,' and 
 because they had to leave their old pleasant haunts and homes.
 
 230 LECTURE VII. 
 
 no present for Tiki was compelled to stay outside the 
 house where the brave of past ages are assembled, in 
 rain and darkness for ever, shivering with cold and 
 hunger. Another view is, that the grand rendezvous 
 of ghosts was on a ridge of rocks facing the setting 
 sun. One tribe skirted the sea margin until it reached 
 the fatal spot. Another (the tribe of Tangiia, on the 
 eastern part of Rarotonga) traversed the mountain 
 ranQ-e formins; the backbone of the island until the 
 same point of departure was attained. Members of 
 the former tribe clambered on an ancient " hua" tree 
 (still standing). Should the branch chance to break, 
 the ghost is immediately caught in the net of " Muru." 
 But it sometimes happens that a lively ghost tears 
 the meshes and escapes for a while, passing on by a 
 resistless inward impulse towards the outer edge of 
 the reef, in the hope of traversing the ocean. But in 
 a straight line from the shore is a round hollow, where 
 Akaanga's net is concealed. In this the very few 
 who escape out of the hands of Muru are caught with- 
 out fail. The delighted demons (taae) take the captive 
 ghost out of the net, dash his brains out on the sharp 
 coi-al, and carry him off in triumph to the shades to eat. 
 
 ' For the tribe of Tangiia an iron-wood tree was 
 reserved. The ghosts that trod on the green branches 
 of this tree came back to life, whilst those who had 
 the misfortune to crawl on the dead branches were at 
 once caught in the net of Muru or Akaanga^ brained, 
 cooked, and devoured ! 
 
 ' Ghosts of cowards, and those who were impious 
 at Aitutaki, were doomed likewise to furnish a feast 
 to the inexj)ressibly ugly Miru^ and her followers. 
 ' Miru of Mangaia and Aitutaki is the Muru of Rarotonga.
 
 ESCHATOLOGY OF PLATO. 231 
 
 'Tho ancient faith of the llervoy Islanders was 
 substantially the same. Nor did it materially diflfer 
 from that of the Tahitian and Society Islanders, the 
 variations being such as we might expect when portions 
 of the same great family had been separated from 
 each other for ages.' 
 
 We see in these Polynesian legends a startling 
 mixture of coarse and exalted ideas as to the fate of 
 the soul after death. 
 
 Mr. Gill says that there is no trace of transmigra- 
 tion of human souls in tho Eastern Pacific. Yet he 
 teUs us that the spirits of the dead are fabled to have 
 assumed, temporarily, and for a specific purpose, the 
 form of an insect, bird, fish, or cloud. He adds that 
 gods, specially the spirits of deified men, were beheved 
 permanently to reside in, or to be incarnate in, sharks, 
 sword-fish, &c., eels, the octopus, the yellow and 
 black-spotted lizards, several kinds of birds and 
 insects. The idea of souls dwelling in animal bodies 
 cannot therefore be said to have been unknown to the 
 inhabitants of the Polynesian Islands. 
 
 If it is asked, what we gain from a comparison of 
 the opinions on the fate of the soul after death as 
 entertained not only by highly civilised nations, such 
 as the Hindus, the Persians, and the Greeks, but like- 
 wise by tribes on a very low level of social life, such 
 as the Haidas and Polynesians, my answer is that 
 we learn from it, that a belief in a soul and in the 
 immortality of the soul is not simply the di-eam of 
 a few philosophical poets or poetical philosophers, but 
 the spontaneous outcome of the human mind, when 
 brought face to face with the mystery of death.
 
 232 LECTURE VII. 
 
 The last result of Physical Iteligion. 
 
 The last result of what I called Physical Religion 
 and Anthropological Religion is this very belief that 
 the human soul will after death enter the realm of 
 light, and stand before the throne of God, whatever 
 name may have been assigned to him. This seems 
 indeed the highest point that has been reached by 
 natural religion. But we shall see that one religion 
 at least, that of the Vedanta, made a decided step 
 beyond.
 
 LECTURE Vm. 
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 
 Judaism and Buddhism. 
 
 IT is strange that the two religions in -which we 
 find nothing or next to nothing about the im- 
 mortality of the soul or its approach to the throne 
 of God or its life in the realm of light, should be the 
 Jewish and the Buddhist, the one pre-eminently mono- 
 theistic, the other, in the eyes of the Brahmans, almost 
 purely atheistic. The Old Testament is almost silent, 
 and to be silent on such a subject admits of one 
 interpretation only. The Buddhists, however, go even 
 beyond this. Whatever the popular superstitions of 
 the Buddhists may have been in India and other 
 countries, Buddha himself declared in the most 
 decided way that it was useless, nay, wrong to ask 
 the question what becomes of the departed after 
 death. When questioned on the subject, Buddha de- 
 clined to give any answer. From all the other reli- 
 gions of the world, however, with these two exceptions, 
 we receive one and the same answer, namely, that 
 the highest blessedness of the soul after death consists 
 in its approaching the presence of God, possibly in 
 singing praises and ofiering worship to the Supreme 
 Beinsf.
 
 234 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 The Vedanta Doctrine on Tme Zmiuortality. 
 
 There is one religion only which has made a definite 
 advance beyond this point. In other religions we 
 meet indeed with occasional longings for something 
 beyond this mere assembling round the throne of a 
 Supreme Being, and singing praises to his name ; nor 
 have protests been wanting from very early times 
 against the idea of a God sitting on a throne and 
 having a right and left hand. But though these 
 old anthropomorphic ideas, sanctioned by creeds and 
 catechismSj have been rejected again and again, 
 nothing has been placed in theii' stead, and they natu- 
 rally rise up anew with every new rising generation. 
 In India alone the human mind has soared beyond 
 this point, at first by guesses and postulates, such 
 as we find in some of the Upanishads, afterwards by 
 strict reasoning, such as we find in the Vedanta-sutras, 
 and still more in the commentary of >S^ankara. The 
 Vedanta, whether we call it a religion or a philosophy, 
 has completely broken with the effete anthropo- 
 morphic conception of God and of the soul as ap- 
 proaching the throne of God, and has opened vistas 
 which were unknown to the greatest thinkers of 
 Europe. 
 
 These struggles after a pure conception of Deity 
 began at a very early time. I have often quoted the 
 passage where a Vedic poet says — 
 ' That which is one, the poets call by many names, 
 
 They call it Agni, Yama, Matarisvan.' 
 
 (Rv. I. 164, 46.) 
 
 You observe how that which is spoken of as one 
 is here, as early as the hymns of the Rig-veda, no
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 235 
 
 longer a masculine, no longer personal, in the human 
 sense of the word ; it has not even a name. 
 
 Personality, a Iiimltation of the Godhead. 
 
 No doubt this step will by many be considered not 
 as a step in advance, but as a backward step. We 
 often hear it said that an impersonal God is no God 
 at all. And yet, if we use our words wisely, if we do 
 not simply repeat words, but try to realise their 
 meaning, we can easily understand why even those 
 ancient seekers after truth declined to ascribe human 
 personality to the Deity. People are apt to forget 
 that human personality always implies limitation. 
 Hence all the personal gods of ancient mythology 
 were limited. Jupiter was not Apollo, Indra was not 
 Agui. When people speak of human personality, they 
 often include in it every kind of limitation, not only 
 age, sex, language, nationality, inherited character, 
 knowledge, but also outward appearance and fticial 
 expression. All these qualifications were applied to 
 the ancient gods, but with the dawn of a higher con- 
 ception of the Deity a reaction set in. The earliest 
 philosophers of Greece, who were religious even more 
 than philosophical teachers, protested, as for instance, 
 through the mouth of Xenophaues, against the belief 
 that God, if taken as the highest Deity, could be sup- 
 posed to be like unto man in body or mind. Even 
 at the present day the Bishop of London thought it 
 right and necessary to warn a Christian congregation 
 against the danger of ascribing personality, in its 
 ordinary meaning, to God. 'There is a sense,' he 
 says ^, ' in which we cannot ascribe personality to the 
 
 * Temple, Bampton Lectures, p. 57.
 
 236 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Unknown Absolute Being; for our personality is 
 of necessity compassed with limitations, and from 
 these limitations we find it impossible to separate our 
 conception of person. When we speak of God as a 
 person, we cannot but acknowledge that this person- 
 ality far transcends our conceptions. ... If to deny 
 personality to Him is to assimilate Him to a blind 
 and dead rule, we cannot but repudiate such denial 
 altogether. If to deny personaHty to Him is to 
 assert His incomprehensibility, we are ready at once 
 to acknowledge our weakness and incapacity.' 
 
 It is strange that people should not see that we must 
 learn, with regard to personality, exactly the same lesson 
 which we have had to learn with regard to all other 
 human qualities, when we attempt to transfer them 
 to God. We may say that God is wise and just, holy 
 and pitiful, but He is all this in a sense which passes 
 human understanding. In the same way, when we 
 say that God is personal^ we must learn that His 
 personality must be high above any human person- 
 ality, high above our understanding, always supposing 
 that we understand what we mean when we speak 
 of our own personality. Some people say that the 
 Deity must be at least personal ; yes, but at the same 
 time the Deity must be at least above all those limita- 
 tions which are inseparable from human personality. 
 
 We may be fully convinced that God cannot be 
 personal in the human sense of the word, and yet 
 as soon as we place ourselves in any relation to God, 
 we must for the time being conceive Him as personal. 
 We cannot divest ourselves of our human nature. 
 We know that the sun does not rise, but we cannot 
 help seeing it rise. We know that the sky is not
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 237 
 
 blue, and yet we cannot help seeing it blue. Even the 
 Bishop can only tell us how not to think about God, 
 but how to think about Him except as personal he does 
 not tell us. When we see Xenophanes attempting to 
 represent this Supreme Being as o-^atpoei87/9, or like a 
 ball, we see what any attempts of this kind would 
 lead to. The same intellectual struo-o^le which we 
 can watch in the words of a living Bishop, we can 
 follow also in the later utterances of the Vedic poets. 
 They found in their ancient faith names of ever so 
 many personal gods, but they began to see that these 
 were all but imperfect names of that which alone is, 
 the Unknown Absolute Being, as Dr. Temple calls it, 
 the Ekam sat of the Vedic sages. 
 
 struggle for higher conception of the Oodhead. 
 
 How then was the Ekam sat, to ev koI to 6v, to be 
 called? Many names were attempted. Some Vedic 
 sages called it Pra'jia, that is breath, which comes 
 nearest to the Greek yl/vx>h breath or spirit or soul. 
 Others confessed their inability to comprehend it 
 under any name. That it is, and that it is one, is 
 readily admitted. But as to any definite knowledge 
 or definite name of it, the Vedic sages declare their 
 ignorance quite as readily as any modern agnostic. 
 This true agnosticism, this doda ignorantla of medi- 
 aeval divines, this consciousness of man's utter help- 
 lessness and inability to arrive at any knowledge of 
 God, is most touchingly expressed by some of these 
 ancient Vedic poets. 
 
 I shall quote some of their utterances. 
 
 Rv. X. 82, 7. ' You will not find Him who has 
 created these things ; something else stands between
 
 238 LECTURE vriT. 
 
 you and Him. Enveloped in mist and with faltering 
 voices the poets walk along, rejoicing in life.' 
 
 Rv. 1. 164, 4-6. ' Who has seen the First-born, when 
 He who had no bones, i. e. no form, bore him that had 
 bones. The life, the blood, and the soul of the earth — 
 where are they 1 Who went to ask it to one who knew 
 it ? Simple-minded, not comprehending it in my mind, 
 I ask for the liidden places of the gods. . . . Ignorant 
 I ask the knowing sages, that I, the not-knowing, 
 may know, what is the One in the form of the Un- 
 born which has settled these six spaces.' 
 
 Still stronger is this confession as repeated again 
 and again in the XJpanishads. 
 
 For instance, >S'vet. Up. IV. 19. ' No one has grasped 
 Him above, or across, or in the middle. There is no 
 likeness of Him whose name is Great Glory.' 
 
 Or, M.und. Up. III. 1, 8. ' He is not apprehended by 
 the eye, nor by speech, nor by the other senses, not 
 by penance or good works.' 
 
 Ken. Up. I. 3. ' Thy eye does not go thither, nor 
 speech, nor mind. We do not know, we do not under- 
 stand, how any one can teach it. It is different from 
 the known, it is also above the unknown, thus we 
 have heard from those of old who taught us this.' 
 
 Kh&nd. Up. IV. 3, 6. ' Mortals see Him not, though 
 He dwells in many places.' 
 
 In the Taitt. Up. 11. 4, it is said that words turn 
 back from it with the mind, without having reached 
 it — and in another place, Ksith. Up. III. 15, it is dis- 
 tinctly called nameless, intangible, formless, imperish- 
 able. And again, Mnnd. Up. I, 1,6, invisible, and not 
 to be grasped. 
 
 These very doubts and perplexities are most touch-
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 239 
 
 ing, I doubt whether we find anything like them any- 
 where else. On one point only these ancient searchers 
 after God seem to have no doubt whatever, namely, 
 that this Being is one and without a second. We saw 
 it w^hen the poet said, ' That which is one the poets 
 call it in many ways,' and in the Upanishads, this 
 One without a second becomes a constant name of 
 the Supreme Being. Thus the K&th. Up. V. 12, says: 
 ' There is one ruler, the soul within all things, who 
 makes the one form manifold.' And the AS'vetuivatara- 
 Up. VI. 11, adds : 'He is the one God, hidden in all 
 things, all-pervading, the soul within all beings, 
 watching over all w^orks, dwelling in all, the witness, 
 the perceiver, the only one, free from all qualities. He 
 is the one ruler of many who (seem to act, but really) 
 do not act.' 
 
 The Khsiud. Up. VI. 2, 1 , says : ' In the beginning 
 there was that only which is, one only, without a 
 second ; ' and the Brih. Ar. Up. IV. 3, 32, adds : ' That 
 one seer (subject) is an ocean, and without any duality.' 
 
 Mu-nd Up. II. 2, 5. 'In Him the heaven, the earth, 
 and the sky are woven, the mind also with all the 
 senses. Know Him alone as the Self, and leave off 
 other names. He is the bridge of the Immortal, i. e. 
 the bridge by which we reach our own immortality.' 
 
 These are mere gropings, gropings in the dark, no 
 doubt; but even thus, where do we see such gropings 
 after God except in India ? 
 
 The human mind, however, cannot long go on with- 
 out names, and some of the names given to the One 
 Unknowable and Unnameable Being, which we shall 
 now have to examine, have caused and are still caus- 
 ing great difficulty.
 
 240 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Name for the hig-hest Godhead, Brahman. 
 
 One of the best-known names is Brahman, originally 
 a neuter, but used often promiscuously as a masculine 
 also. It would be an immense help if we were certain 
 of the etymology of Brahman. We should then know, 
 what is always most important, its first conception, for 
 it is clear, and philosophers ought by this time to have 
 learnt it, that every word must have meant at first 
 that which it means etymologically. Many attempts 
 have been made to discover the etymology of Brahman, 
 but neither that nor the successive growth of its mean- 
 ings can be ascertained with perfect certainty. It has 
 been supposed^ that certain passages in the Ksitha- 
 Upanishad (II. 13 ; VI. 17) were meant to imply a 
 derivation of brahman from the root barh or hrih, 
 to tear off, as if brahman meant at fii'st what was 
 torn off or separated, absolutum ; but there is no other 
 evidence for the existence of this line of thought in 
 India. Others have derived brahman from the root 
 barh or hrih, in the sense of swelling or growing. 
 Thus Dr. Haug, in his paper on Brahmian und die 
 Brahmanen, published in 1871, supposed that brah- 
 man must have meant originally what grows, and he 
 saw a proof of this in the corresponding Zend word 
 Baresman (Barsom), a bundle of twigs (virgae) used 
 by the priests, particularly at the Izeshan sacrifices. 
 He then assigns to brahman the more abstract mean- 
 ing of growth and welfare, and what causes growth 
 and welfare, namely, sacred songs. In this way he 
 holds that brahman came to mean the Veda, the holy 
 word. Lastly, he assigns to brahman the meaning of 
 
 ^ Deussen, Veddnia, p. 128.
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 241 
 
 force as manifested in nature, and that of universal 
 force, or the Supreme Being, that which, according to 
 AS'ankara, ' is eternal, pure, intelligent, free, omniscient 
 and omnipotent.' 
 
 When by a well-known grammatical process this 
 neuter brahman (nom. brahma) is changed into the 
 masculine brahman (noui. brahma), it comes to mean 
 a man conversant with Brahman, a member of the 
 priestly caste; secondly, a priest charged with the 
 special duty of superintending the sacrifice, but like- 
 wise the personal creator, the universal force con- 
 ceived as a personal god, the same as Pra^apati, and 
 in later times one of the Trimurti, Brahman, Vishnu, 
 and /S'iva. So far Dr. Haug. 
 
 Dr. Muir, in his Sanski-it Texts, i. p. 240, starts 
 from brahman in the sense of prayer, hymn, while he 
 takes the derivative masculine brahman as meaning 
 one who prays, a poet or sage, then a priest in 
 general, and lastly a priest charged with special 
 duties. 
 
 Professor Roth also takes the original sense of 
 Brahman to have been prayer, not, however, praise 
 or thanksgiving, but that kind of invocation which, 
 with the force of will directed to the god, desires to 
 draw him to the worshipper, and to obtain satisfaction 
 from him. 
 
 I must confess that the hymns of the Veda, as we 
 now read them, are hardly so full of fervent devotion 
 that they could well be called outbursts. And there 
 always remains the question why the creative force 
 of the universe should have been called by the same 
 name. It seems to me that the idea of creative force 
 or propelling power might well have been expressed by 
 ii) R
 
 242 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Brahman, as derived from a root barh^, to break 
 forth, or to drive forth ; but the other brahman, before 
 it came to mean hymn or prayer, seems to have had 
 the more general meaning of speech or word. There 
 are indeed a few indications left to show that the 
 root barh had the meaning of uttering or speaking. 
 Brihas-pati, who is also called Brahmaiias-pati, is 
 often explained as Va^as-pati, the lord of speech, so 
 that hrih. seems to have been a synonym of vaA;. 
 But what is still more important is that the Latin 
 verhum, as I pointed out many years ago, can be 
 traced back letter by letter to the same root. Nay, 
 if we accept vr^dh as a parallel form of vr^h, the 
 English ivord also can claim the same origin. It 
 would seem therefore that brahman meant originally 
 utterance, word, and then only hymn, and the sacred 
 word, the Veda, while when it is used in the sense 
 of creative force, it would have been conceived 
 originally as that which utters or throws forth or 
 manifests. Tempting as it is, we can hardly suppose 
 that the ancient framers of the Sanskrit language 
 had any suspicion of the identity of the Logos 'p'>'0- 
 loHiorikds and endidthetos of the Stoics, or of the world 
 as word or thought, the Logos of the Creator. But 
 that they had some recollection of brahman having 
 originally meant word, can be proved by several pas- 
 sages from the Veda. I do not attach any importance 
 to such passages as B'?'^h. Ar. IV. 1, 2, vag vai Brah- 
 ma, speech is Brahma, for Brahman is here in the 
 same way identified with pra^ia, breath, man as mind, 
 aditya, sun, and many other things. But when we 
 
 ' Brahma is sometimes combined with bnhat, growing or great, 
 see Svet. Up. III. 7.
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 243 
 
 read, Rv. I. 164, 35, Brahmfi ayam vkbdh paramam 
 vydma, what can be the meaning of Brahma masc. 
 being called here the highest heaven, or, it may be, 
 the highest woof, of speech, if there had not been 
 some connection between brahman and vkhl There 
 is another important passage in a hymn addressed to 
 B7*ihaspati, the lord of speech, where we read, X. 
 71, 1 : ' O Br^haspati (lord of brih or speech), when 
 men, giving names, sent forth the fii'st beginning of 
 speech, then whatever was best and faultless in 
 them, hidden within them, became manifested through 
 desire.' I believe therefore that the word brahman 
 had a double history, one beginning with brahman, 
 as neuter, to ovtcos- 6v, the propelling force of the 
 universe, and leading on to Brahman, masc, as the 
 creator of the world, who causes all things to burst 
 forth, later one of the Hindu Triad or Trimui'ti, con- 
 sisting of Brahman, >Siva, and Vish7iu ; the other 
 beginning with brah-man, word or utterance, and 
 gradually restricted to brahman, hymn of praise, ac- 
 companied by sacrificial offerings, and then, with 
 change of gender and accent, brahmdn, he who utters, 
 prays, and sacrifices, a member of the priestly caste. 
 
 Brahman, even when used as a neuter, is often 
 followed by masculine forms. And there are many 
 passages where it must remain doubtful whether 
 Brahman was conceived as an impersonal force, or 
 as a personal being, nay, as both at the same time. 
 Thus we read, Taitt. Up. III. 1,1:' That from whence 
 these beings are born, that by which when born they 
 live, that into which they enter at their death, try to 
 know that, that is Brahman.' 
 
 In the Atharva-veda X. '2, 25, we read : ' By whom
 
 244 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 was this earth ordered; by whom was the upper sky 
 created ? By whom was this uplifted ? ' &c. 
 
 The answer is : ' By Brahma was this earth ordered,' 
 &c. 
 
 Sometimes Brahman is identified with Prana, breath, 
 as in Brih. Ar. Up. III. (s), 9, 9 : ' He asked, who is 
 the one God ? Ya(/«avalkya replied : Breath or spirit, 
 and he is Brahman.' 
 
 Sometimes again it is said that Pra-na, spirit, arose 
 from Brahman, as when we read, Mund. Up. II. 1, 8: 
 ' Brahman swells by means of heat ; hence is produced 
 food (or matter), from food breath (pratia), mind,' &c. 
 
 However, this Brahman is only one out of many 
 names, each representing an attempt to arrive at the 
 concept of a Supreme Being, free, as much as possible, 
 from all mythological elements, free from purely 
 human qualities, free also from sex or gender. 
 
 Furuslia, 
 
 Another of these names is Purusha, which means 
 originally man or person. Thus we read, Mund. Qp. 
 II. 1, 1-3 : ' As from a blazing fire sparks, being like 
 fire, fly forth a thousandfold, thus are various beings 
 brought forth from the Imperishable, and return 
 thither also. That heavenly Person (Purusha) is with- 
 out body, he is both within and without^ not pro- 
 duced, without breath and without mind, higher than 
 the high, imperishable. From him is born breath, 
 (spirit), mind, and all organs of sense, ether, air, light, 
 water, and the earth, the support of all.' 
 
 Nothing in fact is, to my mind, more interesting 
 than to watch these repeated attempts at arriving 
 at higher and higher, purer and purer, concepts of
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 245 
 
 deity. These so-callcfl heathens knew as well as wo 
 do, that their ancient names were imperfect and un- 
 worthy of the deity, and though every new attempt 
 proved but a new failure, yet the very attempts are 
 creditable, and if we consider the time and the cir- 
 cumstances under which these struggles took place, 
 there can hardly be a sight in the whole history of the 
 human mind more strongly appealing to our sympathy, 
 and more truly deserving of our most careful study. 
 Some people may say, that all this lies behind us, but 
 for that very reason that it lies behind us, it ought to 
 make us look behind us ; that is to say, it ought to make 
 us true historians, for after all, history is looking back, 
 and while looking back on the past of the human race, 
 reading in it our own history. Every one of us has 
 had to pass through that very phase of thought through 
 which the ancient Rishis passed when the early names 
 and concepts of God were perceived to be too narrow, 
 too human, too mythological. 
 
 Fra'ia, Spirit. 
 
 As we had to learn, and have still to learn, that 
 God is a spii-it, the Vedic Indians also spoke of the 
 highest deity as Frkna, here no longer used in the 
 sense of breath, but of spirit, as for instance, in a 
 hymn of the Atharva-veda, XI. 4, addressed to Pra?ia, 
 where we read : ' Pra7ia is the Lord of all that does 
 and docs not breathe ... Do not turn away from me, 
 Pra^ia, thou art no other than I.' 
 
 Let US translate Pra»a by Spirit or Divine Spirit, 
 and this would read : ' The Divine Spirit is Lord of 
 all ... O Divine Spirit, do not turn away from me ; 
 thou art no other than I.'
 
 246 LECTURE vriT, 
 
 Again, we read in the Prasna-Up, II. 13 : ' All this 
 is in the power of Pra^ia, whatever exists in the three 
 heavens. Protect us as a mother protects her sons, 
 and give us happiness and wisdom.' 
 
 In the Kaush. Up, III. 8 we find a still more im- 
 portant statement : ' He, the Pra^ia, the Spirit, is the 
 keeper of the world, he is the king of the world, he is 
 the lord of the universe, he is my self, thus let it 
 be known.' In our own language this would mean : 
 The Divine Spirit rules the world, and in Him we 
 live and move and have our being. 
 
 As to Purusha, though it generally means man, 
 yet, when applied to the highest Deity, we can only 
 translate it by Person, freed from aU that is purely 
 human, although occasionally endowed with attri- 
 butes which belong properly to human beings only. 
 There is this constant conflict going on in the minds 
 of the Brahmans which is going on in our own minds 
 also. They want to exclude all that is limited and 
 conditional, all that is human and personal, from their 
 concept of deity, and yet their language will not 
 submit, and the masculine god constantly prevails 
 over the neuter. 
 
 Purusha, we are told in a famous hymn of the 
 Ilio--veda, X. 90, has a thousand heads, a thousand 
 eyes, and a thousand feet. This is clearly metaphori- 
 cal and mythological. But immediately afterwards 
 the poet says : ' Purusha is all this, what has been and 
 what will be.' 
 
 Then follows a curious passage, in which the crea- 
 tion of the world is represented as a sacrifice of this 
 Purusha, in which from his mind arose the moon, 
 from his eye the sun, from his mouth Indra. Again,
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 247 
 
 from his breath "VTiyu, the wind. In the same hymn 
 occurs the earliest reference to the four castes, when 
 we are told that the Brahmana was his mouth, his 
 arms became the Rar/canya. the Avarrior caste, his legs 
 the Vai.'jya. while the ^'udra was produced from his feet. 
 
 other ITames of tlie Supreme Being, Skambha. 
 
 There are many more names of a similar kind. 
 Skambha, literally the support, becomes a name of 
 the Supreme Being. Thus we read in the Atharva- 
 veda: 'Skambha is all that is animated, whatever 
 breathes and whatever shuts the eyes.' 
 
 In the Rig-veda Skambha is mentioned as the 
 support of the sky. In the Atharva-veda X. 7, 7, 
 Skambha is celebrated as supreme. Pra^apati, it is 
 said, rested on Skambha, when he made the worlds 
 firm. The thirty-three gods are supposed to form the 
 limbs of his body (27), the whole world rests on him, 
 he has established heaven and earth, and he pervades 
 the universe (35). Darkness is separated from him, 
 he is removed from all evil (40). 
 
 In these and many other different ways the Indian 
 mind tried to free itself more and more from the 
 earlier imagery of Physical Religion, and it reached in 
 Brahman, in Purusha, in Praiia, in Skambha the most 
 abstract phase of thought that can find expression in 
 any human language. 
 
 These words are, in fact, far more abstract, and less 
 personal than other names which likewise occur in 
 the Veda, and which we should, perhaps, feel more 
 readily inclined to tolerate in our own religious 
 language, such as, for instance, Pra(/apati, lord of 
 creatures, Visvakannan, the maker of all things,
 
 248 LECTUEE VIII. 
 
 Svayambhu, the self-existing, names which satisfied 
 the Vedic thinkers for a time, but for a time only, till 
 they were all replaced by Brahman, as a neuter, as 
 that which is the cause of all things, the Infinite and 
 Divine, in its widest and highest sense. 
 
 ITames for the Soul. 
 
 But while this process of divesting the Divine of 
 all its imperfect attributes was going on, there was 
 another even more important process which we can 
 likewise watch in the language of the Veda, and 
 which has for its object the Soul, or the Infinite in 
 man. 
 
 After asking what constituted the true essence of 
 Divinity, the early thinkers began to ask themselves 
 what constituted the true essence of Humanity. 
 
 Aham, Hgo. 
 
 Language at first supplied the name of Ego, the 
 Sanskrit ah am. This was probably in its origin no 
 more than a demonstrative pronoun, meaning like the 
 Greek o8e, this man there, without committing the 
 speaker to anything more. Man said / am I, as he 
 had made the Godhead say, / ar)i I. But it was 
 soon perceived that what was meant by this /, in- 
 cluded many mere accidents, was in fact the result of 
 external circumstances, was dependent on the body, 
 on life, on age, on sex, on experience, on character, 
 and knowledge, and signified not a simple, but a most 
 composite being. 
 
 Atman. 
 
 Sometimes what constituted man, was called by the 
 same name as the Deity, prawa, spirit, or asu, vital
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 249 
 
 breath, also gfiva, the living soul, and manas, the 
 mind. Still all these names expressed different sides of 
 the Ego only, and none of them satisfied the Indian 
 thinkers for any length of time. They were search- 
 ing for something behind all this, and they tried to 
 gi-asp it by a new name^ by the name of Atman. 
 This Atman is again very difficult to explain etymo- 
 logically. It is supposed to have meant originally 
 breath, then soul, then self, as a substantive, till like 
 ipse or avro^ it became the recognised reflexive 
 pronoun. Many scholars identify this atman with 
 the A. S. sedm, the O.H.G. adum, Athem or Odem in 
 modem German, but both the radical and the deriva- 
 tive portions of the word are by no means satisfac- 
 torily made out. 
 
 When atman is used as the name of the true 
 essence of man, it is difficult to say whether it was 
 taken over in its meaning of breath, or whether it had 
 alreadj'- become the pronoun self, and was taken over 
 in that sense, to take the place of Aham, Ego, I. It 
 is generally translated by soul, and in many places 
 this is no doubt the right translation. Only soul 
 itself has so man}^ meanings on account of its many 
 attributes, and several of them are so inapplicable 
 to Atman, that I prefer to translate atman by Self, 
 that is the true essence of man, freC; as yet, from all 
 attributes. 
 
 Atman represents in fact on the side of subjective 
 humanity what Brahman represents on the side of 
 objective Divinity; it was the most abstract name for 
 what I call the infinite or the divine in man. 
 
 Of course there have been philosophers in ancient 
 times, and there are philosophers even now who deny
 
 250 LECTUEE VTTI. 
 
 that there is something divine in man, as they deny 
 that there is something divine in nature. By divine in 
 man I mean as yet no more than the non-phenomenal 
 agent on whom the phenomenal attributes of feeling, 
 thinking, and willing depend. To the Hindu philo- 
 sophers this agent was self-evident (svayara-prakasa), 
 and this may still be called the common- sense view 
 of the matter. But even the most critical philosophers 
 who deny the reality of anything that does not come 
 into immediate contact with the senses, will have to 
 admit that the phenomena of feeling, thinking, and 
 willing are conditioned on something, and that that 
 something must be as real at least as the phenomena 
 which are conditioned by it. 
 
 This Self, however, was not discovered in a day. 
 We see in the Upanishads many attempts to discover 
 and grasp it. I shall give you at least one extract, a 
 kind of allegory representing the search after the 
 true Self in man. It is a valuable fragment of the 
 most primitive psychology, and as such deserves to 
 be quoted in full. 
 
 Dialogue from the iT^andogya-Upanisliad. 
 
 It is a dialogue in the /f /iandogya-Upanishad, VIII. 
 7, that is supposed to have taken place between 
 Pra^apati, the lord of creation, and Indra, as repre- 
 senting the Devas, the bright gods, and Viro/i;ana, 
 representing the Asuras, who are here mentioned in 
 their later character already, namely, as the opponents 
 of the Devas. 
 
 Pra(/apati is said to have uttered the following 
 sentence : ' The Self (Atman) free from sin, free from 
 age, from death and grief, from hunger and thirst,
 
 TBUE IMMORTALITY. 251 
 
 which desires nothing but what it ought to de- 
 sire, and imagines nothing but what it ought to 
 imagine, that is what we must search out, that is 
 what we must try to understand. He who has 
 searched out that Self and understands it, obtains all 
 worlds and desires ' — that is, final beatitude. 
 
 The Devas (the gods) and the A suras (the demons) 
 both heard these words, and said : ' Well, let us search 
 for that Self by which, if one has searched it out, all 
 worlds and all desires are obtained.' 
 
 Thus saying, Indra went from the Devas, Vu'o/c-ana 
 from the Asuras, and both, without having communi- 
 cated with each other, approached Prar/apati, holding 
 fuel in theu' hands, as is the custom with pupils 
 approaching their master. 
 
 They dwelt there as pupils for thirty-two years. 
 (This reflects the early life in India, when pupils had 
 to serve their masters for many years, almost as 
 menial servants^ in order to induce them to com- 
 municate their knowledge.) 
 
 After Indra and ViroA:ana had dwelt with Pra^f^- 
 pati for thirty-two years, Prar/apati at last turned to 
 them to ask : 
 
 ' For what purpose have you both been dwelling 
 here?' 
 
 They replied that they had heard the saying of 
 Pragrapati, and that they bad both dwelt near him, 
 because they wished to know the Self. 
 
 Pra^apati, however, like many of the ancient sages, 
 does not show himself inclined to part with his know- 
 ledge at once. He gives them several answers which, 
 though not exactly wrong, are equivocal and open to 
 a wrong interpretation.
 
 252 LECTURE VITI. 
 
 He says first of all: ' The person (pnrusha) that is seen 
 in the eye, that is the Self. This is what I have said. 
 This is the immortal, the fearless, this is Brahman.' 
 
 If his pupils had understood this as meant for the 
 person that sees through the eye, or out of the eye, 
 they would have received a right though indirect idea 
 of the Self. But when they thought that the reflec- 
 tion of man in the eye of another person was meant, 
 they were wrong. And they evidently took it in the 
 latter sense, for they asked : ' Sir, he who is perceived 
 in the water, and he who is perceived in a mirror, who 
 is he?' 
 
 He replied : ' He, the Self himself indeed is seen in 
 all these.' 
 
 * Look at yourself in a pan of water, and whatever 
 you do not understand of yourself, come and tell me.' 
 
 They looked in the water-pan. Then Pra^apati said 
 to them : 
 
 ' What do you see ? ' 
 
 They said : ' We both see the Self thus altogether, a 
 picture even to the very hairs and nails.' 
 
 Pra(/apati said to them : ' After you have adorned 
 yourselves, have put on your best clothes and cleansed 
 yourselves, look again into the water-pan.' 
 
 They, after having adorned themselves, having put 
 on their best clothes and cleansed themselves, looked 
 into the water-pan. 
 
 Pra(/apati said : 'What do you see?' 
 
 They said : ' Just as we are, well adorned, with our 
 best clothes and clean, thus we are both there, Sir, 
 well adorned, with our best clothes and clean.' 
 
 Pra^apati said : ' That is the Self, this is the im- 
 mortal, the fearless, this is Brahman.'
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 253 
 
 They both went away, satisfied in their hearts. 
 
 And Pra(/apati, looking after them, said: 'They 
 both go away without having perceived and without 
 having known the Self, and whoever of these two, 
 whether Devas or Asuras, will follow this doctrine 
 (upanishad) will perish.' 
 
 Now Viro/t-ana, satisfied in his heart, went to the 
 Asuras and preached that doctrine to them, that the 
 Self alone is to be worshipped, that the Self alone is 
 to be served, and that he who worships the Self and 
 serves the Self^ gains both worlds, this and the next. 
 
 Therefore they call even now a man who does not 
 give alms here, who has no faith, and oflers no sacri- 
 fices, an Asura, for this is the doctrine of the Asuras. 
 They deck out the body of the dead with perfumes, 
 flowers, and fijie raiment, by way of ornament, and 
 think they will thus conquer the world. 
 
 But Indra, before he had returned to the Devas, saw 
 this difficulty. As this Self (the shadow in the water) 
 is well adorned, when the body is well adorned, well 
 dressed when the body is well dressed, well cleaned 
 when the body is well cleaned, that Self will also be 
 blind if the body is blind, lame if the body is lame, 
 crippled if the body is crippled, and perish in fact a.s 
 soon as the body perishes. Therefore I see no good 
 in this doctrine. 
 
 Taking fuel in his hand he came again as a pupil to 
 Pra(/apati. Pra^apati said to him : ' Maghavat, as 
 you went away with Vii'o/oana, satisfied in your heart, 
 for what purpose did you come back?' 
 
 He said : ' Sir, as this Self is well adorned when 
 the body is well adorned, well dressed when the body 
 is well dressed, well cleaned when the body is well
 
 254 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 cleaned, that Self will also be blind if the body is 
 blind, lame if the body is lame, crippled if the body 
 is crippled, and perish in fact as soon as the body 
 perishes. Therefore I see no good in this doctrine.' 
 
 ' So it is indeed, Maghavat/ replied Pra^apati, ' but 
 I shall explain him (the true Self) further to you. 
 Live with me another thirty-two years.' He lived 
 with him another thirty-two years, and then Pra^a- 
 pati said: 
 
 'He who moves about happy in dreams, he is the 
 Self, this is the immortal, the fearless, this is Brah- 
 man.' 
 
 Then Indra went away satisfied in his heart. But 
 before he had returned to the Devas, he saw this 
 difficulty. ' Although it is true that that Self is not 
 blind, even if the body is blind, nor lame if the body 
 is lame, though it is true that that Self is not rendered 
 faulty by the faults of it (the body), nor struck when 
 it (the body) is struck, nor lamed when it is lamed, 
 yet it is as if they struck him (the Self) in dreams, 
 as if they chased him. He becomes even con- 
 scious, as it were, of pain and sheds tears (in his 
 dreams). Therefore I see no good in this.' 
 
 Taking fuel in his hands, he went again as a pupil 
 to Pra(/apati. Pra(/apati said to him : ' Maghavat, as 
 you went away satisfied in your heart, for what pur- 
 pose did you come back ? ' 
 
 He said : ' Sir, although it is true that that Self 
 is not blind even if the body is blind, nor lame if the 
 body is lame, though it is true that that Self is not 
 rendered faulty by the faults of the body, nor struck 
 when it (the body) is struck, nor lamed when it is 
 lamed, yet it is as if they struck him (the Self) in
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 255 
 
 dreams, as if they chased him. He becomes even 
 conscious, as it were, of pain and sheds tears. There- 
 fore I see no good in this.' 
 
 ' So it is indeed, Maghavat,' replied Pra(/apati, ' but 
 I shall explain him (the true Self) further to you. 
 Live with me another thii-ty-two years.' Ho lived 
 with him another thirty-two years. Then Praf/apati 
 said : ' When a man, being asleep, reposing, and at 
 perfect rest, sees no dreams, that is the Self, this is 
 the immortal, the fearless, this is Brahman.' 
 
 Then Indra went away satisfied in his heart. But 
 before he had returned to the Devas he saw this diffi- 
 culty. ' In truth he thus does not know himself (his 
 Self) that he is I, nor does he know anything that 
 exists. He is gone to utter annihilation. I see no 
 good in this.' 
 
 Taking fuel in his hand, he went once more as a 
 pupil to Pra(/apati. Pra^rjipati said to him : ' Magha- 
 vat, as you went away satisfied in your heart, for 
 what purpose did you come back?' 
 
 He said : ' Sir, in that way he does not know him- 
 self that he is I, nor does he know anything that 
 exists. He is gone to utter annihilation. I see no 
 good in this.' 
 
 ' So it is indeed, Maghavat,' replied Pra^rapati, ' but 
 I shall explain him (the true SeK) further to you, and 
 nothing more than this. Live here other five years.' 
 
 He lived there other five years. This made in all 
 one hundred and one years, and therefore it is said 
 that Indra Maghavat lived one hundred and one years 
 as a pupil with Pra(/apati. 
 
 Pra(/apati said to him : ' Maghavat, this body is 
 mortal and always held by death. It is the abode of
 
 256 LECTUKE VIII. 
 
 that Self which is immortal and without body. When 
 in the body (by thinking this body is I and I am this 
 body), the Self is held by pleasure and pain. So long 
 as he is in the body, he cannot get free from pleasure 
 and pain. But when he is free of the body (when he 
 knows himself different from the body) then neither 
 pleasure nor pain touches him. The wind is without 
 body, the cloud, lightning, and thunder are without 
 body (without hands, feet, &c.). Now as these, 
 aiising from this heavenly ether (space), appear in 
 their own form, as soon as they have approached the 
 highest light, thus does that serene being, arising 
 from this body, appear in its own form, as soon as it 
 has approached the highest light (the knowledge of 
 Self). He (in that state) is the highest person (uttama 
 purusha). He moves about there laughing (or eat- 
 ing), playing, and rejoicing (in his mind), be it with 
 women, carriages, or relatives, never minding that 
 body into which he was born. 
 
 ' Like a horse attached to a cart, so is the spirit 
 (pra-na, pragf^Tatman) attached to this body. 
 
 ' Now where the sight has entered into the void (the 
 open space, the black pupil of the eye) there is the 
 person of the eye, the eye itself is but the instrument 
 of seeing. He who knows, let me smell this, he is the 
 Self, the nose is but the instrument of smelling. He 
 who knows, let me say this, he is the Self, the tongue 
 is but the instrument of saying. He who knows, let 
 me hear this, he is the Self, the ear is but the instru- 
 ment of hearing. 
 
 ' He who knows, let me think this, he is the Self, 
 the mind is but the divine eye. He, the Self, seeing 
 these pleasures (which to others are hidden like a
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 257 
 
 buried treasure of gold) through his divine eye, i. e. 
 through the mind, — rejoices. 
 
 ' The Devas who are in the world of Brahman medi- 
 tate on that Self (as taught by Pra//Apati to Indra, 
 and by Indra to the Devas). Therefore all worlds be- 
 long to them, and all desires. He who knows that Self 
 and understands it. obtains all worlds and all desires.' 
 Thus said Pra/yapati, yea, thus said Pra(/apati. 
 
 This is a kind of psychological legend which in 
 spite of certain expressions that strike us as strange, 
 perhaps as unintelligible, it would be difficult to 
 match in any ancient literature. Are there many 
 people even now, after more than two thousand years 
 have elapsed, that trouble themselves about these 
 questions'? If a man goes so far as to speak about 
 his Ego, he begins to consider himself something of a 
 philosopher. But it enters into the mind of very few 
 thinkers, and even of philosophers by profession, to 
 ask what this Ego is, what it can be and what it can- 
 not bo, what lies behind it, what is its real substance. 
 Language supplies them with the name of soul ready 
 made. ' I have a soul,' they say, but ivho or ivhat 
 it is that has a soul, and whence that soul origin- 
 ates, does not trouble them much. They may speak 
 of / and of / myself, but who and what that self 
 is which they call my self, and who the my is to 
 whom that self belongs, is but seldom asked. No 
 Hindu philosopher would say, I have an Atman or 
 a soul. And here we find these ancient thinkers in 
 India, clearly perceiving the question that has to be 
 asked, and answering it too better than it has ever 
 been answered. It may be said we all know that our 
 garments have nothing to do with our self, and that 
 (4) s
 
 258 LECTUKE VIII. 
 
 not philosophers only, but people at large, have learnt 
 even in the nursery that their body is but a garment 
 and has nothing to do with their soul. But there are 
 garments and garments. A man may say that he is 
 the same when he is eighty years old and when he 
 was eight weeks old, that his body has changed, but 
 not his self. Sex too is but one of many garments 
 which we wear in this life. Now a Vedantist might 
 ask, if a man were born again as a woman, would his 
 self be still the same, would he be the self-same 
 person ? Other such garments are language, nation- 
 ality, religion. A Vedantist might ask, supposing 
 that a man in the next life were denuded of all these 
 coverings, would he still be the self-same person ? 
 We may imagine that we have an answer ready for 
 all these questions, or that they deserve no answer at 
 all from wise people such as we are, and yet when we 
 ask ourselves the simple question how we hope to 
 meet the souls of those who have been dear to us in 
 this life, we shall find that our ideas of a soul have to 
 be divested of many garments, have to be purified 
 quite as much as the ideas of the questioners in the 
 ancient Upanishad. Old as these questioners are, 
 distant as they are from us, strange as their language 
 may sound to us, they may still become to us at least 
 Friends in Council. 
 
 That the legend which I translated for you from 
 the Upanishads is an old legend, or that something 
 like it existed before the chapter in our Upanishad 
 was composed, we may conclude from the passage 
 where it said : ' Therefore it is said,' or more literally, 
 that is what they say, ' Maghavat lived one hundred 
 and one years as a pupil of Pra^apati.' On the other
 
 TRUE TMMOBTALITY. 259 
 
 hand, the legend cannot be ascribed to the earliest 
 Vedic literature, for in the hymns Indra is a supreme 
 god who would scorn the idea of becoming the pupil 
 of Praf/apati. This Pra_(/a,pati, i.e. the lord of crea- 
 tures, or of all created things, is himself, as we saw, 
 a later deity, a personification of the creative force, a 
 name of the supremo, yet of a personal and more or 
 less mythological deity. 
 
 But whatever the origin of this legend may have 
 been, we have it here in one of the old and 
 recognised Upanishads, and can hardly place it 
 later than the time of Plato and his pupils. I call 
 it a psychological legend, because it seems to have 
 preserved to us some of the earliest attempts of 
 Indian thought to conceive and to name what we 
 without much reflection call by the inherited name of 
 soul. You may remember that certain anthropolo- 
 gists hold the opinion that the first conception of soul 
 had everywhere, and more particularly among savage 
 races, been that of a shadow, nay that some savages 
 believed even now that the shadow was the soul of a 
 living man, and that therefore a corpse threw no 
 shadow. I wonder that anthropologists have never 
 quoted our Dialogue in support of their opinion ; only 
 that in this case it is held not by uncivilised, but by 
 a highly civilised race, and is held by it. only in order 
 to be refuted. 
 
 The next opinion also that the soul is that which in 
 sleep, and as it were, without the body, sees visions in 
 dreams, might be quoted in support of another opinion, 
 often put forward by anthropologists, that the first 
 idea of a soul, as without the body, arose from dreams, 
 and that even now certain savage races believe that 
 
 S 2
 
 260 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 in a dream the soul leaves the body and travels about 
 by itself. This may be so in isolated cases ; we saw, 
 however, that the real origin of the name and concept 
 of soul was far more rational, that people took breath, 
 the tangible sign of the agent within, as the name of 
 the soul, divesting it in time of all that was incom- 
 patible with an invisible agent. But however that 
 may be, anthropologists may possibly begin to see 
 that the Veda also contains remnants of ancient thought, 
 though it likewise supplies a warning against too rapid 
 generalisation and against seeing in the Veda a com- 
 plete picture of savage, or what they call primitive, 
 
 man. 
 
 Deductions from the Bialogne. 
 
 But now let us see what the later Vedanta philosophy 
 makes out of this legend. The legend itself, as we 
 find it in the Upanishad, shows already that there 
 was a higher purpose in it than simply to show that 
 the soul was not a mere appearance, not the picture 
 reflected in the eye, not the shadow in the water, not 
 the person dreaming a dream, or losing all conscious- 
 ness in dreamless sleep. One of Pra(/apati's pupils, 
 Viro^'ana, is no doubt satisfied with the idea that the 
 body as seen reflected in the eye or in the water is the 
 self, is what a man really is. But Indra is not. He 
 is not satisfied even with the soul being the person in 
 a dream, for, he says, that even in a dream a man 
 becomes conscious of pain, and actually sheds tears, 
 and that therefore, if the soul were a dream, it would 
 not be perfect, it would not be free from sufiering. Nay, 
 if it is said that the soul is the person in a deep and 
 dreamless sleep, even that would not satisfy Indra, for, 
 in that case, as he says, all consciousness would be
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 261 
 
 gone, he would not know, as he expresses it, that he, 
 the self, is I, or that tliere is a myself. 
 
 Pra(/apati then gives him the highest instruction 
 which he can communicate, by saying that the soul 
 can become free by knowledge only, that it exists by 
 knowledge only, by knowing itself as free from the 
 body and all other limitations. It then can rise from 
 the body, a serene being in its own form, and approach 
 the highest light, the highest knowledge, the know- 
 ledge that its own Self is the Highest, is in fact the 
 Divine Self. 
 
 So far all would be intelligible. It would not 
 require death to free the soul from the body, know- 
 ledo'e would effect that liberation far better, and leave 
 the soul even in this life a mere spectator of its bodily 
 abode, of its bodily joys and its bodily sufferings, a 
 silent spectator even of the decay and death of the 
 body. 
 
 But the Vedfinta philosopher is not so easily satis- 
 fied ; and I think it will be interesting and give you 
 a better idea of the philosophical acumen of the 
 Vedantist, if I read you >S'ankara's treatment of our 
 psychological legend. This is, of course; a much later 
 phase of thought, at least as late as the seventh century 
 A.D. Yet what is recent and modern in India, is not 
 so recent and modern with us. 
 
 iSankara's Kemarks. 
 
 ^ankara, the commentator on the Vedanta-sMra, is 
 much exercised when he has to discuss this Dialogue 
 between Prar/apati, Indra, and Viro/t-ana on the true 
 nature of the self, or man's soul. There is an ap- 
 parent want of truthfulness on the part of Pra(/apati,
 
 262 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 he thinks, in conveying to his pupils a false impres- 
 sion of the real nature of the Atman or the human 
 soul, and its relation to Brahman, the Highest Deity. 
 It is quite true that his words admit of two meanings, 
 a wrong one and a right one ; still Pra^apati knows 
 that one at least of his pupils, ViroA'ana, when he 
 returns to the Asuras has not understood them in 
 their true sense ; and yet he lets him depart. 
 
 Next comes a more important difficulty. Pra^a- 
 pati had promised to teach what the true Atman is, 
 the immortal, the fearless, the Self which is free from 
 sin, free from old age, from death and grief, from 
 hunger and thirst ; but his answers seem to apply to 
 the individual Self only. Thus when he says at first 
 that the person as seen in the eye is the Self (ya esho 
 'kshi?ii dWsyate), it is quite clear that Viro/^ana takes 
 this for the small image or the reflection which a man 
 sees of himself in the pupil of his friend's eye. And 
 he therefore asks whether the Self that is perceived 
 as reflected in the eye, is the same as that which is 
 perceived as reflected in the water or in a mirror. 
 Pra^apati assents, though evidently with a mental 
 reservation. He had not meant from the first the 
 small figure reflected in the eye, but the seer within 
 the eye, looking out from the eye, the seer, as the sub- 
 ject of all seeing, who sees, and may be said to be 
 seen in the eye. Still, as in an indirect way even the 
 reflection in the eye may be called the reflection of 
 the true Atman, he invites Viro/^ana to test his asser- 
 tion by a kind of experiment, an experiment that 
 ought to have opened his eyes, but did not. He asks 
 both his pupils to look at their images in tlie water 
 or in a mirror, first as they are, and again after they
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 263 
 
 have adorned themselves. He thought they would 
 have perceived that these outward adornments could 
 not possibly constitute their own self, as little as the 
 body, but the experiment is lo.st on them. \Vhile 
 Pra(/apati means that in whatever reflection they see 
 themselves, they see, though hidden, their true Self, 
 they imagine that what they see, namely the body, 
 reflected in the water, even the body with its adorn- 
 ments, is their true Self. Pra^/apati is sorry for them, 
 and that he was not entirely responsible for their 
 mistake, is shown soon after by the doubts that arise 
 in the mind of at least one of his pupils. For while 
 Viro/t-ana returns to the Asuras to teach them that 
 the body, such as it is seen reflected in the water, 
 even with its adornments, is the Self, Indra hesi- 
 tates, and returns to Pra^/apati. He asks how the 
 body reflected in the water can be the Self, proclaimed 
 by Pra^apati, and of which he had said that it was 
 perfect and free from all defects, seeing that if the 
 body is crippled its image in the water also is crip- 
 pled, so that if that were the Self, the Self would not 
 be what it must be, perfect and immortal, but would 
 perish, whenever the body perishes. 
 
 Exactly the same happens again in the second 
 lesson. No doubt, the person in a dream is free 
 from cei-tain defects of the body — a blind person if 
 in a dream sees, a deaf person hears. But even thus, 
 he also seems liable to suffering, for he actually may 
 cry in a dream. Therefore even the dreaming soul 
 cannot be the true Self perfect and free from all 
 suffering. 
 
 When in his third lesson Prag'apati calls the soul 
 in the deepest sleep the Self, because it then suffers
 
 264 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 no longer from anything, Indra replies that in that 
 case the soul knows nothing at all, and is gone to 
 desi ruction (vinasam eva upeti). 
 
 It is only at this last moment that Praf/apati^ like 
 other sages of antiquity^ reveals his full knowledge to 
 his pupil. The true Self, he says, has nothing to do 
 with the body. For the body is mortal, but the Self 
 is not mortal. The Self dwells in the body, and as 
 long as he thinks that the body is I and I am this 
 body, the Self is enthralled by pleasure and pain, it is 
 not the perfect, it is not the immortal Self. But as 
 soon as the Self knows that he is independent of the 
 body and becomes free from it, not by death, but by 
 knowledge, then he suffers no longer ; neither pain 
 nor pleasure can touch him. When he has approached 
 this highest light of knowledge, then there is perfect 
 serenity. He knows himself to be the highest Self, 
 and therefore is the highest Self, and though while life 
 lasts, he moves about among the pleasant sights of the 
 world, he does not mind them, they concern his body 
 only or his bodily self, his Ego, and he has learnt that all 
 this is not himself, not his Self, not his absolute Self. 
 
 But there remains a far greater difficulty Avhich the 
 commentators have to solve, and which they do solve 
 each in his own way. To us the story of Prayapati 
 is simply an old legend, originally intended, it would 
 seem, to teach no more than that there was a soul in 
 man, and that that soul was independent of the bodj^ 
 That would have been quite enough wisdom for early 
 days, particularly if we are right in supposing that 
 the belief in the soul as a shadow or a dream was a 
 popular belief current at the time, and that it really 
 required refutation. But when at a later time this
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 265 
 
 legend had to be used for higher purposes, when what 
 had to be taught about the soul was not only that it 
 was not the body, nor its appearance, nor its shadow, 
 nor the vision of a dream, but that it was something 
 higher, that it could ascend to the world of Brahman 
 and enjoy perfect happiness before his throne, nay, 
 when it was discovered at a still later time, that the 
 soul could go beyond the throne of Brahman and 
 share once more the very essence of Brahman, then 
 new difBculties arose. These difficulties were carefully 
 considered by /Saiikara and other Vedantist philo- 
 sophers, and they still form a subject on which 
 different sections of the Vedantist school of philosophy 
 hold divergent views. 
 
 The principal difficulty was to determine what was 
 the true relation of the individual soul to Brahman, 
 whether there was any essential diffi^rence between 
 the two, and whether when it was said that the soul 
 was perfect, fearless, and immortal, this could apply 
 to the individual soul. This view that the individual 
 soul is meant, is upheld in the Vedanta philosophy by 
 what is called the Purvapakshiu, a most excellent 
 institution in Indian philosophy. This Purvapakshiu 
 is an imaginary person who is privileged in every dis- 
 puted question to say all that can possibly be said 
 against the view finally to be upheld. He is allowed 
 every possible freedom in objecting, as long as he is 
 not entirely absurd ; he is something like the man of 
 straw whom modern writers like to set up in their 
 arguments in order to be able to demolish him with 
 great credit to themselves. From the Hindu point of 
 view, however, these objections are like piles, to be 
 driven in by every blow that is aimed at them, and
 
 266 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 meant in the end to support the true conclusion that 
 is to be built up upon them. Frequently the objections 
 contained in the purvapaksha are bona fide objections, 
 and may have been held by different authorities, 
 though in the end they have all to be demolished, 
 their demolition thus serving the useful purpose of 
 guarding the doctrine that has to be established 
 against every imaginable objection. 
 
 In our case the objector says that it is the indi- 
 vidual that must be meant as the object of Pragrapati's 
 teaching. The seer in the eye, he says, or the person 
 that is seen in the eye, is referred to again and again 
 as the same entity in the clauses which follow, when 
 it is said, ' I shall explain him still further to you,' and 
 in the explanations which follow, it is the individual 
 soul in its different states (in dreams or in deep sleep) 
 which is referred to, so that the clauses attached to 
 both these explanations, viz. that is the perfect, the 
 immortal, the faultless^ that is Brahman, can refer to 
 the individual soul only, which is said to be free from 
 sin and the like. After that, when Pra(/apati has dis- 
 covered a flaw in the condition of the soul in deep 
 sleep also, he enters on a further explanation. He 
 blames the soul's connexion with the body, and finally 
 declares that it is the individual soul, but only after 
 it has risen from out the body. Hence the opponent 
 argues that the text admits the possibility of the 
 qualities of the highest Self belonging to the indi- 
 vidual soul. 
 
 >Sankara, however, proceeds at once to controvert 
 this opinion, though we shall see that the original 
 words of Pra(/apati certainly lend themselves to the 
 opponent's interpretation. We do not admit, he says,
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 
 
 267 
 
 that it is the individual soul in its phenomenal reality 
 that is the highest self, but only the individual soul, 
 in so far as its true nature has become manifest 
 xvithin it (avii-bhutasvarupa), that is to say, after, by 
 means of true knowledge, it has ceased to be an indi- 
 vidual soul, or after it has recovered its absolute 
 reality. This equivocality runs through the whole 
 system of the Vedanta as conceived by >Sankara. 
 Pra^apati could appai-ently assert a number of things 
 of the individual self, which properly apply to the 
 highest Self only, because in its true nature, that is 
 after having recovered a knowledge of its true nature, 
 the individual self is really the highest Self, and in 
 fact never was anything else, >S'ahkara says^ this 
 very expression (' whose true nature has become mani- 
 fest') qualifies the individual soul with reference to its 
 previous state. Therefore Pra(/apati must be under- 
 stood to speak at fu'st of the seer, characterised by 
 the eye, and then to show in the passage treating of 
 the reflection in the w^ater or the mirror, that he, the 
 seer, has not his true Self in the body or in the reflec- 
 tion of the body. Pra(/apati then refers to this seer 
 again as the subject to be explained, saying, 'I shall 
 explain him further,' and having then spoken of him 
 as subject to the states of dreaming and of sleeping a 
 deep sleep, he finally explains the individual soul in 
 its real nature, that is, in so far as it is the highest 
 Brahman, not in so far as it appears to be an indi- 
 vidual soul. The highest light mentioned in the 
 passage last quoted, as what is to be approached, is 
 nothing else but the highest Brahman which is distin- 
 guished by such attributes as perfection, freedom from 
 sin, freedom from old age, from death, and all im-
 
 268 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 perfections and desires. All these are qualities which 
 cannot be ascribed to the individual soul or to the 
 Ego in the body. They belong to the Highest Being 
 only. It is this Highest Being, this Brahman alone, 
 that constitutes the essence of the individual soul, 
 while its phenomenal aspect which depends on ficti- 
 tious limitations and conditions (upadhis) or on 
 Nescience cannot be its real nature. For as long as 
 the individual soul does not free itself from Nescience, 
 or a belief in duality, it takes something else for itself. 
 True knowledge of the Self, or true self-knowledge, 
 expresses itself in the words, ' Thou art That,' or 
 ' I am Brahman,' the nature of Brahman being un- 
 changeable, eternal cognition. Until that stage has 
 been reached, the individual soul remains the indi- 
 vidual soul, fettered by the body, by the organs 
 of sense, nay, even by the mind and its various 
 functions. It is by means of Svuti or revelation 
 alone, and by the knowledge derived from it, that the 
 soul perceives that it is not the body, that it is not 
 the senses, that it is not the mind, that it forms no 
 part of the transmigratory process, but that it is and 
 always has been, the True, the Real, to 6v, the Self 
 whose nature is pure intelligence. When once lifted 
 above the vain conceit of being one with the body, 
 with the organs of sense and with the mind, it 
 becomes or it knows itself to be and always to have 
 been the Self, the Self whose nature is unchanging, 
 eternal intelligence. This is declared in such pas- 
 sages as, ' He who knows the highest Brahman, 
 becomes even Brahman. And this is the real nature 
 of the individual soul, by means of which it arises 
 from the body and appears in its own form.'
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 269 
 
 The True Nature of the Individual Soiil. 
 
 Here a new objection is raised? How, it is asked, 
 can we speak of the manifestation of the true nature 
 (svarupa) of that which is unchanging and eternal ? 
 How, in fact, can we speak of it as being hidden for 
 a time, and then only reappearing in its own form 
 or in its true nature? Of gold and similar substances, 
 the true nature of which becomes hidden, while its 
 specific qualities are rendered non-apparent by their 
 contact with some other substance, it may indeed 
 be said that their true nature was hidden, and is 
 rendered manifest when they are cleaned by the 
 application of some acid substance. So it may be 
 said likewise, that the stars, whose light during 
 daytime is overpowered by the superior brilliancy 
 of the sun, become manifest in their true nature 
 at night when the overpowering sun has departed. 
 But it is impossible to speak of an analogous over- 
 powering of the eternal light of intelligence by any 
 agency whatsoever, since it is free from all contact. 
 How then did this momentous change take place ? 
 
 The Fheuonienal aud the Beal. 
 
 In our own philosophical language we might 
 express the same question by asking, How did the 
 real become phenomenal, and how can the pheno- 
 menal become real again? or, in other words, How 
 was the infinite changed into the finite, how was the 
 eternal changed into the temporal, and how can the 
 temporal regain its eternal nature? or, to put it into 
 more familiar language. How was this world created, 
 and how can it be uncreated again ?
 
 270 LECTURE VTIT. 
 
 We must remember that, like the Eleatic philo- 
 sophers, the ancient Vedantists also started with that 
 unchangeable conviction that God, or the Supreme 
 Being, or Brahman, as it is called in India, is one and 
 all, and that there can be nothing besides. This is 
 the most absolute Monism. If it is called Pantheism, 
 there is nothing to object, and we shall find the same 
 Pantheism in some of the most perfect religions of the 
 world, in all which hold that God is or will be All in 
 All, and that if there really existed anything besides, 
 He would no longer be infinite, omnipresent, and 
 omnipotent, He would no longer be God in the highest 
 sense. There is, of course, a great difference between 
 saying that all things have their true being in and 
 from God, and saying that all things, as we see them, 
 are God. Or, to put it in another way, as soon as 
 we say that there is a phenomenal world, we imply 
 by necessity that there is also a non-phenomenal, 
 a noumenal, or an absolutely real world, just as when 
 we say darkness, we imply light. Whoever speaks of 
 anything relative, conditioned, or contingent, admits at 
 the same time something non-relative, non-conditioned, 
 non-contingent, something which we call real, absolute, 
 eternal, divine, or any other name. It is easy enough 
 for the human understanding to create a noumenal or 
 non-phenomenal world ; it is, in fact, no more than 
 applying to our experience the law of causality, and 
 saying that there must be a cause for everything, and 
 that that cause or that Creator is the One Absolute 
 Being. But when we have done that, then comes the 
 real problem, namely, how was the cause ever changed 
 into an effect, how did the absolute become relative, 
 how did the noumenal become phenomenal ? or, to put
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 271 
 
 it into more theological language, how was this world 
 created? It took a long time before the human mind 
 could bring itself to confess its utter impotence and 
 ignorance on this point, its agnosticism, its Docta 
 ■ignorantla, as Cardinal Cusanus called it. And it 
 seems to me extremely interesting to watch the 
 various efforts of the human mind in every part of 
 the world to solve this greatest and oldest riddle, 
 before it was finally given up. 
 
 The Indian Vedantist treats this question chiefly 
 from the subjective point of view. Ho does not ask 
 at once how the world was created, but first of all, 
 how the individual soul came to be what it is, and 
 how its belief in an objective created world arose. 
 Before there arises the knowledge of scparateness, he 
 says, or aloofness of the soul from the body, the 
 nature of the individual soul, which consists in the 
 lisfht of sight and all the rest, is as it were not 
 separate from the so-called Upadhis, or limiting 
 conditions such as body, senses, mind, sense-objects, 
 and perception. Similarly as in a pure rock-crystal 
 when placed near a red rose, its true nature, which 
 consists in transparency and perfect whiteness, is, 
 before its separateness has been grasped, as it were 
 non-separate from its limiting conditions (the Upa- 
 dhis), that is, the red rose, while, when its separate- 
 ness has once been grasped, according to legitimate 
 authority, the rock-crystal reassumes at once its true 
 nature, transparency and whiteness, though, in reality, 
 it always was transparent and white. — in the same 
 manner there arises in the individual soul which is not 
 separate as yet from the limiting conditions (Upadhi) 
 of the body and all the rest, knowledge of separate-
 
 272 . LECTURE VIII. 
 
 ness and aloofness, produced by Svnti ; there follows 
 the resurrection of the Atman from the body, the 
 realisation of its true nature, by means of true 
 knowledge, and the comprehension of the one and 
 only Atman. Thus the embodied and non-embodied 
 states of the Self are due entirely to discrimination 
 and non-discrimination, as it is said (Ka^Aa-Up. 
 I. 2, 22): 'Bodyless within the bodies.' This non- 
 difference between the embodied and non-embodied 
 state is recorded in the SmWti also (Bhag. Gita, 
 XIII. 31) when it is said : ' O Friend, though dwelling 
 in the body, it (the Atman, the Self or the soul) does 
 not act and is not tainted.' 
 
 The Atmau unchangred amidst tlie chaugfes of tlie World. 
 
 You see now that what ^ankara wishes to bring 
 out, and what he thinks is implied in the language of 
 the Upanishads, is that the Atman is always the 
 same, and that the apparent difference between the 
 individual soul and the Supreme Soul is simply the 
 result of wrong knowledge, of Nescience, but is not 
 due to any reality. He is very anxious to show that 
 Pra^apati also in the teaching which he imparted to 
 Indra and Viro/i^ana could not have meant anything 
 else. Pra(/apati, he says, after having referred to the 
 individual or living soul (the ^iva), seen, or rather 
 seeing, in the eye, &c., continues, ' This is (if you only 
 knew it) the immortal, the fearless, this is Brahman.^ 
 He argues that if the seer in the eye, the individual seer, 
 were in reality different from Brahman, the immortal 
 and fearless, it would not be co-ordinated (as it is by 
 Pra^apati) with the immortal, the fearless Brahman.
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 273 
 
 The reflected Self, on the other hand, is not spoken of 
 as he who is characterised by the eye (the seer within 
 the eye), for that would indeed render Pra^apati 
 obnoxious to the reproach of saying deceitful things. 
 
 >Sankara, however, is honest enough to tell us that 
 his explanation is not the only one that has been 
 proposed. Others, he tells us, think that Prar/apati 
 speaks throughout of the free and faultless Self 
 (Atman), not of the individual soul at all. But he 
 points out that the pronouns used in the text point 
 clearly to two subjects, the individual soul on the one 
 hand, and the highest soul on the other ; and all that 
 we have to learn is that the individual soul is not 
 what it seems to be; just as, for our own peace of 
 mind, we have to find out that what seemed to us 
 a serpent, and then frightened us, is not a serpent, 
 but a rope, and need not frighten us any more. 
 
 ZTescieuce or Avidya the Cause of Phenomenal Semblance. 
 
 There are others again, he continues, some of our 
 own friends (possibly the followers of Ramanugra), 
 who hold that the individual soul, as such, is abso- 
 lutely real ; but to this he objects, remarking that the 
 whole of the Vedanta-sutras are intended to show 
 that the one Supreme Being only is the highest and 
 eternal intelligent reality, and that it is only the 
 result of Nescience if we imagine that the many 
 individual souls may claim any independent reality. 
 It comes to this, that according to ^Sankara, the 
 highest Self may for a time be called different from the 
 individual soul, but the individual soul is never sub- 
 stantially anything but the highest Self, except through 
 its own temporary Nescience. This slight concession 
 (i) T
 
 274 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 of a temporary reality of the individual soul seemed 
 necessary to /S'ankara, who, after all, is not only 
 a philosopher, but a theologian also, because the 
 Veda, which in his eyes is infallible, gives all its 
 sacrificial and moral precepts for individual souls, 
 whose existence is thereby taken for established, 
 though no doubt such precepts are chiefly meant for 
 persons who do not yet possess the full knowledge of 
 the Self. 
 
 There are many more points connected with the 
 relation of the individual to the Highest Self, which 
 /S'ankara argues out most minutely, but we need not 
 here dwell on them any longer, as we shall have to 
 return to that subject when treating of the systematic 
 philosophy of /S^aiikara. What distinguishes /S'ankara's 
 view on the union of the individual soul with the 
 Supreme Soul, is the com-plete Henosis or oneness which 
 according to him always exists, but in the individual 
 soul may for a time be darkened by Nescience. There 
 are other modes of union also which he fully dis- 
 cusses, but which in the end he rejects. Thus referring 
 to the teaching of Asmarathya (I. 4, 20), >Sankara 
 argues, ' If the individual soul were different from the 
 Highest Self, the knowledge of the Highest Soul would 
 not imply the knowledge of the individual soul, and 
 thus the promise given in one of the Upanishads, that 
 through the knowledge of the one thing (the Highest 
 Soul) everything is to be known, would not be 
 fulfilled.' He does not admit that the individual soul 
 can be called in any sense the creation of the Highest 
 Soulj though the reason which he gives is again 
 theological rather than philosophical. He says that 
 when the Veda relates the creation of fiie and the
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 275 
 
 other elements, it does never at the same time relate 
 any separate creation of the individual soul. A 
 Vedantist, therefore, has, as /S'aiikara argues, no right 
 to look on the soul as a created thing, as a product of 
 the Highest Self, different from the latter. You see 
 how this question can be argued ad infinitum, and 
 it was argued ad infinitum by various schools of 
 Vedanta philosophers. 
 
 Satyabhedavada and Bhedabhedavada. 
 
 Two names were given to these different views, 
 one the Satyabhedavada, the teaching of real 
 separation or difference between the individual and 
 the Highest Self, the other the Bhedabhedavada, 
 the teaching of both separation and of non-separation. 
 They both admit that the individual soul and the 
 universal soul are essentially one. The difference 
 between them turns on the question whether the 
 individual soul, before it arrives at the knowledge 
 of its true nature, may bo called independent, some- 
 thing by itself, or not. A very popular simile used is 
 that of fire and sparks. As the sparks, it is said^ 
 issuing from a fire are not absolutely different from 
 the fire, because they participate in the nature of 
 fire, and, on the other hand, are not absolutely non- 
 dift'erent, because in that case they would not be 
 distinguishable either from the fire or from each 
 other, so the individual souls also, if considered as 
 effects of Brahman, are neither absolutely difierent 
 from Brahman, for that would mean that they are 
 not of the nature of intelligence (i. e. Brahman), nor 
 absolutely non-different from Brahman, because in 
 
 * See Bhamati on Ved. Sutra I. 4, 21 ; Thibaut, part i. p. 277. 
 
 T2
 
 276 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 that case they would not be distinguished from each 
 other, also because, if they were identical with Brah- 
 man and therefore omniscient, it would be useless to 
 give people any instruction, such as the Upanishads 
 give. You see that Indian philosophers excel in 
 their similes and illustrations, and this idea of the 
 souls being scintillations of God will meet us again 
 and again in other religions also. 
 
 In fact, these thoughts of the Upanishads could not 
 be expressed more correctly in our own language 
 than they were by Henry More, the famous Cambridge 
 theologian, when he says : — 
 
 *A spark or ray of the Divinity 
 
 Clouded in earthy fogs, yclad in clay, 
 A precious di'op, sunk from Eternity, 
 
 Spilt on the ground, or rather slunk away; 
 For then we fell when we 'gan first to assay 
 
 By stealth of our own selves something to been, 
 Uneentring ourselves from our great Stay, 
 Which fondly we new liberty did ween, 
 And from that prank right jolly wights ourselves did deem.' 
 
 Those who defend the other theory, the Satya- 
 bhedavada, argue as follows: The individual soul is 
 for a time absolutely different from the Highest Self. 
 But it is spoken of in the Upanishads as non-different, 
 because after having purified itself by means of 
 knowledge and meditation it may pass out of the 
 body and become once more one with the Highest 
 Self. The text of the Upanishads thus transfers 
 a future state of non-difference to that time when 
 difference still actually exists. Thus the Pa/U^aratrikas 
 say : Up to the moment of emancipation being reached, 
 the soul and the Highest Self are different. But the 
 emancipated or enlightened soul is no longer different
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 277 
 
 from the Highest Self, since there is no further cause 
 of difference. 
 
 The Approaoh of the Soul to Brahman. 
 
 If we keep this idea clearly in view, we may now 
 return to the first legend which we examined, and 
 which was taken from the B7'ihadara'/iyaka-Upani- 
 shad. You may remember that there also we saw 
 philosophical ideas grafted on ancient legends. The 
 journey of the soul on the Path of the Fathers to the 
 moon was evidently an old legend. From the moon, 
 as you may remember, the soul was supposed to 
 return to a new life, after its merits had been ex- 
 hausted. In fact the Path of the Fathers did not lead 
 out of what is called Savjisara, the course of the world, 
 the circle of cosmic existence, the succession of births 
 and deaths. We do not read here, at the end of the 
 chapter, that ' there is no return.' 
 
 The next stop was the belief in a Devayana, the Path 
 of the Gods, which really led to eternal blessedness, 
 without any return to a renewed cosmic existence. 
 We left the soul standing before the throne of Brah- 
 man, and enjoying perfect happiness in that divine 
 presence. Nothing more is said in the old Upanishads. 
 It is generally admitted, however, that even those who 
 at first go on the Path of the Fathers, and return from 
 the moon to enter upon a new cycle of life, may in the 
 end attain higher knowledge and then proceed further 
 on the Path of the Gods till they reach the presence of 
 Brahman. The Upanishad ends with one more para- 
 gi-aph stating that those who know neither of these 
 two roads become worms, birds, and creeping things. 
 This is all which the old Upanishads had to say.
 
 378 LECTURE YIII. 
 
 But after the psychological speculation had led the 
 Indian mind to a new conception of the soul, as 
 something no longei' limited by the trammels of earthly 
 individuality, the very idea of an approach of that 
 soul to the throne on which Brahman sat became 
 unmeaning. 
 
 Iiater Speculations. 
 
 Brahman was no longer an objective Being that 
 could be approached as a king is approached by 
 a subject, and thus we find in another Upanishad, the 
 Kaushitaki, where the same legend is told of the soul 
 advancing on the road of the gods till it reaches the 
 throne of Brahman, quite a new idea coming in, the idea 
 on which the whole of >S'ankara^s Vedantism hinges. The 
 legendary framework is indeed preserved in full detail, 
 but when the soul has once placed one foot on the 
 throne of Brahman, Brahman, you may remember, is 
 represented as saying, ' Who art thou ? ' Then, after 
 some more or less intelligible utterances, comes the 
 bold and startling answer of the soul : ' I am what 
 thou art. Thou art the Self, I am the Self. Thou 
 art the True (satyam), I am the True.' 
 
 And when Brahman asks once more, ' What then is 
 the True, to 6v 1 ' the soul replies : ' What is different 
 from the gods (you see that Brahman is here no 
 longer considered as a mere god), and what is different 
 from the senses (namely the phenomenal world), that 
 is Satj TO 6v, but the gods and the senses are tyam, 
 or it.' 
 
 This is a mere play on words (of which the old 
 philosophers in India as well as in Greece are very 
 fond). Sattyam (for satyam) is a regular derivative.
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 279 
 
 meaning truth, but by dividing it into Sat, rb 6v, and 
 tya, it, the Upanishad wished to show that Brahman 
 is wliat we should call both the absolutely and the 
 relatively Real, the phenomenal as well as the nou- 
 menal universe. And thus the Upanishad concludes: 
 'Therefore by that Jiamc of Sattya is called all this, 
 whatever there is. All tliis thou art.' 
 
 Identity of the Sonl with. Brahman. 
 
 You see in this Upanishad a decided advance 
 beyond the older Upanishads. Brahman is no longer 
 a god, not even the Supreme God ; his place is taken 
 by Brahman, neuter, the essence of all things ; and the 
 soul, knowing that it is no longer separated from that 
 essence, learns the highest lesson of the whole Vedanta 
 doctrine, Tat tvam as i, 'Thou art that,' that is to say, 
 ' Thou, who for a time didst seem to be something by 
 thyself, art that, art really nothing apart from the 
 divine essence.'' To know Brahman is to be Brahman, 
 or, as we should say, ' in knowledge of Him standeth 
 our eternal life.' Therefore even the idea of an 
 approach of the individual towards the universal soul 
 has to be surrendered. As soon as the true knowledge 
 has been gained, the two, as by lightning, are known 
 to be one, and therefore are one ; an approach of the 
 one towards the other is no longer conceivable. The 
 Vedantist, however, does not only assert all this, but 
 he has ever so many arguments in store to prove with 
 scholastic and sometimes sophistic ingenuity that the 
 individual soul could never in reality be anything 
 separate from the Highest Being, and that the dis- 
 tinction between a Higher and a Lower Brahman is 
 temporary only, and dependent on our knowledge
 
 280 LECTURE YITI. 
 
 or ignorance, that the Highest Being or Brahman 
 can be one only, and not two, as it might appear 
 when a distinction is made between the Lower and 
 Higher Brahman. Almost in the same words as 
 the Eleatic^ philosophers and the German Mystics 
 of the fourteenth century, the Vedantist argues 
 that it would be self-contradictory to admit that 
 there could be anything besides the Infinite or 
 Brahman, which is All in All, and that therefore 
 the soul also cannot be anything different from 
 it, can never claim a separate and independent 
 existence. 
 
 Secondly, as Brahman has to be conceived as perfect, 
 and therefore as unchangeable, the soul cannot be 
 conceived as a real modification or deterioration of 
 Brahman. 
 
 Thirdly, as Brahman has neither beginning nor 
 end, neither can it have any parts 2; therefore the 
 soul cannot be a part of Brahman, but the whole of 
 Brahman must be present in every individual soul. 
 This is the same as the teaching of Plotinus, who held 
 with equal consistency that the True Being is totally 
 present in every part of the universe. He is said to 
 have written a whole book on this subject. Dr. Henry 
 More calls this theory the Holenmerian, from the 
 Greek ovcrta 6kev[X€pT]s, an essence that is all in each 
 part. 
 
 So much on what the Upanishads hint and what 
 Vedantist philosophers, such as >S'ankara, try to estab- 
 lish by logical argument as to the true nature of the 
 soul and its relation to the Divine and Absolute 
 
 1 Zeller, p. 472. ^ Zeller, p. 511, fragm. III.
 
 TRUE IMMORTALITY. 281 
 
 Being. From a purely logical point of view, /Sankara's 
 position seems to me impregnable, and when so 
 rigorous a logician as Schopenhauer declai'es his com- 
 plete submission to ^Saiikara's arguments, there is no 
 fear of their being upset by other logicians.
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 THE VEDANTA-PHILOSOPHY. 
 The Vedanta as a Fhilosopliical System. 
 
 THOUGH it is chiefly the relation between the 
 human soul and God which interests us in the 
 teaching of the Upanishads and of the Vedanta-sutras, 
 yet there are some other topics in that ancient philo- 
 sophy which deserve our attention and which may 
 help to throw light on the subject with which we are 
 more specially concerned. I know it is no easy task 
 to make Indian philosophy intelligible or attractive 
 to Enghsh students. It is with Indian philosophy as 
 with Indian music. 
 
 We are so accustomed to our own, that at first 
 Indian music sounds to our ears like mere noise, 
 without rhythm, without melody, without harmony. 
 And yet Indian music is thoroughly scientific, and if 
 we are but patient listeners, it begins to exercise its 
 own fascination upon us. It will be the same with 
 Indian philosophy, if only we make an effort to learn 
 to speak its language and to think its thoughts. 
 
 Identity of Soul and Brahman. 
 
 Let US remember then that the Vedanta-philosophy 
 rests on the fundamental conviction of the Vedantist,
 
 THE VEDANTA-PHILOSOPHY. 283 
 
 that the soul and the Absolute Being or Brahman, are 
 one in their essence. We saw in the old Upanishads 
 how this conviction rose slowly, like the dawn, on the 
 intellectual horizon of India, but how in the end it 
 absorbed every thought, whether philosophical or re- 
 ligious, in its dazzling splendour. When it had once 
 been recognised that the soul and Brahman were in 
 their deepest essence one, the old mythological lan- 
 guage of the Upanishads, representing the soul as 
 travellinr;; on the road of the Fathers, or on the road 
 of the gods towards the throne of Brahman was given 
 up. We read in the Vedanta-philosophy (in the 2Cth 
 paragraph of the third chapter of the third book), that 
 this approach to the throne of Brahman has its proper 
 meaning so long only as Brahman is still considered 
 as personal and endowed with various qualities (sa- 
 gu-jja), but that, when the knowledge of the true, 
 the absolute and unqualified Brahman, the Absolute 
 Being, has once risen in the mind, these mythological 
 concepts have to vanish. How would it be possible, 
 >S'ankara says (p. 593), that he who is free from all 
 attachments, unchangeable and unmoved, should ap- 
 proach another person, should move or go to another 
 place. The highest oneness, if once truly conceived, 
 excludes anything like an approach to a different 
 object, or to a distant placed 
 
 The Sanskrit language has the great advantage that 
 it can express the difference between the qualified and 
 the unqualified Brahman, by a mere change of gender. 
 Brahman (nom. Brahma) being used as a masculine, 
 when it is meant for the qualified, and as a neuter 
 (nom. Brahma), when it is meant for the unqualified 
 1 III. 3, 29.
 
 284) LECTURE IX. 
 
 Brahman, the Absolute Being. This is a great help, 
 and there is nothing corresponding to it in English. 
 
 We must remember also that the fundamental prin- 
 ciple of the Vedanta-philosophy, was not ' Thou art 
 He,' but Thou art That, and that it was not Thou wilt 
 he, but Thou art. This ' Thou art ' expresses some- 
 thing that is, that has been, and always will be, not 
 something that has still to be achieved, or is to follow, 
 for instance, after death (p. 599). 
 
 Thus /S'ankara says, 'If it is said that the soul 
 will go to Brahman, that means that it will in future 
 attain, or rather, that it will be in future what, though 
 unconsciously, it always has been, viz. Brahman. 
 For when we speak of some one going to some one 
 else, it cannot be one and the same who is distin- 
 guished as the subject and as the object. Also, if we 
 speak of worship, that can only be, if the worshipper 
 is different from the worshipped. By true knowledge 
 the individual soul does not become Brahman, but is 
 Brahman, as soon as it knows what it really is, and 
 always has been. Being and knowing are here simul- 
 taneous. 
 
 Here lies the characteristic difference between what 
 is generally called mystic philosophy and the Vedantic 
 theosophy of India. Other mystic philosophers are 
 fond of representing the human soul as burning with 
 love for God, as filled with a desire for union with or 
 absorption in God. We find little of that in the Upa- 
 nishads, and when such ideas occur, they are argued 
 away by the Vedanta-philosophers. They always 
 cling to the conviction that the Divine has never been 
 really absent from the human soul, that it always is 
 there, though covered by darkness or Nescience, and
 
 THE VEDANTA-PHILOSOPHY. 285 
 
 that as soon as that darkness or that Nescience is re- 
 moved, the soul is once more and in its own right 
 what it always has been ; it is, it does not become 
 Brahman. 
 
 Dlalogrne from the ^^^ndogrya-UpanisIiad. 
 
 There is a famous dialogue in the /iTAandogya- 
 Upanishad between a young student >Svetaketu and 
 his father Uddalaka Aru7ii, in which the father tries 
 to convince the son that wnth all his theological 
 learning he knows nothing, and then tries to lead 
 him on to the highest knowledge, the Tat tvam a si, 
 or Thou art that (VI. 1): 
 
 There lived once /Svetaketu Aruneya. And his 
 father said to him : ' >Svetaketu, go to school, for there 
 is none belonging to our race, darling, who, not having 
 studied, is, as it were, a Brahma9ia by birth only.* 
 
 Having begun his apprenticeship (with a teacher) 
 when he was twelve years of age, >Svetaketu returned 
 to his father, when he was twenty-four, having then 
 studied all the Vedas, — conceited, considering himself 
 well read, and very stern. 
 
 His father said to him : ' >S'vetaketu, as you are so 
 conceited, considering yourself so well-read, and so 
 stern, my dear, have you ever asked for that instruc- 
 tion by which wo hear what is not audible, by which 
 we perceive what is not perceptible, by which we 
 know what is unknowable ? ' 
 
 'What is that instruction, Sir?' he asked. 
 
 The father replied: 'My dear, as by one clod of 
 clay all that is made of clay is known, the difference 
 being only a name, arising from speech, but the truth 
 being that all is clay ;
 
 286 LECTURE IX. 
 
 ' And as, my dear, by one nugget of gold all that is 
 made of gold is known, the diiference being only a 
 name, arising from speech, but the truth being that 
 all is gold ; 
 
 'And as, my dear, by one pair of nail-scissors all 
 that is made of iron (karsh^iayasam) is known, the 
 difference being only a name, arising from speech, but 
 the truth being that all is iron, — thus, my dear, is 
 that instruction.' 
 
 The son said: 'Surely those venerable men (my 
 teachers) did not know that. For if they had known 
 it, why should they not have told it me ? Do you, 
 Sir, therefore, tell me that.' 
 
 You see what the father is driving at. What he 
 means is that when you see a number of pots and 
 pans and bottles and vessels of all kinds and of dif- 
 ferent names, they may seem different, and have 
 different names, but in the end they are all but clay, 
 varying in form and name. In the same manner, he 
 wishes to say, that the whole world, all that we see and 
 name, however different it seems in form and in 
 name, is in the end all Brahman. Form and name, 
 called namarupa in the philosophical language of 
 India, that is name and form, — name coming before 
 form, or, as we should say, the idea coming before 
 the eidos, the species, — come and go, they are 
 changing, if not perishing, and there remains only 
 what gives real reality to names and forms, the 
 eternal Brahman. 
 
 The father then continues : 
 
 'In the beginning, my dear, there was that only 
 which is (to ov), one only, without a second. Others 
 say, in the beginning there was that only which is
 
 THE VEDANTA-PIIILOSOPIIY. 287 
 
 not (rd IJ.J] 6i>), one only, without a second ; and from 
 that which is not, that which is was born. 
 
 'But how could it be thus, my dear?' the father 
 continued. 'How could that which is, be born of 
 that which is not ? No, my dear, only that which is, 
 was in the beginning, one only, without a second. 
 
 'It thought, may I be many, may I grow forth. 
 It sent forth fire. 
 
 'That fire thought, may I be many, may I grow 
 forth. It sent forth water. 
 
 ' Water thought, may I be many, may I grow forth. 
 It sent forth earth (food) ^. 
 
 ' Therefore whenever it rains anywhere, most food 
 is then produced. From water alone is eatable food 
 produced.' 
 
 ' As the bees (VI. 9). my son, make honey by col- 
 lecting the juices of ditierent trees, and reduce the juice 
 into one form, 
 
 'And as these juices have no discrimination, so that 
 they might say, I am the juice of this tree or of that tree, 
 in the same manner, my son, all these creatures, when 
 they have become merged in the True (either in deep 
 sleep or in death), know not that they are merged in 
 the True. 
 
 ' Whatever these creatures are here, whether a lion, 
 or a wolf, or a boar, or a worm, or a midge, or a gnat, 
 or a musquito, that they become again and again. 
 
 ' Now that which is that subtile essence, in it all 
 that exists has its self. It is the True. It is the Self, 
 and thou, O >S'vetaketu, art it.' 
 
 ' Please, Sir, inform me still more,' said the son. 
 
 ' Nearly the same succession of fire, air, water, earth is found in 
 Plato, Tiniaous, 56.
 
 288 LECTURE IX. 
 
 ' Be it so, my child,' the father replied (VI. 10). 
 
 'These rivers, niy son, run, the eastern (like the 
 Ganga) toward the east, the western (like the Sindhu) 
 toward the west. They go from sea to sea (i. e. the 
 clouds lift up the water from the sea to the sky, and 
 send it back as rain to the sea). They become indeed 
 sea. And as those rivers, when they are in the sea, 
 do not know, I am this or that river, 
 
 ' In the same manner, my son, all these creatures, 
 when they have come back from the True, know not 
 that they have come back from the True. Whatever 
 these creatures are here, whether a Hon, or a wolf, 
 or a boar, or a worm, or a midge, or a gnat, or a 
 musquito, that they become again and again. 
 
 'That which is that subtile essence, in it all that 
 exists has its self. It is the True. It is the Self, and 
 thou, /Svetaketu, art it.' 
 
 ' Please, Sir, inform me still more,' said the son. 
 
 ' Be it so, my child/ the father replied (VI. 11). 
 
 * If some one were to strike at the root of this large 
 tree here, it would bleed, but live. If he were to 
 strike at its stem, it would bleed, but live. If he 
 were to strike at its top, it would bleed, but live. 
 Pervaded by the living Self that tree stands firm, 
 drinking in its nourishment and rejoicing ; 
 
 ' But if the life (the living Self) leaves one of its 
 branches, that branch withers ; if it leaves a second, 
 that branch withers ; if it leaves a third, that branch 
 withers. If it leaves the whole tree, the whole tree 
 withers. In exactly the same manner, my son, know 
 this.' Thus he spoke : 
 
 'This (body) indeed withers and dies when the 
 living Self has left it ; the living Self never dies.
 
 THE VEDAN'TA-rUILOSOniY. 289 
 
 'That which is that suLtile essence, in it all that 
 exists has its self. It is the True. It is the Self, and 
 thou, O ^'vetaketu, art it.' 
 
 'Please, Sir, inform me still more,' said the son. 
 
 ' Be it so, my child,' the father replied (VI. 13). 
 
 'Place this salt in water, and then wait on me in 
 the morning.' 
 
 The son did as he was commanded. 
 
 The father said to him : ' Bring me the salt, which 
 you placed in the water last night.' 
 
 The son having looked for it, found it not, for, of 
 course, it was melted. 
 
 The father said : ' Taste it from the surface of the 
 water. How is it ? ' 
 
 The son replied : ' It is salt.' 
 
 * Taste it from the middle. How is it? ' 
 The son replied : ' It is salt.' 
 
 ' Taste it from the bottom. How is it ? ' 
 
 The son replied : ' It is salt.' 
 
 The father said : ' Throw it away and then wait 
 on me.' 
 
 He did so ; but salt exists for ever. 
 
 Then the father said : ' Here also, in this body, 
 forsooth, you do not perceive the True (Sat), my son ; 
 but there indeed it is. 
 
 'That which is the subtile essence, in it all that 
 exists has its self. It is the True. It is the Self, and 
 thou, O >Svetaketu, art it.' 
 
 ' Please, Sir, inform me still more,' said the son. 
 
 'Be it so, my child,' the father replied (VI. 15). 
 
 * K a man is ill, his relatives assemble round him 
 and ask: "Dost thou know me? Dost thou know 
 me?" Now as long as his speech is not merged in 
 
 (4) ^
 
 290 LECTURE IX. 
 
 his mind, his mind in breath, his breath in heat (fire), 
 heat in the Highest Godhead (devata), he knows 
 them. 
 
 ' But when . his speech is merged in his mind, his 
 mind in breath, breath in heat (fire), heat in the 
 Highest Godhead, then he knows them not. 
 
 ' That which is the subtile essence, in it all that 
 exists has its self. It is the True. It is the Self, and 
 thou, O ^vetaketu, art it.' 
 
 TTuiou not Absorption. 
 
 In this dialogue as given in the Upanishad we have 
 before us a more popular and not yet systematised 
 view of the Vedanta. There are several passages 
 indeed which seem to speak of the union and absorp- 
 tion of the soul rather than of its recovery of its true 
 nature. Such passages, however, are always ex- 
 plained away by the stricter Vedanta-philosophers, 
 and they have no great difficulty in doing this. For 
 there remains always the explanation that the quali- 
 fied personal Brahman in the masculine gender is 
 meant, and not yet the highest Brahman which is 
 free from all qualities. That modified personal 
 Brahman exists for aU practical purposes, till its 
 unreality has been discovered through the discovery of 
 the Highest Brahman; and as, in one sense, the modi- 
 fied masculine Brahman is the highest Brahman, if 
 only we know it, and shares all its true reality 
 with the Highest Brahman, as soon as we know it, 
 many things may in a less strict sense be predicated 
 of Him, the modified Brahman, which in truth apply 
 to It only, the Highest Brahman. This amphiboly 
 runs through the whole of the Vedanta-sultras, and a
 
 THE VEDAXTA-PHILOSOPHY. 291 
 
 considerable portion of the Sutras is taken up ^Yith 
 the task of showing tliat when the qualified Brahman 
 seems to be meant, it is really the unqualified Brah- 
 man that ought to be understood. Again, tliere are 
 ever so many passages in the Upanishads which isec-m 
 to refer to the individual soul, but which, if properly 
 explained, must be considered as referring to the 
 Highest Atman, that gives support and reality to the 
 individual soul. This at least is the view taken by 
 /S'aiikara, whereas, as I hinted before, from an histori- 
 cal point of view, it would seem as if there had been 
 different stages in the development of the belief in 
 the Highest Brahman and in the highest Atman, and 
 that some passages in the Upanishads belong to 
 earlier phases of Indian thought, when Brahman was 
 still conceived simply as the highest deity, and true 
 blessedness was supposed to consist in the gi-adual 
 approach of the soul to the throne of God. 
 
 Knowledge, not Love of God. 
 
 Anything like a passionate yearning of the soul 
 after God, which forms the key-note of almost all 
 religions, is therefore entirely absent from the Vedanta- 
 stitras. The fact of the unity of soul and God is 
 taken for granted from the beginning, or at all events 
 as sufficiently proved by the revealed utterances of 
 the Upanishads. 
 
 The Tat tvam asi, 'Thou art that,' is accepted by the 
 Vedantists in a dry and matter-of-fact spirit. It 
 forms the foundation of a most elaborate system of 
 philosophy, of which I shall now try to give you an 
 idea, though it can be very general only. 
 
 U 2
 
 292 LECTURE IX. 
 
 Avidya or ITesclence. 
 
 The fundamental principle of the Vedanta-philo- 
 sophy that in reality there exists and there can exist 
 nothing but Brahman, that Brahman is everything, 
 the material as well as the efficient cause of the 
 universe, is of course in contradiction with our 
 ordinary experience. In India, as anywhere else, man 
 imagines at first that he, in his individual, bodily, 
 and spiritual character, is something that exists, and 
 that all the objects of the outer world also exist, as 
 objects. Idealistic philosophy has swept away this 
 world-old prejudice more thoroughly in India than 
 anywhere else. The Vedanta-philosopher, however, 
 is not only confronted with this difficulty which 
 affects every philosophy, but he has to meet another 
 difficulty peculiar to himself. The whole of the Veda 
 is in his eyes infallible, yet that Veda enjoins the 
 worship of many gods, and even in enjoining the 
 worship (upasana) of Brahman, the highest deity, in 
 his active, masculine, and personal character, it recog- 
 nises an objective deity, different from the subject 
 that is to offer worship and sacrifice to him. 
 
 Hence the Vedanta-philosopher has to tolerate many 
 things. He tolerates the worship of an objective 
 Brahman, as a preparation for the knowledge of the 
 subjective and objective, or the absolute Brahman, 
 which is the highest object of his philosophy. He 
 admits one Brahman endowed with quality, but high 
 above the usual gods of the Veda. This Brahman is 
 reached by the pious on the path of the gods ; he can 
 be worshipped, and it is he who rewards the pious 
 for their good works. Still, even he is in that cha- 
 racter the result of nescience (Avidya), of the same
 
 THE VEDANTA-PIIILOSOPIIY. J293 
 
 nescience which prevents the soul of man, the Atman, 
 from distinguishing itself from its incumbrances (the 
 so-called Upadhis), such as the body, the organs of 
 sense and their works. 
 
 This nescience can be removed by science or know- 
 ledge only, and this knowledge or vidya is imparted 
 by the Vedanta, which shows that all our ordinary 
 knowledge is simply the result of ignorance or ne- 
 science, is uncertain, deceitful, and perishable, or as we 
 should say, is phenomenal, relative, and conditioned. 
 The true knowledge, called samyagdar«ana or com- 
 plete insight, cannot be gained by sensuous perception 
 (pratyaksha) nor by inference (anumana), nor can 
 obedience to the law of the Veda produce more than 
 a temporary enlightenment or happiness. According 
 to the orthodox Vedantist, >S'ruti alone, or what is called 
 revelation, can impart that knowledge and remove 
 that nescience which is innate in human nature. 
 
 Of the Higher Brahman nothing can be predicated 
 but that it is, and that through our nescience, it ap- 
 pears to be this or that. 
 
 When a great Indian sage was asked to describe 
 Brahman, he was simply silent — that was his answer. 
 But when it is said that Brahman is, that means at 
 the same time that Brahman is not ; that is to say, 
 that Brahman is nothing of what is supposed to exist 
 in our sensuous perceptions. 
 
 Brahman as sat, as ^'it, and as ananda. 
 
 There are two other qualities, however, which may 
 safely be assigned to Brahman, namely, that it is 
 intelligent, and that it is blissful ; or rather, that it is 
 intelligence and bliss. Intelligent seems the nearest
 
 294 LECTURE IX. 
 
 approach to the Sk. 7i;it and /taitanya. Spiritual 
 would not answer, because it would not express more 
 than that it is not material. But ^it means that it is, 
 that it perceives and knows, though as it can per- 
 ceive itself only, we may say that it is lighted up by 
 its own light or knowledge, or as it is sometimes 
 expressed, that it is pure knowledge and pure light. 
 Perhaps we shall best understand what is meant by 
 Jdt, when we consider what is negatived by it, 
 namely, dulness, deafness,, darkness, and all that is 
 material. In several passages a third quality is hinted 
 at, namely, blissfulness, but this again seems only 
 another name for perfection, and chiefly intended to 
 exclude the idea of any possible suffering in Brahman. 
 It is in the nature of this Brahman to be always 
 subjective, and hence it is said that it cannot be 
 known in the same way as all other objects are 
 known, but only as a knower knows that he knows 
 and that he is. 
 
 Philosophy and Belig'ion. 
 
 Still, whatever is and whatever is known, — two 
 things which in the Vedanta, as in all other idealistic 
 systems of philosophy, are identical, — all is in the end 
 Brahman. Though we do not know it, it is Brahman 
 that is known to us, when conceived as the author 
 or creator of the world, an office, according to Hindu 
 ideas, quite unworthy of the Godhead in its true 
 character. It is the same Brahman that is known to 
 us in our own self-consciousness. Whatever we may 
 seem to be, or imagine ourselves to be for a time, 
 we are in truth the eternal Brahman, the eternal Self. 
 With this conviction in the background, the Vedantist
 
 THE VEDANTA-PIIILOSOPHY. 295 
 
 retains his belief in what he calls the Lord God, the 
 creator and ruler of the world, but only as phe- 
 nomenal, or as adapted to the human understanding. 
 
 The Snpreme Lord or i.wara. 
 
 Men are to believe in a personal God, with the same 
 assurance with which they believe in their own 
 personal self; and can there bo a higher assurance? 
 They are to believe in him as the creator and ruler of 
 the world (saiiisara), and as determining the effects 
 or rewards of good and evil works (karman). He 
 may be worshipped even, but we must always re- 
 member that what is worshipped is only a person, 
 or, as the Brahmans call it, a pratika, an aspect of 
 the true eternal Essence, as conceived by us in our 
 inevitably human and limited knowledge. Thus the 
 strictest observance of religion is insisted on while 
 we are what we are. We are told that there is truth 
 in the ordinary belief in God as the creator or cause 
 of the world, but a relative truth only, relative to the 
 human understanding, just as there is truth in the 
 perception of our senses, and in the belief in our 
 personality, but a relative truth only. This relative 
 truth must be carefully distinguished from falsehood. 
 His belief in the Veda would suffice to prevent the 
 Vedantist from a denial of the gods or from what 
 we should call Atheism, or rather, as I explained. 
 Adevism. 
 
 In deference to the Veda the Vedantist has even to 
 admit, if not exactly a creation, at least a repeated 
 emanation of the world from Brahman and re- 
 absorption of it into Brahman, from kalpa to kalpa, 
 or from age to age.
 
 296 LECTURE IX, 
 
 Upadhis, Siikshmasarira, and Sthnlasarira. 
 
 If we ask, what led to a belief in individual souls, 
 the answer we get is the Upadhis, the surround- 
 ings or incumbrances, that is, the body with the breath 
 or life in it, the organs of sense, and the mind. These 
 together form the subtle body (the sukshmasarira) 
 and this sukshmasarira is supposed to survive, while 
 death can destroy the coarse body only (the sthula- 
 sarira). The individual soul is held by this subtle 
 body, and its fates are determined by acts which are 
 continuing in their consequences, and which persist 
 in their effects for ever, or at least until true know- 
 ledge has arisen, and put an end even to the subtle 
 body and to all phantasms of nescience. 
 
 Creation or Emanation. 
 
 How the emanation of the world from Brahman is 
 conceived in the Vedanta-philosophy is of small 
 interest. It is almost purely mythological, and pre- 
 sents a very low stage of physical science. Brahman 
 is not indeed represented any longer as a maker, or a 
 creator, as an architect or a potter. What we trans- 
 late by creation (s7'2sh^i) means really no more than 
 a letting out, and corresponds closely with the theory 
 of emanation, as held by some of the most eminent 
 Christian philosophers. There are few opinions that 
 have not been condemned by some Council or Pope 
 as heretical ; but I know of no Council that has con- 
 demned as heretical the theory of Emanation instead 
 of Creation or Fabrication. But if belief in emanation 
 instead of creation has been condemned by the Church,
 
 THE VEDANTA-PHILOSOPHY. 297 
 
 then the Church has condemned some of its strongest 
 supporters as heretics. It would be easy to put such 
 men as Dionysius and Scotus Erigena, or even St. 
 Clement, out of court, as claiming the character of 
 orthodox theologians. But what should we say of 
 Thomas Aquinas, the very bulwark of catholic ortho- 
 doxy ? And yet he too declares in so many words 
 (Summa p. 1. 9-19"*) that creatio is emanatio totius 
 entis ah uno. Eckhart and the German Mystics all 
 hold the same opinion, an opinion which, though it 
 may run counter to Genesis, seems in no way incom- 
 patible with the spirit of the New Testament. 
 
 The Upanishads propose ever so many similes by 
 which they wish to render the concept of creation 
 or emanation more intelligible. One of the oldest 
 similes applied to the production of the world from 
 Brahman is that of the spider drawing forth, that is 
 producing, the web of the world from itself. If we 
 were to say, No, the world was created out of Nothing, 
 the Vedantist would say. By all means ; but he would 
 remind us that, if God is All in All, then even the 
 Nothing could not be anything else, anything out- 
 side the Absolute Being, for that Being cannot be 
 conceived as encompassed or limited whether by any- 
 thing or by nothing. 
 
 Another simile which is meant to do away with 
 what there is left of efficient, besides material causality 
 in the simile of the spider, which after all wills 
 the throwino; out and drawing back of the threads 
 of the world, is that of the hair growing from the 
 skull. 
 
 Nor is the theory of what we, as the most recent 
 invention, call Evolution or development, wanting in
 
 298 LECTURE IX. 
 
 the Upanishads. One of the most frequent similes 
 used for this, is the change of milk into curds, the 
 curds being nothing but the milk, only under a dif- 
 ferent form. It was soon found, however, that this 
 simile violated the postulate, that the One Being must 
 not only be One, but that, if perfect in itself, it must 
 be unchangeable. Then a new theory came in, which 
 is the theory adopted by >Sankara. It is distinguished 
 by the name of Vivarta from the Pariwama or 
 Evolution theory which is held by Ramanu^a. Vivarta 
 means turning away. It teaches that the Supreme 
 Being remains always unchanged, and that our be- 
 lieving that anything else can exist beside it, arises 
 from Avidya, that is, Nescience. Most likely this 
 Avidya or ignorance was at first conceived as purely 
 subjective, for it is illustrated by the ignorance of 
 a man who mistakes a rope for a snake. In this case 
 the rope remains all the time what it is ; it is only 
 our own ignorance which frightens us and determines 
 our actions. In the same way Brahman always re- 
 mains the same ; it is our ignorance only which 
 makes us see a phenomenal world and a phenomenal 
 God. Another favourite simile is our mistaking 
 ■ mother-of-pearl for silver. The Vedantist says : We 
 may take it for silver, but it always remains mother- 
 of-pearl. So we may speak of the snake and the 
 rope, or of the silver and the mother-of-pearl, as being 
 one. And yet we do not mean that the rope has 
 actually undergone a change, or has turned into a 
 snake, or that mother-of-pearl has turned into silver. 
 After that, the Vedantists argue, that what the rope 
 is to the snake, the Supreme Being is to the world 
 {Nilakantha Gore, lib. cit.. p. 179). They go on to
 
 THE VEDANTA-PHILOSOPHY. 299 
 
 explain that when they hold that the world is Brah- 
 man, they do not mean that Brahman is actually 
 transformed into the world, for Brahman cannot 
 change and cannot be transformed. They mean that 
 Brahman presents itself as the world, or appears to 
 be the world. The world's reality is not its own, but 
 Brahman's ; yet Brahman is not the material cause 
 of the world, as the spider is of the web, or the milk 
 of the curds, or the sea of the foam, or the clay of 
 the jar which is made by the potter, but only the 
 substratum, the illusory material cause. There would 
 be no snake without the rope, there would be no 
 world without Brahman, and yet the rope does not 
 become a snake, nor does Brahman become the world. 
 With the Vedantist the phenomenal and the nou- 
 menal are essentially the same. The silver, as we 
 perceive and call it, is the same as the mother-of- 
 pearl ; without the mother-of-peai'l, there would be 
 no silver for us. We impart to mother-of-pearl the 
 name and the form of silver, and by the same process 
 by which we thus create silver, the whole world was 
 created by words and forms. A modern Vediintist, 
 Pramadadasa Mitra, employs another simile in order 
 to explain to European scholars the true meaning 
 of the Vedanta. ' A man,' he says, ' is created a Peer, 
 by being called a Peer, and being invested with a 
 Peer's robe. But what he really is, is not a Peer — he 
 is what he always has been, a man — he is, as we 
 should say, a man for all that.' Pramadadfisa Mitra 
 concludes, ' In the same manner as we see that a Peer 
 can be created, the whole world was created, by 
 simply receiving name and form.' If he had known 
 Plato, instead of name and form, he would have
 
 300 LECTURE IX. 
 
 spoken of ideas, as imparting form and name to what 
 was before formless and nameless. 
 
 Far be it from me to say that these similes or the 
 theories which they are meant to adumbrate can be 
 considered as a real solution of the old problem of 
 the creation or of the relation between the absolute 
 and the relative ; but after all we think very much in 
 similes, and these Vedantic similes are at least original, 
 and deserve a place by the side of many others. 
 Besides, the Vedantist is by no means satisfied with 
 these similes. He has elaborated his own plan of 
 creation. He distinguishes a number of stages in the 
 emanation of the world, but to us these stages are 
 of less interest than the old similes. The first stage 
 is called akasa, which may be translated by ether, 
 though it corresponds very nearly to what we mean 
 by space. It is, we are told, all-pervading (vibhu), 
 and often takes its place as the fifth element and 
 therefore as something material. It is from this ether 
 that air emanates (vayu), from air, fire (agni, te^as), 
 from fire, water (apas), from water, earth (przthivi or 
 annam, lit. food). Corresponding to these five ele- 
 ments as objects, there emanate likewise from Brah- 
 man the five senses, the sense of hearing correspond- 
 ing to etlier, the senses of touch and hearing as cor- 
 responding to air, the senses of sight, touch, and 
 hearing as corresponding to fire, the senses of taste, 
 sight, touch, and hearing as corresponding to water^ 
 and lastly, the senses of smelling, tasting, seeing, 
 touching, and hearing as corresponding to earth. 
 
 After this emanation of the elements, and of the 
 senses which correspond to them, has taken place, 
 Brahman is supposed to enter into them. The indi-
 
 THE VEDANTA-rniLOSOPHY. 301 
 
 vidual souls also, which after each return of the 
 world into Brahman, continue to exist in Brahman, 
 are supposed to awake from their deep slumber 
 (mayamayi mahasushupti), and to receive each ac- 
 cording to its former works, a body, either divine, 
 or human, or animal, or vegetable. Their subtle 
 bodies then assume again some of the coarser ele- 
 ments, and the senses become developed and differen- 
 tiated, while the Self or Atman keeps aloof, or 
 remains as a simple ivitness of all the causes and 
 effects which form the new body and its sur- 
 roundings. Each body grows by absorbing portions 
 of the coarser elementary substances, everything 
 grows, decaj'S, and changes, but the grown-up man 
 is nevertheless the same as the young child or the 
 embryo, because the Self, the witness in all its aloof- 
 ness, remains throughout the same. The embryo, 
 or the germ of the embryo, was, as we saw in a former 
 lecture, supposed to have entered into the father in 
 the shape of heavenly food, conveyed by the rain 
 from the sky or the moon. When it has been ab- 
 sorbed by man, it assumes the nature of seed, and 
 while dwelling in the womb of a mother changes its 
 subtle body into a material body. Whenever this 
 material body decays again and dies, the soul with 
 its subtle body leaves it, but though free from the 
 material body, it retains its moral responsibility, and 
 remains liable to the consequences of the acts which 
 it performed while in the coarse material body. These 
 consequences are good or evil ; if good, the soul may 
 be born in a more perfect state, nay, even as a divine 
 being and enjoy divine immortality, may, in fact 
 become a god like Indra and the rest ; but even that
 
 302 LECTURE IX. 
 
 divine immortality will have an end whenever the 
 universal emanation returns to Brahman. 
 
 If we distinguish, as many philosophers have done, 
 between existence (Dasein) and Being (Sein), then all 
 being is Brahman, nothing can be except Brahman, 
 while all that exists is simply an illusory, not a 
 real modification of Brahman, and is caused by name 
 and form (nama-riipa). The whole world is therefore 
 said to be vaA;arambha7ia, beginning with the word, the 
 word being here taken in the sense of idea, or concept 
 or Logos. We must never forget that the world is 
 only what it is conceived to be, or what by name and 
 form it has been made to be, while from the highest 
 point of view all these names and forms vanish, when 
 the Samyagdarsana, the true knowledge, arises, and 
 everything becomes known as Brahman only. We 
 should probably go a step further, and ask, whence 
 the names and forms, and whence all that phantas- 
 magoria of um-eality? The Vedantist has but one 
 answer: it is simply due to Avidya, to nescience; and 
 this nescience too is not real or eternal, it is only for 
 a time, and it vanishes by knowledge. We cannot 
 deny the fact, though we cannot explain the cause. 
 There are again plenty of similes which the Vedantist 
 produces ; but similes do not explain facts. For in- 
 stance, we see names and forms in a dream, and yet 
 they are not real. As soon as we awake, they vanish, 
 and we know they were but dreams. Again, we 
 imagine in the dark that we see a serpent and try 
 to run away, but as soon as there is light, we are no 
 longer frightened, we know that it is a rope only. 
 Or again, there are certain affections of the eye, when 
 the eye sees two moons. We know that there can be
 
 THE VEDANTA-PHILOSOPHY. 303 
 
 only one, as we know that there can be only one 
 Brahman; but till our eyes are really cured, we cannot 
 help seeing two moons. 
 
 Again, it seems that Indian jugglers knew how to 
 make people believe that they saw two or three 
 jugglers, while there was only one. The juggler 
 himself remained one, knew himself to be one only, 
 like Brahman, but to the spectators he appeared as 
 many. 
 
 There is another simile to which I have already 
 alluded. If blue or red colour touches a pure crystal, 
 however much we may be convinced that the crystal 
 is pure and transparent, we cannot separate the blue 
 colour from it till we remove all surrounding objects, 
 like the upadhis or surroundings of the soul. But all 
 these are similes only, and with us there would 
 always remain the question. Whence this nescience ? 
 
 Brahman and Avidya the Cause of the Phenomenal World. 
 
 The Vedantist is satisfied with the conviction that 
 for a time we are, as a matter of fact, nescient, and 
 what he cares for chiefly is to find out, not how that 
 nescience arose, but how it can be removed. After 
 a time that nescience or Avidya came to be considered 
 as a kind of independent power, called Maya, illusion ; 
 she became even a woman. But in the beginning Maya 
 meant nothing but absence of true knowledge, that is, 
 absence of the knowledge of Brahman. 
 
 From the Vedantist point of view, however, there is 
 no real difference between cause and effect. Though 
 he might admit that Brahman is the cause, and the 
 phenomenal world the effect, he would at once qualify 
 that admission by saying that cause and eflfect must
 
 304 LECTURE IX. 
 
 never be considered as different in substance, that 
 Brahman always remains the same, whether looked 
 upon as cause or as effect, just as the substance is the 
 same in milk and curds, though from our nescience 
 we may call the one cause, and the other effect. 
 
 You see that if we once grant to the Vedantist that 
 there exists one Infinite Being only, it follows that there 
 is no room for anything else by the side of it, and that 
 in some way or other the Infinite or Brahman must 
 be everywhere and everything. 
 
 The Essence of Man. 
 
 There is only one thing which seems to assert its 
 independence^ and that is the subjective Self, the Self 
 within us, not the Ego or the person, but what lies 
 behind the Ego and behind the person. Every possible 
 view as to what man really is, that has been put 
 forward by other philosophers, is carefully examined 
 and rejected by the Vedantist. It had been held that 
 what constituted the essence of man was a body 
 endowed with intelligence, or the intellectual organs 
 of sense, or the mind (manas) or mere knowledge, or 
 even absolute emptiness, or again the individual soul 
 reaching beyond the body, active and passive in its 
 various states, or the Self that sufiers and enjoys. 
 But not one of these views is approved of by the 
 Vedantist. It is impossible, he says, to deny the 
 existence of a Self in man, for he who denies it would 
 himself be that Self which he denies. No Self can 
 deny itself. But as there is no room in the world for 
 anything but Brahman, the Infinite Being, it follows 
 that the Self of man can be nothing but that very 
 Brahman in its entirety, not only a portion or a
 
 THE VEDANT.V-PHILOSOrilY. 305 
 
 modification of it, so that whatever applies to Brah- 
 man applies also to the Self in man. As Brahman is 
 altogether knowledge, so is the Self; as Brahman is 
 omnipresent or all-pervading (vibhu), so is the Self. 
 As Brahman is omniscient and omnipotent, so is the 
 Self. As Brahman is neither active nor passive, neither 
 enjoying nor suffering, so is the Self, or rather, so must 
 be the Self, if it is what it is, the only thing that it 
 can be, namely Brahman. If for the present the Self 
 seems to be different, seems to be suffering and en- 
 joying, active and passive, limited in knowledge and 
 power, this can be the result of nescience only, or 
 of a belief in the Upadhis or hindrances of true 
 knowledge. It is owing to these Upadhis that the 
 omnipresent Self in the individual is not omnipresent, 
 but confined to the heart; is not omniscient, is not 
 omnipotent, but ignorant and weak ; is not an in- 
 different witness, but active and passive, a doer and 
 an enjoyer, and fettered or determined by its former 
 works. Sometimes it seems as if the Upadhis were 
 the cause of nescience, but in reality it is nescience 
 that causes the Upadhis ^ These Upadhis or in- 
 cumbrances are, besides the outer world, and the 
 coarse body, the mukhya praTia, the vital spii'it, 
 the Manas, mind, the Indriyas, the senses. These 
 three together form the vehicle of the soul after 
 death, and supply the germ for a new life. The 
 Bukshmasarira, the fine body, in which they dwell, 
 is invisible, yet material, extended, and transparent 
 (p. 50G). I believe it is this fine body, the sukshma- 
 sarira, which the modern Theosophists have changed 
 
 » Ved. Sutras III. 2, 15, upadhinam AavidyapratjixpasthitatvAt. 
 (4) X
 
 306 LECTURE IX. 
 
 into their astral body, taking the theories of the 
 ancient i2^shis for matters of fact. It is called the 
 asraya or abode of the soul, it consists of the finest 
 parts of the elements that form the germ of the body 
 (dehavi^ani bhutasukshma^ii), or, according to some 
 passages, it consists of water (p. 401), or something 
 like water. This fine body never quits the soul, and 
 so long as the world (samsara) lasts, the soul clothed 
 in this fine body assumes new and coarser bodies 
 again and again. Even when it has reached the path 
 of the gods and the throne of Brahman, the soul is 
 still supposed to be clothed in its fine body. This fine 
 body, however, consists not only of the faculties of 
 sensuous perception (indriya^ii), of mind (manas), and 
 of vital breath (mukhyapra'na), but its character is 
 likewise determined by former acts, by k arm an. 
 
 Karman or Apurva. 
 
 In the Piirvamima'?7?sa this continuity between acts 
 and their consequences is called Apurva, literally, that 
 which did not exist before, but was brought about in 
 this life or in a former life. When the work has been 
 done and is past, but its effect has not yet taken place, 
 there remains something which after a time is certain 
 to produce a result, a punishment for evil deeds, a 
 reward for good deeds. This idea of G'aimini is not, 
 however, adopted without modification by BadarayaTia. 
 Another teacher attributes rewards and punishments 
 of former acts to the infiuence of Isvara, the lord, 
 though admitting at the same time that the Lord or 
 the Creator of the world does no more than superintend 
 the universal working of cause and effect. This is 
 explained by the following illustration. We see a
 
 THE VEDANTA-PHILOSOPHY. 307 
 
 plant springing from its seed, growing, flowering, and 
 at last dying. But it does not die altogether. Some- 
 thin 2 is left, the seed, and in order that this seed 
 may live and thrive rain is necessary. What is 
 thus achieved by the rain in the vegetable world, 
 is supposed to be achieved by the Lord in the moral 
 world, in fact in the whole creation. Without God 
 or without the rain, the seed would not grow at all, 
 but that it grows thus or thus is not due to the rain, 
 but to the seed itself. 
 
 And this serves in the Vedanta-philosophy as a 
 kind of solution for the problem of the existence of 
 evil in the world. God is not the author of evil. He 
 did not create the evil, but He simply allowed or 
 enabled the good or evil deeds of former worlds to 
 bear fruit in this world. The Creator therefore does 
 not in His creation act at random, but is guided in 
 His acts by the determining influence of karman or 
 work done. 
 
 Different States of the Sonl. 
 
 W^e have still to consider some rather fanciful 
 theories with regard to the different states of the 
 individual soul. It is said to exist in four states, in 
 a state of wakefulness or awareness, of dream, of deep 
 sleep, and, lastly, of death. In the state of wake- 
 fulness the soul dwelling in the heart pervades the 
 whole body, knowing and acting by means of the 
 mind (manas) and the senses (indriyas). In the state 
 of dreaming, the soul uses the mind only, in w^iich 
 the senses have been absorbed, and, moving through 
 the veins of the body, sees the impressions (vasanas) 
 left by the senses during the state of wakefulness. In 
 
 X 2
 
 308 LECTURE IX. 
 
 the third stage the soul is altogether freed from the 
 mind also, both the mind and the senses are absorbed 
 in the vital spirit, which alone continues active in the 
 body, -while the soul, now free from all upadhis or 
 fetters, returns for a time to Brahman within the 
 heart. On awaking, however, the soul loses its 
 temporary identity with Brahman, and becomes again 
 what it was before, the individual soul. 
 
 In the fourth state, that of death, the senses are 
 absorbed in the mind, the mind in the vital spirit, 
 the vital spirit in the moral vehicle of the soul, and 
 the soul in the fine body (sukshmasarira). When 
 this absorption or union has taken place, the ancient 
 Vedantists believe that the point of the heart becomes 
 luminous so as to illuminate the path on which the 
 soul with its surrounding (upadhis) escapes from the 
 body. The Soul or Self which obtains true knowledge 
 of the Highest Self, regains its identity with the 
 Highest Self, and then enjoys what even in the 
 Upanishads and before the rise of Buddhism is called 
 NirvaTia or eternal peace. 
 
 Eramamxikti. 
 
 It is generally supposed that this idea of Nirvaiia 
 is peculiar to Buddhism, but like many Buddhist 
 ideas, this also can be shown to have its roots in the 
 Vedic world. If this Nii-va7za is obtained step by 
 step, beginning with the Path of the Fathers, or the 
 Path of the Gods, then leading to a blissful life in the 
 world of Brahman and then to the true knowledge of 
 the identity of Atman, the soul, with Brahman, it is 
 called Kramamukti, i.e. gradual liberation.
 
 THE VEDANTA-PHILOSOPHY. 309 
 
 Civanmnktl. 
 
 But the same knowledge may be obtained in this 
 life also, in the twinkling of an eye, without waiting 
 for death, or for resurrection and ascension to the world 
 of the fathers, the gods, and the god Brahman ; and 
 this state of knowledge and liberation, if obtained 
 by a man while still in the body, is called by later 
 philosophers Givanmukti, life-liberation. 
 
 It may take place in this life, without the help 
 of death, and without what is called the Utkranti 
 or the Exodus of the soul. 
 
 The explanation given of this state of perfect 
 spiritual freedom, while the soul is still in the body, 
 is illustrated by the simile of a potter's wheel, which 
 goes on moving for a time, even though the impetus 
 that set it going has ceased. The soul is free, but the 
 works of a former existence, if they have once begun 
 to bear fruit, must go on bearing fruit till they are 
 quite exhausted, while other works which have not 
 yet begun to bear fruit may be entii-ely burnt up by 
 knowledge. 
 
 If we ask whether this Nirvaiia of the Brahman 
 means absorption or annihilation, the Vedantist, 
 different from the Buddhist, would not admit either. 
 The soul is not absorbed in Brahman, because it has 
 never left Brahman ; there can be nothing different 
 from Brahman ; nor can it be annihilated, because 
 Brahman cannot be annihilated, and the soul has 
 always been nothing but Brahman in all its fulness ; 
 the new knowledge adds nothing to what the soul 
 always was, nor does it take away anything escept
 
 310 LECTURE IX. 
 
 that nescience which for a time darkened the self- 
 knowledge of the soul. 
 
 These living freed souls enjoy perfect happiness 
 and ease, though still imprisoned in the body. They 
 have obtained true Nirvaoia, that is, freedom from 
 passion and immunity from being born again. Thus 
 the BWhadaraTiyaka-Upanishad IV. 4, 6 says : ' He 
 who is without desii-e, free from desire, whose desires 
 have been fulfilled, whose desire is the self, his vital 
 spirits do not emigrate ; being Brahman, he becomes 
 Brahman.' 
 
 We should ask at once, Does then the soul, after it 
 has obtained the knowledge of its true essence, retain 
 its personality? 
 
 Personality of tlie Soul. 
 
 But such a question is impossible for the true 
 Vedantist. For terrestrial personality is to him a fetter 
 and a hindrance, and freedom from that fetter is the 
 highest object of his philosophy, is the highest bliss 
 to which the Vedantist aspires. That freedom and 
 that highest bliss are simply the result of true know- 
 ledge, of a kind of divine self-recollection. Everything 
 else remains as it is. It is true the Vedantist speaks 
 of the individual soul as poured into the Universal 
 Soul like pure water poured into pure water. The 
 two can no longer be distinguished by name and 
 form ; yet the Vedantist lays great stress on the fact 
 that the pure water is not lost in the pure water, as 
 little as the Atman is lost in Brahman. As Brah- 
 man^ is pure knowledge and consciousness, so is 
 the Atman, when freed, pure knowledge and con- 
 
 • Nitya-upalabdhisvarupa. Deussen, p. 346.
 
 THE VEDANTA-PHII.OSOPHY. 311 
 
 sciousness, while in the body it is limited knowledge 
 and limited consciousness, limited personality only. 
 Anything like separateness from Brahman is impossi- 
 ble, for Brahman is all in all. 
 
 Whatever we may think of this philosophy, we 
 cannot deny its metaphysical boldness and its logical 
 consistency. If Brahman is all in all, the One without 
 a second, nothing can be said to exist that is not 
 Brahman. There is no room for anything outside 
 the Infinite and the Universal, nor is there room for 
 two Infinites, for the Infinite in nature and the 
 Infinite in man. There is and there can be one 
 Infinite, one Brahman only ; this is the beginning and 
 end of the Vedanta, and I doubt whether Natural 
 Kehgion can reach or has ever reached a higher point 
 than that reached by ^S'ankara, as an interpreter of 
 the Upanishads.
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 THE TWO SCHOOLS OF THE VEDANTA.. 
 Equivocal Fassagpes in tlie Vpanishads. 
 
 IN laying before you a short outline of the Vedanta- 
 philosophy, I had several times to call your 
 attention to what I called the equivocality which is per- 
 ceptible in the Upanishads, and likewise in the Vedanta- 
 sutras. In one sense everything that exists may be 
 considered as Brahman, only veiled by nescience, while 
 in another sense nothing that exists is Brahman in 
 its true and real character. This equivocality apphes 
 with particular force to the individual soul and to the 
 Creator, The individual soul would be nothing if it 
 were not Brahman, yet nothing of what is predicated 
 of the individual soul can be predicated of Brahman. 
 A great portion of the Vedanta-sutras is occupied with 
 what may be called philosophical exegesis, that is, 
 w^ith an attempt to determine whether certain passages 
 in the Upanishads refer to the individual soul or to 
 Brahman. Considering that the individual soul has been 
 and will be, in fact always is. Brahman, if only it knew 
 it, it is generally possible to argue that what is said of 
 the individual soul, is in the end said of Brahman. 
 The same applies to the personal God, the Creator, or 
 as he is commonly called, Isvara, the Lord. He, too, is
 
 THE TWO SCHOOLS OF THE VEDANTA. 313 
 
 in reality Brahman, so that here again many things 
 predicated of him may in the end be referred to 
 Brahman, the Supreme Being, in its non-phenomenal 
 character. 
 
 This amphiboly of thought and expression has found 
 its final expression in the two schools which for many 
 centuries have claimed to be the true representatives 
 of the Vedanta, that of ^ankara and that of Rama- 
 nuga,. I have generally followed the guidance of 
 >S'ankara, as he seems to me to carry the Vedanta 
 doctrine to the highest point, but I feel bound to say 
 that Professor Thibaut has proved that Ramanu^a 
 is on many points the more faithful interpreter 
 of the Vedanta-siitras. >S'ankara is the more philo- 
 sophical head, while Ramanu(/a has become the suc- 
 cessful founder of one of the most popular religious 
 sects, chiefly, it seems, because he did not carry the 
 Vedanta to its last consequences, and because he man- 
 aged to reconcile his more metaphysical speculations 
 with the religious worship of certain popular deities, 
 which he was ready to accept as symbolical represen- 
 tations of the Universal Godhead. Nor was Rama- 
 nu^a a mere dissentient from >S'ankara. He claimed 
 for his interpretation of the Vedanta the authority of 
 philosophers more ancient even than >S'ankara, and, of 
 course, the authority of the Vedanta-sutras them- 
 selves, if only rightly understood. Ramanu^/a's fol- 
 lowers do not possess now, so far as I know, manu- 
 scripts of any of these more ancient commentaries, but 
 there is no reason to doubt that Bodhayana and other 
 philosophers to whom Ramanu^a appeals, were real 
 characters and in their time influential teachers of the 
 Vedanta.
 
 314 LECTURE X. 
 
 /^aiikara and Ramauu'/a. 
 
 Ramanur/a and >5ankara agree, of course, on many 
 points, yet the points on which they differ possess a 
 peculiar interest. They are not mere matters of 
 interpretation with regard to the Sutras or the Upani- 
 shads, but involve important principles. Both are 
 strictly monistic philosophers, or, at all events, try 
 hard to be so. They both hold that there exists and 
 that there can exist but one Absolute Being, which 
 supports all, comprehends all, and must help to explain 
 all. They differ, however, as to the way in which the 
 phenomenal universe is to be explained. >Sankara is 
 the more consistent monist. According to him. Brah- 
 man or Paramatman, the Highest Self, is always one 
 and the same, it cannot change, and therefore all the 
 diversity of the phenomenal world is phenomenal 
 only, or, as it may also be called, illusory, the result 
 of avidya or of unavoidable nescience. They both 
 hold that whatever is real in this unreal world is 
 Brahman. Without Brahman even this unreal world 
 would be impossible, or, as we should say, there could 
 be nothing phenomenal, unless there was something 
 noumenal. But as there can be no change or variance 
 in the Supreme Being, the varying phenomena of the 
 outer world, as well as the individual souls that are 
 born into the world, are not to be considered either 
 as portions or as modifications of Brahman. They are 
 things that could not be without Brahman ; their 
 deepest self lies in Brahman ; but what they appear 
 to be is, according to /Sankara, the result of nescience, 
 of erroneous perception and equally erroneous concep- 
 tion. Here Ramanur/a differs. He admits that all 
 that really exists is Brahman, and that there is and
 
 THE TWO SCHOOLS OF THE VEDANTA. 315 
 
 can be nothing besides Brahman, but he does nut 
 ascribe the elements of plurality in the phenomenal 
 world, including individual souls, to nescience, but to 
 Brahman itself. 
 
 Bamann^a. 
 
 Brahman becomes in fact, in the mind of Ramanuj;a, 
 not only the cause, but the real source of all that exists, 
 and according to him the variety of the phenomenal 
 world is a manifestation of what lies hidden in Brah- 
 man. All that thinks and all that does not think, the 
 />;it and the a/cit, are real modes (prakara) of Brahman. 
 He is the antaryamin,theinwardrulerof the material 
 and the immaterial world. All individual souls are 
 real manifestations of the unseen Brahman, and will 
 preserve their individual character through all time 
 and eternity. Ramanuc/a admits the great renovations 
 of the world. At the end of each kalpa, all that exists 
 is wrapt up for a time (during the pralaya) in Brah- 
 man, to appear again as soon as Brahman wills a new 
 world (kalpa). The individual souls will then be once 
 more embodied, and receive bodies according to their 
 good or evil deeds in a former life. Their final reward 
 is an approach to Brahman, as described in the old 
 Upanishads, and a life in a celestial paradise free from 
 all danger of a return to a new birth. There is no- 
 thing higher than that, according to Ramanugra, 
 
 S'ankara. 
 
 /Sankara's Brahman on the contrary is entirely free 
 from differences, and does not contain in itself the 
 seeds of the phenomenal world. It is without quali- 
 ties. Not even thought can be predicated of Brah-
 
 316 LECTURE X. 
 
 man, though intelligence constitutes its essence. All 
 that seems manifold and endowed with qualities is 
 the result of Avidya or Nescience, a power which can- 
 not be called either real or unreal ; a power that is 
 altogether inconceivable, but the workings of which 
 are seen in the phenomenal world. What is called 
 Isvara or the Lord by Ramanuf/a is, according to 
 iSankara, Brahman^ as represented by Avidya or Maya, 
 a personal creator and ruler of the world. This which 
 with Ramanu^fa is the Supreme Being, is in the eyes of 
 iS'ankara the Lower Brahman only, the quahfied or 
 phenomenal Brahman. This distinction between the 
 Param and the Aparam Brahman, the Higher and the 
 Lower Brahman, does not exist for Ramanu^ra, while 
 it forms the essential feature of /S'ankara's Vedantism. 
 According to >S'ankaraj individual souls with their ex- 
 perience of an objective world, and that objective 
 world itself, are all false and the resulfof Avidy^ ; they 
 possess what is called a vyavaharika or practical 
 reality, but the individual souls (</iva) as soon as they 
 become enlightened, cease to identify themselves with 
 their bodies,, their senses, and their intellect, and per- 
 ceive and enjoy their pure original Brahmahood. They 
 then, after having paid their debt for former deeds and 
 misdeeds, after having enjoyed their rewards in the 
 presence of the qualified Brahman and in a celestial 
 paradise, reach final rest in Brahman. Or they may 
 even in this life enter at once into their rest in Brah- 
 man, if only they have learnt from the Vedanta that 
 their true Self is the same and has always been 
 the same as the Highest Self, and the Highest 
 Brahman. 
 
 "What has often been quoted as the shortest sum-
 
 THE TWO SCHOOLS OP THE VEDANTA. 317 
 
 mary of the Vedanta in a couple of lines, represents 
 
 the Vedanta of >Sankara, not of Ramanur/a. 
 
 * In half a couplet I will declare what has been declared in mil- 
 lions of volumes, 
 Brahma is true, the world is false, the soul is Brahma and is 
 nothing else.' 
 
 Slokilrdhena pravakshyami yad uktam granthako^ibhiA 
 Brahma satyam gagan mithya, firivo brahmaiva ndparam*. 
 
 This is really a very perfect summary. It means : 
 What truly and really exists is Brahman, the One 
 Absolute Being ; the world is false, or rather is not 
 what it seems to be ; that is, everything that is pre- 
 sented to us by the senses is phenomenal and relative, 
 and can be nothing else. The soul again, or rather 
 every man's soul, though it may seem to be this or 
 that, is in reality nothing but Brahman. 
 
 This is the quintessence of tlie Vedanta ; the only 
 thing wanting in it is an account as to how the 
 phenomenal and the individual comes to be at all, 
 and in what relation it stands to what is absolutely 
 real, to Brahman. 
 
 It is on this point /Sankara and Ramanu^a differ, 
 Ramanu/ya holding the theory of evolution, the 
 Pari72ama-vada, /S'ankara the theory of illusion, the 
 Vivarta-vada. 
 
 Intimately connected with this difference between 
 the two great Vedantist teachers, is another difference 
 as to the nature of God, as the Creator of the world. 
 Ramanu(/a knows but one Brahman, and this, accord- 
 ing to him, is the Lord, who creates and rules the 
 world. iSankara admits two Brahmans, the low^er and 
 the higher, though in their essence they are but one. 
 
 ' A Rational Refuialion of the Hindu Philosophical Systons, by Nche- 
 miah NilakanWia Gore, translated by Fitz-Edward Hall. Calcutta, 
 1862.
 
 318 LECTURE X. 
 
 Great as these differences on certain points of the 
 Vedanta-philosophy may seem between >S'ankara and 
 Ramanu^a, they vanish if we enter more deeply into 
 this ancient problem. Or rather we can see that the 
 two meant much the same, though they expressed 
 themselves in different ways. Though /S'ankara looks 
 upon the individual soul and the personal God or 
 Isvara as, like everything else, the result of Avid}^, 
 nescience, or Maya, illusion, we must remember that 
 what he calls unreal is no more than what we should 
 call phenomenal. His vyavaharika, or practical world, 
 is no more unreal than our phenomenal world, though 
 we distinguish it from the noumenal, or the Ding an 
 sich. It is as real as anything presented to us by our 
 senses ever can be. Nor is the vyavaharika or pheno- 
 menal God more unreal than the God whom we igno- 
 rantly worship. Avidya or nescience with ^Sankara 
 produces really the same effect as pari-nama or evolu- 
 tion with Ramanu</a. With him there always remains 
 the unanswered question why Brahman, the perfect 
 Being, the only Being that can claim reality, should 
 ever have been subjected to pari^iama or change, why, 
 as Plato asks in the Sophist and the Parmenides, the one 
 should ever have become many ; while >Sankara is more 
 honest in confessing, though indirectly, our ignorance 
 in ascribing all that we cannot undei'stand in the 
 phenomenal world to that principle of Nescience which 
 is inherent in our nature, nay without which we should 
 not be what we are. To know this Avidya consti- 
 tutes the highest wisdom which we can reach in this 
 life, whether we follow the teaching of ^Sankara or 
 Ramanu^a, of Sokrates or St. Paul. The old problem 
 remains the same wdiether we say that the unchange-
 
 THE TWO SCHOOLS OP THE VEDANTA. 319 
 
 able Brahman is changed, thougrh we are ignorant 
 how, or whether we say that it is due to ignorance 
 that the unchangeable Brahman seems to be changed. 
 We have to choose between accepting Avidya as a fact 
 not to be accounted for, or accepting change in the 
 perfect Being as a fact not to be accounted for. This, 
 however, would carry us into fields of philosophy 
 which have never been cultivated by Indian thinkers, 
 and where they would decline to follow us. 
 
 But whatever we may think of their Vedantic specu- 
 lations, we cannot but admire the fearless consistency 
 with which these ancient philosophers, and more par- 
 ticularly /S'ankara^ argue from their premisses. If 
 Brahman is all in all, they say — if Brahman is the only 
 real Being — then the world also must be Brahman, 
 the only question being, how? iS'ahkara is quite con- 
 sistent when he says that without Brahman the world 
 would be impossible, just as we should say that with- 
 out the absolutely real the relatively real would be 
 impossible. And it is very important to observe 
 that the Vedantist does not go so far as certain Bud- 
 dhist philosophers who look upon the phenomenal 
 world as simply nothing. No, their world is real, 
 only it is not what it seems to be. . >S'ankara claims 
 for the phenomenal world a reality sufficient for all 
 practical purposes (vyavaharika), sufficient to deter- 
 mine our practical life, our moral obligations, nay even 
 our belief in a manifested or revealed God. 
 
 There is a veil, but the Vedanta-philosophy teaches 
 us that the eternal light behind it can always be per- 
 ceived more or less darkly, or more or less clearly, 
 through philosophical knowledge. It can be per- 
 ceived, because in reality it is always there. It has
 
 320 LECTURE X. 
 
 been said that the personal or manifested God of the 
 Vedantists, whether they call Him Isvara, Lord, or 
 any other name, possesses no absolute, but a relative 
 reality only — that he is, in fact, the result of Avidya 
 or Nescience. This is true. But this so-called relative 
 reality is again sufficient for all practical and religious 
 purposes. It is as real as anything, when known by us, 
 can be real. It is as real as anything that is called real 
 in ordinary language. The few only who have grasped 
 the reality of the One Absolute Being, have any right to 
 say that it is not absolutely real. The Vedantist is very 
 careful to distinguish between two kinds of reality. 
 There is absolute reality which belongs to Brahman 
 only ; there is phenomenal reality which belongs to 
 God or Isvara as Creator and to all which he ci'eated 
 as known to us ; and there is besides, what he 
 would call utter emptiness or sunyatva, which with 
 the Buddhists represents the essence of the world, but 
 which the Vedantist classes with the mirage of the 
 desert, the horns of a hare, or the son of a barren 
 woman. Whenever he is asked whether he looks 
 upon the Creator and his works as not absolutely 
 real, he always falls back on this that the Creator and 
 the creation are the Absolute itseK, only seeming to 
 be conditioned. The phenomenal attaches to their 
 appearance only, which translated into our language 
 would mean that we can know God only as He is 
 revealed in His works or as He appears to our human 
 understanding, but never in His absolute reality. 
 Only while with us the absence of knowledge is 
 subjective, with the Hindu it has become an objec- 
 tive power. He would say to the modern Agnostic : 
 We quite agree with you as far as facts are concerned,
 
 THE TWO SCHOOLS OF THE VEDANTA. 321 
 
 but while you are satisfied with the mere statement 
 that we, as human beings, are nescient, we in India 
 have asked the further question, whence that Nescience, 
 or what has made us nescient, or what is the cause, 
 for a cause there must be, that we cannot know the 
 Absolute, such as it is. By calling that cause Avidya 
 or Maya, the Agnostics might say that the Vedantists 
 do not gain much ; still they gain this, that this uni- 
 versal Agnosis is recognised as a cause, and as dis- 
 tinct both from the subject, as knowing, and from the 
 objects, as known. We should probably say that the 
 cause of Agnosis or of our limited and conditional 
 knowledge lies in the subject, or in the very nature of 
 what we mean by knowledge, and it was from this very 
 point of view that Kant determined the limits and con- 
 ditions of knowledge as peculiar to the human mind. 
 
 Though by a diiferent way, the Vedantist arrived 
 really in the end at the same result as Kant and more 
 recent philosophers who hold with Kant that ' our 
 experience supplies us only with modes of the Uncon- 
 ditioned as presented under the conditions of our con- 
 sciousness.' It is these conditions or limitations of 
 human consciousness which were expressed in India 
 by Avidya. Sometimes this Avidya is represented as 
 a power within the Divine (devatma-sakti, Vedanta- 
 sara, p. 4); sometimes, by a kind of mythological 
 metamorphosis, the Avidya or ]\Iaya has become per- 
 sonified, a power, as it were, independent of ourselves, 
 yet determining us in every act of sensuous intuition 
 and rational conception. When the Vedantist says 
 that the relative reality of the world is vyavahaiika, 
 that is practical or sufficient for all practical purposes, 
 we should probably say that ' though reality under the 
 (4) Y
 
 322 LECTURE X. 
 
 forms of our consciousness is but a conditioned effect of 
 the absolute reality, yet this conditioned effect stands 
 in indissoluble relation with its unconditioned cause, 
 and being equally persistent with it, so long as the 
 conditions persist, is to consciousness supplying these 
 conditions, equally real.' 
 
 It may seem strange to find the results of the philo- 
 sophy of Kant and his followers thus anticipated under 
 varying expressions in the Upanishads and in the 
 Vedanta-philosophy of ancient India. The treatment 
 of these world-old problems differs no doubt in the 
 hands of modern and ancient thinkers, but the start- 
 ing-points are really the same, and the final results are 
 much the same. In these comparisons we cannot 
 expect the advantages which a really genealogical 
 treatment of religious and philosophical problems 
 yields us. We cannot go back by a continuous road 
 from Kant to /S'ankara, as if going back from pupil to 
 teacher, or even from antagonists to the authorities 
 which they criticise or attack. But when that treat- 
 ment is impossible, what I call the analogical treat- 
 ment is often very useful. As it is useful to compare 
 the popular legends and superstitious customs of 
 people who lived in Europe and Australia^ and between 
 whom no genealogical relationship is conceivable, it 
 is instructive also to watch the philosophical problems, 
 as they have been treated independently in different 
 times and in localities between which no intellectual 
 contact can possibly be suspected. At first no doubt 
 the language and the method of the Upanishads seem 
 so strange that any comparison with the philosophical 
 language and method of our hemisphere seems out 
 of the question. It sounds strange to us when the
 
 THE TWO SCHOOLS OF THE VEDANTA. 353 
 
 Upanishads speak of the soul emerging from the veins, 
 ascending to the moon, and after a long and danger- 
 ous journey approaching at last the throne of God ; it 
 sounds stranger still when the soul is made to say to 
 a personal God, ' I am Avhat Thou art, Thou ai-t the 
 Self, I am the Self, Thou art the True, I am the True.' 
 Yet it is only the old Eleatic argument carried out 
 consistently, that if there is but one Infinite or one 
 God, the soul also can in its true essence be nothing 
 but God. Rehgions -which are founded on a belief in 
 a transcendent yet personal God, naturally shrink 
 from this conclusion as irreverent and as almost im- 
 pious. Yet this is theii- own fault. They have first 
 created an unapproachable Deity, and they are 
 afterwards afraid to approach it ; they have made an 
 abyss between the human and the divine, and they 
 dare not cross it. This was not so in the early cen- 
 turies of Christianity. Remembering the words of 
 Christ, 'Eycb h owot?, koI av h> efj.oi, Xva auaiv rereAetoj/xeVot 
 ets ev, ' I in them and thou in me, that they be made 
 perfect in one,' Athanasius declared, De Incarn. Verhl 
 Dei, 54, AvTos (6 tov Oeov \6yos) i-m]i'Op(LTTi]crev 'Cva j^/xeis 
 d€OTroLr]9u>iJ.ev, ' He, the Logos or Word of God, became 
 man that we might become God.' In more recent 
 times also similar ideas have found expression in 
 sacred poetry, though more or less veiled in meta- 
 phorical language. Not more than 200 years ago 
 there was that noble school of Christian Platonists 
 who rendered Cambridge famous in all Christendom. 
 They thought the same thoughts and used almost the 
 same language as the authors of the Upanishads 2000 
 years ago, and as the Indian Vedanta- philosophers 
 about 1000 years ago, nay as some solitary thinkers 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 LECTURE X. 
 
 to be found at Benares to the present day. The 
 following lines of Henry More might have been 
 ■written by a Vedanta-philosopher in India : 
 
 ' Hence the soul's nature we may plainly see : 
 A beam it is of the Intellectual Sun. 
 A ray indeed of that Aeternity, 
 But such a ray as when it first out shone 
 From a free light its shining date begun.' 
 
 And again : 
 
 ' But yet, my Muse, still take an higher flight, 
 Sing of Platonick Faith in the first Good, 
 That faith that doth our souls to God unite 
 So strongly, tightly, that the rapid flood 
 Of this swift flux of things, nor with foul mud 
 Can stain, nor strike us off from th' unity 
 Wherein we steadfast stand, unshaked, unmoved, 
 Engrafted by a deep vitality. 
 The prop and stay of things in God's benignity.' 
 
 The Vedanta-philosophy, as we saw, is very rich in 
 similes and metaphors, but no philosophy has at the 
 same time so courageously removed all metaphorical 
 veils, when the whole truth had to be revealed, as the 
 Vedanta, particularly in the mouth of iS^ankara. And 
 what is peculiar to the Vedanta is that, with all its 
 boldness in speaking unmetaphorical language, it has 
 never ceased to be a religion. 
 
 The Vedanta sanctioned a belief in Brahman as a 
 masculine, as an objective deity, or as an Isvara, the 
 Lord, the creator and ruler of the world. It went 
 even further and encouraged a worship of the Highest 
 Brahman under certain pratikas, that is, under cer- 
 tain names or forms or persons, nay even under the 
 names of popular deities. It prescribed certain means 
 of grace, and thereby introduced a system of moral 
 discipline, the absence of which in purely metaphysical 
 systems, is often urged as their most dangerous
 
 THE TWO SCHOOLS OF THE VED\NTA. 325 
 
 characteristic. The Vedantist would say that the 
 truly enlightened and released soul, after finding its 
 true home in Brahman, could not possibly commit sin 
 or even claim merit for its good deeds. We read 
 (Brih.. Ar. IV. 4, X'S), ' He who has found the trace or 
 the footstep (of Brahman) is not sullied by any evil 
 deed.' And again : ' He that knows it, after having 
 become quiet, satisfied, patient, and collected, sees 
 self in Self, sees all as Self. Evil does not burn him, 
 he burns all evil. Free from evil, free from spots, free 
 from doubt, he becomes a true Brahma^ia, his self is 
 at rest in the Highest Self.' 
 
 Moral Character of the Vedanta. 
 
 To guard against the dangers of self-deceit, the 
 Vedantists prescribe a very strict moral discipline as 
 the essential condition of the obtainment of the 
 highest knowledge. In the Upanishads (B?v'h. Ar. IV. 
 4, '22) we read : ' Brahmans seek to know Him by the 
 study of the Veda, by sacrifice, by gifts, by penance, 
 by fasting, and he who knows Him becomes a sage. 
 Wishing for that world (of Brahman) only, they leave 
 their homes as mendicants. The people of old, know- 
 ing this, did not wish for offspring. What shall we 
 do with offspring, they said, we who have this Self 
 and are no longer of this world ? And having risen 
 above the desire for sons, wealth, and new worlds, 
 they wander about as mendicants.' 
 
 Here you find again in the Upanishad all the germs 
 of Buddhism. The recognised name of mendicant, 
 Bhikshu, is the name afterwards adopted by the 
 followers of Buddha. 
 
 The danger that liberty of the spirit might de-
 
 326 LECTURE X. 
 
 generate into licence, existed no doubt in India as 
 elsewhere. But nowhere were greater precautions 
 taken against it than in India. First of all there was 
 the probation, through which every youth had to pass 
 for years in the house of his spiritual teacher. Then 
 followed the life of the married man or householder, 
 strictly regulated by priestly control. And then only 
 when old age approached, began the time of spiritual 
 freedom, the life in the forest, which brought release 
 from ceremonial and religious restriction, but at the 
 same time, strict discipline, nay more than discipline, 
 penance of every kind, torture of the body, and strictly 
 regulated meditation. 
 
 Six requirements were considered essential before a 
 Brahman could hope to attain true knowledge, viz. 
 tranquillity (sama), taming of the passions (dama), 
 resignation (uparati), patience (titiksha), collection 
 (samadhi), and faith (sraddha). All these preparatory 
 stages are minutely described, and their object is 
 throughout to draw the thoughts away from things 
 external, and to produce a desire for spiritual freedom 
 (mumukshatva), and to open the eyes of the soul to 
 its true nature. It must be clearly understood that 
 all these means of grace, whether external, such as 
 sacrifice, study, penance, or internal, such as patience, 
 collection, and faith, cannot by themselves produce 
 true knowledge, but that they serve to prepare the 
 mind to receive that knowledge. 
 
 Ascetic Practices. 
 
 It is well known that in India the perfect absorp- 
 tion of thought into the supreme spirit is accompanied, 
 or rather preceded, by a number of more or less pain-
 
 THE TWO SCHOOLS OF THE VEDANTA. 327 
 
 ful practices, which are fully described in their ancient 
 catechisms (in the Yoga-sutras, &c.), and which con- 
 tinue to be practised to the present day in India. I 
 believe that from a pathological point of view there is 
 nothing mysterious in any of the strange effects pro- 
 duced by restraining or regulating the breathing, 
 fixing the eyes on certain points, sitting in peculiar 
 positions, and abstaining from food. But these things, 
 which have of late attracted so much attention, are of 
 small interest to the philosopher, and are apt to lead 
 to much self-deceit, if not to intentional deception. 
 The Hindus themselves are quite familiar with the 
 extraordinary performances of some of their Yogins 
 or so-called Mahatmas, and it is quite right that 
 medical men should carefully study this subject in 
 India, to find out what is true and what is not. To 
 represent these performances as essential parts of 
 ancient Hindu philosophy, as has lately been done by 
 the admirers of Tibetan Mahatmas, is a great mistake. 
 
 Esoteric Docti'iues. 
 
 It is likewise a mistake to suppose that the ancient 
 Hindus looked upon the Upanishads or the Vedanta- 
 sutras as something secret or esoteric. Esoteric 
 mysteries seem to me much more of a modern inven- 
 tion than an ancient institution. The more we be- 
 come familar with the ancient literature of the East, 
 the less we find of Oriental mysteries, of esoteric 
 wisdom, of Isis veiled or unveiled. The profanum 
 vulgus, or the outsiders, if there were any, consisted 
 chiefly of those who wished to stay outside, or who 
 excluded themselves by deficiencies either of know- 
 ledge or of character. In Greece also no one was
 
 328 LECTURE X. 
 
 admitted to the schools of the Pythagoreans without 
 undergoing some kind of preparation. But to require 
 a qualifying examination is very different from ex- 
 clusiveness or concealment. The Pythagoreans had 
 different classes of students ; naturally, as we have 
 Bachelors and Masters of Arts ; and if some of these 
 were called kaonTepiKoi and others e^wrepi/cot, that 
 meant no more at first than that the latter were still 
 on the outskirts of philosophical studies, while the 
 former had been admitted to the more advanced 
 classes. The Pythagoreans had even a distinctive 
 dress, they observed a restricted diet, and are said to 
 have abstained from flesh, except at sacrifices, from 
 fish, and from beans. Some observed celibacy, and 
 had all things in common. These regulations varied 
 at difterent times and in different countries where the 
 Pythagorean doctrines had spread. But nowhere do 
 we hear of any doctrines being withheld from those 
 who were willing to fulfil the conditions imposed on 
 all who desired admission to the brotherhood. If this 
 constitutes mystery or esoteric teaching, we might as 
 well speak of the mj'steries of astronomy, because 
 people ignorant of mathematics are excluded from it, 
 or of the esoteric wisdom of the students of Compara- 
 tive Mythology, because a knowledge of Sanskrit is a 
 sine qud non. Even the Greek Mysteries, whatever 
 they became in the end, were originally no more than 
 rites and doctrines handed down at the solemn gather- 
 ings of certain families or clans or societies, where no 
 one had access but those who had acquired a right of 
 membership. It is true that such societies are apt to 
 degenerate into secret societies, and that limited ad- 
 mission soon becomes exclusiveness. But if outsiders
 
 THE TWO SCHOOLS OF THE VF.DANTA. 329 
 
 imagined that these so-called mysteries contained any 
 profound wisdom and were meant to veil secrets 
 which it seemed dangerous to divulge, they were 
 probably as much deceived as people are in our days 
 if they imagine that doctrines of esoteric wisdom 
 have been handed down by the Freemasons from the 
 days of Solomon, and are now confided to the safe 
 keeping of the Prince of Wales. 
 
 It is quite true that the doctrine of the Upanishads 
 is called Rahasya, that is, secret, but it is secret in 
 one sense only, that is to say, no one was taught the 
 Upanishads in ancient times, who had not passed 
 through the previous discipline of the two stages of 
 life, that of the student, and that of the householder, 
 or who had not decided from the first on leading a life of 
 study and chastity. This secrecy was easy when there 
 existed as yet no books, and w^hen therefore those who 
 washed to study the Upanishads had to find a teacher 
 to teach them. Such a teacher would naturally com- 
 municate his knowledge to men only who had attained 
 the proper age, or had fulfilled other necessary condi- 
 tions. Thus we read at the end of the Sariihita- 
 Upanishad in the Aitareya-arai?yaka, '^Let no one tell 
 these Samhitas to any one who is not a resident 
 pupil, who has not been with his teacher at least one 
 year, and who is not himself to become an instructor. 
 Thus say the teachers.' 
 
 As to the study of the Vedanta-sutras, I know of no 
 restriction, particularly at a time wdien MSS. had 
 become more widely accessible, and when numerous 
 commentaries and glosses enabled students to acquire 
 a knowledge of this system of philosophy even by 
 themselves. Nay, it is certainly curious that while
 
 330 LECTURE X. 
 
 the ordinary education and the study of the Veda 
 was restricted to the three upper classes, we read again 
 and again of members of the fourth class, mere >Siidra8, 
 sharing the knowledge of the Vedanta, and joining 
 the rank of the mendicants or Bhikshus. 
 
 Difference between India and Greece. 
 
 What constitutes, however, the most important dif- 
 ference between the ancient Vedanta-philosophy in 
 India, and similar philosophies in Greece, is the theo- 
 logical character retained by the former, while the 
 latter tended more and more to become ethical and 
 political rather than theological. With regard to 
 metaphysical speculations the Eleatic philosophers, 
 Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, and Melissus, come 
 nearest to the Vedanta-philosophers. Xenophanes 
 may still be called almost entirely theological. He 
 speaks of Zeus as the Supreme Being, as all in all. 
 In fact, he represents the same stage of thought which 
 is represented as the lower knowledge in the Vedanta, 
 a belief in Brahman, as masculine, which, to judge from 
 the Upanishads themselves, was in India also earlier 
 than a belief in Brahman as neuter. This belief left 
 the individual soul face to face with the universal, 
 but objective deity, it had not yet reached to the 
 knowledo-e of the oneness of the Atman and the Brah- 
 man. Xenophanes retains his belief in Zeus, though 
 his Zeus is very diflerent from the Zeus of Homer. 
 He is first of all the only God, neither in form nor in 
 thought like unto mortals. Thus Xenophanes argues : 
 
 ' If God is the strongest of all things, he must be one, 
 for if there were two or more, he would not be the 
 strongest and best of all things.'
 
 THE TWO SCHOOLS OF THE VEDANTA. 331 
 
 (Et 8' €(TTiv 6 Oeus airdvTMV KparKTVov, tva (p^^crlv avrov 
 T:pO(Ti]K(iv etvaf et yap bvo rj TrAetouy (lev ovk av ert Kpari- 
 GTov KoX jSeArtoToy avrbv iXvai iravTcov. Clem. Strom, v. 
 601 c.) 
 
 He must also be immoveable and unchangeable 
 (cLKivqTos or aparmata). And again : 
 
 ' He revolves everything in his mind without effort.' 
 
 ('AW aTidvevOe t:uvolo vvov (ppevl Tidvra Kpdhaim. 
 Simpl. Phys. 6 a, m.) 
 
 ' He is altogether mind and thought, and eternal.' 
 
 ['2vp.-ndvTa t dvai {tov Oiov) vovv KaX (PpovrjcrLV kol 
 dtbiov. Diog. ix. 19.) 
 
 'He sees altogether, he thinks altogether, he hears 
 altogether.' 
 
 (OvXos 6pq, ovXo^ be voel, ovkos bi t aKovei.) 
 
 So far Xenophanes is still theological. He has not 
 gone beyond the conception of Brahman, as the 
 supreme and only Being ; his Zeus is still a mascu- 
 line, and a personal deity. 
 
 In some of the utterances, however, that are ascribed 
 to Xenophanes, he goes beyond. Plato at least 
 ancribes to Xenophanes as well as to his successors, 
 the philosophical tenet that all things are many in 
 name, but in nature ono\ which reminds one strongly 
 of the Sat, or to 6v, of the Upanishads, that becomes 
 manifold by name and form. Cicero, however (Acad, 
 ii. 37, 118), states clearly that Xenophanes took this 
 one to be God. 
 
 (Xenophanes unum esse omnia neque id esse muta- 
 bile et id esse Deum, neque natum unquam et sempi- 
 ternum.) 
 
 Even the argument which we found in the Upani- 
 
 » Sophist, 242 5.
 
 333 LECTURE X. 
 
 shads, that what is cannot have sprung from what is 
 not, is ascribed to Xenophanes also, who calls this 
 One and All, which truly exists, unborn, unchange- 
 able, imperishable, eternal, — all attributes that could 
 easily be matched in the Upanishads. Like the 
 Upanishads, Xenophanes insists on the One and All 
 being intelligent (ibaitanya, XoyiKov), the only doubtful 
 point being whether Xenophanes went so far as his 
 successors in surrendering altogether its divine or 
 Zeus-like character. According to Sextus (Hyp. Pyrrh. 
 i. 225) it would seem that this was not the case. 
 'Xenophanes,' he writes, 'held that the All was one 
 and that God was congenital (o-yju^u?/?) with all things,' 
 or, as we should say, that God was immanent in the 
 world. That Xenophanes conceived of this Being as 
 (Tcpaipoeibris, or spherical, is well known, but it hardly 
 conveys any definite meaning to our mind ; and you 
 will find that ancient as well as modern authorities 
 are by no means agreed as to whether Xenophanes 
 considered the world as limited or unlimited ^. 
 
 What is preserved to us of the physical philosophy 
 of Xenophanes seems to be quite apart from his meta- 
 physical principles. For while from his metaphysical 
 point of view all was one^ uniform and unchangeable, 
 from his physical point of view he is said to have 
 considered earth, or earth and water, as the origin of 
 all things (ck yaLijs yap Travra, koL et? yrjv Travra reAeurS, 
 Fragm. 8), ' All things are from the earth, and all 
 things end in the earth ;' and irdvTes yap yairjs re Kal 
 vbaros hyevoixeada, Sext. Emp. adv. Math. ix. 361, and 
 yrj Kal vbcop iravd' oaaa yivovTai ^6e (f)VOVTai, Simpl. 
 Phys. fol. 41 a. 
 
 ' Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen, i. pp. 457-8.
 
 THE TWO SCHOOLS OF THE VEDANTA. 333 
 
 'Earth and water are all things, whatever is born 
 or grows.' 
 
 Xenophanes is also credited with the statement that 
 the earth arose from air and fire — theories which again 
 might easily be matched in the Upanishads. But the 
 essential point on which Xenophanes and the Upani- 
 shads agi-ee is the first conception of the One Being, 
 as the substance of everything, though that concep- 
 tion has not yet become purely metaphysical, but is, 
 like the Brahman in the older Upanishads, still sur- 
 rounded by a kind of religious halo. 
 
 On this point Parmenides marks a decided advance 
 in the Eleatic school, the same advance which we 
 observed in the later Upanishads. With him the 
 concept of the One Being has become entirely meta- 
 physical. It is no longer God, in the ordinary sense 
 of the word, as little as the Highest Brahman is God, 
 though whatever there is real in God, is the Highest 
 Brahman. In the definition and description of this 
 One Being, Parmenides goes even beyond the Vedanta, 
 and we see here once more how the dialectic flexibility 
 of the Greek mind outstrips the dogmatic positivencss 
 of the Hindu mind. According to Parmenides, what 
 is, is ; what is not, can neither be conceived nor 
 enunciated. What is, cannot have a beginning or 
 an end^. It is whole, unique, unmoved and at rest. 
 We cannot say that it was or will bo, but only that it 
 
 * Cf. SimpHcius, Phys. fol. 31 a, b : Moros 5' en fivOos oSoio Afintrat, 
 ws tCFTtv. TavTT) 5' (itI cr]iJ.aT' iaai HoWa nd\\ ws dyivrjTOV fou Kai dvcj- 
 \f9puv fCTTiv, OSAov nowoffVfS Ti Kal drpenh ^5' drdXavTOV Ov nor' (r)V 
 oii5' iarai, l-nil vvv iffriv vfiov iTdv,*Ey ^wtxts. riva ydp '/ivvav St^-fjatai 
 axjTov ; Uri ■nuOiv av^rjOiv ; out' «« ^tj iovToz idaco ^dadai a' ou5« votiv 
 ov ydp (paTuv ov5i votjtuv 'Eartv vnojs ovk tan. ti 5' dv fuv Kai XP'"' 
 Sjpatv, "Tanpov fj 7tpda9' kie rov /xrjStvds dp^dfifvov <pvv ; Ovrcyy ^) Trdp.Ttav 
 iTfkffifv xptijv lanv tj ovk'i.
 
 334 LECTURE X. 
 
 is, for how could it have become anything but itself? 
 Not from not being, for that is not, and cannot bring 
 forth ; nor from being, for this would never bring forth 
 anything but itself. And this 6v cannot have parts, 
 for there is nothing different from it by which its 
 parts could be separated. All space is filled by it, 
 and it is there immoveable, always in the same place, 
 by itself and like itself. Nor is thinking different 
 from being ^, because there is nothing but being, and 
 thinking is thinking of being. It is curious that 
 Parmenides will not have this Being to be infinite, 
 because he looks even upon infinity as something im- 
 perfect, because not having definite limits. In fact, this 
 Real Being of Parmenides is by no means immaterial ; 
 we can best explain it by the simile we met with in 
 the Upanishads, that all that is made of clay, is clay, 
 differing only by name and form. Parmenides does not 
 deny that these forms and names exist in the pheno- 
 menal world, he only insists on the uncertainty of the 
 evidence which the senses offer us of these forms and 
 names. And as in the Upanishads this erroneous 
 knowledge or nescience is sometimes called tamas 
 or darkness, as opposed to the light (tet/as) of true 
 knowledge, we find that Parmenides also speaks of 
 darkness [vv^ ahar\s) as the cause of erroneous, and of 
 light {alOipiov irvp) as the cause of true knowledge. 
 
 We thus see how the level of thought reached by 
 the earlier Eleatics, is much the same as that of the 
 earlier Upanishads. They both start from religious 
 ideas, and end in metaphysical conceptions, they both 
 have arrived at the highest abstraction of to 6V, the 
 
 ^ luvTov S' ecTTi voeiu re Kat ovvfKev (an voTjfxa, &c. Simplicius, 
 Phys. ff. 19 a, 31 a, b.
 
 THE TWO SCHOOLS OF THE VEDaNTA. 335 
 
 Sk. Sat, as the only reality ; they both have learnt 
 to look upon the manifold of experience as doubtful, 
 as phenomenal, if not erroneous, and as the result of 
 name and form (f/opc^as oi-o/xa^eir, namarupa). But 
 the differences between the two are considerable also. 
 The Eleatic philosophers are Greeks with a strong 
 belief in personal individuality. They tell us little 
 about the soul, and its relation to the One Being, still 
 less do they suggest any means by which the soul 
 could become one with it, and recognise its original 
 identity with it. There are some passages (Zeller. 
 p. 488) in which it seems as if Parmenides had be- 
 lieved in a migration of souls, but this idea does not 
 assume with him the importance which it had, for 
 instance, among the Pythagoreans. The psychological 
 questions are thrown into the background by the 
 metaphysical problems, which the Eleatic philosophers 
 wished to solve, while in the Upanishads the psycho- 
 logical question is always the more prominent.
 
 LECTURE XI. 
 
 SUFIISM. 
 Beligion, System of Selations between aXan and God. 
 
 I ALLUDED in a former lecture to a definition of 
 religion which we owe to Newman. ' What is 
 religion,' he writes (Univ. Serm., p. 19), 'but the sys- 
 tem of relations between me and a Supreme Being.' 
 Another thoughtful writer has expressed the same idea, 
 even more powerfully. ' Man requires,' he said, ' that 
 there shall be direct relations between the created and 
 the Creator, and that in these relations he shall find 
 a solution of the perplexities of existence ^.' 
 
 This relationship, however, assumes very different 
 forms in different religions. We have seen how in 
 the Vedanta it was founded on a very simple, but 
 irrefragable syllogism. If there is one being, the Ve- 
 dantist says, which is all in all, then our soul cannot 
 in its substance be different from that being, and our 
 separation from it can be the result of nescience only, 
 which nescience has to be removed by knowledge, 
 that is, by the Vedanta-philosophy. 
 
 We saw in the Eleatic philosophy of Greece, the 
 same premiss, though without the conclusion deduced 
 from it, that the soul cannot form an exception, but 
 
 ' Disraeli in Loihair, p. 157-
 
 suFiisM. 337 
 
 must, like everything else, if not more than every- 
 thing else, share the essence of what alone is infinite, 
 and can alone be said truly to exist. 
 
 Snfiism, its Origin. 
 
 We shall next have to consider a religion in which 
 the premiss seems to be wanting, but the conclusion 
 has become even more powerful, I mean the Sufiism 
 among the Mohammedans. 
 
 As the principal htcrature of Sufiism is composed 
 in Persian, it was supposed by Sylvestre de Sacy and 
 others that these ideas of the union of the soul with 
 God had reached Persia from India, and spread from 
 thence to other Mohammedan countries. Much may 
 be said in support of such a theory, which was shared 
 by Goethe also in his West-0 stitcher Divan. We 
 know of the close contact between India and Persia 
 at all times, and it cannot be denied that the tempera- 
 ment and the culture of Persia lent itself far more 
 naturally to the fervour of this rehgious poetry than 
 the stern character of Mohammed and his immediate 
 followers. Still we cannot treat Sufiism as genealo- 
 gically descended from Vedantism, because Vedant- 
 ism goes far beyond the point reached by Sufiism, 
 and has a far broader metaphysical foundation than 
 the religious poetry of Persia. Sufiism is satisfied 
 with an approach of the soul to God, or with a loving 
 union of the two, but it has not reached the point 
 from which the nature of God and soul is seen to be 
 one and the same. In the language of the Vedanta, 
 at least in its final development, we can hardly speak 
 any longer of a relation between the soul and the 
 Supreme Being, or of an approach of the soul to, or of 
 (4) z
 
 338 LECTURE XI. 
 
 a union of the soul with God. The two are one 
 as soon as their original and eternal oneness of 
 nature has been recognised. With the Sufis, on the 
 contrary, the subject, the human soul, and the 
 object, the divine spirit, however close their union, 
 remain always distinct, though related beings. There 
 are occasional expressions which come very near to 
 the Vedanta similes, such as that of the drop of water 
 being lost in the ocean. Still, even these expressions 
 admit of explanation ; for we are told that the drop 
 of water is not lost or annihilated, it is only received, 
 and the Persian poet when he speaks of the soul being 
 lost in God need not have meant more than our own 
 poet when he speaks of our losing ourselves in the 
 ocean of God's love. 
 
 Tholuck seems to have been one of the first to show 
 that there is no historical evidence for the supposition 
 that Sufiism is founded on an ancient Persian sect, 
 prior to the rise of Islam. Sufiism, as he has proved, 
 is decidedly Mohammedan in origin, and its first 
 manifestations appear early in the second century of 
 the Hedjra. 
 
 Mohammed said indeed in the Koran ^, 'In Islam 
 there is no monachism' ; but as early as 623 A. D., forty- 
 five men of Mekka joined themselves to as many 
 others of Medina, took an oath of fidelity to the 
 doctrines of the prophet and formed a fraternity, to 
 establish community of property, and to perform daily 
 certain religious practices by way of penitence. They 
 took the name of ^S'ufi, a word that has been derived 
 from suf, wool, a hair-cloth used by penitents in the 
 
 ' See the 'Awdriful'Ma'arif, translated by Lieut.-Col. H.Wilberforce 
 Clarke, 1891, p. 1.
 
 SUFIISM. 339 
 
 early days of Islam, or from sufiy, wise, pious, or from 
 safi, pure, or from safa, purity. 
 
 Abstract of Sufi Doctrines. 
 
 The principal doctrines of Sufiism have been summed 
 up by Sir W. Jones as follows ^ : ' The Sufis believe 
 that the souls of men differ infinitely in degree, but 
 not at all in Icind, from the divine spirit of which 
 they are particles, and in which they will ultimately 
 be absorbed; that the spirit of God pervades the 
 universe, always immediately present to His Avork, 
 and consequently always in substance ; that He alone 
 is perfect in benevolence, perfect truth, perfect beauty ; 
 that love of Him alone is real and genuine love, while 
 that for other objects is absurd and illusory ; that the 
 beauties of nature are faint resemblances, like images 
 in a mirror, of the divine charms ; that, from eternity 
 without beginning to eternity without end, the supreme 
 benevolence is occupied in bestowing happiness, or 
 the means of attaining it ; that men can only attain 
 it by performing their part of the personal covenant 
 between them and the Creator ; that nothing has a 
 pure absolute existence but mind or spirit ; that 
 material substances, as the ignorant call them, are no 
 more than gay pictures presented continually to our 
 minds by the sempiternal artist ; that we must beware 
 of attachment to such phantoms and attach ourselves 
 exclusively to God, who truly exists in us, as we 
 exist solely in Him ; that we retain even in this 
 forlorn state of separation from our Beloved, the idea 
 of heavenly beauty and the remembrance of our 
 primeval voivs; that sweet musick, gentle breezes, 
 
 » Sir W. Jones, Works, 1807, vol. iv. p. 212. 
 Z 2
 
 340 LECTUKE XI. 
 
 fragrant flowers, perpetually renew the primary idea^ 
 refresh our fading memory, and melt us with tender 
 afiections ; that we must cherish these affections, and 
 by abstracting our souls from vanity, that is from all 
 but God, approximate to this essence, in our final 
 union with which will consist our supreme beatitude.' 
 
 Babia, the earliest Sufi. 
 
 It is curious that the first person quoted as express- 
 ing Sufi opinions is a woman of the name of Rabia, 
 who died 135 after the Hedjra. Ibn Khalikan tells a 
 number of stories of her : ' She would often in the 
 middle of the night go on the roof of the house and 
 call out in her solitude : " O my God, the noise of the 
 day is hushed, the lover dallies with the beloved in 
 the secret chamber ; but I in my solitude rejoice in 
 thee, for I know thee to be my true beloved." ' Ferid 
 eddin Attar tells of the same Rabia, that once when 
 she was walking across the rocks, she cried out: 
 ' Desire of God has seized me ; true thou art stone also 
 and earth, but I yearn to see thee.' Then the High 
 God spoke directly in her heart : ' O Rabia, hast thou 
 not heard that when Moses once desired to see God, 
 only a mote of the Divine Majesty fell on a mountain, 
 and yet it burst asunder. Be content therefore with 
 my name.' 
 
 Again, we are told that when Rabia came to Mekka 
 on a pilgrimage, she exclaimed, ' I want the Lord of 
 the Kaaba, what use is the Kaaba to me? I have 
 come so near to God, that the word He has spoken 
 applies to me : Whoever approaches me a span, I ap- 
 proach him a yard.' 
 
 There are ever so many stories about this Rabia,
 
 SUFII8M. 341 
 
 all intended to show her devotion, nay, her spiritual 
 union with Allah. When she was asked to get mar- 
 ried, she said : ' My inmost being is man-ied, therefore 
 I say, that my being has perished within me, and has 
 been resuscitated in God. Since then, I am entirely 
 in His power, nay, I am all Himself. He who wishes 
 for me as his bride, must ask not me, but Him.' When 
 Hassan Basri (a famous theologian) asked her by what 
 way and by what means she had risen to that height, 
 she answered : * By losing everything that I had found, 
 in Him.' And when asked once more, by what way 
 and by what means she had come to know Him, she 
 exclaimed : ' O Hassan, thou knowcst by certain ways 
 and by certain means ; I know without ways and 
 means.' When she was ill and laid up, three great 
 theologians visited her. One, Hassan Basri, said : ' He 
 is not sincere in his prayers, who does not bear 
 patiently the castigation of the Lord.' The other, 
 Shakik by name, said: *He is not sincere in his 
 prayers, who docs not rejoice in His castigation.' But 
 Rabia, still perceiving something of the self in all 
 this, replied : ' He is not sincere in his prayers, who, 
 when he sees the Lord, does not forget that he is 
 being chastised.' 
 
 Another time when she was very ill, and was asked 
 the cause of her illness, she said : ' I have been think- 
 ing of the joys of paradise, therefore my Lord has 
 punished me.' And again she said : ' A wound within 
 my heart devours me ; it cannot be healed except 
 through my union with my friend. I shall remain 
 ailing, till I have gained my end on the last day.' 
 
 This is language with which students of the lives 
 of Christian Saints are familiar. It often becomes
 
 342 LECTURE XI. 
 
 even more fervid both in the East and in the West, 
 but it sounds to our ears less offensive in the East 
 than in the West, because in Eastern languages the 
 symbolic representation of human love as an emblem of 
 divine love, has been accepted and tolerated from very 
 early times. 
 
 But though it is impossible to trace the first begin- 
 nings of Sufiism directly to a Persian source, it cannot 
 be denied that in later times Persia and even India, 
 particularly after they had been brought under Mo- 
 hammedan sway, contributed largely to the develop- 
 ment of Sufiism and of Sufi poetry. 
 
 Connection of Sufiism witli Early Christianity. 
 
 The chief impulse, however, which Sufiism received 
 from without, seems to have come from Christianity in 
 that form in which it was best known in the East. By 
 the end of the third century, as IMr. Whinfield writes 
 in the Preface to his translation of the Mesnevi, por- 
 tions of Plato, of Aristotle, ' the parent of heresies,' and 
 of the Alexandrian commentators had been translated 
 into Arabic. The theosophy of the Neo-platonists 
 and Gnostics was widely spread in the East. Sufiism 
 might almost be called a parallel stream of mystical 
 theosophy derived in part from Plato, 'the Attic 
 Moses,' as he was called, but mainly from Christianity, 
 as presented in the spiritual gospel of St. John, and 
 as expounded by the Christian Platonists and Gnostics. 
 Traces of the influence of Platonism have been dis- 
 covered in the reference of the Sufis to the One and 
 the Many, the figment of Not-being, the generation 
 of opposites from opposites, the Alexandrian gnosis of 
 the Logos, of ecstasy and intuition, and the doctrine
 
 SDFIISM. 343 
 
 propounded in the Phaedrus, that human beauty is 
 the bridge of communication between the world of 
 sense and the world of ideas, leading man by the 
 stimulus of love to the Great Ocean of the Beautiful. 
 
 Traces of Christianity have been pointed out by 
 Mr. Whinfield, not only in the distinct mention of the 
 chief events of the Gospel history, but in actual 
 renderings of sentences and phi-ases taken from the 
 Gospels. The cardinal Sufi terms, ' The Truth,' ' The 
 Way,' ' Universal Keason ' (Logos), ' Universal Soul ' 
 (Pneuma), ' Grace ' (Fais), and ' Love,' are all treated 
 by him as of Christian extraction. 
 
 Mr. Whinfield might in support of his theory have 
 mentioned a poem in the Gulshen Ras, the secret of 
 the bed of roses, a very popular but anonymous poem 
 on the principles of Sufiism written about the begin- 
 ning of the fourteenth century, in which the mystic 
 union of the soul with God is described as the es- 
 sential feature of Christianity. 
 
 There we read : — 
 
 'Dost thou know what Christianity is? I shall tell it thee. 
 It digs up thy own Ego, and carries thee to God. 
 Thy soul is a monastery, wherein dwells oneness, 
 Thou art Jerusalem, wliere the Eternal is enthroned ; 
 The Holy Spirit works this miracle, for know that God's being 
 Eests in the Holy Spirit as in His own spirit. 
 The Spirit of God gives to thy spirit the lire of the spirit, 
 He moves in thy spirit beneath a thin veil ; 
 If thou art delivered by the Spirit from manhood. 
 Thou hast found eternal rest in the sanctuary of God ; 
 He who has directed himself so that all passions are silent, 
 Will surely, like Jesus, ascend to heaven.' 
 
 Abu Said Abul Cbeir, Founder of Sufiism. 
 
 Rabia may be called a Sufi before even the rise of 
 Sufiism. Her Sufiism seems quite her own, without 
 any traces of foreign influence. The real founder,
 
 344 LECTUEE XI. 
 
 however, of the Sufis as a religious sect was Abu 
 Said Abul Cheir, about 820 a. D. 
 
 Abu Tasid and Jnuald. 
 
 Towards the end of the same century a schism 
 took place, one party following Abu Yasid al-Bu- 
 shani, whose pantheistic views were in open conflict 
 with the Koran, the other following Junaid, who tried 
 to reconcile Sufiism with orthodoxy. There were 
 then, as at present, Sufis and Sufis. Some wrote in 
 Persian, such as Senai, Feiid eddin Attar, Jellal eddin 
 Rumi (d. 1162), Jami (d. 1172); others in Arabic, 
 such as Omar ibn el Faridh, and Izz eddin Mutaddesi, 
 others even in Turkish. 
 
 Some of their poetry is magnificent in imagery, 
 and highly valued even by those who are afraid of 
 the consequences of their doctrines. Sufiism was 
 said to breed an alarming familiarity with the deity, 
 and a disregard of human and divine ordinances, at 
 least among those who have not reached the his-hest 
 spiritual purity, and might be tempted to use their 
 outward sanctity as a cloak for human frailty. 
 
 Sufi, Fakir, Darwish. 
 
 The etymology of Sufi, as derived from sClf wool, 
 because they walked about dressed in white woollen 
 garments is now generally accepted ^ Formerly it was 
 supposed that Sufi came from the Greek (ro(j)6s, which is 
 impossible. At present the Sufis are generally known as 
 Fakirs, in Persian as Dartvish, i. e. poor. Formerly they 
 were also called Arif, theosophist, and Ahl alyakyn, the 
 people of surety. Thus one of them, Abd al Razzak, 
 
 * Sprenger, i. p. 262.
 
 suFiisM. 345 
 
 says: 'AH praise to Allah, who by His grace and 
 favour has saved us from the researches of conven- 
 tional sciences, who by the spirit of immediate in- 
 tuition has lifted us above the tediousness of tradition 
 and demonstration, who has removed us from the 
 hollow threshing of straw, and kept us pure from 
 disputation, opposition and contradiction ; for all this 
 is the arena of uncertainty and the field of doubt, 
 of error, and heresy ; glory to Him who has taken 
 away from our eyes the veil of externals, of form, and 
 confusion.* 
 
 Asceticism. 
 
 The Sufis trust to the inward eye that is opened 
 in raptures ; and which, if it is weak or blind, can 
 be helped on by ascetic discipline. This ascetic 
 discipline was originally no more than abstaining 
 from food and drink, and other pleasures of life. 
 But it soon den;cneratcd into wild fanaticism. Some 
 of the Fakirs indulged in violent exercises intended 
 to produce convulsions, cataleptic fits, and all the 
 rest. The Darwishes, w^ho may be seen now turning 
 round and round till they break out in delirious 
 shouts, are the degraded descendants of the Sufis. 
 Attar and Jellal eddin Kuml, like true lovers of 
 God, requii'ed no stimulants for their enthusiasm, 
 and their poetical genius found utterance, not in 
 inarticulate ravings, but in enraptured hymns of 
 praise. The true Sufis were always honoured, not 
 only for theii' genius, but for their saint-like lives, 
 and they could well bear comparison with their 
 contemporaries in the West, even such as St. 
 Bernard.
 
 346 LECTURE XI. 
 
 When speaking of the true and saint-like Sufis, 
 
 Jellal eddin says : — 
 
 'Faithful they are, but not for Paradise, 
 God's Will the only crowning of their faith : 
 And not for seething Hell flee they from sin, 
 But that their will must serve tlie Will divine. 
 It is no struggle, 'tis not discipline 
 Wins them a will so restful and so blest ; 
 It is that God from His heart-fountain core 
 Fills up their jubilant soul.' 
 
 It is true there is little of what we call theosophic 
 philosophy in their utterances. That belongs almost 
 exclusively to the Vedantist, and to a certain extent 
 to the Yogins also of India. The Sufi trusts to his 
 feelings, nay, almost to his senses, not, as the Vedantist, 
 to his philosophical insight. He has intuitions or 
 beatific visions of God, or he claims at least to have 
 them. He feels the presence of God, and his highest 
 blessedness on earth is the mystic union with God, of 
 ■which he speaks under ever-varying, and sometimes, 
 to us at least, startling imagery. Yet for his highest 
 raptures he too confesses that human language has 
 no adequate expression. As Sady says, the flowei-s 
 which a lover of God had gathered in his rose-garden, 
 and which he wished to give to his friends, so over- 
 powered his mind by their fragrance, that they fell 
 out of his lap and withered ; that is to say, the glory 
 of ecstatic visions pales and fades away when it has 
 to be put into human language. 
 
 The Mesnevi. 
 
 Jellal eddin in the Preface to his Mesnevi, says: 
 'This book contains strange and rare narratives, 
 beautiful sayings, and recondite indications, a path
 
 suFiisM. 347 
 
 for the devout, and a garden for the pious, short 
 in expressions, numerous in its applications. It 
 contains the roots of the roots of the roots of the 
 Faith, and treats of the mysteries of union and 
 sure knowledge.' This book is looked upon by- 
 Mohammedans as second only to the Koran, and 
 yet it would be difficult to imagine two books more 
 different one from the other. 
 
 Mohammed's Opinion. 
 
 Mohammed's idea of God is after all the same as 
 that of the Old Testament. Allah is chiefly the God 
 of Power ; a transcendent, but a strongly personal 
 God. He is to be feared rather than to be approached, 
 and true religion is submission to His will (Islam). 
 Even some of the Sufis seem to shrink from asserting 
 the perfect oneness of the human and the divine natures. 
 They call the soul divine, God-like, but not yet God ; 
 as if in this case the adjective could really be dis- 
 tinguished from the substantive, as if anything could 
 be divine but God alone, and as if there could be 
 even a likeness of God, or anything God-like, that 
 was not in its essence God. Philosophical specu- 
 lations on God were distasteful to Mohammed. 
 ' Think on the mercies of God,' he says in one place, 
 'not on the essence of God.' He knew that theo- 
 logical speculation would inevitably lead to schism. 
 ' My people shall be divided,' he says, ' into three and 
 seventy sects, of which all save one shall have their 
 portion in the fire.' That one with Mohammed would 
 certainly not have been that of the Sufis. 
 
 There is an interesting poem in which Said, the 
 servant, first recounts one morning an ecstasy he had
 
 348 LECTURE XI. 
 
 enjoyed, and is then warned by Mohammed against 
 excessive fervour : 
 Said speaks : 
 
 'My tongue clave fever-dry, my blood ran fire, 
 My nights were sleepless with consuming love, 
 Till night and day sped past, as flies a lance. 
 Grazing a buckler's rim ; a hundred thousand years 
 No longer than a moment. In that hour 
 All past eternity and all to come 
 Was gathered up in one stupendous Now,^ 
 Let understanding marvel as it may, 
 Where men see clouds, on the ninth heaven I gaze, 
 And see the throne of God. All heaven and hell 
 Are bare to me and all men's destinies. 
 The heavens and earth, they vanish at my glance, 
 The dead rise at my look. I tear the veil 
 From all the worlds, and in the hall of heaven 
 I set me central, radiant as the sun. 
 Then spake the Prophet (Mohammed), Friend, thy steed is 
 
 warm; 
 Spur him no more. The mirror in thy heart 
 Did slip its fleshly case, now put it up— 
 Hide it once more, or thou wilt come to harm.' 
 
 There are long systematic treatises on Sufiism, but 
 they refer chiefly to outward things, not to the great 
 problems of the true nature of the soul and of God, 
 and of the intimate relation between the two. We 
 read of four stages through which the Sufi has to 
 pass. 
 
 The Fonr Stages. 
 
 First comes the stage of humility, or simple 
 obedience to the law and its representative, the 
 Shaikh (nasut or shariat); then follows the way 
 (tarikat), that is, spiritual adoration and resio-- 
 nation to the Divine Will; then 'Aruf, or Marifat, 
 Knowledge, that is, inspired knowledge ; and lastly 
 Kakikat, that is. Truth, or complete efiacement 
 in God.
 
 auFiiSM. 349 
 
 The Poetical Laugtiage of Stifilsm. 
 
 When we read some of the Sufi enraptured poetry, 
 we must remember that the Sufi poets use a number 
 of expressions which have a recognised meaning 
 in their language. Thus sleep signifies meditation ; 
 jierfume, hope of divine favour ; gales are illapses of 
 grace ; kisses and embraces, the raptures of piety. 
 Idolators are not infidels, but really men of the pure 
 faith, but who look upon Allah as a transcendent 
 being, as a mere creator and ruler of the world. 
 Wine is forbidden by Mohammed, but with the Sufi 
 luine means spiritual knowledge, the wine-seller is 
 the spiritual guide, the tavern the cell where the 
 searcher after truth becomes intoxicated with the wine 
 of divine love. Mirth, intoxication, and wantonness 
 stand for religious ecstasy and perfect abstraction 
 from all mundane thoughts. Beauty is the perfection 
 of Deity ; tresses are the expansion of His glory ; the 
 lips of the beloved mean the inscrutable mysteries of 
 His essence ; the down on the cheeks stands for the 
 world of spirits ; a black mole for the point of 
 indivisible unity. 
 
 When we read some of this enraptured Sufi poetry 
 we are at first somewhat doubtful whether it should 
 not be taken simply in its natural sense, as jovial 
 and erotic ; and there are some students of literature 
 who will not admit a deeper meaning. It is well 
 known that Emerson rebelled against the idea of 
 seeinop more in the sonos of Hafiz than what there is 
 on the surface, — delight in women, in song and love. 
 *We do not wish,' he writes S 'to make mystical 
 
 ' Works, 1882, vol. iv. p. 201.
 
 350 LECTURE X[. 
 
 divinity out of the Songs of Solomon, much less 
 out of the erotic and bacchanalian songs of Hafiz. 
 Hafiz himself is determined to defy all such hypo- 
 critical interpretation, and tears off his turban and 
 throws it at the head of the meddling dervis, and 
 throws his glass after the turban. Nothing is too 
 high, nothing too low, for his occasion. Love is 
 a leveller, and Allah becomes a groom, and heaven a 
 closet, in his daring hymns to his mistress or to 
 his cupbearer. This boundless charter is the right 
 of genius.'' So it is, and there are no doubt many 
 poems in which Hafiz means no more than what he 
 says. No one would search for any but the most 
 obvious meaning in such Anacreontic verses as the 
 following : 
 
 ' Wine two years old and a damsel of fourteen are 
 sufficient society for me, above all companions, great 
 and small.' 
 
 ' How delightful is dancing to lively notes and the 
 cheerful melody of the flutes, especially when we 
 touch the hand of a beautiful girl ! ' 
 
 'Call for wine, and scatter flowers around: what 
 more canst thou ask from fate? Thus spake the 
 nightingale this morning: what sayest thou, sweet 
 rose, to his precepts 1 ' 
 
 'Bring thou a couch to the garden of roses, that 
 thou mayest kiss the cheeks and lips of lovely 
 damsels, quaflf rich wine, and smell odoriferous 
 blossoms.' 
 
 But no one acquainted with the East, would doubt that 
 some kind of half-erotic, half-mystic poetry, was a 
 recognised style of poetry among Mohammedans, was 
 tolerated and admired alike by laity and clerg3^ Nor
 
 SUFII8M. 351 
 
 was the mystic meaning a mere afterthought, forced 
 into the poetry of the Sufis, but it was meant to bo 
 there from the first. 
 
 At first the perfume of such poetry has something 
 sickening to us, even when we know its true meaning. 
 But the Sufi holds that there is nothing in human 
 language that can express the love between the soul 
 and God so weU as the love between man and woman, 
 and that if he is to speak of the union between 
 the two at all, he can only do so in the symbolic 
 language of earthly love. 
 
 We must not forget that if earthly love has in the 
 vulgar mind been often degraded into mere animal 
 passion, it still remains in its purest sense the highest 
 mystery of our existence, the most perfect blessing 
 and delight on earth, and at the same time the truest 
 pledge of our more than human nature. To be able 
 to feel the same unselfish devotion for the Deity 
 which the human heart is capable of, if filled with 
 love for another human soul, is something that may 
 well be called the best religion. It is after aU the 
 Christian command, ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
 God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
 with all thy might.' If once we understand this, then 
 no one can claim to come nearer to the highest 
 Christian ideal than the true Sufi, whose religion 
 is a burning love of God, whose life is passed in 
 the constant presence of God, and whose every act 
 is dictated by love of God. 
 
 Barrow, no mean theologian, and in no way tainted 
 by religious scntimentalism, speaks in language which 
 might have been used by the most fervent Sufi poets. 
 ' Love,' he writes, ' is the sweetest and most delectable
 
 352 LECTURE XI. 
 
 of all passions ; and when by the conduct of wisdom 
 it is directed in a rational way toward a worthy, 
 congruous, and attainable object, it cannot otherwise 
 than fill the heart with ravishing delight : such, in all 
 respects superlatively such, is God ; who infinitely 
 beyond all other things deserveth our affection, as 
 most perfectly amiable and desirable. He is the most 
 proper object of our love; for we chiefly were framed, 
 and it is the prime law of our nature, to love Him ; 
 our soul, from its original instinct, vergeth towards 
 Him as its centre, and can have no rest till it be 
 fixed on Him. He alone can satisfy the vast capacity 
 of our minds, and fill our boundless desires. He, of 
 all lovely things, most certainly and easUy may be 
 attained ; for, whereas commonly men are crossed in 
 their afi'ection, and their love is embittered from 
 things imaginary, which they cannot reach, or coy 
 things, which disdain and reject them, it is with God 
 quite otherwise : He is most ready to impart Himself ; 
 He most earnestly desireth and wooeth our love ; He 
 is not only most willing to correspond in afi'ection, 
 but even doth prevent us therein: He doth cherish 
 and encourage our love by sweetest influences and 
 most consoling embraces ; by kindest expressions of 
 favour, by most beneficial returns ; and whereas all 
 other objects do in the enjoyment much fail our 
 expectation, He doth ever far exceed it. Wherefore 
 in all afiectionate motions of our hearts toward 
 God ; in desiring Him, or seeking His favour and 
 friendship ; in embracing Him, or setting our esteem, 
 our good will, our confidence on Him ; in enjoying 
 Him by devotional meditations and addresses to Him ; 
 in a reflective sense of our interest and propriety in
 
 suFiiSM. 353 
 
 Him ; in that mysterious union of spirit, whereby we 
 do closely adhere to, and are, as it were, invested in 
 Him ; in a hearty complacence in His benignity, 
 a grateful sense of His kindness, and a zealous 
 desire of yielding some requital for it, we cannot but 
 feel very pleasant transports : indeed, that celestial 
 flame, kindled in our hearts by the spirit of love, 
 cannot be void of warmth ; we cannot fix our eyes 
 upon infinite beauty, we cannot taste infinite sweet- 
 ness, we cannot cleave to infinite felicity, without 
 also perpetually rejoicing in the first daughter of Love 
 to God, Charity toward men ; w^hich in complection 
 and careful disposition, doth much resemble her 
 mother ; for she doth rid us from all those gloomy, 
 keen, turbulent imaginations and passions, which 
 cloud our mind, which fret our heart, which discom- 
 pose the frame of the soul ; from burning anger, from 
 storming contention, from gnawing envy, from rank- 
 ling spite, from racking suspicion, from distracting 
 ambition and avarice ; and consequently doth settle 
 our mind in an even temper, in a sedate humour, in 
 an harmonious order, in that pleasant state of tran- 
 quillity, which naturally doth result from the voidance 
 of irregular passions.' 
 
 I have given the whole of this long passage, because, 
 as Sir William Jones has pointed out, it difiers from 
 the mystical theology of the Sufis and Yogis no more 
 than the flowers and fruits of Europe difier in scent 
 and flavour from those of Asia, or as European diflers 
 from Asiatic eloquence. ' The same strain,' he writes, 
 ' in poetical measure, would rise to the odes of 
 Spenser on Divine Love and Beauty, and, in a higher 
 key with richer embellishments, to the song of Hafiz 
 (4) A a
 
 354 LECTURE XI. 
 
 and Jayadeva, the raptures of the Mesnevi, and the 
 mysteries of the Bhagavata.' 
 
 Morality of Sufiisiu. 
 
 The Sufi's belief that he who is led by love is no 
 longer subject to the outward law is by no means so 
 outrageous as it has been represented. It does not 
 mean that the true Sufi claims any licence for himself, 
 it only means that he whose heart is filled with love 
 of God and who never loses sight of God, can think 
 no longer of the outward law, but is led in all his acts 
 by the love of God only, claiming no merit for his 
 good works, and feeling quite incapable of committing 
 any act displeasing to God. 
 
 Extracts from Sufi Poets. 
 
 I shall now read you a few extracts from Sufi poets, 
 translated by Sir William Jones : — 
 
 ' In eternity without beginning, a ray of thy beauty began 
 to gleam; when Love sprang into being, and cast flames 
 over all nature. 
 
 ' On that day thy cheek sparkled even under thy veil, and 
 all this beautiful imagery appeared on the mirror of our 
 fancies. 
 
 ' Rise, my soul, that I may pour thee forth on the pencil 
 of that supreme Artist, who comprised in a turn of His 
 compass all this wonderful scenery. 
 
 ' From the moment when I heard the divine sentence, 
 " I have breathed into man a portion of my Spirit," I was 
 assured that we were His, and He ours. 
 
 ' Where are the glad tidings of union with thee, that 
 I may abandon all desire of life 1 I am a bird of holiness, 
 and would fain escape from the net of this world.
 
 SUFIISM. 355 
 
 ' Slied, O Lord, from the cloud of heavenly guidance, one 
 cheering shower, before the moment when I must rise up 
 like a particle of dry dust. 
 
 ' The sum of our transactions on this universe is nothing : 
 bring us the wine of devotion; for the possessions of this 
 world vanish. 
 
 ' The true object of heart and soul is the glory of union 
 with our beloved : that object really exists, but without it 
 both heart and soul would have no existence. 
 
 ' the bliss of the day, when I shall depart from this 
 desolate mansion; shall seek rest for my soul; and shall 
 follow the traces of my beloved ; 
 
 ' Dancing, with love of His beauty, like a mote in a 
 sunbeam, till I reach the spring and fountain of light, 
 whence yon sun derives all his lustre.' 
 
 The next extract is from Jellal edclin Rumi's Mes- 
 nevi, as translated by Mr. E. H. Whinfield. Jellal eddin 
 thus describes the perfect union with God : — 
 
 A loved one said to her lover to try him, 
 Early one morning ; ' such a one, son of such a one, 
 I marvel whether you hold me more dear, 
 Or yourself; tell me truly, O ardent lover!' 
 He answered : ' I am so entirely absorbed in you. 
 That I am full of you from head to foot. 
 Of my own existence nothing but the name remains. 
 In my being is nothing besides you, object of my desire. 
 Therefore am I thus lost in you, 
 Just as vinegar is absorbed in honey; 
 Or as a stone, which has been changed into a pure ruby, 
 Is filled with the bright light of the sun. 
 In that stone its own properties abide not, 
 It is filled with the sun's properties altogether; 
 So that, if afterwards it holds itself dear, 
 
 A a 2
 
 356 LECTUEE XI. 
 
 'Tis the same as holding the sun dear, beloved ! 
 
 And if it hold the sun dear in its heart, 
 
 'Tis clearly the same as holding itself dear. 
 
 Whether that pure ruby hold itself dear, 
 
 Or hold the sun dear, 
 
 There is no difference between the two preferences; 
 
 On either hand is naught but the light of dawn. 
 
 But till that stone becomes a ruby it hates itself, 
 
 For till it becomes one " I," it is two separate " I's," 
 
 For 'tis then darkened and purblind. 
 
 And darkness is the essential enemy of light. 
 
 If it then hold itself dear, it is an infidel ; 
 
 Because that self is an opponent of the mighty sun. 
 
 Wherefore 'tis unlawful for the stone then to say " I," 
 
 Because it is entirely in darkness and nothingness.' 
 
 Pharaoh said, ' I am the Truth,' and was laid low. 
 
 Mansur Hallaj said, ' I am the Truth,' and escaped free. 
 
 Pharaoh's ' I ' was followed by the curse of God ; 
 
 Mansur's * I ' was followed by the mercy of God, beloved ! 
 
 Because Pharaoh was a stone, Mansur a ruby; 
 
 Pharaoh an enemy of light, Mansur a friend. 
 
 O prattler, Mansur's ' I am He ' was a deep mystic saying, 
 
 Expressing oneness with the light, not mere incarnation. 
 
 This poetical image of the Sun is often applied to 
 the Deity by Sufi poets. Thus Jellal eddin says : — 
 
 None but the sun can display the sun. 
 
 If you would see it displayed, turn not away from it. 
 
 Shadows, indeed, may indicate the sun's presence. 
 
 But only the sun displays the light of life. 
 
 Shadows induce slumber, like evening talks, 
 
 But when the sun arises the 'moon is split asunder.' 
 
 In the world there is naught so wondrous as the sun, 
 
 But the Sun of the soul sets not and has no yesterday.
 
 suFiiSM. 357 
 
 Though the material sun is unique and single, 
 We can conceive similar suns like to it. 
 But the Sun of the soul, beyond this firmament, — 
 No like thereof is seen in concrete or abstract. 
 Where is there room in conception for His essence, 
 So that similitudes of Him should be conceivable? 
 
 Sometimes the soul is called the mirror of God. 
 Thus JeUal eddin says : — 
 
 If a mirror reflects not, of what use is iti 
 Knowest thou why thy mirror reflects not? 
 Because the rust has not been scoured from its face. 
 If it were purified from all rust and defilement, 
 It would reflect the shining of the Sun of God. 
 
 Often the Sufi poet warns against self-deceit : — 
 
 Whoso is restricted to religious raptures is but a man ; 
 
 Sometimes his rapture is excessive, sometimes deficient. 
 
 Tlie Sufi is, as it were, the ' son of the season,' 
 
 But the pure {Sitfi) is exalted above season and state. 
 
 Religious raptures depend on feelings and will, 
 
 But the pure one is regenerated by the breath of Jesus. 
 
 You are a lover of your own raptures, not of me; 
 
 You turn to me only in hope of experiencing raptures. 
 
 Whoso is now defective, now perfect, 
 
 Is not adored by Abraham ; he is ' one that sets.' 
 
 Because the stars set, and are now up, now down, 
 
 He loved them not ; ' I love not them that set.' 
 
 Whoso is now pleasing and now unpleasing 
 
 Is at one time water, at another fire. 
 
 He may be the house of the moon, but not the true 
 
 moon ; 
 Or as the picture of a mistress, but not the living one. 
 The mere Sufi is the ' child of the season ; '
 
 358 LECTURE XI. 
 
 He clings to seasons as to a father, 
 
 But the pure one is drowned in overwhelming love. 
 
 A child of any one is never free from season and state. 
 
 The pure one is drowned in the light ' that is not begotten,' 
 
 'What begets not and is not begotten' is God. 
 
 Go ! seek such love as this, if you are alive ; 
 
 If not, you are enslaved by vaiying seasons. 
 
 Gaze not on your own pictures, fair or ugly, 
 
 Gaze on your love and the object of your desire. 
 
 Gaze not at the sight of your own weakness or vileness, 
 
 Gaze at the object of your desire, exalted one. 
 
 The next extract is from Jami's Salaman and 
 Absab as translated by Fitzgerald, the same Fitz- 
 gerald to whom Browning was so cruel. Jami 
 ascribes all earthly beauty and all earthly love to 
 the Divine presence in it. Without that Divine light 
 man would see no real beauty, would know no real 
 love. 
 
 Salaman and Absab, by Jami. 
 
 O Thou, whose Spirit through this universe 
 In which Thou dost involve Thyself diffused. 
 Shall so perchance irradiate human clay 
 That men, suddenly dazzled, lose themselves 
 In ecstasy before a mortal shrine 
 Whose light is but a shade of the Divine ; 
 Not till Thy secret beauty through the cheek 
 Of Laila smite, doth she inflame Majnun ; 
 And not till Thou have kindled Shirln's eyes, 
 The hearts of those two rivals swell with blood. 
 For lov'd and lover are not but by Thee, 
 Nor beauty; — mortal beauty but the veil 
 Thy Heavenly hides behind, and from itself 
 Feeds, and our hearts yearn after as a bride
 
 suFiisM. 359 
 
 That glances past us vcil'd — Lut ever so 
 
 That none the veil from what it hides may know. 
 
 How long wilt Thou continue thus the world 
 
 To cozen with the fantom of a veil 
 
 From wliicli Thou only peepesf? I would be 
 
 Thy Ijover, and Thine only — I, mine eyes 
 
 Seal'd in the light of Thee to all but Thee, 
 
 Yea, in the revelation of Thyself 
 
 Lost to myself, and all that self is not 
 
 Within the double world that is but one. 
 
 Thou lurkest under all the forms of thought, 
 
 Under the form of all created things ; 
 
 Look where I may, still nothing I discern 
 
 But Thee throughout this universe, wherein 
 
 Thyself Thou dost reflect, and through those eyes 
 
 Of liim whom Man Thou madest, scrutinise. 
 
 To thy Harim, Dividualily 
 
 No entrance finds — no word of This and That; 
 
 Do Thou my separate and derived self 
 
 Make one with Thy Essential ! Leave me room 
 
 On that Divan which leaves no room for twain; 
 
 Lest, like the simple Ai-ab in the tale, 
 
 I grow perplext, oh God! 'twixt 'Me' and 'Thee'; 
 
 If I — this Spirit that inspires me whence? 
 
 If Thou — then what this sensual impotence 1 
 
 We see here the same temper of mind for which the 
 Christian poet praj- s when he says, ' Let all do all as 
 in Thy sight.' Sufiism, short of its extravagances, 
 may almost be called Christian ; nor do I doubt that 
 it owed its deepest impulses to Christianity, more 
 particularly to that spiritual Christianity which was 
 founded on Platonist and Neo-Platonist philosophy. 
 We saw that the Sufis themselves do not deny
 
 360 LECTURE XI. 
 
 this : on the contrary, they appeal to Jesus or Isa 
 as their highest authority, they constantly use the 
 language of the New Testament, and refer to the 
 legends of the Old. If Christianity and Mohammedan- 
 ism are ever to join hands in carrying out the high 
 objects at which they are both aiming, Sufiism would 
 be the common ground on which they could best 
 meet each other, understand each other, and help 
 each other.
 
 LECTaRE xn. 
 
 THE LOGOS. 
 Beligion a Bridgfe between the Visible and Invisible. 
 
 IT may be truly said that the founders of the 
 religions of the world have all been bridge- 
 builders. As soon as the existence of a Beyond, of a 
 Heaven above the earth, of Powers above us and 
 beneath us had been recognised, a great gulf seemed 
 to be fixed between what was called by various 
 names, the earthly and the heavenly, the material and 
 the spiritual, the phenomenal and noumenal, or best of 
 all, the visible and invisible world {upaTus and av- 
 opaTos), and it was the chief object of religion to unite 
 these two worlds again, whether by the arches of 
 hope and fear, or by the ii'on chains of logical syl- 
 logisms ^. 
 
 1 A wi-iter in the airistian Eeglster, July 16, 1801, p. 461. exrressos 
 the same thoughts when ho says : 'At the bottom of all religions 
 is man's instinct of his relationship with the Infinite ; and this 
 ■will not be weakened, but on the contraiy will be made stronger 
 and firmer from age to ago, as the survey of the career of the race 
 gives man wider and wider experience, and enables him more and 
 more clearly to interpret his history, and see it as a consistent 
 whole, under the rule of invariable law. Religion therefore is 
 something above or beyond any form in which it has ever ap- 
 peared, and Christianity is a distinctive, yet natural stop in an 
 unfolding process, not a supernatural form projected into human 
 life from without, and not yet absolute religion.'
 
 362 LECTURE XII. 
 
 This proLlem of uniting the invisible and the 
 visible worlds presented itself under three principal 
 aspects. The first was the problem of creation, or 
 how the invisible Primal Cause could ever come in 
 contact with visible matter and impart to it form 
 and meaning. The second problem was the relation 
 between God and the individual soul. The third 
 problem was the return of the soul from the visible to 
 the invisible world, from the prison of its mortal 
 body to the freedom of a heavenly paradise. It is this 
 third problem which has chiefly occupied us in the 
 present course of lectures, but it is diflScult to separate 
 it altogether from the first and the second. The in- 
 dividual soul as dwelling in a material body forms 
 part of the created world, and the question of the 
 return of the soul to God is therefore closely con- 
 nected with that of its creation by, or its emanation 
 from God. 
 
 We saw while treating of the last problem and 
 examining the solutions which it had received that 
 most of the religions and philosophies of the ancient 
 world were satisfied with the idea of the individual 
 soul approaching nearer and nearer to God and 
 retaining its terrestrial individuality face to face with 
 an objective deity. There was one religion only, or 
 one religious philosophy, that of the Vedanta, which, 
 resting on the fii-m conviction that the human soul 
 could never have been separate from the Divine Soul, 
 looked upon a return or an approach of the soul to 
 God as a metaphor only, while it placed the highest 
 happiness of the soul in the discovery and recovery 
 of its true nature as from eternity to eternity one with 
 God. This contrast was most clearly shown in
 
 THE LOGOS. 363 
 
 Sufiism as compared with Vcdantism. The Sufi witli 
 all his burning love of God conceives the soul as 
 soaring upward, as longing like a lover for a nearer 
 and nearer approach to God, and as lost at last in 
 ecstatic raptures when enjoying the beatific vision. 
 The Vedantist on the contrary, after having once con- 
 vinced himself by rigorous logic, that there can be but 
 one Divine Substance, which he calls the Self or Atman, 
 and that his human self cannot be anything different in 
 its essence from the true and universal Self, from that 
 which was and is and is to be, all in all, is satisfied 
 with having by means of rigorous reasoning recovered 
 his true self in the highest Self, and thus having 
 found rest in Brahman. He knows no raptures, no 
 passionate love for the Deity, nor does ho wait for 
 death to deliver his soul from its bodily prison, but 
 he trusts to knowledge, the highest knowledge, as 
 strong enough to deliver his soul from all nescience 
 and illusion even in this life. It is true that some of 
 the Sufis also come sometimes very near to this point, 
 as when Jellal eddin says : ' The " I am He " is a deep 
 mystic saying, expressing oneness with the Light, not 
 mere incarnation.' Still in general the oneness which 
 is the highest good of the Sufi, is union of two, not 
 the denial of the possibility of real separation. 
 
 There are religions in which there seems to be no 
 place at all either for an approach of the individual 
 soul to God, or for its finding itself again in God. 
 Buddhism, in its original form, knows of no objective 
 Deity, of nothing to which the subjective soul could 
 approach or with which it could be united. If we 
 can speak of Deity at all in Buddhism, it would 
 reside in the Buddha, that is in the awakened soul.
 
 364 LECTURE XII. 
 
 conscious of its true eternal nature, and enlightened 
 by self-knowledge. But that self-knowledge was no 
 longer the Vedanta knowledge of the Atman, or, if it 
 was so originally, it had ceased to be so in that 
 Buddhism which is represented to us in the sacred 
 books of that religion. 
 
 In Judaism, on the contrary, the concept of the 
 Deity is so strongly marked, so objective, so ma- 
 jestic, and so transcendent, that an approach to or a 
 union with Jehovah would have been considered 
 almost as an insult to Deity. There seem to be 
 some reminiscences in the Old Testament of an 
 earlier belief in a closer relationship between God 
 and man, but they never point to a philosophical 
 belief in the original oneness of the Divine and the 
 human soul, nor could they possibly have led on to 
 the concept of the Word as the Son of God. In the 
 mythological religions of classical antiquity also there 
 was little room for a union between human and divine 
 nature. The character of the Greek and Roman gods 
 is so intensely personal and dramatic that it excludes 
 the possibility of a human soul becoming united with 
 or absorbed in any one of them. The highest privilege 
 that some specially favoured persons might have aspired 
 to consisted in being admitted to the society of the 
 Olympians. But here too we may catch some earlier 
 reminiscences, for it is well known that some of the 
 old poets and philosophers of Greece declared their 
 belief that gods and men came from the same source, 
 that the gods were immortal mortals, and men mortal 
 immortals ^. 
 
 ' Heracliti Reliquiae, ed. Bywater, No. LVIII, 'AOdvaroi Ovrfroi, 
 SfrjTol dOdi/arot, ^wvrts rbv kmivuv BdvaTOV, tov hi iKtivuv PiovT(dviu)Tis,
 
 THE Loaos. 365 
 
 But though a belief in the eternal oneness of what 
 we call human and divine breaks out hero and there \ 
 yet it is in the Vedanta religion only that it has 
 received its full recognition and development. It 
 has been reasoned out there without any of those 
 metaphorical disguises which we find in other re- 
 ligions. One of the most familiar metaphors is that 
 which expresses the essential oneness of the Divine 
 and the human natures under the veil of fatherhood 
 and sonship. Human language could hardly have 
 supplied a better metaphor for expressing intrinsic 
 oneness and extrinsic difference, yet we know^ to how 
 much legend and mythology this metaphor has given 
 rise. No metaphor can be perfect, but the weak 
 point in our metaphor is that every human father is 
 himself created, while we require a name for a power 
 that begets, but is itself unbegotten. We must not 
 suppose that whoever speaks of God as a Father or 
 of men as the sons of God, expresses thereby a belief 
 in the oneness of the Divine and human nature. That 
 fatherhood of God may be found in almost every 
 religion, and means no more than a belief in the 
 fatherly goodness of God. Moses means no more 
 than that when he says : ' Ye are the children of the 
 Lord your God' (Deut. xiv. 1); or when he speaks 
 of 'the Rock that begat thee, and God that formed 
 thee' (Deut. xxxii. 18) ; or when he asks^ 'Is not he 
 
 ^ The famous Chinese inscription of the year 183 a.d., discovered 
 lately in the valley of the Orkhon, begins with the following 
 words : '0 Heaven so blue ! there is nothing that is not sheltered 
 by Thee. Heaven and men are united together, and the universe is 
 one (homogeneous).' See G. Schlegel, La Stele Funeraire du Teghin 
 Giogh, It 92. 
 
 - I must remark once for all that when I quote Moses and other 
 reputed authors of Old Testament Books, I simply follow custom.
 
 366 LECTURE XII. 
 
 thy father that has bought thee 1 hath he not made thee, 
 and established thee?' (Deut. xxxii. 6). These ideas 
 are not the historical antecedents of that belief in the 
 Fatherhood of God and the Divine Sonship of Christ 
 as the Word of God which pervades the Fourth Gospel. 
 Abraham, who in the Old Testament is simply called 
 the Friend of God, is spoken of by later Jews such as 
 Philo, as through his goodness an only son \ while in 
 one passage of the New Testament Adam is singled 
 out as the son of God. But all this belongs to quite 
 a different sphere of thought from that in which the 
 Stoics moved, and after them Philo, and the author 
 of the Fourth Gospel, and Christ Himself. With 
 them the Son of God was the Word of God, and the 
 Word of God as incarnate in Jesus. 
 
 The Oriental Influences in Early Christianity. 
 
 You cannot have listened to what the ancient 
 Vedanta philosophers of India and the more recent 
 Sufis of Persia had to say about the Deity and its 
 true relation to humanity, without having been struck 
 by a number of similarities between these Oriental 
 religions and the beliefs which we hold ourselves, or 
 which were held by some of the most ancient and 
 most eminent Fathers of the Church. So striking 
 are some of these similarities, particularly with regard 
 to the relation of the transcendent Deity to the phe- 
 nomenal world and to the individual soul, that for 
 a time it was taken almost for granted that Eastern 
 
 without expressing any opinion on the results of critical scholarship. 
 Surely we may be allowed to speak of Homer, without committing 
 ourselves to the opinion that he wrote all the books of the Iliad 
 and Odyssey. 
 
 ^ re70i'ttis (lanoiTjTds aiiTw fxovos vlos, Philo, De Sobriet., 11 (1,401).
 
 THE LOGOS. 367 
 
 influences had told on the minds of the early Fathers 
 of the Church. Even Daehne, in his Darstellung der 
 Judisch-Alexandrinischen JReligionsphilosojjhie, has 
 not quite discarded that opinion. But though at 
 present, after a more careful study of the Vedanta 
 and Sufi philosophy, the number of similarities has 
 become even larger than before, the idea of a direct 
 influence of Indian or Persian thought on early 
 Christian religion and philosophy, has been surrendered 
 by most scholars. 
 
 Borrowing' of Beligious Thoughts. 
 
 The difficulty of admitting any borrowing on the 
 part of one religion from another is much greater 
 than is commonly supposed, and if it has taken place, 
 there seems to me only one way in which it can be 
 satisfactorily established, namely by the actual occur- 
 rence of foreign words, or possibly the translations 
 of foreign terms which retain a certain unidiomatic 
 appearance in the language to which they have been 
 transferred. It seems impossible that any religious 
 community should have adopted the fundamental 
 principles of religion from another, unless their inter- 
 course was intimate and continuous — in fact, unless 
 they could freely exchange their thoughts in a com- 
 mon language. And in that case the people who 
 borrowed thought, could hardly have helped borrow- 
 ing words also. We see this whenever less civilised 
 nations are raised to a higher level of civilisation and 
 converted to a higher religion ; and the same thing 
 happens, though in a lesser degree, when there has 
 been a mutual exchange of religious thought between 
 civilised races also. The language of Polynesian
 
 368 LECTURE XII. 
 
 converts is full of English terms. The language even 
 of a civilised country like China, after it had been 
 converted to Buddhism, abounds with corrupt Sanskrit 
 words. Even the religious language of Rome, after 
 it had been brought for the first time under the influ- 
 ence of Greece, shows clear traces of its indebtedness. 
 We find no such traces in the language of the early 
 Christians. All the elements of their religious and 
 philosophical terminology are either Greek or Jewish. 
 Even the Jews, who had such frequent intercourse 
 with other nations, and during the Alexandrian period 
 borrowed so largely from their Greek instructors, 
 betray hardly any religious imports from other Ori- 
 ental countries in their religious and philosophical 
 dictionary. At an earlier time, also, the traces of 
 borrowing on the part of the Jews, whether from 
 Babylonians or Persians, are, as we saw, very few 
 and faint in Hebrew. No doubt neighbouring nations 
 may borrow many things from each other, but the 
 idea that they steal, or borrow silently and dis- 
 honestly, has little to support it in the history of the 
 world. Least of all do they carry off the very corner- 
 stones of their religion and philosophy from a foreign 
 quarry. It would have been utterly impossible, for 
 instance, for the early Christian Fathers to disguise 
 or deny their indebtedness to the Old Testament or 
 to Greek philosophy. No one has ever doubted it. 
 But it is very diflferent with Indian and Persian in- 
 fluences. The possibility of some highly educated 
 Persians or even Indians living at Alexandria at or 
 even before the time of the rise of Christianity cannot 
 be disproved, but that Philo or Clement should have 
 been the ungrateful and dishonest pupils of Indian
 
 THE LOGOS. 369 
 
 Pandits, Buddhist Bhikshus, of Persian Mobeds, is 
 more than, in the present state of our knowledge, any 
 serious student of the history of human thought could 
 possibly admit. 
 
 Nor should we forget that most religions have a 
 feeling of hostility towards other religions, and that 
 they are not likely to borrow from others which in 
 their most important and fundamental doctrines 
 they consider erroneous. It has often been supposed 
 that the early Christians borrowed many things from 
 the Buddhists, and there are no doubt startling coin- 
 cidences between the legendary life-stories of Buddha 
 and Christ. But if we consider that Buddhism 
 is without a belief in God, and that the most vital 
 doctrine of Christianity is the fatherhood of God 
 and the sonship of man, we shall find it difficult to 
 believe that the Christians should have taken pride 
 in transferring to the Son of God any details from 
 the biography of an atheistical teacher, or in ac- 
 cepting a few of his doctrines, while abhorring and 
 rejecting the rest. 
 
 There is still another difficulty in accepting the 
 opinion that certain religions borrowed from each 
 other. A more careful, historical study of the re- 
 ligions and philosophies of antiquity has enabled us 
 to watch the natural and continuous growth of each 
 of them. When we have learnt to understand how 
 religions and philosophies which at first startled us by 
 their similarities, have each had their own indepen- 
 dent and uninterrupted development, we cease to look 
 for foreign influences or intrusions, because we know 
 that there is really no room for them. If, for 
 instance, we take the Vedanta philosophy, we can 
 (4) B b
 
 370 LECTURE XII, 
 
 trace its growth step by step from the hymns to 
 the Brahma??as, the Upanishads, the Sutras, and 
 their commentaries, and no one who has once under- 
 stood that unbroken growth would dream of ad- 
 mitting any extraneous influences. The conception of 
 death as a mere change of habitat, the recognition of 
 the substantial identity of the human and the Divine 
 Spirit, and the admission of true immortality as based 
 entirely on knowledge, and as possible even without 
 the intervention of physical death — all these are 
 intellectual articles of faith which, however different 
 from the primitive religion of the Indian Aryas, are 
 nevertheless the natural outcome of the Indian mind, 
 left to itself to brood from generation to generation 
 over the problems of life and eternity. If then we 
 find traces of the same or very similar articles of 
 faith in the latest phase of Judaism, as represented 
 by Philo, and again in the earliest phases of Chris- 
 tianity, as represented by St. Clement, and other 
 Hellenistic converts to Christianity, we must first 
 of all ask the question, Can we account for the 
 philosophical opinions of Philo who was a Jew, and 
 of Clement who was a Christian, as the natural 
 outcome of well-known historical antecedents, and, 
 if so, is there any necessity, nay is there any possi- 
 bility for admitting extraneous impulses, coming 
 either from India or Persia, from Buddhism or 
 Manicheism ? 
 
 Philo and his Allegorical Interpretation. 
 
 Let US begin with Philo, and ask the question 
 whether we cannot fully account for his philosophy 
 as the natural outcome of the circumstances of his
 
 THE LOGOS. 371 
 
 life. It is going too far to call Philo a Father of 
 the Church, but it is perfectly true that the Christi- 
 anity of Clement and Origen and other Fathers of 
 the Church owes much of its metaphysical ground- 
 work and its philosophical phraseology to that Jewish 
 school of Alexandria of which Philo is only one, 
 though the best-known representative. Some of the 
 early Fathers were no doubt under the more im- 
 mediate influence of Greek philosophy, but others 
 came under its sway after it had been filtered through 
 the minds of Jewish philosophers, such as Philo, and 
 of Jewish converts in Egypt and Palestine. 
 
 Philo was the true child of his time, and we must try 
 to understand his religious philosophy as the natural 
 outcome of the cii-cumstances in which the old Jewish 
 religion found itself, when placed face to face with 
 Greek philosophy. Philo's mind was saturated with 
 Greek philosophy, so that, as Suidas informs us, it 
 had become a common saying that either Plato 
 Philonizes or Philo Platonizes. It is curious to 
 observe ^ that each party, the Greeks and the Jews, and 
 later on, the Christians also, instead of being pleased 
 with the fact that their own opinions had been adopted 
 by others, complained of plagiarism and were most 
 anxious to establish each their own claim to priority. 
 Even so enlightened and learned a man as St. Clement 
 of Alexandi-ia writes : ' They have borrowed from 
 our books the chief doctrines they hold on faith 
 and knowledge and science, on hope and love and 
 repentance, on temperance and the fear of God ' 
 (Strom, ii. 1). These complaints, coming from Clement, 
 
 ' See Hatch, ITihbeii Lectures, pp. 250 seq. Tertulliani Apolo- 
 geticus, cd. Binclky, cap. xlvii, note 9. 
 
 B ba
 
 372 LECTURE XII. 
 
 may be regarded as well founded. But it is different 
 with men like Minucius Felix on one side and Celsus 
 on the other. These are both eager partisans. When 
 Minucius Felix says that the Greek philosophers 
 imitated the shadow of half-truths from the divine 
 preaching of the Jewish prophets, one wonders 
 whether he thought that Aristotle had studied Isaiah. 
 And when Celsus says that the Christian philosophers 
 were simply weaving a web of misunderstandings of 
 the old doctrine, and sounded them forth with a loud 
 trumpet before men, like hierophants round those 
 who are being initiated in mysteries, did he really 
 wish us to believe that the Apostles, and more par- 
 ticularly the author of the Fourth Gospel, had studied 
 the principal writings of Plato and Aristotle ? One 
 thing, however, is made quite clear by their squabbles, 
 namely that Judaism, Christianity, and Greek philo- 
 sophy were fighting against each other on terms 
 of perfect equality, and that they had all three to 
 appeal to the judgment of the world, and of a world 
 brought up almost entirely in the schools of Stoics 
 and Neo-Platonists. Thus it was said of Origen that 
 in his manner of life he was a Christian, but in his 
 opinions about God, a Greek (Euseb. H. E., vi. 19). 
 Justin Martyr goes so far as to say in a somewhat 
 offended and querulous tone : ' We teach the same 
 as the Greeks, yet we alone are hated for what we 
 teach ' (Apol. i. 20), The same Justin Martyr speaks 
 almost like a Greek philosopher when he protests 
 against anthropomorphic expressions. ' You are not 
 to think,' he writes, ' that the unbegotten God came 
 down from anywhere or went up. . . . He who is 
 uncontained by space and by the whole world, does
 
 THE LOGOS. 373 
 
 not move, seeing that he was born before the world 
 was born.' In another place he says (Apol. ii. 13): 
 ' The teachings of Plato aro not alien to those of 
 Christ, though not in all respects similar .... for all 
 the writers (of antiquity) were able to have a dim 
 vision of realities by means of the indwelling seed 
 of the implanted word ' (the Logos). 
 
 Syneslns, 379-431. 
 
 Even so late as the fourth century, and after the 
 Council of Nicaea, we meet with a curious instance of 
 this mixture of Christian faith with Greek philosophy 
 in a bishop, whose name may be familiar to many 
 from Kingsley's splendid novel, Ilypatia. Bishop 
 Synesius (born about 370 A. D.) had actually been an 
 attendant on Hypatia's lectures. Bishop though he 
 was, he represents himself in his writings as very fond 
 of hounds and horses, of hunting and fighting. But he 
 was likewise an ardent student of Greek philosophy, 
 and it is very interesting to watch the struggles be- 
 tween his religion and his philosophy, as he la\ s them 
 bare in letters to his friends. He was evidently made 
 a bishop. Bishop of Ptolemais, very much against his 
 will, and he sees no reason why, even in his episcopal 
 office, he should part with his horses and hounds. 
 But not only that, but he declares that he cannot part 
 with his philosophical convictions either, even where 
 they clashed with Christianity. He confesses that he 
 was by education a heathen, by profession a philoso- 
 pher, and that if his duty as a bishop should be any 
 hindrance to his philosophy, he would relinquish his 
 diocese, abjure his orders, and remove into Greece. He 
 seems, however, to have quieted his scruples, and to
 
 374 LECTURE XTI. 
 
 have remained in office, keeping his Greek philosophy 
 to himself, which, as he says, would do no good to the 
 people at large, and suffering them to live in the pre- 
 judices which they had imbibed, whatever that may 
 mean. 
 
 If this wavering Christianity was possible in a 
 bishop, and even after the Council of Nicaea, 325, we 
 may imagine what it was in the first and the second 
 centuries, when people who had been brought up on 
 Greek philosophy persuaded themselves for the first 
 time to join the Church of the Christians. 
 
 In trying to represent the important process which 
 in the East, and more particularly at Alexandria, had 
 brought the religious thoughts of the Semitic world 
 face to face with the philosophical thoughts of Greece, 
 I have allowed myself to anticipate what properly 
 belongs to my next lectures. There can be no doubt, 
 however, that this process of intellectual amalgama- 
 tion between East and West, which we see still at 
 work in the fourth century, took its origin much earlier, 
 and chiefly in that school of Jewish thinkers who are 
 represented to us in Philo. He must always remain to 
 us the chief representative of a whole phase of Jewish 
 thought, because though he himself appeals to former 
 teachers, their works have not been preserved ^ We 
 should not attribute too much to Philo's personality, 
 powerful though it was. On the contrary, we should 
 try to understand the Philonic phase of Judaism as the 
 natural result of the dispersion of the Jews over the 
 whole civilised world, over ' Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, 
 Cush, Elam, Shinar and the islands of the sea,' and of 
 their contact with the best thoughts of these countries. 
 
 * Bigg, Christian Platonists, p. 6.
 
 THE LOGOS. 375 
 
 Like most of his fellow-exiles, Philo remained a firm 
 believer in the Old Testament. He is first a Jew, and 
 then a philosopher, though the Jew has to make many 
 concessions in learning to speak and think in the 
 language of Greek philosophy. Philo's position, after 
 his acquaintance with Greek philosoijhy, reminds one 
 often of that of Kammohun Koy, who was a fi.rm 
 believer in the Veda, when suddenly brought face to 
 face with the doctrines of Christianity. He could not. 
 help being ashamed of many things that were found 
 in the sacred books of India, just as, according to 
 Celsus, Jews and Christians were really ashamed of 
 their Bible ^ He had therefore to surrender many of 
 the effete traditions of his old faith, but he tried to 
 interpret others in the light received from Christian 
 literature, till at last he formulated to himself a new 
 concept of tho Deity and of man's relation to the 
 Deity which seemed to be in harmony both with the 
 intentions of Indian sages and with the aspirations of 
 Christian teachers. The touchstone of truth whi-vih 
 he adopted was much the same as that which Philo 
 had adopted from Plato-, that nothing unworthy of 
 the deity should be accepted as true, however sacred 
 the authority on which it might rost. When this was 
 once admitted everything else followed. Philo, with 
 all his reverence for the Old Testament, nay, as he 
 would say, on account of that very reverence, did not 
 hesitate to call it 'great and incurable silliness' to 
 suppose that God really planted fruit-trees in Para- 
 dise. In another place Philo says that to speak of 
 
 ' Bigg, Christian Platonisfs, p. 147. 
 
 ^ Bigg, Christian Platonist,'<, p. 51. Philo, Do Sacrificio Ab. et 
 Caini, xxviii. p. 181. We find the same in Clement, Hom. II. 40, 
 Trav \fx6iv t] ypatjtiy icard tov 6(ov \p(v5os icmv.
 
 376 LECTURE XII. 
 
 God repenting, is impiety greater than any that was 
 drowned in the Flood '^. The interpretation which he 
 put on these and similar passages is of much the same 
 character as that which is now put by educated 
 natives of India on the hideous worship of the goddess 
 Durga {Anthropolog, Religion, p. 160). Yet, however 
 implausible such interpretations may seem to us, they 
 show at all events a respect for truth and a belief 
 in divine holiness. Neither Philo, nor Clement, nor 
 Origen could bring themselves to accept physical or 
 moral impossibilities as simply miraculous^. Believing 
 as they did in a Logos or Reason that ruled the world, 
 everything irrational became ipso facto impossible, or 
 had to be interpreted allegorically. When we con- 
 sider how powerful a philosophical thinker Philo 
 was, some of his allegorical interpretations seem 
 almost incredible, as when he explains that Adam 
 was really meant for the innate perceptive faculty of 
 the mind, and Eve for the same in its operative 
 character, which springs subsequently into being, as 
 the helper and ally of the mind. In the same way 
 Abel, according to Philo, stands for perishableness, 
 Cain for self-conceit and arrogance, Seth for irrigation, 
 Enos for hope, Henoch for improvement, Noah for 
 justice, Abraham for instruction, Isaac for spiritual 
 delight. In all this Philo is perfectly serious and 
 firmly convinced of the truth of his interpretations. 
 And why ? Because, as he says again and again, ' no 
 one could believe such stories as that a wom.an was 
 made out of a man's rib.' ' Clearly,' he says, ' rib stands 
 for power, as when we say that a man has ribs instead 
 
 * See Philo, Quod Deus immutahilis, 1. 275. 
 
 * Bigg, Christian Platonists, p. 137.
 
 THE LOGOS. 377 
 
 of strength, or that a man is thick-ribbed. Adam 
 then must represent the mind, Evo perception already 
 acting through the senses, and the rib the permanent 
 faculty still dormant in the mind.' Even thus wo 
 must admii-e in Philo the spirit that is willing, though 
 the flesh is weak. 
 
 These allegorical interpretations had become in- 
 evitable with Philo, as they had before with some of 
 the more enlightened Greek philosophers, where we 
 find them as early as Democritus, Anaxagoras, and as 
 very popular with the Stoics, the immediate teachers 
 of Philo. Whenever sacred traditions or sacred 
 books have been invested by human beings with a 
 superhuman authority, so that all they contain has to 
 be accepted as the truth and nothing but the truth, 
 what remains but either to call what is unworthy 
 of the deity miraculous, or to resort to allegory? Nor 
 are Philo's allegories, though they are out of place, 
 without their own profound meaning. I shall quote 
 one only, which contains really an excellent abstract 
 of his doctrine. When speaking of the Cherubim 
 who were placed, with a flaming sword that turned 
 every way, to guard the approaches of the tree of life, 
 Philo, after quoting some other attempts at interpre- 
 tation, proceeds to say : ' I once heard even a more 
 solemn word from my soul, accustomed often to be 
 possessed by God and prophesy about things which 
 it knew not; which, if I can, I will recall to the 
 mind and mention. Now, it said to me, that in the 
 one really existing God the supreme and primary 
 powers are two, goodness and authority, and that by 
 goodness he has generated the universe, and by 
 authority he rules over what was generated ; and that
 
 378 LECTURE XII. 
 
 a third thing in the midst, which brings these two 
 together, is Reason (Logos), for that by Reason God 
 is possessed both of rule and of good. (It said) that 
 of rule, therefore, and of goodness, these two powers 
 the Cherubim are symbols, and of Reason the flaming 
 sword ; for Reason is a thing most swift in its motions 
 and hot, and especially that of the Cause, because it 
 anticipated and passed by everything, being both 
 conceived before all things and appearing in all 
 things ^.' 
 
 So far we can follow. But when Philo proceeds 
 to make an application of his interpretation of the 
 Flaming Sword as the symbol of reason in the story 
 of Abraham and Isaac, and explains that Abraham 
 when he began to measure all things by God, and to 
 leave nothing to that which is generated, took ' fire 
 and knife ' as an imitation of the Flaming Sword, 
 earnestly desiring to destroy and burn up the mortal 
 from himself in order that with naked intellect he 
 might soar aloft to God, we have to hold our breath 
 in utter amazement at so much folly united in the 
 same mind with so much wisdom ! 
 
 What is important for us, however, is to see that 
 Philo, who is generally represented as almost unin- 
 telligible, becomes perfectly intelligible if we once 
 know his antecedents and his surroundings. If, 
 as some scholars supposed, Philo had really been 
 under the immediate influence of Eastern teachers, 
 whether Persian or Indian, we should be able to 
 discover some traces of Persian or Indian thought. 
 Nay, if Philo had commanded a larger view of the 
 religions of the world, it is not improbable that his 
 
 ^ See Dr. James Drummond, Philo Judaeus, vol. i. p. 21.
 
 THE LOGOS. 379 
 
 ej'es would have been opened, and that he might have 
 learnt the same lesson which a comparative study of 
 ancient religions has taught us, namely, that mytho- 
 logical language is inevitable in the early stages of 
 religious thought, and that, if we want to understand 
 it, we must try to become children rather than philo- 
 sophers. In one case Philo boldly declares that the 
 story of the creation of Eve, as given in the Old 
 Testament, is simply mythological ^ 
 
 These preliminary remarks seemed to me necessary 
 before approaching the problem with which we are 
 more immediately concerned, namely, how the gulf 
 that was fixed in the Jewish mind between heaven and 
 earth, between God and man, could be bridged over. 
 We saw that with Philo the concept of the Deity, 
 though it often retained the name of Jehovah, had be- 
 come quite as abstract and transcendent as that of the 
 only true Being, tu ovtms 6v, of Greek philosophers. It 
 would not seem likely therefore that the Greek philo- 
 sophers, from whom Philo had learnt his thoughts and 
 language, could have supplied him with a bond to unite 
 the visible with the invisible world. And yet so it 
 was 2. For after all, the Greek philosophers also had 
 found that they had raised their Supreme Being or 
 their First Cause so very high, and placed it so far 
 beyond the limits of this visible world and the horizon 
 of human thought, that unless some connecting links 
 could be found, the world might as well be left with- 
 out any cause and without any Supreme Being. 
 
 ' T^ ^Tov irii tovto /xvOaiSfi (an fLegis allegor. i. 70\ 
 * Bigg, I.e., p. 259 note ; Drummond, I.e., ii. p. 170.
 
 380 LECTURE XII. 
 
 IiOgOS. 
 
 This connecting link, this bond between the world 
 and its cause, between the soul and its God, was to 
 Philo's mind the Logos. 
 
 Let us lay hold at once on this word. Logos is 
 a Greek word embodying a Greek thought, a thought 
 which has its antecedents in Aristotle, in Plato ; nay, 
 the deepest roots of which have been traced back 
 as far as the ancient philosophies of Anaxagoras and 
 Heraclitus, This Greek word, whatever meaning was 
 assigned to it by Christian thinkers, tells us in lan- 
 ffuao-e that cannot be mistaken that it is a word and 
 a thought of Greek workmanship. Whoever used it, 
 and in whatever sense he used it, he had been under 
 the influence of Greek thought, he was an intellectual 
 descendant of Plato, Aristotle, or of the Stoics and 
 Neo-Platonists, nay of Anaxagoras and Heraclitus. 
 To imagine that either Jews or Christians could adopt 
 a foreign terminology without adopting the thoughts 
 imbedded in it, shows a strange misapprehension of the 
 nature of language. If, as we are told, certain savage 
 tribes have no numerals beyond four, and afterwards 
 adopt the numerals of their neighbours, can they 
 borrow a name for five without borrowing at the 
 same time the concept of five? Why do we use a 
 foreign word if not because we feel that the word and 
 the exact thought which it expresses are absent from 
 our own intellectual armoury? 
 
 Philo had not only borrowed the Greek language in 
 which he wrote, he had borrowed Greek thought also 
 that had been coined in the intellectual mint of Greece, 
 and the metal of which had been extracted from Greek 
 ore. No doubt he used his loan for his own purposes,
 
 THE LOGOS. 381 
 
 still he could only transfer tho Greek words to concepts 
 that were more or less equivalent. If we see such names 
 as Parliament or Upper and Lower House transfen-ed to 
 Japan, and used there citlicr in a translated or in their 
 original form to signify their own political assemblies, 
 we know that however different the proceedings of the 
 Japanese Parliament may be from those of the English 
 Parliament, the very concept of a Parliament would 
 never have been realised in Japan except for its 
 prototype in England. Besides, wo see at once that 
 this word, Parliament, and what it signifies, has no 
 historical antecedents in Japan, while in England it 
 has erown from a small seed to a magnificent tree. 
 It is the same with Logos. There may have been 
 some vague and faint antecedents of the Logos in the 
 Old Testament\ but the Logos which Philo adopted 
 had its historical antecedents in Greece and in Greek 
 philosophy only. This is very important to remember, 
 and we shall have to return to it again. 
 
 It is often supposed that this Logos of Philo, and tho 
 Word which was in the beginning, are something very 
 obscure, some kind of mystery which few, if any, are 
 able to fathom, and which requires at all events a great 
 amount of philosophical training before it can be fully 
 apprehended. It seems to me to require nothing but 
 a careful study of the history of the word in Greece. 
 
 Logos in Greek, before it was adopted for higher 
 philosophical purposes, meant simply word, but word 
 not as a mere sound, but as thought embodied in 
 sound. The Greeks seem never to have forgotten that 
 logos, word, has a double aspect, its sound and its 
 meaning, and that, though we may distinguish the 
 
 ' Bigg, I.e., p. 18, note.
 
 382 LECTURE XII. 
 
 two, as we can the outside and inside of many things, 
 they can never have a separate existence. Philo was 
 fully aware of this, as is shown by the following 
 passage from his Life of Moses, iii. 113 (ii. 154) M 
 ' The Logos is double both in the universe and in the 
 nature of man. In the universe there are both that 
 which relates to the immaterial and pattern ideas, out 
 of which the intelligible cosmos was established, and 
 that which relates to the visible objects (which are 
 accordingly imitations and copies of those ideas), out 
 of which this perceptible cosmos was completed. But 
 in man the one is inward and the other outward, and 
 the one is, as it were, a fountain^ but the other sonorous 
 {yeydivos), flowing from the former.' 
 
 Nothing could supply a better simile for God think- 
 ing and uttering the cosmos than the act of man in 
 thinking and uttering his thought. It is only our 
 complete misapprehension of the true nature of words 
 which has led people to suppose that Philo's simile 
 was merely fanciful. The idea that the world was 
 thought and uttered or willed by God, so far from 
 being a cobweb of abstruse philosophy, is one of the 
 most natural and most accurate, nay most true con- 
 ceptions of the creation of the world, and, let me add 
 at once, of the true origin of species. 
 
 I was, I believe, one of the first who ventured to 
 use the traditions of uncivilised races as parallel 
 instances of classical myths, and as helps to the under- 
 standing of their origin, and I may venture perhaps 
 on a new experiment of utilising the philosophical 
 thoughts of a so-called savage race as likely to throw 
 light on the origin of what the Greeks meant by Logos. 
 
 1 Drummond, I.e., ii. p. 172.
 
 THE LOGOS. 383 
 
 The ItOgoa among the Klamaths, 
 
 The Klamaths, one of the Red Indian tribes, lately 
 described by Mr. Gatchet and Mr. Horatio Hale, be- 
 lieve, as we are told, in a Supreme God, whom they 
 call ' The Most Ancient,' ' Our Old Father,' or ' The 
 Old One on high.' He is believed to have created the 
 world that is, to have made plants, animals, and men. 
 But when asked how the Old Father created the world, 
 the Klamath philosopher replied: ' Bij thinking ami 
 ivilling.' In this thinking and willing you have on 
 that distant soil the germs of the same thought which 
 on Greek soil became the Logos, and in the Fourth 
 Gospel is called the Word. 
 
 It may be thought that such an idea is far too 
 abstract and abstruse to arise in the minds of Red 
 Indians of the present day or of thousands of years 
 ago. It is quite true that in a more mythological 
 atmosphere the same thought might have been ex- 
 pressed by saying that the Old Father made the world 
 with his hands, or called it forth by his word of com- 
 mand, and that he breathed life into all living things. 
 The world when created might in that case have been 
 called the handiwork, or even the offspring and the 
 son of God. 
 
 It did not, however, require much observation to see 
 that there was order and regularity in nature, or 
 thought and will, as the Klamaths called it. The 
 regular risincr of sun and moon would be sufficient to 
 reveal that. If the whole of nature were mere lumber 
 and litter, its author and ruler might have been a zero 
 or a fool. But there is thought in a tree, and there is 
 thought in a horse, and that thought is repeated again
 
 384 LECTUEE XII. 
 
 and again in every tree and in every horse. Is all 
 this like the sand of the desert, whisked about by a 
 sirocco, or is it thought and will, or what the Stoics 
 called it, the result of a \6yos a-ntpixaTiKos % As in our 
 own scientific, so in the earliest age of human observa- 
 tion and thought, the reason which underlies and per- 
 vades nature could not escape detection. It answered 
 readily to the reason of every thoughtful observer, so 
 that Kepler, after discovering the laws of the planetary 
 system, could truly say that he had thought again the 
 thoughts of God. 
 
 I cannot possibly give you here the whole history 
 of the Logos, and all the phases through which it 
 passed in the philosophical atmosphere of Greece 
 before it reached Philo, the Jewish philosopher, or 
 Christian philosophers, such as the author of the 
 Introduction to the Fourth Gospel, St. Clement, 
 Origen, and many others. In order to do that, I 
 should have to carry you from the latest Stoics whose 
 schools were frequented by Philo at Alexandria, to 
 the Stoa where Aristotle taught his realism, and to 
 the Academy where Plato expounded his ideal philo- 
 sophy, nay, even beyond, to the schools of Anaxagoras 
 and Heraclitus. All this has been extremely well 
 done by Dr. Drummond in his Philo Judaeus. A 
 short survey must here suffice. 
 
 The Historical Antecedents of tlie IiO^os. 
 
 Before we attempt even a mere survey of these his- 
 torical antecedents of the Logos, or the Word, let us try 
 to reason out the same ideas by ourselves. Logos means 
 word and thought. Word and thought, as I hope to have 
 proved in my Science of Thought, are inseparable,
 
 THE LOGOS. 385 
 
 they are but two aspects of the same intellectual act. 
 If we mean by thought what it means as soon as it is 
 expressed in a word, not a mere percept, not even 
 what it is often mistaken for, a Voistellung, or what 
 used to be called a sensuous idea, but a concept, then 
 it is clear that a word, taken as a mere sound, without 
 a concept expressed by it, would be a non-entity, quite 
 as much as the concept would be a non-entity without 
 the word by which it is embodied. Hence it is that 
 the Greek logos means both word and thought, the 
 one inseparable from the other. 
 
 As soon as language had produced such names as 
 horse, dog, man or woman, the mind was ipso facto in 
 possession of W'hat we call concepts or ideas. Every 
 one of these words embodies an idea, not only a general 
 more or less blurred image remaining in our memory 
 like the combined photographs of Mr. Galton, but a 
 concept — that is, a genuine thought under which every 
 individual horse or dog can be conceived, compre- 
 hended, classified and named. What is meant by the 
 name horse, can never be presented to our senses, but 
 only to our intellect, and it has been quite truly said 
 that no human eye has ever seen a horse, but only 
 this or that horse, grey, black, or brown, young or 
 old, strong or weak. Such a name and such a concept 
 as horse^ could not represent the memory of repeated 
 sensuous impressions only. These impressions might 
 leave in our memory a blurred photographic image, but 
 never a concept, free from all that is individual, casual 
 and temporary, and retaining only what is essential or 
 what seemed to be essential to the framers of languao-e 
 in all parts of the world. It is quite true that each 
 individual has to learn his concepts or ideas by means 
 U) Cc
 
 386 LECTUEE XII. 
 
 of sensuous perception, by discovering what general 
 features are shared in common by a number of indi- 
 viduals. It is equally true that we have to accept 
 the traditional names handed down to us by parental 
 tradition from time immemorial. But admitting all 
 this, we should ask, Whence sprang the first idea of 
 horse which we during our life on earth see realised in 
 every single horse and repeated with every new genera- 
 tion ? "What is that typical character of horse which 
 can be named and can afterwards be scientifically 
 defined? Was there no artist, no rational being that 
 had to conceive the idea of horse, before there was 
 a single horse? Could any artist produce the statue 
 of a horscj if he had never seen a horse? Will 
 material protoplasm, spontaneous evolution, the in- 
 fluence of environment, the survival of the fittest, 
 and all the rest — will any purely mechanical process 
 ever lead to a horse, whether it be a horse, or as yet a 
 hipparion only? Every name means a species, and 
 one feels almost ashamed if one sees how much more 
 profound is the theory of the Origin of Species as 
 conceived by Plato than that of modern naturalists. 
 
 The Origin of Species. 
 
 I confess I have always been surprised that these 
 old elementary teachings of Plato's philosophy have 
 been so completely ignored when the discussion on 
 the origin of species was taken up again in recent 
 times. And yet we should never have spoken of the 
 origin of species but for Plato and his predecessors 
 in Greek philosophy. For species is but a translation 
 of dbos, and eiSos is almost a synonym of Ihia. Is it 
 not perfectly unthinkable that living organic bodies,
 
 THE LOGOS. 387 
 
 whether plants or animals, nay, that anything in this 
 universe, could have come to be what it is by mere 
 evolution, by natural selection, by survival of the 
 fittest, and all the rest, unless its evolution meant the 
 realisation of an idea ? Let us grant by all means that 
 the present horse is the last term of a series of modifi- 
 cations, brought about by natural causes, of a type 
 which has existed ever since the Mesozoic epoch ; yet 
 we cannot but ask Whence that type 1 and What is 
 meant by type ? Was it mere undifferentiated proto- 
 plasm that by envii'onment and other casual influences 
 might have become either a horse or a dog ? or must we 
 not admit a purpose, a thought, a Koyos, a (nrepixaTLKos 
 Xoyosy in the first protoplastic germ which could end in 
 one last term only, a horse or a dog, or whatever else 
 was thought and willed by a rational Power, or by 
 what the ancients called the Logos of God ? Professor 
 Huxley himself speaks of the type of horse. What 
 can he mean by that, if not the idea of horse? It 
 matters little how such a type or such an idea was 
 realised, whether as a cell or as a germ, so long as we 
 recognise that there was an idea or a purpose in it, 
 or, to adopt the language of the Red Indians, so long 
 as we believe that everything that exists was thought 
 and willed by the 'Old One on high.' Is there reason 
 in the world or not, and if there is, whose Reason is it ? 
 That certain species were evolved from lower species, 
 even during the short time of which we possess any 
 certain knowledge, is no doubt a great discovery, but it 
 does not touch the deeper question of the origin of all 
 species. Whenever such transitions have been proved, 
 we should simply have to change our language, and no 
 longer call that a species which has been proved not 
 
 Cca
 
 388 LECTURE XTT. 
 
 to be a species. We must use our words as we have 
 defined them, and species means an idea or an elbos, 
 that is an eternal thought of a rational Being. Such 
 a thought must vary in every individual manifestation 
 of it, but it can never change. Unless we admit the 
 eternal existence of these ideas in a rational Mind or 
 in the Primal Cause of all things, we cannot account 
 for our seeing them realised in nature, discovered by 
 human reason, and named by human language. This 
 becomes still clearer if, instead of natural productions, 
 we think of geometrical forms. Can we imagine that 
 a perfect circle, nay, a single straight line, was ever 
 formed by repeated experiments ? or have we not to 
 admit, before a perfect sphere becomes real, if ever it 
 does become real, the concept of a perfect sphere in 
 a rational, that is, a divine Mind 1 The broad ques- 
 tion is whether the world, such as we know it and have 
 named it, is rational or casual. The choice does not 
 lie between a belief in evolution and special creation, 
 whatever that may mean, but between a belief in 
 Keason and a denial of Eeason at the bottom of all 
 things. 
 
 If we want to account for a rational world and foi 
 the permanence of typical outlines in every species 
 our mind has to admit, first of all, a creative thought, 
 or what Professor Huxley calls a type. Do we not 
 see how every horse is moulded, as it were, in a per- 
 manent type, however much the Shetland pony may 
 differ from the Arab? It is of no use for Physical 
 Science to shut its ears against such speculations oi' 
 to call them metaphysical dreams. Physical Science 
 indulges in much wilder dreams when it speaks of 
 protoplasm, of sperms and germs, of heredity, and all
 
 THE LOGOS. 389 
 
 the rest. "What is heredity but the permanence of 
 that invisible and yet most real type which Plato 
 called the idea ? Human reason has always revolted 
 against ascribing what is permanent to mere accident, 
 even to the influence of environment, to natural selec- 
 tion, survival of the fittest, and all the rest. It 
 demands by right a real cause, sufficient for real 
 efiects ; a rational cause, sufficient for rational effects. 
 That cause may be invisible, yet it is visible in its 
 effects, nor are invisible things less real than visible 
 ones. We must postulate invisible but real types, be- 
 cause without them their visible effects would remain 
 inexplicable. It is easy to say that like produces like, 
 but whence the first type ? Whence the tree before 
 there was a tree, whence man himself, before there was 
 man, and whence that mould in which each individual 
 seems cast, and which no individual can burst? 
 The presence of these types or specific forms, the 
 presence of order and law in the visible world, seems 
 to have struck the human mind at a much earher 
 period than is commonly supposed. The Klamaths, as 
 we saw, said that the world was thought and willed, 
 Anaxagoras declared that there was Nous or Mind in 
 the world. 
 
 Heraclitns. 
 
 And even before Anaxagoras, Heraclitus, after 
 claiming fire, in its most abstract form, as the primi- 
 tive element of all things, postulated something beside 
 the material element, some controlling power, some 
 force and law ; and he too called it Logos, i. e. reason or 
 word. Vague indications of the same idea may be dis- 
 covered in the mythological tradition of a Moira or
 
 390 LECTURE XII, 
 
 Heimarmene, that is Destiny, and Heraclitus actually 
 used Heimarmene, which Anaxagoras declared to be 
 an empty name (kcvov ovofxa, Alex. Aphrod. de Fato, 2) 
 as a synonym of his Logos. This is confirmed by 
 Stobaeus, saying (Eel. i. 5, p. 178) that Heraclitus 
 taught that the essence of Destiny was the Logos 
 which pervades the substance of the universe. Here the 
 Logos is what we should call law or reason, and what 
 the ancient poets of the Veda called Rita,, the Right ^. 
 When we ask, however, what seems to us a most 
 natural question, whose that reason was, or who was 
 the law-giver, always acting in the fiery process of 
 the universe, so that in all the wars and conflicts 
 of the elements right and reason prevail, we get no 
 answer from Heraclitus. Some scholars hold that 
 Heraclitus took the Logos to be identical with the 
 Fire, but to judge from certain expressions, his Logos 
 seems rather a mode according to which the Fire acts 
 (Kara tov \6yov). Nor does it seem quite clear to me 
 that Heraclitus would have called the individual soul 
 a part of the Logos, instead of saying that the in- 
 dividual soul also, as an emanation {avadvixiacns) of 
 the universal fire, was under the control of the Logos. 
 It is still more difiicult to say what sense Logos 
 possessed before Heraclitus adopted it, and applied it 
 to express the order of the universe. There is nothing 
 to show that like later philosophers he took it in the 
 sense of word as the embodiment of thought and 
 reason. It probably meant no more to Heraclitus, 
 when he adopted it for a higher purpose, than reckon- 
 ing, rule, proportion, relation, in which sense we see it 
 used in such words as avdkoyov, what is ava Koyov, or as 
 
 ' M. M.'s Hibbert Lectures, p. 2i5.
 
 THE LOGOS. 391 
 
 Heraclitus said, Kara Xuyov, according to law. It is 
 quite clear that the Logos of Heraclitus had not yet 
 assumed in his mind that dehnite meaning of a chain 
 of ideas connecting the First Cause with the pheno- 
 menal world, which it presented to the Stoics and to 
 Philo. It was as yet no more than that general reason 
 or reasonableness which struck the eyes and the mind 
 of man even on the lowest stage of civilisation. 
 
 Auaxagoras. 
 
 When Anaxagoras substituted Nous, Mind, for Logos, 
 he went a step beyond, and was the first to claim some- 
 thing of a personal character for the law that governs 
 the world, and was supposed to have changed its raw 
 material into a cosmos. We may be able to conceive 
 a law without a person behind it, but Nous, Mind, 
 takes a thinker almost for granted. Yet Anaxagoras 
 himself never fully personified his Nous, never 
 grafted it on a God or any higher being. Nous 
 was with him a something like everything else, a 
 \prj\ia, a thing, as he called it, though the finest and 
 purest of all material things. In some of his utter- 
 ances Nous was reaUy identified with the living soul, 
 nay, he seems to have looked upon every individual 
 soul as participating in the universal Nous and in 
 this universal chrema. 
 
 Socrates and Plato. 
 
 On the problem which interests us more specially, 
 namely the relation of the Logos or Nous to man 
 on one side and to God on the other, we gain little 
 till we come to Aristotle and the Stoics. So- 
 crates, if we take our idea of him from Xeuophon,
 
 392 LECTURE XII. 
 
 retained the mythological phraseology of Greece, he 
 spoke of many Gods, yet he believed in One God^ 
 who rules the whole world and by whom man was 
 created ^. This God is omnipresent, though invisible, 
 and when Socrates speaks of the thought in all {(pp6- 
 v7](Tis kv -navTi), he seems to express the same thought 
 as Heraclitus when speaking of the Logos, who always 
 is aid km>, or as Anaxagoras when speaking of the Nous 
 which ordered all things (SieKoV/xTjo-e -navTa xpr}}xaTa) 
 (Diog. Laert. ii. 6). 
 
 Though we may recognise in all this more or less 
 conscious attempts to account for the presence of 
 something beside matter in the world, to discover an 
 invisible, possibly a divine agent or agency in making, 
 disposing, and ruling the world, and thus to connect 
 the phenomenal with the noumenal, the finite with 
 the infinite, the human with the divine, yet this last 
 deliberate step was not taken either by Socrates, or 
 by Plato. The simple question what the Logos was 
 with respect to the Deity, received no definite answer 
 from these philosophers. 
 
 It is well known that what we called before the 
 permanent types of all things were called by Plato the 
 ideas, by the Klamaths, the thoughts, willed by the 
 Creator. These ideas, which taken together formed 
 what Heraclitus meant by the eternal Logos, appear 
 in Plato's philosophy as a system, built up archi- 
 tectonically, as the plan of the architecture of the 
 visible universe. Plato's ideas, which correspond to 
 our natural species and genera, become more and more 
 
 * Sympos. viii. 9, «ai -yap Ztvs 6 avTos Sokuv fhai iroWds irtwvvixiai 
 « Xen, Mem. i. 4, 5.
 
 THE LOGOS. 393 
 
 general till they rise to the ideas of the Good, the Just, 
 and the Beautiful. But instead of the many ideas 
 Plato speaks also of one general and eternal pattern 
 of the world which, like the idea of God, is not the 
 Creator himself, nor yet separable from him. This 
 pattern, though eternal, is yet a creation, though an 
 eternal creation, a world of thought prior to the 
 world of sense ^. This comes very near to the Stoic 
 Logos, as known to Philo. 
 
 In other places Plato admits a highest idea which 
 allows of no higher one, the last that can be known, 
 the idea of the Good, not simply in a moral, but like- 
 wise in a physical and metaph3-sical sense, the Suni- 
 rnum Bonum. This highest idea of the Good is what 
 in religious language would be called the Supreme 
 Being or God. But Plato, as far as I can judge, is 
 never quite explicit in telling us what he conceived 
 this Good to be. It is true he speaks of it as the Lord 
 of Light (Republ. vi. 508), and he speaks of the sun as 
 the son of the Good, whom the Good begat in his own 
 likeness, to be in the visible world in relation to sight 
 and the things of sight, what the Good is in the intel- 
 lectual world in relation to mind and the things of 
 mind. . . . And the soul, he continues, ' is like the eye : 
 when resting upon that on which truth and being shine, 
 the soul perceives and understands, and is radiant witli 
 intelligence. . . . And that which imparts truth to the 
 known and the power of knowing to the knower is 
 what I would have you term the Idea of Good.' 
 
 Here Plato leaves us, nor is he more explicit as to 
 what the relation of that Idea of Good is to the other 
 ideas, and how it can fulfil all that the old idea of 
 
 ' Jowctt, Intiod. to tho Timaeus, p. 668.
 
 394 LECTURE XII. 
 
 God or the Gods was meant to fulfil. Whether it was 
 the only efficient cause of the world, or whether each 
 of the many ideas possessed its own efficient causality, 
 independent of the Idea of Good, is a question difficult 
 to answer out of Plato's own mouth. Plato speaks of 
 God and Gods, but he never says in so many words 
 ' This, my Idea of the Good, is what you mean by 
 Zeus.' If we asked whether this Idea of the Good was 
 personal or not, we should receive no answer from Plato. 
 It is important, however, to keep in mind that Plato 
 speaks of one general and eternal pattern of the world 
 which, like the Idea of Good, is not the Creator him- 
 self, nor yet separable from him. This pattern, though 
 eternal, is created, a world of thought prior to the 
 world of sense ^. 
 
 What remains dark and doubtful in Plato's system 
 is the relation of the visible to the invisible world, of 
 the phenomena to their ideas. The expressions which 
 he uses as to the phenomena participating in the 
 ideal, or the visible being a copy of the invisible, are 
 similes and no more. In the Timaeus he becomes 
 somewhat more explicit, and introduces his theory 
 of the creation of the universe as a living being, and 
 like every living being, possessed of a soul, the soul 
 being again possessed of mind^. This universe or 
 Cosmos or Uranos is there represented as the offspring 
 of God, and what is important to remark, he is called 
 Monogenes^, the only begotten, the unigenitus, or more 
 correctly the unicus, the unique or single, the one of 
 his kind. The imperfections that cannot be denied 
 
 ^ See Jowett, Introd. to the Timaeus, p. 568. 
 " Timaeus, 30 B, tw56 rdv K6afiLov (wov inxpvxov tvvovv re. 
 ^ 'Els oSe novoyfyfjs ovpavos yeyovus 'iari re «ai tV iarai, Tim. 
 31 B.
 
 THE LOGOS. 395 
 
 to exist in the world and in man arc explained as due 
 either to the Apeiron, i. e. formless matter, which re- 
 ceives form through the ideas, or in the case of men, 
 to the fact that their creation was entrusted to the 
 minor deities, and did not proceed direct from the 
 Creator. Still the soul is everywhere represented as 
 divine, and must have been to Plato's mind a connect- 
 ing link between the Divine and the Human, between 
 the invisible and the visible. 
 
 Aristotle. 
 
 Ai'istotle is far more explicit in defining what in his 
 philosophy is to take the place of Zeus, for it is curious 
 to observe how all these philosophers with all their 
 sublime ideas about the Divine, always start from their 
 old Zeus, and speak of their new ideas as taking the 
 place of Zeus, or of the Godhead. It was the Zeus of 
 his childhood or his Oios which was explained by 
 Aristotle as being really to -npiaTov klvovv, the Prime 
 Mover, possibly to irpCiTov ilbos, the Prime Form or 
 idea, as distinguished from 17 Trpwrrj v\i], the Prime 
 Matter. He tells us also what he considers all the 
 necessary qualities of this Prime Mover to be. It must 
 be one, immoveable, unchangeable, living, intelligent, 
 nay it must be active, i.e. thinking intelligence, intelli- 
 gence thinking itself (?; vor^ais voijaecos z^o'^jcnj, Metaphys. 
 xi. 9, 4). The question of personality does not seem 
 to disturb the Greek thinkers as it does us. Aris- 
 totle's transcendent Godhead represents the oneness 
 of the thinker and thoughts, of the knower and the 
 known. Its relation to matter (vAtj) is that of the 
 form (eiSos) subduing mattei-, but also that of the 
 mover moving matter. With all this, Aristotle has
 
 396 LECTURE XIT. 
 
 not in the end elaborated more than a transcendent 
 Godhead; a solitary being thinking himself, some- 
 thing not very different from what the later Valen- 
 tinians might have called the General Silence, or 
 what Basilides meant by the non-existent God who 
 made the non-existent world out of non-existent 
 materials ^. This could not give any satisfaction to 
 the religious sentiment which requires a living God, 
 and some explanation of the dependence of the world 
 on a divine ruler, and of the relation of the soul to 
 a Supreme Being. 
 
 stoics. 
 
 We have thus far examined some of the materials 
 which were carried down the stream of Greek 
 philosophy till they reached the hands of Philo and 
 other Semitic thinkers who tried to reconcile them 
 with their ancient beliefs in their own personal yet 
 transcendent God. Before, however, we proceed 
 further to watch the process by which these two 
 streams, the one of Aryan, the other of Semitic 
 thought, became united, at first in the minds of Jewish 
 philosophers, and afterwards in the minds of Christian 
 believers also, we have still to follow the later de- 
 velopment of the thoughts of Plato and Aristotle in 
 the schools of their successors, the Stoics and Neo- 
 Platonists. We need not dwell on any of their 
 theories, whether logical, ethical, or metaphysical, ex- 
 cept those that touch on the relation of the finite 
 to the infinite, the human to the divine, the (f>ai.v6fj.€va 
 to the ovra. 
 
 ^ OvTus ovK uv Beds (7roii]<Xi Kua/jtov ovk ovra If ovk ovroiv. (Bigg, 
 I.e., p. 28, 31.)
 
 THE LOGOS. 397 
 
 The Stoics requiied a God in the old sense of the 
 word. They were not satisfied with the supreme 
 idea of Plato, nor with the Prime Mover of Aristotle. 
 Like their predecessors, they also had discovered law, 
 order, or necessity and causation in the visible world, 
 and they postulated a cause sufficient to account for 
 the existence of that law and order in the phenomenal 
 cosmos. That cause, however, with the Stoics was 
 not transcendent, but immanent. Reason or Logos 
 was discovered by them as present in every part of 
 the universe, as holding the universe together ; nay it 
 was itself considered as corporeal, and so far as it 
 represented deity, deity also was to the Stoics some- 
 thing corporeal, though ethereal or igneous ^. Yet 
 they placed a difference between Hyle, matter, and the 
 Logos or Supreme Reason or God which pervaded all 
 matter. This Logos, according to them, was not only 
 creative {-noiovv), but it continued to control all things 
 in the world. Some Stoics distinguished indeed 
 between the Logos and Zeus, the Supreme God, but 
 the orthodox doctrine of the Stoic school is that God 
 and the Divine Reason in the world are the same, 
 though they might be called by different names. The 
 Stoics, therefore, were true pantheists. With them, 
 as with HeracUtus, everything was full of the Gods, 
 and they were anxious to say that this divine presence 
 applied even to the meanest and most vulgar things, 
 to ditches and vermin. 
 
 The Stoics, however, spoke not only of one universal 
 Logos pervading the whole cosmos, they likewise 
 admitted, as if in remembrance of Plato's ideas, a 
 number of logoi, though in accordance with Ai'istotle's 
 
 ' TlvivuLo. voipov Kal TTvpuSts, Poseidon, in Stob. Eel. i. 58.
 
 398 LECTURE XII. 
 
 teaching they held that these logoi dwelt within, and 
 determined all individual things (Ao'yoi ivvXoi, uni- 
 versalia in re). These logoi were called (nrcpixaTiKoi 
 or seminal, being meant to account, like the sperms, 
 for the permanence of the type in the phenomenal 
 world, for what with less perfect metaphor we now 
 call inherited specific qualities. 
 
 These Logoi, whether singly or comprehended as the 
 one universal Logos, had to account for all that was 
 permanent in the variety of the phenomenal world. 
 They formed a system ascending from the lowest to 
 the highest, which was reflected in what we should 
 call the evolution of nature. A separate position, 
 however, was assigned to man. The human soul 
 was supposed to have received in a direct way a 
 portion of the universal Logos, and this constituted 
 the intelligence or reason which man shared in com- 
 mon with the gods. Besides this divine gift, the 
 human soul was supposed to be endowed with speech, 
 the five senses, and the power of reproduction. And 
 here we meet for the first time a definite statement 
 that speech is really the external Logos (A.. Trpo^opiKo's), 
 without which the internal Logos (A. kvhiad^To^) would 
 be as if it were not. The word is shown to be the 
 manifestation of reason ; both are Logos, only under 
 diflerent aspects. The animal soul was conceived as 
 something material, composite, and therefore perish- 
 able, to which the Logos was imparted. Like the 
 Vedantists, the Stoics taught that the soul would 
 live after death, but only to the end of the world 
 (the Kalpa), when it would be merged into the imi- 
 versal soul. Whence that universal soul took its 
 origin, or what it was, if diflerent both from the
 
 THE Loaos. 399 
 
 Logos and from matter (vA?;), we are never distinctly 
 told. What is clear, however, is that the Stoics 
 looked upon the Logos as eternal. La one sen.se the 
 Logos was with God, and, in another, it might be said 
 to be God. It was the Logos, the thought of God, 
 as pervading the world, which made the world what 
 it is, viz. a rational and intelligible cosmos ; and it was 
 the Logos again that made man what he is, a rational 
 and intelligent soul. 
 
 Pbilo's Inheritance. 
 
 You see now what a large inheritance of philo- 
 sophical thought and -philosophical language was 
 bequeathed to men like Philo, who, in the first 
 century before our era, being themselves steeped in 
 Semitic thought, were suddenly touched by the in- 
 vigorating breezes of the Hellenic spirit. Alexandria 
 was the meeting-place of these two ancient streams 
 of thought, and it was in its Libraries and Museum 
 that the Jewish religion experienced its last philo- 
 sophical revival, and that the Christian religion for 
 the fiirst time asserted its youthful strength against 
 the philosophies both of the East and of the West. 
 You will now perceive the important representative 
 character of Philo's writings which alone allow us an 
 insiffht into the historical transition of the Jewish 
 religion from its old legendary to a new philosophical 
 and almost Christian stage. Whether Philo personally 
 exercised a powerful influence on the thoughts of his 
 contemporaries, we cannot tell. But he evidently 
 represented a powerful religious and philosophical 
 movement, a movement which later on must have 
 extended to many of the earliest Christian converts
 
 400 LECTURE XII. 
 
 at Alexandria, whether Jews or Greeks by birth and 
 education. Of Philo's private life the only thing 
 which concerns us is that he was a student who 
 found his highest happiness in the study of his own 
 religion and of the philosophical systems of the great 
 thinkers of Greece, both ancient and modern. Born 
 probably about 20 B.C., he died about the middle of 
 the first century A.D. He was therefore the con- 
 temporary of Christ, though he never mentions him. 
 
 Pliilo's Philosophy. 
 
 What concerns us are the salient doctrines of Philo's 
 philosophy. Philo never surrendered his belief in 
 Jehovah, though his Jehovah had not only been 
 completely freed from his anthropomorphic character, 
 but raised so high above all earthly things that he 
 differed but little from the Platonic Godhead. Philo 
 did not, however, believe in a creation out of nothing, 
 but like the Stoics he admitted a Hyle, matter or sub- 
 stance, by the side of God, nay as coeval with God, 
 yet not divine in its origin. Like the Apeiron, the 
 Infinite of Anaximander, this Hyle is empty, passive, 
 formless, nay incapable of ever receiving the whole 
 of what the Divine Being could confer upon it, though 
 it is sometimes said that all things are filled or per- 
 vaded by God ^, and nothing left empty ^. 
 
 And yet the same God in his own essence can never, 
 according to Philo, be brought into actual contact 
 with matter, but he employed intermediate, and un- 
 embodied powers (bvvdixHs), or, as we may call them, 
 
 * As Plato said, Laws, 899, Oewv eJvai nXrjpr) vavra. 
 
 * Uavra fdp ntnXrjpojKCv u Oeos, Kal 5id TTavTCuv Sie\rj\vO(, Kal k(VOV 
 ovZlv oloi iprjixov aTToXiKoiniv. Leg. allog. I. vol. i. p. 52, iii. p. 88.
 
 THE LOGOS. 401 
 
 Ideas, in order that each genus might take its proper 
 form ^. 
 
 The Logos as a Bridge between Ood and the World. 
 
 Nothing therefore could be more welcome to Philo 
 than this Stoic theory of the Logos or the Logoi for 
 bringicf' the transcendent Cause of the World into 
 relation with the phenomenal world. It helped him 
 to account for the creation of the world, and for the 
 presence of a controlling reason in the phenomenal 
 cosmos, and he had only to apply to the Logoi the 
 more familiar name of Angels in order to bring his 
 old Jewish belief into harmony with his new philo- 
 sophical convictions. As Milman has truly remarked, 
 ' Wherever any approximation had been made to the 
 truth of one First Cause, either awful religious 
 reverence (the Jews) or philosophical abstraction (the 
 Greeks) had removed the primal Deity entirely be- 
 yond the sphere of human sense, and supposed that 
 the intercourse of the Deity with men, the moral 
 government, and even the original creation, had been 
 carried on by intermediate agency, either in Oriental 
 language of an emanation, or in the Platonic of the 
 wisdom, reason, or intelligence of One Supreme.' 
 
 Philo, who combines the awful reverence of the 
 Semitic with the philosophical sobriety of the Greek 
 mind, holds that God in the highest sense forms to 
 himself, first of all, an ideal invisible world (koV/xos 
 I'OTjTos, aoparo^) containing the ideas of all things, 
 
 ' *E^ (Kiivr}s ySip ■navr eyivvr}ff(v 6 6(6s, ovk i(pa-nr6nivoi atndv ov 
 yAp Jjv Of fits dirdpov Kol ir«pvpiJ.fvr]i vKrji if/avtiv tov iSixova xal jxanapiov, 
 aWa Tois aaaifiarois hway-taiv, wv irv^ov ovofia at tfit'ai, Kartxp-qaaro 
 TTpos rb yevoi (Kaarov rfjv apfiorrovaav \a0iiv ftopipriv. De Sacrificant . 
 13, p. 261. 
 
 (4) Dd
 
 402 LECTURE XIT. 
 
 sometimes called the world of ideas, koo-ixos Ibeav, or 
 even the idea of ideas, ib4a t&v Ibeav. These ideas 
 are the patterns, to, -napahdyixara, of all things, and 
 the power by which God conceived them is frequently 
 called the Wisdom of God (cro^ta or eTi torrj/xr]). Nay, 
 personification and mythology creep in even into 
 the holy of holies of philosophy, so that this most 
 abstract "Wisdom is spoken of as the Wife of God^, 
 the Mother or Nurse of all things sensible (iJ-vr-qp kuI 
 Ti6rivr) T&v oKmv), Yet even thus, this Mother and Nurse 
 is not allowed to bear or suckle her own children ^. 
 The Divine Wisdom is not allowed to come into 
 contact with gross matter as little as God himself. 
 That contact is brought about through the Logos, 
 as a bond which is to unite heavenly and earthly 
 things ' and to transfer the intellectual creation from 
 the divine mind upon matter. This Logos is supposed 
 to possess certain predicates, but these predicates which 
 may be called the eternal predicates of the Godhead, — 
 for the Logos also was originally but a predicate of 
 the Godhead, — are soon endowed with a certain inde- 
 pendence and personality, the most important being 
 goodness (57 ayadorrj^) and power (17 k^ovaia). This 
 goodness is also called the creative power (77 ToitjriKi] 
 hvvaixLs), the other is called the royal or ruling power 
 [r] /Sao-iXtKTj bwaixis), and while in some passages these 
 powers of God are spoken of as God, in others 
 they assume if not a distinct personality, yet an 
 
 ^ Drummond, 1. c, ii. p. 206. 
 
 '^ In some places, however, Philo forgets the supermundane 
 character of this Sophia or Episteme, and in De ebriet. 8. i. 361 seq., 
 he writes : i) 5^ rrapadf^aiuffrj rd rod Oeov (rntpfia, reXeafopois wSiai 
 rbv povov Koi dyanTjTdv aladrjTOv vlov direKiirjae rovSi rbv Hoapov. 
 
 2 Philo, Vit. Mos. iii. 14 ; Bigg, Christian Platonists, p. 259.
 
 THE LOGOS. 403 
 
 independent activity ^. Though in many places these 
 powers (Swd/xetj) are used as synonymous with the 
 Logos, yet originally they were conceived as the 
 might of divine action, while the Logos was the 
 mode of that action. 
 
 IiOgfos as tlie Sou of Ood. 
 
 It must always be remembered that Philo allows 
 himself great freedom in the employment of his 
 philosophical terminology, and is constantly carried 
 away into mythological phraseology, which after- 
 wards becomes hardened and almost unintelligible. 
 Thus the intellectual creation in the Divine Mind 
 is spoken of not only as a cosmos, but as the 
 offspring, the son of God, the first-born, the only 
 begotten (vlbs tov Oeov, fxovoyevris, irpoiToyovos) ; yet 
 in other places he is called the elder son {TTpeal3vTepos 
 vlos) as compared with the visible world, which is 
 then called the younger son of God [vecorepos vlos tov 
 6€ov), or even the other God (bevrepos Ocos). 
 
 All these terms, at first purely poetical, become 
 after a time technical, not used once or casually, but 
 handed down as the characteristic marks of a philo- 
 sophical school. To us they are of the greatest impor- 
 tance as sign-posts showing the road on which certain 
 ideas have travelled from Athens to Alexandria, till 
 they finally reached the mind of Philo, and not of Philo 
 only, but also of his contemporaries and successors, 
 whether Jews, or Greeks, or Christians. Wherever we 
 meet with the word Logos, we know that we have to 
 deal with a word of Greek extraction. When Philo 
 adopted that word, it could have meant for him sub- 
 
 ' Bigg, Christian PMonists, p. 13, note.
 
 404 LECTURE XII. 
 
 stantially neither more nor less than what it had meant 
 before in the schools of Greek philosophy. Thus, when 
 the ideal creation or the Logos had been called by 
 Philo the only begotten or unique son (vlos fiovoyevris), 
 the son of God (vlbs Oeov), and when that name was after- 
 wards transferred by the author of the Fourth Gospel 
 to Christ, what was predicated of Him can only have 
 been in substance what was contained before in these 
 technical terms, as used at first at Athens and after- 
 wards at Alexandria. To the author of the Gospel, 
 Christ was not the Logos because he was Jesus of 
 Nazareth, the son of Mary, but because he was be- 
 lieved to be the incarnate Word of God, in the true 
 sense of the term. This may seem at first very strange, 
 but it shows how sublime the conception of the Son 
 of God, the first-born, the only one, was in the minds 
 of those who were the first to use it, and who did not 
 hesitate to transfer it to Him in whom they believed 
 that the Logos had become flesh {a-afj^ kyhero), nay 
 in whom there dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead 
 bodily ^. 
 
 It is true that Christian writers of high authority 
 prefer to derive the first idea of the Logos, not from 
 pagan Greece, but from Palestine, recognising its first 
 germ in the deutero-canonical Wisdom. That Philo 
 is steeped in Jewish thought who would deny, or who 
 would even assert? That the Hebrew Prophets were 
 familiar with the idea of a Divine Word and Spirit, 
 existing in God and proceeding from God, is likewise 
 admitted on all sides. Thus we read in Psalm xxxiii. 6, 
 ' By the word of the Lord were the heavens made and 
 all the host of them by the breath of his mouth ' 
 1 Col. ii. 9.
 
 THE LOGOS. 405 
 
 (nin and la-n). Again, cvii. 20: 'He sent his word 
 and healeth them ; ' civ. 30, ' Thou sendest forth 
 thy spirit, they are created, and thou renewest the 
 face of the earth;' cxlvii. 18, 'He sendeth out his 
 word and melteth them.' Still, in all these passages 
 the word and the spirit do not mean much more than 
 the command, or communication of Jehovah. And the 
 same applies to passages where the Divine Presence or 
 Manifestation is called his Angel, the Angel of Jehovah. 
 Indeed it would be difficult to say what difference there 
 is between the Angel of Jehovah, Jehovah himself, and 
 God, for instance in the third chapter of Exodus ; and 
 again in Gen. xxxii, between God, the Angel, and Man. 
 And this Angel with whom Jacob wrestled is men- 
 tioned by so ancient a prophet as Hosea xii. 4. 
 
 All these conceptions are purely Jewish, unin- 
 fluenced as yet by any Greek thought. What I 
 doubt is whether any of these germs, the theophany 
 through Angels, the hypostasis of the Word of Jehovah 
 (nin^ nn'njj or lastly the personification of Wisdom 
 ('^??'?} could by themselves have grown into what the 
 Greek philosophers and Philo meant by Logos. We 
 must never forget that Logos, when adopted by Philo, 
 was no longer a general and undefined word. It had 
 its technical meaning quite as much as ovaCa, vircp- 
 ovcria, aTrXuxns, €V(ii(ns, ^ecocrt?. All these terms are 
 of Greek, not of Hebrew workmanship. The roots of 
 the Logos were from the first intellectual, those of 
 the Angels theological, and when the Angels, whether 
 as ministers and messengers of God, or as bcingrs 
 intermediate between God and men, became quickened 
 by the thoughts of Greek philosophy, the Angels 
 and Archangels seem to become mere names and
 
 406 LECTUEE XII. 
 
 reminiscences, and what they are truly meant for, are 
 the ideas of the Platonists, the Logoi of the Stoics, 
 the archetypal thoughts of God, the heavenly 
 models of all things, the eternal seals imprinted on 
 matter ^. None of these thoughts has been proved to 
 be Semitic. 
 
 Philo speaks distinctly of the eternal Logoi, ' which,' 
 he says, 'it is the fashion to call Angels^.' 
 
 Wisdom or Sophia. 
 
 And as little as the belief in Angels would ever 
 have led to the theory of the Logos or the Logoi, 
 as a bond between the visible and the invisible 
 world, can it be supposed that such germinal ideas 
 as that of the Shechinah or the Glory of God, or 
 the Wisdom of God, would by themselves and without 
 contact with Greek thought have grown into purely 
 philosophical conceptions, such as we find in Philo 
 and his successors. The Semitic Wisdom that says 
 ' I was there when He prepared the Heaven,' might 
 possibly have led on to Philo's Sophia or Episteme 
 which is with God before the Logos. But the 
 Wisdom of the Proverbs is certainly not the Logos, 
 but, if anything, the mother of the Logos ^, an almost 
 mythological being. We know how the Semitic mind 
 was given to represent the active manifestations of 
 the Godhead by corresponding feminine names. This 
 
 * 'ISeai, \6yoi, tvttoi, aippayiSes, but also Swajjius, dyyiXot, and even 
 XapiTfs. 
 
 ^ Philo, De Somniis, i. 19, aOavaToi^ Koyois, ovs KaXeTv (Oos dy- 
 yeXovs : ibid. i. 22, tovtos hainovas ftu ol dWoi (pi\6ao<poi, 6 bi Upos 
 A070S dyyekovs tiwdt KaXnv. Ibid. 1. 23, dyyfKot \6yoi 0eiot. 
 
 ^ De Profug. 20, p. 562, Aion yoviuv afpOaprojv Kai KaOapooTaTCuv 
 fKaxf, irarpos p-tf Oeov, . . . ptrjTpus 5i aofias, di' jjs rd o\a ^K6(v fls 
 yiveffiv.
 
 THE LOGOS. 407 
 
 is very different from representing the Intelligible 
 World (the koV/^ios voi]tus) as the Logos, the Word of 
 God, the whole Thought of God, or the Idea of Ideas. 
 Yet the two ideas, the Semitic and the Greek, were 
 somehow brought together, or rather forced together, 
 as when we see how Philo represents Wisdom, the 
 virgin daughter of God (Bethuel), as herself the Father, 
 begetting intelligence and the soul ^. Nay, he goes 
 on to say that though the name of Wisdom is 
 feminine, its nature is masculine. AU virtues have 
 the titles of women, but the powers and actions of 
 
 men Hence Wisdom, the daughter of God, is 
 
 masculine and a father, generating in souls learning 
 and instruction and science and prudence, beautiful and 
 laudable actions ^. In this process of blending Jewish 
 and Greek thought, the Greek elements in the end 
 always prevailed over the Jewish, the Logos was 
 stronger than the Sophia, and the Logos remained 
 the First-born, the only begotten Son of God, though 
 not yet in a Christian sense. Yet, when in later times 
 we see Clement of Alexandria speak of the divine and 
 royal Logos (Strom, v. 14), as the image of God, and 
 of human reason as the image of that image, which 
 dwells in man and unites man with God, can we 
 doubt that all this is Greek thought, but thinly 
 disguised under Jewish imagery? This Jewish 
 imagery breaks forth once more when the Logos is 
 represented as the High Priest, as a mediator 
 standing between humanity and the Godhead. Thus 
 Philo makes the High Priest say : ' I stand between 
 the Lord and you, I who am- neither uncreated like 
 
 ' Bigg, I.e., p. IG, note ; p. 213. 
 ^ Philo, De Prof., 9. (1, 653).
 
 408 LECTUEE XII. 
 
 God, nor created like you, but a mean between two 
 extremes, a hostage to either side ^. 
 
 Is it possible that the injunction that the High 
 Priest should not rend his clothes which are the 
 visible cosmos (De Profugis, § 20), suggested the 
 idea that the coat of Christ which was without seam 
 woven from the top throughout, should not be rent, 
 so that both the Messianic and the Philonic pro- 
 phecies were fulfilled at the same time and in the 
 same manner ^ ? 
 
 To the educated among the Rabbis who argued with 
 Christ or his disciples at Jerusalem, the Logos was 
 probably as well known as to Philo ; nay, if Philo had 
 lived at Jerusalem he would have found little difficulty 
 in recognising a Oelos Xoyos in Christ, as he had 
 recoo-nised it in Abraham and in Moses 2. If Jews 
 could bring themselves to recognise their Messiah 
 in Jesus of Nazareth, why should not a Greek 
 have discovered in Him the fulness of the Divine 
 Logos, i.e. the realisation of the perfect idea of the 
 Son of God? 
 
 It may be quite true that all this applies to a 
 small number only, and that the great bulk of the 
 Jews were beyond the reach of such arguments. 
 Still, enlightened Jews like Philo were not only 
 tolerated, but were honoured by their co-religionists 
 at Alexandria. It was recognised that to know God 
 or Jehovah, as He was represented in the Old Testa- 
 ment, was sufficient for a life of faith, hope, discipline 
 
 ' Bigg, I.e., p. 20. 
 
 ^ The words used in the N. T. x'twv icpavros 5j' o\ov remind one 
 of Philo, De Monarch, ii. § 56, oXos St' '6\ov vaKivOivos. 
 
 3 Leg, Alleg. III. 77. (i. 130). Philo does not seem as yet 
 to have identified the Logos with the Messiah.
 
 THE LOGOS. 409 
 
 and effort ; but to know God in the soul, as Philo 
 knew Him, was considered wisdom, vision, and peace. 
 Philo, however vague and uncertain some of his 
 thoughts may be, is quite distinct and definite when 
 he speaks of the Logos as the Divine Thought which, 
 like a seal, is stamped upon matter and likewise 
 on the moi-tal soul. Nothing in the whole world 
 is to him more Godlike than man, who was formed 
 according to the image of God (kot' eUova Oeov, Gen. 
 i. 27), for, as the Logos is an image of God, human 
 reason is the image of the Logos. But we must 
 distinguish here too between man as part of the 
 intelligible, and man as part of the visible world. 
 The former is the perfect seal, the perfect idea or 
 ideal of manhood, the latter its more or less imperfect 
 multiplication in each individual man. There is 
 therefore no higher conception of manhood possible 
 than that of the ideal son, or of the idea of the son, 
 realised in the flesh. No doubt this was a bold step, 
 yet it was not bolder on the part of the author of 
 the Fourth Gospel, than when Philo recognised in 
 Abraham and others sons adopted of the Father ^. 
 It was indeed that step which changed both the Jew 
 and the Gentile into a Christian, and it was this 
 very step which Celsus, from his point of view, 
 declared to be impossible for any true philosopher, 
 and which gave particular offence to those who, 
 under Gnostic influences, had come to regard the 
 flesh, the a-dp$, as the source of all evil. 
 
 Monog'enSs, the Only Begotten. 
 
 We tried before to trace the word Logos back as far 
 
 ^ Sobriet. 11 (1, 401), ycyovm elanoirjrds avToi fjiCvoi vi6s.
 
 410 LECTURE XII. 
 
 as Anaxagoras and Heraclitus ; we can trace the term 
 ixovoyevt]^ nearly as far. It occurs in a fragment of 
 Parmenides, quoted above (p. 333), as an epithet of the 
 Supreme Being, to ov, where it was meant to show 
 that this Supreme Being can be only one of its kind, 
 and that it would cease to be what it is meant to be if 
 there were another. Here the idea of -yez;rjs, meaning 
 begotten, is quite excluded. The same word is used 
 again by Plato in the Timaeus, where he applies it to 
 the visible world, which he calls a C'^ov opardv ra opara 
 irepux^v, an animate thing visible and comprehending 
 all things visible, the image of its maker, a sensible God, 
 the greatest and best, the fairest and most perfect, this 
 one world (ouranos) Monogenes, unique of its kind^ 
 
 And why did Plato use that word monogenes 1 He 
 tells us himself (Timaeus 31). 'Are we right in saying,' 
 he writes, ' that there is one world (ouranos), or shall 
 we rather say that there are many and infinite? 
 There is one, if the created universe accords with the 
 original. For that which includes all other intelligible 
 creatures cannot have a second for companion ; in that 
 case there would be need of another living being 
 which would include these two, and of which they 
 would be parts, and the likeness would be more truly 
 said to resemble not those two, but that other which 
 includes them. In order then that the world may be 
 like the perfect animate Being in unity, he who made 
 the world (cosmos), made Him not two or infinite in 
 number, but there is and ever will be one only, 
 begotten and created.' 
 
 ^ Tim. 92 C, oSe 6 Kotr/xos outw (wov oparbv tA opara irtpiexoJ', 
 uKwv Tov TTOfqrov, 6(bi alaOrjTus, neytaros KUt dpiaros KaWiarus re Kal 
 TiXewraTOS yfyovev, fh ovpavbs oSe fjiovoyfvri^ wv.
 
 THE LOGOS. 411 
 
 If applied to the begotten or visible world, mono- 
 genes might have been and was translated the only 
 begotten, unigenitus, but its true meaning was here 
 also ' the one of its kind.' Here, then, in these abstruse 
 Platonic speculations we have to discover the first 
 germs of Monogenes, the only begotten of the Father, 
 which the old Latin translations render more correctly 
 by unicus than by unigenitus. Here, in this intel- 
 lectual mint, the metal was melted and coined which 
 both Philo and tho author of the Fourth Gospel used 
 for their own purposes. It is quite true that mono- 
 genes occurs in the Greek translation of the Old Testa- 
 ment also, but what does it mean there ? It is applied 
 to Sarah, as the only daughter of her father, and to 
 Tobit and Sarah, as the only children of their parents. 
 There was no necessity in cases of that kind to lay 
 any stress on the fact that the children were begotten. 
 The word here means nothing but an only child, 
 or the only children of their parents. In one passage 
 however, in the Book of Wisdom (vii. 22), mono- 
 genes has something of its peculiar philosophical 
 meaning, when it is said that in Wisdom there is 
 a spiiit intelligent, holy, monogenes, manifold, subtle, 
 and versatile. In the New Testament, also, when we 
 read (Luke viii. 42) that a man had one only daughter, 
 the meaning is clear and simple, and very different 
 from its technical meaning in vlbs ixovoyevt]? as tho 
 recognised name of the Logos. So recognised was this 
 name, that when Valentinus speaks of 'O Movoycvijs by 
 himself we know that he can only mean the Logos, or 
 Nous, the Mind, with him the offspring of the ineffable 
 Depth or Silence {Bv66s), which alone embraced the 
 greatness of tho First Father, itself the father and
 
 412 LECTURE XII. 
 
 beginning of all things. Even so late as the Synod 
 of Antioch (269 a.d.) we can still perceive very clearly 
 the echo of the philosophical language of the Judaeo- 
 Alexandrian school. In their Confession of Faith they 
 confess and proclaim the Son as ' begotten, an only Son 
 {yevvqTov, vlov jiovoyevf]), the image of the unseen God, 
 the first-born of all creation, the Wisdom and Word 
 and Power of God, who was before the ages, not by 
 foreknowledge, but by essence and subsistence, God, 
 son of God.' 
 
 Philo, of course, always uses the only begotten Son 
 {vlos ixovoyevris) in its philosophical sense as the Thought 
 of God, realised and rendered visible in the world, 
 whether by an act of creation or by way of emanation. 
 He clearly distinguishes the Supreme Being and the 
 God, TO 6v, from the Thought or Word of that Being, the 
 Ao'yo? Tov ovTos. This Logos comprehends a number of 
 logoi^ which Philo might equally well have called 
 ideas in the Platonic sense. In fact he does so occa- 
 sionally, as when he calls the Logos of God the idea 
 of all ideas (ibia t&v Ibe&v, 6 deov koyos). Whether this 
 Logos became ever personified with him, is difficult 
 to say ; I have found no passage which would prove 
 this authoritatively. But the irresistible mytho- 
 logical tendency of language shows itself everywhere. 
 When Philo speaks of the Logos as the first-born 
 (TTpcoToyovos), or as the unique son {vlbs ixovoyevrj^), this 
 need be no more as yet than metaphorical language. 
 But metaphor soon becomes hardened into myth. When 
 we speak of our own thoughts, we may call them the 
 offspring of our mind, but very soon they may be 
 spoken of as flying away, as dwelling with our friends, 
 
 ' Drummond, I.e., ii. p. 217.
 
 THE LOGOS. 413 
 
 as having wings like angels. The same happened to 
 the Logoi and the Logos, as the thought of God. His 
 activities became agents, and these agents, as we shall 
 see, soon became angels. 
 
 What is more difficult to understand is what Philo 
 means when he recognises the Logos in such men as 
 Abraham, Melchizedek, or Moses. He cannot possibly 
 mean that they represent the whole of the Logos, for 
 the whole of the Logos, according to Philo's philosophy, 
 is realised twice only, once in the noumenal, and again, 
 less perfectly, in the phenomenal world. In the phe- 
 nomenal world in which Abraham lived, he could be 
 but one only of the many individuals representing the 
 logos or the idea of man, and his being taken as repre- 
 senting the Logos could mean no more than that he 
 was a perfect realisation of what the logos of man was 
 meant to be, or that the full measure of the logos as 
 divine reason dwelt in him, as light and as the rebuking 
 conscience ^. Here too we must learn, what we have 
 often to learn in studying the history of rehgion and 
 philosophy, that when we have to deal with thoughts 
 not fully elaborated and cleared, it is a mistake to try 
 to represent them as clearer than they were when left 
 to us by their authors. 
 
 Restricting ourselves, however, to the technical 
 terms used by Philo and others, I think we may safely 
 say that whosoever employs the phrase vlds ixovoyevris, 
 the only begotten Son, be he Philo, or the author of 
 the Fourth Gospel, or St. Clement, or Origen, uses 
 ancient Greek language and thought, and means by 
 them what they originally meant in Greek. 
 
 Philo was satisfied with having found in the 
 ' Di-unimond, I.e., ii. pp. 210 ; 225 seq.
 
 414 LECTURE XTI. 
 
 Greek Logos what he and many with him were 
 looking for, the bridge between the Human and 
 the Divine, which had been broken in religion by 
 the inapproachableness of Jehovah, and in philo- 
 sophy by the incompatibility between the Absolute 
 Being and the phenomenal world. He does not 
 often dwell on ecstatic visions which are supposed to 
 enable the soul to see and feel the presence of God. 
 In a beautiful allegory of Jacob's dream, he says : 
 ' This is an image of the soul starting up from the 
 sleep of indifference, learning that the world is full of 
 God, a temple of God. The soul has to rise,' he says, 
 ' from the sensible world to the spiritual world of ideas, 
 till it attains to knowledge of God, which is vision or 
 communion of the soul with God, attainable only by 
 the purest, and by them but rarely, that is in moments 
 of ecstasy.' 
 
 It is clear that this current which carried Hellenic 
 ideas into a Jewish stream of thought, was not confined 
 to the Jews of Alexandria, but reached Jerusalem and 
 other towns inhabited by educated Jews. Much has 
 been written as to whether the author of the Fourth 
 Gospel borrowed his doctrine of the incarnate Logos 
 directly from Philo. It seems to me a question which 
 it is almost impossible to answer either way. Dr. 
 Westcott, whose authority is deservedly high, does 
 not seem inclined to admit a direct influence. Even 
 Professor Harnack (I.e. i. p. 85) thinks that the Logos 
 of St. John has little more than its name in common 
 with the Logos of Philo. But no one can doubt that 
 the same general cuiTent through which the name of 
 Logos and all that it implies, reached Philo and the 
 Jews, must have reached the author of the Johannean
 
 THE LOGOS. 415 
 
 Gospel also. Such words as Logos and Logos mono- 
 genes are historical facts, and exist once and once only. 
 Whoever wrote the beginning of that Gospel must 
 have been in touch with Greek and Judaeo-Alex- 
 andrian philosophy, and must have formed his view of 
 God and the world under that inspiration. In the 
 eyes of the historian, and still more of the student of 
 language, this seems to be beyond the reach of doubt, 
 quite as much as that whoever speaks of ' the cate- 
 gorical imperative ' has been directly or indirectly in 
 contact with Kant. 
 
 The early Christians were quite aware that their 
 pagan opponents charged them with having borrowed 
 their philosophy from Plato and Aristotle \ Nor 
 was there any reason why this should have been 
 denied. Truth may safely be borrowed from all 
 quarters, and it is not the less true because it has 
 been borrowed. But the early Christians were very 
 angry at this charge, and brought the same against 
 their Greek critics. They called Plato an Attic Moses, 
 and accused him of having stolen his wisdom from 
 the Bible. Whoever was right in these recrimina- 
 tions, they show at all events the close relations 
 which existed between the Greeks and Christians in 
 the early days of the new Gospel, and this is the 
 only thing important to us as historians. 
 
 We cannot speak with the same certainty with 
 regard to other more or less technical terms applied 
 to the Logos by Philo, such as irpooToyovos, the first- 
 born, dKcov 6eov, the likeness of God, ai'dpco-os deov, 
 the man of God, Trapdheiyixa, the pattern, a-Kid, the 
 shadow, and more particularly apx'fpfvs, the high 
 
 * Bigg, Christian PMonists, pp. 6 seq.
 
 416 LECTURE XII. 
 
 priest, ■napdK\y]Tos, the intercessor ^ &c. But the im- 
 portant point is that all these names, more or less 
 technical, were known to Philo, long before they were 
 used by Christian writers, that the ideas contained 
 in them were of ante-Christian origin, and if accepted 
 by the followers of Christ, could at first have been 
 accepted by them in their antecedent meaning only. 
 Nay, may we now go a step fui'ther, and say that, unless 
 these words had been used in their peculiar meaning 
 by Philo and by his predecessors and contemporaries, 
 we should never have heard of them in Christian 
 literature ? Is not this the strongest proof that 
 nothing of the best thought of the Greek and of the 
 Jewish world was entirely lost, and that Christianity 
 came indeed in the fulness of time to blend the pure 
 metal that had been brought to light by the toil of 
 centuries in the East and in the West into a new and 
 stronger metal, the religion of Christ 1 If we read the 
 beginning of the Fourth Gospel, almost every other 
 word and thought seems to be of Greek workmanship. 
 I put the words most likely to be of Greek rather 
 than Jewish origin in italics : — In the beginning 
 was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, 
 and the Word was God^. All things were made by 
 him. In him was life, and the life was the light ^ of 
 the world. It was the true light which lighteth every 
 man. And the Word was made flesh — and we 
 behold his glory ^ as of the only begotten of the Father. 
 No one hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten 
 
 ' Hatch, Essays on Biblical Greek, p. 82. 
 ' The same amphiboly exists in Philo, see before, p. 398. 
 3 The (pws of Plato, Republ. vi. 508, and of Philo, De Somn. i. 13, 
 p. 632, iTpaiTov ix(v 6 Ofos (pus icni. See also Psalms li. 4 ; Ix. 19. 
 ■» The Sofa of Philo.
 
 THE LOGOS. 417 
 
 Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he has 
 declared him ^' 
 
 We have thus seen how the Jews, with whom 
 the gulf between the invisible and the visible world 
 had probably become wider than with any other 
 people, succeeded nevertheless, nay possibly on that 
 very account, in drawing the bonds between God and 
 man as closely together as they can be drawn, and 
 that they did so chiefly with the help of inspiration 
 received from Greek philosophy. God before the 
 creation was, according to Philo, sufhcient for Himself, 
 and even after the creation He remained the same 
 (De mut. nom. 5, p. 585). When Philo calls Him the 
 creator (ktiVttjs), the Demiurges, and the Father, he 
 does this under certain well-understood limitations. 
 God does not create directly, but only through the 
 Logos and the Powers. The Logos, therefore, the 
 thought of God, was the bond that united heaven and 
 earth, and through it God could be addressed once more 
 as the Father, in a truer sense than He had ever been 
 before. The world and all that was within it was 
 recognised as the true Son, sprung from the Father, yet 
 inseparable from the Father. The world was once more 
 full of God, and yet in His highest nature God was 
 above the world, unspotted from the world, eternal 
 and unchangeable. 
 
 The one point in Philo's philosophy which seems to 
 me not clearly reasoned out is the exact relation of 
 
 ' 'Ev dpxfi ^i^ ° ^oyos, Kai 6 Xoyos tjv irpos tov 0«6v, Kai o 0«6s tjv 6 
 Xo-yos. ndvTa 8u' aurov iyiviro' iv avrw ^oi^ ^v, Kai 7) (,'<xi^ tjv to 
 
 (JjoiS Ttiv dvOpUTTCOV ^V TU (pU/i TO dXljOlVuV, O <j)a)Tl5€l TTaVxa dv0pi»)1TOV. 
 
 Kai 6 A070S ffd/)^ i-fiv(TO, Kai (9(aaafit9a ttjv 86Jav auTOv, 66|av (Ls 
 |jiovoY€vo{is irapd TTaxpos. Qfuv oiSds iwjiaKe -ndinoTf 6 p.ovo'ysvTii 
 
 vloS, 6 ilV €IS Tov KuKvOV TOV TTOTpoS, iKilvO^ f^TJfrjaaTO. 
 
 (4) Ee
 
 418 LECTURE XII. 
 
 the individual soul to God^. Here the thoughts of 
 the Old Testament seem to clash in Philo's mind with 
 the teachings of his Greek masters, and to confuse 
 what may be called his psychology. That Philo 
 looked upon human nature as twofold, as a mixture 
 of body and soul (crcSjua and i/^ux'?) is clear enough. The 
 body made of the elements is the abode, the temple, 
 but also the tomb of the soul. The body is generally 
 conceived as an evil, it is even called a corpse which we 
 have to carry about with us through life. It includes 
 the senses and the passions arising from the pleasures 
 of the senses, and is therefore considered as the source 
 of all evil. We should have expected that Philo, the 
 philosopher, would have treated man as part of the 
 manifold Divine Logos, and that the imperfection of his 
 nature would have been accounted for, like all imper- 
 fections in nature, by the incomplete ascendancy of the 
 Logos over matter. But here the Old Testament doc- 
 trine comes in that God breathed into man's nostrils 
 the breath of life and man became a living soul. On 
 the strength of this, Philo recognises the eternal element 
 of the soul in the divine spirit in man (to Oelov 
 TTvevixa), while Soul {^vxji) has generally with him a 
 far wider meaning. It comprehends all conscious life, 
 and therefore sensation also (ata- 6 r] a ts), though this 
 would seem to be peculiar to the flesh (o-wjuta or o-dp^). 
 The soul is often subdivided by Philo, according to 
 Plato's division, into three parts, which may be 
 rendered approximately by reason (vovs koL \6yos), 
 spirit (6vix6s), and appetite (iTnOvixCa). Sometimes 
 perception (ata-OrjaLs), language (Aoyos), and mind 
 
 ^ See an excellent paper by Dr. Hatch, ' Psychological Terms in 
 Philo,' in Essays in Biblical Greek, pp. 109-130.
 
 THE LOGOS. 419 
 
 (vovs) are said to bo the three instruments of know- 
 ledge (De Congr. erud. gr. 18, p. 533). Then again 
 each part is divided into two, making six, while the 
 seventh, or he who divides them, is called the holy 
 and divine Logos (6 lepo? kqI Oelos Xoyos). In other 
 places Philo adopts the Stoical division of the soul into 
 seven parts, that is, the five senses, speech, and the 
 reproductive power, but a separate place is reserved 
 for the sovereign or thinking part (to i)yeiJ.ovLKur, i. e. 
 6 i-oOs), and it is said that God breathed His spirit into 
 that only, but not into the soul as the assemblage of 
 the senses, speech and generative power. Hence one 
 part of the soul, the unintelligent {aXoyov), is ascribed 
 to the blood (al/xo), the other to the divine spirit {-nv^v^xa 
 Oetov) ; one is perishable, the other immortal. The 
 immortal part was the work of God Himself, the 
 perishable (as in Plato), that of subordinate powers. 
 What has been well brought out by Philo, is that the 
 senses, which in man are always accompanied by 
 thought, are by themselves passive and dull, and could 
 present images of present things only, not of past 
 (memory) or of future things (vovs). It is not the eye 
 that sees, but the mind (vovs) sees through the 
 eye, and without the mind nothing would remain of 
 the impressions made on the senses. Philo also shows 
 how the passions and desires are really the result of 
 perception (ato-^jjo-ts), and its accompanying pleasures 
 and pains that war against the mind, and he speaks 
 of the death of the soul, when overcome by the passions. 
 This, however, can be metaphorical only, for the 
 higher portion of the soul or the divine spirit breathed 
 into man by God cannot perish. This divine spirit, 
 a conception, it would seem, not of Greek orirrin, 
 
 E e 2
 
 420 LECTURE XII. 
 
 is sometimes spoken of by the Stoic term airoa-Kaajxa, 
 but Philo carefully guards against the supposition that 
 any portion could ever be detached from the Supreme 
 Divine Being. He explains it as an expansion from 
 God, and calls the mind [vovs) which it confers on the 
 soul of man, the nearest image and likeness of the 
 eternal and blessed Idea. 
 
 We must not however expect a strictly consistent 
 terminology in Philo, nor allow ourselves to be 
 misled when we sometimes find him using mind or 
 nous in the more general sense of soul {\j/vxri)- What 
 is important to us is that when it is necessary, he 
 does distinguish between the two. But even then he 
 hesitates between the philosophical opinion of the 
 Stoics, that the mind after all is material, though not 
 made of the four ordinary elements, but of a fifth, the 
 heavenly ether, and the teaching of Moses that it was 
 the image of the Divine and the Invisible ^ 
 
 But even if the soul is conceived as material, or 
 at all events, as ethereal, it is declared to be of 
 heavenly origin, and believed to return to the pure 
 ether as to a father ^. 
 
 If, on the contrary, the mind is conceived as the 
 breath (Trvivixa) of God, then it returns to God, or 
 rather it was never separated from God, but only 
 dwelt in man. And here again the Biblical idea 
 comes in, that some chosen men such as prophets are 
 
 * De plantat. Noe, 5 (1, 332) : Of ^ev dWoi rfjs aldepiov <j)X)ae(u<! tov 
 ^nknpov vow p.oipav einovrts eivat, avfyiveiav avOpinro) -npbs aiOepa 
 dvrjipav 6 5e pieyas Mcoi"cr^s ovSevl rwv yi'^ovoTWV rfj? \ojiic^s '4'VXV^ to 
 trSos op-oiais iivofiaaiv, dW' fJnev avTrjV rov Oiiov ical dopdrov i'lKova. 
 
 '^ Quis rer. divin. heres, 57 (1, 514) : T(i 5^ voipov koI ovpdviov ttjs 
 tlv)(ris yivos irpos alOepa tov KaOapunarov dis npbs irarepa dtpt^iTat.
 
 THE LOGOS. 421 
 
 full of the divine spirit, and different so far from 
 ordinary mortals. 
 
 Yet with all his admiration for the Logos as of divine 
 origin, Philo seldom went so far as the Platonists. He 
 never allowed that the soul even in its highest ecstasy 
 could actually see God, as little, he says, as the soul 
 can see itself (De Mut. nom. 2, p. 579). But in every 
 other respect Reason was to him the supreme power 
 in the world and in the human mind. If therefore an 
 Alexandrian philosopher, familiar with Philo's philo- 
 sophy and terminology, became a Christian, he really 
 raised Christ to the highest position, short of primary 
 Divinity, which he could conceive. He declared ijyso 
 facto his belief that the Divine Logos or the Word 
 was made flesh in Christ, that is to say, he recognised 
 in Chi-ist the full realisation of the divine idea of 
 man, and he claimed at the same time for himself 
 and for all true Christians the power to become the sons 
 of God. This was expressed in unmistakable language 
 by Athanasius^ when he said that the Logos, the Word 
 of God, became man that we might be made God, 
 and again by St. Augustine, Factus est Deus homo, 
 ut homo fieret Deus ^. Whatever we may think of 
 these speculations, we may, I believe, as historians 
 recognise in them a correct account of the religious 
 and intellectual ferment in the minds of the earliest 
 Greek and Jewish converts to Christianity, who, with- 
 out breaking with their philosophical convictions, 
 embraced with perfect honesty the religion of Christ. 
 Three important points were gained by this combina- 
 tion of their ancient philosophy with their new re- 
 
 ' See the remarks of Cusanus, in Diir's Nicolaus Cusaims, vol. ii. 
 p. 347.
 
 422 LECTURE XII. 
 
 ligion, the sense of the closest relationship between 
 human and divine nature, the pre-eminent position of 
 Christ as the Son of God, in the truest sense, and at 
 the same time the potential brotherhood between Him 
 and all mankind. 
 
 How far this interpretation of the Logos, as we 
 find it not only in Philo, but among the earliest 
 converts to Christianity, may be called orthodox, is 
 not a question that concerns the historian. The word 
 orthodox does not exist in his dictionary. There is 
 probably no term which has received so many inter- 
 pretations at the hands of theologians as that of 
 Logos, and no verse in the New Testament which 
 conveys so little meaning to modern readers as the 
 first in the Gospel of St. John. Theologians are at 
 liberty to interpret it, each according to his own 
 predilection, but the historical student has no choice ; 
 he must take every word in the sense in which it 
 was used at the time by those who used it. 
 
 Jupiter as Sou of God. 
 
 That the intellectual process by which the Greek 
 philosophy adapted itself to the teaching of Christi- 
 anity was in accordance with the spirit of the time, 
 is best shown by an analogous process which led Neo- 
 Platonist philosophers to discover their philosophical 
 theories in their own ancient mythology also. Thus 
 Plotinus speaks of the Supreme God generating a 
 beautiful son, and producing all things in his essence 
 without any labour or fatigue. For this deity being 
 delighted with his work, and loving his offspring, 
 continues and connects all things with himself, pleased 
 both with himself and with the splendours his ofi"-
 
 THE LOGOS. 423 
 
 spring exhibits. But since all these arc beautiful, and 
 those which remain are still more beautiful, Jupiter, 
 the son of intellect, alone shines forth externally, 
 proceeding from the splendid retreats of his father. 
 From which last son we may behold as an image the 
 greatness of his Sire, and of his brethren, those divine 
 ideas that abide in occult union with their father ^. 
 
 Here we see that Jupiter, originally the Father of 
 Gods and men, has to yield his place to the Supreme 
 Being, and as a phenomenal God to take the place of 
 the son of God, or as the Logos. This is Greek 
 philosophy trying to pervade and quicken the ancient 
 Greek religion, as we saw it trying to be reconciled 
 with the doctrines of Christianity by recognising the 
 divine ideal of perfection and goodness as realised in 
 Christ, and as to be realised in time by all who are 
 to become the sons of God. The key-note of all these 
 aspirations is the same, a growing belief that the 
 human soul comes from God and returns to God, 
 nay that in strict philosophical language it was never 
 torn away (dTro'o-Tracx/xa) from God, that the bridge 
 between man and God was never broken, but was 
 only rendered invisible for a time by the darkness of 
 passions and desires engendered by the senses and the 
 flesh. 
 
 ' Plotinus, Enneads, II ; Taylor, Platonic Religion, p. 263.
 
 LECTUKE XIII. 
 
 ALEXANDRIAN CHRISTIANITY. 
 Stoics and XTeo-Flatonists. 
 
 I TRIED to show iu my last lecture how Philo, 
 as the representative of an important historical 
 phase of Jewish thought, endeavoured with the help 
 of Greek, and more particularly of Stoic philosophy, 
 to throw a bridge from earth to heaven, and how 
 he succeeded in discovering that like two countries, 
 now separated by a shallow ocean, these two worlds 
 formed originally but one undivided continent. When 
 the original oneness of earth and heaven, of the 
 human and the divine natures has once been dis- 
 covered, the question of the return of the soul to 
 God assumes a new character. It is no' longer a 
 question of an ascension to heaven, an approach to 
 the throne of God, an ecstatic vision of God and 
 a life in a heavenly Paradise. The vision of God 
 is rather the knowledge of the divine element in 
 the soul, and of the consubstantiality of the divine 
 and human natures. Immortality has no longer to 
 be asserted, because there can be no death for what 
 is divine and therefore immortal in man. There 
 is life eternal and peace eternal for all who feel the
 
 ALEXANDRIAN CHRISTIANITY. 425 
 
 divine Spirit as dwelling within them and have thus 
 become the true children of God. Philo has not 
 entirely freed himself from the popular eschato- 
 logical terminology. He speaks of the city of God 
 and of a mystical Jerusalem. But these need not 
 be more than poetical expressions for that peace of 
 God which passes all names and all understanding. 
 
 Anyhow the eschatological language of Philo is 
 far more simple and sober than what we meet with 
 even in Christian writings of the time, in which 
 the spirit of the Neo-Platonist philosophy has been 
 at work by the side of the more moderate traditions 
 of the Jewish and the Stoic schools of thought. The 
 chief difference between the Neo-Platonists and the 
 Stoics is that the Neo-Platonists, whether Christian or 
 pagan, trust more to sentiment than to reasoning. 
 Hence they rely much more on ecstatic visions 
 than Philo and his Stoic friends. On many other 
 points, however, more particularly on the original 
 relation between the soul and God, there is little 
 diflerence between the two. 
 
 Flotinns. 
 
 Plotinus, the chief representative of Neo-Platonism 
 at Alexandria, though separated by two centuries 
 from Philo, may be called an indirect descendant 
 of that Jewish philosopher. He is said to have had 
 intercourse with Numenius, who followed in the steps 
 of Philo '. But Plotinus went far beyond Philo. His 
 idealism was carried to the furthest extreme. While 
 the Stoics were satisfied with knowins: that God is, 
 
 ' Porphyrius had to write a book to prove that Plotinus was 
 not a mere borrower from Numenius.
 
 426 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 and with discovering his image in the ideas of the 
 invisible, and in the manifold species of the visible 
 world, the Neo-Platonists looked upon the incom- 
 prehensible and unmanifested Godhead as the highest 
 goal of their aspirations, nay, as a possible object of 
 their enraptured vision. When the Stoic keeps at a 
 reverent distance, the Neo-Platonist rushes in with 
 passionate love, and allows himself to indulge in 
 dreams and fancies which in the end could only 
 lead to self-deceit and imposture. The Stoics looking 
 upon God as the cause of all that falls within the 
 sensuous and intellectual experience of man, concluded 
 that He could not be anything of what is effect, 
 and that He could have no attributes (aTToio^) through 
 which He might be known and named. God with 
 them was simple, without qualities, inconceivable, 
 unnameable. From an ethical point of view Philo 
 admitted that the human soul should strive to become 
 free from the body {(j)vyi] €k tov crw/Aaro?) and like 
 unto God (17 77/30? deov e^o/xotojcrts). He even speaks 
 of eVwcrts, union, but he never speaks of those more 
 or less sensuous, ecstatic, and beatific visions of the 
 Deity which form a chief topic of the Neo-Platonists. 
 These so-called descendants of Plato had borrowed 
 much from the Stoics, but with all that, the religious 
 elements predominated so completely in their philo- 
 sophy that at times the old metaphysical foundation 
 almost disappeared. While reason and what is rational 
 in the phenomenal world formed the chief subject of 
 Stoic thought, the chief interest of the Neo-Platonists 
 was centered in what is beyond reason. It ma,y be 
 said that to a certain extent Philo's Stoicism pointed 
 already in that direction, for his God also was
 
 ALEXANDRIAN CHRISTIANITY. 427 
 
 conceived as above the Logos, and his essence remained 
 unknown ; yet knowledge of the existence of God and 
 likeness to Him were the highest goal, and refuge with 
 Him was eternal lifo^. It has therefore been truly- 
 said that the Neo-Platonist differs from the Stoic by 
 temperament rather than by argument. 
 
 The Neo-Platonist,like the Stoic, believes in a Primal 
 Being, and in an ideal world (rov<i, Koanos ^•o7]ro^), as the 
 prototype of the phenomenal world (Koa-fios oparo's'). The 
 soul is to him also of divine origin. It is the image 
 of the eternal Nous, an immaterial substance, stand- 
 ing between the Nous and the visible world. The more 
 the soul falls away from its source, the more it falls 
 under the power of what we should call matter, the 
 indefinite {aimpov), and the unreal {to jut; ov). It is 
 here that philosophy steps in to teach the soul its 
 way back to its real home. This is achieved by the 
 practice of virtues, from the lowest to the highest, 
 sometimes by a very strict ascetic discipline. In the 
 end, however, neither knowledge nor virtue avail. 
 Complete self-forgetfulness only can lead the soul to 
 the Godhead in whose embrace there is ineffable 
 blessedness. Thus when speaking of the absorption 
 of man in the Absolute, Plotinus said: 'Perhaps it 
 cannot even be called an intuition ^ ; it is another 
 kind of seeing, an ecstasy, a simplification, an exalta- 
 tion, a striving for contact, and a rest. It is the 
 highest yearning for union, in order to see, if possible, 
 what there is in the holiest of the temple. But even 
 if one could see, there would be nothing to see. By 
 such similitudes the wise prophets try to give a hint 
 how the Deity might be perceived, and the wise 
 
 ' De Prof. 15 (1, 5.57). - Tholuck, MorgenldndiscM Myatik, p. 5.
 
 438 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 priest, who understands the hint may really, if he 
 reaches the holiest, obtain a true intuition.' These 
 intuitions, in which nothing could be seen, were 
 naturally treated as secrets, and the idea of mystery, 
 so foreign to all true philosophy, became more and 
 more prevalent. Thus Plotinus himself says that 
 these are doctrines which should be considered as 
 mysterieS; and should not be brought before the un- 
 initiated. Proclus also says, 'As the Mystae in the 
 holiest of their initiations (reAeVat) meet first with 
 a multiform and manifold race of gods, but when 
 entered into the sanctuary and surrounded by holy 
 ceremonies, receive at once divine illumination in 
 their bosom, and like lightly-armed warriors take 
 quick possession of the Divine, the same thing 
 happens at the intuition of the One and All. If 
 the soul looks to what is behind, it sees the shadows 
 and illusions only of what is. If it turns into its own 
 essence and discovers its own relations, it sees itself 
 only, but if penetrating more deeply into the know- 
 ledge of itself, it discovers the spirit in itself and in 
 all orders of things. And if it reaches into its inmost 
 recess, as it were into the Adyton of the soul, it can 
 see the race of gods and the unities of all things even 
 with closed eyes.' 
 
 Plotinus and his school seem to have paid great 
 attention to foreign, particularly to Eastern religions 
 and superstitions, and endeavoured to discover in all of 
 them remnants of divine wisdom. They even wished 
 to preserve and to revive the religion of the Roman 
 Empire. Claiming revelation for themselves, the Neo- 
 Platonists were all the more ready to accept divine reve- 
 lations from other religions also, and to unite them all
 
 ALEXANDRIAN CHRISTIANITY. 429 
 
 into a universal religion. But what ice mean by an 
 historical and critical study of other i^eligions was 
 impossible at that time. While Philo with his unwaver- 
 ing adherence to the Jewish faith was satisfied with 
 allegorising whatever in the Old Testament seemed 
 to him incompatible with his philosophical convic- 
 tions, the Neo-Platonists accepted everything that 
 seemed compatible with their own mystic dreams, 
 and opened the door wide to superstitions even of the 
 lowest kind. It is strange, however, that Plotinus 
 does not seem to have paid much attention to the 
 Christian religion which was then rapidly gaining 
 influence in Alexandria. But his pupils, Amehus 
 and Porphyrius, both deal with it. Amelius dis- 
 cussed the Fourth Gospel. Porphyrius wrote his 
 work in fifteen books against the Christians, more 
 particularly against their Sacred Books, which he 
 calls the works of ignorant people and impostors. 
 Yet no sect or school counted so many decepti decep- 
 tores as that of the Neo-Platonists. Magic, thauma- 
 turgy> levitation, faith-cures, thought-reading, spirit- 
 ism, and every kind of pious fraud were practised by 
 impostors who travelled about from place to place, 
 some with large followings. Their influence was 
 widely spread and most mischievous. Still we must 
 not forget that the same Neo-Platonism counted 
 among its teachers and believers such names also as 
 the Emperor Julian (331-363), who thought Neo- 
 Platonism strong enough to oust Christianity and to 
 revive the ancient religion of Eome ; also, for a time at 
 least, St. Augustine (354-430), Hypatia, the beautiful 
 martyr of philosophy (d. 415), and Proc/us (411-485), 
 the connecting link between Greek philosophy and
 
 430 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 the scholastic philosophy of the middle ages, and with 
 Dionysius one of the chief authorities of the mediaeval 
 Mystics. Through Proclus the best thoughts of the 
 Stoics, of Aristotle, Plato, nay, of the still more ancient 
 philosophers of Greece, such as Anaxagoras and Hera- 
 clitus, were handed on to the greatest scholastic and 
 mystic Doctors in the mediaeval Church ; nay, there 
 are currents in our own modern theology, which can 
 be traced back through an uninterrupted channel to 
 impulses springing from the brains of the earliest 
 thinkers of Asia Minor and Greece. 
 
 Before we leave Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists 
 I should like to read you some extracts from a private 
 letter which the philosopher wrote to Flaccus. Like 
 most private letters it gives us a better insight into 
 the innermost thoughts of the writer, and into what 
 he considered the most important points of his philo- 
 sophical system than any more elaborate book. 
 
 letter from Plotinus to Placcus. 
 
 'External objects,' he writes, 'present us only with 
 appearances,' that is to say, are phenomenal only. 
 Concerning them, therefore, we may be said to possess 
 opinion rather than knowledge. The distinctions in 
 the actual world of appearance are of import only to 
 ordinary and practical men. Our question lies with 
 the ideal reality that exists behind appearance. How 
 does the mind perceive these ideas ? Are they without 
 us, and is the reason, like sensation, occupied with 
 objects external to itself? What certainty could we 
 then have, what assurance that our perception was 
 infallible? The object perceived would be a some- 
 thino- different from the mind perceiving it. We
 
 ALEXANDRIAN CHRISTIANITY. 431 
 
 should have then an image instead of reality. It 
 would be monstrous to believe for a moment that 
 the mind was unable to perceive ideal truth exactly 
 as it is, and that we had no certainty and real know- 
 ledge concerning the world of intelligence. It follows, 
 therefore, that this region of truth is not to be investi- 
 gated as a thing outward to us, and so only imperfectly 
 known. It is within us. Here the objects we con- 
 template and that which contemplates are identical — 
 both are thought. The subject cannot surely know 
 an object different from itself ^. 
 
 The world of ideas lies within our intelligence. 
 Truth, therefore, is not the agreement of our appre- 
 hension of an external object with the object itself. 
 It is the agreement of the mind with itself. Con- 
 sciousness, therefore, is the sole basis of certainty. 
 The mind is its own witness. Reason sees in itself 
 that which is above itself as its source ; and again, 
 that which is below itself as still itself once more. 
 
 Knowledge has three degrees — opinion, science, illu- 
 mination. The means or instrument of the first is 
 sense ; of the second, reason or dialectics ; of the third, 
 intuition. To the last I subordinate reason. It is abso- 
 lute knowledge founded on the identity of the mind 
 knowing with the object known. There is a raying out 
 of all orders of existence, an external emanation from 
 the ineffable One (-npoobo^). There is again a returning 
 impulse, drawing all upwards and inwards toward the 
 centre from whence all came (^ina-Tpocpri). 
 
 ' Plotinus, Enneades, 1, 6, 9, tu yip upwv vpos to opajtitvov avyyfyh 
 Kai ofiotoi' TToirjaantvov Set (iriliaWeLV rfj 6ea. ov ynp av ■nintoTt tlStv 
 vifiOaKpLui TjKiov -qKioii^ris fiij yiyivqixivos, ovhl tu Ka\dv &v i5ot ^vxr) /ii) 
 Ka\T^ yfvofifvrj. yeviaOco Sf] vpuiTov 0(O(i5fis Tras, Kai /ca\ds iras, (I /xeWfi 
 Otaaaa6ai 6(6v re icat Ka\vv. Ed. Diibner, p. 37.
 
 432 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 Love, as Plato beautifully says in the Symposion, is 
 the child of poverty and plenty. In the amorous 
 quest of the soul after God, lies the painful sense of 
 fall and deprivation. But that love is blessing, is 
 salvation, is our guardian genius ; without it the 
 centrifugal law would overpower us, and sweep our 
 souls out far from their source toward the cold ex- 
 tremities of the material and the manifold. The wise 
 man recognises the idea of God within him. This he 
 develops by withdrawal into the Holy Place of his 
 own soul. He who does not understand how the soul 
 contains the Beautiful within itself, seeks to realise 
 the beauty without, by laborious production. His 
 aim should rather be to concentrate and simplify, and 
 so to expand his being ; instead of going out into the 
 manifold, to forsake it for the One, and so to float 
 upwards towards the divine fount of being whose 
 stream flows within him. 
 
 You ask, how can we know the Infinite? I answer, 
 not by reason. It is the ofiice of reason to distin- 
 guish and define. The Infinite, therefore, cannot be 
 ranked among its objects. You can only apprehend 
 the Infinite by a faculty superior to reason, by 
 entering into a state in which you are your finite self 
 no longer, in which the Divine Essence is communi- 
 cated to you. This is ecstasy. It is the liberation of 
 your mind from its finite anxieties. Like only can 
 apprehend like. When you thus cease to be finite, 
 you become one with the Infinite. In the reduction 
 of your soul to its simplest self (a-TrAcodts), its divine 
 essence, you realise this Union, nay this Identity 
 (ez/cocris). 
 
 1
 
 ALEXANDRIAN CHRISTIANITY. 433 
 
 Ecstatic Xntnition. 
 
 Plotinus adds that this ecstatic state is not frequent, 
 that he himself has realised it but three times in his 
 life. There are different ways leading to it : — the 
 love of beauty which exalts the poet; devotion to 
 the One, and the ascent of science which makes the 
 ambition of the philosopher; and lastly love and 
 prayers by which some devout and ardent soul 
 tends in its moral purity towards perfection. We 
 should call those three the Beautiful, the True, and 
 the Divine, the three great highways conducting 
 the soul to 'that height above the actual and the 
 particular, where it stands in the immediate presence 
 of the Infinite, which shines out as from the depth of 
 the souL' 
 
 We are told by Porphyrius, the pupil and bio- 
 grapher of Plotinus, that Plotinus felt ashamed that 
 his soul should ever have had to assume a human 
 body, and when he died, his last words are reported 
 to have been : ' As yet I have expected you, and now 
 I consent that my divine part may return to that 
 Divine Nature which flourishes throughout the 
 universe.' He looked upon his soul as Empedocles 
 had done long before him, when he called himself, 
 'Heaven's exile, straying from the orb of light, 
 straying, but returning.' 
 
 Alexandrian Christianity. St. Clement. 
 
 It was necessary to give this analysis of the 
 elements which formed the intellectual atmosphere 
 of Alexandria in order to understand the influence 
 which that atmosphere exercised on the early growth 
 
 ^4) Ff
 
 434 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 of Chris! ianity in that city. Whatever progress 
 Christianity made at Jerusalem among people who 
 remained for a long time more Jewish than Christian, 
 its influence on the world at large began with the 
 conversion of men who then represented the world, 
 who stood in the front rank of philosophical thought, 
 who had been educated in the schools of Greek 
 philosophy, and who in adopting Christianity as their 
 religion, showed to the world that they were able 
 honestly to reconcile their own philosophical convic- 
 tions with the religious and moral teaching of Jesus 
 of Nazareth. Those who are truly called the Fathers 
 and Founders of the Christian Church were not the 
 simple-minded fishermen of Galilee, but men who had 
 received the highest education which could be obtained 
 at the time, that is Greek education. In Palestine 
 Christianity might have remained a local sect by the 
 side of many other sects. In Alexandria, at that time 
 the very centre of the world, it had either to vanquish 
 the world, or to vanish. Clement of Alexandria, 
 Origen, Ii-enaeus, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, 
 Gregory of Nazianzen, Chrysostom, or among the 
 Latin Fathers, Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrosius, Hila- 
 rius, Augustmus, Hieronymus, and Gregory, all were 
 men of classical learning and philosophical culture, 
 and quite able to hold their own against their pagan 
 opponents. Christianity came no doubt from the 
 small room in the house of Mary, where many were 
 gathered together praying^, but as early as the 
 second century it became a very different Christianity 
 
 * St. Clement, when he speaks of his own Christian teachers, 
 speaks of them as having preserved the true tradition of the 
 blessed doctrine, straight from Peter and James, John and Paul.
 
 ALEXANDRIAN CHRISTIANITY. 435 
 
 in the Catechetical School ^ of Alexandria. St. Paul 
 had made a beginning as a philosophical apologete of 
 Christianity and as a powerful antagonist of pagan 
 beliefs and customs. But St, Clement was a very 
 different champion of the new faith, far superior to 
 him both in learning and in philosophical strength. 
 The profession of Christianity by such a man was 
 therefore a far more significant fact in the triumphant 
 progress of the new religion than even the conversion 
 of Saul. The events which happened at Jerusalem, 
 the traditions and legends handed down in the earliest 
 half Jewish and half Christian communities, and even 
 the earliest written documents did not occupy the 
 mind of St. Clement^ so much as the fundamental 
 problems of religion and their solution as attempted 
 by this new sect. He accepted the Apostolical tradi- 
 tions, but he wished to show that they possessed to him 
 a far deeper meaning than they could possibly have 
 possessed among some of the immediate followers of 
 Christ. There was nothing to tempt a man in Clement's 
 position to accept this new creed. Nothing but the 
 spirit of truth and sincere admiration for the character 
 of Christ as conceived by him, could have induced 
 a pagan Greek philosopher to brave the scoffs of his 
 philosophical friends and to declare himself a follower 
 of Christ, and a member of a sect, at that time still 
 despised and threatened with persecution. He felt 
 convinced, however, that this new religion, if properly 
 understood, was worthy of being accepted by the most 
 enlightened minds. This proper understanding was 
 what Clement would have called yvcHa-Ls, in the best sense 
 
 * Strom, i. 1, 11 ; Harnack, Dogmengeschichie, i. p, 301, note. 
 
 * Hai'nack, Dogmengcschidttc. i. p. 300. 
 
 Ff 2
 
 436 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 of the word. The Catechetical School where Clement 
 taught had been under the guidance of Greek philoso- 
 phers converted to Christianity, such as Athenagoras (?) 
 and Pantaenus. Pantaenus, of whom it is related that 
 he discovered a Hebrew version of the Gospel of 
 St. Matthew in India ^, had been the master of Clement. 
 His pupil, in openly declaring himself a Christian and 
 an apologete of Christianity, surrendered nothing of 
 his philosophical convictions. On one side Christian 
 teachers were representing Greek philosophy as the 
 work of the Devil, while others, such as the EbioniteS; 
 assigned the Old Testament to the same source. In the 
 midst of these conflicting streams St. Clement stood fii-m. 
 He openly expressed his belief in the Old Testament 
 as revealed, and he accepted the Apostolical Dogma, so 
 far as it had been settled at that time. He claimed, 
 however, the most perfect freedom of interpretation 
 and speculation. By applying the same allegorical 
 interpretation which Philo had used in interpreting 
 the Old Testament, to the New, Clement convinced 
 himself and convinced others that there was no an- 
 tagonism between philosophy and religion. What 
 Clement had most at heart was not the letter but the 
 spirit, not the historical events, but their deeper mean- 
 ing in universal history. 
 
 The Trinity of St. Clement. 
 
 It can hardly be doubted - that St. Clement knew the 
 very ancient Baptismal Formula, ' In the name of the 
 Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost' from the Gospel 
 of St. Matthew. 
 
 1 Bigg, I.e., p. 44. 
 
 ^ See, however, Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, i. p. 802, note,
 
 ALEXANDRIAN CHRISTIANITY. 437 
 
 But whether that formula came to him with ecclesias- 
 tical authority or not, it would not have clashed with 
 his own convictions. He had accepted the Fii-st 
 Person, the Father, not simply as the Jehovah of the 
 Old Testament or as the Zeus of Plato, but as the 
 highest and most abstract philosophical concept, and 
 yet the most real of all realities. He would not have 
 ascribed to God any qualities. To him also God was 
 aTTotos, like the primal Godhead of the Stoics and Neo- 
 Platonists. He was incomprehensible and unnameable. 
 Yet though neither thought nor word could reach 
 Him, beyond asserting that He is, Clement could 
 revere and worship Him. 
 
 One might have thought that the Second Person, the 
 Son, would have been a stumbling-block to Clement. 
 But we find on the contrary that Clement, like all con- 
 temporary Greek philosophers, required a bridge be- 
 tween the world and the unapproachable and ineffable 
 Godhead. That bridge was the Logos, the Word. Even 
 before him, Athenagoras \ supposed to have been his 
 predecessor at the Catechetical School of Alexandria, 
 had declared that the Logos of the Father was the Son of 
 God. Clement conceived this Logos in its old philo- 
 sophical meaning, as the mind and consciousness of 
 the Father. He speaks of it as ' divine, the likeness of 
 the Lord of all things, the most manifest, true God ^! 
 The Logos, though called the sum of all divine 
 ideas 3, is distinguished from the actual logoi, though 
 sometimes represented as standing at the head of them. 
 This Logos is eternal, like the Father, for the Father 
 
 ' NoCj kox \6-^o% tov varphi <5 vXh^ rov 6eov. See Drummond, I.e., i 
 p. 48. 
 
 ^ ©cFos, 6 <pavepuTaTOi 5vtus 6(6s, 6 ry StanoTT) ruiv '6\o)v fftffatOtk 
 " Bigg, I.e., p. 92.
 
 438 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 would never have been the Father without the Son, 
 nor the Son the Son without the Father. Such 
 ideas were shared in common by the Christians and 
 their pagan adversaries. Even Celsus, the great op- 
 ponent of Christianity, says through the mouth of 
 the Jew, ' If the Logos is to you a Son of God, we 
 also agree with you ^.' 
 
 The really critical step which Clement took, and 
 which philosophers like Celsus declined to take, was 
 to recognise this Logos in Jesus of Nazareth. It was 
 the same process as that which led the Jewish con- 
 verts to recognise the Messiah in Jesus. It is not quite 
 certain whether the Logos had been identified with 
 the Messiah by the Jews of Alexandria ^. But when 
 at last this step was taken it meant that everything 
 that was thought and expected of the Messiah had 
 been fulfilled in Jesus. This to a Jew was quite as 
 difficult as to recognise the Logos in Jesus was to a 
 Greek philosopher. How then did St. Clement bring 
 himself to say that in a Jewish Teacher whom he had 
 never seen the Logos had become flesh ? All the 
 epithets, such as Logos, Son of God, the first-born, the 
 only begotten, the second God, were familiar to the 
 Greeks of Alexandria. If then they brought them- 
 selves to say that He, Jesus of Nazareth, was all that, 
 if they transferred all these well-known predicates 
 to Him, what did they mean? Unless we suppose 
 that the concept of a perfect man is in itself impos- 
 sible, it seems to me that they could only have meant 
 that a perfect man might be called the realisation of 
 the Logos, whether we take it in its collective form, 
 
 1 'fls (lyf 6 Aoyos (Ctiv vfuv vtos rod Otov, Koi fifius inaivovfitv. 
 Harnack, I.e., i. p. 423, 609. ' Bigg, I.e., p. 25, note.
 
 ALEXANDRIAN CHRISTIANITY. 439 
 
 as it was in the beginning with God, or in its more 
 special sense, as the logos or the original idea or the 
 divine conception of man. If then all who knew Jesus 
 of Nazareth, who had beheld His glory full of grace 
 and truth, bore witness of Him as perfect, as free from 
 all the taints of the material creation, why should not 
 the Greek philosophers have accepted their testimony, 
 and declared that He was to them the Divine Word, 
 the Son of God, the first-born, the only-begotten, mani- 
 fested in the flesh ? Human language then, and even 
 now, has no higher predicates to bestow. It is the 
 nearest approach to the Father, who is gi'eater even 
 than the Word, and I believe that the earliest Fathers 
 of the Church and those who followed them, bestowed 
 it honestly, not in the legendary sense of an Evange- 
 liwmi infantiae, but in the deepest sense of their 
 philosophical convictions. Here is the true historical 
 solution of the Incarnation, and if the religion of the 
 Incarnation is pre-eminently ' a religion of experi- 
 ence,' here are the facts and the experience on which 
 alone that religion can rest. 
 
 We saw that Philo, whose language St. Clement 
 uses in all these discussions, had recognised his Logos 
 as present in such prophets as Abi-aham and Moses ; 
 and many have thought that St. Clement meant no 
 more when he recognised the Word as incarnate in 
 the Son of Mary (Strom, vii. 2). But it seems to me 
 that Clement's mind soared far higher. To him the 
 whole history of the world was a divine drama, a long 
 preparation for the revelation of God in man. From 
 the very beginning man had been a manifestation of 
 the Divine Logos, and therefore divine in his nature. 
 Why should not man have risen at last to his full
 
 440 LECTUEE xiir. 
 
 perfection, to be what he had been meant to be from 
 the first in the counsel of the Father? We often 
 speak of an ideal man or of the ideal of manhood, 
 without thinking what we mean by this Platonic 
 language. Ideal has come to mean not much more 
 than very perfect. But it meant originally the idea in 
 the mind of God, and to be the ideal man meant to be 
 the man of God, the man as thought and willed by 
 Divine Wisdom. That man was recognised in Christ 
 by those who had no inducement to do violence to 
 their philosophical convictions. And if they could do 
 it honestly, why cannot we do it honestly too, and 
 thus bring our philosophical convictions into perfect 
 harmony with our historical faith ? 
 
 It is more difficult to determine the exact place 
 which St. Clement would have assigned to the Third 
 Person, the Holy Ghost. 
 
 The first origin of that concept is still enveloped in 
 much uncertainty. There seems to be something 
 attractive in triads. We find them in many parts of 
 the world, owing their origin to very difierent causes. 
 The trinity of Plato is well known, and in it there is 
 a place for the third person, namely, the World-spirit, 
 of which the human soul was a part. Numenius^ 
 from whom, as we saw, Plotinus was suspected to 
 have borrowed his philosophy, proposed a triad or, as 
 some call it, a trinity, consisting of the Supreme, the 
 Logos (or Demiurge), and the World. With the 
 Christian philosophers at Alexandria the concept of 
 the Deity was at fii'st biune rather than triune. 
 The Supreme Being and the Logos together compre- 
 hended the whole of Deity, and we saw that the 
 I, I.e., p. 251.
 
 ALEXANDRIAN CHRISTIANITY, 441 
 
 Logos or the intellectual world was called not only the 
 Son of God, but also the second God (bevrepos Oeos). 
 When this distinction between the Divine in its abso- 
 lute essence, and the Divine as manifested by its own 
 activity, had once been realised, there seemed to be no 
 room for a third phase or person. Sometimes there- 
 fore it looks as if the Third Person was only a repeti- 
 tion of the Second. Thus the author of the Shepherd ^ 
 and the author of the Acta Archelai both identify 
 the Holy Ghost with the Son of God. How unsettled 
 the minds of Christian people were with regard to 
 the Holy Ghost, is shown by the fact that in the 
 apocryphal gospel of the. Hebrews Christ speaks of it 
 as His Mother ^. When, however, a third place was 
 claimed for the Holy Spirit, as substantially existing 
 by the side of the Father and the Son, it seems quite 
 possible that this thought came, not from Greek, but 
 from a Jewish source. It seems to be the Spii-it which 
 • in the beginning moved upon the face of the waters,' 
 or 'the breath of life which God breathed into the 
 nostiils of man.' These manifestations of God, how- 
 ever, would according to Greek philosophers have fallen 
 rather to the share of the Logos. Again, if in the New 
 Testament man is called the temple of God, God and 
 the Spirit might have been conceived as one, though 
 here also the name of Logos would from a Greek point 
 of view have been more appropriate to any manifesta- 
 tion of the Godhead in man. In His last discourse Christ 
 speaks of the Holy Ghost as taking His place, and as in 
 one sense even more powerful than the Son. We are 
 told that the special work of the Spirit or the Holy 
 Spirit is to produce holy life in man, that while God 
 ' Harnack, I.e., i. p. 023. ^ Rgnan^ i^g Emngiks, pp. 103, 18.5.
 
 443 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 imparts existence, the Son reason (logos), the Holy- 
 Ghost imparts sanctification ^ Clement probably ac- 
 cepted the Holy Ghost as a more direct emanation or 
 radiation proceeding from the Father and the Son in 
 their relation with the human soul. For while the 
 Father and Son acted on the whole world, the influence 
 of the Holy Ghost was restricted to the soul of man. It 
 was in that sense that the prophets of the Old Testa- 
 ment were said to have been filled with the Spirit of 
 God ; nay, according to some early theologians Jesus 
 also became the Christ after baptism only, that is, 
 after the Holy Ghost in the shape of a dove had 
 descended upon Him. 
 
 The difficulties become even greater when we re- 
 member that St. Clement speaks of the Father and the 
 Logos as substances (hypostaseis), sharing the same 
 essence (ousia), and as personal, the Logos being 
 subordinate to the Father as touching His manhood, 
 though equal to the Father as touching His godhead. 
 We must remember that neither the Logos nor the 
 Holy Ghost was taken by him as a mere power (bwajxis) 
 of God, but as subsisting personally ^. Now it is quite 
 true that personality did not mean with St. Clement 
 what it came to mean at a later time. With him 
 a mythological individuality, such as later theologians 
 clamoured for, would have been incompatible with the 
 true concept of deity. Still self-conscious activity 
 would certainly have been claimed by him for every 
 one of the three Persons, and one wonders why he 
 should not have more fully expressed which particular 
 activity it was which seemed to him not compatible 
 
 1 Bigg, p. 174. 
 
 2 Harnack, I.e., i. p. 581, 1. 17.
 
 ALEXANDRIAN CHRISTIANITY. 443 
 
 either with the Father or -with the Logos, but to 
 require a separate Person, the Holy Ghost. 
 
 It afterwards was recognised as the principal func- 
 tion of the Holy Ghost to bring the world, and more 
 particularly the human soul, back to the consciousness 
 of its divine origin, and it was a similar function which 
 He was believed to have exercised even at the baptism 
 of Christ \ at least by some of the leading author- 
 ities in the fourth and fifth centuries, Theodore of 
 Mopsuestia, Nestorius, and others. 
 
 The problem, however, which concerns us more imme- 
 diately, the oneness of the human and divine natures, 
 is not affected by these speculations. It forms the 
 fundamental conviction in St. Clement's, as in Philo's 
 mind. If, in order to bring about the recognition of 
 this truth, a third power was wanted, St. Clement 
 would find it in the Holy Ghost. If it was the Holy 
 Ghost which gave to man the full conviction of his 
 divine sonship, we must remember that this recon- 
 ciliation between God and man was in the fii'st 
 instance the work of Christ, and that it had not 
 merely a moral meaning, but a higher metaphysical 
 purpose. If St. Clement had been quite consistent, he 
 could only have meant that the human soul received 
 the Holy Spirit through Christ, and that through the 
 Holy Spirit only it became conscious of its true divine 
 nature and mindful of its eternal home. We some- 
 times wish that St. Clement had expressed himself 
 more fully on these subjects, more particularly on his 
 view of the relation of man to God, to the Logos, and 
 to the Holy Spirit. 
 
 On his fundamental conviction, however, there can 
 
 ' Htirnack, I.e., i. pp. 91, G39.
 
 444 LECTURE XITI. 
 
 be no uncertainty. It was Clement who, before St. 
 Augustine, declared boldly that God became man in 
 Christ in order that man might become God. Clement 
 is not a confused thinker, but he does not help the 
 reader as much as he might, and there is a certain 
 reticence in his conception of the Incarnation which 
 leaves us in the dark on several points. Dr. Bigg^ 
 thinks indeed that Clement's idea of the Saviour is 
 larger and nobler than that of any other doctor of the 
 Church. ' Clement's Christ,' he says, ' is the Light that 
 broods over all history, and lighteth up every man that 
 Cometh into the world. All that there is upon earth 
 of beauty, truth, goodness, all that distinguishes the 
 civilised man from the savage, and the savage from 
 the beast, is His gift.' All this is true, and gives to the 
 Logos a much more historical and universal meaning 
 than it had with Philo. Yet St. Clement never 
 clearly explains how he thought that all this took 
 place, and how more particularly this universal Logos 
 became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, while it was at 
 the same time pervading the whole world and every 
 living soul ; also what was according to him the exact 
 relation of the Logos to the Pneuma, 
 
 There are several other questions to which I can- 
 not find an answer in St. Clement, but it is a subject 
 which I may safely leave to other and more competent 
 hands. 
 
 It may be said that such thoughts as we have dis- 
 covered in St. Clement are too high for popular 
 religion, and every religion, in order to be a religion, 
 must be popular. Clement knew this perfectly well. 
 But the philosophical thoughts in which he lived were 
 
 ' L.c, p. 72.
 
 ALEXANDRIAN CHRISTIANITY. 445 
 
 evidently more widely spread in his time than they 
 are even with us ; and in the case of babes, Clement 
 is quite satisfied that their Logos or Christ should he 
 simply the Master, the Shepherd, the Physician, the 
 Son of Mary who suffered for them on the cross. 
 Besides, there was the Church which acted both as a 
 guide and as a judge over all its members, particularly 
 those who had not yet found the true liberty of the 
 children of God. If Clement considers this as the 
 Lower Life, still it leads on to the Higher Life, the 
 life of knowledge and righteousness, the life of love, 
 the life in Christ and in God, That purity of life is 
 essential for reaching this higher life is fully understood 
 by Clement. He knew that when true knowledge 
 has been obtained, sin becomes impossible. * Good 
 works follow knowledge as shadow follows substance^' 
 Knowledge or Gnosis is defined as the apprehensive 
 contemplation of God in the Logos. When Clement 
 shows that this knowledge is at the same time love of 
 God and life in God, he represents the same view 
 which we met with in the Vedanta, in contradis- 
 tinction from the doctrine of the Sufis. That love of 
 God, he holds, must be free from all passion and desire 
 {aiTadi]s) ; it is a contented self-appropriation which 
 restores him who knows to oneness with Ckrist, and 
 therefore with God. The Vedantist expressed the 
 same conviction when he said that, He who knows 
 Brahma, is Brahma (Brahmavid Brahma bhavati). 
 That is the true, serene, intellectual ecstasis, not the 
 feverish ecstatic visions of Plotinus and his followers. 
 Clement has often been called a Gnostic and a Mystic, 
 yet these names as applied to him have a very different 
 
 * Strom, viii. 13, 82.
 
 446 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 meaning from what they have when applied to Plo- 
 tinus or JambUchus. With all his boldness of thought 
 St. Clement never loses his reverence before the real 
 mysteries of life. He never indulges in minute de- 
 scriptions of the visions of an enraptured soul during 
 life, or of the rejoicings or the sufferings of the soul 
 after death. All he asserts is that the soul will for 
 ever dwell with Christ, beholding the Father. It will 
 not lose its subjectivity, though freed from its terres- 
 trial personality. It will obtain the vision of the 
 Eternal and the Divine, and itself put on a divine 
 form {a-xwa O^lov). It will find rest in God by know- 
 ledge and love of God. 
 
 Origen. 
 
 I cannot leave this Alexandrian period of Chris- 
 tianity without saying a few words about Origen. 
 To say a few words on such a man as Origen may 
 seem a very useless undertaking; a whole course of 
 lectures could hardly do justice to such a subject. 
 Still in the natural course of our argument we cannot 
 pass him over. What I wish to make quite clear to 
 you is that there is in Christianity more theosophy 
 than in any other religion, if we use that word in its 
 right meaning, as comprehending whatever of wisdom 
 has been vouchsafed to man touching things divine. 
 We are so little accustomed to look for philosophy 
 in the New Testamant that we have almost acquiesced 
 in that most unholy divorce between religion and 
 philosophy ; nay, there are those who regard it almost 
 as a distinction that our religion should not be bur- 
 dened with metaphysical speculations like other reli- 
 gions. Still there is plenty of metaphysical speculation
 
 ALEXANDRIAN CHRISTIANITY. 447 
 
 underlying the Christian religion, if only we look for 
 it as the early Fathers did. The true height and depth 
 of Christianity cannot be measured unless we place it 
 side by side with the other religions of the world. 
 We are hardly aware till we have returned from 
 abroad that England is richer in magnificent cathe- 
 drals than any other country, nor shall we ever 
 appreciate at its full value the theosophic wealth of 
 the Christian religion, quite apart from its other ex- 
 cellences, till we have weighed it against the other 
 religions of the world. But in doing this we must 
 treat it simply as one of the historical religions of the 
 world. It is only if we treat it with the perfect 
 impartiality of the historian that we shall discover its 
 often unsuspected strength. 
 
 I hope I have made it clear to you that from the 
 very fii-st the principal object of the Christian religion 
 has been to make the world comprehend the oneness 
 of the objective Deity, call it Jehovah, or Zeus, or Theos, 
 or the Supreme Being, to 6v, with the subjective Deity, 
 call it self, or mind, or soul, or reason, or Logos. 
 Another point which I was anxious to establish was 
 that this religion, when it meets us for the first time 
 at Alexandria as a complete theological system, repre- 
 sents a combination of Greek, that is Aryan, with 
 Jewish, that is Semitic thought, that these two primeval 
 streams after meeting at Alexandria have ever since 
 been flowing on with irresistible force through the 
 history of the world. 
 
 Without these Aryan and Semitic antecedents 
 Christianity would never have become the Religion of 
 the world. It is necessary therefore to restore to Chris- 
 tianity its historical character by trying to discover
 
 448 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 and to understand more fully its historical antecedents. 
 It was Hegel, I believe, who used to say that the dis- 
 tinguishing characteristic of the Christian religion was 
 that it was non-historical, by which he meant that it 
 was without historical antecedents, or, as others would 
 say, miraculous. It seems to me on the contrary that 
 what constitutes the essential character of Christian- 
 ity is that it is so thoroughly historical, or coming, 
 as others would say, in the very fulness of time. It 
 is difficult to understand the supercilious treatment 
 which Christianity so often receives from historians 
 and philosophers, and the distrust with which it is re- 
 garded by the ever-increasing number of the educated 
 and more or less enlightened classes. I believe this 
 is chiefly due to the absence of a truly historical treat- 
 ment, and more particularly to the neglect of that most 
 important phase in its early development, with which 
 we are now concerned. I still believe that by vindi- 
 cating the true historical position of Christianity, and 
 by showing the position which it holds by right among 
 the historical and natural religions of the world, with- 
 out reference to or reliance ujjon any supposed special, 
 exceptional, or so-called miraculous revelation, I may 
 have fulfilled the real intention of the founder of this 
 lectureship better than I could have done in any other 
 way. 
 
 Though I cannot give you a full account of Origen 
 and his numerous writings, or tell you anything new 
 about this remarkable man, still I should have been 
 charged with wilful blindness if, considering what 
 the highest object of these lectures is, I had passed 
 over the man whose philosophical and theological 
 speculations prove better than anything else what in
 
 ALEXANDRIAN CHRISTIANITY. 449 
 
 this, my final course of lectures, I am most anxious to 
 prove, viz. that the be all and the end all of true 
 religion is to reunite the bond between the Divine and 
 the Human which had been severed by the false reli- 
 gions of the world. 
 
 On several points Origen is more definite than 
 St. Clement. He claims the same freedom of interpreta- 
 tion, and yet he is far more deeply impressed with the 
 authority of the Rule of Faith, and likewise with 
 the authority of the Scriptures, known to him, than 
 St. Clement ^. Origen had been born and bred a 
 Christian, and he was more disposed to reckon with 
 facts, though always recognising a higher truth 
 behind and beyond the mere facts. He evidently 
 found gi'eat relief by openly recognising the dis- 
 tinction between practical religion as required for the 
 many (xpio-riavto-juios o-cojuaTtKo's) and philosophical truth 
 as required by the few {xpta-Tiav Lands Trreu/jtartKo's). 
 
 After admitting that every religion cannot but 
 assume in the minds of the many a more or less 
 mythological form, he goes on to ask, ' but what 
 other way could be found more helpful to the many, 
 and better than what has been handed down to the 
 people from Jesus ? ' Still even then, when he meets 
 with anything in the sacred traditions that conflicts 
 with morality, the law of nature or reason, he protests 
 against it, and agrees with his Greek opponent that God 
 cannot do anj^thing against his own nature, the Logos, 
 against his own thought and will, and that all miracles 
 are therefore in a higher sense natural-. A mere miracle, 
 
 ' Harnack, 1. c, i. p. 573. 
 
 ' Contra Celsum, v. 23; Bigg, I.e., p. 263; Harnack, i. p. 566, 
 note ; Orig. in Joan. ii. 28. 
 
 (i) txg
 
 450 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 in the ordinary acceptation of the term, would from 
 his point of view have been an insult to the Logos 
 and indirectly to the Deity. That the tempter should 
 have carried Christ bodily into a mountain Origen 
 simply declared impossible. His great object was 
 everywhere the same, the reconciliation of philosophy 
 with religion, and of religion with philosophy. Thus 
 he says that a Greek philosopher, on becoming ac- 
 quainted with the Christian religion, might well, 
 by means of his scientific acquirements, reduce it to 
 a more perfect system, supply what seems deficient, 
 and thus establish the truth of Christianity^. In 
 another place he praises those who no longer want 
 Christ simply as a physician, a shepherd, or a ransom, 
 but as wisdom, Logos, and righteousness. Well 
 might Porphyrins say of Origen that he lived like a 
 Christian and according to the law, but that with 
 regard to his views about thinos and about the 
 Divine, he was like a Greek ^. Still it was the 
 Christian Doctrine which was to him the perfection 
 of Greek philosophy ^, that is to say the Christian 
 Doctrine in the light of Greek philosophy. 
 
 Origen was certainly more biblical in his perfect 
 Monism than Philo. He does not admit matter by 
 the side of God, but looks upon God as the author 
 even of matter, and of all that constitutes the material 
 world. God's very nature consists in His constant 
 manifestation of Himself in the world by means of 
 the Logos, whether we call it the thought, the will, or 
 the word of God. According to Origen, this Logos 
 
 1 Contra Celsum, i. 2. ^ Eusebius, H. E., vi. 19. 
 
 ' Harnack, i. p. 562, note.
 
 ALEXANDRIAN CHRISTIANITY. 451 
 
 in all its fulness was manifested in Christ as the 
 perfect image of God. He is called the second 
 God (ScvVepos 6c6s), the Son, being of the same sub- 
 stance as the Father (oixoovcnos tw iraTpi). He is 
 also called the wisdom of God, but as subsisting 
 substantially by itself (sapievtia del substantialiter 
 subbidens), and containing all the forms of the 
 manifold creation, or standing between the One 
 Uncreate on one side and the manifold created things 
 on the other ^. If then this Logos, essentially divine 
 (oixoovaios T(5 ^ecp), is predicated of Christ, we can 
 clearly perceive that with Origen too this was really 
 the only way in which he could assert the divinity 
 of Christ. There was nothing higher he could have 
 predicated of Christ. Origen was using the term 
 Logos in the sense in which the word had been 
 handed down to him from the author of the Fourth 
 Gospel through Tatian, Athenagoras, Pantaenus, and 
 Clement. Every one of them held the original 
 unity of all spiritual essences with God. The Logos 
 was the highest of them, but every human soul also 
 was orginally of God and was eternal. According to 
 Origen the interval between God and man is filled 
 with an unbroken series of rational beings (naturae 
 rationabiles), following each other according to their 
 dignity. They all belong to the changeable world 
 and are themselves capable of change, of progress, 
 or deterioration. They take to some extent the place 
 of the old Stoic logoi, but they assume a more 
 popular form under the name of Angels. The Father, 
 Son, and Holy Ghost belong to the eternal and 
 unchangeable world, then follow the Angels ac- 
 
 * Harnack, i. p. 582-3. 
 Gga
 
 452 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 cording to their different ranks, and lastly the human 
 soul. 
 
 With regard to the Third Person, Origen, like 
 St. Clement, had never, as Prof. Harnack remarks 
 (i. p. 583), achieved an impressive proof of the inner 
 necessity of this hypostasis ; nay it was not settled 
 yet in his time whether the Holy Ghost was create 
 or uncreate, whether it should be taken for the Son 
 of God or not. Nevertheless Origen accepted the 
 Trinity, but with the Father as the full source of its 
 divinity (Trrjyrj ttjs ^co'ttjtos) ; nay he speaks of it as 
 the mystery of all mysteries, whatever this may mean. 
 
 All human souls were supposed by Origen to 
 have fallen away, and as a punishment to have 
 been clothed in flesh during their stay in the material 
 world. But after the dominion of sin in the material 
 world is over, the pure Logos was to appear, united 
 with a pure human soul, to redeem every human 
 soul, so that it should die to the flesh, live in the 
 spirit, and share in the ultimate restoration of all 
 things. Some of these speculations may be called 
 fanciful, but the underlying thought represented at 
 the time the true essence of Christianity. It was in 
 the name of the Christian Logos that Origen was 
 able to answer the Logos alethes of Celsus ; it was 
 in that Sign that Christianity conquered and re- 
 conciled Greek philosophy in the East, and Roman 
 dogmatism in the West. 
 
 The Alogoi. 
 
 But though this philosophy based on the Logos, the 
 antecedents of which we have traced back to the great 
 philosophers of Greece, enabled men like St. Clement
 
 ALEXANDRIAN CHRISTIANITY. 453 
 
 and Origen to fight their good fight for the new faith, 
 it must not be supposed that this philosophical defence 
 met with universal approval. As Origen saw himself, 
 it was too high and too deep for large numbers who had 
 adopted the Christian religion for other excellences 
 that appealed to their heart rather than to their 
 understanding. Thus we hear in the middle of the 
 second century ^ of an important sect in Asia Minor, 
 called the Alogoi. This seems to have been a nick- 
 name, meaning without a belief in the Logos -, but 
 also absurd. These Alogoi would have nothing to do 
 with the Logos ^ of God, as preached by St. John. 
 This shows that their opposition was not against 
 St. Clement and Origen, whose writings were probably 
 later than the foundation of the sect of the Alogoi, 
 but against the theory of the Logos as taught or 
 fully implied in the Gospel ascribed to St. John. The 
 Alogoi were not heretics ; on the contrary, they were 
 conservative, and considered themselves thoroughly 
 orthodox. They were opposed to the Montanists and 
 Chiliasts ; they accepted the three Synoptic Gospels, 
 but for that very reason rejected the Gospel ascribed to 
 St. John, and likewise the Apocalypse. They denied 
 even that this Gospel was written by St. John, because 
 it did not agree with the other Apostles'^, nay they 
 went so far as to say that this Gospel ascribed to John 
 
 ' Harnack, 1. c, p. 617, note. 
 
 ' Tims St. John, the author of the Apocalypse, was called 
 Theologos, because he maintained the divinity of the Logos. See 
 Natural Religion, p. 46. 
 
 ^ Epiphanius, 51. 3. 28: T6v \6yov tov $(ov diro^aWovTat rdv Sid 
 'Iwavvrjp KT)pvxO(VTa. 
 
 * Epiph. 31. 4 : iaaitovffi on ov avfn<po)vu to. 0t0\ia toC 'louavvov roh 
 Koiirois dnoarvKon:
 
 454 LECTURE XITI. 
 
 lied and was disordered ^, as it did not say the same 
 things as the other Apostles. Some ascribed the Fourth 
 Gospel to the Judaising Gnostic Cerinthus, and de- 
 clared that it should not be used in church 2. 
 
 This is an important page in the history of early 
 Christianity. It shows that in the second half of the 
 second century the four Gospels, the three Synoptic 
 Gospels and that of St. John had all been recognised 
 in the Church, but that at the same time it was 
 still possible to question their authority without in- 
 curring ecclesiastical censure, such as it was at the 
 time. It shows also how thoroughly the doctrine of 
 the Logos was identified with St, John, or at least 
 with the author of the Fourth Gospel, and how it 
 was his view of Christ, and the view defended by 
 Barnabas, Justin, the two Clements, Ignatius, Poly- 
 carp^, and Origen, which in the end conquered the 
 world. Still, if it was possible for a Pope to make 
 St. Clement descend from his rightful place among 
 the Saints of the Christian Church, what safety 
 is there against another Pope unsainting St. John 
 himself * ? 
 
 Though the further development of the Logos theory 
 in the East and the West is full of interest, we must 
 not dwell on it any further. To us its interest is 
 chiefly philosophical, while its later development 
 becomes more and more theological and scholastic. 
 What I wished to prove was that the Christian religion 
 
 ' Epiph. 51. 18 : Td (vayyekiov to els ovofw. 'Icvawov ipevSerai . . . 
 Kiyovffi TO Karai 'Iwdvvqv (vayye\iov, (jtuSt) fiij rd aiird toTs dTioffrSKois 
 t(pr], u5ia9eTov elvai. 
 
 '■' OvK d^ia avrd (paaiv uvai iv (KKXtjaiq. « 
 
 3 Harnack, i. pp. 162, note ; 422, note. 
 
 * Bigg, I.e., p. 272.
 
 ALEXANDRIAN CHRISTIANITY. 455 
 
 in its first struggle with the non- Christian thought of 
 the world, owed its victory chiefly, if not entirely, to 
 the recognition of what, as we saw, forms the essential 
 element of all religion, the recognition of the closest 
 connexion between the phenomenal and the noumenal 
 worlds, between the human soul and God. The bond 
 of union between the two, which had been discovered 
 by slow degrees by pagan philosophers and had been 
 made the pivot of Christian philosophy at Alexandria, 
 was the Logos. By the recognition of the Logos in 
 Christ, a dogma which gave the direst offence to 
 Celsus and other pagan philosophers, the fatal divorce 
 between religion and philosophy had been annulled, 
 and the two had once more joined hands. It is 
 curious however to observe how some of the early 
 Apologetes looked upon the Logos as intended rather 
 to separate God ^ from the world than to unite the 
 two. It is true that Philo's mind was strongly 
 impressed with the idea that the Divine Essence 
 should never be brought into immediate contact with 
 vile and corrupt matter, and to him therefore the 
 intervening Logos might have been welcome as pre- 
 venting such contact. But Christian philosophers 
 looked upon matter as having been created by God, 
 and though to them also the Logos was the intervening 
 power by which God formed and ruled the world, 
 they always looked upon their Logos as a con- 
 necting link and not as a dividing screen. It is true 
 that in later times the original purpose and nature 
 of the Logos were completely forgotten and changed. 
 Instead of being a bond of union between the human 
 and the Divine, instead of being accepted in the sense 
 
 ' Harnack, i. p. 443.
 
 456 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 which the early Fathers had imparted to it as consti- 
 tutiDg the divine birthright of every man born into the 
 world, it was used once more as a wall of partition 
 between the Divine Logos, the Son of God {ixovoyev7]s 
 vlds Tov 6€ov), and the rest of mankind ; so that not only 
 the testimony of St. John, but the self-evident meaning 
 of the teaching of Christ was made of no effect. 
 No doubt St. Clement had then to be unsainted, 
 but why not St. Augustine, who at one time was 
 a great admirer of St. Clement and Origen, and 
 who had translated and adopted the very words of 
 St. Clement, that God became man in order that man 
 might become God^ Not knowing the difference 
 between 6e6s and 6 eeos, God and the God, later divines 
 suspected some hidden heresy in this language of St. 
 Clement and St. Augustine, and in order to guard 
 ao-ainst misapprehension introduced a terminology 
 which made the difference between Christ and those 
 whom He called His brothers, one of kind and not one 
 of degree, thus challenging and defying the whole of 
 Christ's teaching. Nothing can be more cautious 
 yet more decided than the words of St. Clement^: 
 'Thus he who believes in the Lord and follows the 
 prophecy delivered by Him is at last perfected accord- 
 ing to the image of the Master, moving about as God 
 in the flesh ^.' And still more decided is Origen's 
 reply to Celsus iii. 28 : ' That human nature through 
 its communion with the more Divine should become 
 divine not only in Jesus, but in all who through faith 
 
 I See before, p. 823. 
 
 * See Bigg, 1. c, p. 75. 
 
 ^ OCtois o to) Hvpicij ■Tr(i66nivos Koi rfj So9ei(Xri 5i' airov KaTaKo\ov9r]cas 
 vpo(pr}Ttia reXicos kKTtXurai Kar uKdva tov SidaaKciKov iy aapicl irepinoKwv 
 6f6s. Clem. Strom, viii. 16, 95.
 
 ALEXANDRIAN CHRISTIANITY. 457 
 
 take up the life which Jesus taught ^' It is clear 
 that Origen, taking this view of human nature, had 
 no need of any other argument in support of the 
 true divinity of Christ. He might as well have tried 
 to prove his humanity against the Docetae. With him 
 both were one and could only be one. To Origen 
 Christ's divinity was not miraculous, or requiring any 
 proof from moral or physical miracles. It was in- 
 volved in his very nature, in his being the Logos or 
 the Son of God in all its fulness, whereas the Logos 
 in man had suffered and had to be redeemed by the 
 teaching by the life and death of Christ-. While 
 Origen thus endeavoured to reconcile Greek philo- 
 sophy, that is, his own honest convictions, with the 
 teaching of the Church, he kept clear both of 
 Gnosticism and Docetism. Origen was as honest as 
 a Christian as he was as a philosopher, and it was 
 this honesty which made Christianity victorious in 
 the third century, and will make it victorious again 
 whenever it finds supporters who are determined 
 not to sacrifice their philosophical convictions to their 
 religious faith or their religious faith to their philo- 
 sophical convictions. 
 
 It is true that like St. Clement, Origen also was 
 condemned by later ecclesiastics, who could not 
 fathom the depth of his thoughts ; but he never in the 
 whole history of Christianity was without admirers 
 and followers. St. Augustine, St. Bernard, the author 
 of De Imitatione, Master Eckhart, Tauler, and others, 
 honoured his memory, and Dr. Bigg is no doubt right 
 
 ^ 'Ii'' i) dvOpanrivTi rrj irpoi to d(i6T(pov Koivwvia ytvijrai 6(la ovk kv 
 fiovcf) Tea 'Ij;<toC dAXa Koi Trdai Tofs fifrd tov TTiartveiv dvaKantSdvovai 
 
 * Harnack, i. p. 594.
 
 458 LECTUEE XIIT. 
 
 in saying ^ ' That there was no truly great man in the 
 Church who did not love him a little.' And why ' a 
 little only ' ? Was it because he was disloyal to the 
 truth such as he had seen it both in philosophy and 
 in relio-ion 1 Was it because he inflicted on himself 
 such suffering as many may disapprove, but few will 
 imitate (ixaifxria-eTaC ns /xaXAoy rj /;i6ju^crerat) ? If we con- 
 sider the time in which he lived, and study the 
 testimony which his contemporaries bore of his 
 character, we may well say of him as of others who 
 have been misjudged by posterity : 
 
 ' Denn wer den Besten seiner Zeit genug gethan, 
 Der hat gelebt fiir alle Zeiten.' 
 
 1 L. c, p. 279.
 
 LECTUEE XIV. 
 
 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITB. 
 The Logos in the Latin Church. 
 
 HAVING shown, as I hope, that in the earliest 
 theological representation of Chi'istianity which 
 we find in the Alexandrian Fathers of the Church, the 
 most prominent thought is the same as that of the 
 Vedanta, how to find a way from earth to heaven, or 
 still better how to find heaven on earth, to discover 
 God in man and man in God, it only remains to show 
 that this ancient form of Christianity, though it was 
 either not understood at all or misunderstood in later 
 ages, still maintained itself under varying forms in 
 an uninterrupted current from the second to the nine- 
 teenth century. 
 
 We can see the thoughts of St. Clement and Orieren 
 
 CD O 
 
 transplanted to the Western Church, though the very 
 language in which they had to be clothed obscured 
 their finer shades of meaning. There is no word in 
 Latin to convey the whole of the meaning of Logos ; 
 again the important distinction between 0eos and 6 
 0eo? is diflScult to render in a language which has no 
 articles. The distinction between ousia and hypostasis 
 was difficult to express, and yet an inaccurate rendering
 
 460 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 might at once become heresy. St. Jerome ^ who had 
 all his life used the expression tres personae, com- 
 plained bitterly that because he would not use the 
 expression tres substantiae, he was looked at with 
 suspicion. ' Because we do not learn the (new) words, 
 we are judged heretical.' 
 
 Tertulliau. 
 
 We have only to read what Latin Fathers — for in- 
 stance, Tertullian — say about Christ as the Logos, in 
 order to perceive at once how the genius of the Latin 
 language modifies and cripples the old Greek thought. 
 When Tertullian begins (Apolog. cap. xxi) to speak 
 about Christ as God, he can only say Be Christo ut Deo. 
 This might be interpreted as if he took Christ to be 
 6 0eo?, and predicated of Him the hypostasis of the 
 Father, which is impossible. What he means to pre- 
 dicate is the ousia of the Godhead. Then he goes on: 
 ' We have already said that God made this universe 
 Verho, et Ratione, et Virtute, that is by the Word, by 
 Reason, by Power.' He has to use two words verhuni 
 and ratio to express Logos. Even then he seems to feel 
 that he ought to make his meaning clearer, and he adds : 
 'It is well known that with you philosophers &ho Logos, 
 that is Speech (sermo), and Reason (ratio), is con- 
 sidered as the artist of the universe. For Zeno defines 
 him as the maker who had formed everything in order, 
 and says that he is also caUed Fate, God, and the 
 mind of God, and the necessity of all things. Cleanthes 
 comprehends all these as Spirit which, as he asserts, 
 pervades the universe. We also ascribe to Speech, 
 Reason, and Power (sermo, ratio, et virtus), through 
 which, as we said, God made everything, a proper 
 
 ' Biographies of Words, p. 43.
 
 DI0NYSIU8 THE AREOPAGITE. 461 
 
 substance, the Spirit ^ who as Word issues the fiat (of 
 creation), as Reason giv^es order to the universe, and 
 as Power carries his work on to a complete perfection 2. 
 We have learnt that he was brought out from God, 
 and generated by prolation, and was therefore called 
 Son of God and God, from the unity of the substance. 
 For God is Spirit, and when a ray is sent forth from 
 the sun, it is a portion from the whole, but the sun 
 will be in the ray, because the ray is the sun's ray^ 
 not separated from it in substance, but extended. 
 Thus comes Spirit from Spirit, and God from God, 
 like a light lit from a light.' 
 
 We see throughout that Tertullian (160-240) wishes 
 to express what St. Clement and Origen had expressed 
 before him. But not having the Greek tools to work 
 with, his verbal picture often becomes blurred. The 
 introduction of Spiritus, which may mean the divine 
 nature, but is not sufficiently distinguished from 
 pneuma, logos, the divine Word, and from the spiritus 
 sanctu8, the Holy Ghost, confuses the mind of the 
 readers, particularly if they were Greek philosophers, 
 accustomed to the delicately edged Greek terminology. 
 
 Dionyslus the Areopagite. 
 
 It would no doubt be extremely interesting to 
 follow the tradition of these Alexandrian doctrines, 
 as they were handed down both in the West and in the 
 East, and to mark the changes which they experienced 
 in the minds of the leading theological authorities in 
 both Churches. But this is a work far beyond my 
 strength. All that I feel still called upon to do is 
 
 ' Kayo explains that spirit has here the meaning of Divine nature ; 
 but, if so, the expression is very imperfect. 
 
 ' TerMUani Apologeticus adiersus Gentes. ed. Bindley, p. 7i, note.
 
 462 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 to attempt to point out how, during the centuries 
 which separate us from the first five centuries of our 
 era, this current of Christian thought was never en- 
 tirely lost, but rose to the surface again and again at 
 the most critical periods in the history of the Christian 
 religion. Unchecked by the Council of Nicaea (32.5), 
 that ancient stream of philosophical and religious 
 thought flows on, and we can hear the distant echoes 
 of Alexandria in the writings of St. Basil (329-379), 
 Gregory of Nyssa (332-395), Gregory of Nazianz 
 (328-389), as well as in the Works of St. Augustine 
 (364-430). In its original pagan form Neo-Platonism 
 asserted itself once more through the powerful advo- 
 cacy of Proclus (411-485), while in its Christian form 
 it received about the same time (500 a. d. ?) a most 
 powerful renewed impulse from a pseudonymous 
 writer, Dionysius the Areopagite. I must devote 
 some part of my lecture to this writer on account of 
 the extraordinary influence which his works acquired 
 in the history of the mediaeval Church. He has often 
 been called the father of Mystic Christianity, which 
 is only a new name for Alexandi-ian Christianity in 
 one of its various aspects, and he has served for cen- 
 turies as the connecting link between the ancient and 
 the mediaeval Church. No one could understand the 
 systems of St. Bernard (1091-1153) and Thomas 
 Aquinas (1224-1274) without a knowledge of Diony- 
 sius. No one could account for the thoughts and the 
 very language of Master Eckhart (1260-1329) without 
 a previous acquaintance with the speculations of that 
 last of the Christian Neo-Platonists. Nay, Gerson 
 (1363-1429), St. Theresa (1515-1582), Molinos (1640- 
 1687), Mad. de Guy on (1648-1717), all have been
 
 DI0NY8IUS THE AREOPAGITE. 463 
 
 touched by his magic wand. Few men have achieved 
 so wide and so lasting a celebrity as this anonymous 
 writer, and, we must add, with so little to deserve it. 
 Though Dionysius the Areopagite is often represented 
 as the founder of Christian mysticism, I must con- 
 fess that after reading Philo, St. Clement, and Origen, 
 I find very little in his writings that can be called 
 original. 
 
 Writings of Dionysias. 
 
 It is well known that this Dionysius the Areo- 
 pagite is not the real Dionysius who with Damaris 
 and others clave unto St. Paul after his sermon on 
 Areopagus. Of him we know nothing more than what 
 we j&nd in the Acts. But there was a Christian Neo- 
 Platonist who, as Tholuck has been the first to show, 
 wrote about 500 a. d. The story of his book is very 
 curious. It has often been told ; for the last time by 
 the present Bishop of Durham, Dr. Westcott, in his 
 thoughtful Essays on the History of Religious Thought 
 in the West, published in 1891. I chiefly follow him 
 and Tholuck in giving you the following facts. The 
 writings of Dionysius were referred to for the first 
 time at the Conference held at Constantinople in 533 
 A. D., and even at that early time they were rejected 
 by the orthodox as of doubtful authenticity. Naturally 
 enough, for who had ever heard before of Dionysius, 
 the pupil of St. Paul, as an author? Even St. Cyril 
 and Athanasius knew nothing yet about any writings 
 of his, and no one of the ancients had ever quoted 
 them. But in spite of all this, there was evidently 
 something fascinating about these writings of Diony- 
 sius the Areopagite. In the seventh century they 
 were commented on by Maximius (died 662) ; and
 
 464 LECTURE XTV. 
 
 Photius in his Bibliotheca (c. 845) mentions an essay 
 by Theodorus, a presbyter, written in order to defend 
 the genuineness of the volume of St. Dionysius. 
 We need not enter into these arguments for and 
 against the genuineness of these books, if what is 
 meant by genuineness is their being written by 
 Dionysius the Ai-eopagite in the first century of our 
 era. I even doubt whether the author himself ever 
 meant to commit anything like a fraud or a forgery ^. 
 He was evidently a Neo-Platonist Christian, and his 
 book was a fiction, not uncommon in those days, just 
 as in a certain sense the dialogues of Plato are fictions, 
 and the speeches of Thucydides are fictions, though 
 never intended to deceive anybody. A man at the 
 present day might write under the name of Dean 
 Swift, if he wished to state what Dean Swift would 
 have said if he had lived at the present moment. 
 Why should not a Neo-Platonist philosopher have 
 spoken behind the mask of Dionysius the Areopagite, 
 if he wished to state what a Greek philosopher would 
 naturally have felt about Christianity. It is true 
 there are some few touches in the writings ascribed 
 to Dionysius which were meant to give some local 
 colouring and historical reality to this philosophical 
 fiction ; but even such literary artifices must not be 
 put down at once as intentional fraud. There is, for 
 instance, a treatise De Vita Conte'niplativa, which is 
 ascribed to Philo. But considering that it contains a 
 panegyric on asceticism as practised by the Thera- 
 peutai in Egjrpt, it is quite clear that it could never 
 have been written by Philo Judaeus. It was probably 
 written by a Christian towards the end of the third 
 ^ See the remarks of Renan, in Les Evangiles, p. 159.
 
 DI0NYSIU8 THE AREOPAGITE. 465 
 
 or the beginning of the fouith century. If for some 
 unknown reason the author wrote under the name of 
 Philo, this literary artifice could hardly have taken 
 in any of his contemporaries, if indeed it was ever 
 meant to do so ^ 
 
 But whatever the object of the writer may have 
 been, whether honest or dishonest, certain it is that 
 he found a largo public willing to believe in the 
 actual authorship of Dionysius the Areopagite. The 
 greatest writers of the Greek Church accepted these 
 books as the real works of the Areopagite. Still 
 greater was their success in the West. They were 
 referred to by Gregory the Great (c. 600), and 
 quoted by Pope Adrian I in a letter to Charles the 
 Great. 
 
 The first copy of the Dionysian writings reached 
 the West in the year 827, when Michael, the stam- 
 merer, sent a copy to Louis I, the son of Charles. 
 And here a new mystification sprang up. They were 
 received in the abbey of St, Denis, near Paris, by the 
 Abbot Hilduin. They arrived on the very vigil of 
 the feast of St. Dionysius, and, absurd as it may 
 sound, Dionysius the Areopagite was identified with 
 St. Denis, the Apostle of France, the patron saint 
 of the Abbaye of St. Denis ; and thus national pride 
 combined with theological ignorance to add still 
 greater weight and greater sanctity to these Diony- 
 sian writings in France. 
 
 Translation by Scotns Erlgena. 
 
 The only difficulty was how to read and translate 
 
 ^ Lucius, Die Therapeuten, Strassburg, 1880. Kuenen, Hibbert Lee- 
 tures, p. 201. 
 
 (4) Hh
 
 466 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 them. France at that time was not rich in Greek 
 scholars, and the language of Dionysius is by no 
 means easy to understand. Hilduin, the abbot of 
 St. Denis, attempted a translation, but failed. The 
 son of Louis, Charles the Bald, was equally anxious 
 to have a Latin translation of the writings of St. 
 Denis, the patron saint of France, and he found at 
 last a competent translator in the famous Scotus 
 Erigena, who lived at his court. Scotus Erigena was 
 a kindred spirit, and felt strongly attracted by the 
 mystic speculations of Dionysius. His translation 
 must have been made before the year 861, for in that 
 year Pope Nicholas I complained in a letter to Charles 
 the Bald that the Latin translation of Dionysius had 
 never been sent to him for approval. A copy was 
 probably sent to Rome at once, and in 865 we find 
 Anastasius, the Librarian of the Roman See, addressing 
 a letter to Charles, commending the wonderful trans- 
 lation made by one whom he calls the barbarian 
 living at the end of the world, that is to say, Scotus 
 Erigena, whether L-ishman or Scotchman. Scotus 
 was fully convinced that Dionysius was the contem- 
 porary of St. Paul, and admired him both for his 
 antiquity and for the sublimity of the heavenly 
 graces which had been bestowed upon him. 
 
 As soon as the Greek text and the Latin transla- 
 tion had become accessible, Dionysius became the 
 object of numerous learned treatises. Albertus Magnus 
 and Thomas Aquinas were both devoted students of his 
 works, and never doubted their claims to an apostolic 
 date. It was not till the revival of learning that 
 these claims were re-examined and rejected, and re- 
 jected with such irresistible evidence that people
 
 DTONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 467 
 
 wondered how these compositions could ever have 
 been accepted as apostolic. We need not enter into 
 these arguments. It is no longer heresy to doubt 
 their apostolical authorship or date. No one doubts 
 at present that the writer was a Neo-Platonist Chris- 
 tian, as Tholuck suggested long ago, and that he 
 lived towards the end of the fifth century, probably 
 at Edessa in Syria. But though deprived of their 
 fictitious age and authorship, these writings retain 
 their importance as having swayed the whole of 
 mediaeval Christianity more than any other book, 
 except the New Testament itself. They consist of 
 treatises (1) on the Heavenly Hierarchy, (2) on the 
 Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, (3) on the Divine Names, 
 (4) on Mystical Theology. There are other books 
 mentioned as his, but now lost K They are most 
 easily accessible now in the Abb^ Migne's edition 
 (Paris, 1857). 
 
 The Influence of the Dionysian Writings. 
 
 If we ask how it was that these books exercised so 
 extraordinary a fascination on the minds of the most 
 eminent theologians during the Middle Ages, the prin- 
 cipal reason seems to have been that they satisfied a 
 want which exists in every human heart, the want of 
 knowing that there is a real relation between the 
 human soul and God. That want was not satisfied 
 by the Jewish religion. It has been shown but lately 
 by an eminent Scotch theologian, what an impassable 
 gulf the Old Testament leaves between the soul and 
 God. And though it was the highest object of the 
 teaching of Christ, if properly understood, to bridge 
 
 ' See Harnack, 1. c, yoI. ii. p. 426, note. 
 Hh 2
 
 468 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 that gulf, it was not so understood by the Jewish 
 Christians who formed some of the first and in some re- 
 spects most important Christian communities. Diony- 
 sius set boldly to work to construct, if not a bridge, 
 at least a kind of Jacob's ladder between heaven and 
 earth ; and it was this ladder, as we shall see, that 
 appealed so strongly to the sympathy of his numerous 
 followers. 
 
 No doubt the idea that he was the contemporary of 
 St. Paul added to his authority. There are several 
 things in his works which would hardly have been 
 tolerated by the orthodox, except as coming from the 
 mouth of an apostolic teacher. Thus Dionysius afiirms 
 that the Hebrews were in no sense a chosen people 
 before the rest, that the lot of all men is equal, and 
 that God has a like care for all mankind. It is a 
 still bolder statement of Dionysius that Christ before 
 His resurrection was simply a mortal man, even in- 
 ferior, as it were, to the angels, and that only after 
 the resurrection did He become at once immortal man 
 and God of all. There are other views of at all events 
 doubtful orthodoxy which seem to have been tolerated 
 in Dionysius, but would have provoked ecclesiastical 
 censure if coming from any other source. 
 
 Sources of Dionysius. 
 
 It must not be supposed, however, that Dionysius 
 was original in his teaching, or that he was the first 
 who discovered Greek, more particularly Neo-Pla- 
 tonist ideas, behind the veil of Christian doctrines. 
 Dionysius, like the early Eleatic philosophers, starts 
 from the belief in God, as the absolute Being, rb op, 
 the conscious God as absolutely transcendent, as the
 
 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE, 469 
 
 cause which is outside its effects, and yet multiplies 
 itself so as to be dynamically present in every one of 
 them. This multiplication or this streaming forth of 
 the Deity is ascribed to Love (epco?) within God, and 
 is supposed to be carried out according to certain 
 designs or tj'pes [TrpooptaixoC, TrapabeCyixaTa), that is to 
 say, not at random, but according to law or reason. In 
 this we can recognise the Stoic logoi and the Platonic 
 ideas, and we shall see that in their intermediary 
 character they appear once more in the system of 
 Dionysius under the name of the Hierarchies of 
 angels. The soul which finds itself separated from 
 God by this manifold creation has but one object, 
 namely to return from out the manifoldness of created 
 things to a state of likeness and oneness with God 
 (d^o/xoiaxrij, evodais, Oecoa-Ls). The chasm between the 
 Deity and the visible world is filled by a number of 
 beings which vary in name, but are always the same 
 in essence. Dionysius calls them a Hierarchy. St. 
 Clement had already used the same term ^, when he 
 describes ' the graduated hierarchy like a chain of iron 
 rings, each sustaining and sustained, each saving and 
 saved, and all held together by the Holy Spirit, which 
 is Faith.' Origen is familiar with the same idea, and 
 Philo tells us plainly that what people call angels are 
 really the Stoic logoi \ 
 
 The Daimones. 
 
 We can trace the same idea still further back. In 
 Hesiod, as we saw, and in Plato's Timaeus, the chasm 
 between the two worlds was filled with the Daimones. 
 In the later Platonist teaching these Daimones became 
 
 ' Bigg, 1. c, p. 68. " See pp. 406, 473, 478.
 
 470 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 more and more systematised. They were supposed to 
 perform all the work which is beneath the dignity of 
 the impassive Godhead. They create, they will, and 
 rule everything. Some of them are almost divine, 
 others nearly human, others again are demons in the 
 modern sense of the word, spirits of evil. Many of the 
 ancient mythological gods had to accept a final resting- 
 place among these Daimones. This theory of Daimones 
 supplied in fact the old want of a bridge between God 
 and man, and the more abstract the idea of God be- 
 came in the philosophy of the Platonists, the stronger 
 became their belief in the Daimones. The description 
 given of them by Maximus Tyrius, by Plutarch and 
 others, is often most touching, and shows deep religious 
 feeling. 
 
 Thus Apuleius, De Deo Socratico, 6 74, writes : * Plato 
 and his followers are blameless if. conceiving that the 
 purely spiritual and emotionless nature of God pre- 
 cluded Him from direct action upon this world of 
 matter, they imagined a hierarchy of beneficent beings, 
 called Daimones, partaking of the divine nature by 
 reason of their immortality, and of human nature by 
 reason of their subjection to emotions, and fitted 
 therefore to act as intermediaries between earth and 
 heaven, between God and man.' 
 
 Maximus, the Tyrian (Diss. xiv. 5), describes these 
 Daimones as a link between human weakness and 
 divine beauty, as bridging over the gulf between 
 mortal and immortal, and as acting between gods and 
 men as interpreters acted between Greeks and bar- 
 barians. He calls them secondary gods (Oeol bevTepoi), 
 and speaks of them as the departed souls of virtuous 
 men, appointed by God to overrule every part of 
 
 J
 
 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 471 
 
 human life, by helping the good, avenging the injured, 
 and punishiug the unjust. Tliey are messengers of 
 unseen things, ayyeAot t5)v a^avutv ; and Plutarch, too, 
 calls them messengers or angels between gods and 
 men, describing them as the spies of the former, wan- 
 dering at their commands, punishing wrong-doers, and 
 guarding the course of the virtuous (Cessation of 
 oracles, 13 ; Face in the orb of the moon, 30). 
 
 Origen points out that the angels were sometimes 
 spoken of as gods in the Psalms (c. Cels. v. 4), 
 but when challenged by Celsus why Christians do not 
 worship the Daimones, and particularly the heavenly 
 luminaries, he answers that the sun himself and the 
 moon and the stars pray to the Supreme God through 
 His only-begotten Son, and that therefore they think 
 it improper to pray to those beings who themselves 
 offer prayers to God [vixvoviiiv ye 6ebv koI tov Movoy^vfj 
 avTov, c. Cels. v. 11 ; viii. 67). 
 
 Celsus, who doubts everything that does not admit 
 of a philosophical justification, is nevertheless so con- 
 vinced of the reality and of the divine goodness of the 
 Daimones that he cannot understand why the Chris- 
 tians should be so ungrateful as not to worship them. 
 
 There is an honest ring in an often-quoted passage 
 of his in which he exhorts the Christians not to 
 despise their old Daimones : 
 
 ' Every good citizen,' he says, ' ought to respect the 
 worship of his fathers. And God gave to the Dai- 
 mones the honour which they claimed. Why then 
 should the Christians refuse to eat at the table of the 
 Daimones 1 They give us corn and wine and the very 
 air we breathe ; we must either submit to their benefits 
 or quit the world altogether. All that is really im-
 
 472 LEOTUEE XIV. 
 
 portant in Christianity is the belief in the immortality 
 of the soul, and in the future blessedness of the good, 
 the eternal punishment of the wicked. But why not 
 swear by the Emperor, the dispenser of all temporal 
 blessings, as God of all spirituaH Why not sing a 
 paean to the bright Sun or Athene, and at any rate 
 kiss the hand to those lower deities who can do us 
 harm if neglected? It cannot be supposed that the 
 great Roman Empire will abandon its tried and an- 
 cient faith for a barbarous novelty (^ i. e. Christianity).' 
 
 Plutarch expresses the same strong faith in the 
 Daimones, when he says : 
 
 ' He who denies the Daimones, denies providence 
 and breaks the chain that unites the world with the 
 throne of God.' 
 
 We can well understand, therefore, that those among 
 the Platonists who had become Christians, required 
 something to fill the empty niches in their hearts, 
 which had formerly been occupied by the Greek 
 Daimones. In order to bring the Supreme Godhead 
 into contact with the world, they invented their own 
 Daimones, or rather gave new names to the old. 
 St. Clement speaks glibly of the gods, but he declares 
 that all the host of angels and gods are placed in sub- 
 jection to the Son of God ^. 
 
 Even St. Augustine does not hesitate to speak of 
 the gods who dwell in the holy and heavenly habita- 
 tion, but he means by them, as he says, angels and 
 rational creatures, whether thrones or dominations or 
 principalities or powers. 
 
 » Bigg, p. 266. 
 
 "^ Strom, vii. 2, 3 : ©foi r^v -npoa-qyopiav KiKXrjvrai ol aivOpovoi twv 
 aWwv Qiujv vnb roj 'S.aiTTjpi npaiTov reTayufvaiv yivrjaofxevoi.
 
 DI0NY8IUS THE AREOrAGTTE. 473 
 
 We saw that when the logoi had been conceived as 
 one, the Logos was called the Son of God, the first 
 begotten or even the only begotten. When conceived 
 as many, the same logoi had been spoken of as Angels 
 by Philo, and as Aeons by the Gnostics ^ They were 
 now represented as a hierarchy by Dionysius. This 
 hierarchy, however, has assumed a very different cha- 
 racter from that of the Aristotelian logoi. The Stoics 
 saw in their logoi an explanation of created things, 
 of trees, animals, and fishes, or of universal elements, 
 not only water, earth, fire, and air, but heat and cold, 
 sweetness and bitterness, light and darkness, etc. The 
 Platonists, and more particularly the Neo-Platonist 
 Christians, had ceased to care for these things. It was 
 not the origin and descent of species, but the ascent 
 of the human soul that principally occupied their 
 thoughts. The names which were given to these 
 intermediate creations which had come forth from 
 God, which had assumed a substantial existence by 
 the side of God, nay after a time had become like 
 personal beings, were taken from the Bible, though it 
 is difficult to understand on what principle, if on any. 
 Origen already had spoken of Angels, and Thrones, 
 and Dominions, Princedoms, Virtues, and Powers, and 
 of an infinite stairway of worlds, on which the souls 
 were perpetually descending and ascending till they 
 reached final union with God. 
 
 ' These Aeons of Valentiiiian were, as Dr. Bigg. p. 27, truly re- 
 marks, the ideas of Plato, seen through the fog of an Egyptian or 
 Syrian mind. Aeon was pi'obably taken originally in the sense of 
 age, generation, then world. Our own word woi'ld meant originally 
 ' age of men,' saeculum.
 
 474 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 Influence of Diouysius during tlie DSiddle Ages. 
 
 What puzzles the historian is why Dionysius, who 
 simply arranges these ancient thoughts without adding 
 much, if anything, of his own, should have become the 
 great authority for Theosophy or Mystic Christianity 
 during the whole of the Middle Ages. He is quoted 
 alike by the most orthodox of schoolmen, and by the 
 most speculative philosophers who had almost ceased 
 to be Christians. His first translator, Scotus Eri- 
 gena, used him as a trusted shield against his own 
 antagonists. Thomas Aquinas appeals to him on 
 every opportunity, and even when he differs from 
 him treats him as an authority, second only to the 
 Apostles, if second even to them. 
 
 The System of Dionysius. 
 
 One explanation is that he saw that all religion, 
 and certainly the Chi-istian, must fulfil the desire of 
 the soul for God, must in fact open a return to 
 God. Creation, even if conceived as emanation only, 
 is a separation from God ; salvation therefore, such as 
 Christianity promises to supply, must be a return to 
 God, who is all in all, the only true existence in all 
 things. Dionysius tries to explain how a bright and 
 spiritual light goes forth and spreads throughout all 
 creation from the Father of light. That light, he says, 
 is one and entirely the same through all things, and 
 although there is diversity of objects^ the light remains 
 one and undivided in different objects, so that, without 
 confusion, variety may be assigned to the objects, 
 identity to the light. 
 
 All rational creatures who have a capacity for the 
 divine nature are rarefied by the marvellous shining
 
 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 475 
 
 of the heavenly light, lightened and lifted up closely 
 to it, nay made one with it. In this great happiness 
 are all those spiritual natures which we call angels, on 
 whom the light is shed forth in its untempered purity. 
 
 But as for men, who are clogged by the heavy mass 
 of the body, they can only receive a kind of tempered 
 light through the ministry of the angels, till at last 
 they find truth, conquer the flesh, strive after the 
 spirit, and rest in spiritual truth. Thus the all-mer- 
 ciful God recalls degraded men and restores them to 
 truth and light itself. 
 
 But Dionysius is not satisfied with these broad out- 
 lines, he delights in elaborating the minute and to our 
 mind often very fantastic details of the emanation of 
 the divine light. 
 
 He tells us how there are three triads, or nine 
 divisions in the celestial hierarchy. Possibly these 
 three Triads may have been suggested by the three 
 triads of Plato which we discussed in a former 
 Lecture. In the first triad there are first of all the 
 Seraphim, illumined by God Himself, and possessing 
 the property of perfection. Then follow the Cherubim 
 as illumined and taught by the Seraphim, and pos- 
 sessing the property of illumination. The third place 
 in the first triad is assigned to the TJivonet^, or stead- 
 fast natures who are enlightened by the second order, 
 and distinguished by purification. 
 
 Then follow in succession the Dominations, the 
 Virtues, and the Powers, and after that, the Princi- 
 palities, the Archangels, and Angels. These nine 
 stations are all minutely described, but in the end 
 their main object is to hand down and filter, as it were, 
 the divine light till it can be made fit for human beings.
 
 476 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 Human beings are below the angels, but if properly 
 enlightened they may become like angels, nay like 
 gods. Partial light was communicated by Moses, 
 purer light by Christ, though His full light will shine 
 forth in heaven only. There the true Son is with 
 the Father. The Father is the beginning from which 
 are all things. The Son is the means through which 
 all things are beautifully ordered, the Holy Ghost is 
 the end by which all things are completed and per- 
 fected. The Father created all things because He is 
 good — this is the old Platonic idea — and because He 
 is good. He also recalls to Himself all things according 
 to their capacity. 
 
 However much we may agree with the general drift 
 of this Dionysian theology, some of these details seem 
 extremely childish. And yet it is these very details 
 which seem to have taken the fancy of generation 
 after generation of Christian teachers and preachers 
 and their audiences. To the present day the belief 
 of the Church in a hierarchy of angels and their 
 functions is chietly derived from Dionysius. 
 
 Uilman on Dionysius. 
 
 The existence of this regular celestial hierarchy 
 became, as Milman (vi. 405) remarks, an admitted 
 fact in the higher and more learned theology. The 
 schoolmen reason upon it as on the Godhead itself: 
 in its more distinct and material outline it became 
 the vulgar belief and the subject of frequent artistic 
 representation. Milman writes : 
 
 ' The separate and occasionally discernible being 
 and nature of seraphim and cherubim, of archangel 
 and angel, in that dim confusion of what was thought
 
 DIONYSIUS THE AREOl'AQITE. 477 
 
 revealed in the Scripture, and what was sanctioned 
 by the Church — of image and reality, this Oriental, 
 half-Magian, half-Talmudic, but now Christianised 
 theory, took its place, if with less positive authority, 
 witli hardly less uuc^uestioned credibility, amid the 
 lest of the faith.' 
 
 Dr. Milman suggests with a certain irony that what 
 made this celestial hierarchy so acceptable to the 
 mediaeval clergy, may have been the corresponding 
 ecclesiastical hierarchy. Dionysius in his Ecclesiastical 
 Hierarchy proceeded to show that there was another 
 hierarchy, reflecting the celestial, a human and ma- 
 terial hierarchy, communicating divine light, purity, 
 and knowledge to corporeal beings. The earthly 
 sacerdotal order had its type in heaven, the celestial 
 orders their antitype on earth. As there was lio-ht, 
 purity, and knowledge, so there were three orders of 
 the earthly hierarchy. Bishops, Priests, and Deacons ; 
 three Sacraments, Baptism, the Eucharist, the Holy 
 Chrism ; three classes, the Baptised, the Communi- 
 cants, the Monks. The ecclesiastical hierarchies 
 themselves were formed and organised after the 
 pattern of the great orders in heaven. The whole 
 worship of man, which they administered, was an 
 echo of that above ; it represented, as in a mirror, 
 the angelic or superangelic worship in the empyrean. 
 All its splendour, its lights, its incense, were but the 
 material symbols, adumbration of the immaterial, 
 condescending to human thought, embodying in 
 things cognisable to the senses of man the adoration 
 of beings close to the thi-one of God. 
 
 There may be some truth in Milman's idea that 
 human or rather priestly vanity was flattered by all
 
 478 LECTURE XTV. 
 
 this ^ ; still we can hardly account in that way for the 
 enormous success of the Dionysian doctrine in the 
 mediaeval Church. 
 
 Beal Attraction of Diouysins. 
 
 The real fascination lay, I believe, deeper. It 
 consisted in the satisfaction which Dionysius gave 
 to those innate cravings of the human soul for union 
 with God, cravings all the stronger the more the mere 
 externals of religion and worship occupied at the time 
 the minds of priesthood and laity. Not that this 
 satisfaction could not have been found in the Gospels, 
 if only they had been properly searched, and if the 
 laity had been allowed even to read them. But it 
 was dogma and ceremonial that then preoccupied the 
 Church. 
 
 The Fifth Century. 
 
 As Dr. Westcott says, the ecclesiastical and civil 
 disorders of the fifth century had obscured the highest 
 glories of the Church and the Empire. Hence the 
 chords touched on by Dionysius found a ready re- 
 sponse in all truly religious minds, that is, in minds 
 longing for the real presence of God, or for a loving 
 union with God. This is what Dionysius promised to 
 them. To him everything finite was a help towards 
 the apprehension of the Infinite ; and though human 
 knowledge could never rise to a knowledge of the 
 absolute, it might show the way to a fellowship 
 with it. The highest scope with Dionysius was 
 
 ^ Even on this point Dionysius is not original. He had been 
 anticipated by St. Clement, who vsTites (Strom, vi. 13\ ' Since, 
 according to my opinion, the grades here in the Church of bishops, 
 presbyters, and deacons are imitations of the angelic glory.'
 
 DIONYSTUS THE AREOPAGITE. 479 
 
 assimilation to, or union with God^ In order to 
 reach this union the truly initiated have to be released 
 from the objects and the powers of sight before they 
 can penetrate into the darkness of unknowledge 
 (dyrcoo-ta). The initiated is then a])Sorbed in the 
 intangible and invisible, wholly given up to that 
 which is beyond all things, and belonging no longer 
 to himself nor to any other finite being, but in virtue 
 of some nobler faculty united with that which is 
 wholly unknowable, by the absolute inoperation of 
 all limited knowledge, and known in a manner 
 beyond mind by knowing nothing (Westcott, 1. c, 
 p. 185). This is called the mystic union when the 
 soul is united with God, not by knowledge, but by 
 the devotion of lovo. Here was the real attraction of 
 the Dionysian writings, at least with many Christians 
 who wanted more from religion than arid dogma, more 
 than vain symbols and ceremonies from the Church. 
 
 It is difficult for us to imagine what the religious 
 state of the laity must have been at that time. It is 
 true they were baptised and confirmed, they were 
 married and buried by the Church. They were also 
 taught their Creeds and prayers, and they were invited 
 to attend the spectacular services in the ancient 
 cathedrals. But if they asked why all this was 
 so, whence it came and what it meant, they would not 
 easily have found an answer. We must remember 
 that the Bible was at that time an almost inaccessible 
 book, and that laj-men were not encouraged to study 
 it. The laity had to be satisfied with what had been 
 filtered through the brain of the clergy, and what was 
 considered by the Church the best food for babes. 
 
 ' Westcott, 1. c, pp. 157, 159, 161.
 
 480 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 Any attempt to test and verify this clerical teaching 
 would have been considered sinful. The clergy again 
 were often without literary cultivation, and certainly 
 without that historical and philosophical training 
 that would have enabled them to explain the theo- 
 logical teaching of St. John in its true sense, or to 
 explain in what sense Christ was called the Son of 
 God, and mankind believed capable of Divine sonship. 
 Christianity became altogether legendary, and instead 
 of striving after a pure conception of Christ, as the 
 Son of God, Popes and Cardinals invented immaculate 
 conceptions of a very different character. And that 
 which is the source of all religion in the human heart, 
 the perception of the Infinite, and the yearning of the 
 soul after God, found no response, no satisfaction 
 anywhere. How Christianity survived the fearful 
 centuries from the fifth to the ninth, is indeed 
 a marvel. Both clergy and laity seem to have led 
 God-forsaken lives, but it was to these very centuries 
 that the old German proverb applied, — 
 
 'When pangs are highest 
 Then God is nighest.' 
 
 Nearness to God, union with God, was what many 
 souls were then striving for, and it was as satisfying 
 that desire that the teaching of Dionysius was welcome 
 to the clergy and indirectly to the laity. 
 
 Five Stages of Mystic tTuion. 
 
 The mystic union of which Dionysius treats, was not 
 anything to be kept secret, it was simply what the 
 Neo-Platonists had taught as the last and highest 
 point of their philosophy and their religion. They
 
 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 481 
 
 recognised a number of preliminary stages, such as 
 purification (KaOapafi), illumination (^cortd/xo'v), and 
 initiation (/xvrjo-t?), which in the end led to unification 
 with God (eVojo-ts) and deification (^e'coo-t?), a change 
 into God. Sometimes a distinction was made between 
 oneness (eVcoo-t?) and likeness (oiJ-oCcocm), but in the 
 case of likeness with God, it would be difficult to 
 explain any difference between likeness and oneness, 
 between what is god-like, and what is godly. 
 
 Mysteries. 
 
 If there was an initiation (iivrjai^), it must not be 
 supposed that there was anything secret or mysterious 
 in this preparation for the highest goal. The Henosis 
 or union with the One and All was no more of a secret 
 than was the teaching of St. Paul that we live and 
 move and have our being in God. All that was meant 
 by initiation was preparation, fitness to receive the 
 Higher Knowledge. Still, many of the Fathers of 
 the Church who had been brought up in the schools 
 of Neo-Platonist philosophers, spoke of the union 
 of the soul with God as a mystical union, and as a 
 mystery. Thus Origen (c. Celsum, 1. 1, c. 7) says that 
 though Christianity was more widely spread than 
 any other philosophy, it possesses certain things 
 behind the exoteric teaching which are not readily 
 communicated to the many. St. Basil distinguishes 
 in Christianity between K-qpvyixara, what is openly 
 proclaimed, and boyixara, which are kept secret. Those 
 who had been baptised were sometimes spoken of as 
 fxvaTai. or (j)ojTL(6iJ.evoi, enlightened, as distinguished 
 from the catechumens, just as in the Greek mysteries 
 a distinction was made between the initiated and the 
 (4) li
 
 482 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 exoterics. The Lord's Supper more particularly, was 
 often spoken of as a great mystery, but though it was 
 called a mystery, it was not a secret in the ordinary 
 sense. Clement denies expressly that the Church 
 possesses any secret doctrines {hihayas akkas aiiop- 
 pi]Tovs ^), though, no doubt, he too would have held 
 that what is sacred must not be given to dogs. 
 What may be called the highest mystery is at the 
 same time the highest truth, whether in Christianity 
 or in Neo-Platonism, namely the evoicns or aTrAwcrt?, 
 the perfect union with God. Thus Macarius (c. 330) 
 says in his Homilies (xiv. 3) : ' If a man surrender 
 his hidden being, that is his spirit and his thoughts, 
 to God, occupied with nothing else^ and moved by 
 nothing else, but restraining himself, then the Lord 
 holds him worthy of the mysteries in much holiness 
 and purity, nay. He offers Himself to him as divine 
 bread and spiritual drink.' 
 
 It is this so-called mystery which forms the highest 
 object of the teaching of Dionysius the Areopagite. 
 He also admits certain stages, as preliminary to the 
 highest mystery. They are the same as those of the 
 Neo-Platonists, beginning with KaOapcrt?, purification, 
 and ending with diocxns and evcocns, that is, deification, 
 union with God, or change into God^. We shall 
 now understand better why he calls that union 
 mystic and his theology mystic theology. 
 
 Mystic and Scliolastic Theology. 
 
 It seems to me that it was the satisfaction which 
 Dionysius gave to this yearning of the human heart 
 
 1 Bigg, pp. 57, 140. 
 
 ^ We want a word like the Grerman Vergottung, which is as different 
 from VergoUerung as Qicuais is from a-noQfOjan.
 
 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAQITE. 483 
 
 after union with God, far more than the satisfaction 
 which ho may have given to ecclesiastical vanity, 
 which explains the extraordinary influence which he 
 acquii-ed both among the laity and the clergy. After 
 his time the whole stream of theological knowledge 
 may be said to have rolled on in two parallel channels, 
 one the Scholastic, occupied with the definition of 
 Christian doctrines and their defence, the other the 
 Mystic, devoted to the divine element in man; or 
 with what was called the birth of Christ within the 
 soul. The Christian mystics, so far as their funda- 
 mental position was concerned, argued very much like 
 the Vedantists and Eleatic philosophers. If we believe 
 in the One Being, they said, which causes and deter- 
 mines all things, then that One Being must be the 
 cause and determination of the human soul also, and 
 it would be mere illusion to imagine that our beinor 
 could in its essence be different from that of God. 
 If, on the contrary, man is in his essence different from 
 the One fundamental and Supreme Being, self-deter- 
 mined and entirely free, then there can be no infinite 
 God, but we should have to admit a number of Gods, 
 or divine beings, all independent of the One Being, yet 
 limited one by the other. The Christian Mystics 
 embraced the former alternative, and in this respect 
 differed but little from the Neo-Platonists, though they 
 looked for and found strong support for their doctrines 
 in the New Testament, more particularly in the 
 Gospel ascribed to St. John and in some of the 
 Epistles of St. Paul. The Christian mystic theo- 
 logians were most anxious to establish their claim to 
 be considered orthodox, and we see that for a loner 
 time Dionysius continued to be recognised as an 
 
 Ii2
 
 484 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 authority by the most orthodox of Divines. Thomas 
 Aquinas, the angelic doctor, to quote the words of 
 his editor, drew almost the whole of his theology from 
 Dionysius, so that his Summa is but the hive, as he 
 says, in whose varied cells he stored the honey which 
 he gathered from the writings of Dionysius (Westcott, 
 1. c, p. 144). 
 
 Mysticism, and Christian Mysticism. 
 
 In our days I doubt whether the mysticism of 
 Dionysius would be considered as quite orthodox. 
 Dr. Tholuck, a most orthodox theologian and a great 
 admirer of the mystic poetry of the East and the West, 
 draws a broad distinction between a mystic and a 
 Christian mystic. He defines a mystic ' as a man, 
 who, conscious of his afiinity with all that exists from 
 the Pleiades to the grain of dust, merged in the divine 
 stream of life that pours through the universe, but 
 perceiving also that the purest spring of God bursts 
 forth in his own heart, moves onward across the 
 world which is turned towards what is limited and 
 finite, turning his eye in the centre of his own soul to 
 the mysterious abyss, where the infinite flows into the 
 finite, satisfied in nameless intuition of the sanctuary 
 opened within himself, and lighted up and embraced 
 by a blissful love of the secret source of his own being' 
 (p. 20). ' In his moral aspect,' Dr. Tholuck adds, ' the 
 life of such a mystic is like a mirror of water, moved 
 by an all-powerful love within, and disquieted by 
 desire, yet restraining the motion of its waves, in 
 order to let the face of the sun reflect itself on a 
 motionless surface. The restless conflicts of self- 
 hood are quieted and restrained by love, so that the
 
 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 485 
 
 Eternal may move freely in the motionless Boul, and 
 the life of the soul may be absorbed in the law of 
 God.' Even this language sounds to our ears some- 
 what extravagant and unreal. Nor would Dr. Tholuck 
 himself accept it without considerable qualification, 
 as applicable to the Christian mystic. ' The Christian 
 mystic,' he says (p. 24), 'need not fear such speculations. 
 He knows no more and wants to know no more than 
 what is given him by the revelation of God; all 
 deductions that go beyond, are cut short by him. Ho 
 warms himself at the one ray that has descended from 
 eternity into this finiteness, unconcerned about all the 
 fireworks of purely human workmanship, unconcerned 
 also about the objection that the ray which warms 
 him more than any earthly light, may itself also be 
 of the earth only. A Christian knows that to the end 
 of time there can be no philosophy which could shake 
 his faith by its syllogisms. He does not care for what 
 follows from syllogisms, he simply waits for what is 
 to follow on his faith, namely sight.' 
 
 Still, with all this determined striving after ortho- 
 doxy, Dr. Tholuck admits that mystic religion is the 
 richest and profoundest production of the human mind, 
 the most living and the most exalted revelation of 
 God from the realm of nature, nay that after what he 
 calls evangelic grace, it occupies the highest and 
 noblest place. 
 
 There are Christian mystics, however, who would 
 not place internal revelation, or the voice of God 
 within the heart, so far below external' revelation. 
 To those who know the presence of God within the 
 heart, this revelation is far more real than any other 
 can possibly be. They hold with St. Paul (1 Cor. iii.
 
 486 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 16) that 'man is in the full sense of the word the 
 temple of God and that the spirit of God dwelleth 
 within him,' nay they go even further and both as 
 Christians and as mystics they cling to the belief that 
 all men are one in the Father and the Son, as the 
 Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father. 
 There is no conflict in their minds between Christian 
 doctrine and mystic doctrine. They are one and the 
 same in character, the one imparted through Christ on 
 earth, the other imparted through the indwelling spirit 
 of God, which again is Christ, as born within us. The 
 Gospel of St. John is full of passages to which the 
 Christian mystic clings, and by which he justifies his 
 belief in the indwelling spirit of God, or as he also 
 calls it, the birth of Christ in the human soul. 
 
 Objections to Mystic Religion reconsidered. 
 
 The dangers which have so often been pointed out 
 as arising from this mystic belief which makes God 
 all in all, and therefore would render Him responsible 
 for the evil also which exists in this world, or would 
 altosrether eliminate the distinction between evil and 
 good, exist in every religion, in every philosophy. 
 They are not peculiar to this mystic religion. The 
 mystic's chief aim is not to account for the origin of 
 evil, as no human understanding can — but to teach 
 how to overcome evil by good. The dangers to morality 
 are much exaggerated. It is mere pharisaism to say 
 that they exist in mystic religion only. It is to falsify 
 history to charge mystics with ignoring the laws of 
 morality. Are those laws observed by all who are not 
 mystics? Did the majority of criminals in the world 
 ever consist of mystics, of men such as St. Bernard
 
 DIONYSIUS THE AllEOPAGlTE. 487 
 
 and Tauler? Has orthodoxy always proved a shield 
 against temptation and sin? A man may be lenient 
 in his judgment of publicans and sinners without 
 losing his sense of right and wrong. There may 
 have been cases where the liberty of the spirit has 
 been used as a veil for licentiousness, though I know 
 of few only ; but in that case it is clear that true 
 mystic union had not been effected. When the soul 
 has once reached this true union with God, nay when 
 it lives in the constant presence of God, evil becomes 
 almost impossible. We know that most of the evil 
 deeds to which human nature is prone, are possible in 
 the dark only. Before the eyes of another human 
 being, more particularly of a beloved being, they be- 
 come at once impossible. How much more in the real 
 presence of a real and really beloved God, as felt by the 
 true mystic, not merely as a phrase, but as a fact! 
 We are told how the Russian peasant covers the face 
 of his Eikon with his handkerchief that it may not 
 see his wickedness. The mj-stic feels the same ; as 
 long as there is no veil between him and God, evil 
 thoughts, evil words, and evil deeds are simply im- 
 possible to one who feels the actual presence of God. 
 Nor is he troubled any longer by questions, such as 
 how the world was created, how evil came into the 
 world. He is satisfied with the Divine Love that 
 embraces his soul ; he has all that he can desire, his 
 whole life is hid through Christ in God, death is 
 swallowed up in victory, the mortal has become im- 
 mortal, neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor princi- 
 palities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to 
 come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, is 
 able to separate his soul from the love of God. This
 
 488 ■ LECTUKE XIV. 
 
 is the language used by St. Paul ; this is the language 
 re-echoed by the noble army of Christian mystics, and 
 more or less by all those who, whether in India or 
 Persia or Arabia, nay in Europe also, hunger and 
 thirst after God, nay who feel themselves children of 
 God in the very fullest and deepest sense of that 
 word. 
 
 It has been said that the times in which we live 
 are not congenial to mystic Christianity, that we want 
 a stronger and sterner faith to carry us through the 
 gales and the conflicting currents of the day. That 
 may be so, and if the Church can supply us with 
 stronger and safer vessels for our passage, let her do 
 so. But let her never forget that the mediaeval 
 Church, though glorying in her scholastic defenders, 
 though warning against the dangers of Platonic and 
 mystic Christianity, though even unsainting St. 
 Clement and denouncing the no less saintly Origen, 
 never ceased to look upon men as St. Bernard (1090- 
 11.52), Hugo (died 1141), and Richard (died 1173) 
 of St. Victor, as her brightest ornaments and her best 
 guides. 
 
 St. Bernard. 
 
 While the great scholastic theologians were laying 
 down definitions of dogmas, most of them far beyond 
 the reach of the great mass of the people, the great 
 mass of men, women, and children were attracted by 
 the sermons of monks and priests, who, brought up 
 in the doctrines of mystic Christianity, and filled with 
 respect for its supposed founder, Dionysius the Areo- 
 pagite, preached the love of God, a life in and for God, 
 as the only true Christian life. Christ, they held, had
 
 DTONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 489 
 
 but rarely taught how to believe, but had constantly 
 taught how to live. His fundamental doctrine had 
 been His own life, and the chief lesson of that life had 
 been that Christ was the Son of God, not in a mytho- 
 logical sense, but in its deepest philosophical meaning, 
 namely as the thought and will of God incarnate in 
 a perfect man, as the ideal of manhood lealised in all 
 its fulness, as the Logos, the true Son of God. St. 
 Bernard of Clairvaux also preached that a Christian 
 life was the best proof of Christian faith. ' The reason,' 
 he writes, Svhy we should love God, is God Himself; 
 the measure of that love is that we should love Him 
 beyond all measure^.' ' Even mere reason,' he cont inues, 
 ' obliges us to do this ; the natural law, implanted 
 within UB, calls aloud that we should love God. We 
 owe all to Him, whatever we are ; all goods of the 
 body and the soul which we enjoy, are His work ; 
 how then should we not be bound to love Him for His 
 own sake ? This duty applies also to Non-Christians ; 
 for even the heathen, though he does not know Christ, 
 knows at least himself, and must know therefore that 
 he owes all that is within him to God. In a still 
 hio-her degree the Christian is bound to love God, for 
 he enjoys not only the good things of creation, but of 
 salvation also.' 
 
 Love of God. 
 
 This love of God, St. Bernard continues, must be 
 such that it does not love God for the sake of any 
 rewards to be obtained for it. This would be mer- 
 cenary love. True love is satisfied in itself. It is 
 
 ' Be dilifjendo Deo, col. 1 : Causa diligeudi Deum Deus est, modus, 
 sine modo diligere.
 
 490 LECTUKE XIV. 
 
 true our love is not vs^ithout its reward, it is true also 
 that the reward is He Himself who is loved, namely 
 God, the object of our love. But to look for another 
 reward beside Him, is contrary to the nature of love. 
 God gives us a reward for our love, but we must not 
 seek for it. Nor is this love perfect at once. It has 
 to pass through several stages. On the first stage, 
 according to St. Bernard, we love ourselves for our 
 own sake. That is not yet love of God, but it is a 
 preparation for it. On the second stage, we love God 
 for our own sake. That is the first stage toward the 
 real love of God. On the third stage, we love God for 
 His own sake. We then enter into the true essence 
 of the love of God. Lastly, on the fourth stage, we 
 not only love God for His own sake, but we also love 
 ourselves and everything else for the sake of God only. 
 That is the highest perfection of the love of God. 
 
 This highest degree of love, however, is reached in 
 all its fulness in the next life only. Only rarely, in a 
 moment of mystic ecstasis may we rise even in this 
 life to that highest stage. 
 
 Ecstasis, according' to St. Bernard. 
 
 St. Bernard then proceeds in his own systematic 
 way to explain what this ecstasis is, and how it can 
 be reached. The fundamental condition is humility, 
 the only way by which we can hope to reach truth. 
 There are twelve degrees of humility which St. Bernard 
 describes. But besides humility, perfect love is re- 
 quired, and then only may we hope to enter into the 
 mystic world. Hence the first stage is consideration 
 of truth, based on examination and still carried on by 
 discursive thought. Then follows contemplation of
 
 DIONYSIDS THE AREOPAQITE. 491 
 
 truth, without discursive examination. This con- 
 templation is followed at last by what St. Bernard 
 calls the admiratlo mojestatls, the admiration of the 
 majesty of truth. This requires a purged heart, free 
 from vice, and delivered from sins, a heart that may 
 rise on high, nay may for some moments hold the 
 admiring soul in a kind of stupefaction and ecstasis 
 [De grad. huniU., c. 8, 22 seq.). 
 
 It is in a state such as this that the soul will enter 
 into the next life. Our will will soften and will melt 
 away into the divine will, and pour itself into it. 
 And here we often find St. Bernard using the same 
 similes as to the relation of the soul to God which we 
 found in the Upanishads and in the Neo-Platonists. 
 As a small drop of water, he says, when it falls into 
 much wine, seems to fail from itself, while it assumes 
 the colour and taste of wine ; as the ignited and 
 glowing iron becomes as like as possible to fire, 
 deprived of its own original nature ; as the air when 
 permeated by the light of the sun is changed into the 
 brightness of light, so that it does not seem so much 
 lighted up, as to be light itself, so will it be necessary 
 that every human aftection should in some ineffable 
 way melt away and become entirely transformed into 
 the will of God. For otherwise, how should God be 
 all in all, if something of man remained in manl 
 Nay the very caution which was used in the Vedanta, 
 is used by St. Bernard also. The soul, though lost in 
 God, is not annihilated in this ecstasis. The substance, 
 as St. Bernard says, will remain, only in another form, 
 in another glory, in another power. To be in that 
 glory is to become God, est deijicari.
 
 492 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 St. Bernard's Position in the Cliurcli and State. 
 
 To modern ears these ideas, quite familiar in the 
 Middle Ages, sound strange, some might look upon 
 them as almost blasphemous. But St. Bernard was 
 never considered as a blasphemer, even his orthodoxy 
 was never suspected. He was the great champion of 
 orthodoxy, the only man who could successfully cope 
 with Abelard at the Synod of Sens (1140). 
 
 St. Bernard's theology and his whole life supply 
 indeed the best answer to the superficial objections 
 that have often been raised against mystic Christianity. 
 It has often been said that true Christianity does not 
 teach that man should spend his life in ecstatic con- 
 templation of the Divine, but expects him to show 
 his love of God by his active love of his neighbours, 
 by an active God-fearing life. In our time particu- 
 larly religious quietism, and a monastic retirement 
 from the world are condemned without mercy. But 
 St. Bernard has shown that the contemplative state 
 of mind is by no means incompatible with love of our 
 neighbours, nay with a goodly hatred of our enemies, 
 and with a vigorous participation in the affairs of the 
 world. This monk, we should remember, who at the 
 age of twenty-three had retired from the world to 
 the monastery of Cisteaux, and after three years had 
 become Abbot of Clairvaux, was the same Bernard 
 who fought the battle of Pope Innocent II against 
 the Antipope Anaclet II, who with his own weapons 
 subdued Arnold of Brescia, and who at last roused 
 the whole of Christendom, by his fiery harangues, to 
 the second Crusade in 1147. This shows that beneath 
 the stormiest surface the deepest ground of the soul
 
 DIONYSIUS THE AKEOPAaiTE. 493 
 
 may remain tranquil and undisturbed. It shows, as 
 even the Vedantists knew, that man need not go into 
 the forest to be an anchorite, but that there is a forest 
 in every man's heart where he may dwell alone with 
 the Alone. 
 
 Hnsro of St. Victor, Knowledgfe more certain than Faith. 
 
 Another charge often brought against so-called 
 mystics and quietists, that they are narrow-minded 
 and intolerant of intellectual freedom, is best refuted 
 by the intimate friend of St. Bernard, the famous Hugo 
 of St. Victor, the founder of the Victorines. When 
 defining faith in its subjective sense as the act by 
 which we receive and hold truth, Hugo of St. Victor, 
 like man}^ of the schoolmen, distinguishes between 
 opinion, faith, and science, and he places faith 
 above opinion, but below knowledge due to science. 
 Opinion, he says, does not exclude the possibility of a 
 contradictory opposite ; faith excludes such possibility, 
 but does not yet know what is believed as present, 
 resting only on the authority of another through 
 w^hose teaching what is to be believed is conveyed by 
 means of hearing (&uti). Science on the contrary 
 knows its object as actually present; the object of 
 knowledge is present to the minds eye and is known 
 owing to this presence. Knowledge by science there- 
 fore represents a higher degree of certainty than faith, 
 because it is more perfect to know an object in itself 
 by means of its immediate presence than to arrive at 
 its knowledge by hearing the teaching of another only. 
 The lowest degree of faith is that when the believer 
 accepts what is to be believed from mere piety, without 
 understanding by his reason that and why he should
 
 494 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 believe what he has accepted. The next higher stage 
 of faith is when faith is joined to rational insight, and 
 reason approves what faith accepts as true, so that faith 
 is joined with the knowledge of science. The highest 
 degree is when faith, founded in a pure heart and an 
 unstained conscience, begins to taste inwardly what 
 has been embraced and held in faith. Here faith is 
 perfected to higher mystic contemplation. 
 
 How many people who now kneel before the images of 
 St. Bernard and Hugo of St. Victor, would be horrified 
 at the doctrine that the higher faith must be founded 
 on reason, and that faith has less certainty than 
 the knowledge of science. 
 
 Thomas Aciuinas. 
 
 Thomas Aquinas thought it necessary to guard 
 against this doctrine, but he also admits that from 
 a subjective point of view, faith stands half way 
 between opinion and scientific knowledge, that is to 
 say, below scientific knowledge, though above mere 
 opinion. He argues, however, that faith has more 
 certainty than scientific knowledge, because Christian 
 faith has the authority of divine revelation, and 
 we believe what is revealed to us, because it has 
 been revealed by God as the highest truth. (Non 
 enim fides, de qua loquimur, assentit alicui, nisi quia 
 a Deo est revelatum.) He does not tell us how we 
 can know that it was revealed by God except by 
 means of reason. Thomas Aquinas, however, though 
 on this point he difi'ers from St. Hugo, and though he 
 cannot be called a mystic even in the sense in which 
 St. Bernard was, nevertheless is most tolerant toward 
 his mystic friends, nay on certain points the stern
 
 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 495 
 
 scholastic is almost a mystic himself. He speaks of 
 a state of blessedness produced by a vision of the 
 Divine (visio divinae essentiae), he only doubts 
 whether we can ever attain to a knowledge of the 
 essence of the Divine in this life, and he appeals to 
 Dionysius the Areopagite, who likewise says that 
 man can only be joined to God as to something 
 altosrether unknown, that is, that man in this life 
 cannot gain a quidditative knowledge of God, and 
 hence his blessedness cannot be perfect on earth. In 
 support of this Dionysius quotes St. John (Ep. I. iii. 2) : 
 ' But we know that, when He shall appeal', we shall 
 be like Him ; for we shall see Him as He is.* 
 
 Thomas Aquinas differs on other points also from 
 the mystics who believe in an ecstatic union with 
 God even in this life. According to him the highest 
 end of man can only be likeness with God [Omnia 
 igitur appetunt, quasi ultimum finem, Deo assimi- 
 lari). Only of the soul of Christ does Thomas 
 Aquinas admit that it saw the Word of God by that 
 vision by which the Blessed see it, so that His soul 
 was blessed, and His body also perfect ^ Likeness 
 with God is to him the surtimum honum, and it is 
 the highest beatitude which man can reach. This 
 highest beatitude is at the same time, as Thomas 
 Aquinas tries to show, the highest perfection of 
 human nature ; because what distinguishes man from 
 all other creatures is his intellect, and it follows, there- 
 fore, that the highest perfection of his intellect in its 
 speculative and contemplative activity is likewise his 
 
 ' Summa, iii. 14, 1 : Anima Christi videbat Verbum Dei ea visione 
 qua Beati vident, et in animo Christi erat beata, sed in beatitudine 
 animae glorificatur corpus.
 
 496 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 highest beatitude. (Beatiiudo igitur vel felicitas in 
 actu intelledus consistit suhstantialiter et principal iter 
 Tiiagis quavi in actu voluntatis (C. G. xiii. c. 26).) The 
 highest object of this speculative and contemplative 
 activity of the intellect can only be God. And 
 here again Thomas Aquinas shows an extraordinary 
 freedom from theological prejudice. Granted, he 
 says, that the highest end and the real beatitude of 
 man consists in the knowledge of God, we must still 
 distinguish between (1) a natural knowledge of God, 
 which is common to all human beings ; (2) a demon- 
 strative knowledge of God, (3) a knowledge of God by 
 faith, and (4) a knowledge of God by vision {visio 
 Dei per essentiam). 
 
 If the question be asked which of these is the most 
 perfect knowledge of God, Thomas Aquinas answers 
 without the least hesitation, the last. It cannot be 
 the first, because he held that a knowledge of God, as 
 supplied by nature, by what we should call Natural 
 Eeligion, is imperfect on account of its many errors. 
 It cannot be the second, because demonstrative know- 
 ledge is imperfect in being accessible to the few only 
 who can follow logical demonstrations, also in being 
 uncertain in its results. It cannot be the third, or 
 knowledge of God by faith, which most theologians 
 would consider as the safest, because it has no inter- 
 nal evidence of truth, and is a matter of the will 
 rather than of the intellect. But the will, according 
 to Thomas, stands lower than the intellect. The oidy 
 perfect knowledge of God is therefore, according to 
 this highest authority of scholastic theology, the 
 immediate vision of God by means of the intellect, 
 and this can be given us as a supernatural gift only.
 
 mONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. 497 
 
 So far as immediate vision is concerned, Thomas agrees 
 therefore with the mystics ; he even admits, going 
 in this respect beyond Dionysius, the possibility of 
 a quidditative knowledge of God, only, it would seem, 
 not in this life. 
 
 And wdiile he admits the possibility of this intel- 
 lectual vision, he holds that mere loving devotion 
 to God can never be the highest beatitude. His 
 reasons for this are strange. We love the good, he 
 says, not only when we have it, but also when we 
 have it not yet, and from this love there arises 
 desire, and desire is clearly incompatible with perfect 
 beatitude. 
 
 Hugo of St. Victor, on the other hand, accepted 
 that vision as a simple fact. Man, he said, is 
 endowed with a threefold eye, the eye of the flesh, 
 the eye of reason, and the eye of contemplation. 
 By the eye of the flesh man sees the external world ; 
 by the eye of reason he sees the spiritual or ideal 
 world ; by the eye of contemplation he sees the 
 Divine within him in the soul, and above him in 
 God. Passing through the stages of cogitation and 
 meditation, the soul arrives at last at contemplation, 
 and derives its fullest happiness from an immediate 
 intuition of the Infinite. 
 
 Hugo saw that the inmost and the highest, the soul 
 within and God above, are identical, and that there- 
 fore the pure in heart can see God, 
 
 Hugo is rich in poetical illustration. He com- 
 pares, for instance, this spiritual process to the 
 application of fire to green wood. It kindles with 
 difficulty, he says ; clouds of smoke arise at first, 
 a flame is seen at intervals, flashing out here and 
 
 CO Kk
 
 498 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 there ; as the f5re gains strength, it surrounds, it 
 pierces the fuel ; presently it leaps and roves in 
 triumph — the nature of the wood is being transformed 
 into the nature of fire. Then, the struggle over, the 
 crackling ceases, the smoke is gone, there is left 
 a tranquil friendly brightness, for the master-element 
 has subdued all into itself. So, says Hugo, do sin 
 and gi*ace contend; and the smoke and trouble and 
 anguish hang over the strife. But when grace grows 
 stronger, and the soul's eye clearer, and truth pervades 
 and swallows up the kindling, aspiring nature, then 
 comes holy calm, and love is all in all. Save God in 
 the heart, nothing of self is left^. 
 
 * This passage, quoted by Vaughan in his Hours with the Mystics, 
 vol. i. p. 156 (3rd ed.), seems to have suggested what Master 
 Eckhart writes, p. 431, 1. 19, ed. Pfeiffer.
 
 LECTURE XV. 
 
 CHRISTIAN THEOSOPHT. 
 Mystic Christianity. 
 
 rilHE stream of mystic Christianity which we have 
 A watched from its distant springs flows on in an 
 ever deepening and widening channel through the whole 
 of the Middle Ages. In Germany more particularly 
 there came a time when what is called mystic Chris- 
 tianity formed almost the only spiritual food of the 
 people. Scholasticism, no doubt, held its own among 
 the higher ecclesiastics, but the lower clergy and the 
 laity at large, lived on the teaching which, as we 
 saw, flowed originally from Dionysius, and inter- 
 penetrated even the dry scholasticism of Thomas 
 Aquinas (1224-1274), of Bonaventura (1221-1274), and 
 others. It then came to the surface once more in the 
 labours of the German Mystics, and it became in their 
 hands a very important moral and political power. 
 
 The Oerman Mystics. 
 
 First of all, these German Mystics boldly adopted 
 the language of the people, they spoke in the vulgar 
 tongue to the vulgar people ^, they spoke in the lan- 
 
 * The earliest trace of Sermons in German is found in a list of 
 books of the tenth century from St. Emmeram at Augsburg, 
 
 Kk 2
 
 500 LECTURE XV. 
 
 guage of the heart to the heart of the people. Secondly, 
 they adapted themselves in other respects also to the 
 wants and to the understanding of their flocks. Their 
 religion was a religion of the heart and of love 
 rather than of the head and of logical deduction. It 
 arose at the very time when scholastic Christianity 
 had outlived itself, and when, owing to misfortunes 
 of every kind, the people stood most in need of reli- 
 gious support and consolation. 
 
 The Fonrteenth Century in Germany. 
 
 The fourteenth century, during which the German 
 mystics were most active and most powerful, was a 
 time not only of political and ecclesiastical unrest, 
 but a time of intense suffering. In many respects it 
 reminds us of the fifth century which gave rise to 
 mystic Neo-Platonism in the Christian Church. The 
 glorious period of the Hohenstaufen emperors had come 
 to a miserable end. The poetical enthusiasm of the 
 nation had passed away. The struggle between the 
 Empire and the Pope seemed to tear up the very roots 
 of religion and loyalty, and the spectacle of an ex- 
 travagant, nay even an openly profligate life, led by 
 many members of the higher clergy had destroyed 
 nearly all reverence for the Church. Like the Church, 
 the Empire also was torn to pieces ; no one knew who 
 was Emperor and who was Pope. The Interdict fell 
 like a blight on the fairest portions of Germany, every 
 
 Sermones ad populum tentonice ; cf. Naumann's Serapeum, 1841, p. 261. 
 An edict of Cliailemagne, in which he commands the Bishops to 
 preach in the language understood by the people, goes back to the 
 year 813. It was repeated in 847 at the Synod of Mayence under 
 Rhabanus Maui-us.
 
 CHRISTIAN THEOSOPHY. 501 
 
 kind of pestilence broke out, ending at last in the 
 fearful visitation of the Black Death (1348-1349). 
 
 The Interdict. 
 
 This Interdict meant iar more than we have any 
 idea of. The churches were closed, no bells were 
 allowed to be rung. The priests left their parishes ; 
 in many places there were no clergy to baptise 
 children, to perform marriages, or to bury the dead. 
 In few places only some priests were brave enough 
 to defy the Papal Interdict, and to remain with their 
 flocks, and this they did at the peril of their body 
 and theii" soul. The people became thoroughly scared. 
 They saw the finger of God in all the punishments 
 inflicted on theii- country, but they did not know how 
 to avert His anger. Many people banded together 
 and travelled from village to village, singing psalms 
 and scourging themselves in public in the most hor- 
 rible manner. Others gave themselves up to drink 
 and every kind of indulgence. But many retired 
 from the world altogether, and devoted their lives 
 to contemplation, looking forward to the speedy 
 approach of the end of the world. 
 
 The People and the Priesthood. 
 
 It was during those times of outward trouble and 
 inward despair that some of those who are generally 
 called the German Mystics, chiefly Dominican and 
 Franciscan monks, devoted themselves to the service 
 of the people. They felt that not even the Papal Inter- 
 dict could absolve them from the duty which they 
 owed to God and to their flocks. They preached 
 wherever they could find a congregation, in the streets.
 
 502 LECTURE XV. 
 
 in the meadows, wherever two or three were gathered 
 together, and what they preached was the simple 
 Gospel, interpreted in its true or, as it was called, its 
 mystic meaning. The monastic orders of the Fran- 
 ciscans and Dominicans were most active at the time, 
 and sent out travelling preachers all over the country. 
 Their sermons were meant for the hour, and in few 
 cases only have they been preserved in Latin or in 
 German. Such were the sermons of David of Augs- 
 burg (died 1271) and Berchtold of Regensburg (died 
 1272). The effect of their preaching must have been 
 very powerful. We have descriptions of large gather- 
 ings which took place wherever they came. The 
 churches were not large enough to hold the multi- 
 tudes, and the sermons had often to be delivered 
 outside the walls of the towns. We hear of meetings 
 of 40,000, 100,000, nay, of 200,000 people, though we 
 ought to remember how easily such numbers are exag- 
 gerated by friendly reporters. The effect of these 
 sermons seems to have been instantaneous. Thus we 
 are told that a nobleman who had appropriated a 
 castle and lands belonging to the cloister of Pfaefers, 
 at once restored them after hearing Berchtold 's sermon. 
 When taken captive Bei'chtold preached to his captor, 
 and not only converted his household, but persuaded 
 him to join his order. He was even believed to possess 
 the power of working miracles and of prophesying. 
 One year before his own death and while he was 
 preaching at Batisbon, he suddenly had a vision of 
 his friend and teacher, David of Augsburg, and he 
 prophesied his death, which, we are told, had taken 
 place at that very moment. A woman while listening 
 to his sermon fell on her knees and confessed her sins
 
 CHRISTIAN THEOSOPHY. 503 
 
 before the whole congregation. Berchtold accepted 
 her confession and asked who would marry the woman, 
 promising to give her a dowry. A man came forward, 
 and Berchtold at once collected among the people the 
 exact sum which he had promised for her dowry. We 
 know, of course, how easily such rumours spring up, 
 and how rapidly they grow. Still we may accept all 
 these legends as symptoms of the feverish movement 
 which these popular preachers were then producing all 
 over Germany. No wonder that these German mystics 
 and the Friends of God, as they were called, were dis- 
 liked by the regular clergy. Even when they belonged 
 to such orthodox orders as the Dominicans and Francis- 
 cans they vfere occasionally carried away into saying 
 things which were not approved of by the higher clergy. 
 They naturally sided with the people in their protests 
 against the social sins of the higher classes. The 
 luxurious life of the clergy, particularly if of foreign 
 nationality, began to stir up a national antagonism 
 against Rome. Nor was this unfriendly feeling against 
 Rome the only heresy of which the German people 
 and the German mystic preachers were suspected. 
 They were suspected of an inclination towards Wal- 
 densian, Albigensian, and in general towards what 
 were then called Pantheistic heresies. There is no 
 doubt that the influence of the Waldensians extended 
 to Germany, and that some of them had been active 
 in spreading a knowledge of the Bible among the 
 people in Germany by means of vernacular ti'ansla- 
 tions. We read in an account of the Synod of 
 Trier, a.d. 1231, that many of the people were found 
 to be instructed in the sacred writings which they pos- 
 sessed in German translations (Multi eorum instruct!
 
 504 LECTURE XV. 
 
 erant inScripturis Sanctis quas habebant intheutonicum 
 translatas). Complaint is made that even little girls 
 were taught the Gospels and Epistles, and that people 
 learnt passages of the Bible by heart in the vulgar 
 tongue (Puellas parvulas docent evangelia et epistolas 
 — dociles inter aliquos complices et facundos docent 
 verba evangelii et dicta apostolorum et sanctorum 
 aliorum in vulgari lingua corde firmare)^. The Albi- 
 genses seem to have adopted the name of Kathari, 
 the pure, possibly in recollection of the Katharsis 
 which was a preliminary to the Henosis. This name of 
 Kathari became in German Ket:Ser, with the sense of 
 heretic. The inquisition for heresy was very active, but 
 unable to quell the religious movement in Germany. 
 The very orders, Dominicans and Franciscans, which 
 were meant to counteract it, were not altogether safe 
 against heretical infection. Among the earliest Domi- 
 nicans who were celebrated as popular preachers, that 
 is to say, who were able to preach in German, we find 
 the name of the notorious inquisitor Konrad of Mar- 
 burg, who was slain by the people in 1234 for his 
 cruelties. The mystic sermons of Albertus Magnus 
 were written in Latin and afterwards translated into 
 German. The people naturally sided with those who 
 sided with them. To them what is called mystic 
 Christianity was the only Christianity they under- 
 stood and cared for. They had at that time verj^ little 
 to occupy their thoughts, and their longing for religious 
 comfort became all the stronger the less there was to 
 distract their thoughts or to satisfy their ambition in 
 the political events of the times. 
 
 * Wackernagel und Weinhold, Altdeutsche Predigten, p. 347.
 
 CHRISTIAN THEOSOPHY. 505 
 
 Dominicans and Franciscans. 
 
 It may truly be said that the great bulk of the 
 German people were then for the first time brought into 
 living contact with their religion by these Dominican 
 and Franciscan friars. However much we may admire 
 the learning and the logical subtlety of the school- 
 men, it is easy to see that the questions which they 
 discussed were not questions that could possibly 
 influence the religious thoughts or conduct of the 
 masses. It had long been felt that somethinor else 
 and something more was wanted, and this something 
 else and something more seemed best to be supplied 
 by what was called mystic Christianity, by what 
 Dionysius had called the Stulta Scqnentia excedens 
 laudanites''-, 'the simple-minded Wisdom exceeding all 
 praise.' 
 
 This simple religion was supposed to spring from 
 the love which God Himself has poured into the 
 human soul, while the human soul in loving God 
 does but return the love of God. This religion does 
 not require much learning, it is meant for the poor 
 and pure in spirit. It was meant to lead man from 
 the stormy sea of his desires and passions to the 
 safe haven of the eternal, to remain there firmly 
 anchored in the love of God, while it was admitted 
 that the scholastic or as it was called the literary 
 religion could give no rest, but could onl}^ produce 
 a never-ceasing appetite for truth and for victory. 
 
 There was, however, no necessity for separatino- 
 learning from mystic religion, as we see in the 
 case of St. Augustine, in Bonaventura, St. Bernard, 
 
 ' StGckl, Geschichie cler Philosophie des MiUdalkrs, vol. i. p. 1030.
 
 506 LECTUEE XV. 
 
 and once more in Master Eckhart and many of the 
 German mystics. These men had two faces, one for 
 the doctors of divinity, their learned rivals, the 
 other for the men, women, and chiklren, who came to 
 hear such sermons as Master Eckhart could preach, 
 whether in Latin or in the vulgar tongue. At first, 
 these popular preachers were not learned theolo- 
 gians, but simply eloquent preachers, who travelled 
 from village to village, and tried to appeal to the 
 conscience of the peasants, to men and women, in 
 their native tongue. But they prepared the way 
 for the German mystics of the next generation, who 
 were no longer mere kind-hearted travelling friars, 
 but learned men, doctors of theology, and some of 
 them even high dignitaries of the Church, The best- 
 known names among these are Master Eckhart, 
 Tauler, Suso, Ruysbrook, Gerson, and Cardinal 
 Cusanus. 
 
 Eckhart and Tauler. 
 
 Every one of these men deserves a study by him- 
 self. The best-known and most attractive is no 
 doubt Tauler. His sermons have been frequently 
 published ; they were translated into Latin, into 
 modern German, some also into English. They are 
 still read in Germany as useful for instruction and 
 edification, and they have escaped the suspicion of 
 heresy which has so often been raised, and, it may be, 
 not without some reason, against Master Eckhart. 
 Still Master Eckhart is a much more powerful, and 
 more original thinker, and whatever there is of real 
 philosophy in Tauler seems borrowed from him. In 
 Eckhart's German writings, which were edited for
 
 CHRISTIAN THEOSOPHY. 507 
 
 the first time by Pfeiffer (1857), mystic Christianity, 
 or as it might more truly be called, the Christianity 
 as conceived by St. John, finds its highest expression. 
 It is difficult to say whether he is more of a scholastic 
 philosopher or of a mystic theologian. The unholy 
 divorce between religion and philosophy did not 
 exist for him. A hundred years later so holy and 
 orthodox a writer as Gerson had to warn the clergy 
 that if they separated religion from philosophy, they 
 would destroy both ^ Master Eckhart, though he 
 constantly refers to and relies on the Bible, never 
 appeals simply to its authority in order to establish 
 the truth of his teaching. His teaching agrees with 
 the teaching of St. John and of St. Paul, but it was 
 meant to convince by itself. He thought he could 
 show that Christianity, if only rightly understood, 
 could satisfy all the wants both of the human heart 
 and of human reason. Every doctrine of the New 
 Testament is accepted by him, but it is thought 
 through by himself, and only after it has passed 
 through the fire of his own mind, is it preached 
 by him as eternal truth. He quotes the pagan 
 masters as well as the Fathers of the Church, and 
 he sometimes appeals to the former as possessing 
 a truer insight into certain mysteries than even 
 Christian teachers. 
 
 He is most emphatic in the assertion of truth. ' I 
 speak to you,' he says, 'in the name of eternal truth.' 
 'It is as true as that God liveth.' ' Bi gote, bi gote,' 
 ' By God, by God,' occurs so often that one feels 
 almost inclined to accept the derivation of 'bigot' 
 
 ' Dnm a religione secernere putant pliilosophiam, utrumque 
 perdunt. Gerson, Serm. I.
 
 508 LECTURE XV. 
 
 as having meant originally a man who on every 
 occasion appeals to God, then a hypocrite, then a 
 fanatic. Eckhart's attitude, however, is not that 
 of many less straightforward Christian philosophers 
 who try to force their philosophy into harmony with 
 the Bible. It is rather that of an independent 
 thinker, who rejoices whenever he finds the results 
 of his own speculations anticipated by, and as it 
 were hidden, in the Bible. Nor does he ever, so 
 far as I remember, appeal to miracles in support of 
 the truth of Christianity or of the true divinity of 
 Christ. When he touches on miracles, he generally 
 sees an allegory in them, and he treats them much 
 as the Stoics treated Homer or as Philo treated the 
 Old Testament. Otherwise, miracles had no interest 
 for him. In a world in which, as he firmly believed, 
 not one sparrow could faU on the ground without 
 your Father (Matt. x. 29), where was there room for 
 a miracle 1 No doubt, and he often says so him- 
 self, his interpretation of the Bible was not always 
 in accordance with that of the great doctors of the 
 Church. Some of his speculations are so bold that 
 one does not wonder at his having incurred the 
 suspicion of heresy. Even in our more enlightened 
 days some of his theories about the Godhead would 
 no doubt sound very startling. He sometimes seems 
 bent on startling his congregation, as when he says, 
 ' He who says that God is good, offends Him as much 
 as if he were to say that white is black.' And yet he 
 always remained a most obedient son of the Church, 
 only in his own way. Like other independent thinkers 
 of that time, he always declared himself ready to 
 revoke at once anything and everything heretical
 
 CHRISTIAN THEOSOrHY. 509 
 
 in his writings, but he called on his adversaries to 
 prove first of all that it was heretical. The result 
 was that though he was accused of heresy by the 
 Archbishop of Cologne in 1326, nothing very serious 
 happened to him during his lifetime. But after his 
 death, out of twenty-eight statements of his which 
 had been selected as heretical for Papal condemnation, 
 the first fifteen and the two last were actually con- 
 demned, while the remaining eleven were declared 
 to be suspicious. It was then too late for Master 
 Eckhart to prove that they were not heretical. 
 
 Eckhaiii was evidently a learned theologian, and 
 his detractors were afraid of him. He knew his 
 Plato and his Aristotle. How he admired Plato is 
 best shown by his calling him Der groze Pfaffe, the 
 great priest (p. 261, 1. 21). Aristotle is to him simply 
 the Master. He had studied Proclus, or Proculus, 
 as he calls him, and he often refers to Cicero, Seneca, 
 and even to the Arabic philosopher, Avicenna. He 
 frequently appeals to St. Chrysostom, Dionysius, St. 
 Augustine, and other Fathers of the Church, and has 
 evidently studied Thomas Aquinas, who may almost 
 be called his contemporary. He had received in 
 fact a thorough scholastic training ^, and was a match 
 for the best among the advocates of the Church. 
 Eckhart had studied and aftei-wards taught at the 
 University of Paris, and had received his Degree of 
 Doctor of Divinity from Pope Boniface VIII. In 
 1304 he became the Provincial of the Order of the 
 Dominicans in Saxony, though his residence remained 
 
 ' How much Eckliart owed to his scholastic training has been 
 ■well brought out by H. Donifle in his learned article, Meisfer 
 Eckehart's Lateininche Schriffcn unci die GrHudanschanung seiner Lehre, im 
 Archivfiir Littemtur und Kirdiengeschichte, vol. ii. fuse. 3, 4.
 
 510 LECTURE XV. 
 
 at Cologne. He was also appointed Vicar-General 
 of Bohemia, and travelled much in Germany, visiting 
 the monasteries of his order and trying to reform 
 them. But he always returned to the Rhine, and he 
 died at Cologne, probably in the year 1327. 
 
 Eckhart has been very differently judged by differ- 
 ent people. By those who could not understand him, 
 he has been called a dreamer and almost a madman ; 
 by others who were his intellectual peers, he has 
 been called the wisest Doctor, the friend of God, the 
 best interpreter of the thoughts of Christ, of St. John, 
 and St. Paul, the forerunner of the Reformation. 
 He was a vir sandus, even according to the testi- 
 mony of his bitterest enemies. Many people think 
 they have disposed of him by calling him a mystic. 
 He was a mystic in the sense in which St. John was, 
 to mention no greater name. Luther, the German 
 Reformer, was not a man given to dreams or senti- 
 mentalism. No one would call him a mystic, in 
 the vulgar sense of the word. But he was a great 
 admirer of Eckhart, if we may take him to have 
 been the author of the Theologia Germanica. I con- 
 fess I doubt his authorship, but the book is certainly 
 pervaded by his spirit, particularly as regards the 
 practical life of a true Christian^. This is what 
 Luther writes of the book : ' From no book, except 
 the Bible, and the works of St. Augustine, have I 
 learnt more what God, what Christ, what man and 
 other things are, than from this {Luther s Werke, 
 1883, vol. i. p. 378). A very different thinker, but 
 
 1 It has been translated into English by Miss Winkworth, and 
 was much prized by my departed friends, Frederick Maurice, 
 Charles Kingsley, and Baron Bunsen.
 
 CHRTSTIAN THEOSOniY. 511 
 
 likewise no dreamer or sentimentalist, Schopenhauer, 
 says of Eckhart that his teaching stands to the New 
 Testament as essence of wine to wine. 
 
 Henry ]\Iore, the Cambridge Platonist, another 
 ardent admirer of the Theologia Germanica, speaks 
 of it as ' that golden little book.' 
 
 Eckhart's Mysticism. 
 
 It is a great mistake to suppose that Eckhai't's 
 so-called mysticism was a matter of vague sentiment. 
 On the contrary, it was built up on the solid basis of 
 scholastic philosophy, and it defied in turn the on- 
 slaughts of the most ingenious scholastic disputants. 
 How thoroughly his mind was steeped in scholastic 
 philosophy, has lately been proved in some learned 
 papers by Dr. Denifl^. I admit his writings are 
 not always easy. First of all, they are written in 
 Middle High German, a language which is separated 
 by only about a century from the German of the 
 Nibelunge. And his language is so entirely his own 
 that it is sometimes very difficult to catch his exact 
 meaning, stiU more to convey it in English. It is 
 the same as in the Upanishads. Tho words them- 
 selves are easy enough, but their drift is often very 
 hard to foUow. 
 
 It seems to me that a study of the Upanishads is 
 often the very best prepai-ation for a proper under- 
 standing of Eckhart's Tracts and Sermons. The 
 intellectual atmosphere is just the same, and he who 
 has learnt to breathe in the one, wiU soon feel at home 
 in the other. 
 
 I regret that it would be quite impossible to give
 
 512 LECTURE XV. 
 
 you even the shortest abstract of the whole of Eckhart's 
 psychological and metaphysical system. It deserves 
 to be studied for its own sake, quite as much as the 
 metaphysical systems of Aristotle or Descartes, and it 
 would well repay the labours of some future GifFord 
 Lecturer to bring together all the wealth of thought 
 that lies scattered about in Eckhart's writings. I can 
 here touch on a few points only, such as bear on our 
 own special subject, the nature of God and of the 
 Soul, and the relation between the two. 
 
 Eckhart's Definition of the Deity. 
 
 Eckhart defines the Godhead as simple esse, as actus 
 purus. This is purely scholastic, and even Thomas 
 Aquinas himself would probably not have objected to 
 Eckhart's repeated statement that Esse est Deus. 
 According to him there is and can be nothing higher 
 than to be^ He naturally appeals to the Old Testament 
 in order to show that I am is the only possible name of 
 Deity. In this he does not differ much from St. Thomas 
 Aquinas and other scholastic philosophers. St. Thomas 
 says : Ipsum esse est perfectissimum omnium, compara- 
 tur enim ad omnia ut actus . . . unde ipsum esse est 
 actualitas omnium rerum et etiam ipsarum formarum^. 
 Being without qualities God is to us unknowable and 
 incomprehensible, hidden and dark, till the Godhead 
 is lighted up by its own light, the light of self-know- 
 ledge, by which it becomes subjective and objective. 
 Thinker and Thought, or, as the Christian mystics 
 express it, Father and Son. The bond between the 
 
 1 Cf. Denifle,l.c.,p. 436. 
 
 * See Denifle, Meister Eckeharfs Lafeinische Schriften, p. 436.
 
 CHRISTIAN THEOSOPHY. 513 
 
 two is the Holy Ghost. Thus the Godhead, the 
 Divine Essence or Ousia, becomes God in three Per- 
 sons. In thinking Himself, the Father thinks every- 
 thing that is within Him, that is, the ideas, the logoi 
 of the unseen world. Here Master Eckhart stands 
 completely on the old Platonic and Stoic platform. 
 Ho is convinced that there is thought and reason in 
 the world, and he concludes in consequence that the 
 world of thought, the Koa-yios voi]t6^, can only be the 
 thought of God. Granted this, and everything else 
 follows. ' The eternal Thought or the Word of the 
 Father, is the only begotten Son, and,' he adds, ' he is 
 our Lord Jesus Christ ^' 
 
 We see here how Eckhart uses the old Alexandrian 
 language, and conceives the eternal ideas not only as 
 many, but also as one, as the Logos, in which all 
 things, as conceived by the Father, are one before 
 they become many in the phenomenal world. But 
 Master Eckhart is very anxious to show that though 
 all things are dynamically in God, God is not actually 
 in all things. Like the Vedantist, he speaks of God 
 as the universal Cause, and yet claims for Him 
 an extra-mundane existence. ' God,' he writes, ' is 
 outside all nature, He is not Himself Nature, He is 
 above it ^.' 
 
 * Daz sol man als6 verstan, Daz ewige wort ist daz wort des 
 vater und ist sin einborn sun, unser hene Jesus Kristus. 
 Eckhart, ed. Pfeiffer, p. 7G, 1. 25. 
 
 ^ Daz got etwaz ist, daz von n6t uber wesen sin muoz, Was 
 wesen hiit, zit oder stat, das hoi-et zo gota niht, er ist iiber daz 
 selbe ; daz or ist in alien croaturen, daz ist er doch dar iiber ; was 
 da in vil dingeu ein ist, daz muoz von not iiber diu dine sin. 
 Pfeiffer, 1. c, p. 2G8, 1. 10. See also Eckhart's Latin version : Deus 
 sic totus est in quolibet, quod totus est extra quodlibet, et propter 
 hoc ea quae sunt cujuslibet, ij^si non convoniunt, puta variari, 
 senescere aut corrumpi. . . Hinc est quod anima non variatur nee 
 W LI
 
 514 LECTURE XV. 
 
 And yet Master Eckhart is called a pantheist by 
 men who hardly seem to know the meaning of pan- 
 theism or of Christianity. And when he further on 
 ventures to say, that the worlds, both the ideal and 
 the phenomenal, were thought and created by God on 
 account of His divine love, and therefore by necessity, 
 and from all eternity, this again is branded as 
 heresy, as if there could be any variance in the Divine 
 Counsel, nay, as if there could be in God any difference 
 between what we call necessity and liberty ^. If human 
 language can reach at all to these dizzy heights of 
 speculation, nothing seems more in accordance with 
 Christian doctrine than to say what Eckhart says: 
 ' God is always working, and His working is to beget 
 His Son.' 
 
 Creation is Emanation. 
 
 What is generally called Creation is conceived by 
 Eckhart as Emanation. On this point he is at one 
 with Thomas Aquinas and many of the most orthodox 
 theologians. I do not appeal to Dionysius or Scotus 
 Erigena, for their orthodoxy has often been questioned. 
 But Thomas Aquinas, in his SuTtima, p. 1, qu. 19, a. 4, 
 without any hesitation explains creation as emanatio 
 totius entis ab uno, emanation of all that is from One. 
 Nay, he goes further, and maintains that God is in all 
 things, potentially, essentially, and present : per poten- 
 tiam, essentiam et praesentiam ; per essentiam, nam 
 omne ens est participatio divini esse ; per potentiam, 
 
 senescit nee desinit extracto oculo aut pede, quia ipsa se tota est 
 extra oculum et pedem, in manu tota et in qualibet parte alia tota. 
 Denifle, 1. c, p. 430. Pfeiffer, 1. c, p. 612, 1. 28. 
 
 ' The condemned sentence was : Quam cito Deus fuit, tam cito 
 mundum creavit. Concedi ergo potest quod mundus ab aefcerno 
 fuerit.
 
 CHRISTIAN THEOSOPHY. 515 
 
 in quantum omnia in virtute ejus agunt; per prae- 
 sentiam, in quantum ipse omnia immediate ordinat et 
 disponit^. Such ideas would be stigmatised as pan- 
 theistic by many living theologians, and so would 
 consequently many passages even from the New Testa- 
 ment, where God is represented as the All in All. But 
 Eckhart argued quite consistently that unless the 
 soul of man is accepted as an etilux from God, there 
 can be no reflux of the soul to God, and this according 
 to Eckhart is the vital point of true Christianity. A 
 clock cannot return to the clockmaker, but a drop of 
 rain can return to the ocean from whence it was lifted, 
 and a ray of light is always light. 
 
 ' All creatures,' he writes, ' are in God as uncreated, 
 but not by themselves.' This would seem to mean 
 that the ideas of all things were in God, before the 
 things themselves wore created or were made mani- 
 fest. * All creatures,' he continues, ' are more noble 
 in God than they are by themselves. God is there- 
 fore by no means confounded with the world, as 
 He has been by Amalrich and by all pantheists. The 
 world is not God, nor God the world. The being 
 of the world is from God, but it is different from the 
 being of God.' Eckhart really admits two processes, 
 one the eternal creation in God, the other the creation 
 in time and space. This latter creation differs, as he 
 says, from the former, as a work of art differs from 
 the idea of it in the mind of the artist. 
 
 The Human Soul. 
 
 Eckhart looks upon the human soul as upon every- 
 thing else, as thoughts spoken by God through 
 creation. But though the soul and all the powers of 
 
 ^ StOckl, Gesch. der Fhilos. cles MitteMteis, vol. ii. p. 519. 
 LI 2
 
 516 LECTURE XV. 
 
 the soul, such as perception, memory, understanding 
 and will, are created, he holds that there is something 
 in the soul uncreated, something divine, nay the God- 
 head itself. This was again one of the theses which 
 were declared heretical after his death ^. 
 
 In the same way then as the Godhead or the Divine 
 Ground is without any knowable qualities and cannot 
 be known except as being, the Divine Element in the 
 soul also is without qualities and cannot be known 
 except as being. This Divine Spark, though it may 
 be covered and hidden for a time by ignorance, passion, 
 or sin, is imperishable. It gives us being, oneness, 
 personality, and subjectivity, and being subjective, 
 like God, it can only be a knower, it can never be 
 known, as anything else is known objectively. 
 
 It is throuofh this Divine element in the human soul 
 that we are and become one with God. Man cannot 
 know God objectively, but in what Eckhart calls 
 mystic contemplation, he can feel his oneness with 
 the Divine. Thus Eckhart writes : ' What is seen with 
 the eye wherewith I see God, that is the same eye 
 wherewith God sees me. My eye and God's eye are 
 one eye and one vision, one knowing, and one loving. 
 It is the same to know God and to be known by God, 
 to see God and to be seen by God. And as the air 
 illumined is nothing but that it illumines, for it 
 illumines because it is illumined, in the same manner 
 we know because we are known and that He makes 
 us to know Him^.' This knowing and to be known 
 is what Eckhart calls the Birth of the Son in the soul. 
 
 * Aliquid est in anima quod est increatum et increabile ; si tota 
 anima esset talis, esset increata et increabilis, et hoc est intellectus. 
 2 Pfeilfer, 1. c, p. 38, 1. 10.
 
 CHRISTIAN THF.OSOrilY. 517 
 
 'If His knowing is mine, and His substance, His very 
 nature and essence, is knowing, it follows that His 
 essence and substance and nature are mine. And if 
 His nature and essence and substance are mine, I am 
 the son of God.' ' Behold,' he exclaims, ' what manner 
 of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should 
 be called the sons of God ' — and be the sons of God. 
 
 This second birth and this being born as the son of 
 God is with Eekhart synonymous with the Son of God 
 being born in the soul. He admits no difterence be- 
 tween man, when born again, and the Son of God, at 
 least no more than there is between God the Father 
 and God the Son. Man becomes by grace what Christ 
 is by nature, and only if born again as the son of God 
 can men receive the Holy Ghost. 
 
 What Eekhart calls the Divine Ground in the soul 
 and in the Godhead may be, I think, justly compared 
 with the neutral Brahman of the Upanishads, as dis- 
 covered in the world and in the soul. And as in the 
 Upanishads the masculine Brahman is distinguished, 
 though not separated, from the neutral Brahman, so, 
 according to Eekhart, the three Persons may be distin- 
 guished from the Divine Ground, though they cannot 
 be separated from it. 
 
 All this sounds very bold, but if we translate it into 
 ordinary language it does not seem to mean more 
 than that the three Divine Persons share tliis under- 
 lying Godhead as their common essence or Ousia, that 
 they are in fact homoousioi, which is the orthodox 
 doctrine for which Eekhart, like St. Clement, tries to 
 supply an honest philosophical explanation. 
 
 If we want to understand Eekhart, we must never 
 forget that, like Dionysius, he is completely under the
 
 518 LECTUEE XV. 
 
 sway of Neo-Platonist, in one sense even of Platonist 
 philosophy. When we say that God created the 
 world, Eckhart would say that the Father spoke the 
 Word, the Logos, or that He begat the Son. Both 
 expressions mean exactly the same with him. 
 
 All these are really echoes of very ancient thought. 
 We must remember that the ideas, according to Plato, 
 constituted the eternal or changeless world, of which 
 the phenomenal world is but a shadow. With Plato, 
 the ideas or the €.'ihr] alone can be said to be real, and 
 they alone can form the subject of true knowledge. 
 Much as the Stoics protested against the independent 
 existence of these ideas, the Neo-Platonists took them 
 up again, and some of the Fathers of the Church 
 represented them as the pure forms or the perfect 
 types according to which the world was created, and 
 all things in it. It was here that the ancient philo- 
 sophers discovered what we call the Origin of Species. 
 We saw how the whole of this ideal creation, or rather 
 manifestation, was also spoken of as the Logos or the 
 manifested Word of God by which He created the 
 world, and this Logos again was represented, as we 
 saw, long before the rise of Christianity, as the off- 
 spring or the only begotten Son of God. Eckhart, 
 like some of the earliest Fathers of the Church, started 
 with the concept of the Logos or the Word as the Son 
 of God, the other God [h^vT^pos ^eo'?), and he predicated 
 this Logos of Christ who was to him the human reali- 
 sation of the ideal Son of God, of Divine Keason and 
 Divine Love.
 
 CHIilSTIAN TIIEOSOPHY. 519 
 
 The Slessiali and the Iiogos. 
 
 What the Jews did with the name of the Messiah, 
 the Greeks had to do with the name of the Logos. 
 The idea of the Messiah was there for ages, and though 
 it must have required an immense effort, the Jews who 
 embraced Christianity brought themselves to say that 
 this ideal Messiah, this Son of David, this King of Glory 
 was Jesus, the Crucified. In the same manner and with 
 the same effort, and, as I believe, with the same honesty, 
 the Greek philosophers, who embraced Christianity, 
 had to bring themselves to say that this Logos, this 
 Thought of God, this Son of God, this Monogenes or 
 Only begotten, known to Plato as well as to Philo, 
 appeared in Jesus of Nazareth, and that in Him alone 
 the divine idea of manhood had ever been fully realised. 
 Hence Christ was often called the First Man, not 
 Adam. The Greek converts who became the real 
 conquerors of the Greek world, raised their Logos 
 to a much higher meaning than it had in the minds 
 of the Stoics, just as the Jewish converts imparted to 
 the name of Messiah a much more sublime import 
 than what it had in the minds of the Scribes and 
 Pharisees. Yet the best among these Greek converts, 
 in joining the Christian Church, never forswore their 
 philosophical convictions, least of all did they commit 
 themselves to the legendary traditions which ft-om 
 very early times had gathered round the cradle of the 
 Son of Joseph and Mary. To the real believer in 
 Christ as the Word and the Son of God these tradi- 
 tions seemed hardly to exist ; they were neither denied 
 nor affirmed. It is in the same spirit that Master 
 Eckhart conceives the true meaning of the Son of God 
 as the Word, and of God the Father as the speaker
 
 520 LECTURE XV. 
 
 and thinker and worker of the Word, freely using 
 these Galilean legends as beautiful allegories, but never 
 appealing to them as proofs of the truth of Christ's 
 teaching. Eckhart, to quote his ipsissinia verba, repre- 
 sents the Father as speaking His word into the soul, 
 and when the Son is born, every soul becomes Maria. 
 He .expresses the same thought by saying that the 
 Divine Ground, that is the Godhead^ admits of no 
 distinction or predicate. It is oneness, darkness, but 
 the light of the Father pierces into that darkness, 
 and the Father, knowing His own essence, begets in 
 the knowledge of Himself, the Son. And in the love 
 which the Father has for the Son, the Father with 
 the Son breathes the Spirit. By this process the 
 eternal dark ground becomes lighted up^ the Godhead 
 becomes God, and God in three Persons. When the 
 Father by thus knowing Himself, speaks the eternal 
 Word, or what is the same, begets His Son, He speaks 
 in that Word all things. His divine Word is the one 
 idea of all things (that is the Logos), and this eternal 
 Word of the Father is His only Son, and the Lord 
 Jesus Christ in whom He has spoken all creatures 
 without beginning and without end. And this speak- 
 ing does not take place once only. According to 
 Eckhart ' God is always working ^, in a now, in 
 an eternity, and His working is begetting His Son, In 
 this birth all things have flown out, and such delight 
 has God in this birth, that He spends all His power 
 in it. God begets Himself altogether in His Son, he 
 speaks all things in Him.' Though such language 
 may sound strange to us, and though it has been con- 
 demned by those who did not know its purport, as 
 1 Pfeiffer, 1. c, p. 254.
 
 CHPJSTIAN THEOSOPHY. 521 
 
 fanciful, if not as heretical, we should remember that 
 St. Augustine also uses exactly the same language : 
 ' The speaking of God,' he says, ' is His begetting, and 
 His begetting is His speaiiing' (p. 100, 1. 27), and 
 Eckhart continues (p. 100, 1. 29): 'If God were to 
 cease from this speaking of the Word, even for one 
 moment, Heaven and Earth would vanish.' 
 
 With us, ivovd has so completely lost its full mean- 
 ing, as being the unity of thought and sound, the one 
 inseparable from the other, that we cannot be reminded 
 too often that in all these philosophical speculations 
 Logos or Word does not mean the word as mere sound 
 or as we find it in a dictionary, but word as the living 
 embodiment, as the very incarnation of thought. 
 
 What has seemed so strange to some modern philo- 
 sophers, namely, this inseparableness of thought and 
 word, or, as I sometimes expressed it, the identity of 
 reason and language, was perfectly familiar to these 
 ancient thinkers and theologians, and I am glad to see 
 that my critics have ceased at last to call my Science 
 of ThougJit a linguistic paradox, and begin to see that 
 what I contended for in that book was known long 
 ago, and that no one ever doubted it. The Logos, 
 the Word, as the thought of God, as the whole body 
 of divine or eternal ideas, which Plato had prophe- 
 sied, which Ai'istotle had criticised in vain, which 
 the Neo-Platonists re-established, is a truth that 
 forms, or ought to form, the foundation of all phi- 
 losophy. And unless we have fully gi-asped it, as it 
 was grasped by some of the greatest Fathers of the 
 Church, we shall never be able to understand the 
 Fourth Gospel, we shall never be able to call ourselves 
 true Christians. For it is, as built upon the Logos,
 
 522 LECTURE XV. 
 
 that Christianity holds its own unique position among 
 all the religions of the world. Of course, a religion is 
 not a philosophy. It has a different purpose, and it 
 must speak a different language. Nothing is more 
 difficult than to express the results of the deepest 
 thought in language that should be intelligible to all, 
 and yet not misleading. Unless a religion can do 
 that, it is not a religion ; at all events, it cannot live ; 
 for every generation that is born into the world 
 requires a popular, a childlike translation of the 
 sublimest truths which have been discovered and 
 stored up by the sages and prophets of old. If no 
 child could grow up a Christian, unless it understood 
 the true meaning of Logos, as elaborated by Platonic, 
 Stoic, and Neo-Platonic philosophers, and then adopted 
 and adapted by the Fathers of the Church, how many 
 Christians should we have? By using the words 
 Father and Son, the Fathers of the Church felt that 
 they used expressions which contain nothing that is 
 not true, and which admit of a satisfactory interpre- 
 tation as soon as such interpretation is wanted. And 
 the most satisfactory explanation, the best solution of 
 all our religious difficulties seems to me here as else- 
 where supplied by the historical school. Let us only 
 try to discover how words and thoughts arose, how 
 thoughts came to be what they are, and we shall 
 generally find that there is some reason, whether human 
 or Divine, in them. 
 
 To me, I confess, nothing seems more delightful 
 than to be able to discover how by an unbroken 
 chain our thoughts and words carry us back from 
 century to century, how the roots and feeders of our 
 mind pierce through stratum after stratum, and still
 
 CHRISTIAN THEOSOPHY. 523 
 
 draw their life and nourishment from the deepest 
 foundations, from the hearts of the oldest thinkers of 
 mankind. That is what gives us confidence in our- 
 selves, and often helps to impart new life to what 
 threatens to become hard and petrified, mythological 
 and unmeaning, in our intellectual and, more particu- 
 larly, in our religious life. To many people, I feel 
 sure, the beginning of the Gospel of St. John, ' In the 
 beginning was the Word,' and again, ' The Word was 
 made flesh,' can only be a mere tradition. But as 
 soon as we can trace back the Word that in the 
 beginning was with God, and through which (bt avrov) 
 all things were made, to the Monogenes, as pos- 
 tulated by Plato, elaborated by the Stoics, and handed 
 on by the Neo-Platonists, whether pagan, Jewish, or 
 Christian, to the early Fathers of the Church, a contact 
 seems established, and an electric current seems to 
 run in a continuous stream from Plato to St. John, 
 and from St. John to our own mind, and give light 
 and life to some of the hardest and darkest sayings of 
 the New Testament. Let us reverence by all means 
 what is called childhke faith, but let us never forget 
 that to think also is to worship God. 
 
 Now let us return to Master Eckhart, and remember 
 that according to him the soul is founded on the .same 
 Divine Ground as God, that it shares in fact in the 
 same nature, that it would be nothing without it. 
 Yet in its created form it is separated from God. It 
 feels that separation or its own incompleteness, and 
 in feeling this, it becomes religious. How is that 
 yearning for completion to be satisfied 1 How is that 
 divine home-sickness to be healed? Most mystic 
 philosophers would say^ by the soul being drawn near
 
 524 LECTURE XV. 
 
 to God in love, or by an approach to God, just as we 
 saw in the Upanishads the soul approaching the 
 throne of Brahman, as a masculine deity. 
 
 The Approacli to God. 
 
 Eckhart, however, like the higher Vedantists, denies 
 that there can be such an approach, or at all events 
 he considers it only a lower form of religion. Thus he 
 says, p. 80 : ' While we are approaching God, we never 
 come to Him,' — almost the very words of the Vedanta. 
 
 Eckhart, while recognising this desire for God or 
 this love of God as a preparatory step, takes a much 
 higher view of the true relation between soul and 
 God. That ray of the Godhead, which he calls the 
 spirit of the soul and many other names, such as spark 
 (Fiinklein), root, spring^ also awrriprjaLs, in fact, the 
 real Self of man, is the common ground of God and 
 the soul. In it God and the soul are always one 
 potentially, and they become one actually when the 
 Son is born in the soul of man, that is when the soul 
 has discovered its eternal oneness with God. In order 
 that God may enter the soul, everything else must 
 first be thi'own out of it, everything sinful, but also 
 every kind of attachment to the things of this world. 
 Lastly, there must be a complete surrender of our own 
 self. In order to live in God, man must die to him- 
 self, till his will is swallowed up in God's will. There 
 must be perfect stillness in the soul before God can 
 whisper His word into it, before the light of God can 
 shine in the soul and transform the soul into God. 
 
 Birtli of tlie Son. 
 
 When man has thus become the son of God, it is 
 said that the Son of God is born in him, and his soul
 
 CHRISTIAN THEOSOPHY. 525 
 
 is at rest. You will have observed in all this the 
 fundamental idea of the Vedanta, that by removal of 
 nescience the individual soul recovers its true nature, 
 as identical with the Divine soul ; nor can it have 
 escaped you on the other side how many expressions 
 are used by Eckhart which are perfectly familiar to 
 us from the Neo-Platonists, and from the Gospel of 
 St. John, which can convey their true meaning to 
 those only who know their origin and their history. 
 
 Passages from the Fourth Gospel. 
 
 The passages on which Eckhart relies and to which 
 he often appeals are: 'He that hath seen me hath 
 seen the Father ' (xiv. 9) ; ' I am in the Father, and the 
 Father in me' (xiv. 10); 'No man cometh unto the 
 Father, but by me ' (xiv. 6) ; ' This is life eternal, that 
 they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus 
 Christ, whom Thou hast sent ' (xvii. 3). And again : 
 ' And now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own 
 Self with the glory which I had with Thee before the 
 world was ; that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, 
 art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in 
 us' (xvii. 5, 21). 
 
 These are the deepest notes that vibrate through the 
 whole of Eckhart's Christianity, and though their true 
 meaning had been explained long before Eckhart's 
 time, by the great scholastic thinkers, such as Thomas 
 Aquinas himself, the two St. Victors, Bonaventura, 
 and others, seldom had their deepest purport been so 
 powerfully brought out as by Master Eckhart, in his 
 teaching of true spii-itual Christianity. Dr. Dcnifl^ 
 is no doubt quite right in showing how much of this 
 spiritual Christianity may be found in the writings of
 
 526 LECTURE XV. 
 
 those whom it is the fashion to call rather con- 
 temptuously, mere schoolmen. But he hardly does 
 fulljusticeto Eckhart's personality. Not every school- 
 man was a vir sanctus, not every Dominican preacher 
 was so unworldly, so full of love and compassion for 
 his fellow-creatures as Eckhart was. And though his 
 Latin terminology may be called more accurate and 
 vigorous than his German utterances, there is a 
 warmth and homeliness in his German sermons which, 
 to my mind at least, the colder Latin seems to destroy. 
 Dr. Denifle is no doubt quite right in claiming Eckhart 
 as a scholastic and as a Roman Catholic, but he would 
 probably allow his heresies at least to be those of the 
 German mystic. 
 
 Objections to Mystic Beli^on. 
 
 We have observed already a number of striking 
 analogies between the spirit of mystic Christianity of 
 the fourteenth century and that of the Vedanta- 
 philosophy in Lidia. It is curious that the attacks 
 also to which both systems have been exposed, and 
 the dangers which have been pointed out as inherent 
 in them, are almost identical in India and in Ger- 
 many. 
 
 Excessive Asceticism. 
 
 It is well known that a very severe asceticism was 
 strongly advocated and widely practised by the fol- 
 lowers of both systems. Here again there can, of 
 course, be no idea of borrowing or even of any indirect 
 influence. If we can understand that asceticism was 
 natural to the believers in the Upanishads in India, 
 we shall be equally able to understand the motives
 
 CHRISTIAN THEOSOPHY. 527 
 
 which led Master Eckhart and his friends to mortify 
 the flesh, and to live as much as possible a life of 
 solitude and retirement from the world. 
 
 That body and soul are antagonistic can hardly be 
 doubted. Plato and other Greek philosophers were 
 well aware that the body may become too much 
 for the soul, obscuring the rational and quickening 
 the animal desires. Even when the passions of the 
 flesh do not degenerate into actual excess, they are 
 apt to dissipate and weaken the powers of the mind. 
 Hence we find from very early times and in almost all 
 parts of the world a tendency on the part of profound 
 thinkers to subdue the flesh in order to free the spirit. 
 Nor can we doubt the concurrent testimony of so 
 many authorities that by abstinence from food, drink, 
 and other sensual enjoyments, the energies of the 
 spirit are strengthened ^ This is particularly the 
 case with that spiritual energy which is occupied with 
 religion. Of course, like everything else, this as- 
 ceticism, though excellent in itself, is liable to mis- 
 chievous exaggeration, and has led in fact to terrible 
 excesses. I am not inclined to doubt the testimony 
 of trustworthy witnesses that by fasting and by even 
 a more painful chastening of the body, the mind may 
 be raised to more intense activity. Nor can I resist 
 the evidence that by certain exercises, such as peculiar 
 modes of regulating the breathing, keeping the body 
 in certain postures, and fixing the sight on certain 
 objects, a violent exaltation of our nervous system 
 may be produced which quickens our imaginations, 
 and enables us to see and conceive objects which are 
 
 ^ The Sanski-it term urdhvarOtas, applied to ascetics, is very 
 significant.
 
 528 LECTURE XV. 
 
 beyond the reach of ordinary mortals. I believe that 
 the best physiologists are quite aware of all this, and 
 perfectly able to account for it; and it would be 
 carrying scepticism too far, were we to decline to 
 accept the accounts given us by the persons themselves 
 of their beatific visions, or by trustworthy witnesses. 
 On the other hand, it is perfectly well known that 
 when these ascetic tendencies once break out, they are 
 soon by mere emulation carried to such extremes that 
 they produce a diseased state both of body and of 
 mind, so that we have to deal no longer with inspired 
 or ecstatic saints, but with hysterical and half-de- 
 lirious patients. 
 
 Another danger is an almost irresistible temptation 
 to imposition and fraud on the part of religious 
 ascetics, so that it requires the most discriminating- 
 judgment before we are able to distinguish between 
 real, though abnormal, visions, and intentional or half- 
 intentional falsehood. 
 
 The penances which Indian ascetics inflict on them- 
 selves have often been described by eye-witnesses 
 whose bona fides cannot be doubted, and I must say 
 that the straightforward way in which they are 
 treated in some of the ancient text-books, makes one 
 feel inclined to believe almost anything that these 
 ancient martyrs are said to have sufiered and to have 
 done, not excluding their power of levitation. But we 
 also see, both in India and in Germany, a strong- 
 revulsion of feeling, and protests are not wanting, 
 emanating from high authorities, against an excessive 
 mortification of the flesh. One case is most interesting. 
 We are told that Buddha, before he became Buddha, 
 went through the most terrible penances, living with
 
 CHRISTIAN THEOSOPHY. 529 
 
 the Brahmanic hermits in the forest. But after a time 
 he became convinced of the uselessness, nay of the 
 mischievousness of this system, and it is one of the 
 characteristic features of his teaching that he declared 
 these extreme self-inflicted tortures useless for the 
 attainment of true knowledge, and advised a Via 
 media between extreme asceticism on one side and 
 worldliness on the other, as the true way to enlighten- 
 ment and beatitude. 
 
 Much the same protest was made by Eckhart 
 and Tauler in trying to restrain their enthusiastic 
 pupils. They both recommended a complete sur- 
 render of all the goods of this world; poverty and 
 suffering were in their eyes the greatest help to 
 a truly spii-itual life ; not to be attached to this world 
 was the primary condition for enabling God to appear 
 again in the soul of man, or, as they expressed it, 
 for facilitating the birth of the Son of God in man. 
 But with all that, they wished most strongly to see 
 the love of God manifested in life by acts of loving- 
 kindness to our fellow-creatures. They believed that 
 it was quite possible to take part in the practical 
 work of life, and yet to maintain a perfect tranquillity 
 and stillness of the soul within. Both Eckhart and 
 Tauler took a prominent and active share in the affairs 
 of Church and State, both tried to introduce much- 
 needed reforms in the life of the clergy and the laity. 
 Stillness and silence were recommended, because it is 
 only when all passions are stilled and all worldly 
 desires silenced that the Word of God can be heard in 
 the soul. A certain discipline of the body was there- 
 fore encouraged, but only as a means toward an end. 
 Extreme penances, even when they were supposed to 
 
 (4) Mm
 
 530 LECTURE XV. 
 
 lead to beatific visions of the Godhead, were strongly 
 discouraged. The original oneness of the human soul 
 with God is accepted by all German mystics as the 
 fundamental article of the Christian faith, but they 
 differ as to the means by which that oneness may be 
 restored. The speculative school depends on know- 
 ledge only. They hold that what we know ourselves 
 to be, we are ipso facto, and they therefore lay the 
 chief stress on the acquisition of knowledge. The 
 ascetic school depends on penances and mortifications, 
 by which the soul is to gain complete freedom from 
 the body, till it rises in the end to a vision of God, to 
 a return of the soul to God, to a reunion with God. 
 
 ' What is penance in reality and truth ? ' Tauler 
 asks. ' It is nothing,' he answers, ' but a real and 
 true turning away from all that is not God, and a 
 real and true turning towards the pure and true good, 
 which is called God and is God. He who has that 
 and does that, does more than penance.' And again : 
 ' Let those who torture the poor flesh learn this. What 
 has the poor flesh done to thee ? Kill sin, but do not 
 kill the flesh ! ' 
 
 Tauler discourages even confession and other merely 
 outward acts of religion. ' It is of no use,' he says, 
 ' to run to the Father Confessor after having com- 
 mitted a sin.' Confess to God, he says, with real 
 repentance. Unless you do this and flee from sin, 
 even the Pope with all his Cardinals cannot absolve 
 you, for the Father Confessor has no power over sin. 
 Here we can clearly hear the distant rumblings of 
 the Reformation. 
 
 But, though these excessive penances could do no 
 good, they are nevertheless interesting to us as
 
 CHRISTIAN THEOSOPHY. 531 
 
 showing at all events what terrible earnestness 
 there was among the followers of the Vedanta 
 as well as among the disciples of Eckhart and 
 Tauler. We read of Suso, one of the most sweet- 
 minded of German mystics, that during thirty years 
 he never spoke a word during dinner. During six- 
 teen years he walked about and slept in a shirt 
 studded with 150 sharp nails, and wore gloves with 
 sharp blades inside. He slept on a wooden cross, his 
 arms extended and the back pierced with thirty nails. 
 His bedstead was an old door, his covering a thin 
 mat of reeds, while his cloak left the feet exposed to 
 the frost. He ate but once a day, and he avoided fish 
 and eggs when fasting. He allowed himself so little 
 drink that his tongue became dry and hard, and he 
 tried to soften it with a drop from the Holy Water in 
 Church. His friend Tauler strongly disapproved of 
 these violent measures, and at last Suso yielded, but 
 not before he had utterly ruined his health. He 
 then began to write, and nothing can be sweeter 
 and more subdued, more pure and loving than his 
 writings. That men in such a state should see 
 visions, is not to be wondered at. They constantly 
 speak of them as matters perfectly well known. 
 Even Tauler, though he warns against them, does 
 not doubt their possibility or reality. He relates 
 some in his own sermons, but he is fully aware of 
 the danger of self-deceit. ' Those who have to do 
 with images and visions,' he says ^, 'are much deceived. 
 for they come often from the devil, and in our time 
 more than ever. For truth has been revealed and 
 discovered to us in Holy Writ, and it is not necessary 
 
 * Carl Schmidt, Johannes Tauler von Strassiburg p. 138. 
 M m 2
 
 532 LECTURE XV. 
 
 therefore that truth should be revealed to us in any- 
 other way ; and he who takes truth elsewhere but 
 from Holy Writ, is straying from the holy faith, and 
 his life is not worth much.' 
 
 Slnlessness. 
 
 Another even greater danger was discovered by 
 the adversaries both of the Vedanta and of Master 
 Eckhart's philosophy. It is not difficult to under- 
 stand that human beings who had completely over- 
 come their passions and who had no desires but to 
 remain united with the Divine Spirit, should have 
 been declared incapable of sin. In one sense they 
 were. But this superiority to all temptation was 
 soon interpreted in a new sense, namely that no sin 
 could really touch such beings, and that even if they 
 should break any human laws, their soul would not be 
 affected by it. One sees well enough what was intended, 
 namely that many of the distinctions between good 
 and evil were distinctions for this world only, and 
 that in a higher life these distinctions would vanish. 
 
 We read in the Brih. Up. IV. 4, 23 : ' This eternal 
 greatness of Brahman does not grow larger by works, 
 nor does it grow smaller. Let man try to find the trace 
 of Brahman, for having found it, he is not sullied by 
 any evil deed.' The Bhagavadgita also is full of this 
 sentiment, as, for instance, V. 7 : 'He who is possessed 
 of devotion, whose self is pure, who has restrained 
 his self, and who has controlled his senses, and who 
 identifies his self with every being, that is, who loves 
 his neighbour as himself, is not tainted, though he per- 
 forms acts.' And then again : ' The man of devotion 
 who knows the truth, thinks he does nothing at all
 
 ' CHRISTIAN THEOSOPHY. 533 
 
 when he sees, hears, touches, smells, eats, moves, sleeps, 
 breathes, talks, takes, opens or closes the eyelids ; he 
 holds that the senses only deal with the objects of the 
 senses. He who, casting off all attachment, performs 
 actions, dedicating them to Brahman, is not tainted 
 by sin, as the lotus leaf is not soiled by water.' 
 
 Tauler's utterances go often quite as far, though 
 he tries in other places to qualify them and to render 
 them innocuous. ' Having obtained union with God,' 
 he says, ' a man is not only preserved from sin, and 
 beyond the reach of temptation, but all sins which he 
 has committed without his will, cannot pollute him ; 
 on the contrary, they help him to purify himself.' 
 Now it is quite true that Tauler himself often in- 
 veierhs aofainst those who called themselves the 
 Brothers of the Free Spirit, and who maintained that 
 no sin which they committed could touch them, yet 
 it must be admitted that his own teaching gave a 
 certain countenance to their extravagances. 
 
 You may remember that the Vedantists too allowed 
 the possibility of men even in this life obtaining per- 
 fect freedom and union with Brahman ((/ivanmukti), 
 just as some of the mystics allowed that there was a 
 possibility of a really poor soul, that is a soul freed 
 from all attachments, and without anything that he 
 could call his own, obtaining union with God even 
 while in this mortal body. Still this ecstatic state of 
 union with God was looked upon as an exception, 
 and lasted for short moments only, while real beati- 
 tude could only begin in the next life, and after a 
 complete release from the body. Hence so long as 
 the soul is imprisoned in the body, its sinlessness 
 could bo considered as problematical only, and both
 
 534 LECTURE XV. 
 
 in Germany and in India saintly hypocrisy had to be 
 reproved and was reproved in the strongest terms. 
 
 Want of Reverence for God. 
 
 There is one more charge that has been brought 
 against all mystics, but against the mediaeval far 
 more than against the Indian mystics. They were 
 accused of lowering the deity by bringing it down to 
 the level of humanity, and even identifying the 
 human and divine natures. Here, however, we must 
 hear both sides, and see that they use the same 
 language and really understand what they say. No 
 word has so many meanings as God. If people con- 
 ceive God as a kind of Jupiter, or even as a Jehovah, 
 then the idea of a Son of God can only be considered 
 blasphemous, as it was by the Jews, or can only be 
 rendered palatable to the human understanding in the 
 form of characters such as Herakles or Dionysus. 
 So long as such ideas of the Godhead and its relation 
 to humanity are entertained, and we know that they 
 were entertained even by Christian theologians, it 
 was but natural that a claim on the part of humanity 
 to participate in the nature of the divine should have 
 excited horror and disgust. But after the Deity had 
 been freed from its mythological character, after the 
 human mind, whether in India or elsewhere, had once 
 realised the fact, that God was all in all, that there 
 could be nothing beside God, that there could be one 
 Infinite only, not two, the conclusion that the human 
 soul also belonged to God was inevitable. It was 
 for religion to define the true relation between God 
 and man, and you may remember from my first 
 course of Lectures, how some high authorities have 
 defined all religion to be the perception of this very
 
 CHRISTIAN THEOSOPHY. 535 
 
 relation between God and man. Nothing can be 
 said against this definition, if only we clearly see 
 that this recognition of a relation between the 
 Divine and the Human must bo preceded by what 
 I called the perception of the infinite in nature and of 
 the infinite in man, and the final recognition of their 
 oneness. I wish indeed that our etymological con- 
 science allowed us to derive religio with Lactantius 
 and others from religare, to re-bind or re-unite, for in 
 that case religio would from the first have meant what 
 it means at last, a re-uniting of the soul with God. 
 
 This re-union can take place in two ways only ; 
 either as a restoration of that original oneness 
 which for a time was forgotten through darkness or 
 nescience, or as an approach and surrender of the soul 
 to God in love, without any attempt at explaining 
 the separation of the soul from God, or its indepen- 
 dent subsistence for a time, or its final approach to 
 and union with God. And here it seems to me that 
 Christianity, if properly understood, has discovered 
 the best possible expression. Every expression in 
 human language can of course be metaphorical only, 
 and so is the expression of divine sonship, yet it 
 clearly conveys what is wanted, identity of substance 
 and difference of form. The identity of substance is 
 clearly expressed by St. Paul when he says (Acts xvii. 
 28) that we live and move and have our being in 
 God, and it is very significant that it was exactly for 
 this, the fundamental doctrine of Christianity, that 
 St. Paul appealed to the testimony of non-Christian 
 prophets also, for he adds, as if to mark his own deep 
 regard for Natural and Universal Religion, ^ as certain 
 also of your own poets have said.'
 
 536 LECTURE XV. 
 
 The difference in form is expressed by the very 
 name of Son. Though the concept of Father is 
 impossible without that of Son, and the concept of 
 Son impossible without that of Father, yet Christ 
 Himself, after saying, 'I and My Father are one' 
 (St. John X. 30), adds (xiv. 28), ' My Father is greater 
 than I.' Thus the pre-eminence of the Father is 
 secured, whether we adopt the simple language of 
 St. John, or the philosophical terminology of Diony- 
 sius and his followers. 
 
 A much greater difficulty has been felt by some 
 Christian theologians in fixing the oneness and yet 
 difference between the Son of God and humanity at 
 large. It was not thought robbery that the Son should 
 be equal with the Father (Phil. ii. 6), but it was thought 
 robbery to make human nature equal with that of the 
 Son. Many were frightened by the thought that the 
 Son of God should thus be degraded to a mere Tnan. 
 Is there not a blasphemy against humanity also, and 
 is it not blasphemous to speak of a mere man. What 
 can be the meaning of a mere man, if we once have 
 recoofnised the divine essence in him, if we once 
 believe that unless we are of God, we are nothing. 
 If we once allow ourselves to speak of a mere man, 
 others will soon speak of a mere God. 
 
 Surely no one was more humble than Master 
 Eckhart and Tauler, no one showed more reverence 
 for the Son than they who had looked so deeply into 
 the true nature of divine sonship. But they would 
 not allow the clear statements of the New Testament 
 to be argued away by hair-splitting theologians. 
 They would not accept the words of Christ except in 
 their literal and natural sense? They quoted the
 
 CHRISTIAN THEOSOPHT. 537 
 
 verses : ' That they all may be one ; as Thou, Father, 
 art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in 
 us ' (St. John xvii. 21). And again, ' The glory which 
 Thou gavest Me I have given them ; that they may be 
 one, even as we are one ' (St. John xvii. 22 ; see also St. 
 John xiv. 2, 3). These words, they maintain, can have 
 one meaning only. Nor will they allow any liberties to 
 be taken with the clear words of St. Paul (Rom. viii. 
 16), ' The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, 
 that we are the children of God : and if children, then 
 heirs ; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ ; if 
 so be that we sufier with Him, that we may be also 
 glorified together.' They protest against wrenching 
 the sayings of St. John from their natural and 
 manifest purpose, when he says : ' Beloved, we are the 
 sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall 
 be : but we know that, when He shall appear, we 
 shall be like Him ; for we shall see Him as He is.' 
 
 Many more passages to the same efiect might be 
 quoted and have been quoted. Every one of them 
 has been deeply pondered by Eckhart and his friends, 
 and if it was a mere question of reverence for Christ, 
 nowhere was greater reverence shown to Him than in 
 the preaching of these Friends of God. But if they 
 had surrendered their belief in the true brotherhood 
 of Christ and man, they would have sacrificed what 
 seemed to them the very heart of Christianity. We 
 may make the fullest allowance for those who, from 
 reverence for God and for Christ and from the purest 
 motives, protest against claiming for man the full 
 brotherhood of Christ. But when they say that the 
 diftference between Christ and mankind is one of kind, 
 and not of degree, they know not what they do, they
 
 538 LECTURE XV. 
 
 nullify the whole of Christ's teaching, and they deny 
 the Incarnation which they pretend to teach. Let the 
 difference of degree be as large as ever it can be be- 
 tween those who belong to the same kind, but to look 
 for one or two passages in the New Testament which 
 may possibly point to a difference in kind is surely 
 useless against the overwhelming weight of the evi- 
 dence that appeals to us from the very words of Christ. 
 We have lately been told, for instance, that Christ 
 never speaks of Our Father when including Himself, 
 and that when He taught His disciples to pray, Our 
 Father which art in heaven. He intentionally excluded 
 Himself. This might sound plausible in a court of 
 law, but what is it when confronted with the words 
 of Christ : ' Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I 
 ascend unto my Father, and your Father ; and to my 
 God, and your God,' Was that also meant to imply 
 that His Father was not the same as their Father, and 
 their God not the same as His Godi 
 
 Religion, the Bridge between tlie Finite land the Infinite. 
 
 It was the chief object of these four courses of Lec- 
 tures to prove that the yearning for union or unity 
 with God, which we saw as the highest goal in other 
 religions, finds its fullest recognition in Christianity, 
 if but properly understood, that is, if but treated his- 
 torically, and that it is inseparable from our belief in 
 man's full brotherhood with Christ, However imper- 
 fect the forms may be in which that human yearning 
 for God has found expression in difierent religions, it 
 has always been the deepest spring of all religion, and 
 the highest summit reached by Natural Religion, The 
 different bridges that have been thrown across the
 
 CHRISTIAN THEOSOPHY. 539 
 
 gulf that seems to separate earth from heaven and 
 man from God, whether we call them Bifrost or 
 KinY&t or Es Sirat or any other name, may be more 
 or less crude and faulty, yet we may trust that many 
 a faithful soul has been carried across by them to a 
 better home. You may remember how in the Upani- 
 shads the Self had been recognised as the true bridge, 
 the best connecting link between the soul and God, 
 and the same idea meets us again and again in the 
 religions and philosophies of later times. It is quite 
 true that to speak of a bridge between man and God, 
 even if that bridge is called the Self, is but a meta- 
 phor. But how can we speak of these things except in 
 metaphors ? To return to God is a metaphor, to stand 
 before the throne of God is a metaphor, to be in 
 paradise with Christ is a metaphor. 
 
 Even those who object to the metaphor of a bridge 
 between earth and heaven, between man and God, 
 and who consider the highest lesson of Theosophy to 
 be the perception of the eternal oneness of human and 
 divine nature, must have recourse to metaphor to 
 make their meaning clear. The metaphor which is 
 almost universal, which we find in the Vedanta, among 
 the Sufis, among the German Mystics, nay, even as 
 late as the Cambridge Platonists in the seventeenth 
 century, is that of the sun and its rays. 
 
 The sun, as they all say, is not the sun, unless it 
 shines forth ; and God is not God, unless He shines 
 forth, unless He manifests Himself. 
 
 All the rays of the sun are of the sun, they can never 
 be separated from it, though their oneness with the 
 source of light may for a time be obscured by inter- 
 vening darkness. All the rays of God, every soul.
 
 540 LECTUEE XV. 
 
 every son of God, is of God ; they cannot be separated 
 from God, though their oneness with the Divine 
 Source may for a time be obscured by selfhood, 
 passion, and sin. 
 
 Every ray is different from the other rays ; yet 
 there cannot be any substantial difference between 
 them. Each soul is different from the other souls ; 
 yet there cannot be any substantial difference between 
 them. 
 
 As soon as the intervening darkness is removed, 
 each ray is seen to be a part of the sun, and yet apart 
 from it and from the other rays. As soon as the 
 intervening ignorance is removed, each soul knows 
 itself to be a part of God, and yet apart from God 
 and from the other souls. 
 
 No ray is lost, and though it seems to be a ray by 
 itself, it remains for ever what it has always been, not 
 separated from the light, nor lost in the light, but 
 ever present in the sun. No soul is lost, and though 
 it seems to be a soul by itself, it remains for ever 
 what it always has been, not separated from God, 
 not lost in God, but ever present in God. 
 
 And lastly, as from the sun there flows forth not 
 only light, but also warmth, so from God there pro- 
 ceeds not only the light of knowledge, but also the 
 warmth of love, love of the Father and love of the 
 Son, nay love of all the sons of the eternal Father. 
 
 But is there no difference at all between the sun 
 and the rays? Yes, there is. The sun alone sends out 
 its rays, and God alone sends out His souls. Causality, 
 call it creation or emanation, belongs to God alone, 
 not to His rays or to His souls. 
 
 These are world-old metaphors, yet they remain
 
 CHIIISTXAN TIIEOSOniY. 541 
 
 ever new and true, and we meet with them once more 
 in the speculations of the Cambridge Platonists. Thus 
 Henry More says : 
 
 'I came from God, am an immortal ray 
 Of God ; joy 1 and back to God shall go.' 
 
 Again : 
 
 'Hence the soul's nature we may plainly see, 
 A beam it is of th' Intellectual Sun, 
 
 A ray indeed of that Aetcrnity ; 
 But such a ray as when it fii'st outshone, 
 From a free light its shining date begun.* 
 
 I hope I have thus carried out the simple plan of 
 my Lectures, as I laid it down from the first. My first 
 course was meant as an introduction, fixing the 
 historical standpoint from which religions should be 
 studied, and giving certain definitions on which there 
 ought to be no misunderstanding between teachers 
 and hearers. Then taking a survey of the enormous 
 mass of religious thought that lies before the eyes of 
 the historian in chaotic confusion, I tried to show that 
 there were in it two principal currents, one repre- 
 senting the search after something more than finite 
 or phenomenal in nature, which I called Phyaical 
 Religion, the other representing the search after 
 something more than finite or phenomenal in the soul 
 of man, Anthropological Religion. In this my last 
 course, it has been my chief endeavour to show how 
 these two currents always strive to meet and do meet 
 in the end in what has been called Theosophy or 
 Psychological Religion, helping us to the perception 
 of the essential unity of the soul with God. Both 
 this striving to meet and the final union have found, 
 I think, their most perfect expression in Christianity. 
 The striving of the soul to meet God is expressed in
 
 542 LECTURE XV. 
 
 the Love of God, on which hang all the Laws and the 
 Prophets ; the final union is expressed in our being, in 
 the true sense of the word, the sons of God. That 
 sonship may be obtained by different ways, by none 
 so truly as what Master Eckhart called the surrender 
 of our will to the Will of God. You may remember 
 how this was the very definition which your own 
 revered Principal has given of the true meaning of 
 religion; and if the true meaning of religion is the 
 highest purpose of religion, you will see how, after 
 a toilsome journey, the historian of religion amves in 
 the end at the same summit which the philosopher of 
 relision has chosen from the first as his own. 
 
 In conclusion I must once more thank the Principal 
 and the Senate of this University for the honour they 
 have done me in electing me twice to this important 
 ofiice of Gifford Lecturer, and for having given me an 
 opportunity of putting together the last results of my 
 life-long studies in the religions and philosophies of 
 the world. I know full well that some of these results 
 have given pain to some learned theologians. Still I 
 believe it would have given them far greater pain if 
 they had suspected me of any want of sincerity, 
 whether in keeping back any of the facts which a 
 study of the Sacred Books of the World has brought 
 to light, or in hiding the convictions to which these 
 facts have irresistibly led me. 
 
 There are difierent ways in which we can show true 
 faith and real reverence for religion. What would 
 you say, if you saw a strong and powerful oak-tree, 
 enclosed by tiny props to keep it from falling, made 
 hideous by scarecrows to drive away the birds, or
 
 CHRISTIAN THEOSOniY. 543 
 
 shielded by flimsy screens to protect it from the air and 
 the light of heaven ? Would you not feel that it was 
 an indignity to the giant of the forest? Would you 
 not feel called upon to pull out the tiny props, and let 
 the oak face the gales, and after every gale cling more 
 strongly to the earth, and send its roots more deeply 
 into the rock beneath ? Would you not throw away 
 the scarecrows and let the birds build their nests on 
 its strong branches ? Would you not feel moved to 
 tear off the screens, and let the wind of heaven 
 shake its branches, and the light from heaven warm 
 and brighten its dark foliage *? This is what I feel 
 about religion, yea about the Christian religion, if but 
 properly understood. It does not want these tiny 
 props or those hideous scarecrows or useless apolo- 
 gies. If they ever were wanted, they are not wanted 
 now, whether you call them physical miracles, or 
 literal inspiration, or Papal infallibility ; they are 
 noiu an affront, a dishonour to the majesty of truth. 
 I do not believe in human infallibility, least of all, 
 in Papal infallibility. I do not believe in professorial 
 infallibility, least of all in that of your Gifford lecturer. 
 We are all fallible, and we are fallible either in our 
 facts, or in the deductions which we draw from them. 
 If therefore any of my learned critics will tell rac which 
 of my facts are wrong, or which of my conclusions 
 faulty, let me assure them, that though I am now a 
 very old Professor, I shall always count those among 
 my best friends who will not mind the trouble of 
 supplying me with new facts, or of pointing out where 
 facts have been wrongly stated by me, or who will 
 correct any arguments that may seem to them to 
 offend against the sacred laws of logic.
 
 544 
 
 STATIONS OF THE JOURNEY AFTER 
 
 Bnh. A.T. Up. 
 
 Kh&nd. Up. 
 
 KMnd. Up, 
 
 Kaushit. Up, 
 
 Taitt. Up, 
 
 VI. 2, 13. 
 
 V. 10. 1. 
 
 IV. 15. 5. 
 
 1.2. 
 
 1.6. 
 
 artis 
 
 arkh 
 
 arftis 
 
 Xandramas 
 
 agniA 
 
 ahar 
 
 ahar 
 
 ahar 
 
 aparapakshaA 
 
 TSyuA 
 
 apflryamftwaA 
 
 apuryamanaA 
 
 apuryamftnafc 
 
 rriahtih 
 
 adityaA 
 
 pakshaA 
 
 paksbaA 
 
 paksha/t 
 
 
 brail ma 
 
 sha/i mSlsaA 
 
 Bha.H masaA 
 
 Bhan mas9A 
 
 (pratya/^ayate) 
 
 
 (udak) 
 
 (udak) 
 
 (udak) 
 
 
 
 devalokaA 
 
 saHivatsaraA 
 
 BamvatsaraA 
 
 
 
 adityaA 
 
 SdityaA 
 
 adityaA 
 
 ftandramas 
 
 
 vaidyutam 
 
 Aandramaa 
 
 ftandramas 
 
 devayanaA 
 
 
 purushoimana. 
 
 vidyut 
 
 vidyut 
 
 agnilokaA 
 
 
 vah 
 
 
 
 
 
 brahmaloka/i 
 
 purnshoxmana^ 
 vaA 
 
 puiusho s mSna. 
 va/t 
 
 ■vayulokaA 
 
 
 (na punar avrtU 
 
 bralmia 
 
 brabma (devapa- 
 
 varu«alokaA 
 
 
 tih) 
 
 
 thah) 
 
 
 
 
 
 (na punar avrtt- 
 
 indralokaA 
 
 
 dhfima/i 
 
 dhuniaA 
 
 tih) 
 
 praf/apatilokaA 
 
 
 latri^ 
 
 ratiiA 
 
 
 brahmalokaA 
 
 
 apakshiyamawaA 
 
 aparapakshaA 
 
 
 
 
 pakslia/i 
 
 
 
 
 
 sha« masa/t (dak. 
 
 shan masJ/i 
 
 
 
 
 shin3) 
 
 (daksh.) 
 
 
 
 
 pitj'ilokaA 
 
 pitriloknh 
 
 
 
 
 Sandra^ 
 
 akisah 
 
 
 
 
 annam 
 
 ftandramia 
 (SomaA) 
 
 
 
 
 aka^aA 
 
 annam 
 
 
 
 
 vayu/i 
 
 aka^aA 
 
 
 
 
 vrishfih 
 
 vayuA 
 
 
 
 
 annam 
 
 dhflmaA 
 
 
 
 
 purusliaA, yoaha 
 
 abhram 
 
 
 
 
 &c. 
 
 meghaA 
 yriahtih 
 vrihiyava. 
 pnnam 
 
 

 
 545 
 
 DEATH ACCORDING TO THE UPANISHADS. 
 
 BWIi.Ar.Up. 
 V. 10, 1. 
 
 Pra.«na Up. 
 1.9. 
 
 ^Aand. Up. 
 Vlir. 13. 
 
 Munrf. Up. 
 I. 2, 11. 
 
 £:/(and. Up. 
 VIII. 6, 5. 
 
 Maitr. Brfth. 
 Up. VI. 30. 
 
 \Hynh 
 
 9ditya/i 
 
 A-andni/j 
 
 ftandianias 
 (punar avarta/j) 
 aditya/t 
 
 Byama/( (moon) 
 .tabal:v/( (sun) 
 brahmalokaA 
 
 sOryadvaram 
 purusho i mn'taA 
 
 rajmayaA 
 ftdityaA (lo- 
 kad vftram) 
 
 uttai-ayanaA, 
 
 brahmapathaA 
 Biishumna 
 
 lokaA 
 
 (na punar ftyar- 
 ta/i) 
 
 
 
 
 sauram dvaram 
 brahmalokaA 
 para gatiA 
 
 (41 
 
 Nn
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ABD AL RAZZAK, page 344. 
 Abel, 376. 
 
 Abelard and St. Bernard, 492. 
 Abraham, as only son of God, 366, 
 409. 
 
 — allegorical meaning of, 376. 
 
 — and Isaac, 37 S. 
 
 Absolute, absorption in the, 427. 
 
 — Being, one, 314. 
 Abstract nouns, 78. 
 Abu Jafir Attavari, 38, 
 
 Abu Said Abul Clieir, founder of 
 
 Sufiism, 343. 
 Abu Yasld and Junaid, 344. 
 Academy, the, 384. 
 Accadian prayer, 14. 
 Achaemenian inscriptions, 44. 
 Acta Archelai, 441. 
 Activity, acts of, 162. 
 Adam, the son of God, 366. 
 
 — explained by Philo, 376. 
 Adam's rib, Philo's interpretation 
 
 of, 376. 
 Adams, 86, 119. 
 Adevism, 295. 
 Adhyayas, 98. 
 Aditi, sons of, 17. 
 -^ man restored to, by Agni, 140. 
 Aditya, 17. 
 Adjectives, 78. 
 Adrasteia, 64 n. 
 Adrian I, 465. 
 Adyton of the soul, 428. 
 Aelian, 145 71. 
 Aeon, meaning of, 473 n. 
 Aeons of Valentinian, 473 n. 
 Aeshm, 201-202. 
 Afringan, the three, 43. 
 
 N 
 
 Agni, 50, 121, 130, 135, 192, 234- 
 
 2.^5- 
 
 — real purpose of the biography of, 
 
 5, 6, 8. 
 
 — as fire, 29. 
 
 — the visible and invisible, 154. 
 Agniloka, the world of Agni, 116. 
 Agnosis, universal, 321. 
 Agnostic, modern, and the Hindus, 
 
 320-321. 
 Aham, ego, 248-249. 
 Ahana, 178. 
 Ahl alyakyn, 344. 
 Ahmi ya( ahmi, 52, 187 n. 
 
 — Zend = asmi, Sk., 55 n. 
 Ahriman, in the Gathas, 45. 
 
 — word not known to early Greek 
 
 writers, 45. 
 
 — known to late Greek and Boman 
 
 writers, 45. 
 
 — and Ormazd, 183. 
 
 not mentioned as opponents 
 
 by Darius, 1S3. 
 
 — his council of six, 186. 
 Ahura, 18, 19, 20. 
 
 — names of, 54, 55. 
 
 — Zarathushtra's talk with, 54, 55. 
 Ahura Mazda, 18, 52, 180, 181, 183, 
 
 1 88, 189, 203. 
 
 as the Supreme Being, 51. 
 
 the living God, 53. 
 
 gives the soul the food destined 
 
 for the good, 116 n. 
 
 his discourse on guardian an- 
 gels, 205-207. 
 
 acts by the Fravashis, 206. 
 
 Airyaman, Vedic Aryaman, 182. 
 I Aitutakian heaven, 228, 229. 
 n 2
 
 548 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Akaanga, 229, 230. 
 
 Akasa, ether, 300. 
 
 Akem mano, 186. 
 
 Al Aaraf, 173. 
 
 Albertus Magnus, 466, 504. 
 
 Albigenses, 503. 
 
 — called Kathari, 504. 
 Alexander, 45, 69. 
 
 — destroyed some of the sacred 
 
 MSS. of the Persians, 38. 
 
 — had the Zend Avesta translated 
 
 into Greek, 39. 
 Alexandria, contract between Aryan 
 and Semitic thought at, ix. 
 
 — Jewish school of, and its influ- 
 
 ence on Christianity, 371, 374. 
 
 — the meeting-place of Jewish and 
 
 Greek thought, 399. 
 of Jewish and Christian faith, 
 
 399- 
 Alexandrian Christianity, St. Cle- 
 ment, 433. 
 
 — Jews and Greek religion, 82. 
 Allah, the God of Power, 347, 349, 
 
 35°- 
 Allegorical interpretations, 377. 
 
 Alogoi, the, 452. 
 
 — denied the Logos, 453. 
 
 — opposed the Fourth Gospel, 453. 
 Alphabetic writing, 31. 
 Amalrich, 515. 
 
 Ambrosias, 434. 
 
 Amelius, 429. 
 
 Ameretati (Amardad), immortality, 
 186. 
 
 Ameretat, 49. 
 
 American, English, and Irish cus- 
 toms, 62. 
 
 Ameshaspentas of the Avesta, 1S6, 
 1S8, 203. 
 
 Amitauj/as, throne, 121, 123, .(24, 
 
 — its feet and sides and furniture, 
 
 123. 
 Ammon, 14. 
 Amoureux, French, and amourou, 
 
 Mandshu, 60. 
 Amphiboly, 4t6 n. 
 Amrita., 79. 
 Anaclet II, Antipope, 492. 
 
 Anahita, 206. 
 Analogical method, vii. 
 
 — treatment, 322. 
 Ananda, blessedness, 94. 
 Anastasius, librarian, 466. 
 Auaxagoras, 377, 380, 384, 389, 
 
 410, 430. 
 Anaximander, Infinite of, 400. 
 Ancient Prayers, 12. 
 
 — books lost, 57. 
 
 — religions and philosophies, how 
 
 to compare, 58. 
 Angel of Jehovah, 405. 
 
 — wrestling with Jacob, 405. 
 Angels, qualities of Ormazd, 185. 
 
 — of 0. T. and the Ameshaspentas 
 
 of the Avesta, 187. 
 
 — Philo called the Logoi, 401, 406, 
 
 413- 
 
 — a Jewish conception, 405. 
 
 — roots of the, 405. 
 
 — of Origen, 451, 473. 
 
 — hierarchies of, 406, 469, 473, 
 
 478. 
 
 — spoken of as Gods, 471. 
 
 — St. Augustine on, 472. 
 
 — in happiness, 475. 
 
 — modern belief in, chiefly derived 
 
 from Dionysius, 476. 
 
 Angr6 Mainyu or Ahriman, 45, 183, 
 184, 185, 203. 
 
 Animal bodies, human souls migrat- 
 ing into, 217, 225, 231. 
 
 moral grounds of this belief, 
 
 217, 218. 
 
 Animism, 152, 156. 
 
 — not connected with Metempsy- 
 
 chosis, 153. 
 Annihilation, not known in the Rig- 
 
 veda, 166. 
 Ivoparos, 361. 
 Antaryamin, 315. 
 Anthropological religion, 89,90, 106, 
 
 160, 541. 
 Anthropology, 61. 
 Anthropomorphism, 153. 
 dvOpuiros 6eov, 415. 
 Antioch, Synod of, 412. 
 Anumana, deduction, 102, 293.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 549 
 
 Apara^ta, 132. 
 
 Apeiron, formless matter, 395, 400. 
 
 Aphrodite, 63, 76. 
 
 a.iT\ai(Ti9, 482. 
 
 Apocryphal books of New Testa- 
 ment, 35. 
 
 anotos, 437. 
 
 Apologetes, the earlj', xiii, 455. 
 
 Apollo, 235. 
 
 Apollon, 64 ?!, 
 
 d-nucnraff fxa, 420, 423. 
 
 dTTo9iaiats, 482. 
 
 Approach to God, 524. 
 
 Apsaras, 121, 122, 163, 199. 
 
 Apuleius on Daimones, 470. 
 
 Apftrva, 306. 
 
 Ara, lake, 121, 122, 124. 
 
 from ari, enemy, 142. 
 
 Arabic, translations of Greek books 
 into, 324. 
 
 Archangels, 475. 
 
 dpxiepfvs, 415. 
 
 Archimedes, 70- 
 
 Areimanios, 45. 
 
 Arif, name for Sufis, 344. 
 
 Aristides on Jupiter, 11. 
 
 Aristokles, 83. 
 
 Aristokrates, son of Hipparchus, 83. 
 
 Aristotle, 85, 102,372,380,384,395, 
 430.512,521, 
 
 — knew the word Areimanios, 45. 
 
 — Zeus of, 395. 
 
 the Prime Mover of, 395, 397. 
 
 — his transcendent Godhead, 396. 
 Aristoxenos, 83, 84. 
 
 Arraaiti, Aramati, 182, 186. 
 Arnold of Brescia, 492. 
 Artaksliatar, (Ardeshir), 40. 
 Article, the, 78. 
 'Arftf or Marifat, 348. 
 Aryan separation, 72. 
 
 — religion and mythology, common, 
 
 72-74, 
 
 — nations, 74. 
 
 — civilisation, 74- 
 
 — atmosphere in Indian and Greek 
 
 philosophies, 77. 
 
 — words, common, 78, 79^ 
 Asar-mula-dag, 14. 
 
 Asat, 96. 
 
 Ascetic school, 530, 
 
 — practices, 326. 
 Ascetics, Sk. name for. 52771, 
 
 — visions of, 528. 
 
 — fraud among, 528, 
 
 — Indian, 528. 
 
 — siiilessness, 532. 
 Asceticism of the Sufis, 345, 
 
 — excessive, 526. 
 
 — dangers of, 527, 534. 
 Ases, the As-brQ, 169. 
 Aslia, righteousness, 44, 
 
 — valiishta, 1S6. 
 
 Asmodeus, ASshma daeva in Tobit, 
 187. _ 
 
 — proves intercourse between Jews 
 
 and Persians, 1S7. 
 Asraya, abode of the soul, 306. 
 Asti, loTi, est, ist, 78, 
 Astovldaf/, 201, 202. 
 Astral body, 306. 
 Asu, breath, Sk., 53, 248. 
 AsuraVaruna or Ahura Mazda, 49, 
 Asura, and as, to be, Sanskrit, 53. 
 
 — from asu, 181. 
 
 — and Deva, 181. 
 
 — bad sense of, iSi. 
 
 — highest deity in the A vesta, iSr, 
 Asura^, change of meaning of, 187, 
 
 — and Suras, 1S7. 
 fights between, 188. 
 
 — non-gods, iSS. 
 
 — opponents of the Devas, 250,251. 
 A tar, fire, 180. 
 
 Athanasius on oneness with God, 
 
 323- 
 
 — on tlie Logos made man, 421, 
 
 — a man of classical learning, 434. 
 
 — Dionysius unknown to, 463. 
 Atharva-veda, 138, 140. 
 
 — Hell known in the, 167, 
 Atharvan, 65. 
 Atheism, 295. 
 
 Athem, Odeni, 249. 
 Athenagoras on the Son of God, 
 xiii. 
 
 — Greek philosopher, 436, 451. 
 
 — on the Logos, 437.
 
 550 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Athenians and Atlantidae, myth of, 
 
 82. 
 Atiu, chiefs of, mourning for the 
 
 dead, 227. 
 Atman, 248, 249, 250, 257, 272. 
 
 — and Brahman one, 94, 308. 
 
 — the Self, 155, 249, 363, 364. 
 
 — the true bridge, 167. 
 
 — A.S. Eedm, 0. H.G. adum, 249. 
 
 — most abstract name for the divine 
 
 in man, 249. 
 
 — its relation to Brahman, 262. 
 
 — unchanged amid the changes of 
 
 the world, 272. 
 
 — Highest, 291. 
 
 — not lost in Brahman, 310. 
 
 — oneness with Brahman, 330. 
 Attar, 345. 
 
 Attic Moses, name for Plato, 342, 
 
 « 415. 
 
 Atfirpad, the high priest, author 
 or finisher of the Dlnkurd, 40, 
 41. 
 
 Augustinus, 434. 
 
 Aftharmazff, first thought of, 56. 
 
 avTos, 249. 
 
 Avaiiii, the spirit world, 228, 229. 
 
 Avesta, 35, 36. 
 
 — the small, 43. 
 
 — and 0. T., relation between, 47. 
 
 — on the soul entering Paradise, 
 
 11571. 
 
 — religion of, misrepresented, 179. 
 
 — and Veda, names shared in com- 
 
 mon by, 182. 
 
 — dualism of, 185. 
 
 — immortality of the soul in the, 
 
 190. 
 
 — and Veda, common background 
 
 of, 203. 
 Avesta-Zend, diflBcult, 179. 
 Avestic prayer, 18. 
 
 — language continued to be long 
 
 understood, 47. 
 
 — religion a mixture, 183. 
 
 — a, secondary stage from the Vedic 
 
 religion, 189. 
 
 — religion, ethical, 190. 
 Avicenna, 509. 
 
 Avidya or Nescience, 292, 298, 302, 
 314-316,319, 320-321. 
 
 — called Maya, 303. 
 
 — /Sahkara's view of, 318. 
 
 — to know it is the highest wisdom, 
 
 318. 
 
 BABYLONIAN prayer, 15. 
 
 — religion, works on, 109. 
 Bactria, Buddhists in, 46, 46 n. 
 Badarayawa, 99, 100, loi, 116 w., 
 
 306. 
 
 — early authorities quoted by, 100, 
 
 100 n. 
 
 — on the soul after death, 1 1 6, 1 1 6 n . 
 Bad souls become animals, 156. 
 Bayacrrava, 182. 
 
 Balavarman, 135. 
 
 Baptised, Communicants, Monks^ 
 
 477. 
 Baptism of Christ, 442, 443. 
 
 — Eucharist, and Chrism, 477, 
 Baptismal formula, 436. 
 Baresman, Barsom, 240. 
 Barh, root, 242. 
 
 Barnabas, 454, 
 
 Barrow on Love, 351-353. 
 
 Basil, 434. 
 
 Basilides, 396. 
 
 — his non-existent God, 396. 
 Bastholm, 75. 
 
 Bastian, 75. 
 
 Beatific visions, 527, 528. 
 
 Beautiful, the, in the soul, 433. 
 
 — the, the True, the Divine, 433. 
 Beauty, in the Phaedrus, 343. 
 Beginning, the, different accounts 
 
 of, in the Upanishads, 96. 
 Behistiin, 182. 
 
 Behram and Behr^im Vasht, 182, 
 Bellerophon, 64 n. 
 Berchtold of Regensburg, 502, 503. 
 
 — his sermons and vision, 502. 
 Beseehmg, animism, 152. 
 Beyond, an invisible, vii. 
 
 — the, 168, 361. 
 Bhadrapada, 145. 
 Bhaga, solar deity, 182. 
 Bhagavata, the, 354.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 551 
 
 Bhedabbedavada and Saty.ibheda- 
 
 vuda, 275, 276. 
 Bhikshu, 325, 330. 
 Bible, Jews and Christians ashamed 
 
 of their, 375. 
 
 — a forbidden book, 479. 
 
 — early German translations of, 503. 
 
 learnt by heart, 504. 
 
 BifriJat, the bridge, 168, 174, 539. 
 
 — only three colours in, 171. 
 Bigg, Dr., XV, 90 »., 374 »., 375 n., 
 
 379 n., 381 n., 396 n., 402 n., 
 407 n., 436 n., 438 n., 449 n., 
 
 473 »■ ^ , 
 
 — on Clement's idea of Christ, 444. 
 
 — on Origen, 458. . 
 
 Bigot, derivation of, 507, 508. 
 Birth of the Son in the soul, 516, 
 
 524- 
 Bishops, Priests, and Deaconp, 477. 
 Black Death, 501. 
 Blood, community of, 61. 
 Bloomfield, 120 tt. 
 Bodhfiyana, 100, loi, 313. 
 Body, the subtle and coarse, 296, 
 
 306. 
 
 — antagonistic to the soul, 527. 
 
 — subjection of, 527. 
 Boehtlingk, 1 10, 1 15 7i.,i 16 n., 1 1 7 «., 
 
 Ii8»., 120 ri., 128 n. 
 
 Bog, Slavonic God, 182. 
 
 Bohlen, 85. 
 
 Bonaventura, 499, 505, 525. 
 
 Boniface, viii, 509. 
 
 Bonn, home of Eckhart, 509. 
 
 Book-writing, date of, 31. 
 
 Bopp, 73. 
 
 Borrowing of ideas and names 
 among ancient nations, 58. 
 
 BrahmaAarya, 119, 129. 
 
 Brahma-sutras, 98. 
 
 world, 119, 120. 
 
 Brahma the highest order of good- 
 ness, 164. 
 
 Brahman, 105-108, 155, 247, 349, 
 308, 
 
 — and Atman, one, 94. 
 
 — the Self, 99. 
 
 — as the True, 115, 115 n. 
 
 Brahman.worldof, 1 21, 1 26,1 29-1 30. 
 
 — and the departed, dialogue be- 
 
 tween, 159. 
 
 — and Ahuramazda, arrival of the 
 
 siiul before, 203. 
 
 — neuter, name for the highest 
 
 Godhead, 240, 241, 244, 24S. 
 
 — derivation of, 240. 
 
 — and brihat, 242 n. 
 
 — means Veda, 240, 242. 
 
 — various meanings of, 240, 241. 
 
 — Vishnu and (Siva, 241. 
 
 — neut. changed to brahmdn mas., 
 
 241, 243. 
 
 — as word, 242. 
 
 — change of meaning, 242. 
 
 — and brdhman, 243. 
 
 — as neut. followed by masc. forms, 
 
 243- 
 
 — caste, 247. 
 
 — identity of the soul with, 272, 
 
 282, 283. 
 
 — and the individual soul, 275. 
 
 — approach of the soul to, 277, 27S, 
 
 279. 
 
 — later speculations on, 278. 
 
 — tlie Eeal, 279. 
 
 — neuter, essence of all things, 279. 
 
 — nothing besides, 280. 
 
 — All in All, 2S0. 
 
 — being perfect the soul is so, 280. 
 
 — masculine and neuter, 283, 330, 
 
 517. 
 
 — the whole world is, 286. 
 
 — modified personal, 290, 291, 293. 
 
 — the Highest, 290, 291, 293. 
 
 — Siitras on, 291. 
 
 — is everything, 292. 
 
 — Indian sage asked to describe, 
 
 293- 
 
 — as sat, as ^it, as ananda, 293. 
 
 — always subjective, 294. 
 
 — how men should believe in, 295. 
 
 — the world, emanation from, 295. 
 
 — presents itself as the world, 299. 
 
 — or the Infinite, everywhere, 304. 
 
 — we are, 294, 302. 
 
 — and Avid) a the cause of the phe- 
 
 nomenal world, 303.
 
 552 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Braliman, is nothing and every- 
 thing, 312,314- . 
 
 — Eamanugra's teaching about, 315. 
 
 — jSaiikara's teaching about, 315. 
 
 — the Atman not lost in, 310. 
 
 — one, 311. 
 
 — Higher and Lower, 316, 317' 
 
 — is what really exists, 317. 
 Brahmawas, 156, 370. 
 
 — do not harmonise with the Upa- 
 
 nishads, 141. 
 Brahniajias, priests appropriating 
 sacrificial property, 162, 
 
 — transmigration of, 163. 
 Brahmanists and Buddhists, volu- 
 minous literature of, 179. 
 
 Brahmans mentioned by Eusebius, 
 
 46 n. 
 Bridge to another life, the, 167, 177. 
 
 — called Setus in the Mahabharata, 
 ^167. 
 
 — Atman the true, 167 n. 
 
 — among North-American Indians, 
 
 168. 
 
 — among the Mohammedans, 172. 
 
 — adopted by the Jews in Persia, 
 
 173- 
 
 — among the Todas, 173. 
 
 not known in theTalmnrl, 174. 
 
 — known to peasants of Nievre, 
 
 175- 
 
 — of the Avesta and of tlie Upani- 
 
 shads, 194. 
 
 — between earth and heaven, 209. 
 
 — between God and man, 470, 539. 
 Brig o' Dread, 174- 
 
 — not same as Bifrost, 1 74- 
 
 — from crusaders, 175- 
 Brihad-ara7iyaka, 1 14, 117,118,125, 
 
 171, 277. 
 Brihas-jmti, Brahma?ias-pati,Vaias- 
 
 pati, 242. 
 Brothers of the free spirit, 533. 
 Bua tree, 229, 230. 
 Buddha left no MSS., 32. 
 
 — silence of, on the soul after death, 
 
 233- 
 
 — the, 363. 
 
 — opposed excessive asceticism, 529. 
 
 Buddhism, no objective Deity in, 
 
 363- 
 
 — and Christianity, startling com- 
 
 cidences, 369. 
 Buddhist Bhikshus, 369. 
 Buddhists, prayer unknown to the, 
 
 12. 
 
 — in Bactria, 46. 
 Bywater, 364 n. 
 
 CAIN, 376. 
 
 Cambridge Platonists, 323,539,541. 
 
 likeness to the Upanishads 
 
 and Vedantists, 321. 
 Canis Major and Minor, the Dogs of 
 
 Hell, 146. 
 Carpenter, J. Estlin, 35 n. 
 Castes, earliest reference to the four, 
 
 247. 
 Causality, belongs to God alone, 
 
 541- 
 Celsus, 372, 375, 409, 452, 456, 471. 
 
 — Origen's reply to, 456, 
 
 — on the Logos, 438. 
 
 — on Daimones, 47 1 • 
 Ceremonial, 87. 
 
 — in the Veda, 88. 
 
 Chariot, myth of, in the Phaedrus, 
 
 211. 
 Charioteer and horses, 211. 
 
 — in Plato, and in the Upanishads, 
 
 211. 
 
 Charis, wife of Hephaistos, 76, 80. 
 
 Charites = Haritas, 76, 177. 
 
 Charlemagne, commands the Bishops 
 to preach in the popular lan- 
 guage, 500 n. 
 
 Charles the Bald, 466. 
 
 — the Great, 465. 
 
 Charlotte Islands, Kev. C. Han-ison 
 
 on, 222. 
 Cherubim, Philo on the, 377. 
 
 — Dionysius on the, 475. 
 Cheyne, Prof., 48. 
 
 Chief Cloud or Chief Death, 223, 224, 
 225. 
 
 of Light, 223. 
 
 Chiliasts, 453. 
 
 China, Sanskrit words in, 368.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 553 
 
 Chinese prayer, 20. 
 
 — inscription on heaven and men, 
 
 365 w. 
 Christ, as the Logos or Word, xi, 
 xiii. 
 
 — and His brethren, difference in 
 
 kind, not degree, xiii. 
 
 — religion of, blending the East 
 
 and West, 416. 
 
 — and His brethren, difference be- 
 
 tween, 456. 
 
 — divinity of, 457. 
 
 — Dionysius' view of, 468. 
 
 — the chief lesson of the life of, 
 
 489. 
 
 — called the first man, 519. 
 
 — His birth in the soul, 520. 
 
 — as the Word of the Father, 
 
 520. 
 difference between, oneof kind, 
 
 not of degree, 538. 
 Christian theology as distinct from 
 
 Christian religion, xiii. 
 
 — and other religions, true object 
 
 of comparing, 8. 
 
 — advocate, 26. 
 
 — doctrines borrowed from Greece, 
 
 59- 
 
 — Register, writer in, on the Infi- 
 
 nite, 361 n. 
 
 — doctrine, the perfection of Greek 
 
 philosophy, 450. 
 
 — expression for the re union of the 
 
 soul with God, 535. 
 
 — religion, needs no j)rops or scare- 
 
 crows, 543. 
 
 — Mystics, their resemblance to the 
 
 Vedantists and Eleatic philo- 
 sophers, 4S3, 
 
 andNeo-Platonistsonthesoul, 
 
 48.J. 
 
 Tholuck on, 485. 
 
 their belief, 4S6, 48 7. 
 
 do not ignore morality, 4S6. 
 
 Dionysius looked on as their 
 
 founder, 488. 
 
 Father and Son of the, 512. 
 
 Christianity, a synthesis of Aryan 
 and (Semitic thought, ix, 447. 
 
 Christianity, faith in, raised by a 
 comparative study of religions, 
 
 24- 
 
 — the best of all religions, 26. 
 
 — and Islam, real antecedents of, 
 
 little known, 27. 
 
 — early, its connection with Sufiism, 
 
 342. 
 mention of, in the Gulshen 
 
 Kas, 343. 
 Oriental influences in, 3O6, 
 
 3^7, 368. 
 
 — Sutiism and the Vedanta-philo- 
 
 sophy, coincidences between, 
 366. 
 
 — and Buddhism, startling coinci- 
 
 dences, 369. 
 
 — influenced by the Jewish school 
 
 of Alexandria, 371. 
 
 — in Alexandria, 434. 
 
 — different from that of Judea, 434. 
 
 — Theosophy in, 446, 
 
 — must be weighed against other 
 
 religions, 447. 
 
 — unhistorical, 448. 
 
 — truly historical, 448. 
 
 — why it triumphed, 454-455. 
 
 — built upon the Logos, 521. 
 
 — j'earning for union with God, 
 
 finds its highest expression in, 
 
 539. 642. 
 Chrysostom, 434. 
 Cicero, 1 1 2, 509. 
 Cicero on the Zeus of Xenophanes, 
 
 331- 
 Clarke, Lieut. - Col. Wilberforce, 
 
 33S n. 
 Cleanthes, 460. 
 Clement of Alexandria, 82, 370, 
 
 451- 
 
 — on Gentiles bon-owing from the 
 
 Bible, 58, 59. 
 
 — did not borrow from the East, 
 
 3'*9- 
 
 — did not accept physical impossi- 
 
 bilities as miracles, 376. 
 
 — on the Logos, 407. 
 
 — called Gnostic and Mystic, 445. 
 
 — on the soul, 446.
 
 554 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Clement of Alexandria, denies all 
 secret doctrines iu the Church, 
 482. 
 
 Clements, the two, 454. 
 
 Clergy in the fifth century, 480. 
 
 Coat of Christ, 408, 408 n. 
 
 Concepts or ideas, 385. 
 
 — learnt by sensuous perception, 
 
 385. 
 Conductors, 134. 
 Confession, Tauler on, 530. 
 Confucians believe in prayer, 12, 
 Confucius, on love to our neighbour, 
 
 9- 
 
 Constantinople, conference of, 403. 
 Contradictions in Sacred Books, 
 
 136. 
 Cornill, 53. 
 Corpus, kehrp, 79. 
 Cosmic vortex, 150. 
 
 how to escape, 150. 
 
 Cosmos, God thinking and uttering 
 
 the, 382. 
 Couvade, the, 60, 61. 
 Cow sacrificed at funeral ceremonies, 
 
 170. 
 Creation or emanation, 296, 514. 
 
 — Upanishads on, 297. 
 
 — out of nothing, 297. 
 
 — like a spider's web, 297. 
 
 — like hairs growing from the skull, 
 
 297. 
 
 — to the Vedantist, 300. 
 
 — problem of, 362. 
 
 — through the Logos, 417. 
 
 — Eckhart admits two, 515. 
 Credidi, 79. 
 
 Cronius, 144. 
 
 Crusaders and the Brig o' Dread, 
 
 175- 
 Cusanus, Cardinal, 421 n., 506. 
 
 — his Docta Ignorantia, 271. 
 Cyprian, 434. 
 
 Cyrus, 45. 
 
 DADU, 21. 
 
 Daehne, 367. 
 
 Daeva- worship, abjuration of, 188. 
 
 Daevas, 44. 
 
 Dah, the root, 178. 
 Dahana, Daphne, 178. 
 Daimones, 205, 469-471. 
 
 — departed souls of good men, 
 
 470. 
 
 — Celsus on, 471. 
 
 — Plutarch on, 472. 
 Daityas, 164. 
 Daphne, Dahana, 178. 
 
 Darai preserved copies of the Avesta 
 
 and Zend, 38. 
 Darius, 69. 
 
 — inscriptions of, 45. 
 Darkness, acts of, 162. 
 
 — and poison, personifications of, 
 
 186. 
 Darmesteter, Professor, 40, 41, 44 w., 
 55>i72w. 
 
 — on late use of Avestic, 47. 
 Darwish, 344, 345. 
 
 Dasein and sein, 302, 
 
 David of Augsburg, 502. 
 
 Dawn, legend of the, 178. 
 
 Dead, mourning for, in the Harvey 
 
 Islands, 227. 
 Death, return of soul to God after, 
 
 92. 
 
 — journey of the soul after, 11 3-1 15, 
 
 116-117,143. 
 
 passages from the Upanishads, 
 
 114 e( seq. 
 
 — rewards and punishments after, 
 
 195- 
 
 Zarathushtra questions Ahura- 
 
 mazda on, 195-199. 
 
 — ' going into night,' 2 2 8. 
 De Iraitatione, 457. 
 
 Deity, in Buddhism no objective, 
 
 363- 
 
 — in Judaism, 364. 
 
 — in Greece and Kome, 364. 
 
 — at Alexandria, biune not triune, 
 
 440. 
 Demiurge, 440. 
 Demiurgos, 417. 
 Demokritus, 82, 84, 377. 
 Deniflt^,his article onEckhart,509 »., 
 
 511, 512 n., 525. 
 Departed, abode of the, 140.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 555 
 
 Departed, raised to the rank of gods, 
 207. 
 
 — Herbert Spencer's view on this, 
 
 207. 
 Depth or silence, PvOos, 411. 
 Descartes, 102, 512. 
 Desire, free from, 310. 
 Deussen, 99, 99 n., no, 113 n., 
 
 129 n., 240 n, 
 Deva, not deus, 73. 
 
 — in the Veda and Avesta, 181. 
 
 — bright beings, 181. 
 
 — evil spirit in the Avesta, 181. 
 
 — modern Persian div, 181. 
 Dev.-vloka, 125, 146. 
 Devas, 49, 154, 250, 251. 
 
 — souls eaten by the, 146, 147, 148. 
 
 — gods, became Daevas, evil spirits, 
 
 188, 189. 
 Devayana, path of the gods, 117, 
 125, 130, 151, 277. 
 
 — or Milky Way, 1 71. 
 
 — or rainbow, 171. 
 
 Devil of the Old Testament, belief 
 in a, 186. 
 
 — was it borrowed from the Per- 
 
 sians? 186. 
 Dialogue between Brahman and the 
 departed, 159. 
 
 — on the Self, 250-256. 
 
 deductions from, 260. 
 
 jSaukara's remarks on, 261. 
 
 — from the if^Aandogya-Upanishad, 
 
 285. 
 Different roads of the soul, 127. 
 Dillmann, 53. 
 Dinkard, tlie, 38, 40. 
 
 — finished by Atdrpad, 41. 
 
 — account of the Zoroastrian reli- 
 
 gion in, 42. 
 
 — when begun and finished, 42. 
 
 — translated in Sacred Books, by 
 
 West, 42, 47. 
 Diodorus Siculus and his appeal to 
 
 books in Egypt, 82. 
 Diogenes Laertius, 38. 
 Dionysius the Areopagite, 164, 165, 
 
 297> 430, 461. 462, 499, 505, 
 
 509, 514,517,534- 
 
 Dionysius, little original in his 
 writings, 463, 468, 478 n. 
 
 — writings of, 463, 467. 
 
 — his life, 463-464, 467. 
 
 — his book a fiction, 464. 
 
 — a Neo-Platonist, 464, 467. 
 
 — his book accepted as genuine by 
 
 Eastern and Western Churches, 
 465-466. 
 
 — identified with St. Denis, 46^, 
 
 466. 
 
 — translation by Scotus Erigena, 
 _ 465- 466. 
 
 — influence of his writings, 467. 
 why so popular, 467, 468, 474, 
 
 478. 
 
 — on the Hebrew race, 468. 
 
 — on CIn-ist, 46S. 
 
 — sources of, 468. 
 
 — God as To ov, 468. 
 
 — love within God, 469. 
 
 — hierarchies of angels, 469. 
 
 — influence of, during the Middle 
 
 Ages, 474, 479, 482. 
 
 — system of, 474. 
 
 — his three triads or nine divisions 
 
 of angels, 475. 
 
 — work of his Trinity, ^76. 
 
 — belief in angels, chiefly derived 
 
 fi'oni, 476. 
 
 — Milnian on, 476, 477. 
 
 — his celestial hierarchy reflected 
 
 on earth, 477. 
 
 — real attraction of, 478. 
 
 — his mystic union, 479, 480, 
 
 482. 
 
 — mysticism of, not orthodox, 
 
 484. 
 
 — looked on as the founder of the 
 
 Christian mystics, 488. 
 Dionysos, worship of, came from 
 
 Egypt, 8 r. 
 Dlrghatamas, 140. 
 Disraeli, on religion, 336. 
 Div, Devas, 181. 
 Divine name, meaning in every, 
 
 29. 
 
 — and human, knowledge of the 
 
 unity of, 93.
 
 556 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Divine sonshipj 94. 
 
 ■ lost by sin, 94. 
 
 by nescience, 94. 
 
 — in man, 250. 
 
 — spirit of Philo, 419. 
 in the prophets, 420. 
 
 — Logos in Christ, 421. 
 dwelling in us, 425. 
 
 — ground of Eckhart, 516, 517. 
 liiie the neutral Brahman, 
 
 517. 
 
 is oneness, 520. 
 
 the soul founded on, 523. 
 
 Divinity of Christ, 457. 
 
 Docetae, the, 457. 
 
 Docta ignorantia of Cardinal Cusa- 
 
 nus, 271. 
 Doctrines borrowed by tlie Jews 
 
 from the Zoroastrians, 47. 
 
 — Professor Cheyne on, 48. 
 Dogs passed by the departed, 13S. 
 Dominations, 475. 
 Dominicans, the, 501, 502, 503, 
 
 504, 505- 
 
 — Eckhart, provincial of, 509. 
 So^a, 417 n. 
 
 Dramic^a or Dravic/a, 1 00. 
 
 Dreams gave the first idea of soul, 
 
 259- 
 Driver, Dr., 53. 
 Drummond, Dr. J., 378 n., 379 n., 
 
 382 ??., 402 n., 412 n., 413 n. 
 
 — on the Logos, 404. 
 
 Dualism, not taught by Zoroaster, 
 180. 
 
 — oftheAvesta, 185-186. 
 
 — replaces the original Monotheism, 
 
 186. 
 
 — no sign of, in the Veda, 187. 
 Durga, worship of, 376. 
 
 EARLY Christian view of the soul, 
 94. 
 
 language, Greek or Jewish? 
 
 368. 
 
 philosophers taunted with bor- 
 rowing from Greek, 415. 
 
 the taunt returned, 415. 
 
 Earthly love to the Sufis, 351. 
 
 East, Greek philosophy borrowed 
 
 from the, 80. 
 East, not West, the place of the 
 
 blessed, 139. 
 
 — and West blended in Christianity, 
 
 416. 
 
 Eastern religions, ignorant commen- 
 tators on, 180. 
 
 Ebionites, 436. 
 
 Eckhart, Master, 90, 297, 457, 462, 
 506, 543. 
 
 — suspected of heresy, 506, ^oS, 
 
 509- 
 
 — powerful sermons, 506. 
 
 — follows St. John, 507. 
 
 — a])peals to pagan masters, 507, 
 
 509. 
 
 — assertion of truth, 507. 
 
 — never appeals to miracles, 508. 
 
 — appeals to the Fathers, 509. 
 
 — his scholastic training, 509 w. 
 
 — studied at Paris, 509. 
 
 — lived at Bonn, 509. 
 
 — his character, 510. 
 
 — Schopenhauer on, 51 I. 
 
 — his mysticism, 511, 512. 
 
 — difficulty of his language, 51 1. 
 
 — Upanishads a good preparation 
 
 for, 511. 
 
 — his definition of the Deity, 512- 
 
 513- 
 
 — follows Plato and the Stoics, 513. 
 
 — uses Alexandrian language, 513. 
 
 — called a Pantheist, 514. 
 
 — on creation as emanation, 514, 
 
 518. 
 
 — on the soul, 515, 516. 
 
 — liis Divine ground, 516, 517. 
 
 — how to understand, 517. 
 
 — a Neo-Platonist, 518. 
 
 — Logos or Word, as the Son of 
 
 God, 518. 
 
 — Christ the ideal Son of God, 518. 
 
 — his view of Christ as the Word, 
 
 519- 
 
 — uses the legendary traditions as 
 
 allegories, 520. 
 
 — his view of Christ's birth in the 
 
 soul, 520, 524.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 557 
 
 Eckhart, Master, relation of the soul 
 to God, 524. 
 
 — like tlie Veilantists and the Neo- 
 
 Platonists, 525. 
 
 — passages in the Fourth Gospel 
 
 cited by, 525. 
 
 — his lioly life, 526. 
 
 — stillness and silence commended 
 
 by, 529. 
 
 — discouraged extreme penance, 
 
 529- 
 
 — led an active life, 529. 
 
 — on tlic true brotherhood of Christ 
 
 and man, 536, 537. 
 Ecsta.sis of St. Bernard, 490, 
 Ecstatic intuition, 433. 
 Eden, lady of, 14. 
 Ego, the, 248, 249, 304. 
 
 — the being behind every, 105. 
 
 — what is it, 257, 264. 
 
 Egypt, influence of, on Greece, Si- 
 82. 
 
 — famous Greeks who studied in, 
 
 82. 
 
 — Pythagoras in, 84. 
 Egyptian prayer, 13. 
 
 — religion, works on, 109. 
 Ehyeh and Jehovah, Heb., 53. 
 ilSos, or species, 386. 
 
 UKwv Oiov, 415. 
 Eileithyias, 63 n. 
 Ekadesa, ekadesin, 12971. 
 Ekam sat, 237. 
 Eleatic argument, 323. 
 
 — view of the Infinite, 93. 
 
 — monism, 93. 
 
 — philosophers, 69, 77, 106-107, 
 
 270, 330. 3.^5' 336, 46^. 
 
 — German Mystics and Veduntists, 
 
 280. 
 
 — like the earlier Upanishads, 334. 
 
 — metaphysical problems, 335. 
 'EUsha and Elysion, 6^. 
 il\v6, 64. 
 
 Elysion, 63, 63 «., 64. 
 Emanation, never condemned, 296. 
 
 — upheld by many, 297. 
 
 — stages of, 300. 
 
 Embryo, whence it comes, 301. 
 
 Emerson on Sufi language, 349. 
 
 Empedokles, 85. 
 
 — and his soul, 433, 
 Endless lights, 198. 
 
 — darkness, 199. 
 Endymion, 64 n. 
 Energism, 153. 
 Enneads of Plato, 165. 
 Enos, 376. 
 
 Eos, dawn, 29. 
 (ovja, 93. 
 Epicier, species, 74. 
 I'lpictetus quoted, 10. 
 Epiphanius, 453 n. 
 Er, story of, 218. 
 
 — before the three Fates, 219. 
 Eridu, lord of, 14. 
 
 Erinys, dawn, 29. 
 E-Sagil, palace of the gods, 16. 
 Eschatological legends, general simi- 
 larities in, 177. 
 Esoteric doctrines, 327. 
 
 — — a modern invention, 327. 
 'Esse est Deus,' Eckhart, 512. 
 Es-Sirat, the bridge of, 173, 539. 
 reached Mohammed through 
 
 the Jews, 200. 
 Eternal light behind the veil, 319. 
 Ethical origin of metempsychosis, 
 
 153. 154- 
 
 — character of the Avesta, 190, 
 
 199. 
 
 — teaching not found in the Upani- 
 
 shads, 190, 199. 
 Ethics, 87. 
 Euripides on the working of the 
 
 gods, 3. 
 Europe, 64 «. 
 Eusebius, 83, 450 n. 
 
 — mentions Brahmans, 46 n. 
 Eve, Philo on the creation of, 379. 
 Evil spirit not found in the early 
 
 part of the Avesta, 51. 
 
 — problem of the origin of, 1 84. 
 Zarathushtra tried to solve it, 
 
 1S4. 
 
 — no real good without possible, 
 
 1S5. 
 
 — existence of, 307.
 
 558 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Evolution in the Upanishads, 297. 
 
 — held by Kamanu^a, 298, 317. 
 
 FAITH, different degrees of, 493, 
 
 494. 
 Fakirs, 344, 345. 
 Father, God as the, 417. 
 
 — pre-eminence of the, 536. 
 Father and Son, 512, 536. 
 
 the Holy Ghost the bond be- 
 tween, 513. 
 
 simple meaning of, 522. 
 
 Fathers, world of the, 119 ; path of 
 the, 117, 148, 169, 170, 277, 
 308. 
 
 earliest conception of life after 
 
 death, 125. 
 
 faith in, given up, 283. 
 
 Fathers of the Church, men of Greek 
 culture, 434. 
 
 Ferid eddin Attar, 344. 
 
 Feridfln and the fire-temple of 
 Baikend, 32. 
 
 Few, the, not the many, who influ- 
 ence nations, 69. 
 
 Fick, 64 n. 
 
 Fifth century, 478, 500. 
 
 — state of the laity, 479. 
 
 — Bible, unknown to laity, 479. 
 
 — the clergy, 479. 
 
 — no true religion, 480. 
 
 Fins, borrowed from Scandinavians, 
 62. 
 
 Firdusi, language of, 37. 
 
 Fire-worship, not taught by Zoro- 
 aster, 180. 
 
 Fire and sparks, 275. 
 
 — air, water, and earth, 287, 287 n. 
 First person, the Father, 437. 
 
 — man, Christ called, 519. 
 Fitzgerald, 358. 
 
 Five elements and five senses, 300. 
 
 — stages of mystic union, 480. 
 Flaccus, Plotinus' letter to, 430. 
 Flames burning the wicked, 171,172. 
 Flaming sword and Reason, 378. 
 Fleet, 99 n. 
 
 Forest, life in the, 326. 
 
 — in each man's heart, 493. 
 
 Forgetfulness, desert plain of, 220, 
 
 221. 
 Four states of the soul, 307, 308. 
 
 — stages of the Sufi, 348. 
 Fourteenth century in Germany, 
 
 500. 
 Fourth Gospel, 372, 384. 45 1> 521. 
 523- 
 
 — use of Logos in, 404. 
 
 — ideal son in, 409. 
 
 — use of Monogenes, 411, 413. 
 
 — whence the author got the idea 
 
 of the Logos, 414. 
 
 — in touch with Greek and Judaeo- 
 
 Alexandrine ideas, 415. 
 
 — Greek thought and words in 
 
 first chapter, 415, 416, 
 
 — opposed by the Alogoi, 453. 
 
 — attributed to Cerinthus, 454. 
 
 — passages from, appealed to by 
 
 Eckhart, 525. 
 Franciscans, the, 501, 502, 503, 504, 
 
 505- 
 Fraud among ascetics, 528. 
 Fravardin Yasht, 205. 
 Fravashis or Manes, 145. 
 
 — or Fravardin, 205, 206. 
 
 — wider meaning of, 205. 
 
 — the genius of anything, 205. 
 Frazlshtd, 201. 
 Freemasons, 320. 
 
 Friends of God, 503. 
 Fundamental principle of the histori- 
 cal school, 2. 
 Funeral pile, 114. 
 rising from, 1 1 5. 
 
 GAH, the five, 43. 
 Gaimini, 99, 306. 
 
 Galton's combined photogi-aphs, 385. 
 Gandharvas, 163. 
 
 Gaotama mentioned in the Fravar- 
 din Yasht, 46. 
 Garo-nemana, 203. 
 Gaster, Dr., 174. 
 Gatavedas, 192, 193. 
 Gatha literature, age of, 45. 
 — belonged to Media, 45. 
 Gathas, the, 43, 44, 46.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 559 
 
 Gothic, the (Nasks), 44. 
 Gayasiwha, 135. 
 Genealogical method, vi. 
 General eilence, the, of the Valen- 
 
 tinians, 396. 
 Genii, 205. 
 Genitive, fivnerj, 79. 
 German Mystics, 499, 501, 503, 506, 
 
 539- 
 
 — — Eleatic philosophers and Ve- 
 
 dantists, 280. 
 
 their supposed heresies, 503. 
 
 their sermons, 506. 
 
 — translations of the Bible, 503. 
 
 learnt by heart, 504. 
 
 Germany, fourteenth century in, 500, 
 
 — feeling against Home in, 503. 
 
 — popular preachers in, 506. 
 Gerson, 462, 506. 
 
 — against divorcing philosophy and 
 
 religion, 507. 
 Gervasius of Tilbury, 218 «. 
 GAallas, 163. 
 TiyvwcTKa), 36. 
 Gill, Rev. W. W., 227. 
 
 — on the Harvey Islanders, 227. 
 
 — no trace of transmigration in 
 
 Eastern Pacific, 231. 
 Glva,, living soul, 249. 
 Givanmukti, life-liberation, 309. 
 Gladisch, 85. 
 Gna,, Sanskrit, 36. 
 Gnan&kanda, 95, 104. 
 Gnostic belief in the flesh as the 
 
 source of evil, 409. 
 Gnostics, theosophy of, in the East, 
 
 342- 
 
 ')fi'U(ns, 435. 
 
 God, natural religion the foundation 
 of our belief in, 4. 
 
 — special revelation needed for a 
 
 belief in, 5. 
 
 — and the soul, 90, 91, 92, 362. 
 
 — tlirone of, 141. 
 
 — of the Vedantists, 320. 
 
 — Mohammed's idea of, 347. 
 
 — and man, how the Jews drew to- 
 
 gether the bonds between, 417. 
 
 — sufficient for Himself, 417. 
 
 God, made man, St. Augustine on, 
 421. 
 
 — vision of, 424, 
 
 — and evil, 486. 
 
 — those who tliirst after, 488. 
 
 — love of, 489, 490. 
 
 — and the soul identical, 497. 
 
 — in three Persons, 513, 520. 
 
 — outside Nature, 513, 515. 
 
 — in all things, 513. 
 
 — as always speaking or begetting 
 
 the Word, 520. 
 
 — approach to, 524. 
 
 — oneness with, 5:^3. 
 
 — want of reverence for, 534. 
 
 — many meanings of, 534. 
 
 — and man, relation of, 535. 
 Godhead, struggle for higher con- 
 ception of the, 237, 244. 
 
 — expressed in the Vedas, 237. 
 in the Upanishads, 238. 
 
 — predicates of the, 402. 
 Godly and God-like, 481. 
 
 Gods, belief in, almost universal, 
 
 59- 
 
 — procession of the, 212. 
 
 — residing in animals, 231. 
 
 — and men come from the same 
 
 source, 364. 
 
 — the, St. Clement on, 472. 
 
 — St. Augustine on, 472. 
 
 — path of the, 115, 117, 118, 121, 
 
 148, 159, 169, 277, 308. 
 
 faith in, given up, 283. 
 
 Good birth, the good attain a, 156. 
 
 Thought Paradise, 197. 
 
 Word Paradise, 197. 
 
 Deed Paradise, 198. 
 
 — Plato's, 393. 
 
 — and evil, distinctions between, 
 
 632. 
 
 Goodness, acts of, 162. 
 
 Gore's Hampton Lectures, 25 n. 
 
 Gospel of St. John, 342. 
 
 Gospels, the four, end of second 
 century, 454. 
 
 Gotama, 206. 
 
 Grammar, certain processes of, uni- 
 versal, 59.
 
 560 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Greece, our philosophy comes from, 
 66, 67. 
 
 — and India, difference between, 
 
 330. 
 Greek philosophy, its influence on 
 Christian theology, x. 
 
 — prayer, 13. 
 
 — works lost, 33. 
 
 — and Indian thought, early sepa- 
 
 ration of, 65. 
 
 — and Roman religions, historical 
 
 background for the, 72. 
 
 — and Vedic Deities, 74. 
 
 — philosophy, a native production, 
 
 77, 80-84. 
 was it borrowed from the 
 
 East? 80. 
 sources of, 85. 
 
 — mysteries, 328. 
 
 — and Jewish thought, blending of, 
 
 407, 414. 
 
 three points gained by, 
 
 421. 
 
 — and Jewish converts, 421. 
 Greeks borrowed names of gods from 
 
 Egypt, 5S. 
 
 — and Brahmans, coincidences be- 
 
 tween, 64. 
 
 — of Homer's time, 74. 
 Gregory the Great, 434, 465. 
 
 — of Nyssa, 434, 468. 
 
 — of Nazianzen, 434, 468. 
 Grimm, 73, 174 n. 
 Gruppe, 88. 
 
 Guardian angels, Ahuramazda's 
 
 discourse on, 205-207. 
 Gubarra, 14. 
 Guhyakas, 163. 
 
 Gulshen Ras on Christianity, 343. 
 Guy on, Mad. de, 462. 
 
 HADHA-MATHRIC,the (Nasks), 
 
 44. 
 Hadhokht Nask, 43. 
 
 on the soul after death, 195. 
 
 Hafiz, songs of, 349, 350, 353. 
 Haidas on the immortality of the 
 
 soul, 222, 225. 
 
 Haidas, resemblance to Persian 
 
 ideas, 222. 
 Hajiabad, inscriptions of, 37. 
 Halah and Habon, 48, 
 Hale, Horatio, 383. 
 Hall, Fitz-Edward, 317 ra. 
 Hamaspathmaeda, 207. 
 Haonia, 65. 
 
 Haritas and Charites, 61, 76. 
 Harnack, xv, 95 n., 436 »., 438 n., 
 
 441 n., 442 )i., 449 n., 451 n. 
 
 — on Origen's view of the Third 
 
 Person, 452. 
 Harrison, Rev. C, on the Charlotte 
 
 Islands, 222. 
 Harvey Islanders, Rev. W. W. Gill 
 
 on the, 227, 231. 
 Hassan Basri, 341. 
 Hatch, Dr., 371 n., 416 «., 418 n. 
 Haug, 18 n., 37 n., 42, 44 «., 45, 46, 
 
 47,5i.55>i8i «., 184,185,205, 
 
 226 n., 240. 
 
 — his wrong translation of Ahura's 
 
 name, 55. 
 Haurvatad, 49, 186. 
 Heaven in Samoa, 228. 
 
 — in Mangaia, 22S, 229. 
 
 — in Raratonga, 228. 
 
 — in Aitutaku, 228. 
 
 — in Tahiti, 228. 
 
 — in the Society Islands, 228. 
 
 — and men united, 365 n. 
 Hebrew borrowed little from Baby- 
 lon or Persia, 368. 
 
 — prophets and the Divine Word, 
 
 404. 
 
 — race, Dionysius on, 468. 
 Hebrews, Apocryphal Gospel of, 441. 
 Hegel, 102. 
 
 — on Christianity as unhistorical, 
 
 448- 
 
 Hegelian method misleadmg, vi. 
 Heimariiiene, destiny, 390. 
 Heimdall, the watchman, 169. 
 Helios, sun, 29. 
 Hell, not known in the Rig-veda, 
 
 166. 
 
 — known in the Atharva-veda, 
 
 167.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 561 
 
 Hell in the Brahma»a3, 167. 
 Hells, absence of, iu the Upaniahads, 
 158. 
 
 — the Zoroastrian, 198, 199. 
 
 — of Plato, 216. 
 Henoch, 376. 
 
 Henosis or oneness of the individual 
 with the Supreme Soul, 274, 
 426, 481, 4S2, 504. 
 
 Henotheism of the Veda, 48. 
 
 Hephaistos, 80. 
 
 Heraclitus, 85, 380, 384, 397, 410, 
 
 430- 
 
 — his Logos, 389, 390, 391. 
 
 • — his use of Heimarmene, 390. 
 
 — bis view of Fire, 390. 
 
 — his Logos is rule, 390. 
 
 — his Kara \6yov, 391, 
 Herakles, 63, 534. 
 Heredity, 389. 
 Hermippos, 38, 39, 45. 
 
 — Pliny on, 38. 
 
 — his analysis of Zoroaster's books, 
 
 83. 
 Herodotos, 45, 81. 
 Hesiod, 469. 
 Hesperia, 64. 
 Hestia, 212. 
 
 Hetywanlana, Hell, 224, 225. 
 * He who above all gods is the only 
 
 God,' 49. 
 Hierarchies of Proclus and Diony- 
 
 sius the Areopagite, 164, 165. 
 Hierarchy, celestial, of Dionysius, 
 
 475- 
 
 — the earthly, 477. 
 Hieronymus, 434. 
 
 High Priest's clothes, 408. 
 Highest Being, 268. 
 
 — Self and the individual soul, 273, 
 
 274. 276, 308. 
 
 — Soul, 274. 
 
 — Being and the soul identical, 279. 
 
 — Atman, 291. 
 
 difl'erent stages in the belief 
 
 in, 291. 
 Hilarius, 434. 
 
 Hilduin, Abbot of St. Denis, 466. 
 Hillebrandt, 115 »., 138 «., 147 ». 
 
 (4) 
 
 Hillel and the Jewish religion, 9. 
 Hindu prayer, modern, 21. 
 Hirawyagarbha, 130, 151. 
 Historical method, v. 
 
 — school, fundamental principle of 
 
 the, 2. 
 
 — documents for studying the origin 
 
 of religion, 27. 
 
 — contact between India and Persia, 
 
 66. 
 
 — school, 522. 
 
 History, divine drama of, vi. 
 
 — of the world, constant ascent in 
 
 the, 2. 
 
 — of religion the true philosophy of 
 
 religion, 3. 
 Holenmerian theory, 280. 
 Holy Ghost, VohQman a parallel to, 
 
 57- 
 
 St. Clement's view, 440, 443. 
 
 as tlie Mother of Christ, 441. 
 
 special work of, 441, 442, 
 
 443- 
 at the baptism of Christ, 442, 
 
 443- 
 bond between the Father and 
 
 the Son, 513. 
 Homer, 365 71. 
 
 Homoiosis or Henosis, l6i, 481. 
 Homoousioi, 517, 
 oparSs, 361. 
 Hotar or atharvan, 65, 
 Hottentot idea of the moon, 148. 
 Houris, none among the Jews, 
 
 200. 
 Hugo of St. Victor, 488, 493, 494, 
 
 — on knowledge, 493. 
 
 — on vision, 497. 
 
 — rich in poetical illustration, 497, 
 
 498. 
 Human and Divine, gulf between, 
 
 92. 
 Human nature twofold, 418. 
 
 — becoming divine, 456. 
 
 — souls migrating into animal 
 
 bodies, 217, 225. 
 
 — — moral grounds of this belief, 
 
 217, 218. 
 Humboldt, 73.
 
 562 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Humility, St. Bernard's twelve de- 
 grees of, 490. 
 Huxley and the Gergesenes, 25. 
 Hyios tou theou, x. 
 Hyle, matter of the Stoics, 397. 
 
 — of Philo, 400. 
 Hypatia, 373. 429- 
 Hypostaseis, Father and Son as, 442. 
 
 I AM that I Am, 49, 52. 
 
 found in the Elohistic section, 
 
 53- 
 
 — — never alluded to again in Old 
 
 Testament, 53. 
 interpolated from a Zoroas- 
 
 trian source, 53, 55. 
 
 what I Am, 55. 
 
 what thou art, 278. 
 
 He, Jellal eddln on, 363. 
 
 Iceland and Norway, 62. 
 Ideal man, the, 440. 
 Idealistic philosophy, 292. 
 Ideas, eternal, 104. 
 
 — of Plato, 205, 387, 389, 392, 469, 
 
 518. 
 
 our heredity, 389. 
 
 our species, 392. 
 
 are the changeless world, 518. 
 
 protested against by the Stoics, 
 
 518. 
 taken up by the Neo-Platon- 
 
 ists, 518. 
 
 — of Philo, 401. 
 Ignatius, 454. 
 
 Ignorant commentators on Eastern 
 
 religions, 180. 
 Illusion, theory of, held by /Sankara, 
 
 317- 
 Ilya, the tree, 121, 122. 
 Images, ancient sages think in, 141. 
 Immortality of the soul, 158. 
 never doubted in the Upani- 
 
 shads, 210. 
 
 among the Haidas, 222. 
 
 Polynesians on, 226. 
 
 among the Jews, 233. 
 
 the Buddhists, 233. 
 
 — belief in, very general, 231. 
 
 — Vedanta doctrine on. 234. 
 
 Immortality, need not be asserted, 
 
 424-. 
 Incarnation and the Logos, xii. 
 
 — the, 439. 
 
 — reticence of St. Clement on, 
 
 444. 
 India, fragmentary character of the 
 Sacred Books of, 33. 
 
 — and Persia, relation between the 
 
 religions of, 65, 179. 
 
 — rich philosophical literature in, 
 
 66. 
 
 — influence of religion and philo- 
 
 sophy in, 68. 
 
 — conquest of, a sad story, 70. 
 
 — dreamers of, 71. 
 
 — and Greece, diSerence between, 
 
 330- 
 
 — St. Matthew's Gospel in, 436. 
 Indian and Persian thought long 
 
 connected, 65, 
 
 — and Greek thought, early separa- 
 
 tion of, 65. 
 
 — philosophy, independent charac- 
 
 ter of, 66, 67, 79. 
 a native production, 77, 80, 
 
 8s, 86._ 
 peculiar character of, loi. 
 
 — view of life, 68. 
 
 — Aryas, 67. 
 
 their language ours, Jl, 
 
 — philosopher in Athens, 83. 
 sees Sokrates, 84. 
 
 — Greek, Roman religions full 
 
 of common Aryan ideas, 85, 
 86. 
 
 — and Greek thought, parallelism 
 
 between, 212, 215. 
 
 — music, 282. 
 
 — Pandits, 369. 
 
 — ascetics, 528. 
 
 Individual soul, true nature of, 
 
 269. 
 and the Highest Self, 273, 
 
 274> 275, 279. 
 
 and Brahman, 275. 
 
 different from the Hig 
 
 Self, 276. 
 Eamauu^a's teaching, 315.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 563 
 
 Individual soul, Saiikara's teaching, 
 
 316. 
 Indra, 50, 121, 122, 130, 133, 186, 
 
 235, 246, 250, 251, 253, 260. 
 
 — as demon, 182. 
 
 — Supreme God, 259. 
 
 — as Andra in the Avesta, 182. 
 Indriyas, 305. 
 
 Infinite, perception of, shared by all 
 religions, vii. 
 
 — Eleatic view of the, 93. 
 
 — in nature, 89, 105, 535. 
 
 — in man, 89, 105, 535. 
 
 — one, 311, 534. 
 
 — writer in the Christian lier/ister 
 
 on the, 361 71. 
 
 — of Anaximander, 400. 
 
 — how can we linow the? 432. 
 
 — perception of the, 4S0. 
 
 ' In Him we live and move,' &c., 
 
 94- 
 Innocent II, 492. 
 Inspiration or (S'ruti, 102. 
 
 — the idea of, 103. 
 
 — literal, 543. 
 
 Intellect, language the outer form 
 
 of the, 61. 
 Interdict of fourteenth century, 500, 
 
 £01. 
 
 Interpretation, difficulties of, 123. 
 
 Invisible things, reality of, 154. 
 
 Ipse, 249. 
 
 Irenaeus, 434. 
 
 Isaac, 376. 
 
 Isis, veiled, 327. 
 
 'Islam, no monachism in,' 338. 
 
 Islam, will of Allah, 347. 
 
 Isocrates, 84. 
 
 Isvara, the Lord, 295, 306, 316, 320, 
 
 324- 
 
 — is Brahman, 312, 316. 
 Italian and Latin, 72. 
 Izads, the thirty, 43. 
 Izeshan, sacrifices, 240. 
 Izz eddln Mutaddesl, 344. 
 
 JACOB'S dream, Philo on, 414. 
 Jacolliot, 81. 
 Jamblichus, 446. 
 
 Jami's Salaman and Abe^d, extract 
 
 from, 358. 
 Jasher, book of, 34. 
 Jayadeva, 354. 
 Jehovah, 51, 52, 408, 414, 447. 
 
 — Psalmist's words on, 50. 
 
 — and ehyeh, Heb., 53. 
 
 — of Philo, 400. 
 
 Jellul eddin IJOmi, 344, 345. 
 
 on the true Sufis, 346. 
 
 extracts from his Mesnevl, 
 
 355- 
 on the Sun as image of Deity, 
 
 356. 
 
 on the soul, 357. 
 
 on self-deceit, 357. 
 
 on ' I am He,' 363. 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth, influence of His 
 
 personality, xiii, xiv. 
 
 as perfect, 439, 
 
 as the ideal man, 440. 
 
 Jewish religion, God far removed 
 
 from man, ix. 
 
 — influence on the Zoroastrians, 48. 
 
 — doctors at the Sassanian court, 
 
 173 «. 
 Jews, influence of Persian ideas on, 
 200. 
 
 — did not believe in Houris, 200. 
 
 — effect of the dispersion of, 374. 
 
 — and Christians ashamed of their 
 
 Bible, 375. 
 
 — borrowed very few religious terms 
 
 from the East, 368. 
 
 — enlightened, honoured at Alex- 
 
 andria, 408. 
 Jones, Sir W., on Sufiism, 339, 353. 
 
 — translations of Sufi poets, 354 
 
 et seq. 
 Jowett, 393 ra., 394 n. 
 Judaism and Buddhism, 233. 
 
 Deity in, 364. 
 
 Jugglers, Indian, 303. 
 Julian, the Emperor, 429. 
 Junaid, 344. 
 Jupiter, Aristides on, 11. 
 
 — limited, 235. 
 
 — as Son of God or Logos, 423, 
 
 423- 
 
 2
 
 564 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Jupiter, Plotinus on, 422. 
 Justin Martyr against anthropomor- 
 phic expressions, 372, 454. 
 
 KAABA, the, 340. 
 Kaegi, I39». 
 Kaklkat, 348. 
 JTSikshushi, 121, 134. 
 Kalpa, 315. 
 
 — to kalpa, 295. 
 iTandala, 156. 
 
 Kant, on knowledge, 321. 
 
 — anticipated by the Vedantists, 
 
 321-322. 
 Kant's philosophy, 3. 
 
 — Critique of Pure Beason, 5. 
 ^arawas, 163. 
 Kainiaka?«(?a, 95, 104. 
 Karman or Apfirva, 306, 307. 
 Katiiari, 504. 
 
 — became ketzer, 504. 
 KaOapcis, 481, 482. 
 
 Kaupat, name for the Milky Way, 
 
 170. 
 Kaushitaka, 130, 
 Kausliltaki-Upanishad, 120, 159, 
 
 278. 
 Kaye, meaning of spirit, 461 n. 
 Kepler, 384. 
 Ketzer, 504. 
 £^Aandogya-Upanishad, 118, 119, 
 
 120, 125, 132. 
 
 — dialogue on the unseen in man, 
 
 155- 
 
 — dialoguefrom,ontheSelf,25o-256. 
 
 — n ot belonging to the earliest Vedic 
 
 literature, 259. 
 
 — not later than Plato, 259. 
 
 — deductions from, 259, 260. 
 
 — dialogue from, 285-290. 
 Kliosroes, 41. 
 
 A'indvar bridge, 202. 
 Alnvai bridge, 194. 
 
 — or judgment bridge, ^194. 
 
 — identified with the Atman, Self, 
 
 in the Upanishads, 195. 
 
 — how made, 195. 
 
 — in Persia, 168, 172. 
 
 — soul after passing the, 203. 
 
 Z'inva^ bridge, crossing from earth 
 
 to heaven, 539. 
 Kirjath-sepher, city of letters, 32. 
 ffit, perceiving, 94. 
 
 — Brahman as, 293. 
 
 — meaning of, 293, 294. 
 
 — and aMt, 315. 
 /{^itra, 120. 
 Kittel, 53. 
 
 Klamaths, the Logos among the, .■ 
 
 xi, 383. 1 
 
 — their idea of creation, 383, 389. 
 Klemm, 75. 
 
 Knowledge, Greek love of, 85. 
 
 — depends on two authorities, 102. 
 
 — blessedness acquired by, 148- 
 
 151. 
 
 — no return for those souls who 
 
 have true, 149. 
 
 — true, 160, 161. 
 
 — or faith better than good works, 
 
 in the Upanishads, 190. 
 
 — better than good deeds, 204. 
 
 — not love of God, 291. 
 
 — absence of, an objective power to 
 
 the Hindu, 320. 
 
 — six requirements for attaining, 3 2 6. 
 
 — three instruments of, 419. 
 
 — three degrees of, 431. 
 
 — more certain than faith, 493. 
 Kohut, Dr., 187, 200, 201. 
 Konrad of Marburg, 504. 
 Koa iJLOs vo7]t6s, 407, 513. 
 
 — iSewv, 402. 
 Kramamukti, 308. 
 Ki-antor, quoted by Proclus, Sa. 
 Knshwagupta, 135. 
 Kronos, 64 n. 
 Kshathravairya, 1S6. 
 Kshatrij'as, 156. 
 Kuenen, 9 n., 28 n., 53, 465 «. 
 Kuhn, 73, 171. 
 
 LACTANTITJS, 535. 
 Laity in the fifth century, 479. 
 Language, the outward form of the 
 intellect, 61. 
 
 — common background of philo- 
 
 sophy, 71.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 565 
 
 Language, help tlerived by philo- 
 sophy from, 77. 
 
 — eternal, 103. 
 Lassen, 46 n. 
 
 Law, the (Nasks), 44. 
 
 Laws of Manu, or of the M^navas, 
 161. 
 
 Lectures, plan of these, 541. 
 
 Legenda Aurea, bridge in the, 175. 
 
 Legendary traditions of Clirist re- 
 jected by the Greeks, 519. 
 
 — used as allegories by Eckhart, 
 
 520. 
 Lethe, the river, 221. 
 Leverrier, 86. 
 Lewy, Dr. H., on deriving Greek 
 
 from Hebrew, 63, 63 n. 
 Liebrecht, notes to Gervasius, 175 n., 
 
 2i8n. 
 Life, Indian view of, 68, 69. 
 
 — modern view of, 68. 
 
 Light, deities representing, 134, 
 
 135- 
 
 Lightning and the moon, 1 1 5 n. 
 
 Literary documents, 30. 
 
 Literature, written, a modern inven- 
 tion, 30. 
 
 Locke, 102. 
 
 Logau, quotation from, 3. 
 
 Logoi, 406, 412, 457, 469. 
 
 — of the Stoics, 397, 398, 473. 
 
 — are the angels of Philo, 401, 413, 
 
 473-. 
 
 — conceived as one, 473. 
 as many, 473. 
 
 — spoken of as Aeons by the Gnos- 
 
 tics, 473. 
 Logos, 342, 373, 376, 378, 380-381, 
 
 4". 447. 450. 5J3. 518- 
 
 — doctrine of, exclusively Aryan, x, 
 
 — and the Incarnation, xii. 
 
 — the Zoroastrian, parallel to, 57. 
 
 — meaning of, 380. 
 
 — faint antecedents of, in Old 
 
 Testament, 381. 
 
 — of Philo, purely Greek, 381. 
 
 — history of, 381-384- 
 
 — among the Klamaths, 383. 
 
 — • thinking and willing,' 383. 
 
 Logos, historical antecedents of the 
 
 384. 
 
 — word and thought, 385. 
 
 — of God, 387. 
 
 — of Heraclitus, 389. 
 
 — connecting the first Cause and the 
 
 phenomenal world, 391. 
 
 — and Nous, 391. 
 
 — the, as a bridge between God and 
 
 the world, 401, 414. 
 
 — a predicate of the Gcdhead, 402. 
 
 — as the Son of God, 403. 
 
 — of Greek extraction, 403. 
 
 — only begotten or unique son, 
 
 . 404- 
 
 — in Fourth Gospel, 404. 
 
 — theological use of, from Palestine, 
 
 404. 
 
 — roots of, 405. 
 
 — stronger than the Sophia, 407. 
 
 — as the high priest, 407. 
 
 — known to the Jews of Christ's 
 
 time, 408. 
 
 — tiie idea of all ideas, 412. 
 
 — recognised by Philo in the patri- 
 
 arclis, 413. 
 
 — realised in the noumenal and phe- 
 
 nomenal worlds, 413. 
 
 — and Logos Monogenes historical 
 
 facts, 415. 
 
 — and the powers, 417. 
 
 — used for creation, 417. 
 
 — becoming man, 421. 
 
 — Athanasius on, 421. 
 
 — historical interpretation, 422. 
 
 — of St. Clement, 437. 
 
 — of Athenagoras, 437. 
 
 — head of the logoi, 437. 
 
 — identified with Jesus, 438. 
 
 — manifested in man from the begin- 
 
 ning, 439. 457- 
 
 — and the pneuma, 444. 
 
 — of Origen, 450, 451. 
 
 — as Redeemer, 452. 
 
 — alethes of Celsus, 452. 
 
 — doctrine of, identified with St. 
 ^ John, 454. 
 
 — intervening between tlie Divine 
 
 Essence and matter, 455.
 
 566 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Logos, a connecting link, not a divid- 
 ing screen, 455. 
 
 — later a wall of partition, 456. 
 
 — in the Latin Church, 458- 
 
 460. 
 
 — no Latin word with the fall mean- 
 
 ing of, 459-461. 
 
 — Zeno's definition, 460. 
 
 — development in East and West, 
 
 454-461. 
 
 — the bond between the human 
 
 soul and God, 455. 
 
 — recognised in Christ, 455. 
 
 — view of the early Apologetes, 
 
 455- , , , 
 
 — the incarnation of thought, 
 
 521. 
 
 — re-established by the Neo-Pla- 
 
 tonists, 521. 
 
 — Christianity built upon, 521. 
 
 — history of, traced back, 523. 
 
 — Monogenes, 523. 
 
 — prophorikda and endiiithetos, 
 
 242. 
 
 — airepnaTiKos, 384. 
 Loka, 133, 135- 
 
 Longfellow's translation from Logau, 
 
 3- 
 
 Lord's Supper, 483. 
 
 Lorinser, 85. 
 
 Lost books, 33. 
 
 Lotze, XV. 
 
 Louis I, 465. 
 
 Love, child of poverty and plenty, 
 
 432- 
 
 — earthly, as a type of love to God, 
 
 351.352- 
 
 — of God, 445, 489, 490, 505.^^ 
 wanting in the Vedanta- 
 
 sfltras, 291. 
 
 four stages of, 490. 
 
 Lower Brahman, return of the soul 
 
 to, 114. 
 Lucretius, xi. 
 Ludwig, 1 2 1 n. 
 Luther, 510. 
 
 — on the TheoloQia Germanica, 
 
 510. 
 Lykurgus, travels of, 83. 
 
 MACAE,TUS,andthemysteries,482. 
 Macrobius, 145. 
 Maghavat, 253, 255. 
 Magi came from Media, 44, 44 n. 
 Mahabharata, quoted, on love to 
 others, 9. 
 
 — Setus or bridges of the, 167. 
 Mahatmas, 327. 
 Maiden, good works as a beautiful, 
 
 199, 202, 209. 
 
 — influence of this idea on Moham- 
 
 medanism, 199. 
 Makhir, god of dreams, 1 6. 
 Mallas, 163. 
 Man, to think, 79, 98. 
 Man, infinite in, 105. 
 
 — essence of, 304. 
 
 — Philo's view of, 409. 
 
 — a manifestation of theLogog, 439. 
 Manas, mind, 79, 249, 305. 
 ManasaA, or amanava/t, 115 n., 134. 
 Manasl, the beloved, 121, 124. 
 Mangaian heaven, 228, 229. 
 Manhood, perfect, as realised in the 
 
 ideal son, 409, 
 Mani, 40, 41. 
 Manichaeism, 40, 41, 370. 
 Mantras, independent statements in 
 
 the, 137. 
 not in harmony with the Upa- 
 
 nishads, 137. 
 Manu, laws of, transmigration in the, 
 
 161. 
 
 — age of these laws, 161. 
 
 — minute details of transmigration, 
 
 162. 
 
 — nine classes of transmigration, 
 
 163. 
 
 — punishments of the wicked, 165. 
 
 — nine classes of, 215. 
 Marcus Aurelius quoted, 10. 
 Marut, Mars, stormwind, 29. 
 Matarisvan, 234. 
 
 Mat6, Matu, 14. 
 
 Matter, created by God, 455. 
 
 Mavra. or Mavriza, the Milky Way, g 
 
 170. ■ 
 
 Maximius on the writings of Diony- ~ 
 
 sius the Areopagite, 463,
 
 INDEX. 
 
 567 
 
 Maximus Tyrius, 470. 
 
 — on Daiinones, 470. 
 
 Maya or Nescience, 303, 316, 318- 
 321. 
 
 Mazda, 18, 19, 172. 
 
 Mazdaisin, 41. 
 
 Media, birthplace of Zoroaster's re- 
 ligion, 44 n. 
 
 Melikertes, 63. 
 
 Melissus, 330. 
 
 ninova, niemiui, 79- 
 
 Memory, powers of, 31. 
 
 Men clogged by the body, 475. 
 
 Hevos, 79. 
 
 * Mere man,' 536. 
 
 Merodacb, 14, 16. 
 
 Mesnevi, the, 346, 354. 
 
 — second only to the Koran, 347. 
 
 — extract from, 355. 
 Messiah, the, 408, 408 n. 
 
 — recognised in Jesus, 438. 
 
 — and the Logos, 519. 
 
 both realised in Christ, 5 1 9. 
 
 Metempsychosis, 81, 82, 151. 
 
 — belief in, 77, 152. 
 
 — not connected with Animism, 
 
 153. 
 
 — of ethical origin, 153, 154, 156. 
 
 — belief in, in Plato and the Upani- 
 
 shads, 214-215. 
 Michael, the Stammerer, 465. 
 Migne's edition of Dionysius the 
 
 Areopagite, 467. 
 Migration of souls, 335. 
 Milky Way, 145, 170, 177. 
 
 and Pythagoras, 145. 
 
 Orion and Canis, 146. 
 
 names for, 170. 
 
 Mills, i8w. 
 
 • Mills of God," 3. 
 
 Milman on the intermediate agency 
 
 between God and creation, 401. 
 
 — on Dionysius, 476. 
 Mima^nsa-sCltras, 98. 
 
 — PGrva and Uttara, 98, 99. 
 Mind, the breath of God, 419, 420. 
 Minokhired, weighing of the dead 
 
 in, 201. 
 Minos, 64 71. 
 
 Minucius Felix, 372. 
 Mira, not niiracula, 25. 
 Miracles, 24, 25. 
 
 — pliy.-ic:d, 543. 
 
 Miru, or ]\luru, mistress of the 
 nether world, 2:9, 230, 230 «. 
 
 Mithra, Vedic Mitra, 1S2, 194, 202, 
 206. 
 
 Mitra, 1S2. 
 
 Modern date of Sacred Books, 30. 
 
 Mohammedan prayer, 21. 
 
 — conquest of Persia, 41. 
 
 — poetry, half-erotic, half-mystic, 
 
 350- 
 Mohammed's idea of God, 347. 
 Moira, 389. 
 INIolinos, 462. 
 Money, Phoenician and Egyptian 
 
 love of, 85. 
 Monism in India and Greece, 370. 
 
 — of Origeu, 450. 
 Monogenes, x, 366, 410. 
 
 — of Plato, 394. 
 
 — the only-begotten, 409. 
 
 — in Parmenides, 410. 
 
 — Supreme Being, 410. 
 
 — in the Timaeus, 410. 
 
 — as used by Valentinus, 41 1. 
 
 — applied to the visible word, 41 1 
 
 — used in Old Testament, 411. 
 
 — in Book of Wisdom, 411. 
 Monotheism of the Avesta, 48. 
 
 — the original, of the Zoroastriana 
 
 replaced by Dualism, 186. 
 
 — no trace of this in the Veda, 
 
 187. 
 Montanists, 453. 
 Moon questions the soul, 120, 121. 
 
 — soul in the, 146, 147, 150. 
 
 — source of life, I47, 148, 149. 
 
 — waxing and waning of, 147, 148. 
 
 — among Hottentots, 148. 
 
 — souls leaving, 158. 
 
 More's, Henry, verses on the soul, 
 276. 
 
 — and the Holenmerian theory, 2S0. 
 
 — quoted. 324, 541. 
 
 — on the Theulo(jia Germanica, 
 
 511.
 
 568 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Moses and the Shepherd, 23. 
 
 — Jews at the time of, 70. 
 
 — use of name as author, 365 n. 
 Mother-of-pearl and silver, 29S. 
 
 — or nurse of all things, 402. 
 Mrityu, 79. 
 
 fjvrjffis, 481. 
 
 Muir, Dr., derivation of brahman, 
 
 241. 
 Muhhyaprawa, 305. 
 Mliller, Friedrich, 37 n. 
 Mu?i(?aka-Upanishad, 1 20. 
 
 — soul after death in, 1 24. 
 Muspel, sons of, 169. 
 fivffrat or <paiTi^6ix(vot, 481. 
 Mysteries among the Neo-Platon- 
 
 ists, 428, 429. 
 
 — and magic, 429. 
 
 — meaning nothing mysterious, 48 1. 
 
 — denied by Clement, 48 2. 
 
 — Macarius on, 482. 
 
 — of Dionysius, 482. 
 
 Mystic Christianity, 462, 499, 505. 
 
 — likeness to Vedantism, 526. 
 
 — oneness with God, 533. 
 
 — philosophy, 284. 
 
 — religion, 91. 
 
 — objections to, 526. 
 
 excessive asceticism, 526. 
 
 — theology, 482, 483. 
 
 — Tholuck's definition of a, 484- 
 
 485-. 
 
 — objections to, 487. 
 
 — union, 479. 
 
 five stages of, 480. 
 
 — taught by the Neo-Platonists, 
 
 480. 
 Mystical theology of the Sufis and 
 
 yogis, 353- 
 Mysticism and Christian mysticism, 
 
 484. 
 
 — of Eckhart, 511. 
 Mystics, German, 297. 
 Mythological studies, Aryan founda- 
 tion of, 74. 
 
 — language misunderstood, 141. 
 
 NAZ^IKETAS, 223. 
 Naman, name, 79. 
 
 Namarftpa, 286. 
 Nao?/haithya, 186. 
 Naraka, hell, 167. 
 Narasawsa, Nairyasanha, 183. 
 Nasatyau, 182 n. 
 Nasks, the, 41-46. 
 
 — collected in eighth and end of 
 
 ninth centuries, 41, 42. 
 
 — three only complete, 42. 
 
 — imperfect in the time of Vologesis 
 
 — division in the very early, 42. 
 
 — those now held sacred, 43. 
 
 — three classes of, 44. 
 Nafas, 163. 
 
 Nature, infinite in, 105. 
 
 Natural religion, vii, 88, 89, 496, 5 39. 
 
 — the foundation of our belief in 
 
 God, 4. 
 
 — St. Paul's regard for, 536. 
 Natural revelation, 7. 
 
 traced in the Veda, 8. 
 
 Neander, xv. 
 
 Nehemiah Nilakan<Aa Gore, 317 ». 
 Neo-Platonism, spread of, in the 
 ^ East, 342, 359. 
 
 — in its pagan form in Proclus, 
 
 462. 
 Neo-Platonists, 372, 380, 
 
 — and the wisdom of the East, 82. 
 
 — and their trust in sentiment and 
 
 ecstasy, 425-427. 
 
 — and Stoics, 425-427, 
 
 — their visions, 426. 
 
 — belief in a Primal Being, 427. 
 
 — soul as image of the eternal Nous, 
 
 427. 
 
 — mystery among, 428. 
 
 — claimed revelation, 428. 
 
 — universal religion, 428. 
 
 — their mischievous influence, 429. 
 Nescience, 268, 272, 274, 284, 310, 
 
 321, 525- 
 
 — divides the individual and the 
 
 supreme soul, 272. 
 
 — or Avidya, the cause of pheno- 
 
 menal semblance, 273. 
 
 — can be removed by /Sruti only, 
 
 293.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 569 
 
 Nestonus, 443. 
 
 Newman, his definition of real reli- 
 gion, 90, 336. 
 
 New Testament, reference to lost 
 books, 34, 35. 
 
 — language easy, 1 79. 
 Nibelunge, German of the, 511. 
 Nioaea, council of, 373, 374, 462. 
 Nicholas I, Pope, 466. 
 Niedner, xv. 
 
 Nine classes of transmigration, 163. 
 
 — — of Manu, 163, 164, 215, 221. 
 
 of Plato, 164, 215,221. 
 
 Niobe, 64 71. 
 
 Nirukta, 172. 
 Nirvana, 308. 
 
 — of the Vedantist, 309, 310. 
 NizlstC, 201. 
 
 Noah, 376. 
 
 North-American Indians, their belief 
 
 in a bridge between this world 
 
 and the next, 168. 
 Noumenal world, 270. 
 
 — how did it become phenomenal, 
 
 270. 
 
 — Indian Vedantist view, 271, 
 Nous, or mind, 389, 411, 420. 
 
 — of Anaxagoras, 391. 
 
 — dxpvt^a, 391- 
 
 — the eternal, 427. 
 
 Number, conception of universal, 
 
 59- 
 Numenius, pupil of Philo, 144, 425, 
 42571. 
 
 — trinity of, 440. 
 
 Numerals, some savages with none 
 beyond four, 380. 
 
 — bori owed from their neighbours, 
 
 380. 
 Nyayish, the five, 43. 
 
 "OAE, 248. 
 
 Odysseus, 220. 
 
 otSa, 79. 
 
 ' (Hd One on High,' 387. 
 
 Old Testament, writing mentioned 
 
 in, 32. 
 reference to lost books in, 34. 
 
 — — names allegorised by Philo,376. 
 
 Old Testament, faint antecedents of 
 
 the Logos in, 381. 
 
 teacliingon tlie soul, 418, 420. 
 
 leaves a gulf between God and 
 
 man, 467. 
 
 — and New Testament, language 
 
 adojited in translating certain 
 
 passages of the Sacred Books of 
 
 the East, 57. 
 6l6n, 64 n. 
 Om, 118. 
 
 Omar ibn el Faridh, 344. 
 ov of Parmenidcs, 334. 
 One Being, the, and the human 
 
 soul, 483. 
 Oneness of God and the soul, viii, 
 
 63°. 534- 
 
 — of God, in the Avesta and Old 
 
 Testament, 48. 
 
 — of the human and divine natures, 
 
 443- 
 
 — of the objective and subjective 
 
 Deity, 447, 
 
 — how it can be restored, 530. 
 Only begotten Son, 413. 
 
 — a Greek thought and used as 
 
 such, 413. 
 Oppert, 35 n. 
 Oriental and Occidental philosophy, 
 
 striking coincidences between, 
 
 — such coincidences welcome, 86. 
 
 — influences on earlv Christianity, 
 
 366. ' 
 
 idea now given up, 367. 
 
 Ori-en, xiii, 372, 3S4, 424,446, 448, 
 
 454, 458, 463- 
 
 — did not accept physical impossi- 
 
 bilities as miracles, 376. 
 
 — his dependence on the Scriptures, 
 
 449. _ 
 
 — on religion forthe many, 449, 453. 
 
 — his view of miracles, 450. 
 
 — great object of his teaching, 450. 
 
 — Christian doctrine, the perfection 
 
 of Greek philosophy, 450. 
 
 — Monism of, 450. 
 
 — on the Logos, 450. 
 
 — Divinity of Christ, 451.
 
 570 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Origen, angels or rational beings of, 
 451, 469-471. 
 
 — on the Third Person, 452. 
 
 — accepted the Trinity, 453. 
 
 — on souls as fallen, 452. 
 
 — his honesty, 457, 458. 
 
 — angels, &c., of, 473. 
 
 — denounced in the Middle Ages, 
 
 488. 
 
 — on doctrines for the few, 481. 
 Origin of species, 3S6, 518. 
 
 — Plato's ideas, 386. 
 Orion, 64 n. 
 
 — Milky Way and Canis, 146, 
 Ormazd, 36, 1 81. 
 
 — Yasht, 54. 
 
 —an enumeration of the names 
 
 of Ahura, 54. 
 
 — and Drukh, 183. 
 
 — council of, 186. 
 
 — angels, qualities of, 1 85. 
 Oroniasos, 45. 
 
 Orphics, the, 85. 
 
 Orthodox, 422. 
 
 Ouranos, 410. 
 
 'Our Father,' Christ never speaks 
 
 of, 538. 
 Onsia, 513, 517. 
 
 — Father and Son sharing the same, 
 
 442. 
 
 — and hypostasis, diffei-ence be- 
 
 tween, 459. 
 oxiaia, 78. 
 ovaia 6\evfi(pr]S, 280. 
 
 pAda, 98. 
 
 Pahlav, parthav, 36, 37. 
 Paji/i-aratrikas, 276. 
 Pantaenus, xiii, 436, 451. 
 
 — found St, Matthew's Gospel in 
 
 India, 436. 
 Pantheism, 270, 514, 515. 
 
 — and St. Paul, 94. 
 Pantheistic heresies of fourteenth 
 
 century, 503. 
 Papal infallibility, 543. 
 Papias, xiv. 
 vapdSetyfxa, 415. 
 Paradise, 203. 
 
 Paradises of Good-Thought, Good- 
 Word, and Good-Deed, 1 97, 198. 
 Para A paravataA, 1 16, 116 n. 
 irapdKXTjros, 41 6. 
 
 Param andAparam Brahman, 316. 
 Paramatman, the Highest Self, 314. 
 Pariwama, 298. 
 Pari?iama-vada, 317, 318. 
 Parliament in Japan, 381. 
 Parmenides, 330, 333, 410. 
 
 — like the later Upanishads, 333. 
 
 — his idea of the One Being, 333, 
 
 334- 
 
 — darkness and light, 334. 
 
 — and the migration of souls, 335. 
 Parsis, revelation or holy question, 
 
 55- 
 
 — and the summer solstice, 145. 
 Parthians, 37. 
 
 — not Zoroastrians, 40. 
 
 Path of the Gods, 115, 117, 118, 121, 
 125, 148, 159, 169, 170, 277, 
 308. 
 
 Fathers, 117, 125,148, 169, 
 
 277, 308. 
 
 — faith in, given up, 283. 
 Pathaka, INIr., 99 n. 
 
 Paul and Barnabas quoted, 6. 
 Pazend, 37. 
 
 Peer, simile of the, 299. 
 Pehlevi, or Pahlavi, 36. 
 
 — first traces of, 37. 
 
 — coins, 46. 
 
 — literature, beginning of, 46. 
 Pelasgians borrowed the names of 
 
 their gods from Egypt, 81. 
 Penance, 530. 
 
 — shows earnestness, 531. 
 People, the,and the priesthood, 501- 
 
 506. 
 
 Persepolis, palace of, burnt by Alex- 
 ander, 39. 
 
 Persia, loss of the sacred literature 
 
 of, 35- 
 
 — sacred books of, known to Greeks 
 
 and Romans, 38. 
 
 destroyed by Alexander, 38. 
 
 collected under Vislasp, 38. 
 
 preserved by Darai, 38.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 571 
 
 Persia, Mohammedan conquest of, 41. 
 Persian and Indian thought long 
 connected, 65. 
 
 — influence on Sufiism, 342. 
 
 — mobeda, 369. 
 
 'Person, not a man,' 115, 115 n., 
 
 134. 135- 
 
 — follows after the lightning, 135, 
 
 136. 
 Personal gods of the ancients, 235. 
 Personality of Jesus, influence of 
 
 the, xiv. 
 
 — of the soul, 310. 
 
 — a limitation of the Godhead, 235, 
 
 236. 
 Personification, 153. 
 Pfeifter, edition of Eckhart, 507. 
 Phaedrus, myth of the cliariot, 211- 
 
 214. 
 Phenicians and Greeks, 62, 63. 
 Phenomenal and real, 269. 
 
 — and noumenal world, 270. 
 
 — world, /Sankara's, 319. 
 
 Philo, xii, 145 «., 366, 368, 370, 
 
 371. 374, 375 «•> 378, 384. 
 402 n., 450, 463. 
 
 — influence of his works, xv, xvi. 
 
 — didnotborrowfrom the East, 368. 
 
 — his allegorical interpretations, 
 
 370. 376, 377- 
 
 — not a Father of the Church, 371. 
 
 — a firm believer in Old Testament, 
 
 375- 
 
 — his touchstone of truth, 375. 
 
 — did not accept physical iuipossi- 
 
 bilities as miracles, 376. 
 
 — on the Cherubim, 377. 
 
 — on the creation of Eve, 379. 
 
 — his language and concepts Greek, 
 
 380. 
 
 — on the Logos, 382. 
 
 — his inheritance, 399. 
 
 — his life, 400. 
 
 — his philosophy, 400. 
 
 — his Jehovah, 400. 
 
 — Ills Hyle, 400. 
 
 — ideas of, 401. 
 
 — welcomes the theory of the Logos, 
 
 401. 
 
 Philo, mythological phraseology of, 
 403,412, 413. 
 
 — steeped in Jewish thought, 404. 
 
 — did not identify the Logos with 
 
 the Messiah, 408 n. 
 
 — his distinct teaching about the 
 
 Logos, 409. 
 
 — his view of man, 409. 
 
 — use of Monogenes, 41 1, 412. 
 
 — recognises the Logos in the 
 
 patriarchs, 413, 439, 
 
 — on Jacob's dream, 4 14. 
 
 — his knowledge of various tech- 
 
 nical terms, 416. 
 
 — indistinct on the soul and God, 
 
 41S. 
 
 — his psychology, 418, 419, 420. 
 
 — (n tlie senses, 419. 
 
 — his use of nous, 420. 
 
 — Iiis britlge from earth to heaven, 
 
 424. 
 
 — eschatological language of, 425. 
 
 — his stoicism, 426. 
 
 — allegorised, the, Old Testament, 
 
 429. 
 
 — the Logos as intervening between 
 
 the Divine and matter, 455. 
 
 — treatise, De Vitn Contemplaliva, 
 
 ascribed to, 464. 
 Philosophy of religion, 3. 
 
 — Indian, 66-68. 
 
 — language the common back- 
 
 ground of, 71, 77. 
 
 — later growth of, 77- 
 
 — begins with doubting the evi- 
 
 dence of the senses, 102. 
 
 — and religion, 294, 446, 455. 
 
 — of Philo, 370. 
 
 — of Clement, 370. 
 (^ttif, 416 n. 
 
 (] aiTiajJ-us, 481. 
 
 Photius, 464. 
 
 Phraortes, irom Greek Pravarti, 
 
 205. 
 Physical impossibilities not accepted 
 
 as miracles by Philo, Clement, 
 
 or Origen, 376. 
 
 — religion, 89, 90, 106, 160, 
 
 541-
 
 572 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Physical Religion, importance of tlie 
 
 Veda for, 95. 
 last results of, 232. 
 
 — science, wild dreams of, 388. 
 
 — teaching of Xenophanes, 332, 
 
 333- 
 Pindar, 210. 
 Pisa^as, 163. 
 Pitaras, not in Avesta, 205. 
 
 — the Vedic, 207. 
 
 — the Fathers in the Veda, Fra- 
 
 vashis ill the Avesta, 204. 
 Pitris, 121 w. 
 
 — and the summer solstice, 145. 
 
 — or Fathers, 190, 191. 
 
 — as conceived in the Vedic Hymns, 
 
 191. 
 
 — invoked in the Vedic Hymns, 
 
 191. 
 Pitriyana, the Path of the Fathers, 
 117, 130, 148. _ 
 
 — belief in, the earliest period, 150. 
 Plato, 85, 102, 144, 244, 287W., 299, 
 
 318. 373, 375, 380. 384, 400, 
 426, 430, 521. 
 
 — uses Oromasos for Ahuramazda, 
 
 45- 
 •^ the philosopher from the He- 
 brews, 82. 
 
 — in Egypt, 82, 84. 
 
 — and Aristotle knew Zoroaster's 
 
 name, 83. 
 
 — in the East, 84. 
 
 — nine classes of rebirths, 164, 215. 
 
 — ideas, 104, 105,205, 387, 389, 392, 
 
 469, 510. 
 
 — and the Upanisbads and Avesta, 
 
 similarities between, 208, 209, 
 213. 
 
 — his mythological language, 209. 
 
 — asserts the immortality of the 
 
 soul, 210. 
 
 — length of periods of metempsy- 
 
 chosis, 216, 
 
 — the philosophers of India, coinci- 
 
 dences between, 217, 220. 
 
 — stronger differences, 220. 
 
 — first idea of metempsychosis 
 
 purely ethical, 218. 
 
 Plato, on Xenophanes' tenets, 331. 
 
 — Philonizes, or Philo Platonizes, 
 
 371. 
 
 — Justin Martyr on, 373. 
 
 — his ideas on the origin of species, 
 
 386, 392. 
 
 — his one pattern of the world, 
 
 393. 
 
 — highest idea of the good, 393, 
 
 394- 
 
 — his Cosmos, 394. 
 
 — soul divine, 395. 
 
 — called the Attic Moses, 415. 
 
 — his Trinity, 440. 
 
 — on the body aa opposed to the 
 
 soul, 527. 
 
 — der groze Pfaffe, 509. 
 Platonists at Cambridge, 323. 
 
 — their likeness to the Upanishada 
 
 and Vedantists, 321. 
 Plato's authority, 208. 
 Play on words, 2 7 8. 
 Pliny on Hermippos, 38, 83. 
 Plotinus, teaching of, on the soul, 
 
 280. 
 
 — on Jupiter, 422. 
 
 — follower of Philo, 424. 
 
 — on absorption in the absolute, 
 
 427. 
 
 — his attention to Eastern religions, 
 
 428. 
 
 — and the Christian religion, 429. 
 
 — his letter to Flaccus, 430. 
 
 — and the ecstatic state, 433, 
 
 445- 
 
 — on his soul, 433. 
 Plutarch, 38, 83, 470. 
 
 — on Daimones, 471, 472. 
 Po, night, 228. 
 
 Poetical language of Sufiism, 349. 
 Poetry of the Mohammedans, half- 
 erotic, half-mystic, 350. 
 Polycarp, 454. 
 Polynesian converts, language of, 
 
 367- 
 Polynesians on the immortality of 
 
 the soul, 226-231. 
 Popular preachers in Germany, 
 
 506.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 573 
 
 Popular religion for the unlearned, 
 
 522. 
 Porphyrins, 144-145 n., 425 n., 429, 
 
 433- 
 
 — on the tropics, 144. 
 
 — on Origen, 450. 
 
 Potter's wheel, simile of, applied to 
 
 the free soul, 309. 
 Powers, 475. 
 Practical religion for the many, 
 
 449. 
 Pra(/apati, 96, 121, 122, 130, 133, 
 
 241, 247, 250, 251, 272. 
 
 — his first lesson on Self, the reflec- 
 
 tion, 252, 262. 
 
 — his second lesson, dreams, 254, 
 
 263. 
 
 — his third lesson, dreamless sleep, 
 
 255. 263. 
 
 — his last lesson, the true Self, 256, 
 
 264. 
 
 — on the Highest Self, 267. 
 
 — a later deity, 259. 
 
 — his teaching to Iiidra, 261. 
 Pra^nil, knowledge, 123, 124. 
 Pramadadasa Mitra and the simile 
 
 of the peer, 299. 
 Pramanas, two, 102. 
 Prana, breath, for the godhead, 
 
 237- 
 
 — spirit, 245, 247, 248. 
 Pratika, 295. 
 
 Pratyaksha, sensuous perception, 
 
 102, 293. 
 Pravartin, Sk., 205. 
 Prayer, as petition, unknown to the 
 
 Buddhists, 12. 
 
 — known to the Confucians, 12. 
 
 — Greek, 13. 
 
 — Egyptian, 13. 
 
 — Accadian, 14. 
 
 — Babylonian, 15. 
 
 — Vedic, 16, 17. 
 
 — Avestic, 18. 
 
 — Zoroastrian, 19. 
 
 — Chinese, 20. 
 
 — Mohammedan, 21. 
 
 — Modern Hindu, 21. 
 Prayers, a'ncient, 12. 
 
 Predicates of the Godhead, 402. 
 
 Prepositions, 78. 
 
 Primal cause, 388. 
 
 Prime mover of Aristotle, 395. 
 
 Principalities, 475. 
 
 Proclus, hierarchies of, 164, 165. 
 
 — on the Mystse, 42 S. 
 
 — his connection with the mediaeval 
 
 mystics, 429, 430. 
 
 — and Neo-PIatonism, 462. 
 
 — or Proculus, studied by Eckhart, 
 
 509. 
 Prophets and the Divine Spirit, 420 
 irpajToyovos, 415. 
 Prototokos, X. 
 
 Psalmist's view of Jehovah, 50. 
 'P^'XV, 237. 
 Psychic, 91. 
 Psychological Mythology, 75. 
 
 — Religion, 91. 
 
 — meaning of, 91. 
 
 importance of the Vedanta for, 
 
 95- 
 the gist of, 106. 
 
 — Religion or Theosophy, 541. 
 Pulotu, or Purotu, the Samoan 
 
 heaven, 228. 
 Punishment of the wicked in the 
 
 Avesta, 203, 
 little about, in the Upani- 
 
 shads, 203. 
 Purgatory among the Jews, 200. 
 
 — called Hamlstakan in the Avesta, 
 
 226. 
 Purusha, 244, 246, 247, 252. 
 Purusho manasaA, 115 n., 116 «• 
 Pilrva Mimamsa, 98, 99, 306. 
 ascribed to Badarayawa, 99, 
 
 101. 
 Pflrvapakshin, 265. 
 Pashan, 138. 
 Pythagoras and his studies in Egypt, 
 
 82, 84. 
 
 — whence his belief in metempsy- 
 
 chosis, 85, 152. 
 
 — and the Milky Way, 145. 
 Pythagoreans, 77. 
 
 — schools of the, 328. 
 
 — diflerent classes, 328.
 
 574 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 QUIETISM, 492. 
 
 RA, the sun-god, 227, 229. 
 Kabia, the earliest Sufi, 340-341, 
 
 343- 
 Rabbis, their teaching on man s 
 
 good and evil works, 200. 
 on Paradise, and twelve 
 
 months' purgatory, 200. 
 
 — — in advance of the Old 
 
 Testament, 201. 
 Radamanthys, 64 n. 
 Ea(/anya, warrior-caste, 247. 
 Eahu, 120. 
 Rainbow, 169, 170, 177. 
 
 — same as the Devayana, 171. 
 
 — five colours of, 171. 
 
 Rain and seed as illustration of 
 
 God's work, 307. 
 Rakshasas, 163. 
 Ramami^'a, 273, 313, 315, 316. 
 
 — commentary by, 100, loi, 107, 
 
 108, 113. 
 
 — holds the theory of evolution, 
 
 108, 298, 317. 
 
 — Brahman of, 108. 
 
 — represents an earlier period of 
 
 XJpanish ad- doctrine, 113. 
 
 — on the soul after death, 114. 
 
 — and iSaiikara, their differences, 
 
 314-319. 
 
 — his teaching about Brahman, 
 
 3^5. 317- ,. ., , , 
 
 _ — and about the individual soul, 
 
 315. 
 Ramatirtha, iii. 
 Rammohun Roy, his faith, 375. 
 Raratongan heaven, 228, 229. 
 Rashnfl, 202, 206. 
 
 — weighs the dead, 202. 
 Reality, two kinds of, to the Vedan- 
 
 tist, 320. 
 Reason, xi, 378, 447. 
 
 — and the flaming sword, 378. 
 
 — whose is it? 387. 
 
 — spirit, and appetite as forming 
 
 the soul, 418. 
 
 — the supreme power to Pbilo, 
 
 421. 
 
 Reason, chief subject of Stoic 
 
 thought, 426. 
 Relationship due to common 
 
 humanity, 59. 
 common language, 61. 
 
 — really historical, 62. 
 
 — of mere neiglibourliood, 62. 
 Relative pronoun, 78. 
 Religio, 535._ 
 
 Religion, philosophy of, v. 
 
 — historical documents for studying 
 
 the origin of, 27. 
 
 — and mythology, common Aryan, 
 
 — constituent elements of, 87. 
 
 — system of relations between man 
 
 and God, 336, 
 
 — Disraeli on, 336. 
 
 — a bridge between the visible and 
 
 invisible, 361. 
 
 — and philosophy, 446, 455. 
 
 — object of true, 449. 
 
 — must open a return of the soul to 
 
 God, 474. 
 
 — Physical, Anthropological, and 
 
 Psychological, 541. 
 
 — the bridge between the Finite 
 
 and the Infinite, 538. 
 
 — Principal Caird's definition of, 
 
 542- . 
 
 Religions, comparative study of, 
 raises our faith in Christianity, 
 24. 
 
 — advantage of this study, 34. 
 Religious language, 28. 
 
 of ancient India, 29. 
 
 lesson of, 29. 
 
 — thought, borrowing of, 367. 
 Renan, 464 n. 
 
 Resurrection, fate of the soul at 
 the, according to the Zoroas- 
 trians, 193-195. 
 
 Re-union of the Soul with God, 535. 
 
 two ways of, 535. 
 
 — Christian expression for, 535. 
 Revelation, natural, 7. 
 
 traced in the Veda, 8. 
 
 — or the holy question of the 
 
 Parsis, 55.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 575 
 
 RevelatioDj internal and external, 
 
 485- 
 Reverence for God, want of, 534. 
 Edville, M., on the religions of 
 
 Mexico and Peru, 86. 
 Rewards and punishments after 
 
 death, 195. 
 Zarivthushtra questions Ahura- 
 
 mazda on, 195-199- 
 Ehabanus Maurus, 500 n. 
 Ribhus, genii of the Seasons, 121 n. 
 Richard of St. Victor, 48S. 
 Rig-veda, no knowledge of hell, 166. 
 
 — nor of annihilation, 166. 
 i?ishis, 306. 
 
 Rising on the third night, Persian 
 
 belief in, 194 n. 
 
 day,Jewishbelief in,i947i. 
 
 Sita, Right, same as the Logos of 
 
 Heraclitus, 390. 
 River dividing heaven and hell, 146. 
 Road beginning with li^'ht, i 27, 1 28. 
 Rome borrowed religious language 
 
 from Greece, 368. 
 Roots, expressive of acts, 153. 
 
 — hence Energism, 153. 
 Rope and snake, 298. 
 Riith, 85. 
 
 Roth, 166. 
 
 — on Brahman, 241. 
 
 Russian peasant covering his Eikon, 
 
 487. 
 Ruysbrook, 506. 
 
 SAAGA, great medicine man, 224, 
 225. 
 
 (Sabala, 120. 
 
 Sacred books, their value, 56. 
 
 danger of using biblical lan- 
 guage in translating the, 57. 
 
 of ancient religions, no system 
 
 in, 87. 
 
 — — how classified, 87. 
 
 of India, fragmentary charac- 
 ter of, 33. 
 
 — Books of the East, vi. 
 imperfect, 27. 
 
 author's edition of, 30. 
 
 modern date of, 30. 
 
 Sacred Books of the East, wisdom 
 
 of, 143. 
 native interpreters often 
 
 wrong, 143. 
 Sacrifice, the origin of religion, 83. 
 Sacy, De, Sylvestre, 337. 
 Sadhyas, 164. 
 Sady, 346. 
 
 Said and Mohammed, poem on, 348. 
 5akha, meaning of, 34. 
 Salar/ya, the city, 122. 
 Samanyioi or Buddhists, 46 n. 
 
 — mentioned by Clement of Alex- 
 
 andria, 46 It. 
 SaJnsara, course of tlie world, 277. 
 Samyagdarsana or complete insight, 
 
 293, 302. 
 S'ankara, commentary of, 126, 136, 
 
 234, 241. 
 5ankara, 113, 116 n. 
 
 — the best exponent of theVedanta, 
 
 "3- 
 
 — on the soul after death, 114. 
 
 — and Schopenhauer, 281. 
 
 — and Natural Religion, 311. 
 
 — liis school, 313. 
 
 — a Mouist, 314. 
 
 — and Ramanu^a, their differences, 
 
 314-319- 
 
 — his teaching aboutBrahman,3i5, 
 
 317- 
 
 — holds the theory of illusion, 317. 
 
 — points of resemblance with Ea- 
 
 manu^a, 318. 
 
 — his fearless arguments, 319. 
 
 — his phenomenal world, 319. 
 /Sankara's commentary on the Dia- 
 logue on Self, 261. 
 
 — difficulties, 262, 265-268. 
 
 — considers the Atman always the 
 
 same, 272. 
 /SankaraAaiya, 99 n., lOO, 107, III. 
 
 — commentary by, 99, loi. 
 
 — holds the theory of nescience, J 08. 
 
 — Ills view of Brahman, 108. 
 Sanskrit, lost books in, 33. 
 
 — words in China, 36S. 
 Saramil, the dogs of, 190. 
 Sara?iyu = Erinny8, 73.
 
 576 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Sarpedon, 64 n. ■ 
 iSarva, 182 n. 
 iSarvara = Kerberos, 73. 
 Sassanians, 40. 
 
 — revive Zoroastrianism, 40. 
 Sat, being, 94, 96, 335. 
 Sattya, 279. 
 
 Sattyam, Sattya, 278, 279. 
 Satyabhedavada and Bhedabheda- 
 
 vada, 275, 276. 
 /Saurva, 186. 
 Schein and Sein, 167 n. 
 Schelling, xv. 
 Schiller, 'Die Wei tgeschichte ist das 
 
 Weltgericht,' I. 
 Schlegel, 365 n. 
 Schmidt, Carl, 531. 
 Scholastic theology, 483, 499. 
 Schoolmen, the, 505. 
 
 — true spiritual Christianity in their 
 
 teaching, 525. 
 Schopenhauer and iSankara, 281, 
 
 — on Eckhart, 511. 
 
 Science, a, can be studied apart from 
 its history, 3, 4. 
 
 — of Thought, 521. 
 Scotus Erigena, 297, 514. 
 
 translates the works of Diony- 
 
 sius the Areopagite, 465, 466, 
 
 474- 
 Seasons, brothers of the Moon, 1 2 1 «. 
 
 — genii of the, 121 n. 
 Selene, moon, 29. 
 
 Self, the, 96, 105, 160, 239, 250, 251, 
 262, 272, 447. 
 
 — the All in All, 93. 
 
 — not different from Brahman, 106. 
 
 — dialogue on, 250-256. 
 
 — to be worshipped and served, 253. 
 
 — the Highest, the Divine Self, 
 
 261, 268, 316,325. 
 
 — means the individual, 266. 
 
 — /Sankara's view, 267. 
 
 — the^living, never dies, 288. 
 
 — or Atman, 301. 
 
 — asserts its independence, 304. 
 
 — is really Brahman, 304, 305. 
 
 — the true, 316, 524. 
 
 — -deceit, Jellal eddin on, 357. 
 
 Self, the true bridge between the soul 
 and God, 539. 
 
 — -knowledge of the Brahmans, 93. 
 Semitic and Aryan religions, coinci- 
 dences in, 62. 
 
 — and Greek thought, coincidencea 
 
 between, 63. 
 Senai, 3^4. 
 Seneca, 509. 
 Senses, the five, 300. 
 
 — Philo on the, 419. 
 Seraphim, 475. 
 
 Sermo, ratio, et virtus, 460, 
 
 Sermons in German, 499 n. 
 
 Seth, 376. 
 
 Setu, bridge, 169. 
 
 Setus or bridges, 167. 
 
 Seven sages, 70. 
 
 Sextus on Xenophanes, 332. 
 
 Shadow gave the first idea of soul, 
 
 259- 
 Shaikh, 348. 
 Shakik, 341. 
 Shahpuhar, 40. 
 
 — 11,40. 
 
 — and Atiirpad, their dealings with 
 
 heresy, 40, 41. 
 Shapigan, treasury of, 38, 39, 40. 
 Shechinah, 406. 
 Shepherd, author of the, 441. 
 Simplicius, prayer of, 13. 
 
 — quoted, 333 n., 334 n. 
 Sinlessness, 532. 
 
 Sirens from Shir-chen, 63 n. 
 Slrozeh, the, 43. 
 
 Sita, bright, from asita, dark, 188 ra. 
 Skambha, name of the Supreme 
 
 Being, 247. 
 aicia, 415. 
 *Sloka period, 161. 
 Smriti, 272. 
 
 Society Islanders' heaven, 228-231. 
 Sokrates and the Indian philosopher, 
 
 83,84. 
 
 — and Plato, 391. 
 
 — his belief in one God, 392. 
 
 — and ' the thought in all,' 392. 
 
 — ideas of, 392. 
 Solon in Egypt, 82.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 577 
 
 Soma, 50, 119, 119 n., 139, 140, 
 147. 
 
 — the moon, 121 n. 
 Soma-loving Fathers, 191, 192. 
 Son of God, xi, xii, xii n., 404. 
 
 TertuUians definition, 461. 
 
 and humanity, oneness and 
 
 difference of, 536. 
 
 — of man, xii. 
 
 Songs of Solomon, 350. 
 
 Sons of God, 365, 543, 
 
 Sopliia or Episteme, 403 n., 406. 
 
 ao(p6s, 344. 
 
 Soul, 105, 447. 
 
 — return of, to God after death, 
 
 92. 
 
 — and God, 91, 92, 336. 
 
 — early Christian view of, 94. 
 
 — Neo-Platonist view of, 94. 
 
 — to God, teaching of the Upani- 
 
 shads on the relation of the, 
 "3- 
 
 — Vedanta theories on the, 113. 
 
 — its return to the Lower Brahman, 
 
 114. 
 
 — in the worlds of Brahman, 116. 
 
 — questioned by the moon, 1 20, 1 2 1 , 
 
 — in the moon, 146, 147. 
 
 — eaten by the Devas, 146, 147. 
 
 — return of, to earth as rain, 154, 
 
 155- 
 
 — clear concept of, in the Upani- 
 
 shads, 154. 
 
 — passing into grain, &c., 155, 156. 
 
 — good attain a good birth, 156, 
 
 — bad, become animals, 156. 
 
 — dangers of, when it has fallen as 
 
 rain, 157. 
 
 — unconscious in its descent, 157. 
 
 — immortality of the, 158. 
 
 — moral government in the fate of 
 
 the, 158. 
 
 — in the Avesta, immortality of, 
 
 190 
 
 — path of, in theVedic Hymns, 190. 
 
 — fate of, at the general resurrec- 
 
 tion, 193. 
 
 — and body, strife between, in the 
 
 Talmud, 20i. 
 
 (4) Pp 
 
 Soul, arrival of, before Bahman and 
 Ahuramazda, 203, 278. 
 
 — after passing the Eluytit bridge, 
 
 203. 
 
 — tale of the, 310. 
 
 — immortality of, asserted by Plato, 
 
 210, 211. 
 
 — names for the, 248. 
 
 — has many meanings, 249. 
 
 — who or what has a, 257. 
 
 — first conception of, from shadow, 
 
 2 59; 
 
 — first idea of, arose from dreams, 
 
 259- 
 
 — true relation of, to Brahman, 265. 
 
 — Vedantist view, 271. 
 
 — true nature of the individual, 269. 
 
 — individual and supreme, 272. 
 
 — not a created thing, 275. 
 
 — Henry More's verses on, 276. 
 
 — Plotinus on, 280. 
 
 — nature of, and its relation to the 
 
 Divine Being, 280. 
 
 — and Brahman, identity of, 282, 
 
 283, 284. 
 
 — different states of the, 307, 308. 
 
 — personality of, 310. 
 
 — the individual, 312. 
 
 — in its true essence is God, 323. 
 
 — and God in Sufiism, 337, 338, 
 
 339. 347. 363- 
 
 — in Vedantism, 338. 
 
 — Jellal eddln on, 357. 
 
 — individual and God, 362. 
 
 — return from the visible to the 
 
 invisible world, 362. 
 
 — of the Stoics, 39S. 
 
 — universal, 399. 
 
 — Philo indistinct on its relation to 
 
 God, 418. 
 
 — its wider meaning to Philo, 418. 
 
 — its threefold division, 418. 
 
 — its sevenfold division, 419. 
 
 — perishable and imperishable parta, 
 
 419. 
 
 — Old Testament teaching on, 41 8 
 
 420. 
 
 — as coming from and returning to 
 
 God, 423, 424.
 
 578 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Soul, influenced by matter, 437. 
 
 — the beautiful in the, 432. 
 
 — of God and eternal, 451. 
 
 — every fallen, 452. 
 
 — and the One Being, 483. 
 
 — Eckhart on, 515, 516. 
 
 — something uncreated in, 516. 
 
 — Divine element in the, 516, 
 
 — birth of the Son in the, 5 1 6. 
 
 — founded by Eckhart on the Di- 
 
 vine Ground, 523. 
 
 — in its created form separated 
 
 from God, 523. 
 
 — its relation to God according to 
 
 Eckhart, 524. 
 
 — oneness with God, 534. 
 
 — and the metaphor of the sun's 
 
 rays, 540. 
 
 — after death, journey of the, 113 
 
 et seq. 
 passages from the Upani- 
 
 shads, 114 e< seq. 
 — met by one of the faithful, 
 
 115 n., 116 n. 
 
 wanderings of, 143. 
 
 three stages in the Upani- 
 
 shads, 150. 
 
 first stage, 150. 
 
 second stage, 150. 
 
 third stage, 151. 
 
 Zoroastrian teaching on, 
 
 193- 
 
 Plato s views, 208, 209. 
 
 — silence of Buddha on, 233. 
 
 all other religions on, 233. 
 
 Souls, weighing of, 167. 
 
 — leaving the moon, 159. 
 
 — in the world of the gods, 159. 
 
 — before the throne of Brahman, 
 
 160. 
 
 — of the wicked, fate of, 198. 
 
 — revisiting earth among the Hai- 
 
 das, 224. 
 
 — ethical idea, 225. 
 
 — of ' those who die on a pillow,' 
 
 228, 229 n. 
 
 — scintillations of God, 276. 
 
 — receiving bodies according to 
 
 their deeds, 301. 
 
 Soul's inseparatenessfromBrabman, 
 126. 
 
 — journey more simple in the Avesta 
 
 than in the Upanishads, 204. 
 Sparks and fire, 275. 
 Special revelation needed for a belief 
 
 in God, 5. 
 Species, elSos, 386, 388. 
 
 — evolution of, 387. 
 
 — the ideas of Plato, 392. 
 Speculations on Brahman, later, 278. 
 Speculative school, 530. 
 
 Speech, universal, 59. 
 
 Spenser, odes of, 353. 
 
 Spenta Armaiti, 206. 
 
 Spent6 mainyu, the beneficent spirit, 
 183, 184. 
 
 became a name of Ahura- 
 
 mazda, 185. 
 
 airfpfxariKoi, 398. 
 
 a(f>atpo{idr]s, 237. 
 
 Sphere, concept of the perfect, 388. 
 
 Spiegel, 46 n., 48 n. 
 
 Spinoza, 102. 
 
 Spirit World, names for, among Poly- 
 nesians, 228. 
 
 Spirit, as Word, Reason, and Power, 
 461. 
 
 Spiritism, 153. 
 
 Spiritus, Tertullian's use of, 461. 
 
 Spitama Zarathushtra, 205. 
 
 Sprenger, 344 »i. 
 
 /Sraddadhau, credidi, 79- 
 
 (Sraddha, 204. 
 
 (Sraddhas, 191. 
 
 Srosh, 201, 202. 
 
 iSruti, or inspiration, I02, 104, 1 37, 
 141, 268, 272. 
 
 — is the Veda, 104. 
 
 — difficulties created by, 13 7- 
 
 — Brahman as are, 141. 
 
 — only removes nescience, 293. 
 St. Augustine, 457, 462, 472, 505, 
 
 509. 
 
 — on God made man, 323, 421, 
 
 444. 456. 
 
 — a Neo-Platonist, 429. 
 
 — on the speaking of God, 521. 
 St. Basil, 462.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 579 
 
 St. Basil, his distinction between 
 
 KTjpvyixara and Suyfiara, 48 1 . 
 St. Bernard, 345, 457, 462, 486-488, 
 
 494. 505- 
 
 — on the Christian life, 489. 
 
 — his Ecstasis, 490. 
 
 — his twelve degrees of humility, 
 
 490. 
 
 — resembles the Vedantists and 
 
 Neo-Platonists, 491. 
 
 — his position in the Church and 
 
 State, 492, 
 
 — and Abelard, 492. 
 
 — his theology and life, 493. 
 
 — and the Crusades, 492. 
 St. Chrysostom, 509. 
 
 St. Clement of Alexandi-ia, xii, xiii, 
 297. 384. 433. 434» 434 »•. 463, 
 517- . 
 
 — complains of plagiarism, 371. 
 
 — superior to St. Paul, 435. 
 
 — why he became a Christian, 435. 
 
 — his Master, 436. 
 
 — his faith in the Old Testament, 
 
 436. 
 
 — his allegorical interpretation of 
 
 the New Testament, 436. 
 
 — Trinity of, 436, 437, 442. 
 
 — Logos of, 437, 439, 444. 
 
 — recognised Jesus as the Logos, 
 
 43S, 440. 
 
 — Holy Ghost of, 440, 442. 
 
 — his idea of personality, 442. 
 
 — oneness of the human and divine 
 
 natures, 443, 444. 
 
 — his idea of Christ, 444. 
 
 — his teaching for babes, 445. 
 
 — his higher teaching, 445. 
 
 — knowledge or Gnosis, 445. 
 
 — resembles the Vedanta teaching 
 
 and not Sufiisui, 445. 
 
 — on gods and angels, 472. 
 
 — on the celestial and earthly hier- 
 
 archies, 478 n. 
 
 — uncanonised, 454, 456, 488. 
 
 — on the believer, 456. 
 St. Cyril. 463. 
 
 St. Denis, and Dionysius the Areo- 
 pagite, 465. 
 
 P 
 
 St. Jerome on new words, 460. 
 St. Paul and Pantheism, 94. 
 
 — a philosophical apologete of Chris- 
 
 tianity, 435. 
 St. Theresa, 462. 
 St. "Victors, the two, 525. 
 Sthdlasarira, the coarse body, 296. 
 Stoa, 384. 
 Stobaeus, 390. 
 
 Stoical division of the Soul, 419. 
 Stoics, 372, 377, 380, 384, 396. 
 
 — Pteason or Logos of, 397, 398, 
 
 399- 
 
 — Hyle, matter, of the, 397. 
 
 — God of the, 397. 
 
 — true Pantheists, 397. 
 
 — the Logoi of, 397, 398. 
 
 — external and internal Logos, 398. 
 
 — soul living after death, 398. 
 
 — universal soul, 398. 
 
 — and Neo-Platonists, 424-427. 
 
 — and God, 426. 
 iSiidra caste, 247. 
 Siidras, 163. 
 
 — can study the Vedanta, 330. 
 Sufi, son of the season, 160. 
 
 — Fakir, Darwlsh, 344. 
 
 — poets, extracts from, 354-361. 
 
 — derivation of, 338, 339, 344. 
 
 — doctrines, abstract of, 339. 
 
 — Eabia the earliest, 340. 
 
 — terms derived from Christianity, 
 
 343- 
 
 — four stages of the, 348. 
 Sufiisii), its origin, 337. 
 
 — not genealogically descended firom 
 
 Vedantism, 337. 
 
 — soul and God in, 337. 
 
 — Tholuck on, 338. 
 
 — Mahommedaii in origin, 338. 
 
 — treatises on, 348. 
 
 — Persian influence on, 342. 
 
 — its connection with early Chris- 
 
 tianity, 342, 343. 
 
 — the founder of, 343. 
 
 — poetical language of, 349. 
 
 — morality of, 354. 
 
 — may almost be called Christian, 
 
 359- 
 P '
 
 580 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Sufiism, Christianity and the Ve- 
 danta-philosophy, coincidences 
 between, 366, 
 
 Sufis, the, 338, 539. 
 
 — their belief, 339. 
 
 — traces of Platonism among the, 
 
 342- 
 
 — wrote both in Persian and Arabic, 
 
 344- 
 
 — their asceticism, 345. 
 
 — their saint-like lives, 345. 
 
 — Jellal eddln on the true, 346. 
 
 — little theosophic philosophy 
 
 among, 346. 
 
 — mystical theology of, 353. 
 
 — appeal to Jesus, 360. 
 Sfikshmasarira, the subtle (astral ?) 
 
 body, 296. 
 
 — Theosophists and, 305. 
 Summer Solstice, 145. 
 
 the ayana of the Pitns, 1 45, 
 
 146, 
 
 among the Parsis, 145. 
 
 Sun, Jellal eddin on, 356. 
 
 — and its rays, metaphor of the, 
 
 539. 540- 
 SuparHas, 163. 
 Supernatural religion, vii. 
 Supreme Being, 239, 241, 273, 447. 
 
 one, in the Vedas, 50. 
 
 Xenophanes on, 50. 
 
 in the Avesta, 50. 
 
 — — of both Jews and Greeks 
 
 separated from man, 379, 
 
 — — or Monogenes, 410-412. 
 
 above Jupiter, 423. 
 
 Supreme Soul, 272. 
 
 Suras, how the word was formed, 187. 
 
 — connected with svar, 188. 
 Suso, 506. 
 
 — his penances, 531. 
 Sfttra, 97. 
 
 — style, 97, 127, 130, 132, 133, 
 
 134. 136. 
 SAtras, alone almost unintelligible, 
 127. 
 
 — laws of Manu existed first as, 
 
 161. 
 
 — and their commentarieB, 370, 
 
 Svargaloka, 159, 171. 
 
 Svarga-world, 120. 
 
 Svayambhft, 248. 
 
 Svetaketu and his father, 285-290. 
 
 /Syama, 120. 
 
 Synesius, Bishop, 373. 
 
 Synod of Antioch, 412. 
 
 — of Trier, 503. 
 awTTjprjais, 524. 
 
 TAHITIAN heaven, 228. 
 
 — faith, 231. 
 
 Talmud and Christian doctrines, 9, 
 10. 
 
 — no bridge to another life in the, 
 
 174. 
 
 — strife between soul and body, 201. 
 Tangiia, iron-wood tree for souls, 
 
 230. 
 Tartarus, 217. 
 
 Tat tvam asi, 105, 279, 285, 291. 
 Tauler, 457, 487, 506, 536. 
 
 — his sermons, 506. 
 
 — borrowed from Eckharfc, 506. 
 
 — stillness and silence taught by, 
 
 529- 
 
 — discouraged extreme penance, 
 
 529- 
 
 — led an active life, 529. 
 
 — on confession, 530. 
 
 — on visions, 531. 
 
 — on sinlessness, 533. 
 Telang, Mr., 99 n. 
 
 Temple, Dr., on the personality of 
 
 God, 235. 
 TertuUian, 434, 460. 
 
 — his Latin equivalents for Logos, 
 
 460. 
 
 — on the Son of God, 461, 
 
 — his use of spiritus, 461. 
 jy rod OVTOS 6ea, 214. 
 Thales, 80, 85. 
 
 That and thou, identity of the, 106. 
 Theodore of Mopsuestia, 443. 
 Theodorus, 464. 
 Theologia Oermanica, 510, 510 n. 
 
 Henry More on, 511. 
 
 Theologos, name for St. John, 453 «. 
 Theology, 87.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 581 
 
 Theology, lessoas of comparative, 
 178. 
 
 — mystic and Bcholastic, 48 a. 
 Theopompos, 45. 
 
 Theo3, 447. 
 
 9f6s and o 6t6s, 456, 459, 
 eiaiafs, 481, 483,482 n. 
 Theosophic, 91. 
 
 — philosophy of the Vedantist, not 
 
 of the Sufis, 346. 
 Theosophy, 91, 92, 106, 541. 
 
 — true meaning of, xvi. 
 
 — in Christianity, 446. 
 
 — highest lesson of, 539, 
 Therapeutai, the, 464. 
 Thibaut, 99, 100, 275 n. 
 
 — on Ramanu^a, 313. 
 
 ' Thinking and willing,' 383. 
 Third or evil road, 1 30. 
 
 — Person of the Trinity, 441. 
 
 probably a Jewish idea, 441. 
 
 Origen's view, 45a. 
 
 Tholuck, 463, 467. 
 
 — on Sufiism, 338. 
 
 — on mysticism, 484, 
 
 Thomas Aquinas, v, 297, 462, 466, 
 474, 494. 499. 509. 512, 514. 
 525- 
 
 follows and depends on 
 
 Dionyaius, 484, 495. 
 
 on faith and knowledge, 494. 
 
 not a true mystic, 494. 
 
 likeness to, not oneness with 
 
 God, 495. 
 
 free from theological pre- 
 judice, 496. 
 
 — . — knowledge of God, 496, 
 
 intellectual vision, 497. 
 
 on creation, 514. 
 
 Thoms, 1740. 
 
 ' Thou art that,' 268, 284. 
 
 Thought of God, 412. 
 
 Thoughts and words, unbroken chain 
 of, 522. 
 
 Three qualities, the, 162. 
 
 — Fates, Er before the, 219. 
 Thrones, 475. 
 
 Tilak, B. G., the antiquity of the 
 Vedas, 145. 
 
 Tin-tir, lord of, 14. 
 Todas, bridge to another life among 
 the, 173. 
 
 — heaven and hell, 174. 
 rb iv KoX rii ov, 237. 
 
 Td ov, 78. 26S, 278, 331, 334. 410, 
 
 447,468. 
 ri ovrais ov, 379. 
 Translation from Vedanta-sCltras, 
 
 127 e^ seq. 
 Transmigration in the Laws of 
 
 Manu, 161. 
 
 — nine classes of, 163. 
 
 — no trace of, in Eastern Pacific, 
 
 231- 
 Trier, Synod of, 503. 
 Trimdrti, 241, 243. 
 Trinity of St. Clement, 436. 
 
 — of Plato, 440. 
 
 — of Numenius, 440. 
 
 — of Origan, 452. 
 Tropics of Porphj-rius, 144. 
 
 — as gates for the soul, 145. 
 True, the i^Satyam), 213. 
 
 — coming back to the, 288. 
 Truth, not served by assertions, 7. 
 
 — universality of, 51. 
 
 — underlying myth, 222. 
 
 — touchstone of, 375. 
 Tundalas, poem of, 170. 
 
 Two gates, or two mouths, 144. 
 
 primeval principles, 184. 
 
 present even in Ahuramazda, 
 
 184, 185. 
 Tylor, 75. 
 Types, whence they arise? 387, 
 
 389. 
 
 — Huxley's idea of, 387, 388. 
 
 UNCERTAINTIES in most an- 
 cient texts, HI. 
 
 Unicus, not unigenitus, 41 1. 
 
 Union, not absorption, 290. 
 
 Union with God, Dionyaius on, 478, 
 479. 480. 
 
 — mystic, 479. 
 
 five stages of, 480. 
 
 Universal Self, 160. 
 
 — Soul, 310.
 
 582 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Unknowable, the, of Agnostics, 
 
 105. 
 Unknown, Absolute Being, 236, 
 
 237- 
 Unmindfulness, river of, 220, 221. 
 Unseen in man, dialogue on the, 
 
 155. 
 Upadhis, 271, 293, 296, 303, 305, 
 
 — what they are, 305. 
 
 — caused by nescience, 305, 
 Upanishad doctrine, an early and 
 
 late growth of, 1 1 3. 
 Upanishads, 77, 79, 80, 94, 95, loi, 
 104, 105, 107, 108, 224, 234, 
 240, 370, 539, 
 
 — are fragments, 96. 
 
 — different accounts of the be- 
 
 ginning in the, 96. 
 
 — revealed, 97. 
 
 — difficult to translate, 109. 
 
 — texts very obscure, no. 
 
 — author's translation of, no. 
 
 — on the relation of the soul to 
 
 God, 113. 
 
 different statements on this in 
 
 the, 113. 
 
 — on the soul after death, 114 et 
 
 seq. 
 
 — historical progress in the, 
 
 125. 
 
 — attempt to harmonise the differ- 
 
 ent statements in the, 127. 
 
 — not in harmony with the Mantras, 
 
 ^37- , . ^ 
 
 — no attempt to harmonise them 
 
 with the teaching of the Vedas, 
 141. 
 
 — three stages of thought as to the 
 
 soul, 150. 
 
 — mythological language inter- 
 
 preted, 142. 
 
 — on the return of souls to earth, 
 
 154- 
 
 — belief in invisible things in the, 
 
 154- 
 
 — knowledge or faith better than 
 
 good works in, 190. 
 
 — a later development than the 
 
 Vedic Hymns, 193. 
 
 Upanishads, struggle for a higher 
 idea of the Godhead, 238. 
 
 — the Supreme Being in, 239. 
 
 — some passages early in, 291. 
 
 — evolution in, 297. 
 
 — equivocal passages in, 312. 
 
 — strange to us, 322, 323. 
 
 — germs of Buddhism in, 325. 
 
 — their doctrine called Kahasya, 
 
 secret, 329. 
 
 — study of, restricted, 329. 
 
 — the psychological problem always 
 
 uppermost, 335. 
 
 — study of, a help to reading Eck- 
 
 hart, 511. 
 Upis in Artemis Upis, 64 n. 
 Urd, well of, 169. 
 Utkranti, exodus of the soul, 309. 
 Uttara Mlmamsa, 98, 99. 
 
 VAGASANEYAKA, 132. 
 
 Va(7asaneyin3, 132. 
 
 Vahram, 201. 
 
 Vai, 201. 
 
 Vaimanika deities, 163. 
 
 Vai«ya-caste, 247. 
 
 Vaisyas, 156. 
 
 Vaitaranl, the river, 170. 
 
 Ykk, 79. 
 
 Valentinians, the, 396. 
 
 Valkhas, or Vologesis I, 39. 
 
 — preserved the Avesta and Zend, 
 
 39- 
 Varstmansar Nask, 50. 
 Variwa, 16, 17, 121, 130, 133, iSi. 
 
 — not Ouranos, 73. 
 
 — above the lightning, 132, 135, 
 
 136. 
 
 — Ahuramazda, a development of, 
 
 183. 
 Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics, 
 
 498 n. 
 Vayu, air, wind, 121, 130, 131, 132, 
 
 ^35)247- „ ,, _ 
 
 Veda, poets of, and Zoroaster left no S 
 
 written works, 31. " 
 
 — from vid, 35. 
 
 — and Vedanta, 95. 
 
 — o?5a, 79.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 583 
 
 Veda, important for Physical and 
 Psychological Religion, 95. 
 
 — superhuman, 103. 
 
 — knowledge, or language, 103. 
 
 — is iS'ruti, 1 04. 
 
 — a book with seven seals, 112, 
 
 — historical growth of, 142. 
 
 — struggle for higher idea of the 
 
 Godhead in, 237. 
 
 — the Supreme Being in, 239, 240. 
 
 — study of, restricted, 330. 
 
 — and Avesta, close connection of 
 
 languages of, 180. 
 
 — -names shared in common, 182. 
 
 — common background of, 203. 
 Vedanta, 95, 290, 539. 
 
 — literature, three periods of, lOi. 
 
 — schools, two, 107, 113, 114. 
 
 — theories on the soul, 113, 126, 
 
 362,363. 
 
 — founded on jSruti, 141. 
 
 — doctrine on Immortality, 234. 
 
 — as a philosophical system, 282. 
 
 — still a religion, 324. 
 
 — moral character of, 325. 
 
 — safeguards against licence, 326. 
 
 — soul and God in, 336. 
 
 — imparts highest Icnowledge, 293. 
 
 — philosophy, 66, 77, 102, 104, 
 
 105, 107, 108. 
 
 on the Self, 106. 
 
 fundamental principle of, 284, 
 
 292. 
 differs from mystic philosophy, 
 
 284. 
 
 creation in the, 296. 
 
 rich in similes, 324. 
 
 no restriction on the study of, 
 
 329- 
 Sufiism and Christianity, coin- 
 cidences between, 366, 459. 
 
 — its growth, 369, 370. 
 Vedanta-sfltras, 97, 98, loi, 107, 
 
 108, 234, 290, 312. 
 
 number of, 98. 
 
 names of, 98. 
 
 translations of, 1 14 n., 126. 
 
 traiislationof first Sfltra of third 
 
 Chap, of fourth Book, 1 2 7 e< seq. 
 
 Vedanta-sfltras, love of God want- 
 ing in, 291. 
 
 short summary of, 317. 
 
 Vedantism, is it the origin of Su6- 
 ism? 337. 
 
 — likeness to mystic Christianity, 
 
 526. 
 Vedantist, a, on identity after deatli, 
 258. 
 
 — on the Dialogue with Pra^apati, 
 
 261. 
 
 — on the individual soul, 371. 
 
 — admits no difference between 
 
 cause and effect, 303. 
 Vedantists, Eleatic philosophers and 
 Germaii Mystics, 280. 
 
 — personal God of the, 320. 
 
 — two kinds of reality to the, 320. 
 
 — Creator of the, 320. 
 
 — attain the same end as Kant, 321. 
 
 — on union with Brahman in this 
 
 life, 533. 
 Vedic prayers, 16, 17. 
 
 — Hymns, path of the soul in, 190. 
 invocation of the Fathers in, 
 
 191. 
 
 — poets and philosophers advanced 
 
 beyond their old faith common 
 with the Zoroastrians, 189. 
 
 — Sanskrit difficult, 179. 
 
 — deities, some occur as demons in 
 
 the Avesta, 189, 
 Vendidad and Mani, 41, 
 
 — or Vindad, 42, 43. 
 
 — Sadah, 43. 
 
 — age of, 46, 
 
 — bridge of Kinynt in the, 173. 
 
 — God and the Devil in the, 185. 
 Verbal copula, 77. 
 
 Verbum, vrtdh, word, 242. 
 
 Vergottung and Vergotterung, 48 2 n. 
 
 Vesta, 36. 
 
 Vibhu, hall of Brahman, I3i, 122. 
 
 Vid, to know, 35. 
 
 Vi</ara river, 121, 122, 124. 
 
 — means ageless, 142, 170, 221. 
 Vi/akshada, throne, 12 1, 123, 124. 
 
 — the feet and sides of, 123. 
 ViroA'ana, 250, 251, 253, 260.
 
 584 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Virtues, 475. 
 
 Vishnu, 140. 
 
 Visions of ascetics, 528, 531. 
 
 Vispered, the, 43. 
 
 — age of the, 46. 
 
 Vlstasp, sacred books of Zoroaster 
 
 collected under, 38. 
 Visvakarman, 247. 
 Vivarta, 298. 
 Vivarta-vada, 317. 
 Vizaresha, the fiend, 172, 194. 
 Vohtlman6, good thought, 44, 49, 
 
 56, 186, 203. 
 
 — a parallel to the Holy Ghost, 57. 
 Vorstellung, 385. 
 
 Vridh, 242. 
 
 Vritrahan, Veda =Verethraghna, 
 
 Avesta, 182. 
 Vyasa-sfitras, 98. 
 
 WACKERNAGEL and Weinhold, 
 
 50471. 
 Waitz, 75. 
 Waldensians, 503. 
 Wassiljew, 32 n. 
 Water the beginning of all things, 
 
 80, 85. 
 Waxing and waning of the moon, 
 
 147, 14S. 
 Weber, 99 ?j., 166, 16771. 
 Weighing of souls, 167. 
 
 — of the dead in the Minokhired, 
 
 201. 
 
 — by Eashnft, 202. 
 Weisse, xv. 
 Wellhausen, 53. 
 Weltgeschichte, ist das Weltgericht, 
 
 I. 
 West, Dr., 42, 47, 55 n. 
 
 — his translation of the Dlnkard, 
 
 47, 56. 
 Westcott, 204, 210 n., 212 n. 
 
 — on the Logos of the Fourth 
 
 Gospel, 414. 
 
 — story of Dionysius the Areopa- 
 
 gite, 463. 
 
 — on the fifth century, 478. 
 West-Ostlicher Divan, 337. 
 'What thou art, that am I,' 160. 
 
 Whinfield on translations of Greek 
 books into Arabic, 342. 
 
 — translations from the Mesnevl, 
 
 355- 
 Wicked, punishments of, in Manu, 
 165. 
 
 — cannot find the path of the Fathers 
 
 or Gods, 171. 
 
 — burnt by flames, 171, 172. 
 
 — fate of, after death, 198, 199. 
 Widow-burning, appeal to lost books, 
 
 33- 
 Wife of God, 402. 
 Wilford, 81. 
 
 Will, suiTender of our, 542. 
 Wisdom, the Semitic not the same 
 
 as the Logos, xi. 
 
 — of God, 402, 406. 
 
 — personification of, 405. 
 
 — or Sophia, 406. 
 
 — of the Proverbs, 406. 
 
 — as the Father, 407. 
 Word, 242. 
 
 — as Brahman, 242, 243. 
 
 — or Logos, 302, 381. 
 
 — not mere sound but thought, 381, 
 
 385. 
 
 — and thought inseparable, 384. 
 
 — of God, 404, 405, 412. 
 
 — of the Father, 513. 
 
 — has lost its meaning, 521. 
 Words and thoughts, common Aryan 
 
 stock of, 72. 
 Works, blessedness acquired by, 148. 
 return to earth, 148. 
 
 — are exhausted, 150. 
 
 World of Agni, Vayu, &c., 121, 133. 
 
 — connected with loka, 133, 135. 
 
 — as word and thought, 242. 
 
 — is Brahman, 299. 
 
 — the intelligible as the Logos, 
 
 407. 
 
 — and all in it, the true Son, 
 
 417. 
 
 — = places of enjoyment, 133. 
 
 — -spirit of Plato, 440. 
 
 — -wide truths, 10, II. 
 Writing, uo word for, in Veda or 
 
 Avesta, 31.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 585 
 
 Writing known in some books of the 
 Old Testament, 33. 
 
 XENOPHANES on one God, 59. 
 
 — on the Supreme Being, 235, 
 
 237- 
 
 — Plato and Cicero on, 331. 
 
 — likeness of his teaching to the 
 
 Upanishads, 330, 331, 332, 333. 
 
 — Sextus on, 332. 
 
 — physical philosophy of, 332. 
 
 YAMA, 190, 192, 234. 
 
 — realm of, 137, 140. 
 
 — first of mortals, 138. 
 
 — the moon, not the sun, 138 n. 
 
 — near the setting sun, 1 39. 
 
 — tormentor of the wicked, 166. 
 
 — path of, 169. 
 
 — and Varuna, 190. 
 
 — on the fate of the wicked, 217, 
 
 218. 
 
 — in the world of the Fathers, 227, 
 
 228. 
 Yamaloka, 146. 
 Yashts, the, 43. 
 
 — age of, 46. 
 Yasna, the, 43. 
 
 — the old and later, 46. 
 Year, from, to the wind, 130. 
 Yeshnha, moments, I3I, 122. 
 Yoga-sCltras, 327. 
 
 Yogins, 327. 
 Yogis, the, 353. 
 
 ZAOTAR, hotar, 65. 
 Zarathushtra, 36, 206. 
 
 — author of the Gathas, 44. 
 
 — secession of, from the VedioDcTas, 
 
 182. 
 
 — his monotheism, 183. 
 
 — tried to solve the problem of the 
 
 existence of evil, 184. 
 
 — questioned by one of the de- 
 
 parted, 198. 
 
 Zarathushtra's account of Ahura 
 Mazda, 51. 
 
 — talk with Ahura Mazda, 54, 55. 
 
 — followers abjuring their faith in 
 
 the Devas, 188. 
 
 a real historic event, 188, 1S9. 
 
 Zaramaya, oil of, 198, 221. 
 
 Zeller, Die Fhilosopkie der 
 
 Griechen, Si, 82, 83, 84, 107 «., 
 
 280 n., 335. 
 Zend Avesta, erroneous name, 35, 36. 
 
 — translated into Greek, 39. 
 
 — preserved by Vologeses I, 39. 
 
 — language, 43. 
 Zeno, 330. 
 
 — on the Logos, 460. 
 Zeus, 105, 212, 447. 
 
 — deus, bright, 29. 
 
 — or Jupiter, lesson of, 29. 
 
 — and Dyaus, 73. 
 
 — wrong derivation from ^j', 73. 
 
 — of Xenophanes, 330, 331. 
 
 a personal deity, 331. 
 
 Cicero on, 331. 
 
 — of Aristotle, 395. 
 Zimmer, 139 n. 
 
 Zoroaster, analysis of his books by 
 Hermippus, 83. 
 
 — teaches neither Fire-worship nor 
 
 Dualism, 180. 
 
 — and the Vedic Rishis, religions 
 
 of, 181. 
 
 — name known to Plato and Ari- 
 
 stotle, 83. 
 Zoroastrian prayer, 19. 
 
 — religion, loss of many books, 56. 
 
 — idea of a spiritual and material 
 
 creation, 56, 57. 
 
 — parallel to the Logos, 57. 
 
 — Mazdayaznian, 188. 
 Zoroastrianism revived by the Sas- 
 
 sanians, 40. 
 Zoroastrians in some points moi-e 
 simple than the Vedic pliiloso- 
 phers, 189. 
 
 THE END.
 
 O;rfor& 
 
 HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THK UNIVERSITY
 
 CATALOGUE OF PRINCIPAL WORKS 
 
 PUBLISHED BT 
 
 PROFESSOR F. MAX MULLER. 
 
 COMPILED BY M. W. 
 
 Hitopade-m. Eine alte indische Fabelsammlung, aus 
 dem Sanskrit zum ersten Mai ins Deutsche iiber- 
 setzt. 1844, (Out of print.) 
 
 Meghaduta, der Wolkenbote, dem Kalidasa nachge- 
 dichtet. 1847. (Out of print.) 
 
 On the Relation of the Bengali to the Aryan and 
 Aboriginal Languages of India. 1847. (Trans- 
 actions of the British Association for 1847.) 
 
 Rig-Veda-Samhita. The Sacred Hymns of the Brah- 
 mans, together with the Commentary of Saya7ia- 
 Mrya, edited by F. M. M. 6 vols. 4to. 1 849-T 873. 
 
 On the Turanian Languages. Letter to Chevalier 
 Bunsen. 1853. (Out of print.) (In Bunsen's 
 Christianity and Mankind, vol. Ill, pp. 263 seq.) 
 
 On Indian Logic (in Thomson's ' Laws of Thought '}. 
 
 1853- 
 Proposals for a Uniform Missionary Alphabet. 1 854. 
 Suggestions for the Assistance of Officers in Learning 
 
 the Languages of the Seat of War in the East. 
 
 1854.
 
 The Languages of the Seat of War in the East ; with 
 a Survey of the three Families of Language, 
 Semitic, Aryan, and Turanian. Second Edition. 
 With an Appendix on the Missionary Alphabet 
 and an Ethnological Map by A. Petermann. 
 ^^55' (Out of print.) 
 
 Comparative Mythology, 1 856. (Reprinted in ' Chips 
 from a German Workshop.') 
 
 Deutsche Liebe. Aus den Papieren eines Fremdlings. 
 1857. Ninth Edition, 1889. 
 
 Buddhism and Buddhist Pilgrims. 1857. (Reprinted 
 in ' Chips from a German Workshop.') 
 
 The German Classics from the Fourth to the Nine- 
 teenth Century. 1858. New Edition, by F. 
 Lichtenstein. 2 vols. Oxford, 1886. 
 
 Correspondence relating to the Establishment of an 
 Oriental College in London. (Reprinted from 
 The Times, 1858.) 
 
 A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature. 1859. 
 Second Edition, i860. (Out of print.) 
 
 Ancient Hindu Astronomy and Chronology. 1862. 
 (From fourth volume of the Rig- Veda.) 
 
 Lectures on the Science of Language, delivered at the 
 Royal Institution of Great Britain. Vol. I, 1861. 
 Vol. II, 1867. Fourteenth Edition, 1886. 
 
 Hitopadesa. Sanskrit Text with Interlinear Trans- 
 literation, Grammatical Analysis, and English 
 Translation. 1866, 
 
 A Sanskrit Grammar for Beginners. 1866. Second 
 Edition, 1870. New and abridged Edition, by 
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 Chips from a German Workshop. 4 vols. 1867- 
 1875. Second Edition. Vols. I, II. 1868. 
 (Out of print. A selection published under the 
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 Volume I. 
 Lecture on the Vedas, or the Sacred Books of the BrAh* 
 
 mans, delivered at Leeds, 1865. 
 Christ and other Masters, 1858. 
 The Veda and Zend-Avesta, 1853. 
 The Aitareya-BrahmaMa, 1864. 
 On the Study of the Zend-Avesta in India, 1863. 
 Progress of Zend Scholarship, 1865. 
 Genesis and the Zend-Avesta, 1864. 
 The Modern Parsis, 1862. 
 Buddhism, 1862. 
 Buddhist Pilgrims, 1857. 
 The Meaning of Nirvana, 1857. 
 Chinese Translations of Sanskrit Texts, i86i. 
 The Works of Confucius, 1861. 
 Popol Vuh, 1862. 
 Semitic Monotheism, i860. 
 
 Volume II. 
 Comparative Mythology, 1856. 
 Greek Mythology, 1858. 
 Greek Legends, 1867. 
 Bellerophon, 1855. 
 The Norsemen in Iceland, 1858. 
 Folk-Lore, 1863. 
 Zulu Nursery Tales, 1867. 
 Popular Tales from the Norse, 1859. 
 Tales of the West Highlands, i86i. 
 On Manners and Customs, 1865. 
 Our Figures, 1863. 
 Caste, 1858. 
 
 Volume TIL 
 German Literature, 1858. 
 Old German Love-Songs, 1858.
 
 Ye Schyppe of Fooles, 1858. 
 
 Life of Schiller, 1859. 
 
 Wilhelm Muller, 1858. 
 
 On the Language and Poetry of Schleswig-Holstein, 1864. 
 
 Joinville, 1866. 
 
 The Journal des Savants and the Journal de Trevoux, 1866. 
 
 Chasot, 1856. 
 
 Shakespeare, 1864. 
 
 Bacon in Germany, 1857. 
 
 A German Traveller in England a.d. 1598, 1857. 
 
 Cornish Antiquities, 1867. 
 
 Are there Jews in Cornwall? 1867. 
 
 The Insulation of St. Michael's Mount, 1867. 
 
 Bunsen, 1868. 
 
 Letters from Bunsen to Max Miiller in the years 1848 to 
 
 1859. 
 
 Volume IV. 
 
 Inaugural Lecture, On the Value of Comparative Philology 
 as a branch of Academic Study, delivered before the 
 University of Oxford, 1868. 
 
 Note A. On the Final Dental of the Pronominal Stem tad. 
 
 Note B. Did Feminine Bases in d take s in the Nomina- 
 tive Singular ? 
 
 Note C. Grammatical Forms in Sanskrit corresponding to 
 so-called Infinitives in Greek and Latin. 
 
 Eede Lecture, Part I. On the Stratification of Language, 
 delivered before the University of Cambridge, 1868, 
 
 Eede Lecture, Part II. On Curtius' Chronology of the 
 Indo-Germanic Languages, 1875. 
 
 Lecture on the Migration of Fables, delivered at the Koyal 
 Institution, June 3, 1870 {Contemporary Review, July, 1870). 
 
 Appendix. On Professor Benfey's Discovery of a Syriac 
 Translation of the Indian Fables. 
 
 Notes. 
 
 Lecture on the Results of the Science of Language, de- 
 livered before the University of Strassburg, May 23, 
 1872 {Contemporary Review, June, 1872). 
 
 Note A. @i6$ and Deus.
 
 Noto B. The Vocative of Dyaus and Zti^r. 
 Note C. Aryan Words occuiring in Zend but not in San- 
 Bkrit. 
 
 Lecture on Missions, delivered in Westminster Abbey, 
 
 December 3, 1873. 
 Note A. Passages shewing the Missionary Spirit of 
 
 Buddhism. 
 Note B. The Schism in the Brahma-Samftj. 
 Note C. Extracts from Keshub Chunder Sen's Lectures. 
 Dr. Stanley's Introductory Sermon on Christian Missions. 
 On the Vitality of Brahmanism, postscript to the Lecture 
 
 on Missions {Fortnightly Beineio, July, 1874). 
 
 Address on the Importance of Oriental Studies, delivered 
 at the International Congress of Orientalists in London, 
 1874. 
 
 Notes. 
 
 Life of Colebrooke, with Extracts from his Manuscript 
 Notes on Comparative Philology {Edinburgh Eeview, 
 October, 1872). 
 
 Reply to Mr. Darwin (Contemporary Review, January, 1875). 
 
 In Self-Defence. 
 
 Index to Vols. III. and IV. 
 
 On the Stratification of Language. Sir Robert Rede's 
 Lecture, delivered at Cambridge. 1868. 
 
 Rig- Veda- Samhita. The Sacred Hymns of the Brah- 
 mans. Translated and explained by F. M. M. 
 Vol. I : Hymns to the Maruts. 1 869. 
 
 Rig-Veda-Prati6.akhya : Das alteste Lehrbuch der 
 Vedischen Phonetik. Sanskrit Text mit Ueber- 
 setzung und Anmerkungen. Leipzig, 1 869. 
 
 Buddhaghosha's Parables translated from Burmese by 
 Captain T. Rogers, with an Introduction con- 
 taining Buddha's Dhammapada, translated from 
 Pali by F. M. M. 1870.
 
 Letters on the War between Germany and France, by 
 
 T. Mommsen, D. F. Strauss, F. Max Miiller, and 
 
 T. Carlyle. 1871. 
 Speech at the German Peace Festival in London, 
 
 May, 1 87 1. Leipzig, 1871. 
 Ueber die Resultate der Sprachwissenschaft. Vorle- 
 
 sung. Strassburg, 1872. 
 On Missions: a Lecture delivered in Westminster 
 
 Abbey, with an Introductory Sermon by A. P. 
 
 Stanley. London, 1873. (Out of print.) 
 The Hymns of the Rig-Veda in the Samhita and Pada 
 
 Texts. (Reprinted from the Editio Princeps.) 
 
 2 vols. 1873. 
 Lectures on Mr. Darwin's Philosophy of Language, 
 
 delivered at the Royal Institution in March and 
 
 April, 1873. (Out of print.) 
 Introduction to the Science of Religion: Four Lectures 
 
 delivered at the Royal Institution. 1873. New 
 
 Edition, 1880. 
 Basedow, J. B. (M.M.'s great grandfather), a Biography, 
 
 in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographic, 1875. 
 Schiller's Briefwechsel mit Herzog Christian von 
 
 Schleswig-Holstein. 1875. 
 Ueber Ablative auf d mit Locativbedeutung (Jahr- 
 
 blicher fiir Philologie. 1876, Heft 10, 'Selected 
 
 Essays '). 
 On Spelling. London and Bath, 1876, 1886. 
 Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, as 
 
 illustrated by the Religions of India. Hibbert 
 
 Lectures, 1878. Last Edition, 1891.
 
 The Upanishads, translated, (Sacred Books of the 
 East, Vol. I, 1879; Vol. XV, 1884.) 
 
 Selected Essaj's on Language, Mythology, and Re- 
 ligion. 2 vols. 1881. 
 
 Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, in Com- 
 memoration of the Centenary of its First Pub- 
 lication. Translated by M. M., with Introduction 
 by L. Noird 1881. 
 
 The Dhammapada, translated from Pali. 1881. (Vol. 
 X, Part 1 of Sacred Books of the East.) 
 
 Buddhist Texts from Japan, edited in the Aryan Series 
 of the Anecdota Oxoniensia, I, i. 1881. 
 
 Sacred Books of the East. Letter to the Very Rev. 
 the Dean of Christ Church. Oxford, 1882. 
 
 Sukh^vativyuha, Description of Sukhavati, The Land 
 of Bliss, edited by F. M. M. and Bunyiu Nanjio. 
 (Anecdota Oxoniensia, Vol. I, Part ii. 1 883.) 
 
 India, What can it Teach us ? A Course of Lectures 
 delivered before the University of Cambridge. 
 1882. New Edition, 1892. 
 
 Biographical Essays. London, 1884. 
 
 Rajah Rammohun Roy, 1774-1883 (written 1883). 
 Keshub Chundor Sen, 1838 1884 written 1884). 
 Dayananda Sur.asvati, 1827- 1883 (written 1884). 
 Bunyiu Nanjio, 1849, and Kcnjiu Kasawara, 1851-1883 
 
 (written 1884'. 
 Colebrooke, 1765-1837 (Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1872; 'Cliips 
 
 from a German Worksliop,' iv, 377). 
 Mohl, 1800-1876 {Contemporanj Review, Aug. 1878). 
 Bunsen, 1791 i860 ('Chips from a German Workshop,' 
 
 iii, 358 . 
 Kingsley, 1820-1875 (Transhitedfrom Deutsche Rundschau, 
 
 1877). 
 
 W Qq
 
 8 
 
 The Ancient Palm-Leaves, containing the Pragr/?a- 
 Paramita-H7'^daya-S6tl•a and the Ushmsha- 
 Vif/aya-Dharai^i, edited by F. M. M. and Bunyiu 
 Nanjio, with an Appendix by G. Blihler. (Anec- 
 dota Oxoniensia. Aryan Series. Vol. I, Part iii. 
 1884.) 
 
 The Dharma-Sa77igraha. An Ancient Collection of 
 Buddhist Technical Terms. Prepared for publi- 
 cation by Kenjiu Kasawara, and after his death 
 edited by F. M. M. and H. Wenzel. (Anecdota 
 Oxoniensia. Aryan Series. Vol. I, Part V. 1885.) 
 
 Introduction to Book III of ' The Hundred Greatest 
 Men.' By F. M. M. and E. Renan. 1885. 
 
 Miiller, Wilhelm (M. M.'s father), a Biography, in 
 Allgemeine Deutsche Biographic, 1885. 
 
 Scherer's History of German Literature. Translated 
 by Mrs. Conybeare. Edited by F. M. M. 1885. 
 New Edition, 1891. 
 
 Hymn to the Storm-Gods. Big-Veda I, 168, in the 
 ' Etudes archeologiques dediees ' a Mr. le dr. C. 
 Leemans. Leide, 1885. 
 
 Goethe and Carlyle. An Inaugural Address at the 
 English Goethe Society. 1886. 
 
 The Science of Thought. 1887. 
 
 La Carita of Andrea del Sarto in the Chiostro dello 
 Scalzo at Florence. With three Illustrations. 1 887. 
 
 Biographies of Words, and the Home of the Ai-yas. 
 1888. 
 
 Three Introductory Lectures on the Science of Thought, 
 delivered at the Royal Institution. 1888.
 
 Inaugural Address at the opening of the School for 
 Modern Oriental Languages, established by the 
 Imperial Institute, 1890. 
 
 GifFord Lectures delivered before the University of 
 Glasgow. 1S8S-1892. 
 
 1. Natural Religion. 1SH9. New Edition, 1892. 
 
 2. Physical Religion. 1891. 
 
 3. Anthropological Religion. 1892. 
 
 4. Psychological Religion. (In the Press.) 
 Deutsche Liebe. Aus den Papieren eines Fremdlings. 
 
 With Notes for the use of Schools. 1888. 
 Rig-Veda-Sa77ihita. The Sacred Hymns of the BrAh- 
 
 mans, together with Sayaim's Commentary. 
 
 New Edition, critically revised. Four vols. 
 
 1890-1892. 
 Three Lectures on the Science of Language. 1889. 
 
 New Edition, with a Supplement, 'My Prede- 
 cessors.' 1 89 1. 
 The Science of Language : founded on Lectures de- 
 livered at the Roj^al Institution in 1861 and 
 
 1863. 2 vols. 1 89 1. 
 Address to the Anthi-opological Section of the British 
 
 Association, Carditf, 1891. 
 Vedic Hymns, translated. Part I: Hymns to the 
 
 Maruts, Rudra, Vayu, and Vata. (Sacred Books 
 
 of the East. Vol. XXXH.) 1891. 
 Apastamba - Ya.^z/a- Paribhasha- Sutras. Translated. 
 
 (Part of Vol. XXX of Sacred Books of the East.) 
 Three Lectures on tiie Vedanta -Philosophy delivered 
 
 at the Royal Institution, 1894.
 
 lO 
 
 Chips from a Geinian Workshop, new and revised 
 edition, vol. I, Recent Essays and Addresses, 
 1894 ; vol. II, Biographical Essays, 1895 ; vol. Ill, 
 Essays on Language and Literature, 1895; vol. 
 IV (in the Pres.s).
 
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